Rant: Adobe Reader Desktop Icon

There are some things that it is convient to have a desktop icon for, such as a web browser. Adobe reader is not. I have never ever seen anyone open adobe reader than search for a PDF. NEVER. They click on pdf files, and adobe reader opens them. There is no reason whatsoever to have a shortcut on the desktop. Stop putting it there ever update Adobe, it is just annoying.

Also on Adobe reader. You are a free product. Version 10 or X is out. Why are there still updates for 9, and why doesn't it just update to 10. It is a newer better version, when I check for updates just move me to 10 or X don't just update 9, that is dumb. You are a free product.

Rave: My final iPhone Apps

I recently got a cool new Samsung Infuse 4G Android phone and am now free from the Apple tyranny. I decided I would still give a list of those apps which if I ever went back to an iPhone, which I would only do for battery life, which still isn't worth it, I would get. These are my recommendations to every with an iPhone. I will sort them by groups.

Any one with a * I think everyone should have or at least try.

Money

*Pageonce - gets you up to date info on all your accounts/bills.

Square - lets you receive credit card payments. Great for small businesses.

mooch - tracks what people owe you and you owe them.

*Shop Savvy Barcode Scanner - scans barcodes and QR and gives good prices.

Paperlinks - just does QR codes if you don't want the other barcode scanning.

SnapTell - uses the camera to scan bar codes or book covers or cds to give you the best prices.

*Where - I just use it for cheapest gas prices, but it does much more.

PayPal - cash checks into your paypal account using your camera.

Food\Weight\Self improvement

*Urbanspoon - fun shake to find a restaurant app.

*CheckPlease - my favorite tip calculator.

Target WEIGHT - shows you your progress losing weight and has notifications for pounds you still want to lose.

Calorie Counter - follow your calories and scan food products to show what you ate.

Nike+ GPS - it tracks your running and tells you how fast your go.

Streaks - lets you check daily if you accomplished things you wanted to.

Math\Reference

Convertbot - awesome converter for any kind of measure.

Computing Assistant - great calculator for anyone that uses binary, hex or octal.

Pi Cubed - an awesome calculator.

*Dictionary.com - a good dictionary.

*Google Translate - translates even between Spanish and Farsi.

Speedtest.net - find out your internet speed.

iBooks- it is good for stuff you want to read.

Music

*Soundhound - it listens to the radio or you humming and find the song with lyrics.

*Tunewiki - scrolls the lyrics of the song you are listening to with the "iPod."

Pandora Radio - good stations for long time listening.

Magic Stave - listens to notes and tells you which one it is.

Ocarina - play an instrument by blowing on your speaker.

Symphony - compose your own music.

Movies\TV

IMDB -who else was that guy in?

Fandango - what is in the theater right now?

Netflix - lets go watch some show that went off the air 10 years ago.

Google TV Remote - if you have a google tv you now have an extra remote with voice recoginiton.

Kids In Mind - find out how bad movies actually are.

Peel - it shows you what is on your TV in a very nice way. No more TV guide channel.

Redflix - lets you find coupons for redbox movies.

RunPee - tells you the best time to take a bathroom break in a movie.

Social

Google+ - the newest and happiest social network.

Facebook- you know the drill/

Twitter - for any good beliber.

BlogBooster - update your blogger or others blogs.

Tumblr - for all you tumblr bloggers.

*Meebo - the best chat client ever.

Talkatone - a google talk client that automatically makes internet calls through google voice.

fring - useful for some chat, but more importantly includes voip/sip.

Google Voice - google's somewhat annoying app.

GV Mobile + - cost some, but often prefereable to the Google Voice app.

contactus - edit your google contact groups, only makes sense if you use gvmax for mass texts.

Church (I am a good LDS boy.)

Bible.is - the bible, written or read to you, with or without dramatic background music.

*LDS Gospel Library - scriptures and more.

LDS Tools - on the go ward/stake list.

LDS Hymns - sing your heart out.

*Mormon Channel - listen to scriptures, ensigns and much more.

LDS Why? - youth questions, with good answers

Games

Falling Balls - fun accelerometer game.

*Geocaching - pricey, but way great for dates, here's the intro version.

Get Your Bearings - do you know where things are?

Hungry Shark - girls love this for some reason.

*Lightsaber - everyone needs one sometimes.

Paper Toss - can you throw the paper away?

Parallelous - how good are you at multitasking?

:Shift: - this and the squeal are fun.

Smack that Gugl - really kiddy, but fun.

Tilt to Live - best iPhone game ever.

Touch Hockey - air hockey with friends is fun.

Tunnel 3D - another fun accelerometer game.

WeDraw - if you have a smart TV and a bunch of friends with smart phones, try it.

Most of the apps I had I got for free, but some really were worth buying. Mostly I got lucky and got while they were free for a limited time.

I recommend looking at most of these, I have gone through more apps than anyone I know, and these are the ones that I decided to keep. All you Appolytes out there should check them out. Android people, half of them are available, and some even work much better, like google+, although most are a build or two behind. I hope all the time I spent linking every app was worth it.

Rant: Dell Network Card

This is the main reason that I do not like dell products and haven't since I was like 15. That at least a 10 year grudge. In those ten years dell could have solved this problem but even last week the problem still exists. None plug and play network cards! Seriously though this is the most annoying thing ever. About the only time you will ever notice this is on a fresh install of Windows. After windows installs you need to go to the Windows update page, and fix all your drivers so that everything works like it is supposed to. This is where you hit the problem. There is no possible way to get to the internet, or even your home network. You have to go on another computer download the network driver from Dells web page, and then transfer it to the computer by something physical like a cd, or jump drive. 10 years ago when I didn't have wireless access to other computer or jump drives it was a bit more annoying, I had to find the cd that came with the computer. The technology for network cards hasn't really changed, so I don't know why in the world we still dont' have plug and play network cards.

