Fresh from Alaska.org is a shiny new Alaska iPhone app for your next visit to the 49th State! This is without a doubt the most featured rich iPhone app dedicated to the Alaska experience! There are loads of features packed into this app, but the most striking of all is the price…it’s FREE!
Download the Alaska App via iTunes.

So, what can this app do?

GPS Location Aware Guide & Map
My vote for the coolest feature has to be the built-in map that recognizes your location via GPS then displays cool sightseeing opportunities, places to eat and things to do nearby. It’s claimed to include more than 30,000 hand-picked locations to choose from all around Alaska. Pretty cool! My personal experience showed hundreds of options all around the Anchorage to Eklutna areas. For a local, this feature is actually pretty slick…I bet you’ll find a park nearby that you never knew about!

Audio Tours
If you’re looking for some historical background or just curious about places, buildings and wildlife in the area – the audio tours are a neat addition for the tourists. (Some locals could learn a thing or two also!)

Great Videos
Alaska Channel (Alaska.org) is already well known for their travel videos. Basically you get high quality previews of Alaskan scenery in the palm of your hand. Great eye candy.

The Alaska Postcard
For travelers and locals alike, the Alaska postcard feature built into this app is pretty cool. Basically you can take a photo with your iPhone and attach it to a cool looking template that resembles an old school postcard. Type in a message and send it to friends, family and jealous coworkers. If the recipient has a somewhat modern email application, they’ll get a really gorgeous email with your photo (theoretically taken in Alaska). Nicely integrated and great feature targeted primarily at Alaska visitors.

The Library and Ask Bob
These features are really aimed at people simply trying find out more things to do as a tourist or looking for the inside scoop on traveling around Alaska. There’s a solid list of categories to choose from in the Library. If you’re looking for a personal travel guide just Ask Bob!

Conclusion (at least for now)
I’ve only had the app installed for a few hours, but I can tell you that this is definitely an impressive effort – not just for Alaska, but for ANY free iPhone app. Kudos to the developers and to Alaska.org for putting together such a great application! It was definitely a hefty download at more than 260MB, but for what it can do I am not surprised at the file size. Go check it out!   Download the Alaska App via iTunes.

/kevin

Another cool idea from Quirky is the new Pivot Power, a clever “twist” on flexible power outlets. I can definitely see the application for this in my home and office. It’s amazing how many outlets go unused due to awkward AC/DC converters and ridiculously large chargers for cell phones, etc.

At the time of this writing, the Pivot Power is in the Pre-sale (“Commitment”) phase with a price of $25. Visit Quirky.com for more!

It’s not very often I stumble upon a press release, new product or demo video that truly rattles my cage. What you see in this demo of Time Magazine’s new tablet application is a glimpse of what the future of news and media will look like for the foreseeable future. Watch the video after the jump.

For the first time in a long time – I’m blown away. The copycats will be fast on the heels of this app, and I believe that’s a good thing. Funny…maybe Steve Jobs did know something about the future.

Here’s a “making of” video which demonstrates the app on the Apple Ipad.

1. Time Magazine App | app.time.com
2. Get an iPad locally | www.machaus.net

Here’s what it looks like when you land on soft ground in a 1954 Cessna 180. Not pretty.

I saw this on the airfield a few days ago and more or less forgot about it, until I came across the story posted online. More about what happened can be found on the Alaska Bush Pilot Blog at Alaska Dispatch.

P.S. I was not involved in the crash at all. Just sharing what I saw!

Every once in a while I am reminded how Alaska is such a unique place. While I’m certain it’s not all “that” unique to have coupons for firearm purchases, I’m guessing you won’t see this same circular floating around the Seattle or Portland area Fred Meyer stores.

