If you own a tablet, especially and iPad, you need to have this FREE app installed. Flipboard. It's fantastic! It brings all of your information sources together, and gives you a general overview of what you need to be reading.
As colourful as this could be, my morning sabbatical would not be the same without Flipboard. All your RSS, Twitter, Facebook, web, etc. feeds, aggregated in one awesome view!
It's kind of like your folks reading a newspaper, but way more current dynamic. It's instant... what's happening now, and looks up all content related to a tweet, for example, and you read the full story... not the snippet. Add this, and add Flipboard content that you find interesting, and more than likely, you don't even need to go beyond "Cover Stories" - which summaries the most popular items across all content.
Totally part of my daily routine, I even prefer this to checking Facebook (Flipboard aggregates this content as well).
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Waze - Outsmarting traffic, together
Every now and then you come across something that is just awesome.
I very recently had that very experience, and stumbled upon an iDevice app that is just that... awesome! In fact, it's so awesome, I think everyone should have Waze on their iPhone! And it's available on Android, but I can't comment on this platforms experience.
Waze is a social GPS navigation system, the key element here being social. In a nut shell, maps are generated by the user community (so no more waiting YEARS for map updates), and users (and the application itself) report traffic conditions in real-time. Combine this with navigation and routing abilities, add alerts from fellow commuters about traffic jams and accidents, and Waze gets you to your destination in no time avoiding major traffic obstacles. And Wazers are 19 million strong!
Add to the mix a social game element, and "Hey Presto!", you get a mix between TomTom/Garmin and Foursquare.
We live the Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and the community using Waze here is still quite small, and with that the maps are far from complete, and not very usable at the moment. But I say give it a year or two, get some dedicated users updating it, and within that same time span you'll end up with the Lambourghini of GPS navigators, that is traffic aware and able to route accordingly.
The best part of it all, is that I as a Waze user, have the ability to login and edit the maps with a super simple, easy to use editor. In just a few short weeks, I've managed to edit the maps in areas that effect my routes, and now can navigate to and from work, following my preferred routes (Waze learns these over time) - and best of all, I get notified if there are traffic problems on those routes!
It's a real time saver, and this integrated with Foursqaure, Google Maps and Bing Maps, makes finding destinations infinitely easier. Again, it has a way to go, with regular outages as the system grows, but I use this every day. I loathe sitting in traffic and Waze has spared me many hours of unnecessary mental vacations, and encourage you all to try it at least. You don't have to actively participate in mapping, but everyone who just runs the app while they drive, helps the mappers accurately map the roads in your respective countries (it's a GPS thing).
I very recently had that very experience, and stumbled upon an iDevice app that is just that... awesome! In fact, it's so awesome, I think everyone should have Waze on their iPhone! And it's available on Android, but I can't comment on this platforms experience.
Waze is a social GPS navigation system, the key element here being social. In a nut shell, maps are generated by the user community (so no more waiting YEARS for map updates), and users (and the application itself) report traffic conditions in real-time. Combine this with navigation and routing abilities, add alerts from fellow commuters about traffic jams and accidents, and Waze gets you to your destination in no time avoiding major traffic obstacles. And Wazers are 19 million strong!
Add to the mix a social game element, and "Hey Presto!", you get a mix between TomTom/Garmin and Foursquare.
We live the Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and the community using Waze here is still quite small, and with that the maps are far from complete, and not very usable at the moment. But I say give it a year or two, get some dedicated users updating it, and within that same time span you'll end up with the Lambourghini of GPS navigators, that is traffic aware and able to route accordingly.
The best part of it all, is that I as a Waze user, have the ability to login and edit the maps with a super simple, easy to use editor. In just a few short weeks, I've managed to edit the maps in areas that effect my routes, and now can navigate to and from work, following my preferred routes (Waze learns these over time) - and best of all, I get notified if there are traffic problems on those routes!
It's a real time saver, and this integrated with Foursqaure, Google Maps and Bing Maps, makes finding destinations infinitely easier. Again, it has a way to go, with regular outages as the system grows, but I use this every day. I loathe sitting in traffic and Waze has spared me many hours of unnecessary mental vacations, and encourage you all to try it at least. You don't have to actively participate in mapping, but everyone who just runs the app while they drive, helps the mappers accurately map the roads in your respective countries (it's a GPS thing).
Resetting Parental Passcode on XBOX 360
*** If you want to reset your Xbox for any other reason, this is the way to do it.
I recently bought and XBox 360 Kinect for my daughter for her birthday, and hastily set it up during a birthday party. Somewhere during the festivities, someone managed to add a passcode to the parental controls and set them really low.
