Here's the first of what I hope will be a series of audio posts from the Conference on World Affairs. It's an annual conference at the University of Colorado at Boulder which brings together about 100 people from all professional disciplines to talk about Various Issues Of Interest.

Naturally, they put me on the panels about geeky stuff. I'm probably not the best person to offer ideas on how to fix the Libya situation.

Some necessary background: this conference is like the Food Network's "Chopped", except the ingredients are ideas. I don't know what I'll be talking about until two weeks before the conference, when the schedule is posted. And the title is all I have to go on. "Your ingredients are: Social media; centralized monopolization of communication; and injustice. You have ten minutes. You may begin."

You can try to write up a formal talk, but the only preparation that really works is to arrive at the session with just a set of signposts that I want to follow and points I want to make. These talks of mine are about 50% off the top of my head. Sometimes, I'll be speaking last on the panel and I'll throw out everything I'd planned because the other three speakers took the topic in a much more interesting direction than anything I'd considered.

So, no...these are never the most polished talks I give over the course of the year. But it's a fun -- and often humbling -- challenge and I keep coming back for more every year.

This was recorded on my iPhone and the only edits I've made were to clip out PA feedback or any other kinds of noises that might me medically-incompatible for anybody listeniing on earbuds.

Visit the CWA's site for more information, and a list of the other folks who spoke this year. 

CoWA_2011_-_The_Wild,_Wild_Web_-_We_Are_All_Outlaws_Online_.mp3 Listen on Posterous

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Hard_Times.m4a Listen on Posterous

And by "perform in the alley" I of course mean...well anyway.

I have no band. I have no talent. I don't even have this iPad. It's a loaner. But I'm posting this to give a sense of how great the software and the hardware is.

It's got a ukulele track, a lead vocal track and two backup vocal tracks, all performed by me (recorded with a Blue Yeti USB mic plugged into the iPad 2 with the Camera Connection Kit's USB adapter, via a USB hub for microphone power). Plus a Smart Bass and a Smart Drumkit performed by the iPad.

Hard Times by Andy Ihnatko is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

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Edit:

Posterous seems to have screwed up the audio upload. Here's a link to the same audio, hosted on SoundCloud:

iPad USB Audio demos by Ihnatko

Well, my iPad Camera Connection Kit came in this morning. And I wouldn't have believed it, but yes indeedy: if you plug (almost) any USB audio device into the iPad Camera Connection Kit's USB adapter, you can use it with the iPad! Witness a little burst of live music:

iPad Audio Uke Demo via Camera Connection Kit.mp3 Listen on Posterous

...Followed by about 7 minutes of "Holy jumping prophets on a unicycle!" commentary:

iPad Audio via Camera Connection Kit.mp3 Listen on Posterous

...All recorded on my $150 Blue Yeti USB microphone.

Kudos to Glenn Fleishman over at TidBITS for being the first to point this out. I'd like to think it would have occurred to me to try this...but I'm pleased that none of us will ever know how long that would have taken. :)

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-- A.

Sent from my iPhone

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Brunching at Yer Man's Irish Pub in Glendale, NY. I'm told that this place (in its 1990's incarnation) was the establishing shot for the neigborhood bar in "The King Of Queens."

Sent from my iPhone

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-- A.

Sent from my iPhone

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http://bit.ly/4dS2fC

My verdict? I liked it a lot. It's not a great navigation app, but it's a good one. And as a free download or an app that comes pre-installed on your phone, it defines the minimum number of features and minimum level of usability that all commercial GPS systems must have from this point onward. Even if you don't use it yourself, you'll benefit from its presence in the marketplace.

(Assuming that Google Maps Navigation doesn't drive all commercial GPS apps out of business. Which it won't.)

My biggest complaint about the app is the voice it uses for the turn-by-turn directions. It's utterly horrifying. It's flat and robotic and it mispronounces things like crazy. I quickly went from "what was that?" to "what the **** was that?!?" and often, I had to look at the screen to find out just to figure out what my next turn was supposed to be.

Worst, it's painful to listen to. An hour or two of driving actually left me with a headache. No adjustment of volume in the Droid phone or my car stereo could help this voice any. The only solution was to turn the damned feature off completely.

It's not really the Google Nav team's fault. It relies on the built-in speech synthesis of the handset the app is running on. And apparently, whoever did the speech system of the Android 2.0 OS never bothered to actually listen to its output.

("Why bother?" he said, tapping an enormous spreadsheet with one hand while gesturing towards the Ph.D on his wall with the other. "The math says that this voice sounds exactly like Kathleen Turner in 'Romancing The Stone'. You can't argue with numbers.")

