You might need to rename (or delete) the previous RSS URL you had for the gallery to slurp up the feed again.

I’ve also come to the conclusion that I need only a note-taking application. Having checkboxes and to-do lists would be a plus, but not really necessary for my own needs. I still don’t need a GTD tool, either. Because notes can be lists for my purposes, this entry focuses more on notes compared with my previous entry (nearly two years ago!).

While using Evernote, I’ve noticed some features I’ve become dependent upon:

• Offline (a.k.a., local) access to my notes and lists. Useful when there’s no network or WiFi access.
• Being able to categorize or tag notes for sorting and searching is important. I have more than a couple dozen notes, so I need some way of organizing them instead of one big list. Tagging has the advantage of allowing more than one tag per note, but even categorizing (e.g., into labeled folders) helps. The big limitation with categories is that typically a note can be in only one category.
• Desktop access to edit my notes and lists. Or, at the very least, desktop access through a web interface. Why? When I’m in front of my computer, it’s much easier for me to type with a hardware keyboard. Another reason: If I change note-taking apps in the future, I want some way to migrate them, even if it’s as basic as copying and pasting text.
• Web access is good only if it’s a secure (https / SSL) connection.
• Nice to have: The ability to either photograph or record notes and lists. Voice transcription would be swell, but not really required.
• Free or low cost.

I didn’t spend equally extensive periods of time using each app, so these reviews are summarized in places. I spent more time with apps which felt easier to use, with features that interested me more. I’m sure there are other note-taking apps I’m unaware of. If there’s one you highly recommend using, feel free to suggest it, although I cannot guarantee I’ll have time to look at it.

• My growing disappointment with Evernote
• Overly busy-looking apps, including AwesomeNote Lite, Smartnotes Lite, Mental Note Lite, and NoteMaster Lite
• reQall
• SyncBook
• Take A Note
• YouNote Lite
• Apps not tested
• So how about Simplenote?

So how is Evernote working out?

It ain’t. Allow me to enumerate the issues I’ve had with Evernote (free | iTunes link) that’ve been accumulating for over a year:

• Offline access has been implemented as a feature called Favorites. It has always been problematic, especially with an issue where Favorites couldn’t be accessed while in Airplane mode (offline). That hasn’t been a problem for me recently, but with the advent of version 3.2.x, the order of my Favorites (which are manually sortable by drag and drop) went haywire. It was no longer sorted according to all the dragging and dropping I had done over the months. And no matter how I tried to sort them again, the order was suddenly forgotten. Sometimes I’d pass by a duplicate of a note while dragging it during manual sort mode. Quitting and restarting the app did not help, nor did clearing the app’s cache, nor did restarting the iPhone. Upon filing a support request, I was told to remove and reinstall the app. Which would erase settings for my Favorites. But since I’ve got Premium service, I was told that Favorites aren’t necessary anyhow: Why not just make my own offline Notebook, a folder containing notes? But I went through all that effort to create and maintain my Favorites. I have to do it all over again? A solution that effectively requires data loss seems so wrong.
• Crashy crashy crashy. I access Evernote on the iPhone several times a day. It crashes at least once a week. If I’m editing a note and a crash occurs, the changes are lost; such data loss not too surprising, but remains very annoying.
• Too many steps to edit and save a note. 1. Open a note. 2. Hit Edit button. 3. Tap in textarea to start editing, i.e., bring up the keyboard. 4. Tap Save button. Steps 2 and 3 do distinguish between viewing and editing modes, but it’s more effective for me if they were merged as a single step — like the built-in Notes app.
• At some point, iirc, Evernote used to remember where in the app I was between sessions. i.e., whether I was viewing or editing a note, viewing a list of notes, etc. Not anymore, the New Note page is always displayed on startup. It makes the previous issue even more aggravating — especially if I suddenly crash, or quit while editing a note. I admit, though, that with iOS 4, this is less of an issue, since Evernote continues running in the background; but of course the state is forgotten if I completely quit the app (or when it crashes).
• I thought that having rich text would be nice (especially allowing URLs to launch Safari), but it’s more of a hassle. Why? Rich text cannot be edited on the iPhone. Evernote works around this by offering to append changes or make a copy of the original. Too complicated; I’ve found I’d rather stick with plaintext, to allow changes where I want them.
• The Evernote Mac desktop app never allowed conversion rich text into plaintext. The web UI used to, but no longer does. Great, now both tools are consistent with each other. But now I’m stuck with the aggravation of dealing with Evernote’s clumsy handling of rich text editing on the iPhone. Ugh.

Noisy UIs: Awesome Note Lite, Note Master Lite, SmartNotes Lite

Skimming the long feature lists of these apps at first made me eager to try them out. But they all had something painfully in common: Cluttered interfaces. I might think Evernote is turning into a Microsoft Office-like kitchen sink morass, but at least on the surface its iPhone UI is clear and straightforward.

Awesome Note Lite

Awesome Note Lite (free | iTunes link) is the same as the paid version ($3.99 | iTunes link), but limits you to seven notes.

Allows memos, lists and to-do tasks. You can even attach photos. Syncs with either Google Docs or Evernote, which requires web access. The app is very colorful, and has so many tabs, buttons and popups that it makes me dizzy. For example, you have to dig into a popup to delete an item. Popup menus in an iPhone app? Eh? Trying to squish the windowing UI metaphor into a small display feels awkward.

SmartNotes Lite

Lite version (free | iTunes link), paid version ($2.99 | iTunes link). This app includes both text note and todo list features, with a bafflingly colorful UI: many backgrounds to chose from, many ways to sort, multiple setting screens, a couple ways of viewing items. The overabundance of choices gets in the way of dealing with notes and tasks. For example, on an iPhone, why would I want to differentiate between the Desktop and Cascade, and why not simply call those icon and list views? Most of the time reinventing the wheel is just not needed.

Mental Note Lite

Mental Note Lite (free | iTunes link) is the same as the paid version ($2.99 | iTunes link), but limits you to two notes. Mental Note allows text, audio, photo and sketch (finger-drawn) notes, and has some nifty features:

• Always remembers where I was in the app between sessions.
• Not only can I mail a note, I can also save it as a screenshot to the iPhone’s Photos app.
• I can tag with both color and text labels.
• I can easily undo and redo sketch movements by tapping the Pencil button.
• I can easily append (but not insert) multiple media in a single note.
• I can crop and resize photos within the app.
• I can delete individual sections in a note.

However, this app suffers from some UI complication. How do I get a simple list of my notes? Oh, hit the tab button (eh?). Why does flagging have such low contrast that I can’t tell what’s going on?

NoteMaster Lite

NoteMaster Lite (free | iTunes link) is the same as the paid version ($3.99 | iTunes link), but limits you to seven notes. NoteMaster Lite allows both text notes and notes with photos, but like other apps I’ve seen, its UI feels heavy handed.

It also syncs with Google Docs. I could email notes, too, but I’d need to setup the email account from which I’d send, which feels kludgy. Why not use what’s already setup in iPhone Mail? Even Evernote handles that gracefully.

reQall

reQall’s (free | iTunes link) strengths lie in voice recognition and transcription, and tracking time-dependent tasks. With these services reQall for iPhone competes with Jott. So far its service and iPhone application remain free; Jott’s free service terminated on 3 February 2009. At first I thought reQall required a network/WiFi connection, but both audio recordings and transcribed notes seem to be accessible while offline — an improvement over Evernote’s flaky offline access.

Sadly, reQall’s iPhone interface is only somewhat less maddening than Jott’s:

• Transcription seems to take somewhat longer than Jott’s service. However, a copy is always mailed, which is handy.
• Searching is available (string search), but cannot tag or categorize anything.
• I cannot create my own labeled categories or tags — unless I pay for the Pro service to add custom folders.
• Once created, you cannot change the type of Thing (Note, To-do or Shopping item). This drives me nuts, since you must remember to pull down a menu to select the type when you create it. (Another reason against adding menus to mobile apps.)
• Each voice recording is limited to 30 seconds, even with the paid Pro service.
• Lists are called Shopping Lists, which for a list-y person like me isn’t a useful name since I don’t consider all lists to be shopping lists.

Overall, reQall has more time dependency features than I need or care to use. In addition, I doubt I’d use the People aspect, as that depends on contacts actually using the reQall service.

SyncBook

I had purchased SyncBook for $3.99 (free | iTunes link) some time ago; its price went down to $1.99, then ultimately became free. It handles plaintext notes, desktop syncing (via Bonjour) is available through a free Mac client application, not requiring any web-based registration.

Syncing requires a bit of effort, though. On the Mac side I can use any editor which will save .txt files; pop the files into ~/Library/Application Support/NotesSync/, then sync. No mobile network access needed, but WiFi needs to be enabled for both your Macintosh and iPhone. I can also use the desktop app to import HTML and RTF files, but I need to convert them to plaintext in order to view them on the iPhone.

Some other features that SyncBook has:

• Very easy to edit and save notes, in fewer steps than Evernote.
• The app uses categories, not tags.
• Notes are organized by category, and you can sort within those by name or date modified. There is no manual sorting.
• I can add a colored label (as a dot) to a note for extra emphasis.
• All note names must be unique, even across categories.
• Notes are searchable.

