#FollowFriday - @howardtayler: Cartoonist, gamer, geek.

Ever want to know the visceral thrill of riding a stream of focused plasma across the sky?Then you need to talk to @howardtayler, the creator of the Schlock Mercenary web-comic, this year's Artist Guest of Honor at Balticon 44, and this week's #FollowFriday pick! Howard has managed to turn his tales of the adventures of an amoral amorph mercenary in the far future from a hobby into a full time career. And through the power of his buffer-fu, he hasn't missed a day of posting comics in almost 10 years (it'll be 10 years on June 12th). His art has progressed in this time from pretty bad up to pretty decent, with occasional forays into amazing. Among the web-comics set, Howard is truly living the dream.

One of the great things about reading @howardtayler's feed is that he really comes across as a regular person. And that is pretty much because he is a regular person. We tend to look at people who create entertainments that we enjoy as celebrities. And Howard's achievements should be celebrated. It isn't everyone who has made a living with comics without being nationally syndicated in the newspapers. But Howard also loves to meet his fans. His Schlock Troops. His feed reflects all that. He talks to his fans, gives us a special insight into what is coming up with Schlock Mercenary, and arranges Tweetups at the events he attends. Sometimes he just chats about life with his wife Sandra and their kids. Basically, you should follow Howard because he's a good guy.

So, if you're at Balticon this weekend, look for Howard. And look for me, as I'll be at Balticon as well. It should be a great weekend. Next week, I'm taking some vacation... and writing up a bunch of new reviews. So this is a great time to let me know if there is a particular product you'd like to see reviewed, or a particular problem you could use a solution to. Just send an e-mail to niftytech@niftytechblog.com, tweet to @niftytechblog, or just tweet using #TechSearch. As always, I look forward to seeing your comments and voice mails. The next review will be up on June 7th. Until then, everyone have a good week.

iTunes

Yes, you read that right. This week I'm reviewing Apple's iTunes software, the music management, iPod/iPhone/iPad/Apple TV syncing software that has been around since 2001. After 9 years, iTunes certainly isn't new, cutting edge tech. But then again, it isn't the iTunes that was released all those years ago.

The basics: iTunes is free, is available from Apple at http://www.apple.com/itunes/, and the current version is 9.1.1(12) as of this writing. It is available for Mac OS X and for Windows, but not for Linux. Every Mac currently shipping comes with iTunes installed, and everyone who has an iPod or iPhone has already had to install it on their computer.

For some people, this has been a great source of consternation and trauma.

So, for this review, I'm going to assume that you, gentle reader, already know how to use iTunes to rip your music from legally purchased CDs into iTunes, how to purchase individual songs off of the iTunes Store, how to purchase Apps for your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, how to purchase movies, and how to sync all this stuff to your Apple-branded mobile appliances, or to the handful of other devices that Apple supports syncing content. And I suspect that you also know how to create a playlist, burn it to an audio or data CD, and how to listen to music, watch videos, or listen to podcasts or podiobooks on your computer using iTunes. (That loud cheering noise you're hearing is my podcasting friends going wild because I mentioned podcasts. Hi Guys!)

Where was I? Oh, yeah. This article expects you to already be familiar with all the pedestrian functions that everyone uses on iTunes. We're going to look at some of the things that are overlooked functions. The power under the surface that most people miss because they didn't realize they should look for it.

This is another review that came about because of a friend of mine. This friend is a part-time DJ who was looking for ways that would make it easier for him to take requests at functions without being glued to the DJ station, and for ways he could control the music from his iPhone and have a little bit more freedom. While I am NOT a professional DJ and I don't really know much about the way that pro DJ software works, I do know my way around iTunes. He came over to the house with his computer rig, and by the time we finished I realized that I'd shown him a bunch of things that I took for granted that most users might have just missed. So I'm going to try to show you a few things.

First, for the Audiophiles, iTunes can rip your music from CD into one of five formats: AAC, AIFF, Apple Lossless, MP3, and WAV. Except for Apple Lossless, these are all open formats, so your music is still portable. You're not "locked in". And except for Apple Lossless, these are a lossy formats, meaning that you lose some level of musical definition in order to compress the files into a smaller format. Of course, if your audio source is a CD, it is already in AIFF format. And each of these lossy formats has a custom setting in the preferences to allow you to dial up your own perfect balance between accuracy and file space. And you can convert from any of these formats to any of the others, although you really wouldn't want to go from something else to Apple Lossless. So, you can have portability, or you can preserve every nuance. If portability is important to you, don't buy from the iTunes store. They only sell AAC files which are authenticated to an authorized user account. And if having every last nuance is important, then rip everything from CD into either Apple Lossless or AIFF at the maximum quality settings. We got that settled? Good.

The first feature I'd like to talk about is Genius. By default Genius is turned off. You have to turn it on under the Store Menu. When you turn on Genius, iTunes sends Apple information about each track you have in your iTunes library, which Apple then uses in cooperation with the data from all other Genius subscribers to find connections. iTunes uses this data to do two things: suggest music in the iTunes store that is similar to a selected song, and create playlists from your library of music that goes together.

The suggestions on the Genius Sidebar are a great way to discover new music and new performers. Even if you don't buy from the iTunes store, you can get the names of new acts, and listen to 30 second segments of their work and buy where you want to. Genius playlists can be saved, and can contain 25, 50, 75, or 100 songs. And you can refresh them periodically to see if new music in your library fits with what you had when you saved the Genius Playlist. You can re-order and even remove songs if you feel iTunes made a mistake And at any time you can drag your Genius Playlist down and put its contents into a regular playlist.

Genius mixes are entirely controlled by Apple. Based on what is in your library, Apple puts together complementary music styles, usually from a handful of artists, and names that particular mix based on the common element. All you can do with the Genius Mixes is play them or not. Genius Mix can be good if you just want music in the house and don't want to worry about it, but most people seem to want a little more control of their music. Apple recently updated iTunes and added the ability to remove Genius Mixes you don't like so you don't have to look at them. Personally, I'd like to remove specific bands or songs from within the mix. Maybe next revision?