It ignores a crucial lesson of software and hardware design. The closer a feature is to the user, the more important it is. As the developer of a new word processor, you might be very proud of a feature that highlights phrases like "...you lying, two-faced, pigeon-toed sock-knocking dwit-wad" and suggests softer language. But it shouldn't be buried inside a pane inside a dialog under the "tools" menu. Unless there's a nice button in the toolbar labeled "Extend Career..." your work was a complete waste of time.

The speech system in Google Maps Navigation is technically more informative than that of my favorite iPhone app, Motion-X GPS. Motion-X will tell you "Turn right in 200 feet." Google Nav says "In 200 feet, turn right onto Washington Street."

Ah, but it'll be "Washing-STONE Street." And I probably won't even hear it because I would have turned the sound off to prevent me from twisting the steering wheel and crashing into the closest bridge abutment. An expensive move, but far less painful than listening to Google Nav's voice.

Motion-X is sweet, soothing, mellifluous.

"Thank you, Magic Voice," I say, after a contented little sigh.

On paper, it's inferior. But in practice, it's absolutely better than Google Nav. It's a primary means of interaction between the software and the user. It's an area in which "limited features DONE EXACTLY RIGHT" is better than "more features, executed in a half-assed manner."

I'm catching up on Project Runway as I write this. I know that I would pay good money for a Tim Gunn GPS voice module. When you're late for an appointment and tearing though a complex tangle of streets you've never seen before, what you want most of all is something that's supportive, encouraging, optimistic, and helpful. That's Tim Gunn, down to the leather soles of his simple but stylish shoes.

Dinnnng!

"I love the fact that you're a risk-taker. But you've sort of lost me here. Can I offer some advice, which you're free to ignore? I'd proceed 200 feet, then take a right onto Moody Street. ...All right? I'll let you get to it. I have _complete_ confidence in you..."

Yes, these lines were all taken verbatim from the past ten minutes of the show.

If Tim Gunn can't record a custom voice for my GPS app, can I at least pay him a retainer to simply call me every week on Deadline Day, and ask me how the work is going?

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-- A.

Sent from my iPhone

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Not much to do while donating platelets. No pain or discomfort. Occasionally the machine inflatestge blue rubber bulb to signal that it wants you to squeeze.

Otherwise, you just relax and entertain yourself. There's a DVD player and a movie library. I bring a notebook, a media library, and my MiFi.

-- A.

Sent from my iPhone

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-- A.

Sent from my iPhone

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This news came from a friend during dinner. And no, in fact, I _didn't_ know.

http://www.atebits.com/tweetie-iphone/

Sometime during my past two years on Twitter, the service transitioned from Just Another Trendy Social Media Waste Of Time to A Fun Way To Keep Up With Friends to Something Useful to An Important Part Of My Day.

At minimum, I enjoy seeing photos of a friend's Halloween costume. And on weeks like this one, when I was posting lots of major pieces to the Sun-Times, it's a big part of my job. I and my editor check things carefully but as always, Twitter is a good copy editor and if any little bugs crept through the firewall (a bad link, an incomplete sentence) I'll know about it inside of twenty minutes and we can apply a fix.

I also regularly search for references to my name. It's not an ego thing. After I post a 5,000-word review of a major new product, I check Twitter in the same way that the director, writer and producer of a new musical go to Sardis after opening night and wait for the morning papers to arrive. It's the only way to find out how the piece "played." I did a major roundup of iPhone GPS software that I'm mighty proud of. But I got so many comments asking "What about Navigon?" that I've downloaded this app and will be posting an update with my opinions.

Tweetie is my favorite iPhone Twitter client. It's hands-down the most muscular Twitter app for the iPhone. When I need it to be simple, it's simple. And when I unholster my iPhone with a sense of Destiny, I can stride the Twitter landscape akin to a colossus.

Version 2.0 is a true marvel. It's become even more of a power tool. Just as nice as its abilities to manage and observe many accounts and goals -- check out the feature list at the developer site; it's a long one -- it features the sort of slick and clever interface ideas that I associate with iPhone software.

How do you refresh the list? Pop up a menu? Click a "Refresh" button?

Nope: scroll to the very top of the list. The topmost item is connected to the top of the screen with a rubber band. Pull it down, let it "snap" back up, and the app touches base with Twitter.com and refreshes the list. Brilliant!

How the bloody hell was I unaware of this update? It's been out for three weeks!

Simple: the creators of Tweetie -- heartless capitalists who must be acknowledged as the hated oppressors of the freedom-loving proletariat -- felt that it wouldn't be at all out of line to charge $2.99 for this update.

They're not wrong. But the iTunes App Store doesn't have any sort of built-in mechanism for "paid" app upgrades. If Atebits had given it away for free and kept the same "product SKU" so to speak, then your iPhone and iTunes would have told me that there was a new edition available, and it would have invited me to download it for free. The developer could only get their $2.99 out of me by releasing Tweetie 2.0 as a new product.