Unfortunately, it looks like this app has been orphaned, as it hasn’t been updated for over a year.

Take A Note

Take A Note ($4.99 | iTunes link) by Readdle has a layout very similar to Evernote, but a style reminding me of Classics. As a paid app, how does it compare? I can have text, audio and photo notes, like Evernote, but I can also have drawings as notes.

In spite of the beautiful appearance, the WiFi Access Help page contains typos and has a completely different style from the rest of the app. (Reminds me of the pulpy English-roughly-translated-from-elsewhere leaflets that come with small household appliances.) The information there does help setup syncing, but to be consistent that content really ought to be cleaned up.

There is no online access, so syncing limited between a computer and the iPhone via WiFi. This is done via WebDAV, rather than by Bonjour. Readdle doesn’t have a desktop application like Evernote or SyncBook. I just mount the iPhone with the IP address given in Take A Note’s WiFi Access page, copy whatever files I want to and from that virtual drive, et voilà. The disadvantage, however, is that there’s no obvious backup of your notes to your desktop machine, other than in the hidden manner when you sync via iTunes. To have an easily accessible copy of my notes, I’d need to create another folder on my desktop computer, then manually copy them through WebDAV.

Take A Note uses categories, not tags, so a given note can be in only one category. Audio, drawing and photo notes have an additional Comment tab, which contains creation date info and any additional notes I might wish to add. Notes are also searchable.

Take A Note has some other nice features not found in the Evernote iPhone app:

• It remembers whether I was viewing a note or in the Add Note page, rather than always starting at the Notes page. However, I wish it would remember if I were viewing a folder listing, rather than always going to the toplevel Notes page. This is less of an issue when running in the background under iOS 4, but crops up when I fully quit the app.
• I can change the font size and font family settings; even though text itself cannot be styled, it’s a nice way to customize the interface.
• A password lock for the app.

By default, photo, audio and drawing notes use a timestamp as the title, but I can change a title by editing the Comment field. Take A Note seems a bit slow overall, though, so I’m not sure how well it could handle my 100+ notes.

YouNote Lite

YouNote Lite (free | iTunes link) offers several note formats. The app’s quirky, cute icons come in flavors of TextNote, PictNote, AudioNote, DrawNote, and WebNote. A note containing a mix of these media becomes a MultiNote. Sounds like a good candidate, but YouNote Lite remains quite limited:

• Although button bar items do sort — alpha (“T”), date (calendar icon with “1″), and note type (odd diamond thing) — I cannot categorize or tag notes.
• It took me a while to go through the app and SophiaCom’s website to finally realize that I can enter data only onto the iPhone. Because there’s no web or desktop editing, there’s no way for me to import notes from elsewhere.
• Even though the developers offer the free YouNote Desktop application, it offers only barebones functions of backing up and restoring notes in an all-or-nothing manner. You might as well stick with Time Machine.
• I cannot email notes unless I get the paid version of the app.

I didn’t bother testing the paid version of YouNote ($2.99 | iTunes link), because I’d still be unable to transfer existing notes into the app. From what I can tell, their navigator would only allow read-only viewing of notes within YouNote.

Some apps not tested

Notebook by Appigo

Notebook ($4.99 | iTunes link) by Appigo allows HTML notes in addition to plaintext notes. Notebook has a rich set of features, and even offers a way to import Palm Memos from the Mac Desktop. I haven’t bothered testing it yet because in order to sync I’d have to sign up with yet another web service — in this case Toodledo.com. It also doesn’t support photo or audio notes.

Notebooks by Alfons Schmid

Notebooks ($5.99 | iTunes link) by Alfons Schmid, like Notebook, offers many features including Palm Memo importing. Notebooks also offers syncing through WebDAV, or Bonjour via SyncDocs. I’m holding off on testing Notebooks, though — not just because there’s no way to create and maintain audio and photo notes, but because I don’t wish to spend time now to go through the sheer number and complexity of its features. (Awesome Note et al. burned my attention span in that respect.)

SplashShopper

SplashShopper has apps for both the iPhone ($4.99 | iTunes link) and the Mac OS X desktop. These apps do lists, and only lists, in text, with no options for photo or voice entries. The desktop app is $19.95, but includes a free 30-day trial period. Fortunately, SplashShopper is no longer the only app offering offline access to data, so I decided to spend my time testing other apps.

SplashShopper also looks is a dead-ringer for HandyShopper, which I had loved using in Palm OS. Except that HandyShopper is freeware. :-/

Noter & Noter2

Noter is a free web app, whereas Noter2 is a paid ($1.99 | iTunes link) native app. Unfortunately, online account access for either appears to go over a non-secure connection, so I didn’t spend much time with either of these.

So how about Simplenote?

Simplenote (free | iTunes link) used to cost $1.99, but is now available for free, so I downloaded it even though I know it’s limited to plaintext notes. It has one big shortcoming for me: I can neither tag nor categorize the notes. The good news, though, is that a future version will include tags. If I can handle not needing audio or image notes within the same note-taking app, I just might move to Simplenote.

I did manage to crash Simplenote twice while going between editing a note and the list of notes. I haven’t been able to dependably reproduce it, sadly; their support team responded saying the crash might be resolved in the next release, a big update currently in Apple’s review queue. In addition, I wish tapping to edit a note places the caret where I had tapped, not at the beginning or end of the note.

On a related tangent, I recommend reading John Gruber’s compelling article on Simplenote. If you’re interested on how note-taking apps behave, his article clearly differentiates between online and desktop syncing, which I found informative.

Nevertheless, if a lack of taxonomy doesn’t bother you, this app might still work for you. Simplenote is indeed refreshingly simple, and easy to use. For example:

• I can sort notes alphabetically (first line serves as title), by last modified, or by last created.
• Simplenote has provided developers a means of extending the app, which includes JustNotes (free) and Nottingham ($19.95; free demo available), two Mac OS X applications for maintaining and syncing notes locally.
• It remembers where I last was, even after quitting the app.
• Search is a simple textfield appearing at the top of the note list.
• Even though notes are plaintext, there’s an option to activate URLs. When on, tap-holding will bring up the option to open in Safari, or to copy it. Nice!
• Simple services: a free web service for online syncing (the connection and login forms are secure, but the signup form oddly is not), a $4.99 one-time fee to get rid of the ads, and an annual $8.99 premium service.

So it is with a heavy heart that I must disable comment previewing for the time being. However, I’m awaiting feedback from the Comments Preview developer, so perhaps there’ll be a fix in the near future.

The second problem deals with OpenID delegation, i.e., using my site’s URL via an OpenID provider. OpenID v3.2 now includes delegation, which is great: WP-Yadis should become obsolete, one less plugin to keep track of. But unfortunately, delegation through the OpenID doesn’t seem to work. I use delegation on other sites, especially for leaving comments, so I need to keep WP-Yadis around. :-/

Update (17 Feb 2009): Version 3.2.1 of the OpenID plugin was just released, and fixed the delegation issue. Yay!

But a couple of things before I start. First, to find out when applications go on sale, as well as when they get updated, check out App Shopper. This site is particularly helpful because you can watch applications without having to purchase or download them. Find an app you’re curious about, then subscribe to its RSS feed. ¡Simplemente!

And second, the iTunes Link Maker is a handy site for creating links to email or embed in your website. You can make links to applications, music, shows, and so forth.

Application categories to jump to:

• Scientific apps, covering a calculator, the weather, birds, and astronomy.
• Transport and restaurant aids.
• A couple of reference-type apps.
• Social networking.
• Media and entertainment, including games.
• Productivity, redux.
• Miscellaneous apps I’m still looking for.

Science!

In the excellent movie π, the protagonist states, “Mathematics is the language of nature.” What better way to “speak” in that language than to use PCalc Lite (free | iTunes link)? But all I really need is a simple RPN calculator with a clean UI, and PCalc Lite satisfies this oddball dependency of mine.

Do I have a compulsive desire to check the weather reports? Hm, do I…? Would you believe that my favorite has remained a simple webclip to AccuWeather.com to my home screen? That perhaps the Weather Channel native app (free | iTunes link) comes in a close second? That I find AccuWeather’s native app (free | iTunes link) too cluttered? That I find WeatherBug (free | iTunes link) a bit too limited, in spite of nice location photos?

Sadly, I rarely take time to skywatch. Somehow this didn’t stop me from getting Starmap ($11.99 | iTunes link), which was the first app I purchased for the iPhone. No regrets, though. Starmap is chock full of easily accessible astronomy information. (Well, except for the menu’s awkward spinning dial, but the developer claims that’ll be improved in the next version.) What’s that planet? *Zip* Venus. Where did that meteor come from? *Zoop* The Chi Orionids. Can I adjust for twilight and the tilt of my head? Oh, yes, and more.

Bird watching apps further exhibit how my stinginess evaporates upon the discovery of compelling field guides. I started with Birds! ($9.99 | iTunes link), the only bird watching app for a while. It was a good start, but I’ve moved onto iBird Backyard ($4.99 | iTunes link) and iBird West ($9.99 | iTunes link), developed by WhatBird. (WhatBird maintains additional regional guides, as well as iBird Plus which covers all North American species.) iBird Backyard covers 145 birds in North America which are likely to appear around feeders and birdbaths, whereas iBird West comprehensively covers 711 species west of the Rocky Mountains. Both are great, but have some issues: typos, limited searching, strange navigation for going between similar bird species, and occasional crashes due to buggy memory management.