Next up is iTunes DJ. If you enable this in iTunes General Preferences, it will show up as the first item under Playlists in iTunes sidebar. iTunes DJ is an intelligent playlist that tries to keep the flow of music coming. You can set the source of your music to your entire music library, a Genius Playlist, or any other playlist in iTunes. iTunes DJ will only pull songs from that source. It builds a reasonably random playlist up to 100 songs, and will also display the last few songs played, again, up to 100.

iTunes DJ was built as a tool to make life easier for budding DJs. By seeing the songs that have recently played, you can keep from playing a song too often. The list of upcoming songs is completely editable. Allowing you to change the order of songs, or remove songs you don't want to play. As one song rolls off the list, either by being played or being deleted, new songs appear at the bottom of the list to keep the party going. The settings let you choose how many played songs to display, and how many upcoming songs to choose from. And there is an option to allow higher rated songs in the source to be played more often.

And right below that, is the feature my DJ friend wanted: A check-box to allow guests with Apple's Remote App on their iPhone or iPod touch to make requests. Your guests will have to be connected to the same Wi-Fi network as the computer running iTunes. You can leave it open for anyone to make requests, or you can add a password to limit the number of people who can make requests.

When your guests go into Remote, they'll see your iTunes DJ above the list of any other music libraries they may have connected to in the past, plus any welcome message you may have set up. They'll also see the currently playing song, and the same list of upcoming songs that you have displayed in iTunes DJ. And at the bottom of their screen, a button to Request a Song. In iTunes DJ, you can restrict all requests to come from a particular source, just like you did when you chose the source for iTunes DJ, or you can let them browse everything in your library. When a song is requested, it will appear on the playlist as the next song to be played if there are no other requests, or below the last requested song. If you need other songs to play before requests, you can still drag the requests down in the list, or insert other songs between them.

Another option with requests is to enable voting. Voting adds a new column to the iTunes DJ display, and adds a heart symbol next to the song names in Remote. Each requested songs automatically starts with one vote, and new songs still appear after the last requested song. Unfortunately, voting also turns off your ability to re-order the songs to your liking. Song order is now based on votes. Each connected user gets one vote for each song. The fun begins when a second person votes for a song. That song now gets promoted up above all of the one vote songs. This continues with song order being determined from most votes to least. You still have control from iTunes, but now you'll need to Control-Click (Or right click if you have a multi-button mouse) to bring up the contextual menu. Among the usual options for songs in iTunes, you will find a few new entries. Play in iTunes DJ which makes the selected song start playing immediately. Play Next in iTunes DJ puts the selected song at the top of the list no matter how few votes it has. And two other items, Add to iTunes DJ and Like, which do the same thing, increment the vote count for the song by one. While you're running iTunes DJ, these menu items are all available when you're in other playlists, except for Like. So if needed, you can go to playlists outside your iTunes DJ source and put more songs on the playlist.

For those of you with multiple computers, Apple has added a feature called Home Sharing. Home Sharing is turned on from the Advanced menu. Home sharing lets you share files back and forth over the network for computers that are linked to the same iTunes account. Regular sharing only lets you remotely play files that are streamed live over the network by a remote computer. Home Sharing raises that to a new level by letting you copy music over the network from one computer to another. That way you can have a master music library on your desktop computer, and pull a selection of music from it for your laptop when you're traveling. And you can even set Home Sharing preferences to automatically copy new files from one library to another. That way when you come back from your trip, your desktop can automatically copy over any new songs you bought or ripped onto your laptop during your trip.

Home Sharing does have a few drawbacks. First is the restriction to have all the computers connected to the same iTunes account. This can make it a little difficult for families with multiple accounts to share all their music files. I don't actually have this situation, so I don't know what kind of hoops need to be jumped through to make it work. Second is the fact that Home Sharing will only allow you to pull from a remote server to your local machine. You can't push files over the network. You have to get up and go to the other machine and do a pull. The pull is as easy as a drag and drop, but you have be on the right machine. Third, Home Sharing's automatic transfer doesn't work for all media. You can only choose to automatically copy Music, Movies, TV Shows, Books, or Applications. If you want to move Podcasts or Ringtones across with Home Share, you have to do it manually. And lastly, for some strange reason you can't copy over Regular Playlists, or Smart Playlists, but you can copy over Genius Playlists. It will copy each of the songs from your remote machine to your local library and add them all into a new Regular Playlist. Even if this creates duplicates on your computer. So, still needs some work.

The last feature I want to talk about is the most powerful one: Smart playlists. You can do almost anything with these. With a properly built Smart Playlist, you can do amazing things, and if they are built carefully, you can almost automate your listening experience.

One last digression before I attack Smart Playlists. A while back, Apple introduced Playlist folders. Use them. As you start multiplying your number of playlists, group them into folders. Nest folders. Don't make yourself hunt for one playlist in a list of over 300. Just don't. Trust me on this. Playlist folders can hold regular and Smart Playlists, and other playlist folders, so there is no reason not to categorize your playlists and reduce what you have to look at in the sidebar to manageable levels.

Ok, Smart Playlists. Apple introduced these a while ago, allowing you to create playlists that automatically update themselves when anything changes in your music database. Simply put, it lets you create a search to find the items from your database that you want and it puts the results of that search in a playlist. And re-runs the search when the database is updated. All you have to do is define the conditions for your search.

This makes Smart Playlists incredibly powerful, but sometimes a little difficult to set up. It helps if you have a good grasp of boolean logic so you can figure out when to match all of your conditions (a boolean AND) and when to match any of your conditions (a boolean OR). To give an idea of how powerful Smart Playlists can be, and to help illustrate how to create them I'd like to talk through how to set up a couple Smart Playlists.

The first one is a simple one that is one of my favorites. I just call it "Not Recently Played". Start by creating a new Smart Playlist, either with the menu command under the File Menu, or by holding down the Option Key and clicking the little gear wheel that appears at the bottom of the sources list on the left of the window. This gets you a simple Smart Playlist window like the one below.

Click on the drop down menu that says "Artist" and change it to "Last Played". This is the date that iTunes saves in the database when you play to the end of the song. When you do this, the middle drop down menu changes to "is". We want to change that to "is not in the last". This changes the last field to a text entry field with the default of "1" plus a units popup defaulted to "days". Change "days" to "months", and the number to a 3. Three months out works good for me. Depending on the size of your library and how often you listen to your music you may have to adjust the time period a little. By now your playlist should look like this.

