标签: apps

I recently ran into something that I consider to be a bit strange. A few weeks ago, I went to England to visit my dear old mom, who will be 83 years old this year. Mom has an old PC in her bedroom that she uses to browse the Internet (to some small extent) and to access her AOL email (yes, AOL is still around, it seems). Mom's PC is "sad and tired" to say the least, and it takes forever to boot up. So, as a special treat we went down town and I bought her an iPad as an early Birthday present. The first thing I did was to hook the iPad up to mom's wireless router. The next thing was to link it to her AOL email account. It works wonderfully. The iPad uses solid state memory so it's "instant on." Now, mom can be sitting in her front room and simply open the iPad cover and immediately see if anyone has emailed her and respond from the comfort of her armchair. I also downloaded some common apps like Google Earth , which had my mother absolutely entranced. Now, she can spend hours looking at the satellite view of all the streets and houses she's known for so long, peering into her friends and neighbours back gardens, and generally seeing things from a completely different perspective. But here's the strange part. There are two main television "entities" in the UK – the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) and the ITV (Independent Television). My brother told me that each of them had free iPad apps that let you watch programmes you might have missed. In the case of my mother, for example, she loves the "soaps" like Coronation Street and EastEnders and Emmerdale Farm . However, mom is also very active with regard to things like going out to the theatre and the opera (plus she's in a walking club and a writing club, and numerous other activities), so she often misses episodes, which she hates. So I downloaded the BBC and ITV apps to her iPad. One day, while I was working in my brother's dining room, mom sat in a rocking chair next to me reading her newspaper. A little later she decided to use her iPad to watch a quiz show she'd missed. She didn't want to disturb me, so she plugged in the headphones we'd bought with her iPad. Sad to relate, the use of the headphones was negated a little by the fact that she kept on shouting out the answers ( "It was Henry the Eighth, you fool!!!" ), but it's the thought that counts. But the point of this blog (yes, of course there is a point) is that I thought I might like to keep touch with what's happening on British television – an interesting series on Zombies has just started, for example. Thus, while I was still in England and while I was still using her wireless router, I tried to download the BBC and ITV apps onto my iPad, but it wouldn't let me (as I recall, they didn't even appear in the app store, but I may be mistaken about this).   So, now I'm wondering how "they" knew that my iPad usually lives in the USA. Are iPads locked to a particular region, or is there some other explanation?

I recently found something that I found to be a tad strange. A few weeks ago, I went to England to visit my dear old mom, who will be 83 years old this year. Mom has an old PC in her bedroom that she uses to browse the Internet (to some small extent) and to access her AOL email (yes, AOL is still around, it seems). Mom's PC is "sad and tired" to say the least, and it takes forever to boot up. So, as a special treat we went down town and I bought her an iPad as an early Birthday present. The first thing I did was to hook the iPad up to mom's wireless router. The next thing was to link it to her AOL email account. It works wonderfully. The iPad uses solid state memory so it's "instant on." Now, mom can be sitting in her front room and simply open the iPad cover and immediately see if anyone has emailed her and respond from the comfort of her armchair. I also downloaded some common apps like Google Earth , which had my mother absolutely entranced. Now, she can spend hours looking at the satellite view of all the streets and houses she's known for so long, peering into her friends and neighbours back gardens, and generally seeing things from a completely different perspective. But here's the strange part. There are two main television "entities" in the UK – the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) and the ITV (Independent Television). My brother told me that each of them had free iPad apps that let you watch programmes you might have missed. In the case of my mother, for example, she loves the "soaps" like Coronation Street and EastEnders and Emmerdale Farm . However, mom is also very active with regard to things like going out to the theatre and the opera (plus she's in a walking club and a writing club, and numerous other activities), so she often misses episodes, which she hates. So I downloaded the BBC and ITV apps to her iPad. One day, while I was working in my brother's dining room, mom sat in a rocking chair next to me reading her newspaper. A little later she decided to use her iPad to watch a quiz show she'd missed. She didn't want to disturb me, so she plugged in the headphones we'd bought with her iPad. Sad to relate, the use of the headphones was negated a little by the fact that she kept on shouting out the answers ( "It was Henry the Eighth, you fool!!!" ), but it's the thought that counts. But the point of this blog (yes, of course there is a point) is that I thought I might like to keep touch with what's happening on British television – an interesting series on Zombies has just started, for example. Thus, while I was still in England and while I was still using her wireless router, I tried to download the BBC and ITV apps onto my iPad, but it wouldn't let me (as I recall, they didn't even appear in the app store, but I may be mistaken about this).   So, now I'm wondering how "they" knew that my iPad usually lives in the USA. Are iPads locked to a particular region, or is there some other explanation?  

