Categories
Tech

Why Smart Light Bulbs Make Sense

I live in a pretty old house and I have many normal light switches that aren’t always in the most convenient location. I had just one dimmer switch but replaced it as we liked using cheap CFL bulbs and now use cheap LED ones, neither of which dim well.

About a month ago I decided to purchase a Google Home (“smart speaker”), and a Philips Hue starter kit including a few white+color LED bulbs and the hub. We’ve been using it fairly basically so far, to just turn on and off indvidual or groups of lights via voice. One thing I’ve started to appreciate is the ability to turn the brightness all the way down to 10-25% at night time, so I can have some visibility in the hallway without the jarring full brightness.

So – for the cost of nice dimmer switches I have dimmable light bulbs, and I’m starting to figure out better ways to control them and automate them to turn on/off automatically without having to use commands. More to come on that soon.

Categories
Featured Productivity Web

If This Then That: How To Automate Your Web

There’s a cool new web application that you may want to check out. It’s called “If This Then That”, and it lets you connect your social media and web application accounts and create “triggers” that will automatically do things for you. The possibilities are endless, you can basically do anything with this tool. Like, for example: You can set up an auto-response when you get a new follower on Twitter. You can automatically email yourself when the weather forecast says it’s going to rain. And you can automatically move files between different services including DropBox, YouTube, and Photo sharing services…



It’s kind of hard to explain, it’s probably best to just try it yourself. The website is http://ifttt.com. Have fun! And feel free to ask me questions in the comments if you need help figuring it out.

Categories
Ideas Productivity Web

User-configurable Keyboard Shortcuts

Concept: A System that allows web surfers to configure their own Keyboard Shortcuts for web applications.

Probably a firefox extension or chrome plugin, but also a web directory where visitors can install greasemonkey scripts that will add keyboard shortcut functionality to various apps. The full add-on will be promoted to be able to notify you of configuration change possibilities and specific website productivity tips, all based on the current URL in view. Users will be able to change/add/remove keyboard shortcuts for every URL.

Challenges:
– compatibility
– change monitoring
– conflict resolution

Categories
Mobile

3 Weeks with iPhone 3G

I slept overnight outside the Palo Alto Apple Store to get this White 16GB iPhone on the first day. I immediately fell in love with the new physical design – the new iPhone feels so much nicer in my hands than the original iPhone. In fact, I’ve been using this new iPhone mostly without a case, leaving it naked in my otherwise empty left jeans pocket. I am using a screen protection film though.

GPS is really nice to have. It’s made the Google Maps application much more useful already, and I hear rumors of advanced navigation features in an upcoming iPhone update.

3G coverage is spotty, so it hasn’t been quite the revolution I was hoping for, but nonetheless an improvement, and quite speedy in some places.

The App Store is an interesting development too. I wish I had Installer.app still, but there are a lot of decent apps coming out for free in the App Store, including one from WordPress which I’m using right now to write this post.

Anyway, I heartily recommend the new iPhone to almost everyone… You should get one today!

Categories
Mobile Productivity

Listen to RSS Feeds by Phone with Jott

Jott just released a new feature, allowing you to subscribe to RSS feeds with their service, and then listen to them by calling a toll-free number. If you’re not familiar with Jott already, they provide a speech-recognition service to save text notes for yourself, and also integrates with other sites, like allowing you to post converted text to Twitter for example. So, this text-to-speech feature is an interesting addition that somehow makes the service seem more complete.

I haven’t really figured out what RSS feeds I would prefer to listen to a robot reading… however I’m sure I’ll find a use for it. Now if only Jott Feeds would integrate with Google Reader and you could listen to your Google Reader news, and then Jott would mark those items as read. That could be really awesome in the car.

Link

Categories
Mac Personal Productivity

Dictation Software

I’m considering using MacSpeech Dictate for blogging. However I can’t decide yet whether using dictation software is more liberating or more constricting in the writing process. So far I feel I have a limited vocabulary, and the dates it and the dictation software can’t pick up on my implicit punctuation. However the software is otherwise quite fast, and generally highly accurate.

The next thing that I would like to see, is MacSpeech Dictate implemented on the iPhone. A dictation application on the iPhone would be really awesome. However, I wonder about the accuracy of the built-in microphone. Although I imagine a Bluetooth headset, along with noise reduction technology, could be a solution.

Categories
Entertainment Hacks Mac Music Web

Lyrics for Last.fm

Ever since I installed MobileScrobbler on my iPhone, I’ve been using Last.fm a lot … like almost every day, and for hours at a time. Here’s my profile. Last.fm “scrobbles” (keeps track of what you listen to, and uploads that info) your music, and my iPhone automatically does this when I listen to anything in the iPod feature, and so does my Mac when I listen to anything in iTunes. Why do I want to do this? For posterity, as you might imagine, but Last.fm also provides music recommendations in the form of a personalized radio station. And the personalized radio station is what I really love. I mean, you press play, and you’ve got all sorts of new stuff to listen to, and the percentage of it that I like is much higher than listening to anything else. And it’s more interactive, because I can teach the system my preferences by pressing either the “Love” or “Ban” buttons.