Click the "+" button on the right hand side of the row and you'll get a new row, and the "Match the following rule:" at the top of the window will change to "Match all of the following rules:". Now, if you're like most people, some of what you have in your iTunes library is seasonal music. Typically these are Christmas Carols for most people. It is fun to listen to in the right season, but you don't want it popping up in your mix for nine months out of the year. So we fix that with this new condition. Set this line to be "Genre" "is not" "Holiday". Your smart Playlist should now look like this.

And that's it. Click OK to save what you have and you'll see a new Smart Playlist appear in the sources list on the left of your screen. iTunes tries to name this automatically from the conditions that you've entered, but it doesn't always choose a name that makes sense. In this case, it names the new Smart Playlist "Holiday", since that was the Genre you entered. We need to change that, but fortunately iTunes leaves it highlighted so you can change it easily. Just type "Not Recently Played" or whatever name you want to call it.

Hit return, and your new playlist is ready to go. By default, iTunes will sort this playlist by whatever your default sort is for your music library. You can re-sort it anyway you like by clicking the column headers. And the Smart Playlist really does update on the fly. Start playing your new playlist. When the first song finishes, the second song will start, and about two seconds later the first song will disappear off the list. This is the playlist that I usually listen to, as it means I'm always hearing music I haven't heard in a while. I just put it on shuffle and let it go.

This next playlist is to show you some of the versatility available in smart playlists. Let's say that you share your library with another family member and both of you frequently add music to the library. For the most part, you enjoy each other's taste, except there is one genre your family member likes that you just can't stand. We'll use Country as the genre in this example. So you want to create a playlist of the new music the two of you have bought, except without the Country Music. You also want to limit it to just Music or Music videos, that way any new movies or podcasts won't mix in with the rest. He's how to build this playlist.

Start with creating a new playlist, just like the last time. This time around, we'll be changing the first field to "Play Count". At this point the operator will default to "is" and the last field will default to the number 0. We'll leave this just as they are.

Click the plus to get a new line. Now we change this to "Genre" "is not", and type "Country". At this point, we'll have everything new, of any kind, that doesn't have a genre of Country.

Now at the end of that last line is a button with ellipses in it. That is those three little dots. We're going to click that button now, which gets us two new lines. The first says "all of the following rules:" and the second is an indented line of the type we're used to seeing when we create new lines. This is sort of a sub-query. A separate search that will happen first, and whose results will be joined with the items above. Change the "all" to "any" in the first new line, and then change the first field in the second line to "Media Kind". The other fields will default to "is" and "Music". It should look like this.

Hit the plus again for the last line in this Smart Playlist. Once again, change the first field to "Media Kind". Now go over to the last field and change that to "Music Video".

If you want to, you can check that first checkbox underneath your search criteria and limit what the Smart Playlist returns. It can be limited by the number of items, the time in minutes or hours, or by the size in either MB or GB. These items can be selected randomly, or by Artist, Album, Genre, or Name. You can also start with the highest or lowest rated, the most or least recently played, the most or least often played, or the most or least recently added. So there is a bit of flexibility here, too.

Click OK, and name your search something like "New Songs". The default name of "Country" that iTunes assigns it isn't all that accurate.

Smart Playlists put some really powerful tools into your hands for being able to pull just the items that you want out of your iTunes library. They are by far the best feature in iTunes, but a little under-used. It takes a little forethought to get the most out of them, and setting up your queries does require a little geekery. But if you've got a good idea of what you want to find, trial and error will work for you as well.

iTunes has really grown into a powerful tool for managing your media. While it may be limited in terms of the formats of different media it will recognize, once you've got your files into the iTunes library, you can very easily get high-end results out of it, in terms of organization, playback, and discovery of new music. iTunes is by no means perfect, but Apple has been steadily evolving its capabilities, trying to make the computer do the work for you. And for me, that really proves that it deserves a place here amongst the other Nifty Tech. It does still have quirks, and you may have to look past the most obvious solution to find the power in iTunes, but the power is there at your disposal. You just need to use it.

#FollowFriday - @bobbyllew: Actor, podcaster, comedian, author, playwright, car nut.

Welcome back for another #FollowFriday post! This time we're looking at @bobbyllew, aka Robert Llewellyn, British actor, playwright, comedian, author, and podcaster.  Bobby is probably best known as the actor playing Kryten, the campy and somewhat housework obsessed mechanoid from the BBC comedy Sci-Fi series Red Dwarf.  He also hosted the reality game show Scrapyard Challenge, similar to the show known as Junkyard Wars in the United States.  In addition, he's been doing a regular video podcast, Carpool, where he discusses cars, issues of the day, careers, and whatever else comes to mind with celebrities as he drives them to their destinations.  You can find out more about @bobbyllew's career, past and present, at his website http://www.llew.co.uk/home/.

Those following @bobbyllew are treated to an interesting view into British life, the entertainment industry, and automobiles.  While Bobby is a car nut, he also embraces liberal sensibilities, so he wants the best performing car with the lowest impact on the environment.  In that search he raises some pretty interesting points. And his sense of humor means it is always entertaining, no matter if he's talking about his podcast, his wife's writing, issues of the day, or remembrances of Red Dwarf.  He has the ability to discuss serious issues without taking himself seriously, and to make the reader feel like a trusted friend.

Be back here on Monday for another Nifty Tech Review.  I'm still writing this one, but I think this will help you look at an old familiar piece of software in a new light.  At least that's what I'm aiming for.  As always, I'd love to hear your feedback.  On this article, the review, the blog in general, or anything you'd like to see covered.  Tell me what you think!  Leave a comment or a voice mail, or just send an e-mail. Or just tweet using #TechSearch to let me know what kind of problems you'd like to find answers for.

#FollowFriday - @phillipajane: Fantasy author, podcaster, international wit.

