Inside the Mind of Suz

One of the big knocks on Apple was that they knew their 3G iPhone was capable of capturing video, but has refused to approve any apps that used this capability…until now!

It used to be that, in order to record video on an iPhone 3G, one would have to jailbreak their phone and use iPhone Video Recorder or Cycorder. I think that was the driving force behind my initial jailbreak. Shortly thereafter, though, I found many other bonuses to having a jailbroken phone.

Having said that, I’ve been having a great time with video capture since February. 3G users not willing to join the jailbreak nation have essentially been deprived until Apple finally approved the Ustream.tv Broadcaster app earlier this week. They’re late to the party, but can at least play now!

Broadcast live to your Ustream Show from your iPhone, Nokia or Android phone with the Ustream Broadcaster Application. Easily stream live moments from your phone and share with your friends, family, fans, followers and others — and have the recording of your video afterward! Interact with your viewers during your broadcast using chat or Ustream’s Social Stream, which integrates a live feed of Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and AIM messages and send status updates to Twitter and Ustream.

I’ve been checking out the Broadcaster app and, for the most part, it does what it says. Best part is that it’s free. Taking that into account, the video quality is ok. As others have noted, it does lag a little.

I like the option to save and share later, but I’m having a little trouble with that. I want to enable the option to upload to YouTube, but the app tells me to do so on the website and then restart the app. I haven’t been able to find where to do that on the Ustream site, so this review will be “To be continued…” until I can get that sorted out. (Directions would be greatly appreciated ) Nevermind, found it!

Here’s a video I recorded with the Broadcaster app:

Judging from the quality of the uploaded YouTube video, I might have to stick with Cycorder and/or iPhone Video Recorder as their vids look much better. Although I love the interface of the Ustream app, and the ease with which one can share/upload video, I’ll sacrifice all that for a better quality video.

It’s no secret that I am absolutely addicted to my iPhone. It pretty much owns me and I’m completely ok with that. Almost every day, I discover a new reason to be appreciative of the developers that gave us jailbreaking and the Cydia store. Seriously, if you haven’t jailbroken your iPhone, you are missing out on a crapload of cool features and apps.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I have entirely too many photo apps. There are so many that do so many neat things, and I can’t get enough! I’m constantly taking pictures with my iPhone and often I’ll reach for it before my cute little point and shoot. That never used to happen when I was a Sidekick owner.

The knock on smartphone cameras, in general, is that it takes a few seconds and maneuvers in order to start it up. By then, your “moment” may have passed. On an iPhone, you must exit the app you are using, find your camera app (or double-tap home button, if that’s your set up), and then wait an additional 3-4 seconds for the camera to be ready to capture your shot. Then, you have to go back to the app you were using and your progress/work/spot will be lost.

In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t a huge deal, but for camera whores like me it is. This is where new jailbreak app Snappy comes in!

With Snappy, you simply tap and hold your status bar for a second or so, and you’re ready to shoot! It doesn’t matter if you’re in another app or if your phone is locked. Snappy will instantly load and you are good to go! Its design mimics the native iPhone camera, so there isn’t anything new to learn there. Simple and fast camera shooting for $1.99.

Here’s a video that does a better job of explaining the awesome features of Snappy:

Count me as a fan!

Ever since the iPhone 3GS debuted last month, there has been a race to the App store to provide Twitter apps and add-ons that provide video tweeting functions. Twittelator Pro, Tweet Reel, Tweet Media, VideoUp for Facebook, and TwitVid are all taking advantage of the 3GS’ new video capabilities.

That’s all well and good, but some of us have been recording and sharing video with our iPhones for quite some time now. We are the ones who chose to jailbreak our devices an install either Cycorder or iPhone Video Recorder.

I was pretty sure it’d only be a matter of time before 3rd party developers started including the 3G crowd into some video apps. I was thinking it’d be something along the lines of the Pixelpipe fix using PPVideoEnabler (available free via Cydia).

Presently, there are a few workarounds for jailbroken 3G users to share video via Twitter. Pixelpipe/PPVideoEnabler actually does allow you to share video via Twitter. And if you link your YouTube account to Twitter, you can share video that way as well.

I was extremely thrilled to see that qTweeter’s new update provides the very first video tweet functionality for 3G owners. Leave it to one of my fave apps to come through with the save!

qTweeter uses the popular TwitVid service to upload and share video. You provide you Twitter username and password in the qTweeter settings and that’s it! You call the app, select options, and it prompts you to either record or select a video from your library. I have bother Cycorder and iPhone Video Recorder and qTweeter pulls up Cycorder. I like iPhone Video Recorder better, so I was hoping that would be the program called, or I’d at least have the option to choose my video recording app. That’s not the case. I uninstalled Cycorder, as a test, and qTweeter told me that it “can post video either from Cycorder or from the iPhone 3GS”. So that’s that. Maybe in a future version of the app? In any case, I’m still thrilled as can be that I can quickly an easily video tweet!

It’s a great thing that TwitVid provides an API for developers. Hopefully this is just the beginning of a plethora of video tweeting options for 3G users.