My favorite part of these coupons is the limitations. For rifles and shotguns, Limit 4 per customer and Limit 2 for all handguns $299.99 and up! Maybe they’re trying to tell us something…should I be stocking up on my firearms? Haha. Anyway, just a funny and random thing that I felt would be fun to share.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

For the record, I never drank coffee until my mid-20s – right about the time I took a full-time job as a new media (web designer) director at Internet Alaska (circa 1997). Through my coworkers, I was fortunate to have been introduced to one of Alaska’s better coffee houses, Kaladi Brothers. My drink of choice at the time was a calorie laden and chocked full of chocolate mocha. This led to a dangerous and expensive habit of 2-3 mochas per day. Several years later, I had developed a taste for coffee – just the coffee. Thus began my movement to drink only Americanos. (The fact that Kaladi then sold Americanos for $1 was also a major contributor.)

Fast forwarding through many years of coffee drinking, experimentation with brewing at home and even a corporate job at Starbucks Coffee – I have truly tried and tested nearly every coffee out there (at least from Seattle Portland to Fairbanks Nome). I’ll just skip to the punchline, the best coffee in Alaska is Raven’s Brew Coffee. Now, let me explain why and how I came to this conclusion…

1. Taste, consistency and freshness. Taste is a subjective topic, but in my mind there is no other coffee in Alaska (or Seattle) that compares. I have some favorite blends, but most importantly – I have NEVER had a bad cup of Raven’s Brew coffee. Even with my subpar Krups espresso machine (at least 8 years old now), Raven’s Brew coffee always produces a rich, smooth and crema topped shot of espresso. Never bitter, burnt or thin.
2. It is roasted locally. Okay, sure there are other roasters in Alaska including some great companies like Kaladi Brothers and Heritage Coffee. Raven’s Brew has three roasting facilities in USA: Anchorage, Ketchikan and Tumwater (Washington). If you are even remotely aware of the value of fresh roasted coffee you should already know why buying a pound of name brand coffee Peet’s, Starbucks, Kiva, etc. from the grocery cannot even compare to the locally roasted bean.
3. Great people, great company. I don’t know all the people at Raven’s Brew, but I have worked with the Anchorage roasting crew on some promotional projects. Their passion is very simple: Make the best coffee. I’ve often asked them about opening their own cafe’s, which is repeatedly met with the concern that running a cafe would detract from their core mission of coffee roasting. From my personal observation: They really do care about roasting, it’s their #1 mission and it shows in the final product.

I could go on and on about the taste, quality and freshness – but I will spare you the details. In short, Raven’s Brew has been on my favorite coffee list for at least the last 5 years. Not to be forgotten, many of Raven’s Brew beans are organic! I still try other beans from time to time and reluctantly drink other brands while traveling, but have yet to find any bean that surpasses the sheer drinkability of Raven’s Brew.

Now, thanks to this lengthy rambling about my favorite coffee – my cup of Three Peckered Billy Goat® is at room temperature (and actually still tastes great). So, in celebration of this late spring snowy day – I’m off to pull another shot.

(Disclaimer: My last business did some marketing exchange with Raven’s Brew – but I’ve never been paid to promote them and I am most certainly am not being paid for this article.)

A short video produced to introduce Anchorage citizens to the concept of working to bring Google Fiber to our city. Visit www.googifiak.com for more about the Anchorage Google Fiber bid. Hurry, we need you to nominate Anchorage before March 26th!

It’s T-minus 20 days to the application deadline and Anchorage needs to get fired up (or maybe lit up) about the Google Fiber Initiative! If you’re not familiar with this “contest”, let me explain. Google is planning to build out some of the fastest Internet connections in the U.S.A. – and all we have to do is let them know WE WANT FASTER SPEEDS in Anchorage.

Do this first.

Go now to Google’s page and fill out this form to nominate Anchorage!

What would you do with 1 Gigabit Internet?

Let’s put it this way, 1 Gigabit is more than 100x faster than just about anything you can buy today in Anchorage. That kind of performance can open up a whole new world of opportunities, business, creativity and entertainment options we only dream about today here in Anchorage.