This week our featured Tweeter is @PhilippaJane.  This is the personal Twitter stream of Philippa Ballantine, fantasy author, podcaster, and former librarian.  Pip currently has two books in print: Chasing the Bard, and its sequel Digital Magic.  While she is a native New Zealander and hails from Wellington, New Zealand, she is currently in the United States on the first leg of a promotional tour for her new book Geist, which is being released in Fall of 2010 by Ace Books.  In the podcasting realm, she has four podcast novels to her credit.  Starting with Weaver's Web, from back in 2006, the podcast version of Chasing the Bard which won the Sir Julius Vogel Award for Fan Production, acclaimed podcast Weather Child, and currently in production, the sequel to Chasing the Bard: Digital Magic.  Pip has also published a podcast on her experiences as a budding writer, Whispers at the Edge, which sadly is currently on hiatus.  Also currently in production is her experimental podcast Erotica a la Carte, where she and other writers compose original erotica based on the results of a survey filled out by the audience.  Several EaLC episodes are currently nominated for this year's Parsec Awards.  And we're all greatly anticipating her latest project, Books and Braun, a joint project with Tee Morris (@TeeMonster), which hasn't launched yet.

So why should you stop listening to @PhilippaJane's wonderfully seductive voice and start reading her tweets?  Pip is very friendly and engaging, and she converses well on a variety of subjects.  Must be that librarian background.  Pip has an active wit and a good sense of humor.  And if you're a fan of her work, and who could not be, she talks about the projects that she has in work.  What's not to love?

No review next week.  Just lots of writing and research for me.  Next review will be up on the 24th.  But we will have another #FollowFriday next Friday. If you've got a product that you'd like to see us review, or a tech question you need answered, this is a good time to let us know. Leave a comment or a voice mail, or just send us an e-mail. And keep looking for the hashtags #TechTip and #TechSearch.  Or just tweet using #TechSearch to let folks know what you're looking for, or what answers you've found.

Until next time, have a good week!

A (Long overdue) new Poll

The iPad poll closed way back on April 3rd... and the few of you who voted made it pretty clear that you intend to wait for next year's version of the iPad before investing any of your hard earned cash.  Perhaps you're hoping on a forward facing camera for video chatting?  Or maybe you just feel that the first version is to work out the bugs and the REAL release comes after that?  Time will tell.

Well, the chaos that was April has given way to the chaos that is May.  Funny how that happens.  And it is long past time for a new poll to grace these pages.  This time, I want to know that tool you use for working with text.  When you have to write something, how do you prefer to write it?  Part of this is because I have a friend who is looking for a writing tool for her PC, and she's not fond of MS Word.  But part of this is because I'm curious to see how people choose to releate to text.

If your answer is something that isn't on the list, please comment here so we can all see what your favorite writing tool is.

This poll closes with the month of May, and I'll be looking at the results when I get back from Balticon.

Grocery Gadget

This week’s Nifty Tech Blog review is one of those iPhone apps that we talked about a few weeks ago.  Although Grocery Gadget started out as an iPhone app, it has grown to something a bit more.  It makes a fair bid to being one of the most creative ways to manage all your shopping lists, at home, and on the go.  And even both at the same time!  Currently Grocery Gadget version 2.1.3 is available from Flixoft through the iTunes store for $4.99.  Grocery Gadget Lite is a free version of the App that is limited to one list of 20 items.  But I’m pretty sure you’ll want to upgrade to the full version.  For the in-depth details you can go to http://www.grocerygadgets.com and see what they have to say for themselves.

While the Grocery Gadget is currently only available for the iPhone, Flixoft is working on developing versions for  Google Android, Blackberry Storm, Nokia N81, HTC Touch, Samsung Instinct and Palm Pre.  Those Flixoft guys don’t think small, do they?  The iPhone version will run on the iPad, but it is not optimized for the iPad and an iPad version isn't currently available.  But the iPhone version does look pretty decent at 2x size on the iPad.  There is some pixelation around the fonts, but it is very usable if you want a large format grocery list to look at.

Once you’ve loaded Grocery Gadget on your phone and opened it, You are presented with a typical screen showing your available shopping lists.  Some sample lists are populated by default.  Here you can do some pretty typical things: select a list to look at the items contained within, click Edit to change the order of your lists, rename a list, or delete a list you don’t want anymore, click the plus sign to add a list, or click the i in the lower right hand corner to access instructional videos, the FAQ, the quick guide, or to send off a note to support.  Yes, that’s right, instructional videos.  Flixoft has five YouTube videos explaining what Grocery Gadget is, and how to use it.  Going for the videos does take you out of the app and drop you into Safari, and eventually to the YouTube app on the iPhone.  The FAQ and the Quick Guide keep you in the App, but still put you into a browser window in a wrapper.  While this is neat for a quick check of the FAQ, it still means that if you’re deep in a heavily shielded store and don’t have signal or Wi-Fi, you’re not getting any help.  And that help will only load as fast as your signal throughput.

The really Nifty bit, though, is in the bottom left corner with a little button named Group.  Click the Group button, and you’re taken to a screen where you can enter a Group name and an e-mail address.  But more about this later... (Yes, that’s a teaser.)

So, when you go into one of your lists, you have this nice Prepare screen that lets you see all the items that your copy of Grocery Gadget is aware of, the current number of each item on your list, and little plus and minus signs to increment the numbers.  You can also click the number itself to bring up a small numeric keyboard and enter the needed quantity yourself.  This is probably the easiest way to enter your items, as the plus and minus symbols are small, and if you miss, you’ll tend to select the entire item and go into the detail view.  You’ll also notice that under each item is the name of the department that it is associated with.  And at the bottom of a column is a little “In List” tab that indicates the cost of the items you’ve selected.  Providing, of course, that the prices are entered in the database.

At the very bottom of the screen, you have five buttons.  The leftmost button will e-mail off your list to someone else that you’ve managed to talk into doing your shopping who doesn’t have Grocery Gadget.  The middle three will sort the list alphabetically, by category, or according to the way the shelves in your grocery store are arranged.  How does Grocery Gadget know how shelves are arranged in your store?  It learns.  Most people go shopping in the same pattern.  Over several trips, it learns which items you check off before other items and re-arranges them to fit your pattern.  Neat, huh?  The last button will either zero out or remove all items.  I recommend zeroing out.

