This stellar planetarium in your pocket is an application called Star Walk, and it’s only 99 cents on the iPhone, this is normally $2.99 and worth it for the price (the cheapest I’ve ever seen). It’s also available for the iPad for $1.99 (which is much cheaper than the usual $4.99).

This is listed as a Mother’s day sale so I’m not sure when it’s ending, that’s not for a week (right?!?) and that would be a long sale (unless they got their weeks mixed up!).

I did a much longer Star Walk review a year ago with many screen captures and a lot more information that you’ll have to read for all the details.

This is a planetarium in your pocket. If you device has a the GPS and gyroscope, you just tilt it up at the sky and it will identify what you’re point it. It’s awesome! There are some similar products, but I think this might be the most polished.

Other than some small bits of information (and the space image of the day) you DO not need to be connected to the internet to use this information. So this is useful anywhere you can see the stars!!!

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Last week I announced their Birds app as 99 cents, the price has gone up but many other related apps have dropped in price. See the Audubon apps by Green Mountain Digital.

Audubon Birds Field Guide for iPad and iPhone is only $2.99 cents! The second best price ever they’ve ever had. This is their 606 MB huge book (app) that’s is normally $19.99.

Another interesting choice is the deluxe Audubon Guides – A Field Guide to Birds, Mammals, Wildflowers, and Trees for only $14.99 this is normally $39.99 (but occasionally on-sale for $24.99-$19.99) and this combines their four main apps (books?). But this huge multi-book app weighs in at 1.3 GB (that’s a big chuck of space if you’ve only got an 8GB iOS device).

If you want to see what these apps are like, the North American Owls app is free!

If you’re looking for Butterflies, Insects or Fish (or Tropical Fish), those are on-sale too!

This is one of those deals you should pick up even if you’re into birds/nature/etc. and thinking of getting an iPad or iPhone in the future (assuming you’re interested in birds/nature at all). It’ll be hard to beat these prices.

FYI, I think most (except the Owls?) run natively on the iPad and iPhone, but please double-check before buying!

And the 5 Audubon apps/books available for Android on on-sale at Amazon too.

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I have a confession to make. My favorite iPhone app is made by… (wait for it!) Microsoft! Yes, I said the “M” word! This program is awesome and easy for creating 360° panoramas, it’s called Photosynth. Actually, it’s more than 360°, it’s right/left and up/down and all the pieces in-between. I’m going to call it 720° panoramas, okay?

This is the last one I did, and it’s actually one of the better ones. Other than looking straight down, it’s pretty much perfect. Just so you know, the app calculates everything on the phone before you upload and share it. Plus, it tags it with your location. Once it’s on the website you can point out certain highlights (buildings, bridges, etc.). It’s amazing!

To view them, it appears you need MicroSoft Silverlight or HTML 5 (at least the latter is why I think you can view it on an iPhone that does not have the app installed).

You can view all of my Photosynths at the Msoft Photosynth site.

Also, from the web site, you can specify where you were and what you were facing, I see that making for some interactive hopping from Photosyth “bubble” to “bubble”…

The second one is a deserted building that I like in Downtown Detroit. It’s where I took the lost bride photo…

This is the first time I tried to embed them and it looks pretty good so far. Please let me know if you have problems viewing them. And I’m also interested in how they might view on your mobile devices.

Update: I couldn’t view the embedded Photosynths on my iPhone so I added direct links. Those seem to work fine.

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I love the camera on the iPhone, while it’s not the best digital camera I’ve owned, it’s always with me and it’s lots better than others that I’ve owned*. I’ve taken well over 400 photos in the last two months (actually it’s got an okay flash, a digital zoom, tap to focus, HDR (High Dynamic Range) and a huge screen. And don’t forget that it’s also a HD 720p video camera, for a while it was the best video camera I ever owned (and the only one with a light). Factor in that you can upload (Flickr, YouTube, FaceBook) and e-mail photos / videos instantly, it’s pretty amazing. That’s not even factoring in optional photo and video editing apps.

I actually chose the HDR photo because of the additional detail from the water droplets. While I like the color of the flowers I actually like the color a tiny bit more in the non-HDR version. HDR on the iPhone (almost) instantly takes several photos at different settings to brighten the dark spots and darken the bright spots, giving you a wider range (they do take longer to save).

