I can see why Apple had no problem with letting this browser in. It’s not good. I’m sorry. It’s not bad, but in no way am I going to use this over Mobile Safari. I just gagged a little. But yeah, it’s just not there. Now to be fair not all of Opera’s short comings are their fault but it makes the browser less desirable.

So let’s start with the good. It is fast. I think the “fastest browser in the world” is a bit much. It takes it’s sweet time to load up the New York Times, Twitter, and Facebook. However, when after the initial load of the pages the browser navigates back and forward really nicely. The pages are there instantly unlike, Safari which has to refresh every time it pulls up a new page. Another nice feature is the Speed Dial home screen. It’s just visual bookmarks but I like it. The last positive thing Opera has to offer is “tabbed” browsing. So it’s not like Safari where you open a new page and scroll through pages. In Opera, a menu pops up at the bottom and shows you the active tabs and a “+” sign that lets you open another page. It’s a nice to have and works very well.

Tabbed Browsing

Now here’s the bad:

• Does not import bookmarks from Safari.
• Does not support any Google Mobile Web Apps. Screen Shots below.
• Does not have full mobile support for Facebook or Twitter.
• Mult-touch navigation is spotty and hyper accelerated.
• No Flash (had to put that in there).
• This is not Opera’s fault but the fact of the matter is it can never be the phone’s default browser. So all web apps will automatically launch Safari making Opera a nuisance.

In my opinion Opera Mini is just like any other average free browser you can find on the App store. It’s sad but Apple is not going to let anyone be more accessible than their own browser. I can understand that and I will have to live with it. As mentioned above Opera is free on the App store so give it a whirl and let me know what you think. I personally am going to delete it from my phone shortly. Download Opera Mini for iPhone here.

Google Voice Login Screen on Opera

Google Voice Login Screen on Safari

So I watched this video (below) today on Gizmodo and was thoroughly impressed.

Instantly I sent the link out to a couple of my Android and iPhone friends to try this thing out. First I tried it out with my Android buddy. He was using a Moto Droid Android 2.01 on 3G and I was on my iPhone 3GS on wifi. He was sitting right next to me and I Knocked on his phone first. We connected but the video feed froze on his side and the app crashed. After that we tried the following connection combinations: 3G/3G, WiFi/Wifi, 3G/Wifi, Wifi/3G. None of them could connect.

So fine, didn’t work as well as the video above. I figured, well the app has been out for quite some time it’s gotta work iPhone to iPhone right? It did, after six tries. Finally my buddy, Matt, on his iPhone 3GS connected to his office wifi connection was able to successfully Knock on my phone which was connect to my home network wirelessly.

There was a significant delay in video transmission. At least over 30 seconds. I was IM’ing with him while he was sending video and Matt showed me the IM window on his monitor. So I could see the messages I sent 30 seconds ago. The other thing that this app lacks is the ability to send audio. I guess it’s not that big of problem because on AT&T and T-Mobile’s networks you could be on the phone with that person while sending video, still it would have been a nice to have. If Fring can do it why not Knocking Live?

Unfortunately this app was a huge disappointment. I don’t recommend it even though it’s free. The only good thing that it does is utilize push notifications on the iPhone. So my friends could Knock my phone and it would alert me that someone is trying to send video even with the app closed. I would have disliked this app even more if I had to call my friends and tell them to open the app so I could send them video. But then again I would have to call them just to send audio. Oh well, it’s great in concept and really had me excited, but right now I’ll stick to taking pictures/video and posting to every social networking site known to human and email.

Ok, enough foreplay, just go to the site. Do it. Actually go to www.meetifyr.com/example. You’ll notice two things:

• It’s sexy as hell. Yep, I said it. Those little toggles are hot. I wish I could get one of them in a polka dot bikini. And so clean and simple. Less is more.
• It is sooooooo slow. Too slow for me to add enough “o”‘s there to make this realistic. It is so slow that you could watch all of Star Trek (the new one, not the old one, but the slug that they used in Wrath of Kahn is still in it, SWEET!). You know how you just got excited about how cool Star Trek is? Take that positive feeling, multiply it by ten, and then make it negative. That’s how bad it feels to have this be so slow.