Nevertheless, I still recommend the iBird guides. In spite of the minor drawbacks, the iBird tools rank among my most-used apps. They are easy to use, the ultimate in interactive reference applications: WhatBird apps succeed in integrating audio (birdsongs), visuals (photos and illustrations), and cross-references to reduce confusion among similar species, as well as provide links to species’ pages in Wikipedia. As much as I am hyper-eager to see more identification guides / keys for other fauna, flora, geology and foodstuffs, I could only hope that such apps would approach the high standards set by WhatBird’s example.

Transport and dining

I replaced the Caltrain tool I had used for over a decade on my Palm devices with iCaltrain ($4.99 | iTunes link). True, I could use the free mobile site, but the native app is much faster and smoother, and utilizes the iPhone’s location services to display the closest station.

I wish I knew about about the Muni Time before I paid for Routesy ($2.99 | iTunes link). You simply make a webclip to the SF Muni mobile website on your iPhone, all for free. Routsey does make use of location services, but most of the time I just need route and schedule information. In any case, both Muni Time and Routesy seem to use NextBus data.

The Yelp app (free | iTunes link) isn’t too shabby for searching for restaurants and shops. But there are other apps that present Yelp content better than Yelp itself. iWant (free | iTunes link) succeeds here, most notably during roadtrips! Its main screen neatly categorizes places like gas stations, banks, restaurants, clothes and grocery stores, pharmacies, and cafés.

I’ve found the native OpenTable iPhone app (free | iTunes link) much easier to use than the mobile website, especially for booking reservations. Urbanspoon (free | iTunes link) can be helpful in locating restaurants based on cuisine type, cost, and of course, location — with the added amusement of shaking The Device to choose a place. Note that Urbanspoon focuses only on eateries, and seems to have a smaller directory than Yelp. I can rate restaurants without registration, but I’d need to create an account if I wanted to add or track restaurants on Urbanspoon.

Reference materials

I was torn between Wikipanion (free | iTunes link) and WikiTap (free | iTunes link) for access to Wikipedia. They both have straightforward interfaces, displaying content fit literally for the iPhone. But I’ve decided to stick with Wikipanion for now, although it’s rather slow to launch. I finally tired of WikiTap’s habit of displaying the top videos on startup. Also got tired of dismissing the space hogging videoclip bar every time an article loaded. (Thus I learned that I prefer to see text and images on Wikipedia, not movies.)

Constitution (free | iTunes link) neatly provides easy access to the United States Constitution. I just wish it included some sort of search mechanism, to better navigate the ocean (albeit a nicely organized ocean) of legal words and statements.

Social networking is another name for communication

I spend little time doing the online social networking jig. Okay, okay, except for Facebook, and occasionally LinkedIn. The Facebook app (free | iTunes link) is handy little thing, with clearly arranged features.

In addition, I read what seems to be a gazillion RSS feeds, although I’m not sure if I want to read them on my iPhone. After all, it’s much easier to do so with the larger display on the Mac. However, do let me know about your favorite feed readers for the iPhone. It could certainly come in handy someday, if I manage to prune the list of subscriptions.

Then there is reading email. I don’t think I could depend on mail on the iPhone. I receive too much spam, and client-side spam control on the iPhone n’éxiste pas. However, webmail systems which have server-side spam control, like Google and Yahoo, work fine. But because of my current hosting plan, I cannot solely depend on such services.

Considering my nearly pathological hatred of telephonic communication, I still hesitate to use instant messaging (IM) iPhone apps. A phone’s ring can infuriate me, so I wouldn’t want an IM to put me into a similarly unpleasant state. A positive use for instant messaging, though, would be as a substitute for SMS. I just haven’t made up my mind between IM+ Lite (a.k.a., IM Plus Lite, free | iTunes link) or Palringo (free | iTunes link).

IM+ Lite is simple and handy, but used to crash a lot until an update arrived in November (v1.4 or v1.5). Palringo was completely useless until late September (v1.2.2): up until that version, it kept refusing my logins. Nowadays Palringo seems a lot more polished feature-wise than IM+ Lite, even allowing picture and voice messages to be sent. I wish Palringo didn’t require registration even though it’s free — yet another login to keep track of. IM+ Lite keeps a transcript of conversations, which is great when interruptions occur, but not so great if you don’t want chat histories for privacy’s sake. So you could see how it remains a toss up between these two apps.

Media and entertainment

How comfortable is it for you, dear reader, to read books, poetry or comics on the iPhone, or any small, mobile device? After reading for about 20 to 30 minutes, I start getting a headache. Of course, this could be due to the power of my contact lens and spectacles. In spite of this, I’ve briefly played with eReader (free | iTunes link) by Fictionwise, Stanza (free | iTunes link) by Lexcycle, and Classics ($4.99 | iTunes link). As with the IM apps, this has become another case of dissatisfaction.

One thing I discovered: eBooks (not the pre-copyright or public domain ones) are expensive! I couldn’t find any I wanted to buy at Fictionwise, so eReader quickly became useless without purchases. Stanza allows for easy iPhone downloads of free eBooks. But you know what? So many free eBooks have shitty formatting — nearly invisible paragraph delineation, images and lines clipped off, completely unreadable lines — all which contribute to a painful reading experience.

A couple friends who read a lot of eBooks on Treos have asked about their transferability onto the iPhone. Lexcycle has developed desktop clients for Windows and Macintosh, which would be useful if the instructions were better organized. But hey, it’s beta software! I spent a bit of time gritting my teeth while figuring how to setup and transfer eBooks with Stanza Desktop, but I learned the application depends on network sharing for file transfers. The solution is to jiggle the Mac’s firewall settings to allow traffic on port 9562.

Which brings me to Classics. Oh, how I wish I could read other books with this interface! (The app is presently limited to 15 public domain books.) Even though you cannot change how eBooks are displayed, it’s beautiful, yet gentle on the eyes. Dark brown text on a barely beige background, a pleasantly lower contrast (but not unreadably low contrast) compared with black text on a white background (or vice versa). Thoughtful placement of chapter titles and page numbers, not mention thoughtful use (but not overuse) of animation for page turning and bookmarking — so much that it feels like viewing a paper-based book. No messed up paragraphs or line spacing. Now if only there were ways to add to or remove eBooks in Classics…

Shadows Never Sleep (free | iTunes link). This is a lovely example of interactive literature. Here you zoom in to see more of an illustrated, non-linear poem. It’d be wonderful to find more stories, books or poems designed in such innovative ways, but the Books section in the iTunes App Store doesn’t lend itself to productive library or bookstore searching. (Yes, I find the Power Search tool rather limited, unless I’m missing some tricks there.)

Would you believe how rarely I’ve watched videos on the iPhone? I think that returns to my difficulty with reading or surfing for extended periods of time with a small display. However, watching shorts on YouTube, or movie trailers, has been a big convenience. I highly recommend Now Playing (formerly BoxOffice, free | iTunes link) for obtaining movie times, finding upcoming theatre and DVD release info, and as an excellent one-stop source for trailers.

I’m terrible at remembering song names and musician details, and even worse at recalling what sounds actually go with which artist. Midomi (free | iTunes link) helps a lot. I know many people like Shazam, but I find its interface less straightforward than Midomi’s. In Midomi, I can simply choose a source of sound or means of identification. However with Shazam, I couldn’t get the hang of “tagging,” which doesn’t allow keyboard entry, only sound, in order to identify music.

Then there are games

For the first several months of iPhone usage, I resisted. I rarely played videogames before, so why bother? I’ve never been keen on action or multiplayer games, have an aversion to feeling rushed, and am generally a lazy ass when it comes to stratagem. Unsurprisingly, I’ve got a short attention span for games that are too easy or too frustrating. For example, I usually enjoy hangman, but I ended up removing the two free versions by MobilityWare and by JamSoft. I also got pissed off at iSpot by Noovo Communications, even though I often like find-the-differences games.

Ah, but things have changed. Because I really appreciate developers who pay attention to details (e.g., iBird, iCaltrain, Classics, Now Playing), the iPhone eventually reminded me that games are no exception, whether simple or complex. I relish being immersed in a good story, and have fun with hidden-object tasks, light puzzles, and some wordplay. Even though I really yearn for smooth graphics, I award many points for imaginative styles which elicit bemused admiration. Here are some recommendations:

• Stone of Destiny ($0.99 | iTunes link) has so far been the best adventure game I’ve played on the iPhone. Your uncle mysteriously disappeared, and to help him you must obtain items while traveling through exotic places in order to find the Stone of Destiny. It’s somewhat easy, but has a nice mixture of hidden-object and small, gesture-driven puzzles, as well as creative visuals.
• Morocco (free | iTunes link), a free version of Othello, goes completely against my impatience with strategy games. I can play it over and over and over and…
• Bix Lite (free | iTunes link), an iPhone version of Qix, is a simple, but fun game where you fence off portions of the screen without colliding with the special power balls. But if you can trap the balls, you can take advantage of their powers: slowing down, extra life, etc. This lets me relive those arcade days I never experienced. Once I complete the first six levels, I’ll be tempted to get the paid version.
• Does Bubblewrap (free | iTunes link) count? Yes, of course. Remember to turn off the speaker, unless you want to draw attention to yourself.