I got an email from my old friend Alvin telling me about a bunch of iPad apps that have only recently been released and which are described as being "Perfect for electrical engineers, students, hobbyists, or anyone who routinely deals with electronic circuitry and calculations." These apps and simulators, which were developed by Ray Seymour, a former General Electric (EDC) employee of 37 years, have been designed to help simplify solving the calculations electrical engineers and hobbyists face every day. The apps of which I am currently aware are as follows: Ohm's Law Calculator Ray Tools: AC Impedance Simulator Ray Tools: Output Driver Devices Simulator Ray Tools: Inverting Operational Amplifier Simulator Ray Tools: Non Inverting Operational Amplifier Simulator Ray Tools: Sensor Input Devices Simulator Ray Tools: AC Input Operational Amplifier Simulator Of course, if you know of any more tools of this ilk, don't be shy or bashful – share the joy by posting a comment to this article...  

Do you recall my " Is it possible to be in a bad mood while playing the ukulele? " blog from a couple of weeks ago? Well, I'm proud to report that (just a couple of days ago as I pen these words) I finished building my first do-it-yourself ukulele kit. As you can see in the pictures below, the finish on this one is just stain and varnish – I'm still working on a second instrument which will boast a Steampunk look-and-feel (I shall report further on this in a future column). Following the final coat of varnish, all that remained was to attach the strings and to then start happily strumming away (or so I thought—ah, the innocence of youth :-) As I'm sure you are aware, a standard ukulele has four strings. The instructions that came with the kit said to put the two thicker strings in the middle and the two thinner strings on the outside. But since all four strings that came with the kit were the same size, these directions were somewhat less than useful. Also, I remembered reading a review by someone else who said that everything about the ukulele kit was great apart from the strings, and that he recommended replacing them with better ones.   Neck attached (covered in masking tape) and first coat of stain applied   Thus it was that I meandered my way down to the local guitar shop with my ukulele grasped firmly in my hands (and it's not often I've had the occasion to say that). The reason I took my little beauty with me is that I wasn't sure if they came in different sizes (yes, we are still talking about my ukulele) and I didn't want to take any chance of purchasing the wrong strings. I'd like to say that the guys in the shop were totally impressed with the fact that I'd built my own ukulele, but I'm sad to report that they gave the impression that they saw this sort of thing all time. (On the bright side, maybe that means I'm not as weird as I'd feared ... maybe :-) So, armed with a nice set of new ukulele strings ($6.00, which I didn't think was too bad) I was poised for action. When I returned home that evening, I took the first string, tied a knot in one end, and threaded the other end through the hole in the bridge. But as soon as I put any tension on the string the knot slipped through the hole. I tried a bigger knot ... but the same thing happened. So with much moaning and groaning I retired to reconsider my line of attack. It was only when I was lying in bed that it struck me that I should be tying the knot around the bridge itself. That was a "Doh!" moment, let me tell you. But which knot to use? The next day I performed a Google search for "How to string a ukulele" and got a bunch of hits (it really is amazing what's out there on the Internet). One website in particular had a really nice picture that made a lot of sense, and it wasn't long before my strings were well strung (as it were).   The strings are strung!   When it came to tuning the little rascals, I started by trying to do it by ear using the free UkuTune app I'd downloaded to my iPad. Unfortunately this didn't work as well as I had hoped. The app is great but it does rely on your having an "ear" for this sort of thing and – sad to relate – it seems that I don't. I then tried a few other free apps, such as SpinTuner, which is very pretty to look at but totally useless when it comes to tuning a ukulele (at least as far as I could see – it may be absolutely wonderful once you get the hang of it). Eventually I decided to invest $2.99 on an app called AudioTuner, and this worked wonderfully for me. After choosing the instrument in which you are interested (guitar, ukulele, etc.), you select a string and pluck it and the app measures the frequency and displays it graphically and also says "too low" or "two high" and guides you in until the string is bang on tune. Then you repeat for the other strings. Once I had all four strings set up I played my first chord. It sounded horrible. I rechecked the strings and they were all out of tune again. So I retuned everything and tried again with much the same result. I then consulted my trusty Ukulele for Dummies book, which says that a new set of ukulele strings go out of tune very quickly for the first two weeks until they've stretched and suchlike. Tell me about it (grin). I kept on retuning the strings and things did get better over time, but they still drift out of tune really quickly. So I've resigned myself to a couple of weeks wait until things settle down. In the meantime I'm practicing my strumming technique using the "Calypso Strum" from Ukulele Mike's YouTube video – this is the one he recommends for Somewhere Over the Rainbow , which I plan on being the first tune I learn ( Click here to see the video of this strum). Meanwhile, I can't resist showing you the evolving sketch for the way my Steampunk ukulele is going to look. The idea is that it will seem to be a brass case with holes in the front and through the holes you will see gears (in reality everything will be painted on).   The working sketch for my Steampunk ukulele   Last but not least, I ran across the following image on the Internet. Obviously this isn't a ukulele ... but it does look interesting ... maybe it's a project for the future (grin)    