So, see how that was an unordered list? Yes, I purposefully used <ul> instead of <ol>, I do know how HTML works. I made it unordered because I don’t know what order you’ll find out about those two things. I found the example they put there to be really fast and great, I thought this site was awesome. Then I actually started testing it out with my own event. Oh. My. God. Shoot me now. I spent about two hours talking to a couple people and annoying my wife making her click a link that never ever ever loaded (for the record, on a website, never ever ever actually equals about 45 seconds). That’s only the first of about twenty annoying things about this site.

Because I really do love what this site is all about I’m going to talk about the positives first. Like I said, it looks great. It is so simple and easy to use. When I am looking for a new web app there are only two things I want, and I want the app to do one of them amazingly. I either want to connect all my other apps or I want it to do its own thing really really cleanly. If I could get Facebook but without all the **** useless apps (that was a curse word, if this blog wasn’t family friendly I would string together twelve provocative and illustrious curse words about facebook apps, they are a plague brought on by the devil himself) I would jump on that in a hot second. If I could get Yahoo Sports without the front page and just my fantasy stats I would sign up for it and use it every day. If I could get Rotoworld with just the updates and no articles I would NOT sign up for that ever! The articles there are money (FYI, I just gave you a fantasy secret and if you didn’t already know it you’re the guy everyone else in your league takes advantage of). Meetifyr is that kind of clean, streamlined, jet powered motor scooter. The problem is the engine breaks down all the time.

Enough talk, I’ll show you some of Meetifyr’s luxuriously long and sensual leg:

So let’s say my last fantasy football league was a failure, so I put together twelve of the biggest football fans I know from all of walks of life. I’m afraid Carmen Electra’s going to win. She’s probably been with so many football players she could get a job as an NFL scout. Anyways, so I set up my calendar, say I only want to draft on Saturdays, and I send an email to all my buddies. They click the link and can all really easily toggle whether they are available or not for the given timeframe. Wham, nice and easy, a few clicks later we find out when we can meet:

The site does one thing and does it well. It merges a large group’s busy-ness. It meetifies. It’s a meetifier. No wait, it’s a MEETIFYR! The important thing is that it merges it all together for all these people who have different calendar programs, some of which they can sync online and some they can’t, and even people who use A PENCIL AND PAPER! Yeah, trust me, there are some of them out there. With a couple clicks they transfer only the relevant data.

Alright, ready for the bad part? And by “bad part” I really mean “bad parts”. Note the plural aspect of that last sentence. There are tons of problems with the site. Honestly, as of now I think it’s just a super proof of concept. Instead of dwelling on the problems I’m going to make a quick list. Sorry Meetifyr, this will be less painful, I promise.

• You can’t name your meetings. If you try to type one in here:

  

  Then as soon as you refresh the page you get that beautiful “Give your meeting a name” prompt again. Or when you email your buddy the link that message is still there.

• You can only choose two timeframes (4 weeks or 8 weeks into the future). What if you want to make it an event sometime in August? Not only is it farther away than you can choose, but you also can only allow for the entire time from now until then, not just the four week period in August.
• There are no access rights. Everyone can edit everything, from the event title (if it did save), to other people’s availability, to adding and deleting users. You have to have 100% confidence in the people you send this too. On the surface this might be ok, but trust me, if you’re setting up a fantasy football league the entire league is made up of eight year olds. Not literally, but in their heads they are eight. In some misguided attempt at humor one of them will totally screw this up.
• Attendees are available by default. You cannot tell if a user simply hasn’t checked yet or really is available all the time. There really needs to be a “not yet responded” state for the toggle.
• If another user makes a change you need to refresh to see it. It’s not live updating. In the perfect world where users only update their own events you can actually almost overlook this. But what if two people want to invite Jimmy Hoffa into the league? All the sudden they both add Jimmy separately, and you have multiple Hoffa’s. If you delete one his body might get lost somewhere. Seriously, Jimmy could edit one of his calendars and you could delete the wrong one… the one he edited.
• It doesn’t integrate with anything. Compared to all these other really major complaints this might just be a feature request for something nice. It would be great if when Carmen Electra clicked the link you email her and logged in (yes, I am requiring logins now) she could input some credentials and sync her Google Cal. Then she can say what days she is busy without tabbing back and forth between windows figuring out when she’s going to a movie premier and when she’ll be at the Playboy Mansion and when she has time to do my fantasy draft. This should be extra easy for them since the site is powered by Google App Engine. Right? (I really don’t know if that makes it any easier to integrate, but it says Google on it.)
• There might be browser problems with IE. Since the site is super slow I only messed around with it in Chrome and Firefox for anything over fifteen minutes, but I used IE for about two minutes and got some JS errors. Everything has problems with IE, so I’m not sure if this really matters. Should we complain that coffee is bad for dinosaurs? No, dinosaurs are dead and everyone else is totally cool with coffee. IE compliance is the least of Meetifyr’s worries.