Adding items to a list is a bit of a toss up for me.  Press the plus in the top right and you get the Grocery Gadget search screen.  This gives you a list of all the things that are currently in the database.  You are started out with a list of items that Grocery Gadget thinks you’re likely go go shopping for.  You can look at this list alphabetically, by category, or start typing in the search field to limit your view to matching items.  If you find what you’re looking for, just tap it to put a red check next to it and then click Add in the top right.  You can even select multiple items.

If you don’t find what you’re looking for, click Add New in the top right and go right to a detail screen where you can fill in the name, quantity (including packaging, and unit of measure so you don’t confuse 1 2 liter bottle with 1 box of 12 oz cans), price, remarks, and coupon details.  You can also select a category (or create your own), take a picture of the product with the built-in camera in the iPhone (so you KNOW you got the right product), and indicate which of two tax rates are applicable.

That’s right, Grocery Gadget has two tax rates which can be applied independantly to each and every item in the database.  While this is useful if you’ve got some untaxed items, some items taxed at one rate, and others taxed at a full rate, it is a bit cumbersome to set up.  For one thing, to set the tax rates, you have to leave Grocery Gadget, and go to Settings.  Then scroll down to the application settings on the bottom.  Here you will find a setting to show images when in your shopping list (which we haven’t gotten to yet), name and set your two tax rates, and determine if the application comes up with the tutorial screen at startup, and if it puts a badge on the icon to determine how many items you need to purchase.

So once you’ve defined your two tax rates, you have to go through each item in your shopping lists and indicate which of the two rates applies to it (or both, or neither).  Not so bad if you know this info when you’re setting up your list, a royal pain if you have to go back and work it out later.

Now let’s say that you’ve put in your list, gone around your kitchen and pulled out the last of everything and taken a picture so you know exactly what you’re getting, and it is finally time for your to press the Shop button at the top and go shopping.  This display shows you a miniature of the picture you took earlier, the number and price of each item, the name and category, and a nice big check box so you can indicate what you’ve picked up so far.  Your In List total is still at the bottom, but is now joined by an In Cart total giving the price of what you’ve got.  As you pick up your groceries, you tap the check box once to say you have got it, a second time to indicate that it isn’t available, and a third time to clear the check in case you’ve made a mistake.

At the bottom, we again have our mailing button, our three sorting buttons, which are now joined by a fourth button to sort by checked items so that your unchecked items are always on top, and the button to reset the list, either by zeroing out the checked items, unchecking everything, or removing all the checked items forever.

The shopping mode works really well if you’re just picking up the things on your list and nothing else.  Unfortunately, that pretty much never happens.  You always find something that isn’t on your list that you just have to pick up.  While the Shop mode uses the same interface for adding items as the Prepare modes does, it isn’t exactly the easiest thing to do while standing in a busy grocery store with crying children and a bored teenager.  Even worse if these kids are yours!

And that’s the basics of using Grocery Gadget for a list.  You can have as many lists as you like in the paid version, but each list is independent of the other.  And you don’t have to stick with just groceries.  You can make lists for hardware shopping or trips to your local mall or anything you like.

Which brings us back to that Group button.  Remember that?  Actually, it brings us back to the Grocery Gadget website.  On the Grocery Gadget site, there are little Sign In links.  Clicking on these will let you enter your Group Name and a password to get into the Grocery Gadget Portal.  This gives you access to all of your Grocery Gadget lists in a big web-form based format.  You don’t have to use the Portal, and if you never choose a Group Name, your lists will remain private on your iPhone.  But there are advantages to using the Grocery Gadget Portal.

Aside from being able to access your lists on a big screen, if you’ve got multiple family members with devices that can run Grocery Gadget, you can share the same Group Name and wirelessly sync your lists across all devices.  This way you can split up and go to two different shops and get just what you need without duplicating purchases.  Now that is Nifty!

Grocery Gadget still has some clumsy things in the interface, including small buttons and some difficult to access fields.  And having to set all those tax rates on everything.  Still, despite those shortcomings, it provides an excellent platform for carrying your shopping list in the palm of your hand, is easy to use most of the time, syncs to the web using a password protected group account, and lets you coordinate lists across multiple devices.  Even with support for new smartphones in the planning stage, that still adds up to some Nifty Tech.

#FollowFriday - @MrsStephenFry: Comedy Gold.

This week's recommendation is @MrsStephenFry is the fictional wife of @StephenFry, noted actor, writer, technology enthusiast, and erudite gentleman, and mother of his five (or so) alleged children. Part of the humor of the whole thing is the fact that Mr Fry is quite openly homosexual and has been so for some time.

It is unclear who is the actual wit behind the @MrsStephenFry account. I suspect it is Mr. Fry himself. The identity of The author is somewhat unimportant. The fact remains that @MrsStephenFry is pure comedy Gold. She paints a satirical picture of Stephen as a drunkard and a womanizer who frequently abandons her to go off on another bender. She also paints herself as a clueless housewife who puts up with the abuse of her husband and her own neglect of her "five or six" children because she cannot be bothered to acknowledge it. This sounds offensive, but in presentation it is clearly a parody of heterosexual family life. And possibly some elements of English society.

Followers of the Mrs are treated to daily doses of humor and social commentary distilled into 140 character shots. Her tweets both stand up well alone and build upon one another in a narrative story. And who would want to go without gems such as this:

1. Typical! When Stephen said he was going off to find candy floss, I should have known he meant Candi with an i . . .6:31 AM May 3rd via web
2. Having a lovely Bank Holiday picnic by the sea. If the weather gets any better we may even get out of the van.6:16 AM May 3rd via web
3. The kids love May Day Morris Dancing. They're skipping gleefully round the traditional blazing Morris Minor . . .4:24 AM May 3rd via web
4. Are you STILL watching the snooker @stephenfry? Only it's your turn to feed the baby. It's been 4 months now & he's starting to get hungry2:58 PM May 2nd via web
 

Monday will be a new review. As always, let us know what you're thinking. Leave a comment or a voice mail, or just send us an e-mail. Let me know if you've got something you'd live to see reviewed on the blog, or some kind of tech solution that you're looking for. We're always looking for the next bit of Nifty Tech. And don't forget to look for the hashtags #TechTip and #TechSearch.