So these are some flowers out in front of the school where I work. I thought they were looking pretty good for no one really maintaing them in the summer (it’s a student project) with the whacky weather we’ve been having (melting or flooding) so they became the focus of today’s 31 photos in 31 days photo.

So it’s a great camera and I’m always taking pictures with it, even when I have other cameras with me.

* My iPhone is a hundred times better than the first digital camera that I owned, a $600 Casio QV-10 in 1996 (world’s first digital camera that includes a TFT display), which was 640×480 (iPhone 4 has 2592×1936 pixels) and had a proprietary graphics format that you had to convert to JPEG. This camera had no flash, no real zoom and ate AA batteries like they were candy. A feature it did have was that it had a video out; I remember taking pictures at a wedding and hooking it up to a huge projector that happened to be at the reception for some other kind of slideshow, I was the hit of the party (and the photographer said he was going to go get one for his next wedding).

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So when driving during rush hours, I listen to WWJ 950 AM for traffic reports on the 8′s. But the don’t get a chance to report every problem every report and sometimes I miss the last report as I’m walking out the door. So I also subscribe (for free) to Traffic.com (which is run or sponsored by NAVTEQ) and they send me text alerts during the time frame that I select (Usually about the hour before I need to be there). Usually if they don’t send me one, the ride is pretty good, so it’s been very helpful. If they do send me one, I pay attention to the on-ramp before I get on the highway or if they say it’s really bad, I’ll take an alternate route.

It’s just traffic for the expressway part, and they think I have 9 minutes on the express way and there is a 2 minute delay (total 11). I think they’re being generous, my experience is to double or triple the number they use for the delay; plus, it’s never 9 minutes on the expressway unless it’s the middle of the day or late at night.

As you can see there is a number to call and there is also a mobile web site at mobi.traffic.com, but I’ve never used those. For me, the text is just enough to tell me that if I’m in a hurry that I might have some delays. But I have a relatively short ride, when there is no traffic, it’s just during rush hour that it stinks, and I’ve got limited options.

They’ve also got an Traffic.com iPhone app (and an ad-free version for $3) and one for Blackberry.

I can see my routes (from the web site) on the iPhone app and it tells me how bad the traffic is. This is helpful for routes that I take often, but not often enough to where I want text messages. I use this for for a quick glance when heading to the doctor’s office after work so that I’m not late.

The thing is, when it texts me, I remember; when I have to look at the app, I forget…

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Am I silly for wanting this?  It’s Seagate’s new GoFlex Satellite mobile wireless storage. It lets me have 500 GB of storage for my iPhone!!!

The 500 GB portable hard drive wirelessly connects to any Wi-Fi enabled mobile device, and can be used to store music, movies, pictures and documents of various types.

iOS users can then access that media using a free companion app from the App Store designed specifically for use with the GoFlex hardware. If you’re using an Android or other device, you can access your media using a web browser. The GoFlex Satellite can stream media to up to three devices at a time (great for family road trips), has a battery life of 5 hours of continuous streaming (or 25 hours in standby mode) and retails for $199.99.

via Mobile Technology News.

I read about this a week ago and just keep thinking I should order it!! I think more storage is just the geeky version of wanting bigger power tools!

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It let’s me snap a photo, but doesnt seem so easy if I already took a great photo that I want to post.

(This is the wall and dresser in my bedroom. Why? Because I’m in bed.)

Later: Need a better way to adjust the photo size, it’s a little too big.

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So I recently downloaded Onavo for my iPhone. It cuts down on your data usage by compressing cellular data on the fly. I guess it zips up the text and lowers the quality of images (I usually don’t notice, but sometimes I do) SprintPCS used to do this on their 1G(?) network and it was great.

I’m getting over 50% overall compression. It’s free but it’s likely they’ll eventually start charging (so try it now, while it’s free!). But if you’re just squeaking by on a 250 MB plan, this could keep you from jumping up to the next plan at $10 more a month, I assumed it’d be less than $5 a month(?). Most apps it’s compresses 70-80%, others no compression and some others at 30-50%. It works on the iPad too. It’s compression on the downloading, not on the uploading. It says that it has no effect on tethering.

I love it! I actually think it speeds my data up (if it’s only pushing half of it around, but they aren’t marketing it that way). It doesn’t touch secure data and doesn’t appear to touch your mail unless you specifically enable it (and it has to be MS Exchange); it converts your e-mails to text, but I actually think that’s better on the smaller screen. I did just change my gMail config to use the MS Exchange protocol to test it out (Google does support this); I’m getting 50+% compression.