Oh yeah, and when you try and edit your events, save times, load the page, etc, it’s really really f’ing slow. Bleh. So slow. I think I might have already mentioned that, but it should be said again. And again and again and again. Hopefully someday in the near future this thing will actually be usable. Socrates would say something about how the form of Meetifyr is perfect, but the actual Meetifyr is far from it. Meetifyr, strive to be all you can be. I would love to use this tool someday.

In N.O.V.A. you play a Space Marine trying to take over a hostile alien space ship and then move on to other levels to help humanity colonize other planets. The game play is phenomenal. There is no delay in the game at all. The game does not stop, skip or show any glitches. The screens renders immediately; there is no wait time and all of this is done with multiple bad guys on the screen.  I personally find the controls to be very intuitive. Gameloft uses the whole screen as a controller. Left side of the screen controls forward back left right movement and the right side of the screen controls your aim, firing, and jumping. It’s pretty easy. If you feel that you may not get the controls, then I recommend you play the tutorial level. I’m sure after that you’ll have no problem. N.O.V.A. also allows two player bluetooth multiplayer and four person wifi multiplayer through their Gameloft Live! network. You can make a free Gameloft Live! account through the game.

The graphics on the the game are the best I’ve seen. The design and artwork are far beyond what I expected. It’s not xBox 360 or PS3 quality but it looks as if it is xBox quality. Just check out the detail on the screen shots below. All in all, I don’t think you’ll find a first person shooter this visually appealing and this fun on any other mobile plat form for only $7.00. Something like this on the PSP or DS will be at least $40.00. I think every gamer should own this game. You can buy it here.

I  don’t have access to a scanner and I am damn well not going to print out War and Peace on my OfficeJet. I went to Kinkos. They charge $1.00 to scan a page, $2.49 to fax one page and $1.00 every page after that. Yes, I know I can go sit at the stupid scanner station and scan my documents but the scanner is not auto loading and it’s freaking BROKEN! I went to ask for help and I got in return, “Sorry dude, it’s broken.” Wonderful, put up a sign at least so I don’t log into the machine and waste my precious $0.25/minute while I try to speak in Bro Speak to explain the problem to you.

Anyway, I stumbled upon two fantastic iPhone applications. Zosh selling at $2.99 and JotNot Scanner selling at $4.99. Zosh allows you to add text, dates, and signatures to PDF documents all using the iPhone/iPod Touch touch screen. I just set up a Zosh account and emailed my PDFs to mydocs@zosh.com. I got an email back (in less than a minute) saying your documents are ready to edit. I fired up the app on my device and signed and dated documents without ever having to print them out again. This $3.00 app has saved me a lot of money. I have to sign an expense report and time sheet every two weeks, Statement of Works, and other contacts for my job (I work from home so I don’t have access to a normal office environment.). With Zosh I never have to step foot in Kinkos to print again. After I was done editing my document I was given the option email the document to myself or anyone else my little heart desired. I think this app is a fantastic companion to people who don’t want to deal with the hassles of printing out the PDF, don’t have Adobe Acrobat, or don’t have an electronic signature.

The core Zosh features;

• Sign PDF’s
• Add custom Text to PDF
• Add Dates to PDF
• Stores most recent entries as Shortcuts
• 4 Colors of Ink
• Tons of fonts
• Move, Resize, Rotate, Delete entries
• Multi-touch zoom
• iTunes Link

JotNot Scanner is the second part to making my personal iPhone office awesome. I needed to send copies of my Birth Certificate and ID. Well that’s two bucks right there at Kinkos. I then calculated time to drive there and then back home. I would have gone if I was hungry because Kinkos is close to Kasper’s Hot Dogs. If you’ve never had a Kasper’s Dog then you haven’t lived. But I wasn’t hungry and it would have cost me more than five bucks to go there and back. So I rubbed my magic iPhone to see if a Gene would pop out. Shazzam! JotNot Scanner: The Gene to my Aladdin. I placed my documents in a well lit area on a flat surface and took a picture using the app. It has a built in stabilizer which automatically takes the picture when your hand (or whatever you’re holding your phone with) reaches a steady point that it finds to be optimal. You preview the picture and either retake or go forward. The app gives you an option to select the areas you want scanned by dragging the four corners of a box to build your frame. Click the “Process” button and you’ve got a freshly scanned document with a PDF extension. There are three options to transmit the document after that: email, send to Evernote, or save to WebDav/iDisk MobileMe.

