Droid: First Impressions

Yesterday I traveled to Best Buy on Sagamore Parkway in Lafayette and picked up the Droid phone I had previously preordered. I arrived 12 minutes before my appointment time, which had no meaning, and after a couple minutes wait” Billy” waited on me. Thirty-six minutes later I walked out, with a Droid phone set up on a 450 minutes call, and unlimited email and web access at $79.++ per month. In the process, I probably hit the card reader dealy ten times, had a credit check run on me, and I’m still checking to see if my temperature was taken rectally. Just about everything else was checked one way or another.

About the phone. Can’t tell you much. Farms have trees that shed leaves in the fall. We have massive amounts of trees that have laid in some places one foot layers of leaves. Yesterday I spent the day fighting my cold and fighting leaves with a blower and a Trac-Vac sucking behind our John Deer 318 mower. This much I can share with readers of this blog.

1. It’s going to take me some getting used to the keyboard rather than iPhones interface. The keys are small and sensitive.

2. The first thing I was asked upon booting up the Droid was to enter my Google account info. I have numbers and characters in my password. I had to read the instructions to learn that the “ALT” key turns on access to numbers etc. Avid texters probably already know this.

3. Setting up access to my home wireless was just a matter of tapping the Settings button, selecting one of our two wirless networks, and bingo, its on wireless.

4. There does appear to be a Verizon 3G signal available in our gravel-road remote location.

5. I’ve got lots to learn about the Droid. More later.

BTW, the location of Apps for Android-based phones is here:

Hank

Have A Happy Friday: They are – Granny and GGGSon

How old? Try in eighties, and great-great-grandson. what a couple! Thanks to my BIL for this one. Boogie on.   Hank

The Blind Leading the Blind [and lots of others]

Cary Supalo is a Purdue alumni who is also the founder of a Purdue Research Park affliate company named Independence Science LLC. He is also well toward earning a Ph.D. degree in chemistry; he is also blind.

“Cary’s Ph.D. thesis project is a National Science Foundation funded project from the Research in Disabilities Education (RDE) where he is developing accessible tools and techniques to assist blind students in performing high school level chemistry laboratory experiments.  Taking widely available lab probes and their software interface and making them accessible via speech output eliminates the traditional passive role of previous generations, i.e., a sighted assistant simply describing and reading data values as they are obtained.  It is his hope that this will encourage blind students to want to study science and pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).  He uses a software interface called Logger Pro, which allows a student to use a hub device to which they can plug in multiple lab probes such as thermometers, pH meters, and conductivity detectors, among numerous other tools.  Having these tools coupled with the JAWS screen reader software will allow for blind students to more actively interface with their data collection experience.  This is Cary’s current passion of opening new doors of opportunity for blind students in the chemical sciences.” From here:

Cary’s new startup, Independence Science LLC hopefully will do just that, help students have more hands-on experiences in science laboratories and enable them to fully participate in learning the great subject, science. Wish him the best and take inspiration from his efforts! With a company tagline of “empowering new vision,” what’s to hold him back? Hank

A Nameless Monkey loved by millions! – BbB

Sock Monkey’s are durable!

An idea born from someone’s imagination over 80 years ago is still in demand today.  What has made the sock monkey so appealing to generation after generation?  I remember seeing them at my friend’s houses when I was a kid in the 60’s.  I’ve seen them on occasion at my kid’s friend’s houses over the years.  But now, suddenly I see them everywhere, from specialty stores to Target Super Center.  The monkey is being made into slippers, mittens, Tee-shirts, bedding, hats and even Halloween costumes!  Sock monkeys are a product with lasting power.  Originating sometime in the 1930’s, they’re made out of recycled materials, so they’re hip to the recent fad of politically correctness.  Specifically, the monkeys were made from Red Heel Sock Company work socks purchased from the Sears and Roebuck Catalog.  A craft-person, possibly a farmer’s wife in the Midwest, may have made the first sock monkey out of her husband’s worn out work socks.  The monkey with the cute red heel mouth probably appealed to her friends and the pattern was shared over and over again.   In 1951, the Red Heel Sock Company, realizing the popularity of the monkey, began including instructions on how to make it with every pair of socks sold.   If only that farmers wife had patented her monkey!  Not sure if anyone owns the rights to the sock monkey’s image;  but the instructions are still included in the packaging of  Red Heel Socks sold today.   That Monkey sure helped keep the Red Sock Company in business!  Could this have been the origination of Viral Marketing before the internet?