For more iPhone game reviews, check out Jed’s article on puzzle games.

It’d be great to see something like The Fool’s Errand for the iPhone, with a modern look and feel. Saying this, I realize, again exposes the dearth of my computer game experience and knowledge.

Productivity

For note-taking and list-making on the go, I still use Evernote (free | iTunes link). I even signed up for their premium service — the way to ensure a constant secure (SSL) connection. I enjoy how Evernote allows me to keep track of things in text, with photos, or by voice. If they ever adopt a transcription service, they just might become the ultimate productivity tool. If they can first fix their offline and editing issues.

Vlingo (free | iTunes link) is a cross between a productivity tool and a navigational aid, powered by your voice. Vlingo does not offer true hands-free operation (but no iPhone app does, AFAIK) — you need to tap or hold while speaking — but it’s the closest thing and most useful way to operate the iPhone by voice. Not only can you web search and surf, you can also get directions, make phone calls, and even update your social networking sites.

In search of…

…Unit convertors

I’m having a pickle of a time trying to find a comprehensive, yet well-designed unit conversion app for the iPhone. I didn’t find a2z Pro, UniCon or Units useful or worthwhile enough. I’ve settled on The Converter ($0.99 | iTunes link) for now, but it feels somewhat cluttered, so I’m open to other recommendations.

On a related note, I’ve noticed that among the various conversion apps, there’s a broad range of currency data available. That is, the exchange rate in one would differ from another, since they get their rate data from different sources. I like the simplicity of Converter Pro (free | iTunes link). But which others are worth considering for accessing sensible (i.e., realistic) exchange rates? Such a tool would be indispensable for maintaining a budget on an international trip.

…Language resources

I want really good dictionary and thesaurus applications, especially those including usage rules and examples. (I’m sure I’m not the only native English speaker who gets confused by the myriad of prepositions.) I used to have a webclip to AskAWord.com, but its mobile interface still left much to be desired.

I also want to find useful translation tools, including dictionaries for Spanish, French, and maybe even Japanese. I’d love to hear about apps (or mobile sites) which offer common phrases, cultural explanations, and pronunciation examples — all essential while traveling or reading non-English documents.

Already mentioned, but…

Advice on iPhone feed readers? Further input on messaging apps? Sources of interactive literature? Please do share!

And a tip on iPhone app icons

I kept forgetting how to extract iPhone app icons. The process yields a square image without the glow and rounded corners — I imagine iTunes adds those dynamically. But it’s enough so that I can use the images for review purposes.

1. Go find the app’s .ipa file, usually within ~/Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications/. Copy [appname].ipa to another place, like your desktop.
2. Since it’s really a Zip archive, rename the file to [appname].zip.
3. Open [appname].zip and locate the file iTunesArtwork. It’s really a JPEG file, so append the extension as well as change its name so that its now called [appname].jpg.
4. Resize or crop as needed. For example, I used Preview to make 48×48-pixel icons.

If there’s a better way to get a higher quality version of the icon, do let me know. Not sure if taking a screenshot from iTunes, then cropping it, would be the best way.

However, I was pleasantly satisfied with several tools and goodies I managed to find.

I had written up a list of Things to Look For in Evernote, even tagged the note as an offline favorite — because one shouldn’t depend on any network access in an underground convention. Unfortunately, a hitch arose that prevented me from initially viewing offline data in Evernote; luckily, the free conference WiFi helped out with note access. Dear Evernote: Isn’t the point of offline favorites to allow access without network connectivity? A forum thread shows how others also experience this issue, which currently remains unsolved.

FireWire to USB adapter for car stereo. I bought the passPORT charging adapter from Scosche for $25. (That was a Macworld promotion price; the list price is $29.99, but you can prolly find it online for less.) Oddly enough, they seemed to be the only vendor who had that particular adapter, AFAICT. Neither Griffin nor Macally had a similar gizmo.

Trackballs? My annual visit to Kensington revealed that they have yet to update their Macintosh drivers: not since July 2007 for the SlimBlade (which failed to work for me), and not since May 2006 for MouseWorks (which hogs system resources and behaves erratically, at least with Tiger). The booth attendant didn’t know if or when there’d be any updates. Another exhibitor, Contour Designs showed me their RollerMouse, a peculiar wrist rest containing a long, rotating rod that behaved like a trackball. I’m not sure how well such a setup would work, compared with the mouse-like, to-the-side-of-the-keyboard peripherals I had used in the past.

Etymotic Research continue to be incredibly helpful and interesting. First, they still offer many types of eartips to fit many kinds of ears. For example, the new grey foam “mushrooms” are too short for my ears, but the narrower 3-flange translucent rubber tips (which come in grey and blue) might be more comfortable enough to oust my favored opaque white 3-flange tips. Second, I got a hands-on demonstration of the Bluetooth headset, and was impressed with how well it blocked out background noise. Third, if and when my trusty HR-6isolator earphones poop out on me, the newer hf5 model would be a fine replacement.

GelaSkins manufacture skin-thin device covers for mobiles, laptops and game consoles. These are not the terrifying plastic wrappers encasing your parents’ furniture. GelaSkins offer a huge selection of artwork, with quality production which doesn’t scream, “Hey! Look at all the dithering dots!” Moreover, they are removable, like window decals without any adhesive gunk. The promotional code for Macworld is MACWORLD09, for 10% off online orders, though I’m not sure how long that sale will last. However, they seem to have a buy-3-get-1-free offer for iPhones on a regular basis. Update, from the More Goodies Dept.: They also offer free wallpapers for various handhelds, including the iPhone and iPod Touch. Update #2: After receiving the iPhone 3G GelaSkins, I really cannot recommend them. I’ve been unable to smoothly attach the skin around the rounded corners without overstretching or wrinkling the skin. Sad, but true. At least the wallpapers look good!

Stylus for iPhone. The Pogo capacitive stylus was far too short and light for me. I’d prefer a bit more heft, and this thingie was lighter than a cheap ballpoint pen. If you check out the product page link, you’ll notice the tip is covered with what looks like a loose foamy material. Won’t that wear away after a few days of use? I think I’ll stick with my fingers, even if my iPhone doesn’t respond as well when my hands are too cold and dry. Maybe I’ll find gloves with those pokey dots — which come in my teensy size.

Gadget holder for the preoccupied. After searching for years, I happened upon In Your Face, who make a device holder that can attach to a bike handle. Finally! I’d use this on my stationary trainer, since one shouldn’t ride around with headphones, obviously. The Viewbase holder lists for $29.95, available only as an online purchase. But at Macworld they provided a coupon code of 5115 for $10 off, good until 31 December 2009.

Livescribe Pulse Smartpen. I wouldn’t have much use for this because I rarely write by hand. But for anyone taking a class? I definitely see the wow factor: the Smartpen looks virtually indispensable with how it links audio transcription with handwriting. Livescribe’s system doesn’t have true OCR (IIRC), their Macintosh support is behind Windows development, the charging contacts on the Smartpen lean against the skin, and you need special paper (which can be printed out, though) — but it sounds like a project with great potential.

Another sleazy thing I’ve seen are sites which scrape only an excerpt from an article (not the entire article or site), then link back to the original article. Some have the gall to claim on their site that they are the content author! This certainly smells like another form of splogging, but is there are more specific term for it?

Unfortunately, AntiLeech doesn’t seem to work for splogs which have this aggravating habit. I have yet to find another WordPress plugin that would block ‘em. My pie in the sky wish would be a plugin (or two) that would behave like a cross between Akismet and Bad Behavior as a defense against sploggers. Kind of like an anti-splogger service, which includes blocking of unwanted linkbacks and spurious author claims.

My current workaround (bandage?) is SplogSpot’s splog submission web form, Submit a Splog. But their CAPTCHA is sometimes frustratingly fussy, lacking a non-image alternative. Are their better splog reporting services? Splog Reporter is defunct.

Update (4 Jan 2009): I forgot to note another sleazy splogging behavior I’ve noticed over the past year, splogs that act as bookmarking sites. To me they often look like a blog, with canned text for their Contact, About, FAQ and Privacy Policy pages — almost never mentioning real people’s names, real addresses in the brick and mortar world, or a plausible / tangible company history. These “social bookmarking splogs” (is there a better name for them?) are in addition to the sad abuse of legitimate social bookmarking sites like Digg and del.icio.us by spammers.

Here I describe the steps I took. I virtually had help walking up to and standing on the shoulders of others!

