Month: August 2010

F-Spot and Picasa

I have started to use F-Spot, and I like it pretty well.  There are a few things I don’t like such as the Facebook plugin not working and it taking so long to tag all of the pictures, but for the most part I have really liked the program.  The other day, I exported a group of my pictures to a folder and created a gallery.  I was really impressed.

But, I was talking with my Mom about a problem to manage pictures, and Picasa came up.  She is using Windows, and I couldn’t find any articles about running F-Spot in Windows.

When I looked into Picasa, the features looked pretty impressive.  It still looks like it runs in a Wine environment though, and F-Spot is more of a native application.  I guess it really doesn’t matter if it is stable and fast.  I think I had a few stability issues when I was using it way back when.

The other big thing I saw was that they had facial recognition features in Picasa.  I would like to see that in F-Spot and see it help tag people in my pictures.  I did run across a blog talking about implementing this feature.  On his iWuds page, he says that it is in progress.  It sounds like though that it has been talked about since 2007.  Here is an idea on Brainstorm as well.

I see that I am not the only one thinking about switching.  I think though that I am going to hold out a little long for F-Spot, but I will hold the conversion scripts handy.

My Android Apps

I have been meaning to write up my list of Andriod apps that I currently have installed on my G1, and then, I found these lists:

I had hopes to linking to the Market, but I couldn’t find a good link to it.  This is the best I could find:

Android Market

So, I thought I should finally get around to doing it.  So, here are my installed programs:

Google Maps

Home page

I definitely use this all the time.  It came with the phone, but I installed it from the market to get the new features.  The biggest new feature is the Navigation, which works very well, and I really like it.

The best place I could find for info on updates was their blog.

VirtueBible FE

This is a great Bible application.  I use it a lot during church, and it is nice to have access to the Bible wherever I go.  It looks nice and is easy to read.  I can quickly browse to passages, and I can search for words.  I don’t think it has a commentary or else I haven’t used it.

Links:

NewsRob (Google Reader)

I have been using Google Reader to keep up with various RSS feeds.  This program gives me an interface to the reader on my phone.  My biggest complaint has been that I only want to view certain feeds on my phone.  Some of the feeds I had subscribed to were too hard to read on the phone.  I haven’t looked to see if Google has changed their API but last I looked Google didn’t provide a way to pick and choose feeds.

All in all, I have really liked this program.

Links:

Facebook for Android

This is what I have used to post and view Facebook.  I remember seeing comments about the iPhone application being so much better, but I haven’t had the chance to compare.  I have noticed that it has improved since I first installed it.

Links:

The Weather Channel

Homepage

According to this article, this application won the developer challenge.  I have bounced back and forth between this application and the Weather Bug.  With the more recent update from The Weather Channel, I have liked this one better.

Weather Bug

This is a great application for viewing the weather.  One of the features that I do like is the temperature in the notifications bar.

Links:

BuzzOff

This is a great application for times when you need to turn your phone to vibrate.  It turns all of the volumes down to vibrate only.   You can choose a time frame, and it will turn it back on after the time frame.  You can also choose a distance where it turn it back on after you go that distance.  I haven’t used that because I haven’t wanted to spend the battery required to leave the GPS on for that.

I use Timeriffic for planned times that I need my phone on silent.  I use this for meetings and such that are not on a schedule.

Links:

Timeriffic

I started using Locale, but they made it a paid App and disabled the old version.  This program allows me to set the phone to silent automatically.  I have it set for during church times.  That way my phone shouldn’t ring in the middle of church.

One cool thing I just learned about this program is that it is open source.  It is hosted on Google Code and I could make changes to it and contribute!

Links:

SSI gTasks ToDo

Homepage

This is the first app I came across that would let me sync and use the Google Tasks in GMail on my phone.  I don’t use it a lot, but it gets the job done.

Links:

Power Manager

This program seemed to save battery at first.  I don’t really open it now, but I think it runs in the background.  I haven’t done any comparison to see if it really does.

Links:

Guitar Charts

I oringally downloaded this when it was free.  It was great to have in Church while I was playing my guitar and couldn’t remember how to play a chord.  I could look it up quickly before the song started.