First Impressions: 7 days with the iPad

I got my iPad on Monday, April 26th. Despite all the hype and the "reality distortion field" and the rabid flaming criticism, I wasn't sure about the iPad, so I didn't pre-order it. In fact, I remained firmly in the "I have to touch it first." camp. From the accolades I had heard, I half expected that when I walked into my local Apple store and got to put hands upon one of the demo models, that I'd think it was the most wonderful technological device ever and I'd want to get one immediately. Well... that wasn't what happened.

When I walked into the Apple Store on April 7th and got to play with the iPad for the first time, I was somewhat less than impressed. It was smaller than I had expected, and the thick border on the screen made the viewable area seem smaller still. While the unit feels solidly built, it is light enough to hold in one hand, and only really got bothersome after holding it for a prolonged period in one position. The glass has a good feel, but picks up smudges like nobody's business. I doggedly walked through the demo apps on the iPad in the Apple store. While many of them *looked* good, they either didn't interest me, or didn't behave properly. For example, in the Photo Library, one of the demo shots was in the wrong orientation. It was a landscape oriented shot that was displayed in portrait. Turn the iPad 90 degrees, and the photo swivels so that it is still displayed upwrong. Still in portrait. But it is a touch screen, so I put two fingers down and turn my hand 90 degrees and the picture obligingly pivots underneath my fingers. Until I lift my fingers, at which point it swings back to the original incorrect portrait orientation. This left me severely disappointed. I left the store thinking that perhaps I would be waiting until the next revision of the hardware, or at least until iPhone OS 4 came to the iPad this fall, before I bought one.

But then I thought about the Blog, and you, my readers. With all the media coverage flying back and forth about the iPad, it was only a matter of time before folks expected me to weigh in on it one way or the other. And a few days later I started getting inquiries from some of my readers wanting to know when I would be doing the iPad review. I knew that I'd need to get one just to be able to answer their questions. The things I do for my readers.

And this article? This ISN'T the iPad review. I'm not ready to put my name behind this product yet. It does have some nifty things in its repertoire, but it doesn't seem quite finished. As a first generation Apple device, it makes a strong showing, but still seems to fall short of the goal. But it IS a product worth watching. So in this article I'm going to share some of my first impressions about the iPad and offer some tips and tricks for those who may decide that even in this state it is good enough for them. And buckle up, readers. This is going to be a long one.

What it is NOT.

Despite a lot of wishful thinking about on the internet, the iPad is NOT a computer replacement. If you think you can get an iPad and get rid of your old computer, or never buy a computer in the first place, you are sorely mistaken. Without a computer and iTunes to sync content to the iPad, it is useless. Literally useless. It won't even turn on for more than a few seconds, and then all it will do is display a graphic telling you to connect it to iTunes. You still need a computer.

It is also NOT an iPod Touch on steroids. Despite all the similarities, the iPad is its own creature. While it can run apps designed for its smaller cousins, apps designed specificly for the iPad have a different look and feel, and they behave in a different manner. This is not a machine where you type with your thumbs. This device makes you feel like you're in a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, holding the PADD with one hand and typing over it with the other.

And the iPad is NOT supposed to replace your laptop or your pocket devices. It really is a best-of-both-worlds accessory that augments and extends what those other devices do for you. It is NOT a game changer. It IS a game expander. I hope to make this clear as we go along.

What it IS.

The iPad is a well put-together device. It is elegant in its simplicity, but still manages to be powerful and responsive to user input. That immediate response is probably one of its biggest selling points. With my iPhone 3G, I have a tendency to touch it to activate something, then wait for a response. Even on simple things there is a hesitation there. You 3Gs users may not have noticed this with your faster devices. With the iPad, that hesitation is gone. It just goes from one thing to the next in a smooth and connected fashion.

But I think I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Lets start at the beginning.

What I got.

I ordered before the iPad with 3G became available, and I didn't feel like waiting. For my needs, I expect to be primarily using the iPad at home, or in places where WiFi is available, so 3G wasn't a concern. Your mileage may vary. And there are some uses where the 3G connectivity would be a great boon, but those didn't apply to me. So I ordered the 64 GB WiFi iPad and along with the iPad I ordered Apple's stand. I figured that at the end of the day, I'd pop the iPad onto the stand and turn on the photo album mode and enjoy the pretty pictures when I wasn't using it. The stand is a hefty metal piece with ports in the back to connect a docking cable, or to plug in an audio line out with a standard 3.5mm jack. On the front is the standard iPod dock connector and a metal flange to support the back of the iPad.

Unboxing.

I'm sure that by now quite a few of you have watched videos of iPad unboxings online. Compared to previous Apple products, they're actually quite a let down. Once you pull the shrink wrap from the box, your excitement peaks as you lift the cover and see your iPad for the first time. And then it is done. Apple put as little as possible in the box. There is the iPad, the info packet, a sync cable, and the power adapter. That's it. And the most in-depth thing in the info packet is the warranty info in umpteen different languages. A pair of white Apple logo decals and a single card with instructions rounds out the info packet.

Hitting the power button right out of the box is a little frustrating. The iPad lights up easily, displaying the afore-mentioned pictogram to connect the iPad to iTunes. And in about two seconds, it turns itself back off.

First Sync.

Plug in the docking cable and connect the iPad. iTunes will come up and walk you through the setup process. There will be a point in this process where you will have the opportunity to check a box and have iTunes load all of your iPhone and iPod Touch apps to the iPad. If you have a lot of apps already, resist this temptation. Trust me, you don't want to check the box. First, doing so will make the first sync take a long time. Second, iTunes will pack all of your apps in with the maximum number of apps per screen. This will make it difficult to sort out your apps into a form that you can use. You are much better off minimizing the amount of data that moves across in the first sync, and then enabling each app individually and placing it on the screen you want it on. You're also better off not syncing music or videos until you can plan out what you want to carry on your iPad.

