Essential iPhone apps

Note: I started listing apps, then thought about linking them. The obvious place to start was the Apple web site. I have never found out how to search for an app from this site without having to launch the dreaded iTunes. As usual, a little googling brought me right on track.

Free

• Google: your Google stuff made available from a single place, but launched in Safari. Your Google apps stuff too, which is really nice.
• Wapedia: let's face it, the Wikipedia mobile site is bad. Their dedicated iPhone app is worst. Wapedia gives you bookmarks, contents table, and access to other wikis from the same interface.
• Tellmewhere: rate your favourite places, find people who share your tastes, get recommendations. It works pretty much anywhere: what aroundme could have been but isn't. Pretty much invaluable when you are lost in the city, looking for a restaurant you will like.
• Linkedin: like the web site, easier to use and integrates with your contacts.
• Kindle: Amazon's book reader.
• Kobo: Kobo's book reader.
• Stanza: Generic book reader.
• Shazam: ever wondered what is this tune you are hearing? Shazam will find it for you.
• Radio.BE: streamed Belgian radio stations.
• TV Gids Belgïe Lite: a TV guide in Dutch. As I do not have a TV nor do I speak Dutch, that's fine :-)

Paying

• Sleep Cycle: an app I have found there. It wakes you up gently when you start moving in your sheets a few minutes before your waking time. And it tells you how much you have slept, draws graphs and computes an average. My average total time is currently 4h 34m. And I was wondering why I was feeling tired these last few weeks ;-)

The one that got away

Once upon a time there was this guy who left everything behind to face a new challenge. Opportunities were there, sure, but they weren't that good. When all is said and done, there isn't much to say about retirement plan, health insurance or a new car... It wasn't the conditions but the challenge that brought the man in.
He wasn't the ideal candidate. Far from it. But, for some jobs, the ideal candidate is an HR wet dream. He didn't speak the language, had a very narrow focus, and didn't exercised leadership as he should have. As far as I understand it, he didn't even knew what leadership is, he took it all for granted.
It didn't took long for things to go sour. People began asking for reassignment ("I do not know what I should be doing.", "I do not understand what is expected of us.", "What are we here for? What is the plan?"), or just plainly quit. People depending upon his work began to ask questions ("What is he doing?", "Why is he here?", "What is his role?", "Should I go through him for that?"). Then the criticisms ("We all agreed upon that, but he doesn't know/remember/understand.", "He isn't from around here, how can we trust him?", "He doesn't know us."). Possibly, he ran afoul of some deal, picked the wrong resource or contractor, made the wrong friends, was unable to gain the trust he needed.
In the meantime, he established quality standards, reasserted the end-user responsibility in requirements analysis, brought a new methodology and new talent in.
And then he was out.
Not of his own choosing.

A few words to the wise:

• never take leadership for granted ;
• there is no excuse ;
• learn the game before playing it ;
• listen carefully ;
• talk sparingly but, for God sake, *say* something.

Sock

We had another great evening last Tuesday, Miss I and I.
Our favourite place was closed for the holidays, and I have found a very similar place through tellmewhere. Even though our menus were very different (better to take the measure of the cook ;-), the maître d'hôtel (yup, I hate maitre d';-) cum sommelier cum owner did a very good job choosing our wine. When there are meats, fishes and warm or cold food on the table, and an "alternative" wine cellar I do not even try ;-) The place is too cozy and intimate for me, but she liked it.
Of course it was crowded, of course I had made sure to leave the office late enough to avoid feeding time, but still, I managed to keep my agoraphobia under control. In fact, I have barely felt it. We had one of our most free flowing and open talk to date.
A pity it took us the better part of two years to feel confident enough to go past the dating crap.
Still another great evening in good company ;-)

An evening with Miss B

Last Wednesday I expected to spend my evening with Miss I, then it turned out that she was busy, so I went on with plan B. Where B stands for "bof", a rare occasion for English and French meanings to strangely meet.

Miss B is a colleague's colleague. We are both "available", not working in the same unit, rare enough to jump at the opportunity. Even better: we have similar clearances so we may talk shop. As a rarely speak of anything else, it is a big plus. While I was disappointed not to see Miss I, the perspective of meeting someone with whom I may have a no-holds-barred discussion was enticing enough for me to call her and arrange a meeting that evening. Our colleague must have painted me in very favourable light, because she agreed to the meeting on very short notice.