1. Backup your current ELA plugin directory, i.e., [install_path]/wp-content/plugins/af-extended-live-archive/. You’ll need some files from here later.
2. Download the patched version of ELA which fixes the database changes that took place back in WordPress v2.3 from here: http://blog.tinyau.net/download/6. Note that this patch contains only four changed files, not the entire plugin:
   

   af-extended-live-archive.php
af-extended-live-archive-include.php
af-extended-live-archive-option.php
includes/af-ela.php

3. Replace the above four files. But don’t clobber the other files. If you do so by accident, though, add back the unchanged files from your backup in Step 1.
4. Download a newer version of the file af-extended-live-archive.php from here: http://www.theglitch.ws/ELA.zip. Unzip this package.
5. Replace af-extended-live-archive.php with the newer version you grabbed in Step 4.
6. Tweak the archives.php template file in your active theme(s) to include the ELA code. For example, I added the statement <?php if (function_exists('af_ela_super_archive')) {af_ela_super_archive();} ?> in its own div within The Loop.
7. Tweak the includes/af-ela-style.css from the plugin, as well as style.css in your active theme(s), so that the layout of ELA suits your needs.
8. Don’t forget to go to the ELA admin settings to display articles by tags. Scroll down to the Tab Order section, then select the appropriate options from the dropmenus. (That is, if you want to show a tag listing, of course.)
9. Moreover, make sure there are values for Most Popular and Least Popular Font Size and Color — four fields in the bottom left of the admin settings, under What about the tags? Leaving out color values will make the tags invisible (or perhaps white by default). Speaking of color, use 6-digit hex values, rather than 3-digit ones, otherwise the resulting color will be wrong.
10. Save the ELA admin settings by hitting Update Options Now. If the content in ELA look out of date, hit the Empty Cache Now button. You should now be up and running!

But will ELA work in the upcoming WordPress v2.7? We shall see.

Both Evernote and Changes came in very handy for keeping track of and merging differences between versions 4.0 and 4.6.1 of Scott Wallick’s most excellent veryplaintxt. This upgrade also marks the return of Extended Live Archives (ELA) to my archive page, although that’s separate from the theme itself. (I plan to write up the patching adventure I went through to get ELA working again.)

But I wish that Changes could undo edits after you’ve saved files. I mean, hey, most other text editors can do that (e.g., Smultron, TextEdit and TextWrangler). Also, I really wish those CSS files used whitespace. (How much of a significant performance gain occurs by removing whitespace from CSS?)

Anyhow. As usual, let me know if you encounter new bugs on this site.

My list below might seem short, considering there are a multitude of to-do list apps. Since I need access to data previously stored on my Treo, I’ve ruled out apps which allow data entry on only the iPhone. The bulk of such apps are like that, with no way to import, at least when I went through the iTunes store in mid-August.

The three apps I reviewed depend on web services (i.e., network access via wifi or Edge/3G) to view data on the iPhone. I thought this odd until I realized that until mid-July, third-party apps could be only web apps. (Duh, unless jailbroken.) Because the network dependency, all of these require online registration and login.

• Evernote: Handles both notes and lists. Desktop app available for Mac and Windows.
• Jott: Handles notes and lists. Desktop app available for all platforms.
• Zenbe Lists: Handles only lists.

Update (7 Nov 2008): Here’s a good article at Wired on the currently inadequate quality of note-taking apps.

Details follow after the jump.

Evernote for iPhone & Mac Desktop

Of the three apps I’ve reviewed, I ended up using Evernote v1.2 the most. Everything is a note, though I can add checkboxes to emulate checklists. That takes care of my minimal task requirements. But what makes Evernote so handy is that it’s easy to input and access data, as well as a snap to organize and search through my information.

Data are stored on their web servers, as well as the desktop app, should you decide to also use that tool. Evernote offers a premium service as a month-to-month or annual subscription, if you need additional server storage. With all the memos and lists I imported (totaling over 60 items), I barely scratched the quotas for the free account.

The iPhone app itself is simple and straightforward, with four basic tasks: create a New Note, view and search through Notes, view Pending edits to notes, and Account settings. Moreover, Evernote provides a convenient choice of note possibilites: Text Note (plain or with checkboxes to emulate to-do lists), Snapshot Note (ad hoc camera photos), Saved Photo Note (based on photos already stored on iPhone), and Voice Note (voice recordings up to 5 minutes each, which unlike Jott remain audio and are not transcribed).

The Current Search panel (accessed from the Notes view) on the iPhone allows you to search on tags or attributes such as modification time, media content, task completion, and so forth. This is a powerful search tool which doesn’t exist in either Jott or Zenbe Lists.

Regarding network access: According to Evernote’s terms, the connection should remain secure, although I’ve seen the https protocol for only the login screen.

I really do want to like Evernote, but it has a daunting laundry list of shortcomings, especially the first point:

1. No offline access for iPhone. That is, no local data storage or access on the iPhone itself. That means that even though Evernote has both a desktop app and iPhone app, you cannot sync the two with each other. (Kind of deceptive considering the prominent image on the left side of their home page, implying that you can sync between the desktop and iPhone.) At present I’d have to sync the desktop data to the web service, then the web service to my iPhone (or vice versa). Evernote becomes useless with poor or nonexistent network access, such as using airplane mode, or traveling within some rural areas. They state that implementing offline support would be difficult, so they plan an interim solution to allow email as a way of accessing one’s notes. But that’s still requires network access, and as I’ve said before, I’d rather not manage notes, lists or tasks in a mail app. Update: Version 1.4 now allows you to mark individual notes as Favorites, which stores them locally on the iPhone. It’s both a compromising and compromised solution, but at least you can view Favorite notes without a network connection.
2. The iPhone app has a major limitation where it cannot handle editing anything other than plain text. If I used any styles on the web UI or desktop, including font changes or checkboxes, I would not be able to change that content on the iPhone. As a compromise, I can append plain text to such rich content notes. This feels half-hearted, though, since other apps (including Jott, Zenbe Lists, and the myriad iPhone-only-editable to-do list apps) have been able to incorporate editable checkbox or to-do list features.
3. Because of point #2, you cannot mark off checkboxes on the iPhone. True, you can add and remove check marks on the web UI or desktop app. But so much for have a mobile to-do list, hunh? Update: Version 1.3 now allows checkbox marking on the iPhone; they’re working on a way to create checkboxes on the iPhone. Good to see the progress, though!
4. You can create notebooks, which contain individual notes like a folder. In the desktop app, notebooks can be set as either synchronized or local (i.e., not synchronized with the web-based server). But you can set this only once. You cannot change your mind and go between synchronized or local, which is very limiting. Especially since you cannot directly synchronize between the desktop app and the iPhone.
5. Desktop app: Why in the world did they hardcode MS-Windows fonts, rather than recognizing and using Macintosh ones? And unlike the web UI, there’s no choice to change content to plain text.
6. Cannot rename, delete or create Notebooks on the iPhone; can do so only in the desktop app or web UI.
7. Bug: While saving a note on the iPhone, the app switches over to the Pending screen. And stays there after saving completes, which is silly because at that point the Pending screen is empty. It should return to either the Notes screen or the editing screen.
8. Cannot sort notes on iPhone or web UI; those listings are based on last modified and recently created, respectively. Although you can do so in the desktop app.
9. It’d be nice to have landscape keyboard or view.
10. At first I though I needed a quicklist of Notebooks on the iPhone. But then I got into the habit of using Evernote’s powerful tag and attribute based searching UI. Not the same as using folders for categorizing, which would be an added plus, but still quite usable!
11. No transcription for voice notes, but that’s okay. A non-trivial service to build, after all.

Jott & Jott Express

Jott v1.0.4 offers voice recognition and transcription services, along with tools for to-do lists, notes, reminders and multi-contact collaboration. Unfortunately, the desktop and iPhone apps are far too frustrating for me to use. (It took me a while to discover the desktop app Jott Express, until a splashscreen advertising it appeared when logging onto the website.) In any case, I limited my review to Jott’s voice and text notes, and to-do lists, so here are the issues:

1. First off, registration on the website never worked: the form kept rejecting my registration info for a free account. Perhaps it expected a promo code? Instead I was able to register from my iPhone.
2. For the longest time, I could not tell the functional differences between notes and lists. That should be obvious, right? Well, Jott makes the horrid mistake of mixing the note and to-do list UIs on the iPhone. Notes are in a note folder, but wait, to-do lists are individually listed in the the button bar. If I have more than one list, I need to scroll through the button bar. How asinine to combine primary tasks with “file” listings in a small navigational region! But wait again, it turns out that lists can be either part of a note, or standalone items. If it takes more than 15 minutes to figure out the messy hierarchy, it’s not worth my time and effort.
3. Jott Express runs via Adobe AIR, which is included in the download. It’s really more of a web shortcut from your desktop. There’s not even an undo command. Also, when something doesn’t seem to do anything (like the Clean Up button), it makes the app feel half-baked. Why bother when I could use the better web UI from a browser?
4. Voice memos are limited to 15 seconds each.
5. No way to categorize, sort or search through notes or to-do lists on the iPhone or desktop. I can search on the web UI, however.

Like Evernote, Jott offers paid services for longer voice memos and additional storage.

I am impressed by Jott’s voice transcription feature: its accuracy for writing out what I spoke is very good and very cool. I might use it occasionally for a quick voice memo I’ll later need in text. But for regular daily use, in its current state of too many choices poorly presented, forget it.