Instructions on how to make your own sock monkey here:  http://lennytaylor.freeyellow.com/Monkey.htm

This is the “Original Red Heel” Sock Monkey Book. It contains 48 pages with instructions for over 50 other toys and clothing items that can be made from the Original Red Heel Sock http://www.sockcompany.com/monkeysockbook1.html

Sock monkey blog!   http://sockmonkeys-acraftersjourney.blogspot.com/

Sock monkey products here: http://www.foxsox.com/Catalog/search.aspx?type=category&code=ROCK

Another great blog  by Beth Carroll presented with my profuse thanks! Hank

Ferrari FXX BF-7: Toys tell the story

11/3/09 Rhymes With Orange

Believe it or not, I sometimes glance through toy fliers and catalogs that come with our newspaper to get an idea of the direction kids are taking the toy industry. After all, the kids of today are the entrepreneurs and business leaders of tomorrow. How they play today directly impacts how they will view the world tomorrow. Last Sunday’s ads were full of electronic-based stuff, from toys to actual products such as iPods and Netbooks.

Tucked away in a Meijer ad was depicted no less than a Ferrari Pedal Go Kart for $2,499.99. Now when I was a kid, we nailed old roller skate parts on to scrap two by fours and had a great time. [No matter how well we fastened the skates on, they were always ripped off by cracks in the sidewalks!] Then we moved up to the Soap Box Derby, and thence to real wheels. But I digress. So about the BF-7.

The BF-7 combines Ferrari-like parts and capability to the lowly pedal cart. Ad copy states: “It comes loaded with 7 gears, 12-inch lightweight metal wheel rims, with ultra flat super slick X-treme tires and double disc-brakes…. Your top speed and lap times can be closely monitored using the digital dashboard computer. Additional to the unrivaled performances the soft-grip leather-look steering wheel and soft sport seat ensure unprecedented racing comfort.” Sweet! Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about, and how a few kids of today roll. What will their tomorrows hold? Hank

iPhone Apps for Global Minds

We tend to think of and consider smart phones like the iPhone to be U.S.-related. Such is not the case by a long shot. Today’s blog is about a couple of iPhone Apps that really reach out to lands afar.

The first is TVU. TVU was founded in October 2005 by Paul Shen, a serial entreprneur, and is headquarted in Mountain View, California. Communication Technology in a 10/8/09 article stated:

TVU’s PC-based TVUPlayer had been downloaded by over 50 million viewers in 220 countries. Now, the same channels are available on the iPhone over WiFi connections. TVU’s 400 live TV channels from around the world include Deutsche Welle and Telemundo, as well as international sports such as cricket and alternative niche programming. The one million downloads include TVULite, which has been available on the iPhone since February as a free application, and TVUPlayer, a paid app available for $4.99 as a one-time download fee. Upon its release in August 2009, TVUPlayer for the iPhone immediately took place amongst the top 100 iPhone entertainment applications in the iTunes store and holds a 31st ranking today.

“To be ranked 31st in the top iPhone entertainment apps – considering there are 93,000 apps available from 125,000 registered developers being sold in the iTunes App Store today – demonstrates the tremendous value users see in TVU,” said Paul Shen, TVU CEO”"

The second app worthy of consideration, this one costs 99 cents, is the CIA’s World Factbook modified for the iPhone. The app provides a host of information about just about every country in the world, from maps to people to politics etc. There are also many apps, most of them paid, that provided assistance either in learning a language or translation. I’ve included one such app in the embedded video below. Last is an app that brings a host of web-based resources that are formatted for the iPhone. The one I really really like is the News Category which does a great job in assembling all the news that’s news in one assessable iPhone window. I’m running the free version; there is a $0.99 version that supports customization.

My apologies to the non-iphone equipped readers of this blog. The smart phone train is coming! Hank