Some examples:

• Download full length HD movies in less than 10 minutes.
• Participate in real-time 3D training college courses from home.
• Stay in touch with loved ones around the world in high quality video chats.
• Launch a new online business right here (no need to move Outside).
• Watch the Iditarod Insider online (okay, this one is link bait I admit it).
• No more lag – rejoice gamers!

You have support.

The City of Anchorage, the Mayor and loads of other community members are working to launch a site, campaign and let everyone know about the Google Fiber Initiative. Right now, the website www.googifiak.com is up in rough form and has the basic information about the initiative. The important thing to note is that the Municipality is working hard to present a formal bid (RFI) for Anchorage. With some luck, good planning, word of mouth and YOUR support (you did Nominate Anchorage already, right?) – we will Googifi Anchorage!

More choice, faster speeds and price competition.

Not to be forgotten.. there’s more to this than just bringing a big fat Google fiber connection to Anchorage. There’s a skunkworks team of local nerds, geeks and engineers that are proposing to build out an open access wireless or WiFi option for Anchorage residents (hence the “ifi” in Googifi Anchorage). The bottom line goal for this combination of public, private and individual project will be to:

• Performance: 100x or more than the speeds we have today
• Competition: A new option for Internet in Anchorage
• Price: Get more for less
• Options: How about a city wide roaming WiFi with gigabit speed?

Get involved.

• First, tell everyone!
• Blog about it.
• Make a YouTube video about what you would do with 1 gigabit internet!
• Join the Facebook group.
• Call your Mom, she would love to hear from you anyway.

Hurry the Deadline is March 26th!

Miracles never cease! After nearly two years of whining, stamping my feet and having near conniptions – MTA has introduced new internet plans that have dropped my ISP costs by $40 per month. Finally!

MTA’s Big Gig internet plans are marketed as the answer to the “power users” that need more data usage in addition to having fast speeds. While I agree there are probably quite a few folks who do nothing but email and browse the web – the idea that “power users” are somehow a special class of internet citizen is really becoming an outdated notion. Facts are, nearly everyone today is uploading images to Flickr, posting videos on YouTube, watching shows on Hulu, renting Netflix or playing online games with their XBOX 360. All of us are now “power users”, so it’s probably a wise move for MTA to respond to this demand now – before everyone becomes a whining noise maker like me.

While this is generally great news, my exuberance for this new plan is limited to the fact that I am saving forty dollars a month. It’s still a sad state of affairs being on the edge of the broadband world. I’m sure there are many who have it worse, but I can’t believe that today, in 2010, that we are still paying more than $100 for 768K DSL service. I won’t go on about the state of affairs regarding Alaska internet options – you can check out my previous posts.

So, the short story.
Thank you MTA for taking steps in the right direction…

Just a quick look at one of the products available for pre-order at Quirky. Originally pitched as a “keyboard garage” with a few USB ports, the final design is almost exactly that – plus it has 6 USB ports on the front!  I can’t wait to get mine and replace the hideous USB hub cluttering up my desktop.

Granted, you can pickup a USB hub for less than $20 in some cases, but I haven’t seen anything as cleanly designed, doubles as a nice place to park your keyboard and potentially a nice monitor stand. For example, check out these innovative (albeit) fugly models by Belkin. Functional, yes. Pretty, no. The Quirky spacebar is obviously targeted at the Apple keyboard and Mac fanboys, but that’s okay with me. Haha!

At the time of this writing, the spacebar is nearing the end of it’s Pre-sale (“Commitment”) phase with a price of $42.

Go place your commitment by joining Quirky (use my referral URL) http://www.quirky.com/?r=318c27fe3acbde5a0e4af0b4ae291a68 and pick up the spacebar or maybe the newly released PenZen desktop “organizer”. I can’t wait to see the spacebar in the wild (and on my desk).

Once I get it, I’ll be sure to post a full review!

-Kevin