Free Speech to Text on iPhone – Dragon Dictation

Published on December 8, 2009 in Blog. 0 Comments

Hey everybody this is Josh. Today’s cool iPhone app pick is Dragon Dictation. It’s free in the App Store and it has text to speech dictation. I wrote this post almost entirely by talking to my iPhone. Very little editing was required – mostly punctuation, because I was lazy and didn’t speak it. You talk to the phone and it will send the words to be transcribed to a server and send it back to your phone, so it requires a net connection. It works very very quickly and very very well. Check it out to the app store. It’s definitely worth downloading and playing with, at the very least.

Take Better iPhone 3GS Photos with TrueHDR

Published on December 3, 2009 in Blog. 0 Comments

(This sounds like an ad, but it’s not. I have no affiliation with the makers of the TrueHDR iPhone app, other than as a satisfied and impressed user. :-)

If you’re a photography nerd, you know that HDR stands for High Dynamic Range – where you take multiple photos, some with the bright areas exposed correctly (which makes the darker areas underexposed, really dark and unviewable), and some with the dark areas exposed correctly (which makes the bright areas overexposed and “blown out” – usually pure white), then combine the multiple shots in software to get wider “dynamic” exposure range than you could otherwise. It’s a cool effect, and so far, I haven’t found a good way to do it on the iPhone.

There are lots of “HDR” apps in the App Store, but all the ones I’ve looked at, like “HDR for Free”, don’t actually do multiple exposure HDR – they just tinker with the exposure and saturation levels to produce an effect like HDR. They fake it, in other words. Then, over the weekend, I stumbled across an app recommended by TUAW called TrueHDR, that actually does HDR processing – you take multiple shots, one correctly exposed for the brightest area, one for the darkest, then it combines them. It was $1.99, so I sprung for it, and I’ve been quite impressed with the results.

Check out the shots above – I noticed the sky was really colorful this morning on my way to work, so I took the first two shots (light and dark), then merged them into a nice HDR image with TrueHDR. Pretty nifty, eh? I never would have been able to capture all that color in just one shot on the 3GS camera. I also used it to take the photo of the Monoprice $15 iPhone battery in my last post. Even though it was only on my desk, the photo came out looking better than a single shot would have, in my opinion.

Be aware that, because it requires the ability to take multiple shots of the same thing with different exposures, it will only work with the camera on the iPhone 3GS (where you can change the focus and exposure by touching a specific area), though it says it will work with photos from your photo library, if you wanted to load them from another source on an iPhone, 3G, or iPod touch. Also note that it does align the pictures if they’re not exactly the same (which is going to happen if you’re not using a tripod, and who uses a tripod with their iPhone?), which is a nice touch.

So, TrueHDR has earned a spot on the page of photography and imaging apps that I keep on my iPhone 3GS. Do you have any great photo apps, tips, or tricks to share? How do *you* do HDR on the iPhone. Let me know in the comments, on Twitter, etc. I’m always on the lookout for nifty new apps! :-)

Update: Here’s another (blurry) one I took on the way out of work last night:

Another TrueHDR iPhone 3GS Image

Monoprice iPhone Battery – Best $15 You Can Spend

Published on November 30, 2009 in Blog. 12 Comments

Monoprice.com (source of dirt cheap cables – seriously, don’t pay full price for cables. I have no affiliation with them, other than a happy customer) has had a $15 external 2200mAh iPhone/iPod battery for a while now. I’ve seen it, and kind of steered clear of it, because I was uncertain of the quality. But then I saw a couple of reviews (at TUAW and Minimal Mac) that were happy with it, so I took the plunge. I also picked up two iPod cables, two USB AC adapters, and 2 12V car USB adapters in the same order. The total price was about $23. :-)

The stuff arrived last week, just before the long Thanksgiving weekend, and I had a chance to use the battery pretty extensively, as I spent many an hour at my mother in law’s house playing games and doing other battery draining things on my iPhone 3GS. So what’s the verdict?

This thing is the best $15 you can spend if you own an iPhone. Period.

The battery capacity is 2200mAh, which is about twice the iPhone’s internal capacity, so you can charge it up (about) twice. You can also attach the battery and charge and use at the same time. The connection is the standard iPod/iPhone connector, so it will work with any device or charger that has one. It’s made of glossy, smooth plastic, sort of like the back of the iPhone 3G/3GS (though it’s thicker).

There are tons of other external battery options out there – the Mophie Juice Pack Air is a popular one, at 1200 mAh and $79. But this little cheapie from Monoprice has almost twice the battery capacity at less than a quarter of the price. Most of the time, I find myself in easy reach of a charging source for my iPhone (my desk, the car, etc.), but for the times when I’m not, this little guy is definitely coming with me in my bag or in a pocket. It’ll be a lifesaver for conferences, travel, and other all day events.