Here’s a screenshot of one of the letters I scanned:

Not bad huh? Five bucks and it looks just about the same if not better than the POS scanner I would be forced to use at Kinkos.

The core JotNot features:

• Scan Anything
• Use existing pictures in photo roll and convert to PDF
• Email newly scanned documents
• Evernote integration
• WebDav/iDisk MobileMe Support
• iTunes Link

Put that in your pipe and smoke it Kinkos. $8.00 investment to never see you again. I just wish I found these apps earlier.

• Leverages the GPS to search nearby and provide one-click directions from the current location
• Allows minimal filtering:
  • “Price” using the usual yelp $ – $$$$ notation
  • “Open Now” to only show establishments that publish their hours and are currently open
• Presents recently searched locations in a drag-down list when the location field of the search is selected
• Keeps a history of searched keywords and presents them in a drag-down list when the keyword field of the search menu is selected
• Keeps a history of establishments viewed recently and presents them in a list accessible from the main menu
• Provides dedicated buttons to call and map the establishment being viewed
• Provides detailed information for each establishment on par with the full Yelp website

On the downside, the app:

• Is read-only. You can’t post reviews.
• Lacks most of the filters
• Doesn’t have any sort options. It appears to present in “Best Match” mode for establishments and “Yelp Sort” for reviews.

When compared to the mobile site, notable features missing from the app are filtering by neighborhood and distance. The location awareness offsets this somewhat, but these features are still needed in some cases. And although you can browse nearby establishments by category, you cannot filter searches by category. The app feels most complete when viewing a particular establishment. Here, you’ll you’ll find a complete list of reviews (from informative and succinct to obnoxious page-long life stories saddled with crummy humor) and all the finer details such as contact information, operating hours, dress code, reviews, photos, etc.

Looking beyond comparison to the mobile site, it would be nice to see the full set of filters and sorting that makes Yelp so nice to use. And although I don’t post reviews myself, hardcore Yelpers are probably going to miss that ability. The good news is that Yelp claims this is just the beginning and that new features are already planned for release in the coming weeks.

• Tap anywhere to take a picture – my favorite and most useful feature
• Picture in Picture view – take a picture and a thumbnail of the most recent picture shows up in the corner. Touch and hold the picture and it becomes full screen so you can see if you like it. If you don’t like it slide the thumbnail to the other side of the screen and you’ll have an option to delete it.
• 5x multi-touch digital zoom
• Burst mode – take up to three images in rapid succession
• Touch to focus on 3GS
• Upload to Facebook and Twitter right in app
• Color filters
• Stability control
• Level
• Auto/Manual Save
• Take pictures in multiple image sizes

It does all of those features well. As usual, nothing is 100% fantastic. The app needs better camera roll integration. Snapture limits you to sending one image at a time right now. For example, I just took some pictures of toys I got the nieces and nephews. I was gonna send those pictures off for approval from the parents. Instead of being able to use Snapture’s built-in sharing feature I had to close out of the app and go to my camera roll in the iPhone Photos app so I could select all three to send. I hope that Snapture integrates a multiple attachment option and a full access to the camera roll.

Lastly, video camera. The video camera is a nice addition to the iPhone 3GS and I would love to be able to use the Snapture services on the video camera. With that said, I can see this app only getting better. So I think you should go out and get it now before the price starts to go up as more updates come through. iTunes Link

The app is fully loaded. You can set it to receive alerts for any team. So you can get a notification at the end of every quarter for which ever team you want to. NBA Game Time also will have a badge showing how many games are on at that moment. Open the app up and all active games will be highlighted in red. Tap an active game and you’ll get a score board and break down by quarter. To listen to the game just tap the headphones icon and the app will give you a screen to select which station you want.

Another fancy feature is video highlights. Ever tired at night and just wanna see the recap of the game you missed. So you sit awake watching SportsCenter in hopes that after the next commercial break they’ll show you the highlights so you can go to bed. Yeah well, no more of that. Game Time has on demand video highlights. Just select the “League” menu and you’ll get options for video, leaders, news, and community.