Dell you suck! Fix this! I have already waited 10 years! At least make a deal with Microsoft to include your driver in windows so this problem doesn't happen.

Rave: Clever People

Someone just had this video posted on facebook. The video is annoying and long, but how cool is the load bar. Clever people make me happy.

UPDATE: I guess youtube caught on, it no longer has the awesome bar, but enjoy the music anyay.

Rant: Receipts

The other day I went to return a book, but didn't have a receipt, because I had lost it. It didn't matter that they had scanned my ID card, and knew that I had purchased the book from them only days before. Since I lost that piece of paper they charged me $10 to return it. How lame. I really don't like holding on to useless paper. Receipts are technology from before computers, now in the computer era they need to make their move out of existence and stop wasting trees. We have the information of buying things through online backing and credit card statements, which also waste trees. Why can't technology we use just work instead of letting use get stuck with old wasteful traditions.

Rant: Apple

Yesterday I went to the Apple store because my battery on my iPhone has not been that great recently. It has been going down when I do nothing and for no reason. I thought the battery had just gone bad so I was hoping they would change it. I still have Apple Care, they fix things. Instead of fixing it the guy did a diagnostic. He didn't actually do anything but have my phone send his phone or whatever a page telling any problems going on. It was simple and told every problem which is cool, except that there is no possible way of me getting to it. It is for apple employees only. Why am I not allowed to know what the problem with MY phone is?

To make me more mad, the guy told my battery problem was that a while ago some Apps had crashed, and therefore never close. Some of these Apps have actually been "deleted" by me, or so I thought. Instead it destroyed the OS forever. The only way to get these to be gone is to do a "Restore" on it, which actually means delete everything and put a fresh version of iOS on it. Usually at this point it copies all they stuff important like text messages, pictures, apps and music back on. In my case where the apps crashed since it ruined the OS if I were to do that, it would restore the error in the OS. I have to personally put each thing I want back on, and texts are gone forever. Is it worth battery life over the last year of texts? Probably, but it is super annoying.

I really don't like Apples philosophy of not letting people change anything in the products they own. I still want a mp3 as my ringtone.

mini rave: While talking about Apple I will tell of their one redeeming quality: Apple Care. If you ever buy and Apple product buy Apple Care. It means that if you ever have a problem ever they will either fix it or give you a new/refurbished one. In the year and a half that I have owned an iPhone I have had Apple Care: replace my iPhone because the case cracked, replace it again because the GPS on the second didn't work, replace their charger cord because the wiring started showing and yesterday replace the headset because they wire broke. Looking at that it looks like their products do not last longer than 6 months, which is about the time that Apple comes out with a new product for you to buy. In summary Apple is for fanboys so if you want one of their products go all in and get Apple Care.

Rant: Paper

I am in a Technical Writing class, where my teacher is making print a resume on nice paper. I don't like the idea or think it is very useful. Tonight I went to the store to by this "nice" paper. The paper may be fine, but I really didn't want to spend $17 on 100 sheets of paper I will never use. I am pretty sure every assignment in that class for the rest of the semester will come on resume paper.

Officemax I am mad at you for selling it only in packets of 100, I would have been happy with 25, maybe even 50, but who wants to spend almost $20 on paper they don't even believe in. Yet again, English classes suck.

Rant: Google on the iPhone

I am a google fan. I have a cr-48 ChromeOS Notebook that I have almost been converted to. I have a google tv which is amazing except when the remote freezes, but I have not been happy with almost any google iPhone apps, and I have tried them all. List hear what I think of them all.

Google Mobile App: The voice search is okay, but not enough to make me want to open this and then maybe have to switch to Safari after, it just isn't a smooth transition. It has push notifications for gmail, which is just weird. The great feature here is Google Goggles, which should be its own app, I would actually use it if I didn't have to go through that app.

Google Earth: I just don't know how to use this. I keep it to occasionally get GPS locations for geocaching, but there isn't really a real use.

Google Voice: This is the app I have been most excited for. I even bought a third party one for a while, I used work around and anything I could for almost a year. The one thing this brought was push notifications. That is awesome, except the app itself is sub par. Half the time when I try to type a text it will update, hiding the text box under the keyboard, and then when I try to edit the box after, it just deletes everything. It has problems in anything but the best of internet, and just generally is lame. I use it because of the push notifications, and the calling feature actually works, but if there was something better I would probably switch.

Google Latitude: Cool idea, just no one uses it, and it doesn't integrate well with things. I wanted it for so long, then when it finally came out it was just meh.

There are others, Google Books, I haven't tried much, Google Authenticator, I don't understand, and Google Places, which I have now, but haven't started using it much.

All in all, I don't like the soft blue look of all their apps, they don't integrate, and I still don't have a remote for my google tv. I know I shouldn't complain because they are all free, but it you have a product make it good.

I think I was just mad about how the google voice app just didn't work 3 out of the last 5 times I wanted it to. I now switch to my laptop to text most the time because it isn't worth the hassle of using the app. The Chrome extension for Google Voice is amazing and one of the reasons I cannot go back to Firefox.

Thanks google for doing okay, but get an iPhone App department that actually uses iPhones.