I have the data unlimited plan so this isn’t such an issue for me, but I might be tempted to pay for a international data plan next time I travel. Although, now that I look at the list, I don’t see Costa Rica in the list, I thought it was there before…

I’m grandfathered in on the unlimited plan with ATT, but I have friends considering the iPhone 5 (4s?) whom 250MB might not be enough, but 500MB could certainly be enough. Sometimes I think it might be eating my data more, but I’ve been forcing the phone to stay on 3G and not join any WiFi networks so that I can see the savings.

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I saw the Hasbro my3D at the store yesterday and just had to have it. It makes for an interesting interactive 3D experience. You need an iPhone or iPod Touch to use it and I think it works better with the newer ones that have the gyroscope built-in. But there are a half-dozen my3D apps you can get from the Apple App store for free and a few you can pay for; as of today five my3D apps are free and one is 99 cents and another is $4.99 (both have free “lite” versions). A few months ago, they were giving all the games away for free, so I grabbed them while they were free(!)

Sector 17 is the space game, looks pretty cool and is fun for the bit that I played with it. The image below is the two halves of the image that I was looking at alternating; if you can alternately wink at three-tenths of a second, it probably looks 3D to you.

All the games have no more than two buttons to play (where your thumbs stick into the device), but you do a lot of head tilting and spinning around to make some of the games work. Sector 17 and 360° Sharks really require standing. Sector 17 has a “couch mode” but it’s a lot harder to play; I believe not having a gyroscope model if the iDevice is like playing in “couch mode”. My old first generation iPod Touch (I think it’s 1st gen) works with the few games I tried.

They’ve got a pretty good thing going here, $35 for a hunk of plastic and a few games, plus they’ll charge you for more games in the future. At 99 cents, I’d probably buy most of them to try it out, at $4.99 I’d probably try the lite version until I was bored (for $4.99 the space game does look pretty cool).

There is a Teleport L.A. game (that is more for kids) on a pier in Los Angeles which is all 3D 360° that you can pan around, this would be cooler if it were the Grand Canyon, the Moon or the Pyramids! And there is another more kid-like game called Bubble Bolt that you can roll around in a hamster ball collecting points. The iamge below is how is it looks on your iPhone screen.

A game called ShatterStorm is like the classic Tempest, but I thought it was a little hard to control. Spinning my head around like I did the controller back in the ’80s just doesn’t work for me.

There are separate snap on trays trays for different iDevice models (they could be labeled better) and there is a open cutout for the camera on my iPhone 4, so some interactive 3D VR type games are a possibility!

Pluses:

• I don’t need my (reading) glasses to use it.
• It’s 3D and 3D is cool!

Downsides:

• I have to remove my iPhone from the case to use it.

Lots of game load times, these programs are very large (one was 500 MB!) and they have lots of loading time between levels and menus.

• The default volume for the music in the background is very loud (it drowns out the game sounds), but it’s all adjustable (and so is the sound effects volume).
• The games seem to work better if you have the model with the gyroscope, it’s more intuitive; you just look verses tilting your head. Although some games like the Tempest clone are just tilting your head left or right.

It’s actually cheaper shipped on-line (via Target at Amazon) then at the store (I paid $35), I asked at the counter but they wouldn’t match their own price (“that’s just to compete with other on-line services”), but I guess it didn’t matter, I bought it anyways. The plastic part will come down in price, they actually have a unique code on the viewfinder you need to input (one time) into a game before you play it.

UPDATE: And as of the update a few minutes ago, my3D Sector 17 started working with Apple’s Game Center. Also, this app has shrunk in size (from 434MB to 270MB).

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Last month I saw the HP LaserJet Pro CP1525nw Color Laser Printer on sale so I picked one up. Why?

• Because I don’t have a color printer set up (inkjet printers usually dry out before I use them all),
• I wanted a network printer (I gave Mom my networked laser printer so she could keep it in my old bedroom instead of at her desk) and this one also has WiFi,
• I wanted to be able to directly print to the printer via an Apple Macintosh (not routing it through a Windows PC),
• I wanted it to print directly from my iPhone (and my future iPad)
• and it was only $150 plus tax!!!!

The darn thing got to my house in under 48 hours and it didn’t cost anything for shipping.