In a few of my recent blogs, I've been talking about some of the apps I've found for my iPad (see A wealth of apps for IPad Part 1 , Part 2 and Part 3 ). Well, one of those apps was Notes Plus , which is so amazing it really deserves its own discussion, which is where we are today. Of course the iPad comes equipped with its own Notes app, but even if we're being kind we have to say that this is rudimentary at best. By comparison, Notes Plus is in a league of its own – this is the sort of app that fully utilizes all of the iPad's capabilities and turns the iPad into a tool rather than a toy. I think I paid $0.99 for it a couple of weeks ago, but the last I heard this had risen to $4.99. Whatever it is today, it's more than worth the cost, not the least that if you purchase the current version now you'll get a free upgrade to the forthcoming version 3.0, which promises to take things to a whole new level. So why is the Notes Plus app so amazing? Well, first of all it's incredibly intuitive and easy to use. It's also got a wealth of well thought out productivity features that happen behind the scenes to make your life easier. Let's take this step by step: Notebooks: The basic idea is that you store your notes in a Notebook. When you create and name a new notebook it starts with a single page, but you can add pages as required. You can also copy pages, rearrange the order of pages within the notebook, delete pages, and so forth. You can also create folders (and folders in folders) and then create your notebooks in these folders, all of which helps you organize things. Handwritten Input:ÿ You can enter handwritten notes with your finger or with a stylus. I purchased a stylus, but to be honest I find it easier to use my finger (plus – unlike the stylus, I never have to worry about where I left my finger ... if you see what I mean). There's also a "Close Up" mode. All you have to do is place your finger on the screen wherever you want a note to appear and hold it there for a second, and the "Close Up" dialog appears. This is like a zoom-in view – you can use your finger to write large characters that are automatically reduced in size as they appear in real time on the screen at the location you requested for your note. You can create one big handwritten note or lots of smaller ones wherever you want them to appear on the screen. Selecting and Moving Stuff: Suppose you've created some small handwritten notes as discussed in the previous topic and now you want to rearrange them on the screen. All you do is use your finger to draw a circle around a note (or notes) to select it and then drag and drop it in its new place. Note that this technique also works for other objects like typewritten text and shapes and suchlike. (Once you've selected something you can also delete it or change its attributes as discussed below.) Typewritten Input: Rather than enter handwritten text, you can click the Text icon in the toolbad and then tap your finger on the screen at the location you wish your text to appear and start typing on the pop-up keyboard (or on a physical keyboard if you have one). Again, you can create one large note or lots of smaller notes, and you can mix things up and have multiple handwritten and typewritten notes all over the page. Drawing Shapes: This is just so cool. If you draw a line (or a series of connected lines), or a triangle or a square/rectangle or a circle, the app automatically detects this and converts it into a sharp vector-based object. You can specify all sorts of things like outline color, fill color (if any), transparency, and so forth – otherwise the system will simply use your previous settings. Once you've created one of these vector objects you can select them, resize them, move their vertices, or move the entire object around the page. Changing Attributes: If you've already set up the appropriate attributes before you enter handwritten text (color, line width, etc...) or typewritten text (font, size, color, etc...) or shapes (line width, line color, fill color, transparency, etc...) then the system will use the previous settings. Also there's a Palette icon that allows you to quickly choose between recently used settings. Alternatively, you can select anything that you previously created and modify its attributes. Sound Recording: This just keeps on getting better and better. If you click the Microphone icon you can record an audio note that will be associated with the current page in the active Notebook. In fact you can have multiple audio recordings associated with each page. Sharing Your Notes: If you wish, you can export your entire notebook (or one or more pages thereof) to iTunes as a PDF or to your Photo Albums as an image. You can also email your notebook (or pages) as a PDF or an Image. You can also upload to Google Docs or synchronize with your Dropbox account. The possibilities are endless... So, the bottom line is that Notes Plus has my official seal of approval and it wins one of my converted "Ten Cool Beans" Awards (and you don't get much better than that ).