The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
ItÕs official. My wife is spoiled. No, not really, but she now does have the newest computer in our house, having just bought a MacBook Air. It is a very cool machine. Very, very slim and light, it feels almost like it might flex in your hands. This is the ultimate travelling machine. I am jealous, but itÕs okay because I also got a new toy, an iPod touch. But since IÕve got it, I think IÕve only listened to music on it for a few hours from one plane to another. What I have done is managed to spend a bunch of money on turning it into a cool little Internet device. ItÕs actually kind of a rip-off. I just bought the machine, it had the latest software installed on it, but still, three weeks later I had to pay another 10 dollars to upgrade the operating system so I could install all of the widgets on it from the app store. But it was worth it. So the story behind this is simple. Apple decided that all of the applications that they allow people to download and buy for the iPhone should be made available for iPod owners as well. But to make that possible, you need to upgrade your playerÕs operating system. Ten dollars that you can charge to your iTunes account allows you to download several hundred widgets. Some of these you have to buy for a few dollars, while many of them are free, but either way, there are some great useful little applications that you can get. Being an astronomy nut, I was able to find a full astronomy suite that I could install and then take it with me when I go out with my telescope. I also found a full Roman Catholic calendar and a few games as well. On top of finding new ways for me to spend money, Apple has really hit one out of the park with this idea. It all comes from the iPhone and everything it makes possible. An example. Last week I was out on a boat cruise in Boston harbour. Coming upon an old stone fort, I asked a few people if they knew the name of it. When no one did, I happened to mention it to one more person. He said he didnÕt know either but that he could quickly find out. Pulling out his phone, he sent a text message to chacha.com asking for the name of the fort in Boston harbour. He then slipped his phone back into his pocket. About two minutes later it rang, and upon pulling it out he had an answer from chacha. Ends up that with this service, a real person gets your message on the other end and searches online looking for the answer. They send it to you, along with the link telling where they found it. All of this for the price of a standard text message. It also ends up that you can sign yourself up for the service to become a question answer person. Any free time you have, sitting at home in the evenings, you can have messages directed your way where you can make the princely sum of 20 cents for each answer. The other widget someone had to show me was shazam. This was the coolest single little application IÕve seen in a long time. The guy who showed it to me walked me up to the speakers that were blasting music on the boat cruise and simply held his iPhone up. After a few seconds, it said it was loading and then took an additional thirty seconds while it loaded. At the end of all of this, the phone displayed the name of the song, the artist and displayed a picture of the original CD cover. Of course being an Apple product, it also offered the song for download on iTunes. When I think of all of the times IÕve been somewhere and wished I had known the name of a song I can see how this free application will be loved by thousands of people. While I donÕt have an iPhone, I am amazed by the number of small applications that are available for my iPod. It has turned it into so much more than a music player. It really turns it into an information source that I can keep in my pocket, carry around all day and just use it when I need to know something. This idea of having information on demand in your pocket really changes things. Need a quick answer to almost anything? You can get it wherever you go. Now I just need to use it to listen to some music. ([email protected]) Tech Notes runs Mondays.