The one I received needed the firmware updated (maybe that’s part of the cheaper price?) but that only took a few minutes. It works great. It was easy to put together and I can print from my iPhone!

What else can I tell you: It’s also built-in Ethernet, wireless 802.11b/g/n and USB connections. And it’s got some other kind of feature that you can set up so you can e-mail files to it via HP ePrint. It’s got 4.3 stars our of 5 at HP.com and about about the same at Amazon (but it’s $70 more).

The huge benefit is when I’m looking at an e-mail or web page, I don’t need to remember to go back later and print it, it just does it for me then. And my e-mails and web pages look just like I printed them from my computer. The photos print small though (maybe 3″ x 5″?) but they look great. I wish the iPhone would let me print while on the go and then sync up to the printer when I got home (that’s the way it works on the computer); I’m sure that will come in a later version. I’m almost tempted to get a second one because that would get me 4 spare toner cartridges at only $37.50 apiece.

So the color wireless HP LaserJet printer is only $150 until the 15th of April, 2011 so if you’re thinking of a new printer get it. It’s worth it for the cost of toner alone…

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This amazing planetarium in your pocket is an application called Star Walk, and it’s only 99 cents on the iPhone until April 12, 2011, this is normally $2.99 and worth it for the price. It’s the 50th anniversary of spaceflight and they’re celebrating by giving us a deal! It’s also available for the iPad for $4.99.

Star Walk shows you all the stars and constellations, just by holding it up to the sky and pointing, it’s amazing! It uses the GPS for hassle free alignment, on other models it’ll use the gyroscope to have you set it up and then it’s supposed to follow along from there. Plus, it calculates this all based on where you are all with no internet connection required*.

They also have a another app just for our Solar System called Solar Walk (3D Solar System model) which is more detail on just our solar system. It’s $2.99 but it’s universal and runs on iPad and iPhone; and they make Solar Walk for Mac but no Star Walk (yet!).

* Additional information (beyond the paragraphs and stats that are included) on planets (and stars?) is available and does require internet. Also the astronomy picture of the day requires the internet.

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If you don’t know by now, I’m a Macintosh fan as in: “Hi! My name is Gary and I’m a Mac User…”. This is from last week’s Friday Question, but I never got around to it.

I was a PC user before I used Mac and when I say PC, I mean DOS user, not Windows. Actually, I used Windows before that, but I wasn’t really a fan at the time, I think the last machine that I had was a laptop with floppy (no hard drive) that I had a crazy way set up to boot it and put some of Microsoft Works in the RAM drive and then I stuck in disc 2 with the dictionary and room for some documents (or something like that).

But where I was doing work they were Macintosh so I was always converting my word processing files back and forth and couldn’t do any of the HyperCard* stuff at home, so I picked up a used MacPlus with an external hard drive and never looked back. That was probably nineteen years ago..?

Since then, I’ve owned (or work owned) a Mac Classic, IIcx, PowerPC 610, PowerPC 6100, MacBook Duo 280c (with a docking station at home and work) that I eventually converted to a Duo 2300, a monster PowerBook G3 (it was more lugable than a laptop), a tower PowerMac G4 (the first with a DVD burner), iBook 12 inch, PowerBook 12 inch (2 different models), MacBook 13.3 inch and for a few weeks a MacBook Air 10.6 inch (I returned it since it didn’t have enough storage for me (awesome machine though). I could ramble more about models and printers and stuff, but I did this in a Happy Twenty-Fifth Birthday Macintosh! post a few years ago.

Needless to say, I’m a huge fan. I’ve never been one to jump on their new things, but I do grow to love them. I waited until the color iPod before getting one. I waited until the third iPhone (the 3Gs) before getting one (and that was after specifically getting a iPod Touch to try out for a few months first since I didn’t really want to switch to AT&T at the time).

My MacBook is my main computer, my desktop is a little old, I think it’s ten years old and while it’s gotten a few processor upgrades, memory and hard drives, it’s more convenient to have everything on my laptop.

But my MacBook is getting a little old too, it’s just over three years old and I’m looking around. I’ll probably upgrade my MacBook this summer, if they come out with a new one (or else I’ll get the MacBook Pro)_, but I’m hoping they’ll do a new education promo with a free iPod touch again.

*Hypercard was one of the most amazing pieces of development software ever! You could learn how to do some pretty incredible programs without learning too much coding.