Another thing I noticed while doing the first sync is that my iPad wasn't charging. I had it plugged into a powered hub, but apparently that hub wasn't powerful enough to recharge the iPad's built-in battery. I know this because it helpfully said "Not Charging" in the top right corner next to the battery icon. The iPad's power requirements are higher than any previous Apple device. You really need the included power supply to charge the iPad quickly. If the iPad is connected directly to the computer, or to a sufficiently powerful hub, it will charge while syncing, but no where near as fast as it will when connected to the included power supply.

Interface.

The iPad interface borrows a lot from the iPhone, naturally. You still have the rows and columns of apps, although now instead of a four by four block of apps on each page, you have an extra row of apps (or column when in Landscape mode). And now the dock has room to add in two extra apps that area always available. Add in two more pages of Apps and you've got a lot of space to load apps.

There is also a new layout used by a lot of the apps that takes advantage of the landscape layout. This involves a column of options down the left side of the screen and a larger area on the right where detail of the selected option is displayed. You see it here in the Settings app, and you also see it in Mail, Pandora, and a number of other apps.



Overall, the interface is rather intuitive. You can either see the control on the screen, or you intuitively know what kind of gesture to make on the screen to get the response you want. I have yet to run into anything where I've had to remember some obscure method to achieve something. Then again, I've not delved into every minute function of ever app. But it does seem very usable right off the bat.

The keyboard I'm not sure what to make of yet. Some people have claimed that they can type on it with no problems. I'm not one of them. I learned to touch type, with the emphasis on touch. I'm used to my fingertips lying on top of the keyboard. With the iPad, you really need to hover over the keyboard. I can do it, but it isn't really comfortable. I'm having much more luck with Mr. Data's one-handed hunt and peck, letting my hand dance over the keyboard as I scan for the next letter. Although I'm pretty sure Brent Spiner wasn't actually typing when he shot those scenes.

Apps.

One unfortunate side effect of the release of the iPad is the upsurge of inflated prices in the App Store. Competition for sales in the App Store had lead to a nice, reasonable method for pricing iPhone apps. Take the number of major features in the app, put a dollar sign in front of it, and subtract $1.01. That was your reasonable selling price. Apps that only do one thing are free. The more major functions you provide, the more you can charge. Simple, reasonable.

With the iPad, existing apps needed to be revised to take advantage of the greater screen space. Some vendors have simply released new versions of their apps that work equally well for both the iPhone and the iPad, giving owners of both free upgrades. Most others have built separate versions of their apps specifically for the iPad, requiring users to have to re-purchase the apps if they want to use the version customized for the iPad. Many of these vendors are claiming that Apple hasn't given them any mechanism for offering discounts to existing users to upgrade at a lower price. And yet, many other vendors are offering their iPad versions on sale for a discounted period of time, giving old and new users the very discounts that others say they can't offer. Worse yet, there is a segment of vendors who are offering their iPad versions at two or three times the price of their iPhone counterpoints.

This last group represents the worst kind of price gougers, in my opinion. I'm sorry, while I can respect the desire for a vendor to get paid for their efforts, more pixels doesn't equal more money. Not when the functionality is either unchanged, or reduced.

And sadly, for many apps, a number of functions have been dropped in the haste to get an iPad version through the App Store on time for the launch. I expect that most of these apps will eventually be upgraded to the point where they have the same functions as their iPhone counterparts, but those upgrades will take time.

The base iPad system includes the following apps: Photos, Mail, Safari, iPod, Calendar, Videos, YouTube, Settings, Contacts, Maps, App Store, iTunes, and Notes. It makes sense for Camera to be missing, seeing as the iPad doesn't have one. And the absence of Messages and Phone on the WiFi model aren't that surprising. Less obvious are the absence of Clock, Calculator, Voice Memos, Weather, and Stocks. Each of these apps could be used on the iPad. None of them are dependent on hardware that isn't available. Admittedly, Weather and Stocks aren't that likely to be missed as there are better versions out there for these functions. I am missing Clock sorely for the ability to set daily alarms and set up countdown timers. And a Calculator is always useful. And because these are in the operating system, you can't even use the iPhone versions. They just aren't there. I can only hope that this is because Apple had higher priorities for their programmers to work on and these apps will re-appear in later revisions to the operating system.

Apps I love.

Some apps have made the transition to the iPad in the best possible way. They take advantage of the larger screen size and make the most of that real estate. And they do it without sacrificing the customer experience. In fact, some have significantly better experiences on the iPad than they did on the iPhone.

iTeleport

Formerly known as Jaadu VNC, iTeleport is one of the premier VNC applications for the iPhone. And now they've done it one better on the iPad. For a start, while the iPad version is available separately, the iPhone version of iTeleport was made into a Universal build, allowing customers who bought it for the iPhone to use the software on their iPad for free. And it is worth it to use iTeleport on the iPad. The larger screen give you a better view of the remote computer and makes it much easier to see and manipulate the controls.

iBooks

The much touted iBooks app manages to deliver on a natural and comfortable book reading experience. The app comes with a free book to get you started, A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh with decorations by Ernest H. Shepard. And a multitude of other free books are available in Apple's bookstore thanks to the Gutenburg Project. And any e-book that you can convert into an e-Pub format can be ingested into iTunes and displayed in iBooks.

Photos

Despite not being able to rotate images in the Photos app, it does give you a really fast and intuitive way to look at your photos. You can zoom in quite a ways, and the resolution is amazing. With a pinch and a flick you can jump from album to album It isn't the same feel as the Photos app on the iPhone. It is much more intuitive.

Magic Piano

Smule, the makers of Ocarina for the iPhone, have come out with another social media music hit. Magic Piano turns your iPad into a virtual piano with a variety of layouts. There is a featureless black screen that cooresponds to a linear keyboard for you to play on, a spiral keyboard, a circular keyboard, a regular linear keyboard, and even a songbook mode that will teach you how to play one of a variety of songs. Each of the visual keyboards can be expanded or contracted to have as large or as small a range as you could want. You can even perform a duet with someone elsewhere, or listen to what people are playing all over the world. To some folks, it must look like a toy, but this is a great way for some of us to get into music. And only 99 cents!

