New Apple Apps

OVER 10,000 Apple Apps and Counting!
Did you know, that in the first 142 days since Apple first started accepting new iPhone/iPod Touch Apps, there have been over 10,000 Apps added to the iTunes App Store?

My grandson told me that he has downloaded five pages of Apps onto his new iPod Touch. My Touch holds twice as much as his and I have only five Apps in toto: Facebook, Crazy Candle (came in handy for a candle-less birthday), Stanza (love it for reading ebooks), Twitterific and DataCase. Actually I have only four, as DataCase, the most expensive of all of them, didn’t work, so I deleted it.

So, thanks to Grandson’s enthusiasm, I went to the Apple Apps Store and downloaded many of the recommended ones at this link: “Top 15 iPhone Apps of 2008,” except for the games, plus a few others I found. Games bore me. I only downloaded the “FREE” Apps, as I know from experience that the Apps that charge oftentimes do not work, and there is little if any chance of getting a refund. Then I went to bed and before falling off to sleep I tried figuring out what I had done. Imagine this – I now have 160,000 recipes on my iPod, the complete works of Shakespeare plus some that scholars are not sure he wrote, Pandora radio, Urbanspoons restaurants, and two more lights, in case I need to see where I’m going at night. Now I need to find time to sync these to my new iPhone.

I am here to report that the favorite of all that I downloaded has got to be Pandora. It works perfectly. I now have my own custom made radio on this little device. It is like the old “Bluegrass Country” at WAMU has come back to life. WAMU kicked “Bluegrass Country” over to HD radio and the Internet, so they could have more “BORING, BORING” talk on WAMU. I’ve not listened to them since. Who needs them anyway? I’ve got an iPod Touch with all my favorite music on it. But I do miss Ray Davis.

The Shakespeare App is incredible, except it is not easy to read. I am used to reading books on my iPod Touch with STANZA, and I feel certain that I can download Shakespeare’s plays from STANZA for reading. But this Shakespeare App is nice for impressing my friends with my “new found” erudition. See, I carry ALL of the Bard’s works in my purse. If there are any quotations that they cannot remember, I can find them all right here on my iPod.

One of the lights was really not worth the price – FREE. I am going to delete that as I cannot figure what it is suppose to do, except click off and on. I like the Flashlight, as it could come in handy at the theater or when trying to find something at the bottom of my black bag (my purse). I’ve not tried the WordPress App yet.

Most of these Apps need WiFI to work, which in the past would have been a problem for me, as the iPod Touch is not always connected. That is probably why I had not downloaded so many Apps to it. Like the Google Maps are great, but I don’t usually need them at home where I have computers and Internet. I need them when I’m away from home – like on the streets of DC where they don’t work on the iPod Touch. Now my iPod Touch stays home and I go abroad with my new iPhone, where I will always be 100% connected to the real world – the Internet.

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My New iPhone

Here I am with my new iPhone that I just unwrapped on Christmas Day. Cliff purchased it at the Apple Store in Pentagon City, with the assurance that it was all set up and ready to use. No such luck!

Here it is on the 27th of December and I am still working to get it set up. Nothing is ever easy is it? Called AT&T and was told they were closed. Does that mean I am to be without a phone the entire weekend? Finally – the Apple Store where we purchased it, advised me to contact AT&T on my iPhone at “611!” Cool! That worked and I now have a working iPhone.

Part of the problem was ME! I had set the iPhone to transfer calls to my home phone. Then I forgot that I had done that. Embarrassing! Even if the iPhone didn’t work, the iPod part of the Apple iPhone was doing fine, as it downloaded my tunes, contacts and photographs from iTunes. Great! Then the nice lady at AT&T’s 611 number told me that the maps were the most fascinating thing to her. I tried them, and she is right. Absolutely too easy for words to describe. Of course, I already had that feature on my iPod Touch, but never used it, as when I need maps, I thought, was when away from home and no Internet connection. Now, supposedly, with the iPhone I am connected to the world at all times. At least, I hope that is the case. I guess I should go somewhere just to find out.

Well, I do need to get to my car and see if I can manage to get the BlueTooth enabled. It doesn’t look easy. The car manual has 25 pages instructing how to do it. I may have to take the iPhone and car to the dealership, but we shall see. Can a 67-year-old do this type of thing on her own?

Pavarotti singing on my TV in the background is the DVD that I received last Christmas, 2007. The Maestro is performing Christmas music at the cathedral in Montreal. Still haven’t found time to play my new DVD from Scotland – The Transatlantic Sessions. Perhaps I should stop blogging, Tweeting, Flickring, and Facebooking for a few minutes.

I wonder what AlphaInventions.com would think of all this. I cannot understand how it works either, but it does.

The image, Edna, was originally uploaded by barneykin. It is posted here from Barneykin’s account.

Visit Neddy’s Archives for more of Edna’s writings.