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I thought the ice looked amazing flowing down the Detroit River in the sunshine yesterday. So I snapped a few photos and videos with my iMazing iPhone and here you go..

Just a couple of clips showing the ice floating down the river. If you don’t find it interesting, I promise it gets more boring the longer it plays…

I actually edited and did the voice over (second part) on the video with iMovie on the iPhone 4 (and uploaded it too!).

That’s all, sadly, I don’t count on it being this sunny today…

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So, I was really considering the iPad a year ago. I thought it looked amazing as devices go.

But I decided that “I think I’ll pass this time around” and “it doesn’t have a camera of any sort. Yet…”

Now it’s a year later and I think I’m ready to take the plunge. It’s faster, two times faster and the graphics are nine times faster (does the nine contribute towards the two?). It’s got the front facing camera and the 720p HD video camera.

What doesn’t it have? A lot of things, but I can get past those little things. But there are two things I wish it had: a higher resolution display and a smaller size. A higher resolution would have guaranteed that I’d purchase the top of the line, as it is now, I’m not sure what model to get. I also wish it were smaller, I could work with a 7″ version just fine.

What makes me crazy with Apple on these things is that the 16 GB model is $500, it’s a $100 more for 32 GB model (that’s $100 for 16 GB more) but it’s only another $100 for the 64 GB model, why is that 32 GB half the price? I need something extra for that first extra $100, like a flash or a better rear camera.

So it’s going to cost me at least $500 for the unit (up to $829), probably $100 in accessories (HD out, SD/USB reader and cover) and I’m sure I’ll pick up some applications (another $50) like: The Elements and while Solar Walk is iPad ready, it looks like I’ll have to re-buy Star Walk. I already pre-purchased some iPad apps, like Scrabble (so maybe I’ll get into that again) and SimCity when there were some sales or promotions.

And I’ll need the new iMovie. And Pages, Numbers and Keynote. There goes another $35. And probably Garage Band, even though I’ll never use it other than to show others how cool it is…

And I have to figure out if I want it in black or white. I’ll probably do the homage to the iBook and get it in white, if it’s available…

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So I had to show my Mom how to operate my digital SLR for this one. It came out pretty good. This is at the lower falls in Montezuma, Costa Rica.

I thought the colors stayed pretty good for converting this to an animated GIF, if you click the image for a larger version it looks pretty good too. I used GIFQuickMaker, which I got from the MacApp store.

Yeah, I know I’ve shown you high-def video of a similar thing not so long ago (but I’m in Montezuma again, so I’m doing it again), but I’m playing with the photos and animation software so you get it again.

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This week’s question is What do you use for your alarm clock – an actual alarm clock or your phone (or maybe the sun, your kids, your pet, other)?

Sleep is a complicated issue for me, I like a fan or a white noise machine (fortunately there’s a White Noise app* for that) to help me sleep. Generally I sleep with a fan on, that automatically turns itself off about 10 minutes before the alarm clock; if I got enough sleep, sometimes that’s enough to wake me up. Then a few minutes later a bright “natural” light turns itself on. Then the alarms start going off, the alarm clock (with the traffic report), then the phone alarm, then the alarm clock CD player (currently an upbeat Avril song is playing), then the phone again. And my friend Mark will call sometimes to make sure I’m up…

There is (generally) a new Friday Question every Friday.

* The White Noise iPhone app I mentioned is great, it’s got lots of sounds (I like the white noise) and timers (countdown, alarms, etc.). It’s quite possibly the best $2 I’ve spent in the app store.

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I’m not sure what kind of playback unit this is, probably digital, but it doesn’t look like it. The screen was only about 4 or 5 inches diagonal and had some kind of touchscreen interface. It looked like it was ancient and belonged in a rack in an old TV studio.

Now while I’m picking on it, I do realize this was probably pretty cool technology when it came out. But these days the could probably just be using a $200 iPod touch for it. That’s probably 15 pounds they’re not flying around for hundreds of thousands of miles a year (a month?). And while they’re at it, ditch these old TV monitors (that weigh a ton) and put in some cheap LCD screens that barely weigh anything…

The audio isn’t that great, I’m kinda hoarse and the plan is kinda noisy.

Please note, I shot this with my iPhone on the plane, uploaded it to YouTube (via GoGo) and typed this text and posted it while sitting on a plane. That is so cool (IMHO).

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