Tweetdeck

Tweetdeck has been my go-to Twitter application on my laptop for some time. But I never felt it fit on the iPhone because there was only space to view a single column. With the iPad's larger display, you can view up to three columns in Tweetdeck. Unfortunately, I'm also missing some of the behavior I got used to on the desktop version. Like the ability to clear read tweets from a column, or mark a whole column as read. In fact, most of the column tools don't seem to be present yet. I'm hoping we'll see more revisions soon.

Maps

This is the one app that I would seriously consider getting an iPad 3G for. Lucky for me my wife wants to get a 3G in the fall ofter the new OS is available, so I have time to save up. Maps on the iPhone always seemed a bit cramped. Now there is room to really look at the maps and see the wealth of data that is there. With the WiFi only version, it is great for planning, but once you set out the door and lose your network, you're pretty much stuck. The new directions are much nicer than the iPhone version. They're very clear and they don't block off a lot of the map. The routing for those directions appears to be the same, however.

Now Playing

Now Playing is an app that lets you find what is playing at local theatres, what movies are coming out soon, what is coming to Netflix, even what DVDs are going to be released. This app was a favorite on the iPhone, and it has really adapted well to the iPad. In addition to telling you what is playing where, it can show you a map with the local theatres on it, show you preview, and even give a synopsis of the movies. And you can choose ratings and reviews from RottenTomatoes, Metacritic, or Google.

Apps I hate.

Some apps didn't make the transition to iPad gracefully. These apps actually got worse on the iPad.

Calendar

Unfortunately with the added space available on the iPad, Apple decided that the Calendar app should take on a dayplanner like appearance. While the week view is useful, the daily view is much too busy for my tastes. And there aren't any options. If I could at a few theme templates for my Calendar and decide for myself which was most useful, I'd be a lot happier. But Apple didn't give me that option. And the List view is just as busy.

Contacts

Contacts suffers from the same book-like template on the iPad. It is made to look like a printed book of contacts, and that is the only mode that is available. I'd find this a lot easier to deal with if I could move the center "fold" to one side or the other to control how the screen space is divided up.

Why did they do that?

And there are just some things that I can't figure out why Apple chose to implement the way they did. They had an opportunity to take an app to a better level, but they chose not to, and I cannot find a technical or logical reason why not.

Look at the lack of editing in Photos.  The screen shots in this article were created on the iPad, naturally. But when you create a screen shot, it is in portrait orientation.  In order to get the landscape shots to display properly, I had to ingest them into iPhoto, rotate them, and then insert them into the article.  I couldn't just rotate them in Photos and then upload them via mobile Safari.  Why?  I have no idea.

Another oddity is Coverflow.  Or more accurately, the lack of it.  Open up the iPod app on the iPhone and turn the phone sideways.  Coverflow.  On a tiny screen.  Usable, but ugh.  Now grab the iPad and open up the iPod app and turn it sideways.  Um... same screen in landscape mode.  We finally get a screen the right size for full screen Coverflow, and no Coverflow?  Apple, what were you thinking?

One place where Apple is at least consistently wrong is the lack of sorting for search results in App Store.  It doesn't matter what platform you're on, you can't sort the results.  And looking at a product may take you back to where you were, or may take you back to the beginning.  Not so bad if you're on the second page.  A royal pain if you're twenty pages deep and you still can't find an app with the right features.  Everybody else lets customers sort search results, why can't you, Apple?

And the big question for me, why doesn't the iPad sync wirelessly?  It has 802.11n wireless built into it, just like the Apple TV, but you have to physically plug it into a computer in order to sync to iTunes.  I know it is using iPhone OS, but there is no real reason why they couldn't have implemented wireless syncing.  The iPad can stream video over the internet, the 3G version can stream video over EDGE networks for goodness sake!  But doing a quick wireless sync is too much for it?  Please!  I want to see this by version 4.3 of the OS.  I'll cut you that much slack.

iPhone Apps.

I almost forgot to mention that you can use iPhone apps on the iPad, too.  Or at least most of them.  Camera apps obviously won't work.  How well the others work is really a matter of opinion.  I've yet to see an iPhone app on the iPad that doesn't show some kind of pixelation, but some of the apps are really surprising in how much of their resources render properly on the iPad.  Small icons turn out to either be at much higher resolution than necessary, or are built with scalable vector graphics, while fonts are bitmapped and end up pixelated.

Some people will be able to deal with the pixelation.  Others won't.  I happen to like OmniFocus in 2x mode, but I've heard other people who feel that the fonts are unreadable.  Of course, you could always use 1x mode.  But somehow it just doesn't feel right.

Wrapping it up.

The iPad isn't the second coming of mobile devices.  But it does have a lot of potential that has yet to be reached.  It won't replace your laptop for heavy duty word processing.  At least not without a Bluetooth keyboard.  I haven't got one to test with right now.  But the iPad is still good for looking up your notes on while you're composing your latest novel on your desktop or laptop.  Or for monitoring your Twitter feed while re-coding your website or tweaking your latest video project.

The iPad is better for viewing sites that are built for mobile browsers.  And while the speakers only produce mono sound, they are surprisingly loud when turned all the way up.  It is a decent sized screen for watching video or reading e-books.  And the battery life is astounding.  One report claimed that the iPad can play audio for over 140 hours before failing!  I haven't tested that, but I also haven't been able to get my iPad down under 40%.

I did pick up a case for my iPad.  And doing so immediately made the iPad dock useless.  The tolerances are so close only the thinnest cases, or ones with a specially designed flap will let you use the iPad dock while it is in the case.  I'm still looking for a better case.  Right now, it seems to be months too early for the really good cases.

In a lot of ways, the iPad, and the iPad apps, are just too young to be really useful.  But they are worth watching.  The question is how long of a wait will we have for the iPad to mature to a significant platform?  And how long will it take the market to get used to having access to a digital clipboard that you can carry with you?  No telling.  For now, it is a start.

Disagree with me?  Think I've missed obvious angles?  Think I've overstated the importance of something?  Think I've wasted time looking at the wrong product?  Tell me!  I want to know what you think.  Leave a comment, drop me a letter, or give me a call.  I want to hear what you have to say.  Just be polite, OK?  Hey, drop me a line even if you do agree with me!