Josh Bancroft's TinyPodcast

Gabe Likes Cars. A Lot.

jabancroft@gmail.com (Josh Bancroft) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:06:29 -0800

Lightning McQueen is his best friend. Our house is littered with the
dang things. But we don't care - he's so cute about it! :-)

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Gabe's First "Real" Haircut - Before, During, and After

jabancroft@gmail.com (Josh Bancroft) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:53:50 -0800

He hated it while it was going on - cried, etc but he's pretty pleased
with the result. Says he's handsome for all the girls now. :-)

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Netflix Instant Streaming for PS3 Has Arrived

jabancroft@gmail.com (Josh Bancroft) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:35:00 -0800

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

jabancroft@gmail.com (Josh Bancroft) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:13:00 -0700

Hat tip to @verso on Twitter last night for pointing me to this idea (<strike>I'll find the link and post it - want to give proper credit</strike> 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

jabancroft@gmail.com (Josh Bancroft) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:11:00 -0700

Download now or listen on posterous

TinyPodcast 2009-10-28.m4a (1249 KB)

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

jabancroft@gmail.com (Josh Bancroft) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:16:00 -0700

Download now or listen on posterous

Testing Voice Memo + Posterous.m4a (1924 KB)

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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Fall Leaves in the Front Yard

jabancroft@gmail.com (Josh Bancroft) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 17:37:47 -0700

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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A Whole Shelf of iPhone Books at Powell's

jabancroft@gmail.com (Josh Bancroft) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:43:00 -0700

I remember seeing the first iPhone book on the shelf a couple of year ago. Now there are tons of them.

The weird thing is, I'm no more than mildly interested in any of them. The lead times and lack of ability to be updated make dead tree books a weird choice (for me) for information about a platform as dynamic and connected as the iPhone.

(this photo and post were created wholly on my iPhone - a few phots stiched together with Autostitch, then tweaked a little with Photoshop Mobile, and posted via email using Posterous, all while lounging in a chair at the Powell's bookstore in question. ;-)

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We need a Flickr Upload API Endpoint for Twitter Clients

jabancroft@gmail.com (Josh Bancroft) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:52:00 -0700

(This is a general plea to any developers out there inclined to build this idea - I've also posted it to the Flickr API forum here.)

If you aren't familiar with it, Tweetie 2 is a state of the art iPhone Twitter client written by Loren Brichter (@atebits on Twitter). I'm a huge
fan. :-) It supports a wide range of photo services, like Twitpic and yfrog, but it also allows for use of a custom upload service, documented here: http://developer.atebits.com/tweetie-iphone/custom-image/.

I attach photos to my tweets all the time, and I've been using twitpic, but Flickr is my home for photos online, and it's really bugged me to have to put photos in another service, when I'd really just like to keep them all in Flickr.

What I'd *love* to see is an API upload endpoint (as documented at http://developer.atebits.com/tweetie-iphone/custom-image/) that would allow users to upload a photo directly from a Twitter client like Tweetie 2 to Flickr, which then returned a flic.kr short URL for the photo (like when you tweet an existing photo from Flickr).

If such a thing existed, my online photosharing life would be *vastly* improved, the intertubes would achieve a greater state of harmony, and I'm sure a ton of people would be happier. :-)

I realize it's not a super simple thing to enable (authentication would seem to be the biggest hurdle, but something like OAuth should help), but it would be *awesome*. There are already third party services that are allowing this. http://gdzl.la is one I tested just this morning - it works, but I'd rather have a flic.kr short URL, not theirs, in my tweets. Call it Flickr Pride. :-) And I'd also rather not share my Twitter login with a 3rd party service, which is just bad security practice.

So, what do you think? I'm a lousy coder, or I'd try to do this myself. Who wants to score the appreciation and adoration of the people at the intersection of Flickr and Twitter, and build this amazingly great service? :-)

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Layar Augmented Reality App Out For iPhone, and it's Free. And Awesome.

jabancroft@gmail.com (Josh Bancroft) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:05:26 -0700

I've been waiting for this one for a long time, ever since I read
about it on other platforms (like Android), and saw it demoed at
Gnomedex 9 (thanks Beth Goza! :-)

The coolest thing I've seen in Layar in my first few minutes of
playing with it is the number of data layers you can overlay on your
reality - Wikipedia, Panoramio, Flickr, and a whole lot more.

I'll need more time to play with it, but so far, Layar is the
augmented reality iPhone app to beat. And best if all, it's free.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Is that Wikipedia in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

jabancroft@gmail.com (Josh Bancroft) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:25:00 -0700

OpenMoko offline reader puts Wikipedia in your pocket - Ars Technica

Back in the day, I loaded the entire text contents of Wikipedia (which at the time could fit in a 1GB SQL dump file on an SD card) into HanDBase on my old iPAQ Pocket PC, just so I could walk around and say that I had the entire contents of Wikipedia in my pocket. That pickup line didn't work then, and I doubt it will work now.

Today, I already have one of these. It's called my iPhone. If I'm somewhere I don't have connectivity, I have bigger problems than not being able to get to Wikipedia. I need connectivity like I need air! :-)

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Playing Around with Google Wave on the iPhone

jabancroft@gmail.com (Josh Bancroft) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:40:07 -0700

Got my invite tonight, and had my first real Google Wave, um... Wave?
Conversation? Mind meld? What *will* we call these? Anyway, Frederic
Lardinois and I were messing around with it on the desktop, then
switched to trying out the mobile version on iPhones.

There's a warning that your browser isn't supported, but you can "try
it at your own peril". The mobile version renders fine. I could see
Frederic typing in real time, exactly the same as the desktop browser
(I held them side by side). And I could only see the Google Map after
he was done with it (not in real time).

