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too cool

This is too cool…

this is a bit complicated, so hopefully i can explain this properly. if you read this site, you know i created a “portable geek gym” basically it’s a few mobile devices that i wear while i run. the next evolution of the features is something i’ve been working on for a bit location based play lists. what are they? well- imagine the songs on your music playing device changing based on where you are at, that’s what i made- for now i am using a pocket pc with gps to feed in the location data as i jog, based on that data my flash mx application will load in specific play lists and songs. as i run in areas that have steep hills i want hard rock, when i am running in the flat areas i tend to prefer hip hop. the screeshot to the right is ugly, but it’s just for testing. i’d like my car to play different songs based on the drive and roads i am taking too (working on that). [flashenabled | phillip m. torrone]

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Eastern Standard Tribe

I finished reading Cory Doctorow’s excellent second novel, Eastern Standard Tribe via Palm Reader Pro, which has some features that really seem worth the upgrade from free.

First – the book was great! I really like the kind of science fiction that is like 5 minutes into the future and in this case feels very real based on the situations of the characters and the world around them. Even though it is 2012, it might as well be tomorrow, if not yesterday. All the things you know about the world and how it works are very similar. The use of technology is not just for the sake of technology but threaded through in a logical way the way you might expect things to evolve in the time frame.

The Pro version of the Palm Reader software really adds some nice perks – mainly color. You might not think color would add much, but I found that by using a light brown/yellow colored background and brown type, the retinal burn from the black on white was not as severe which make the act of reading more enjoyable and easier to do over longer periods. I found myself reading in the dark the past few days while Hannah was sleeping and the change to color made a huge difference for me. In addition to color, you also get a dictionary/thesaurus, but they are not as comprehensive as you might like, though you might not have the storage on your device or expansion card either.

I would definitely recommend the book. You can read it for free electronically in most if not all formats and can certainly buy it as well from your usual sources.

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A Day On The Town

Today we took advantage of the perfect weather (60, no wind and very sunny) and headed uptown to check out Central Park. Hannah rode the train once again up to 59th Street and from there we decided to check out the new Time Warner Towers… Inside (the part we saw anyway) is really an upscale mall with some serious restaurants. We were found a place to eat at Dean and Deluca within the Borders on the second level and enjoyed some sandwiches and amazing double chocolate chip cookies. (We’ll have to get more of those cookies!)

After lunch, we crossed Columbus Circle again and headed into the park. We saw many strollers along the way though Hannah got a good nap in for most of the walk. We snapped a few shots and just casually strolled along. On our way out, we noticed the Central Park Zoo and the Tisch Zoo for Children, a place we’ll be sure to visit again when Hannah can really appreciate the sites.

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Hannah’s First Concert!

We took Hannah and her Aunt Whitney to Brooklyn Heights today to see Dan Zanes play at the PaddleWheeler Festival and Book Fair at PS 8.

It was quite a day for us… First Hannah rode the subway for the second time (the first was yesterday to SoHo!) and even did a pretty long transfer at Fulton to get the proper train for Brooklyn. We walked to the school and enjoyed a nice set of music along with a full auditorium of people.

After the show, we took advantage of the great weather and walked to the Promenade where we saw the Statue of Liberty while taking in the view of lower Manhattan. We met up with some friends and continued on… walking over to Cafe Boo Bah for a late lunch before walking back to the subway for the trip home.

Everyone enjoyed a good nap upon our return.

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Vazu: Contacts OTA

Good link I just discovered through MobileWhack… I have not tried it and probably won’t… just passing it on. If you have a bluetooth phone and a Mac you can easily iSync your contact list or a group you create just for the phone. With Vazu, you can email or OTA them…

Christian Gloddy writes:

My friends and I [at Vazu] are trying to solve the long-standing problem of getting contacts on your phone without having to thumb them in or buy some cable or having a rediculously expensive phone.

You can either send them over the air through our website or even email contacts to your phone from your mail client. It’s free while we roll out the service, so give it a shot and let me know what you think. It’s a small group of developers working on this, so we’re looking for feedback and if you find that your Sony Ericsson or Nokia phone doesn’t work, just contact us and we’ll jump right on it.

In the US it currently works with Cingular, AT&T and T-Mobile with most Sony Ericsson and Nokia phones. We have just launched a beta in most of Europe and India and it works with almost all of the providers there. [MobileWhack]

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Eat at Subway, be a loser?

So the new Subway campaign seems to imply that you are a loser (as in dork, not in the contest) when they say (in paraphrase)

They were losers but Subway taught them to win (referring to the team getting off a bus)
With over 8 million winning cards there are no losers… no losing cards anyway

I don’t get what’s going on in the sub wars… first rat-wiches and now customers as losers??