Anyway, MobileScrobbler lets me read lyrics while I listen to songs… Which I LOVE doing. That Mac version however, does -not- do this. I was able however, to find a Greasemonkey script that adds lyrics to the song page on Last.fm, and therefore enables a workaround. (Greasemonkey is a FireFox plugin that I use daily… it let’s you add things to, and modify websites. People make scripts to make all sorts of websites do all sorts of cool things. Check out http://userscripts.org for examples).

My workaround is this: Listen in the Last.fm app. When I want to read lyrics for the current song, just click the link in the app to open up the song page at last.fm. The greasemonkey script shows the lyrics right there for me. Works.

Oh, and then I can also comment on the song right there too, another feature I’d like to see added to the Last.fm Mac client.

Categories
Mobile Personal

One Week With A Nokia N95

I’ve been using a Nokia N95 8GB (N95-2) for the past week. And I just took the SIM card out and put it back in my iPhone. Here’s why:

  1. The user interface feels outdated after getting used to the iPhone. It feels more like Windows than Mac if you know what I mean.
  2. It doesn’t have a full keyboard… only the normal 1-9 number keys. I didn’t know how much I would miss this.
  3. This version doesn’t actually have 3G data speeds, like I had thought. So, it’s still really slow on EDGE.

However, there were some things I really liked about the N95:

  1. The camera is really great. It has a macro mode which is great for snapping notes or text. It will also record pretty high quality video. There’s also a second camera on the front, so you can video chat… or record yourself.
  2. Qik. Broadcasting live video from Qik was fun. I hope I can do that on the iPhone soon. (you can see what I broadcasted at http://qik.com/rex)
  3. I finally found an application that lets me broadcast my GPS location to a website. Eventually I want to have a log of everywhere I go, created automatically, and of course private. (but that I could create scripts to send me notifications related to where I am, etc..)
  4. The wealth of available applications. This was my first experience with the Symbian mobile OS, and there’s a ton of stuff for S60 phones. Good looking 3D games, and other goodies.
  5. Also bluetooth syncing. I want my iPhone to do that. I don’t like having to plug my iPhone in all the time.

The 3G iPhone rumors abound, and predict all sorts of things. Like the launch date is mid-June supposedly. And that the 3G iPhone may support video recording, and even include a secondary camera, for video conferencing. Also maybe even GPS. Now, I don’t know how much of that is true, but you can just see for youself over at MacRumors. Anyway, I guess I’ll just suffer with my first-gen iPhone until this summer, when I’ll either get a 3G iPhone or a Google Android phone… or both. =D

Categories
Mobile Personal Productivity

Seeking Better Mobile Solution

So, I love my iPhone. There are some things that it can’t do that I really really want.

  1. 3G Data Speeds… EDGE is too damn slow.
  2. Video Broadcasting … no app exists, and it would be too slow anyway.
  3. GPS. Location-based notifications among other things, also broadcasting my location. Also, tracking my whereabouts for posterity.
  4. Ability to act as WiFi hotspot. I want to share that 3G speed to my laptop… or to yours, wherever we go.

These things -might- get updated this summer with the next iPhone, but I doubt we’ll see video broadcasting or real GPS. And frankly, I don’t really want to buy another iPhone. And I also don’t want to wait that long.

So I’m thinking about getting a Nokia N95, or something comparable. There are applications to do all of the aforementioned things. And, I could still use my iPhone to browse the web over the WiFi connection the Nokia creates. One cool thing is that I can just pop the SIM card out of my iPhone and into the Nokia, keeping the same phone number… and my unlimited data plan from AT&T includes 3G already so it won’t cost me any more per month.

The only thing is, I don’t know if it will work the way I want, or if I’ll be happy with the phone itself. Know of a better solution?

Categories
Mobile

Getting Connected, Staying Connected

So, I’ve been using a Sprint Mobile Broadband card (it’s actually through a reseller: Millenicom – great deal btw), for awhile now. I use it in the car, by the beach, in my hotel room, and actually quite often in class – because unfortunately CruzNet (the UCSC WiFi network) is definitely not ubiquitous on campus, even in Engineering classrooms and other lecture halls. Now, this might be intentional (to "help" students focus), but frankly I find it quite frustrating… because I’m much less likely to go to class at all if I’m going to be sitting there, fidgeting, trying to force myself to pay attention. It’s not all the time, but I guess you could say I’m addicted.

Anyway, so I’m sitting in this lecture hall right now, and I keep getting disconnected from WiFi, and my Sprint card won’t stay connected either. It’s such a PITA. I can’t wait for WiMax, or whatever. Obviously, I’m not holding my breath, but it feels like I’m treading water, waiting for the WiMax rescue boat.

When’s it gonna happen?