Note: qTweeter also lets original iPhone (2G) users video tweet. I don’t want to leave them out. It’s just that I don’t have a 2G, so I rarely talk about it. Power to the people, though!

If you followed my tweets earlier, you know that my two cats, Puddles and Gracie, had their yearly appointment with the vet today. If you have cats, you’re probably thinking, “yea, so what’s the big deal? We do that every year too.” Well, if it’s not a stressful event for you, consider yourself lucky. Because in my household, we need to create a military style plan to get our cats to the vet! It’s not pretty!

The cats know when they have to go to the vet. We must release some pheromones or something that tips them off because they scatter. We have to close all the doors upstairs and corner them in one room. Then Puddles starts howling as if you’re trying to kill her. My mom has to put on these ridiculously thick gloves because Puddles’ claws will be coming out to attack. And I have to stand in the doorway and act as a block to stop her, if she gets away from my mom. One time, she ran towards and knocked me over. No lie!

Something was different today, though. Puddles had no clue it was “vet day”. She was strutting around as usual, begging to be pet, and taken outside. Just another day. We’ve tried the outside thing before and she always knew what was coming, so never came outside. Not today! She came right on out! My mom put on her gloves and opened the hatch of her car. Before Puddles knew what hit her, she was in the car! Success! Gracie is always easy. She tries to hide, but isn’t very good at it. So, we can just pick her up and put her in the car. (more…)

Like all the other tech geeks out there, I was very interested in yesterday’s WWDC. Rumors had been swirling for a while that there would be a new iPhone unveiled and what do you know, it’s true!

The new iPhone 3GS (the S stands for Speed) looks great! It has an improved camera, video-recording capabilities, push notifications, stronger processor, and more RAM. That’s not all it has, but those are the things that I care most about.

I am part of the jailbreak nation, so I’ve been recording video for a while now. With the next version of the PixelPipe app (1.4.1) in beta testing, the gliches from the iPhone 3.0 should be sorted out and video upload to YouTube should resume. There are workarounds for nearly everything!

However, if I want the 3GS, I should be prepared to hand over my non-existent first born, because AT&T aint playin’ around. Last year, current iPhone users were allowed to upgrade, extend their contract and take advantage of the same price as new customers. That’s not the case this time around!

Apple has set up a page where you enter your information and tells you what it’ll cost you to upgrade. You input your phone number, zip, last 4 digits of SS, and email and voila! I don’t know about anyone else, but it aint pretty!

Now, granted, I’ve only had my 3G since December, but still! That’s insane! However, being jailbroken gives me a little more freedom than those who choose to play by the rules.

I will miss that 3MP camera, though. I take pictures on my iPhone like it’s my job. I also have about a million photo/multimedia apps. I will also miss the RAM, fast processor, and extended battery life. Since I can run apps in the background (Thanks, Backgrounder app), plus all the other stuff I have going on, those upgrades would be much needed as they drain my iPhone’s resources.

Alas, unless I come into a great deal of dough, the 3GS and I won’t end up together. And, I’ve noticed a pattern with Apple. Ever since the iPhone made its debut, there’s been a new version released each summer since. Chances are there will b another new iPhone in Summer 2010. And 2011. And 2012. And so on and so forth. I’ll hop on the bandwagon at a later date! And when I do, Apple better make Flash video viewable on the iPhone.

One thing’s for sure: I will stay an iPhone devotee. This sucka is too good to let go!

I don’t know about the rest of the iPhone Nation, but I have a crapload of apps. And by crapload, I mean I have an unhealthy amount. I’m not sure the number, because I have so many of them tucked away in folders (Thanks, Categories app!)

But as one accumulates a large amount of data on their phone, backup takes forever! And iTunes has a default setting where once you connect your iPhone, it not only syncs, but also backs up everything. And that takes forever! I wanted to sync some new apps the other day, and I swear it ended up taking close to an hour! Well, maybe not, but it was like 3 times longer than usual.

I thought, “this is ridiculous! I must turn off this auto-backup!” It’s not like I’m never going to backup, but I want to be able to do it when I want to! If I just want to sync a couple of newly downloaded songs or apps, I don’t want to have to sit around for an eternity while my iPhone backs up.

I found a lot of ways to disable backup for Apple computers and a few for PCs. I would be required to edit the iTunesPrefs.xml file manually, which could lead to me messing something up.

So, I looked for another method and found one that worked well, and didn’t require much work on my end. I did backup the iTunesPrefs.xml file beforehand, just in case, but that wasn’t really necessary. This method, put together into a nifty little program by Mark Wagner.

It’s called QuickDisable and you can get it here. Remember, this particular file is for PC users. Don’t use this if you have a Mac, because it will either not work or will screw your iTunes up.

Next step for me is making an entry in one of my GTD apps that reminds me to make a weekly backup in iTunes. (I’d simply run the program again and enable auto-backups.) Because, with my luck, something unfortunate will happen and I’ll need a recent backup to fix everything! Actually, with the new iPhone 3.0 software coming, I definitely think an up-to-date backup is required after I re-jailbreak.