I had known about her for a few months, and what I knew from out colleague was that she was working in a non managerial position on some mundane projects, was good looking (men's talk ;-) and quite energetic: little Miss Sunshine in Macholand. Nothing really appealing to me at the time: the same things can be said of other women I had already met, and most of them were disappointments because, mostly, what they were doing was there job, without any calling or conviction. Furthermore, I already had a bad on-the-job dating experience, and, in my world, you do not date the staff. So, well, yes, I knew about her, I knew that she might be someone nice but I didn't really wanted to meet her. I had a far better person to look for anyway.
This far better person being unavailable, and me recently resolved to look for someone else, I decided to take the the chance.
It turns out that while she is indeed good looking, possesses a great sense of style, is a great conversationalist (by my standards...) and is indeed involved in what she is working at and derives great pride out of it, she is also a freaking hippie. Not that I do not like hippies, well, I do not love them, but they have their part to play. What I cannot stand is people who do not know who they are, what they are doing, and unable to be coherent. You can have reservations, but you cannot preach against what you are enthusiastically doing.
Immediate turn-off.
So, either it was all an act, and I didn't get her humour; either it wasn't and she is truly lost.
Anyway, we both had some fun, nothing to regret, nothing to be ashamed of, and that was it. I guess that I won't be calling her soon ;-)

Internet pitfalls

CD/TV is *not* the FCO channel...

Apple: the good, the bad and the ugly...

OK, I know, I said no tech post here, and declared a unconditional nerdry cease-fire. Well, there is a good thing about unconditional cease-fires: they are actually meant to be broken ;-)

Once upon a time, not so long ago, I wasn't a big fan of Apple products. My aversion was twofold: CISC suck(s/ed) (the idea is good, but the implementation was usually poor) ; Apple's OSes sucked even more. Well, I am a SPARC/Solaris guy, it was to be expected ;-)
Then came MacOS X and the iPhone.
RISC+Unix.
On a *cellphone*.
In my *pocket*.
t3h nErdZ dre4mZ :-)

So I got an iPhone, freed it, loved it, bought a macBook, picked up some objective C, and I was set. Since then, I no longer dislike Apple as much as I did. Quite a long way to go for a guy who had never used an iPod and was appalled by the crass vulgarity of Apple apps. I even offered a macBook to my not-quite-70 mother, thinking that it would be easier for her to use (and for me to maintain...). So it seems that my opinion has been fully reversed.
Not quite.
I am not a blind fan yet ;-)

The good:

You can set up an Apple product with your fingers alone. You can unpack it with your fingers alone. With a single finger even. It doesn't require a knife, not a single tool. Just a finger. Two if you are really clumsy.

It is really easy to use. Crass vulgarity at its best ;-)

Unix. Did I mention that?

It is (still) safer to use than you usual Wintel PC.

It looks good.

The bad:

• One word: maintenance.

For my computers, I have to set and reset the power and screensaver settings each and every time I update them. It doesn't happen quite as much as for a Windows box, granted, but it is still annoying as hell. Even Windows allows you to update silently, even if it keeps asking you for a reboot again and again.
For my iPhones (I have four of them and go through two each day: the battery is very short-lived) , it is worst. The OS upgrades are few and far between, true, but once you have a few apps it becomes a nightmare. And, even though once an app is downloaded and updated you can synch it on all your phones without further downloads, I have never found a way to do so with the OS upgrade files.
All in all, I would say that the maintenance process is tedious but bearable. Most people won't be inconvenienced.

• JAVA

It lags far behind Sunacle release. Most people will not matter.
I do.

The ugly:

• iTunes synch

My boy, are you ugly...
And retarded...
Is that pus oozing out of your mouth?
So far, the best argument in favour of retroactive abortion...
Ever tried synching your library on many computers?
Ever tried telling it that you want this song on that device, not using playlists (because you do not want to have to maintain them too)?
This single piece of software is the most burdensome jukebox ever. Junkbox would be more appropriate.

• iStore for apps

OK, the content is not universally distributed, and some countries have access to more, some other to less. Not really Apple's fault. I can understand that. And as long as music is concerned, you can easily find what you are looking for.
Then came the apps. Finding something there is like going 15 years back and using Yahoo categories to find a web site when you know of AltaVista. Even worst: Yahoo actually did a good job in defining its topology and classifying content according to it. iStore apps categories are a ((very) sad) joke, and the actual classification is at best haphazard.

EOL

I have met with Miss I last Wednesday, and, since then, no sign of obsession to report.
Well, I was tired and didn't make much effort, but still, it is nice to know that I can still psych myself ;-)