Zenbe Lists

Zenbe Lists v1.2.1 allows only textual lists, not memos, not pictures, nor audio notes. You have the choice to collaborate (i.e., share lists), although that’s not a feature I currently need.

On the surface, Zenbe’s interface is clean and simple. However, when I scratched a bit more, I found I had to rule it out as a useable tool:

1. Cannot easily import from a spreadsheet, which is where my many exported checklists reside. I must paste one row at time into a single checklist item, which is way too inefficient and tedious.
2. No desktop tool to access or modify data at all.
3. There are no categories or tags, or folders, as a means of organizing lists. It doesn’t look like they’ll be implementing tags any time soon.
4. There’s no way (AFAICT) to search through lists. Perhaps due to limitations in #3?
5. Zenbe’s login apparently goes over a secure connection, although the URL bar never seems to display the https protocol.

Overall

Sadly, none of the choices here fill me with an eagerness to jump in and use them fulltime, or at least longterm. Nonetheless, it hasn’t been two months since iPhone 2.0 came out, so I definitely need patience. It’ll be interesting to see what ships over the next several months, whether updates to the ones here, or spankin’ new applications. All likely subject to another entry, of course!

I had thought that I wouldn’t mind either an app which handles both notes and lists, or a tool that did a single type of task. But after spending time with several apps, I believe that a multi-tasking one might better suit me after all. That is, if it’s implemented well, and not overcomplicated. Evernote certainly has an edge over Jott and Zenbe Lists, in both features and interface, so I’ll continue to use that because I need to use something now for notes and lists. Until something significantly better comes out. >:-)

For notes, I want something like Stickies, but with a bit more oomph, i.e., the ability to categorize notes, at the least. For checklists, I’ve been a longtime user of HandyShopper (HS wiki). HS categorizes lists and allows marks like a to-do list. But due to lack of cycles and interest, the HandyShopper developer won’t make an iPhone version.

Both tasks could be separate apps, or a single one; doesn’t matter too much to me. But what’s critical is that they must allow editing on the Macintosh as well as the iPhone. As with the calendar, I need to transfer the current data to the iPhone! After a lot of skimming, I found that the vast majority simply don’t do that. “How absurd! No way I’m gonna retype all that stuff on the iPhone.” Data transfer aside, the actual issue isn’t so unreasonable: The developers would have to create yet another application for the desktop (or laptop) computer, in addition to the iPhone app, in order to view and modify data. Indeed, they’d have to do it twice, if they want to support both Macintoshes and Windows PCs. Keep in mind that mail, music, schedules and web browsing are already taken care of for Mac users, since Mail.app, iTunes, iCal and Safari exist on the desktop. And those were not developed overnight.

I often see the phrase “no syncing” to describe the lack of desktop editing, but that’s misleading. The data are backed up whenever you sync, in ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/. But, as with Palm, these aren’t mere text files; even though there are a few .plist files, most are in some not-quite-readble format (.mdbackup). So a desktop app must be able to cope with manipulating them. (On a sidenote, there are two open source command-line tools which will inspect and backup these files, MobileSync Inspect and iPhone Backup Decoder, respectively. I have not yet tried them.)

Anyhow, here’s an initial round of list and note applications to investigate further. If you have experience with these, or recommendations for others, I certainly welcome your thoughts!

• Evernote (iPhone and Mac desktop apps are free): The paid Premium Evernote web service provides secure connections, more storage and ad-free public notebooks.
• Jott (free). Web-based transcription of audio notes and to-do lists.
• SplashShopper ($9.99 for the iPhone app, and $19.99 for the desktop app; 30-day free demo for the latter). Is it useful, or a just thrown-together port?
• Things ($9.99). Looks complex, GTD, but has desktop editing.
• YouNote (free). Looks potentially useful for both notes and lists, but perhaps no desktop editing?
• Zenbe Lists (free). Just does lists, not notes. Web service for syncing.
• (later) Chores ($4.99). Will offer a separate Chores for the Mac OS X desktop, supposedly this month.
• (later) My Lists ($1.99). Might implement a desktop app in a future version.

Rant: More Palm suckage

My indignation at so many iPhone apps lacking desktop support quickly simmered down after realizing the development requirements. But it boiled over (and over!) at the cruddy tools to convert Palm files to text. (No, sadly, tools to specifically convert Palm files for the iPhone are, at present, utterly nonexistent.)

PorDiBle v3.4 claims to convert Palm .pdb files to text. Nope. Opening or dropping a .pdb onto PorDiBle always crashes it. Its development ceased over two years ago, and its website is a dead link.

Then I reinstalled the Palm Desktop v4.2.1revD (unmodified for nearly three years) in hopes that it could import .pdb files then export them as text. Ha ha ha. Not even. The importer didn’t recognize .pdb as a readable Palm format. Also, opening it under the All File Type filter resulted in the “unrecognized file format” error. This reminds me why I had removed this suite from my computer in the first place.

Then I tried Missing Sync’s MemoPad application. More disappointment erupts as I discover there’s no importing or exporting function whatsoever. Useless.

Finally, I viewed MemosDB-PMem.pdb in a text editor, and it turned out to be somewhat readable. I guess I’m stuck with doing the copy-paste thang. But, still.

In addition to the Memos from my old Treo, I have a bunch of lists from HandyShopper. Unlike the MemosDB-PMem.pdb, though, the HS files are barely legible in an text editor. On the other hand, HandyShopper does provide a couple of Excel macros for editing and converting HandyShopper databases, HS2Edit and HS2Convert, respectively. They are part of the HandyShopper package, including instructions which you should read carefully beforehand. Although they are .xls files, they don’t work in NeoOffice because they run macros which add a new HS2Edit item to the menubar. So I fired up Excel 2004, opened HS2Edit.xls, and figured out how to import my HS2_blah_Lists.pdb file. Success! A more readable spreadsheet in copyable text.

Nevertheless, as with Memos, I don’t have a way of automatically transferring the checklists. Two sets of manual dogwork to get through. Rapture! I think I’ll take a break and go investigate those iPhone apps; after all, I’ll need something to paste into…

Update (15 June 2009): I ended up using Evernote, which I still use today, and recommend. Because the Palm data transfer (calendar, contacts, notes, etc.) was a one-time project for me, I should point out that I haven’t done further research as to more recent ways to accomplish all this. If you’ve found a way which you’d recommend, by all means, do share here! But in the meantime you might have to search the Apple Support Discussions, or see if there are (note?) apps in the iTunes Store which might help, or (I know this sounds clichéd) search via Google.

Update (10 January 2010): I have recently heard of a few iPhone apps which would import Palm Memos: One is Momo. Another is Notebooks by Alfons Schmid. Yet another is Notebook by Appigo, via Palm Desktop for Mac. I have not tried any of these for importing since I’ve already gone through the process — however, if you have, feel free to comment on your success (or lack thereof) on using them.

Since I keep all too many calendar entries (a habit developed with my old Palm V in the late 1990s), I checked the entries in iCal. They had transferred over, after some brief redundancy, removal and restoration dances (i.e., import recent calendar-name.ics as a New Calendar, verify data, then remove older version of calendar). But, I confess I hadn’t bothered to check the entry details like time, repetition and notes.

Well, well, well. Those entry notes. If I had written a note, it was there. But whether or not I did, nearly all calendar entries had nonsensical strings inserted into the note field.

~Oh, joy~. Who was to blame? Palm? DateBk5? Or Missing Sync? Garden gnomes?

But there was a definite pattern: some variation of DESCRIPTION:##@@X@@@@@@@@@@@@@@, where X is a letter, followed by a carriage return. This covered the vast majority of those superfluous strings. An excellent candidate for cleanup with regular expressions!

The recipe involves exporting each calendar from iCal, editing them in either TextWrangler or Smultron for the regex support, then doing the reimport dance. (Although in my case, I had too many calendars from the multiple categories from DateBk5, so initially had to do some calendar merging.)

I made three different types of regular expressions, in the following order below, to find the troublesome strings. Then in three passes per calendar file, I replaced strings with nothing (empty string). The first one gets rid of notes containing only the extraneous string, whereas the third regex (which needs to be the last pass) doesn’t erase the entire note field if a legitimate one exists (because it still begins with DESCRIPTION:), but only removes the junk and preserves the real note. The second regex is similar to the first one (an entirely junk string), with an additional string of [Link-blah].

^DESCRIPTION:##.+@@@.+@\\n$\r

^DESCRIPTION:##.+@@@.+@\\n\[Link.+\]\\n$\r

##.+@@@.+@\\n

The caret (^) looks for DESCRIPTION:## at the beginning of the first two regexen. Then, since every instance of the extraneous string contains ## followed by one or two letters, plus at least three @-signs followed by \n, the phrase ##.+@@@.+@\\n neatly takes care of that portion! This Basic Syntax Reference sums up what each of those regex special characters do.

Now I need to somehow transfer my memos and lists, which means something better than the iPhone’s default Notes application. That’s gonna be a royal pain, since there’s currently no clear way to transfer Palm databases over to the iPhone. >:-|

Alas, confusion cropped up with a few of ‘em: CyStats, Filosofo Comments Preview (vs. WP-OpenID), Redirection, Search Everything, and Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP).