My only gripe is partially with the app and partially with the iPhone. If you’re listening to a game and need to answer an email or a text message, the app will shut down the second you hit the home button. Partially with the app, because apps can actually run in the background. ESPN Radio runs in the background. So I feel that NBA Game Time should have worked the little magic that ESPN did. It’s okay, because the iPhone OS is more to blame since it naturally does not allow third party applications to run in the background.  With that being my only issue, I still feel this app is a must have for any basketball fan. I just hope that the NFL and NHL will release something similar and soon.

Please see screen shots below. Also you can purchase the app here. (Works great on WiFi and 3G. So-so on Edge)

I started looking for a password manager. My friends all use different methods. One uses an encrypted text file and the other uses some free program, Keypass, I think. I wanted something that did everything for me and all I had to remember was a couple passwords. I found what I wanted in 1Password. 1Password is a password management desktop application for $39.35 and $4.99 for the iPhone app. Yeah I know, kinda steep but it is worth every dollar. I thought it was kinda BS that I had to pay for the iPhone app after I already bought the desktop version, but oh well, we’re all trying to make a buck. Also, the app is pretty nice so after I started using it I wasn’t that pissed.

Anyway, this application has made my life so much easier and that much more secure. I’m only using a handful of features right now but I’m sure the more in a couple weeks I will be using every bell and whistle this application has. This is what I got for you right now. Launch 1Password and it will ask you to create one master password which gives you access to the application. Then go to any site you normally log into like your bank account and type your user name and password. 1Password then asks you if you’d like the program to save this record. Click yes and it will create a log in for www.bankaccount.com. The next time you visit www.bankaccount.com click on the browser extension (you will install during installation of the program) and select “Login with Bank Account” and 1Password will log you in with those credentials after you unlock the application with the master password you set.

So repeat that process for all the sites you log in to and everything gets saved locally on your computer. Now you only have to remember two passwords: the password to your computer (You do lock your computer don’t you?) and the password to 1Password. I use the Wallet feature too. I carry one credit card and one check card. I lost my wallet a while ago. It wasn’t a pain in the ass to look go online and look up the phone number for my cards and call and cancel. However, with 1Password I enter all the information for my cards and sync it to my iPhone using the iPhone app. This way if I lose my wallet I have the numbers with me and can cancel the cards or even use my cards for an emergency purchase before I shut them down. This feature is also awesome for travelers. Normally when I take an international trip I email my self pictures of the cards just in case I need any information off of them if they are lost or stolen. But that’s not really safe and I delete them immediately when I get home. Now with 1Password, the information is protected and not online.

This program also has a built in password generator. You can set criteria like one capital later, at least one number, and/or at least one special character. It generates you a random password based on the strength you desire. Use that password and store it in 1Password so you never have to remember it again.

The one problem I see is password mobility. If you’re at a internet cafe and want to check one of your accounts but used the password generator to create the password I’m sure you don’t remember it and won’t be able to log in to your account when you’re not on your computer. I really don’t know what to tell you besides memorize them unless you have an iPhone. If you have one of those gizmos your passwords come with you. The iPhone app also has two layers of protection on it. It asks you to set a pin to access the app. After you set that app you set another master password. When you launch the app you enter your PIN and then it gives you access to your log in profiles. However all the passwords are masked. If you want to see the password you have to enter the master password to see the actual text. iPhone sync is over wifi (phone and computer have to be on the same network) not internet. This way nothing is transferred online through a third party site.

I highly recommend this software package, desktop and iPhone app. I have over 30 log ins and this thing has seriously made my life easier. I know it’s a bit steep for 45 bucks but the random password generator, one touch log in, and protection is worth it to me. You can buy this software here. iPhone app here.

I like to enjoy a beer or seven after work. If you do to then this is the app for you. Happy Houred lets you search your city for all the happy hours around you. You can set the range from .25 miles to 10 miles and it will bring up all bars having specials. They’ve got a a crazy amount of categories to search from or you can just search for everything. It uses Google Maps to show you the search results. Click on a pin and you get the title of the restaurant and maybe the special. Click the blue arrow on the flag and you get all the information about the bar that you could ever want, including specials for the week. So what if you need your iPhone to tell you where the best happy hour it is. You paid the $200 bucks to have it, might as well have it save you a few dollars on beer right? The app is free too.

iTunes Link