Anybody Need An IT Guy?

Sorry for the dramatic headline. No, I'm not leaving ArcSource, just looking for more clients. I'm still very happy with my current employment situation. Working with small businesses is exciting and fun, I love being able to really help people, while getting to play with technology at the same time. Case in point, Kyle and I have recently revamped a pretty spiffy looking IT blog. Check it out if you're feeling curious. You'll find more of my favorite iPhone apps, a comparison of the new IE7 vs FireFox vs Google's new Chrome browser, all kinds of good info. So yeah, ArcSource has been great for me. My work week is VERY flexible which I also have really been enjoying. I'm also serious as cash about new client referrals. Email me if you know any small businesses in need of an awesome IT team.

I'm also sorry I haven't written in a while. I guess I haven't had much new to say. Halloween was fun, Myshelle and I stayed home and gave out candy to kids. Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays and I enjoy being a part of the experience for other kids in our neighborhood. Plus, it's fun to torture the dogs with silly costumes. This year, Batdog and Superpuppy kept a watchful eye over the dangerous El Cerrito suburbs. They wiggled around a bit when we first dressed them up, but after a couple minutes they're resigned to it and trot around the house looking all cute.

Not much else new going on. Myshelle and I are going to Tulum (90 minutes south of Cancun) in December. We're both really excited about that. I'm looking forward to hanging out on the beach, exploring the famous Mayan ruins, and also stoked about scuba diving the Cenotes (rivers that run through old caves).

Top 7 Must Have iPhone Apps

Pandora
Download for free from the iTunes Store
Forget about searching for streaming radio stations, that's so 20th century. Pandora lets you CREATE your own radio stations. Just tell it the name of a song or artist you're in the mood for and it starts playing. As it plays, you can thumbs-up or thumbs-down songs to teach the software what you like. You can even create multiple stations. Works from your computer as well, so you can listen to and edit stations from your computer and then listen to and edit them on your iPhone. This is THE killer iPhone App. If you only download one thing for your phone, make it this.



PangeaVR
Download for free from the iTunes Store
This is the application I use to show off just how nifty the iPhone is. Download and view thousands of gorgeous panoramic photographs. Navigate with your finger, zoom in and out with pinch, rotate your phone to switch from panorama to portrait in real time. Very beautiful. I was showing my architect friend some shots of Barcelona and she said Park Güell was even more beautiful than she remembered.



Shazam
Download for free from the iTunes Store
Ever hear a song and wonder what it is? Wonder no more. Just hold your phone up to the speaker for 15 seconds and you'll have your answer. You get the artist, song title, album, even a link to purchase the song from the iTunes music store. In my experiments, this even worked in a crowded restaurant with the music barely audible. I don't know how it works, but it's darned impressive. The application even keeps a list of songs you've found so you can download a whole day's playlist when you get home.



1Password
Download for free (for a limited time) from the iTunes Store
Entering passwords on the iPhone is a pain, and even worse, it can't offer to remember passwords for you. This nifty little application can store and manage all your passwords so you don't have to. It can even sync with your Mac! I quickly set up the Mac application and extracted all the passwords out of FireFox and Safari. I was then able to sync them to my iPhone. Now my iPhone knows all of the hundreds of passwords my computer knows! It's only free for a limited time, so if you're interested, download it now and check it out.



Remote
Download for free from the iTunes Store
This one's from Apple and should have been included with the phone. You can use this to remotely control iTunes playback on any Mac on the network. If you have music playing from your computer, you can use your iPhone to browse through your whole song collection and fully control iTunes, including pause, volume, fast forward, track navigation, artist navigation, even assigning star ratingss to songs!



Yelp
Download for free from the iTunes Store
For those not aware, Yelp is an amazing website that allows users to write reviews of local businesses. This application uses your iPhone's location-aware functionality to show you Yelp.com reviews of local restaurants, bars, banks, gas stations, and other small businesses. With your iPhone and Yelp, you never have to go to a bad restaurant again!



Now Playing
Download for free from the iTunes Store
Also using your location, Box Office shows you show times of your local movie theaters. You can search by theater, or by movie. It shows synopses, reviews and ratings from RottenTomatoes.com, and links to YouTube trailers. When you're on the go, you can quickly and easily find a movie and even email details to your friends!

CarrotMob.org

My friend Dan Fisher just started working with these guys. I'm pretty sure they can change the planet.

Kingdom Game for the iPhone

Dear iPhone wielding friends,

There's a pretty fun game that I've been playing for the last few months and I wanted to invite you to join me if you're interested.


It's a kingdom building game, set in medieval times. You collect resources like wood, stone, and gold, and use them to build a kingdom. You have peasants that you can train into troops like archers and knights, and then you attack other kingdoms. You can form alliances with other players who then help you out with resources, intel on enemy kingdoms, and goofing around in the message boards. It's pretty straightforward, totally text based, and a lot of fun. Reminds me of of the old BBS games I used to play back in the day (TradeWars 2002, Legend of the Red Dragon, Barren Realms Elite, etc).


Anywhoo, if you're interested, it's totally free and you can play from an iPhone or from your computer. I've just last week started up a new kingdom in world 1 so now's a pretty good time to jump in.

http://kingdomgame.net/W1/

See ya there.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

If you liked Firefly or the musical episode of Buffy, Once More with Feeling, you MUST check out Joss Whedon's first webisode of a 3-part mini mini series: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

Neil Patrick Harris plays an aspiring super-villain. In the first episode we learn of Dr. Horrible's application to join The Evil League of Evil, and he's just mere weeks away from actually being able to talk to the cute redhead at the laundromat.
Nathan Fillion (Cpt. Mal from Firefly) plays his arch nemesis, the heroic Captain Hammer, thwarting Dr. Horrible at every turn.

Oh, and if it couldn't get any better, it's also a musical.

ACT ONE (Wheee!) went up today,Tuesday July 15th.
ACT TWO (OMG!) will go up Thursday July 17th.
ACT THREE (Denouement!) will go up Saturday July 19th.

You can watch it for free at http://drhorrible.com, or even better, you can purchase all three episodes for just $3.99 in the iTunes music store.

I despise Fox for canceling every intelligent comedy (Firefly, Arrested Development, Kitchen Confidential) that they can get their hands on. I love being able to directly support projects like this.

Spread the word.