CyStats

Upon upgrading to WordPress 2.6, CyStats v0.9 started to generate warnings on every page, whether or not I was logged in. Disabling that version of the plugin avoids publicly displaying the PHP warnings. According to Michael Weingärtner, CyStats’s developer, the cause is partially due to changes in WP 2.6. As a workaround, v0.9.2 no longer allows filtering of IP addresses, user-agents or page IDs. Regrettably for me, those filters aid in removing extraneous data. So for now StatPress, which has some filters, will supply my primary web statistics. It’s a shame, since CyStats provides such rich statistical information. (Developer’s site for CyStats.)

Update (13 Aug 2008): Thanks to Michael for fixing the warning display and options issues in version 0.9.4!

Filosofo Comments Preview vs. WP-OpenID

Newer versions of WP-OpenID since version 2.2.0 (now v2.2.2) no longer work with Comments Preview: authentication works, but somehow Filosofo’s plugin inhibits comments from being submitted. Since I depend more on previewing comments, I’ve decided to stick with 2.1.9 of WP-OpenID until Comments Preview is fixed. (Developer’s site for Comments Preview.)

Update (15 Aug 2008): Thanks to kasparsd for posting a workaround in the WordPress support forum. The fix tests for the existence of the WordPressOpenID class (from WP-OpenID) in the Comments Preview code before checking whether comments textarea is empty.

Redirection

The Redirection plugin is great for redirecting URLs from my old, static site —so much better than editing .htaccess all the damn time! Version 2.0.4 is a big change from 1.7.26, which I had previously used: more tweakability, but more complex. My main tasks with it include tracking 404 errors for which I lack redirects, and logging how often redirections occur. The latter are displayed when initially viewing the plugin management page. But the complexity added yet another step to accessing the former. Sigh. I wish the 404 log would be the first to display when I use this tool. (Developer’s site for Redirection.)

Search Everything

At least since version 4.6.2 (now v4.7.1), Search Everything has failed to display search results in Manage Posts. Turning it off allows article searching in the admin pages. WordPress now searches through posts and pages, but the beauty of Search Everything is that it offers search-ability for comments, metadata and attachments. (Developer’s site for Search Everything.)

YARPP

Version 2.0.4 of Yet Another Related Posts Plugin now includes tags and categories in calculating the “relatedness” of articles —among several other highly useful features, like sorting the list of related posts. It has become a vital aspect of my WordPress installation. Unfortunately, this new version introduced (or exposed) an issue with the related_posts_exist() function, which, as its name implies, checks for existing articles. So when I use it in single.php to customize the location of the related posts section, they fail to display and instead I get a big SQL error.

After some email discussion with the developer, it turns out that related_posts_exist() is itself broken (not due to Mitcho’s own work). He was debating whether or not to remove this function, but I haven’t heard if he’s decided to expunge or fix it in a future version of YARPP. To use it in the past was, admittedly, somewhat hacky since it involved removing the_post() from The Loop. Even though I’ve found a way to work with the YARPP settings to display related posts, it’s not in the location or style I’d prefer. (Developer’s site for YARPP.)

WordPress 2.6 smoothiness

During all this, I upgraded to WordPress v2.6, a process remaining as easy as cake. (Since I prefer cake over pie. And, because tracking diffs and version control are close to my heart, I love the new post revisions tool. Did I mention it also works with changes made from MarsEdit? I’m also interested to see how the new theme previewing will work when I make theme modifications.

Seeing the projected WordPress v2.7 to-do list makes me eager for the next version. They’ll integrate features from popular plugins such as threaded comments (finally!). But I do wish they’d add some features that other blog systems provide, such as:

• Previewing comments (proposed Idea). I love Filosofo’s Comments Preview, especially since it doesn’t depend on JavaScript. Moveable Type, LiveJournal, TypePad and Blogspot also provide a means of seeing your comment before posting. So, why not WordPress?
• OpenID (proposed Idea). A non-trivial feature, but WordPress.com, LiveJournal, MySpace and Blogspot (Blogger) have it. These days you need to install the WP-OpenID plugin to add this kind of commenter authentication.
• Response via email in addition to blog comment response (proposed Idea). Owen Cutajar’s Comment Email Responder plugin does this. Otherwise, it’s annoying to copy, paste then send an email to a commenter as an additional task. Again, I’ve seen at least one other blog system (LiveJournal) implement this.
• Commenter-editable comments (proposed Idea). Isn’t it frustrating to see a typo in a comment you’ve just submitted, whether or not you previewed it beforehand? Yes, it still happens. A decent (read: thoughtful) blogging system should let the user to change her/his comment within a reasonable period of time. Unlike the above Wish Items, this is more a feature of forum software (e.g., bbPress, punBB, phpBB) than blogs.

1. Backup the entire Zenphoto site directory. Issuing a cp -pr [zenphoto-dir] [zenphoto-backup] would suffice.
2. Backup the MySQL database. I use phpMyAdmin for this, so here are the steps for that tool:
   1. Select your Zenphoto database, then click the Export tab.
   2. Under the Export section, make sure all the tables are selected.
   3. Under the SQL Options > Structure section, make sure the checkboxes for only Structure, Add DROP TABLE / DROP VIEW, Add AUTO_INCREMENT value, and Enclose table and field names with backquotes are selected.
   4. Select the checkbox for SQL Options > Data, but don’t select any of the sub-choices.
   5. Btw, all the remaining SQL Options should be deselected (unchecked).
   6. Select the Save as file checkbox, otherwise nothing will get backed up. Feel free to chose any of the compression choices, but I typically only use None.
   7. Hit the Go button. A backup [db_name].sql file should happily appear in your computer’s download location (e.g., the desktop).
3. Make sure you have a copy of the .htaccess and robots.txt (just in case) and your previous zp-core/zp-config.php files. You’ll need zp-config.php for step 6.
4. Get the latest version of Zenphoto, but don’t upload it yet!
5. Unzip the new Zenphoto package and if you are upgrading, remove its albums folder. Otherwise, copying it over will clobber your existing albums and photos!
6. You’ll need to edit the new version of the configuration file with your database information. Update: Actually, as of v1.2.x, you don’t need to manually edit zp-config.php; the installer will do it for you. However, do make a note of the settings since the installer will prompt you for them! Looking at the old copy, change the following in zp-core/zp-config.php with your own specific settings:
   • $conf['mysql_user'] = "your-mysql-username";
   • $conf['mysql_pass'] = "your-mysql-passwd";
   • $conf['mysql_host'] = "your-mysql-host-URL";
   • $conf['mysql_database'] = "your-zenphoto-db-name";
   • $conf['mysql_prefix'] = "your-zenphoto-db-prefix"; (If it has no prefix, just use the empty string "")
7. Now you can upload the new Zenphoto files, overwriting the appropriate old ones.
8. To start the upgrade process, load the URL for your.zenphoto.site. But if it doesn’t start properly, just load your.zenphoto.site/zenphoto/zp-core/setup.php, which is where it’d redirect to anyhow.
9. At some point you’ll be prompted to login as the administrator, after which you should get the Go! button. Select your language from the dropdown menu, such as English (US), then hit Go!
10. When you get the following message, it means that everything succeeded.
    

    About to update tables…
    Done with table update!

    You can now View your gallery, or administrate.

Troubleshooting

I get a 403: Forbidden error when I try to just load my Zenphoto site. The .htaccess needs to be readable by everyone in order to view, administrate or upgrade your Zenphoto site. Issuing chmod 644 .htaccess should do the trick. On a side note, I change the permissions for albums and cache directories from 777 to 755, because my hosting service runs the appropriate server processes as me, rather than another administrative user. Likewise, I change the uploaded images to 644, rather than 666.

I got as far as step 8 to run the upgrade script, but I get a blank page. Make sure you have edited zp-core/cp-config.php with your specific database settings (step 6) before you run the automatic upgrade.

I don’t get a login prompt, or the Go! button never appears at step 9 for me. Or, I get weird errors during the “About to update tables…” part of the upgrade. Try reloading your.zenphoto.site/zenphoto/zp-core/setup.php. Strangely, that seems to give it push in the right direction.

I get the page with Go!, but I also get an error that I need to upload the .htaccess which came with the new version. But I don’t want to clobber my special changes! You backed it up, right? (Step 3.) In which case, just upload the newer version per the Zenphoto instructions. After you have finished the upgrade, you can go back and edit .htaccess to further modify it.

Oh noes! Where did my robots.txt file go? Ah, you might’ve copied over the new Zenphoto directory to clobber the entire old one. What I do is select the contents of the new one and copy them over into the old one, so that files missing in the new package still persist. But restoring robots.txt is a snap if you already backed it up at step 3.

Extra. I want more control over hotlinking. How do I prevent everyone but allow a select few? For example, to allow access from your own domain, Google and cached searches, paste the following between the RewriteBase / and RewriteRule ^admin/?$ zp-core/admin.php [R,L] statements in the IfModule mod_rewrite.c section of the .htaccess file:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !mydomain\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !google\. [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !search\?q=cache [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$


Don’t forget to use your own domain name. This works when Full image protection uses Protected view with Disable hotlinking selected (located under Options > Image Display of the Zenphoto admin tools). Update (16 Sept 2009): I no longer seem to need to do this task as of version 1.2.6.