If you have an iPhone/iPod, and have ever wished your battery would last just a little bit longer, or are sick of carrying around a charging plug and cable all the time, just to keep your phone running, you should DEFINITELY get one of these. Highly recommended.

Happy Day! Tweetie 2.1 for iPhone is out, with Native Lists, Retweets, Geotagging, and gap detection.

Published on November 29, 2009 in Blog. 0 Comments

The post title almost says it all. I’ve been waiting for this update to hit the App Store ever since Twitter started deploying these new features widely. Now it’s here – go get it from the App Store (free update if you already have Tweetie 2 – the absolute best $2.99 you can spend otherwise).

Huge thanks to Loren “@atebits” Brichter for single handedly raising the bar for developers and users everywhere. You rock! :-)

My 10 year old nephew Jayden solved the Rubik’s 360

Published on November 29, 2009 in Blog. 0 Comments

I brought my Rubik’s 360 puzzle with me to the Thanksgiving Festivities, for people to noodle on. I haven’t solved it yet, nor have I resorted to Googling ways to do it.

But this morning, my ten year old nephew Jayden solved it – got all six colored balls out of the concentric spheres and into the corresponding domes. Nice job, Jayden! :-)

(And yes, he’s wearing a Gnomedex t-shirt I gave him. :-)

I told him I’d give him something cool if he did it, and now I have to decide what. A harder puzzle, perhaps? I’m thinking something like a Perplexus… :-)

Busy Week, and Ignite Portland 7 is Tonight

Published on November 19, 2009 in Blog. 0 Comments

Been a very busy week, live streaming keynotes and Teach Parallel interviews from the SuperComputing 09 conference (for my job/baby, Intel Software Network TV – see more at http://j.mp/ISNatSC09).

And Ignite Portland 7 is tonight! (I’m one of the founders.) Come out to the Bagdad theater or watch the livestream at http://www.igniteportland.com.

I’m going to take *such* a nap when this is all over. :-)

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Netflix Instant Streaming for PS3 Has Arrived

Published on November 6, 2009 in Blog. 2 Comments

Just got the disc tonight, haven’t actually tried it out yet. It’s kind if lame that you have to insert the disc every time you want to stream something – as I understand it, it’s because they’re doing the streaming as a BD Live feature, which requires a Blu-Ray disc. A native Playstation 3 software app is supposed to be coming soon. Looking forward to that.

I’ll try it out, and let you know how it works. I can’t wait to teach my kids how to use this. We’ve been Netflix subscribers for years, but I only recently discovered the Watch Instantly streaming library. There are a *LOT* more movies and TV shows that I’d want to watch than I thought I’d find. Not a bad deal at all.

Now, if they’d just launch a Watch Instantly iPhone app… ;-)

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Make an iPhone/iPod Dock out of a DV Tape Case

Published on October 29, 2009 in Blog. 0 Comments

Hat tip to @verso on Twitter last night for pointing me to this idea (I’ll find the link and post it – want to give proper credit Here’s the original post I saw on iPhone Saviour).

It works great. Sits at a perfect angle. You’d have to cut out a little half circle to access the home button, and Matt and I were trying to figure out how to rig a dock cable, but that makes it a lot more complex.

If you have some DV tapes laying around, give it a try! :-)

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TinyPodcast: Makers, by Cory Doctorow

Published on October 28, 2009 in Blog. 0 Comments

I’m going to try these on a regular basis, as a way to share awesome stuff that I’ve found and want to recommend.

Today’s TinyPodcast recommendation is Cory Doctorow’s new book, Makers. Cory is my favorite scifi author, and the release of a new book from him feels like Christmas. The remarkable thing about Cory is how and why he releases his books electronically for free under Creative Commons, and what that does for his sales and popularity. He always includes a great essay on the topic at the beginning of each ebook, so don’t skip that part when you download Makers from http://craphound.com/makers.

Let me know what you think of these little podcasts – I’d really like to keep doing them, and I think I’ve got a great flow down for putting them out. Thanks for listening! :-)

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Testing Out iPhone Micropodcast Audio Workflows

Published on October 27, 2009 in Blog. 1 Comment

You’ll have to listen to this one, but if you’re interested in using the iPhone to create and post short audio bits, and integrating them really well with your online workflow, then you and I share a common goal. Have a listen, and see what I’ve learned about Cinch, AudioBoo, TweetMic, and just plain recording a Voice Memo and emailing it to Posterous. And let me know what *you* use or recommend! :-)

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