Save yourself a lot of headaches, and DON'T Google this. There are millions of instructions and guides on how to reset your Xbox... and well, 1 in 10,000 will work.
The reset code is console specific, and more specifically, related to the console ID. No point in entering all the combinations to reset your console, mine was different.
Contact Microsoft support on the Xbox.com website, I just started a chat, registered the unit in my name and gave them the console ID - they provided me with the correct information to reset the Xbox.
Caveat: I must say though, to complete the sequence, I just kept pressing the last key over and over until it unlocked. Stopping where the sequence stopped didn't work for me.
This is guaranteed to work, unlike all the advice you get on the interweb!
I recently bought and XBox 360 Kinect for my daughter for her birthday, and hastily set it up during a birthday party. Somewhere during the festivities, someone managed to add a passcode to the parental controls and set them really low.
Save yourself a lot of headaches, and DON'T Google this. There are millions of instructions and guides on how to reset your Xbox... and well, 1 in 10,000 will work.
The reset code is console specific, and more specifically, related to the console ID. No point in entering all the combinations to reset your console, mine was different.
Contact Microsoft support on the Xbox.com website, I just started a chat, registered the unit in my name and gave them the console ID - they provided me with the correct information to reset the Xbox.
Caveat: I must say though, to complete the sequence, I just kept pressing the last key over and over until it unlocked. Stopping where the sequence stopped didn't work for me.
This is guaranteed to work, unlike all the advice you get on the interweb!
Friday, April 6, 2012
You Rule - your kids
In this modern age, with our children growing up with technology and gadgets at a younger and younger age, it can be challenging to motivate and encourage our children to do chores and earn their privileges, and it becomes all too easy to placate them by letting them spend all day on their laptop/game console/etc.
My wife and I had this exact problem. Our daughter spent more and more time on the internet, playing games, and giving us more and more grief when asked to perform basic chores - but still "wanting" everything. I started looking around, because there must be "an app for that". And sure enough, there is an app that addresses that very challenge, and even better, its brilliant. An that app is You Rule Chores.
You Rule Chores is a wonderful, colorful and fun way to manage your child's chores, and allows them to earn points that can be redeemed for rewards. It's designed to be interactive, with your child being able to participate by earning and redeeming points.
It's simple to setup, and get started, and in less than five minutes you will have a list of chores defined that need to be completed regularly (you have complete freedom at determining the frequency). At the same time, your child can decide what rewards they want to cash those hard earned points in for, they even provide you predefined rewards to get you started (desert before food, game or computer time, or a trip to the mall, or staying up and extra hour, etc).
It supports multiple children, and you can even add your spouse to it, which my brother did for the fun of it! This is great because the kids are each represented by a bar graph showing points earned, and has the added benefit of creating a little competition among them - granted, a little less useful if you only have one child.
We noticed a drastic improvement in chores being completed, and most of all, an improvement in our child's appreciation of the value of things. "I want" has now become, "oh, wait, how many points was that" and they have something to work towards. It's become part of our just-before-bedtime routine, reviewing chores done in the day and awarding points.
I would recommend this to any parent that has an iPhone... it's fun, and you have little to lose trying it out.
My wife and I had this exact problem. Our daughter spent more and more time on the internet, playing games, and giving us more and more grief when asked to perform basic chores - but still "wanting" everything. I started looking around, because there must be "an app for that". And sure enough, there is an app that addresses that very challenge, and even better, its brilliant. An that app is You Rule Chores.
You Rule Chores is a wonderful, colorful and fun way to manage your child's chores, and allows them to earn points that can be redeemed for rewards. It's designed to be interactive, with your child being able to participate by earning and redeeming points.
It's simple to setup, and get started, and in less than five minutes you will have a list of chores defined that need to be completed regularly (you have complete freedom at determining the frequency). At the same time, your child can decide what rewards they want to cash those hard earned points in for, they even provide you predefined rewards to get you started (desert before food, game or computer time, or a trip to the mall, or staying up and extra hour, etc).
It supports multiple children, and you can even add your spouse to it, which my brother did for the fun of it! This is great because the kids are each represented by a bar graph showing points earned, and has the added benefit of creating a little competition among them - granted, a little less useful if you only have one child.
We noticed a drastic improvement in chores being completed, and most of all, an improvement in our child's appreciation of the value of things. "I want" has now become, "oh, wait, how many points was that" and they have something to work towards. It's become part of our just-before-bedtime routine, reviewing chores done in the day and awarding points.
I would recommend this to any parent that has an iPhone... it's fun, and you have little to lose trying it out.
Friday, March 9, 2012
iPad - Notes Plus - A must have tool!
If you are a student or employed, and you only ever buy one app for your iPad... this is the one!