• Upload my preferred set of /wp-includes/images/smilies/.
• Modify /wp-includes/functions.php to recognize said custom smilies.
• Change /wp-includes/category-template.php to say articles instead of topics for title tips while hovering over tag links, darn it.

I like WordPress’s new admin UI, especially the spiffy blue-grey-orange color scheme. Even though I’m still playing with the interface, tasks remain straightforward.

What’s remaining? Upgrading my theme, but as with the upgrade to WP 2.3, I can work through that separately, at my convenience. In addition, I’ve noticed only one weird plugin issue, so far; can’t do much but wait until an update arrives for that.

Simple Tags v1.5.3: No longer see the long, sortable list of tags under Manage Tags. Being able to sort alphabetically (as well as by use) makes tag management bearable with the gazillion tags I have. I also prefer how Simple Tags allows removal and renaming of tags. Update (14 April 2008): Version 1.5.6, released yesterday, fixes the issue. Yay!

Can’t post for Iwaruna.com because the server reported an error: parse error, not well formed.

Again, searching through a forum helped. The poorly formed content, in this case an unwanted invisible character, prevented MarsEdit from uploading the article. Likely somewhere within the Console messages I had pasted!

Tracking down the sneaky character was a bit tricky, but quick. My usual text editor Smultron wouldn’t show it using View ⇒ Show Invisible Characters. However, Textwrangler’s similar tool did: as a red, upside-down question mark (¿), within one of the Console messages as I had expected.

It turns out that this is a known bug, and that it’s on the MAMP developer list to fix. Even better, there’s a workaround:

1. Start the MAMP application (something I rarely do), located in /Applications/MAMP/MAMP.app. The start page will open a new web browser page, but will fail to connect, which is expected since it’s in an unhappy state.
2. Click the Preferences button.
3. In the resulting Preferences sheet, don’t change anything. Just click the OK button.
4. Results: The Apache and MySQL servers will stop and restart. Correctly, this time, rather than spinning infinitely. To make sure things are working, click the Open Start Page button; the MAMP start page should then load in a new browser page.
5. If the Dashboard widget still continues to spin, just click its Stop Servers button, wait for the servers to stop completely, then click Start Servers.

I still use MAMP v1.7, but I’m guessing that the current version 1.7.1, released sometime late last year, also has this bug.

Before I applied the above workaround, I saw the following in the Console, while tracking systemp.log as I (unsuccessfully) attempted to stop and restart via the MAMP Dashboard widget:

2/18/08 11:11:27 AM authexec[224] executing /bin/sh
2/18/08 11:11:30 AM DashboardClient[141] apache didn't stop -> kill
2/18/08 11:11:30 AM [0x0-0xb00b].com.apple.dock[111]
2008-02-18 11:11:30.463 DashboardClient[141:10b] apache didn't stop -> kill
2/18/08 11:11:30 AM authexec[229] executing /bin/kill
2/18/08 11:11:30 AM [0x0-0xb00b].com.apple.dock[111] kill: 272: No such process
2/18/08 11:11:35 AM [0x0-0xb00b].com.apple.dock[111] /Applications/MAMP/Library/bin/mysqladmin: connect to server at 'localhost' failed
2/18/08 11:11:35 AM [0x0-0xb00b].com.apple.dock[111] error: 'Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.sock' (61)'
2/18/08 11:11:35 AM [0x0-0xb00b].com.apple.dock[111] Check that mysqld is running and that the socket: '/Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.sock' exists!

The message about failing to connect to localhost caught my attention, and searching for those terms in the MAMP forums yielded the workaround. After things got back into a happier working condition, I skimmed to find the message below, confirming that things (or, at least MySQL) are running:

Feb 18 11:49:36 Macintosh-2 [0x0-0x26026].com.living-e.MAMP[290]: Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /Applications/MAMP/db/mysql

Sure enough, Apache, MySQL and PHP run fine now: I can use WordPress and Zenphoto again, as well as access phpMyAdmin.

• Played with the MacBook Air. Oh, my, it felt thinner than I was expecting! This is the slimmest, lightest computer I’ve held since Akkana’s Vaio. Its specifications aren’t enough for my own needs, but I think the MacBook Air would be perfect for MacBook-level users, or those who already have a primary desktop and need to travel frequently with a lighter secondary machine. The bevel (frame) around the display seems too wide (similar to the MacBook). I wonder what technical limitations prevented Apple from maximizing the monitor area?
• The Time Capsule has a cute, low profile design. I’d prefer more than 1 Terabyte of storage; then again, my crazy storage philosophy is to obtain at least four to ten times capacity than I think I’ll need. >:-) It also seems expensive at $500, but I’m confident that capacity will inevitably increase, along with a price decrease. Er, make that hopeful. Wonder if one could backup non-Mac machines, like Linux and Windows? On a related note, Simon visited the Drobo booth, which has a similar networked storage system.
• I acquired a collection of handbag brochures, mostly for friends who might be seeking a briefcase with laptop capacity (Kathleen? Sonya?). My attention to iPod accessories was at a minimum this year, as I’ve found that the iPod shuffle’s clip is the best way to have portable, less obtrusive music as I exercise.
• Kensington had an Expert Mouse (trackball) hooked up to a MacBook Pro running Leopard. It behaved fine, except for weird pointer jumps due to other users playing with nearby wireless mice. I also noticed that they didn’t install (on purpose?) their own MouseWorks software on the computer. I asked the rep if there were plans to update that package for Leopard, and the response was (my paraphrasing), “Yes, sometime soon we’ll upload a new version to the site.” Sadly, I forgot to ask if there were plans to make a wireless version of the Expert Mouse.
• Living-e AG, makers of MAMP, were not present. Not too surprising, as they’re based in Germany, and haven’t released any major upgrades. MAMP 1.7.1, though, was released back in December (or November, or…?), which I haven’t installed yet. The website and forum remain out of date (without RSS) and full of spam, respectively.
• I wish I lingered longer at the MacSpeech booth, which was impressively bigger than in previous years. They have discontinued their speech recognition application iListen and replaced it with Dictate. I bought iListen a few years ago, but gave up because of its long training period, slow performance and just-enough-to-be-disruptive error rate. Dictate, which is based on Dragon Naturally Speaking, is currently in beta, but touts better accuracy and speed. I’d like to give MacSpeech’s product another try! Will need to dig around to see if I could participate in any beta testing. Ars Technica’s Jacqui Cheng wrote a good article describing the new Dictate project, which won Best of Show for Macworld 2008. (Odd for an application that isn’t released yet, hmm?)

Addendum (24-Jan-2008): I don’t mind the MacBook Air’s footprint, especially since I prefer a large display. (Rarely traveling with a laptop influences this opinion, of course.) Thin form and low weight are very important to me —seeing and holding the MacBook Air made me gasp with wonder. Certain features, namely the small hard drive, slower processor, Remote Disc limitations and lack of Firewire port, hold me from wanting one. (I’m usually a slow, late adopter of computing gadgetry, thus my less-than-two-year-old MacBook Pro suffices for now.) But I look forward to (i.e., hope for) future computers, especially in the professional series, that will use the MacBook Air as a model of space and power efficiency. A computer that can be rolled up like a towel: well, I can dream.

I’ll be redirecting gallery.iwaruna.com to zenphoto.iwaruna.com in the next day or three. If you have bookmarked pages in the former, you should recheck and update to their location on the new server. Subscription feed links have also changed; the main feed which grabs recent photos from all albums is now http://zenphoto.iwaruna.com/rss.php. I’ll also eventually add back the sidebar thumbnail here (prolly via Zenshow or ZENpressed).

Mostly for my reference, but here are some “in progress” or “needs fixing” issues with Zenphoto —i.e., when using version 1.1.3 with the Default theme. Some are already known by the Zenphoto developer community. Overall they are minor and don’t adversely affect my usage.

• Clicking an image shouldn’t always download it.
• XHTML and CSS validation errors. Former might be due to invalid markup in both theme and core files.
• Internationalization (and localization) support.
• Random thumbprint for albums.
• More ease in moving, renaming and copying images and albums.

I’ve found a WordPress plugin which has greatly eased the ongoing task of fixing broken links with redirects: Redirection, by John Godley of Urban Giraffe. If you’ve overhauled a website (such as my move from the manual, static old skool to shwizzy WordPress), broken links almost always crop up. In the past, I’ve had edit the .htaccess file. Yech. Now Redirection makes that process smoother, and more organized. I do like quickly viewing my 404 log and (again quickly) adding redirect rules.

Update (6-Jan-2008): Thanks to mitcho’s Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP), individual article pages now contain a list of related entries. This plugin, available at the WordPress plugin repository, compares the actual article content to rank other related articles. I can set the threshold of that ranking, too, wheee, more control! Most other related post plugins just compare the number of tags in common, which is a good start but not intelligent enough, since less relevant posts have a higher chance of being displayed. YARPP doesn’t take tags and categories into consideration, though, but it’s on mitcho’s list for a future release.

If YARPP also used tag and category information, it could become one of the key tools in linking and listing related content on a WordPress-powered site. However, in order to properly summarize and support the content, careful tag and category selection will remain important.