Last night, the new version of Twitterrific hit the app store. The reason I knew was that it was a top trend on Twitter right as I was heading to bed. That doomed me, of course, because I spent the next hour and a half playing with Twitterrific.

When I first got my iPhone and decided to get into Twitter, Twitterrific was the first app I downloaded. I thought it was ok. Nothing spectacular. It was free and did what it promised. But as I quickly grew addicted to Twitter, I started making other accounts to coincide with some of my other websites and blogs. At that point, Twitterrific didn’t support multiple accounts, so that was the end of my affair with the app. No hard feelings whatsoever.

My research led me to Twittelator Pro or Tweetie. After a few days of research, I purchased Tweetie and haven’t looked back…until last night! (more…)

I’m quite glad I didn’t pull the trigger on buying that 3rd grocery shopping iPhone app. And that’s not because GroceryIQ’s phantom update finally showed up. It’s because Sophiestication Software just brought the heat by releasing a major update to her fantastic Groceries app that covered all the issues I had with her app. And no, there weren’t that many issues. Just one, really.

I wanted to be able to rearrange aisles and now I can. There’s also an option to show the notification badge. There were even more improvements in this new update that you can see in the app store screencap I took. I’m very impressed!

Other neat improvements include sharing and re-importing lists via email as well as a template-like system to help create lists quickly. It looks like a lot of thought was put into this release and I can’t wait to play with it!

And just think, she debuted the app in March with a ton of initial features that were great. For her to already have applied so many improvements is great. And it only took a little over a month. Someone over at Coupons.com ought to be taking notes.

Groceries is on sale for $.99 in celebration of the new 2.0 version’s release. Get it now! You’re getting a great deal on a great app that you will not have to worry about being abandoned. It will continue to be improved and developed. Sophia is among the best in the business.

I wrote a favorable and hopeful post on GroceryIQ a few weeks ago. I was encouraged by the update provided on the product page in the app store. To refresh everyone’s memories, here is what it said:

3/24/09 UPDATE! – Version 1.5 has been submitted to Apple, with support for multiple stores, pricing, and more!

March 24th, eh? Well, it’s May 3rd now and that phantom update has not seen the light of day. I, like many other users who have returned to the store to write a review, have come to the conclusion that the Coupons.com deal was the kiss of death for what once was a promising and outstanding app. It’s a shame, really. The app’s creators really did seem dedicated and responsive to user feedback and requests, pre-Coupons.com buyout.

We all know that sometimes it takes Apple a while to release new updates to the app store (or reject them), but the fact that it’s been 5 weeks — with no action either way — simply tells me that the Coupons.com people are blowing smoke up our asses. I’m moving on now.

Previously, I had purchased a second grocery/shopping app created by Sophiestication called “Groceries”. I liked the multiple list functionality, but I missed being able to rearrange the aisles to match the layout of my stores. That’s the one thing GroceryIQ had that I absolutely adored. I also like the notification badge on the app icon that lets you know how many items are on your list. It’s not a necessity, but I kind of liked it.

So, Sophia’s Groceries app has been updated a couple of times, but aisle customization isn’t one of the features added. Bummer, because it’s a very beautifully put together app.

This has led me to keep looking for that “perfect” Shopping app. I’m going to try yet another one: Shopper. It has all the functionality that I’m looking for, great reviews in the app store, and a fair price. I’m going to try it out.

Of course you all realize that, with my luck, purchasing a new app means that the phantom GroceryIQ update will finally be released to the Apple store. Such is my luck! Oh well!

I did it! I got back to running today yesterday, and it felt great!

After I decided that I was definitely going to run, my body woke me up earlier than usual. I guess it was its way of saying, “it’s beautiful out! Let’s go running now, please?!” Well, that’s exactly what I did!

I searched around the web to see whether or not I should eat a little somepin’ somepin’ before I left. Most runners said that if you were doing short run (less than 5 miles), that you should be ok running on an empty stomach. When I was training for a 5k last year, I realized very early on that I needed to wait at least 90 minutes after eating a meal before doing a run. If I didn’t, I would get cramps mid-run. Not a great feeling.

So, I did my Week 1 Couch to 5k run on an empty stomach and felt fine. I don’t know if that was because I was truly ok, or because it was soooooo beautiful outside today. I spent most of the run looking at everyone’s yards and all the color tulips in full bloom. Running under and past such fragrant trees was also enjoyable!

I did my first run with Run Keeper (free edition) and I have no complaints thus far! My iPhone was able to easily track my course, via GPS. I took the advice of many users in that I opened up my Google Maps app before I started Run Keeper, so it could zero in on my location. I went and checked my run and it looked pretty good to me! I didn’t pay much attention to the pace/speed readings since I was both walking and running for this workout. It’s nice to see that Run Keeper works as advertised. I’ll try a different app next time I run and report back!

After my run, I took a short break, refueled with a banana and some peanut butter, then did ChaLEAN Extreme Lean Circuit 3. I felt so accomplished!

It just felt so great to be out running again! I missed it! My last run was in October!