Links:

Bonsai Blast

This is the one game that I have probably played the most on my phone.  It is addicting, and it has many levels to work through.  The graphics are great which I think has a big impact on the appeal.  The game play is simple: you tap the screen to shoot a ball and try to eliminate the balls in the line by getting three or more in a row of the same color.  Now that I am through all of the levels, I haven’t played it in a while, but it is still fun.

Links:

Toddler Lock

This was a great application for my son.  He has kind of outgrown it, but I think my second son might grow into it soon.  The cool part about it is that you don’t have to worry about him clicking something wrong and getting into another program or placing a call.  You do still have to watch to make sure he isn’t throwing it across the room or dropping it in the toilet.

Links:

Solitaire

This is a nice little way to play freecell while you are waiting for something.

Links:

Labyrinth Lite

Homepage

This was one of the first games that I put on my phone.  The reason it caught my eye was that it illustrated the phone’s accelerometer.  Playing the game was very fun, but it didn’t take long to beat the 10 levels.  It looks like it also works on the iPhone.

Links:

T-Mobile My Account

This program is handy to check the account details such as the minutes that I had used.  It also provides a quick way to check things like how much battery is left.

Links:

Toggle Settings

Homepage

I had used this program for a while, but then they made it something that you have to pay for.

Links:

PapiCatch & PapiJump

These are fun, simple little games.  Sunflat has a bunch of different little games like this: PapiJump, PapiOrange, ActionPotato, SFCave, PapiMissle, PapiRiver, PapiCatch, PapiPole.  I started with PapiJump because it was a game that demostrated the accelerometer.  I also tried PapiRiver.  The graphics aren’t much on the ones that I tried, but they were entertaining for a little bit.

Links:

DroidRecord

I originally downloaded this program to try to create my own rings.  I never got around to doing that, but I have used it to record some notes while I was in the car and couldn’t type.  It is very easy to use and worked great.

Links:

Expense Manager

This program started a great idea for me.  I haven’t traveled enough to give it a far chance, but if I traveled more, it would be a necessity!  The great part is that it allows you to take a picture of your receipts while you are traveling.  You can key in some information such as the price and type of expense.  At the end of the trip, you can download the images and info to your computer.

I also found that on the homepage, there is a link to the source repository.

While I haven’t used the program that much, I love the concept.  I have started my own little program that will take pictures of receipts and sync up with my money management software.

Links:

Google Voice

I have a Google Voice account, but I haven’t used it that much.   I had trouble with latency, and it wasn’t good enough to use on a regular basis.  It has been a while since I tried, so I will have to try again.  The program allows you to make calls from your phone using Google Voice.  It doesn’t save anything on minutes, and the program didn’t let you change the settings and such.

Links:

Places Directory

This is kind of a cool application, but I never really understood what the advantage of this program was over the regular Google Maps.  I think I noticed that maybe now it is combined with the Google Maps application.

Links:

System Manager

I haven’t used this application very often.  I can’t really even remember why I installed it!

Links:

wpToGo

I downloaded this program to be able to blog from my phone.  The problem is that I usually wanted to just save it as a draft and finalize it on my computer.  Then, I would actually publish from my computer.  I couldn’t make that happen with this app for some reason.  I will probably try the official application next.

Wapedia: Mobile Wikis

Homepage

I haven’t used this much, but I do look at Wikipedia a lot.  I am not sure how many advantages this gives over just using the regular browser.

Links:

Nimbuzz IM & Voice

I tried this is an option to use Skype with my phone.  It never did work exactly the way that I wanted it to, so I haven’t stuck with it.

Links:

SNesoid Lite

This is a Super Nintendo Emulator that I install but have never used.  I keep meaning to download a ROM and try it out, but I haven’t ever done it.

Links:

      Alternatives

      Someone asked me for an alternative for WebEx because they were trying to find something cheaper.  I did a little searching, and I found these couple of websites.

      RKG: Free alternatives to Webex, Camtasia, etc

      The CrossLoop option caught my eye, and I found this website as a result:

      alternativeTo: CrossLoop

      AlternativeTo sounds like a create website that I will have to do some more exploring.  There are other websites that have the same stuff on it:

      The Linux Alternative Project

      Linux App Finder

      LaptopLogic.com: Top 50 Linux Alternatives

      Linux Alternatives