Over the past year, I tried numerous note taking and handwriting applications, each of them with their own merits, but none really effective on their own in a business environment (and university/school). That is until I discovered Notes Plus.
It does everything you could possibly want from a note taking / annotating perspective, and then some. I originally planned on posting a slew of screen shots, until I went and looked for the iTunes entry and saw the screen shots there - which clearly represent what Notes Plus can do.
Whether you use it to take notes, typed (I use this extensively because I type faster than I can write) or handwritten (which is brilliantly implemented, and there is even a feature to convert handwritten notes to text), whether you need to make drawings (simple or complex), or even annotate documents (PDF for example)... it does it all... and very well.
Plus you can easily add screen clips (selected area of a web page/document) and annotate those, include voice recordings (record an entire meeting or lecture!), and organise all you notes into notebooks and folders. It's just fantastic, and best of all, it is actively being improved on - with regular releases and new features added. Furthermore, the support from the developer, Toan Nguyen, is fantastic - with same day responses on his website.
I currently have around 100 notebooks (I set one up for every customer), and have it syncing with DropBox - so I have immediate access to all my notes from my laptop - without having to do anything else.
I would highly recommend this app to anyone, it single handily changes the use case for an iPad to make it a valuable business tool (instead of a great gaming/social platform).
For more info about the app, you can visit the website : www.notesplusapp.com.
Over the past year, I tried numerous note taking and handwriting applications, each of them with their own merits, but none really effective on their own in a business environment (and university/school). That is until I discovered Notes Plus.
It does everything you could possibly want from a note taking / annotating perspective, and then some. I originally planned on posting a slew of screen shots, until I went and looked for the iTunes entry and saw the screen shots there - which clearly represent what Notes Plus can do.
Whether you use it to take notes, typed (I use this extensively because I type faster than I can write) or handwritten (which is brilliantly implemented, and there is even a feature to convert handwritten notes to text), whether you need to make drawings (simple or complex), or even annotate documents (PDF for example)... it does it all... and very well.
Plus you can easily add screen clips (selected area of a web page/document) and annotate those, include voice recordings (record an entire meeting or lecture!), and organise all you notes into notebooks and folders. It's just fantastic, and best of all, it is actively being improved on - with regular releases and new features added. Furthermore, the support from the developer, Toan Nguyen, is fantastic - with same day responses on his website.
I currently have around 100 notebooks (I set one up for every customer), and have it syncing with DropBox - so I have immediate access to all my notes from my laptop - without having to do anything else.
I would highly recommend this app to anyone, it single handily changes the use case for an iPad to make it a valuable business tool (instead of a great gaming/social platform).
For more info about the app, you can visit the website : www.notesplusapp.com.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
NetNanny - Just Say No!
If you, like me, have a child in your household that lives on her computer, this article is of great relevance to you.
My daughter is 9 years old (going on 30), and is not afraid of the internet. During her browsing of the internet, we discovered that from time to time she was being exposed to unsuitable content and at times abusing her computer time privileges (staying up until the wee hours of the morning playing online games).
To try and implement some control over what she can and can't do on the internet (and when) I went on a research expedition to try and find a software solution. I googled and googled, finding all kinds of products, but most where listed on questionable sites or did not meet my requirements. Then I remembered that several years ago there was a lot of media coverage about a product called NetNanny (or NetGranny as my daughter calls it - which turns out to be an appropriate name). Reviewing the fairly thin in content website, I concluded that this was exactly what I was looking for, I downloaded the product and started the 14 day trial - we happened to go away on holiday the very next day - and only got back with a day to go on the trial.
My initial thoughts were that the user interface seemed primitive for a product that has been around for years, but on the surface the product looked to address my requirements, so I signed up for a year subscription.
All I can say is that I really regret this, and cleverly, the company have in their terms and conditions, a clause that does not allow you to cancel this subscription... so I'm stuck with this product for the next 10 months or so.
Please do not make the same mistake. This product is atrocious, and just doesn't work as advertised. I've spent countless hours trying to fix or find workarounds to some really strange behaviours, from it blocking websites that are specifically designed for children, to the product outright ignoring web exceptions that I create.
I suspect that when ContentWatch acquired NetNanny in the late 90's, they fired all but one person to do maintenance on the product, and the product hasn't evolved beyond where it was back then. This is even more apparent since my several attempts at contacting their support resulted in no response... so I'm guessing that one person still working on this is on holiday, or just not bothered.
Everyday I have issues with the product, with my daughter not being able to access something, and with there being almost no way of tracing where the problem is. Most of the time, NetNanny doesn't even tell you it's blocking something... regardless of the settings you configure. Every single day, I eventually have to resort to disabling NetNanny for a period of time so my child can access some content, or at the very least log into her games - this completely defeats the purpose of the product for me.