Hmm. There must be a better way. Desktop apps do a version check at startup. If you're interested in hearing about the new version, you go to a website and get the sales pitch.

This friend of mine who alerted me to 2.0's existence is an app developer. He tells me that this sort of behavior isn't permitted by Apple. I might be misremembering his explanation, but it has to do with a prohibition about products that advertise other products.

I must learn about this. Apple's App Approvals process is indeed the great and powerful Wizard of Oz. It makes its pronouncements in the form of a huge green floating head. In truth, it's just some anonymous mousy-looking dude behind a curtain. But it's hard to argue against a huge green floating head.

In any event> Yay, Tweetie 2.0. I stopped using my iPhone for a whole week while I deep-tested the new Motorola Droid phone and the Android 2.0 mobile OS. Tweetie 2 is a reminder of why I couldn't be happy with anything less than an iPhone.

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Nonetheless, it's a busy and hectic morning. I keep needing to break away from the manuscript to check up on silly little details.

"Is it 'AppleTV' or 'AppleTV'?" (Space between, yes.)

"'iPod HiFi' or 'Hi-Fi'?" (I need to insert hyphens.)

"What was the name of the CD player that Apple once sold? AppleCD, wasn't it?" (No, "Apple PowerCD.")

Mornings like this put me in a mood of...not Existential Despair. But Spiritual Irkiness.

"Why do I bother, o Lord?" I ask.

(Buster, my life-sized stuffed Dalmatian doll, sits in for God, as usual. He is stoic and silent.)

"Honestly. Does anybody even care?" I sigh. "What's the point of what I do all day?"

And then my MacBook goes "blnnnng!" and I tab over to see if my editor is checking in on the manuscript.

It is an email from a reader.

He has sent me a photo of Carrie Fisher and her double on the set of "Return Of The Jedi," sunbathing in their Slave Leia costumes on Jabba's sandbarge.

Buster the Dalmatian. He is the lamp unto my feet. I return to my labors, my burdens lifted, knowing full well just why I care so damned much about my readers.

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"I'll take another drive with Google Nav," thought I. "I'll set up my window cam mount so my review can contain vid of the app in action."

Witness the result. Before I've even pulled out if the driveway. And it won't relaunch, and even rebooting the phone doesn't help. Google Maps is now a pretty icon on this Droid and nothing more.

I'm sure this won't come up in the review...

-- A.

Sent from my (fully-armed and operational) iPhone

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I'm spending the whole week using a Droid as my primary phone. Before I review it I want to do a full immersion. So I'm leaving my iPhone in my pocket. I only take it out for incoming calls and when I need to compare something to the Droid.

Ah: but my iPhone spends a lot of time in it's car cradle. It's my music player and my GPS.

They didn't send me a car kit so I had to improvise. This is an old GPS mount with the GPS bit removed and replaced with a pad of Velcro. And that's the micro-USB cable from my Kindle, providing power.

Well, it works! I've been driving with it for two days now.

Velcro: it's like duct tape for the indecisive.

Sent from my iPhone. Because obviously I couldn't take a photo of the Droid WITH the Droid, could I?

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-- A.

Sent from my iPhone

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Left to right: Kodak Zi8, Flip Ultra HD, Creative Vado HD.

-- A.

Sent from my iPhone

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IMG_2477.MOV Watch on Posterous

-- A.

Sent from my iPhone

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Just finished a briefing with Sony about their new Reader editions. In the background you see the Touch and two colors of the Pocket edition.

In the foreground you see the upcoming "Daily," due in December. It's like a Touch with a longer screen and 3G (with the usual "free national access via AT&T").

And it includes additional features that Sony wasn't ready to talk about yet.

Though the name invites speculation. Oh, and I noticed that the Daily had an "Applications" button that wasn't to be found on the Touch. Tapping it led to an empty page.

"Real" reviews will come later (I leave this briefing with two Readers in my satchel). For now, an hour of conversation leaves me feeling very good about Sony's attitude: they seem committed to supporting open content and open bookstores. A Reader will read any Word doc, any PDF, any ePub...and even any storebought or library ebook in ePub format with Adobe ACS4 DRM.

My big worry is that publishers will drive consumers to piracy via multiple incompatible DRM systems. I think Sony's making a smart play by keeping their Readers as agnostic as possible.

An aside, in parting: I always seem to favor religious terms to describe device independence. I tapped "Agnostic," then considered changing it to "Ecumenical" and then, flustered for a third option, I even considered "Catholic."

I defend each of these choices on the basis that they each contain fewer syllables than "Device-Independent."

(Plus: it's clearly divine ordinance.)

Sent from my iPhone

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