Tech Talk at ShieldsGroup

A friend of mine just got an iPod and I was thinking about what apps I use and what he might like.

Here is a list of apps I have on my iPod that I actually use.

Social Apps

1. The facebook app. It’s way better than the one they wrote for the droid.
2. IM+. It’s a good chat app.
3. Skype. It’s Skype. No one does it like Skype.
4. Textfree. This lets you text cell phones and they can text you back.

Utilities

1. WordPress app.
2. PocketBible (It’s free and has a better interface than LiveChurch.tv).
3. Kindle. I have read a couple books on my iPod.

News Sources

1. BBC News app.
2. NPR News app.
3. Pittsburgh Penguins app. This actually lets you stream live audio from Penguin games on your iPod.
4. TSN Mobile.

Games

1. Angry Birds Lite. This game is the best I’ve played on a handheld device.
2. Ragdoll 2 Lite — great puzzle game.
3. Shift — nice puzzle game.
4. Geared — great mechanical thinking game.

That’s basically what I like on the iPod.

What’s on your iPod?

After I had returned from a trip to London, I set the time zone on my iPod Touch back to New York time. All was well, except for the appointment times — they were still on London time.

Having gone into “Settings” and ensuring my timezone was correct, I was out of ideas. Then I found this:

1. Open ‘Settings’ on your iPod
2. Then ‘Mail, Contacts, Calendars’.
3. Scroll down to ‘Calendars’.
4. Open ‘Time Zone Support’, making  sure ‘Time Zone Support’ is ‘ON’.
5. Open ‘Time Zone’ and type in a major city in your timezone.
6. Be sure this is the same zone as your PC.

Well, I broke down and bought an iPad. I’m having some trouble with it, though. If you can help with any of these issues, please do so by commenting below.

1. I’ve been trying to do some video chatting on Skype with it like my wife can on her netbook, but I can’t get the webcam to work in the iPad. Any ideas what I am doing wrong?
2. Additionally, when I am looking at some web sites — not many, just the good ones — I can’t see anything because I can’t get flash working. Is there an app for that?
3. I wanted to put some of my pictures in it, so I went to hook up my camera to it, but when I tried to plug it in, I couldn’t find the USB port. Where is that? Behind the screen, maybe?
4. I moved some tunes and home videos to it from my network, but that halted because of the 64 GB limit on the internal memory. Should I tether it tomy wife’s netbook so I can have adequate storage when I am on-the-go?
5. One thing I like about it is that it doesn’t multi-task, so I can focus on just one thing at a time. It’s a lot like DOS in that regard. Why did we leave DOS?
6. The screen is nice, but when I wanted to stream something to my HD TV from the iPad, I found no HDMI port on the device. I did find some duct tape that I could use to tape the iPad to the wall, right next to my 72 inch HD TV. That should work. Can I get my remote control working with the iPad?
7. The keyboard on the screen is a good idea. Does Apple make a hard-keyboard that folds out — like a netbook or something?
8. I am kind of excited to use the cellphone dataplan. Now, if Verizon just buys AT&T, I’ll actually have coverage for my iPad. Can you hear me now?

Oh — just kidding.  Just as the iPad doesn’t have a webcam, flash, a USB port, adequate storage, multitasking, HDMI out, a keyboard, or good data coverage, so I don’t have an iPad.

~Steve