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A Milestone for Librivox

I am a fan of Librivox.org where I have downloaded many classic audio readings to enjoy on my iPod, and at times on my laptop. (Books I Have Read.) I have recently discovered some interesting statistics at their web site. Their wonderful volunteer readers have now recorded a total of “almost” 8760 hours of audio, which means that, if one is so inclined, one could listen to Librivox.org recordings for almost an entire year (345+ days), without even a bathroom break.

Perhaps I could do that now that my iPod Touch no longer turns off automatically when I fall asleep at night whilst listening. (See yesterday’s post.)

In addition, this incredible feat was accomplished by 2140 volunteer readers, of whom sixty readers completed 50% of the recordings. That calculates to six months “non-stop” audio readings by sixty Librivox volunteers

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My ‘Updated’ iPod Touch

Apple – I am not sure that it is a “good thing” to mess around with my iPod!

It took a while for Granny Edna to get to know how to work this iPod thingamajig. I have been basically pleased with most of the new updates from Apple, especially since they stopped wiping my iPod Touch clean each time they updated. However, with this last update, some basic modes of use have been changed and totally without warning.

I first noticed it the next morning after listening to my iPod in bed, when I awoke to find my battery was dead. I am accustomed to my iPod shutting down automatically at the end of a pod-cast. Now it just keeps going and going, kinda like the energizer bunny, playing pod-cast after pod-cast and when it goes through all of the pod-casts, it starts over.

Now that little scenario is handy when listening to the iPod while driving, as before I had to start a new chapter of an audio book, each time the old chapter (podcast) finished, which meant waiting for the next red light to come along. But it is definitely not handy when I am listening to an audio book in bed and I fall asleep. When I awake, I’ve finished the entire book, but have no idea which chapters I’ve heard.

So now I’ve had to discipline myself NOT to fall asleep whilst listening. The minute I get drowsy, I must disconnect the iPod and turn it off. That’s when I discovered that the iPod Touch doesn’t turn off any more, even when done manually. Although it looks like it’s off, it really isn’t. It is still broadcasting all the podcasts it can find, even though no one is listening to them. Again – dead battery in the morning.

What happened to my iPod Touch? I looked at the settings and found none that I could control. I haven’t had a chance to look at the Online Manual yet – been too busy ranting on my blog about how much trouble this latest iPod Touch update is.

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Music Along Route 66

I have been creating playlists of “My Vanishing Music” that I can listen to whilst travelling along that Route 66 to somewhere. These mp3 tunes can be played as playlists on the Internet without downloading. It is also possible to play them on the iPhone and iPod Touch, however, I have not yet figured out how to do that. I can play individual songs, but not the entire playlists, which is not at all convenient for listening on the iTouch. But this is fun on the computer, and I am sure that I will eventually discover the trick to using this on my iPod Touch.

• Acappella Music
• Gospel Faves from Edna
• Neddy’s Country Classics
• Neddy’s Phil Coulter Faves
• Neddy’s Irish Tenors
• Jerry Lee Lewis
• Goodnight Irene from Neddy
• Neddy’s Folk Music
• Neddy’s Kingston Trio – Weavers
• Neddy’s Piano Solos
• Black Gospel Music
• Neddy’s Bluegrass Christmas

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iPod Touch Software Update

I finally got my iPod Touch to update to the new software, but at what cost? It took more than 24 hours of troubleshooting. See “Wish I Knew.” I restored it at least three times. The fourth time that I set it to “Restore” it actually downloaded and installed the software update. It asked me if I wanted to treat it as a brand new iPod or to restore my backup settings. I chose to restore to my backup. However, what I now have in my hands is like a brand new iPod Touch – nothing on it. All of my photographs, contacts, favorite places, books, not to mention my music are gone. My iPod Touch now has the new software update installed, but it has nothing else.

Doesn’t make sense to me, but then I’m not an Apple. I’m just a stupid person running a Vista PC and I guess I deserve all the aggravation, according to Apple’s television commercials.

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Wish I Knew

I have been having many difficulties synching my new iPod Touch with iTunes. There seems to be little trouble synching my photographs, favorites and contacts which are located on my computer. But to get my files which are on Apple’s iTunes 7.0 synched to my iPod Touch usually takes about ten tries. I understood by reading forums that others were having similar problems and that Apple was coming out with a software update for the iPod Touch. Well, I guess today was the day … however the wait was not worth it.

I cannot get my iPod Touch to install the new update. I phoned Apple Support and they could not help me either. They told me to take it to an Apple Store. Someday, when I have a spare day to spare … I guess … Meanwhile, does anyone out there know what the error message – iTunes could not sync ^0 to the iPod “Edna’s iPod” because the iPod disconnected – means? This comes on only after I have waited and waited for the download, then the installation, and then the backing up of my files. About the time everything should FINALLY be finished, up pops the BIG RED X error message.