It has some quirks. Typing doesn't appear instantly to other
participants (and I had some trouble getting it to le me type at all
at first). The popup menu to reply, edit, etc. appears way at the top
of the page, so you have to scroll all the way up to it, then back
down to where you were. You can definitely tell why they're not
officially supporting it yet, but the potential is obvious, and it's
clear that modern mobile browsers like Mobile Safari and Android's
version of Chrome were part of the plan from the beginning.

This isn't meant to be any kind of formal review, just some
impressions after my first 20 minutes playing with Wave. There's *SO*
much here I need to learn - robots, gadgets, plugins, keyboard
shortcuts, etc. Bit I'm stoked to have such a rich, exciting new
technology to to wrap my head around. :-)

Oh, and I don't have the magical ability to grant you an invite to get
in. Sorry! From what I understand, invites shoul be going out soon, so
hang in there.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Black on Black

jabancroft@gmail.com (Josh Bancroft) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 10:41:52 -0700

Black lacquer table at Ikea, pic of Rachel's iPhone taken with Chase
Jarvis' Best Camera app on mine.

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Bedtime Reading

jabancroft@gmail.com (Josh Bancroft) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:30:00 -0700

Also, playing around with Chase Jarvis's Best Camera iPhone app. :-)

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What kind of bird is this?

jabancroft@gmail.com (Josh Bancroft) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:29:15 -0700

Take in Hillsboro, OR. And yes, it's a super crop of a picture taken at 55mm on a Canon T1i. It was rather far away. :-)

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Passing On My Gamer Legacy

jabancroft@gmail.com (Josh Bancroft) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 17:02:55 -0700

They're quite fond of Little Big Planet, Burnout Paradise, and Noby Noby Boy.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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iPhone OS 3.1 App Store Genius Screenshots

jabancroft@gmail.com (Josh Bancroft) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:12:00 -0700

Haven't had time to check out the recommendations yet, to see if they're any good - I imagine the quality will improve over time, like Genius for songs.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Too Many Posting Options?

jabancroft@gmail.com (Josh Bancroft) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:47:41 -0700

First of all, my apologies to those who see this twice via my feed. Posterous is still posting duplicates to my blog, and I don't know why.

A fee posts ago, I wrote about how the combination of Posterous and fast two thumb iPhone typing was leading me to post more. Then I proceeded to go a few days without posting anything.

I thought about it, and it wasn't that there weren't things I wanted to write about - our first eggs from Rachel's hens, first day of 1st grade for Emma, some cool iPhone apps I've been playing with. I have plenty of stuff I want to post.

I realized that I feel a bit paralyzed by all the posting options that are available.

Posterous, Pixelpipe, Flickr, Friendfeed, etc. They all do roughly the same thing - let me post once to multiple destinations. The problem is that I haven't worked out the perfct plumbing flow for all my Internet Tubes. I need to find a way to get my words, pictures, and videos to all the places I want them, without duplication, and as of now, there are still some gaps.

For example, Posterous would be perfect, except it doesn't embed playable video on my blog (it turns into a download link), and doesn't support blip.tv for sideloading video (I host most of my video there, with Flickr, Youtube, and the like as secondaries/backups).

I'm no complaining. I love noodling on this stuff to try and achieve the perfect flow. It's not there yet, but it *SO* close! :-)

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The Moon and Jupiter Above the Trees

jabancroft@gmail.com (Josh Bancroft) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 10:56:46 -0700

I was at work late last night, and the moon and clouds were just gorgeous when I came out into the empty parking lot. Jupiter (I think) was really bright, too, next to the moon. I snapped some shots, and this one came out pretty well. Shot on a Canon T1i, braced on a sign, everything auto, because I'm a photography poser. :-)

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One Reason I'm Posting More - I Finally Learned to Two Finger iPhone Type

jabancroft@gmail.com (Josh Bancroft) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:45:07 -0700

I've been posting a lot more on my blog than I have in a long time. Part of the reason for it had been to try out Posterous (write once, email, publish in many places). But there's a bigger underlying reason that at least deserves a mention.

After 2+ years, I finally made myself learn how to type with two fingers on my iPhone.

You all know how much I rely on my iPhone for everyday connected life. There's a reason I call it my prosthetic brain. An when the iPhone first launched, Steve himself, foreseeing the complaints people would have about the lack if a physical keyboard, went to lengths to teach us how to get used to the iPhone's on screen keys. Trust the software. Type full words or sentences. Start using one finger.

For whatever reason, I have always been an index finger iPhone typist. Having had a BlackBerry, I was familiar with the two thumb method, but every time I tried it on my iPhone, it was too error prone. My thumbpads felt too big. I made too many mistakes. Progress was slow and difficult, so I always switched back to the one finger method at which I had become quite proficient.

So why did I force myself to learn two thumb iPhone typing? The reason is kind of embarrassing. My wife, Rachel, has had an iPhone for quite a while, an is what I'd consider a more "normal" user than I am (e.g. she doesn't freak out if she's more than a few feet away from her iPhone). One day, I noticed her typing with two thumbs. I had taught her according to the precepts of Steve - start out with one finger, two thumbs at first is too frustrating. But where I had stagnated in One Finger Village, Rachel had moved, all on her own, into Two Thumb City.

When I thought about it, there was no reason other than inertia and laziness on my part that kept me from the two thumb method. So I made myself practice. A lot. I don't quite feel completely proficient yet, and I make a LOT of mistakes still, but I definitely type faster than I did before.

So instead of limiting myself to short tweets and emails, longer portions of text (like this post) no longer seem so daunting, and I'll likely continue to post more and longer stuff from my iPhone.

What about you? Do you still type with one finger on your iPhone? Or did you jump right in to the two finger method?

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