Just simple things that should have been resolved 15 years ago are still an issue. For example, if you want to log onto the web interface (which is ancient to say the least), you need to log on twice. Once on ContentWatch's website, and then once into the NetNanny administration interface... why?
To illustrate, this is a landing page once you log onto the remote administration site:
This doesn't work, and turns out to be totally impractical. The time during which she is potentially allowed to access the internet does work, but limiting her to 1 hour per day usage is a nightmare. We've implemented a chore system at home when my daughter can earn additional privileges, for example, she can cash in earned points for an additional hour of internet/gaming (we use You Rule on the iPhone - it's great!). This isn't possible. I also can't setup an exception day, for example the weekends. Now, after 1 hour, it's game over. The only way to work around this is to again, disable NetNanny for a period of time (you can choose to auto-enable after a period of time : 10 minutes - 60 minutes) - just another indication that this is a poorly developed and implemented product.
I could go on for hours describing how terrible this program is, but I leave you with this piece of advice. Just say no to NetNanny! I still haven't found a good alternative, if someone out there has one, please do share - but don't waste your money on NetNanny!
My daughter is 9 years old (going on 30), and is not afraid of the internet. During her browsing of the internet, we discovered that from time to time she was being exposed to unsuitable content and at times abusing her computer time privileges (staying up until the wee hours of the morning playing online games).
To try and implement some control over what she can and can't do on the internet (and when) I went on a research expedition to try and find a software solution. I googled and googled, finding all kinds of products, but most where listed on questionable sites or did not meet my requirements. Then I remembered that several years ago there was a lot of media coverage about a product called NetNanny (or NetGranny as my daughter calls it - which turns out to be an appropriate name). Reviewing the fairly thin in content website, I concluded that this was exactly what I was looking for, I downloaded the product and started the 14 day trial - we happened to go away on holiday the very next day - and only got back with a day to go on the trial.
My initial thoughts were that the user interface seemed primitive for a product that has been around for years, but on the surface the product looked to address my requirements, so I signed up for a year subscription.
All I can say is that I really regret this, and cleverly, the company have in their terms and conditions, a clause that does not allow you to cancel this subscription... so I'm stuck with this product for the next 10 months or so.
Please do not make the same mistake. This product is atrocious, and just doesn't work as advertised. I've spent countless hours trying to fix or find workarounds to some really strange behaviours, from it blocking websites that are specifically designed for children, to the product outright ignoring web exceptions that I create.
I suspect that when ContentWatch acquired NetNanny in the late 90's, they fired all but one person to do maintenance on the product, and the product hasn't evolved beyond where it was back then. This is even more apparent since my several attempts at contacting their support resulted in no response... so I'm guessing that one person still working on this is on holiday, or just not bothered.
Everyday I have issues with the product, with my daughter not being able to access something, and with there being almost no way of tracing where the problem is. Most of the time, NetNanny doesn't even tell you it's blocking something... regardless of the settings you configure. Every single day, I eventually have to resort to disabling NetNanny for a period of time so my child can access some content, or at the very least log into her games - this completely defeats the purpose of the product for me.
Just simple things that should have been resolved 15 years ago are still an issue. For example, if you want to log onto the web interface (which is ancient to say the least), you need to log on twice. Once on ContentWatch's website, and then once into the NetNanny administration interface... why?
To illustrate, this is a landing page once you log onto the remote administration site:
Very basic, and it wouldn't be so bad if it all just worked. There is absolutely no intelligence in this product, from the administration side, right down to how the client works (the agent installed on your childs PC, or the family PC). The reports are meaningless, there is no analysis being done on the data at all:
And those features I thought were great, turned out to not work well at all. Setting up web settings (content that is blocked or allowed) is done by categories:
But again, these just don't work properly. It looks great, but then some services, like Amazon's WS service are outright blocked because a customer somewhere is using this service on a weapons related website... but they don't block just that link... they block the whole thing. Many child friendly games use this service for generic user authentication or various other bits and pieces... and that's where the headache begins. Block that content category, and my child suddenly can't logon to her game. And the best part is that NetNanny doesn't tell you about it. The game just hangs when it's loading... I spent two days figuring out I had to add allow additional content so that it would work - again, defeating the purpose.
Then last night, we implemented a limited amount of time per day on the internet using the following:
I could go on for hours describing how terrible this program is, but I leave you with this piece of advice. Just say no to NetNanny! I still haven't found a good alternative, if someone out there has one, please do share - but don't waste your money on NetNanny!
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