I have tried to install this update at least ten times, because of my prior experience with synching the iPod Touch. You can never get it to work on the first try. I have tried different troubleshooting recommendations. I have varied the usb ports from one side of my computer to the other. I have rebooted everything – the computer, iTunes and the iPod, over and over. I have reset the settings. I have restored the iPod. I have deleted files from iTunes, which is one of the troubleshooting recommendations. How many files must I delete? All of them?? What is there left to try?

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Touch of Discovery

How lucky I am! On my journey along Route 66, I found an iPod Touch.

I mentioned how delighted I am to be able to use my new iPod to listen to audio books. Of course, it has been quite a learning experience, as not only have I never owned an MP3 player before this brand new model iPod Touch, but I have never ever used a touch screen as a navigation system, except at airports and ATM kiosks.  Last year when I purchased a new Point and Shoot camera, one of the latest models featured a touch screen, but that seemed so foreign to me that I rejected it for one with traditional buttons and wheels.

The iPod Touch has only two buttons plus the charger insert. It was strange to say the least, but now I am learning that by touch, I can discover more and more that this little gizmo can accomplish. One thing that I was able to see straight away was that not only can  I listen to audio books, but I can  READ text books.

Amazing it was to make that discovery, as I had not realized that would be an added bonus. As I said before, there should be miracles included in this gadget, as a way to justify its pricey price. When I find a book I want to read, I merely turn the iPod Touch sideways (horizontal) and the text lines up perfectly for reading. However, both the iPod and the text books must be connected to the Internet, as I must read them through the Safari browser which comes installed on the iPod Touch. I have not found a way to download these text books into iTunes or to the iPod, so I am assuming that is not possible. However, this works fine for me at home in bed, as I have WiFi at my house. I know where the free text books are on the Internet and the iPod Touch knows how to remember my favorite places.

Of course, this iPod works for reading all kinds of other stuff on the Internet, not to mention my other blogs, my Google calendar, my Google homepage with all the latest news on it. And you know what? Surprise, surprise! I have been able to enter my events onto my Google calendar from my iPod and I have also been able to read and send Gmail. So who needs an added phone anyway? Not me. But I bet with a bit of sleuthing someone can find a phone on this thing too, as it does connect to the Internet.

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Listening to Audio Books

I am continuing to learn how to use my new iPod as a reader. I like being able to download audio books of my choosing, however I have discovered that when I click on the link at LibriVox that reads “Subscribe in iTunes,” although it does automatically download the entire book into iTunes on my computer, it in fact downloads as a Pod-cast, and shows up under Pod-casts on the iPod. In a troubleshooting mode, I returned to LibriVox to try and download an audio book as an “Audio Book.” So far, I have not been able to actually do that. The nearest I came was to do a kind of work-around by downloading the book as a zip file onto my computer and then creating a “Play-list” in the “Music” tab in iTunes. I transferred all the MP3 files of the book into the play-list, which I named with the book’s title. Now, when I want to listen to the book, I go to the Music Tab on my iPod and find it under play-lists. The “Play-list” book plays all the way through, without stopping at the end of each chapter as the pod-casts do, however … when I stop in the middle of a chapter, and then return to listening, it is necessary to begin at the beginning of that chapter again. And, of course, I have to remember to which chapter I was previously listening, no small feat to someone with “Vanishing Memories.” I cannot find a way to backtrack or to go forward in the chapters with the iPod Touch.

However, I still love it, and although I did look at the display of Sony Reader at the store, which I am sure does all of these things and more, my iPod Touch is so much smaller and easier to carry about in a pocket, purse, camera case, the palm of my hand or wherever.

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The Middle Ages

I have been reading “The History of the Middle Ages” by Samuel B. Harding. It was written for children of long, long ago, and as I have always felt quite deficient in my knowledge of European history, I decided to give it a try. I actually am not really reading it, as it is being read to me by a lovely lady named Kara Shallenberg. I found the audio at her web site kayray.org and downloaded it to my new Ipod. I have never owned an MP3 player before this new Ipod Touch, so all of the learning and implementing of this new technology is quite revolutionary to me.

Anyway, when I awoke in my bed in the middle of last night, I reached for my trusty new Ipod, and listened for three chapters until I fell back asleep whilst the Vandals, Huns, Romans and Goths were marauding the entire European continent. Well, not really the Romans, as they were civilized. This audio book stops at the end of each chapter, which seems to be good, as once I fell asleep, the recording eventually stopped. I think the Ipod turns itself off too, but I am not sure of that. Ms. Shallenberg reads for LibriVox.org where I found this at their website:

We get most of our texts from Project Gutenberg, and the Internet Archive and ibiblio.org host our audio files (for free!). Our annual budget is $0, and for the moment we don’t need any money. We’ll let you know if that changes. In the mean time, perhaps you might consider supporting our partners: Project Gutenberg, Internet Archive.

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