Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Vaja ivolution Top SP Case

Never posted a note about the 2nd Vaja¹ case that we ordered — ivolution Top SP. Alena uses this case on her phone.

This is my own personal opinion of the case and since I’ve never extensively used it myself treat it as such.

I think it offers superior phone protection when compared to my case at least with regards to having all corners covered.

The leather itself is soft and very pleasant to the touch, much nicer that the shiny plastic on iPhone itself.

The screen is protected really well, but as you can see it doesn’t cover the bezels on the sides of the screen itself, which is a good thing — no issues using the screen near the edges.

Originally I thought that it would be hard or impossible to open the case with one hand, but by now I have no issue with that — just takes a little bit of practice.

Screen is fully covered when closed, yet easy to use when open.

The phone in the case can not be docked, if that’s your thing.

As you can see the wear shows after about 7 months of use, but Alena keeps it in her purse along with all other stuff. The wear however is purely cosmetic.

Cosmetic wear on the sides. Access to the side buttons.

The cost was $85. There are a lot of color choices for the case itself and for the central stripe. This case gets thumbs up from me. A very good, functional and stylish case by Vaja.

I can’t link directly to the case because Vaja uses Flash on their site. [↩]

In: Gadgets & Gear Tags: Apple, case, custom, iPhone, ivolution Top SP, leather, review, Vaja
Time: 11:28 Comments: 1 Comment Post a Comment

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Alena says: Subscribed

March 3, 2010 @ 13:44

I like the case a lot — it is so nice to touch, and it makes it easier to find the phone in my huge purse (which is filled with stuff like tissues, lunch boxes, books, lipsticks, pens, keys, wallet, etc. The main bonus of course is that I am not afraid that Shublik will destroy the phone if I left unattended.

Oh, and I think it looks very cool and quite unique too! I did not see a single iPhone case like mine so far — that’s considering that I ride NY Subway and Path train twice a day, and there are plenty of iPhone owners around.

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Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Чучля Weight

I’ve been keeping a record of Shublik’s weight progress since his arrival at our house. I really just wanted to use an iPhone application called WeightBot, but since my weight stays constant it wasn’t fun.

So here we have the results for the first year. He went from 3 pounds at the end of March to 9 pounds at the end of December, thus tripling his size in these 9 months. We think he’s about done growing by now, but who knows?

In: Life In General Tags: cat, iPhone, Shublik, weight
Time: 12:47 Comments: No Comments Post a Comment

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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Gowalla

Home screen shows me some basic stats about my account.

It seems Alena and I have developed a bit of obsession with an iPhone app I stumbled upon a couple of days ago. I don’t think that most people will understand, but I’m sure Ignat and Mike will.

You see, Gowalla is an iPhone based geocaching app on steroids. Throw my passion for National Park stamp collecting into that and you got a killer app, at least as far as I go.

Ignat and Mike have been into geocaching a while ago and it didn’t really appeal to me as there was no record of your discoveries or check-ins left.

Stamps that I have collected, or the places that I've checked-in into once or more.

With Gowalla you have a list of spots located close to you. If there are places you go to often and they are not on the map you can commission a spot yourself. Then you can become a founder by leaving one of the items behind. And each of your check-ins is logged in your stamp list.

A list of spots near by. The closest one shows up first in the list and as you move the distances changes. Check mark denotes that fact that I've been there before.

A screen showing a specific spot. In this case JFK is a featured location which is denoted by a custom icon assigned to it.

Each user is given 5 items at the start. As you check-in into more places you have a chance of discovering more items. If a place already has founder(s) you can pick up the item left by other people on the condition that you leave one behind too.

Each item has a history attached to it and you can see where it has been from the start to the point that you got it and then after you left it somewhere. But you can read more about items on Gowalla blog.

List of people who have checked into this location recently.

Then there are special stamps and pins. There are goals like visiting 5 pre-set locations in Central Park and you’ll earn a pin. Or commission 10 places. And so on. Also if you check-in into any location inside New York state you’ll get an NY stamp and the same happens for any other state.

And you can also see the activity of your friends and what kind of achievements they have.

Overall the feel and the design of the application and their web-site (where you can check for spots and multiple other stats) are pretty amazing. I usually like to nitpick on the smallest details and here everything just looks great. So if you have an iPhone or any other phone with location aware browser do join in with us.

In: Software Tags: geocaching, Gowalla, GPS, iPhone
Time: 20:09 Comments: 11 Comments Post a Comment

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Friday, November 6, 2009

Twitter Integration

Here’s a small Twitter integration showcase. The idea behind it is that it’s much easier to leave a simple note or observation through one of the numerous Twitter applications available than to make a blog post. And I tend to leave such simple notes during vacations, when we’re away from any computers, through iPhone.

Single Post

I used a slightly modified¹ version of Alex King’s Twitter Tools. Now this plug-in is actually a bit of an overkill for what I needed it to do, but nobody is forced to use more than needed. I also put together an ugly hack to force this thing to import tweets from both myself and Alena. It runs every 10 minutes and imports all the new stuff it finds.

Multiple Posts

I’ve modified Rubinary template and devised a new way to display this type of posts. One special thing about it is that it groups consecutive tweets into a single post. The time “sticker” on my posts shows up in blue and on Alena’s in green — as all other things on the blog.

Tweet Reply

If you mouse-over over a “sticker” you will see a reply option. By clicking it, you indeed, can reply. But there is a catch — you need to have a Twitter account to do so.

That’s pretty much it. For those who care — I personally use a free version of Twitterrific on the iPhone. And of course no post of this kind would be complete without a mandatory “I hate IE” conclusion.

Modification allowed me to pull and import our older tweets. [↩]

In: Software Tags: blog, design, import, integration, iPhone, template, Twitter, Twitter Tools, Twitterrific, WordPress
Time: 17:57 Comments: No Comments Post a Comment

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Friday, August 14, 2009

Fabulous AT&T

Yesterday on my way home Alena and I experienced the real quality of AT&T network. It usually does drop a lot of calls, but yesterday was just ridiculous. I literally could not finish a single thought without getting interrupted. Haven’t been quite so frustrated with anything in a long while.

I think Apple should really end this exclusive relationship. I can’t stand the service. At the same time I’m not yet willing to give up the best phone I’ve ever had.

In: Gadgets & Gear Tags: Apple, AT&T, dropped calls, iPhone
Time: 15:23 Comments: No Comments Post a Comment

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Tuesday, August 11, 2009

CheckSpit 1.2

Apple has just approved my first update to CheckSplit. It should be popping up in your App Store Updates tab very soon if you one are of the proud owners of CheckSplit.

The update carries a number of a small updates and one major new feature:

You can now tap on the tax or tip fields to get to the tip & tax adjustment screen.
You can now label parties with text initials, in addition to colors. Just tap any colored icon while entering the check and you will be presented with a screen to enter the initials for that person or group. To clear it out simply drag the letters off the icon. These will be saved for future use as well, so you do not have to re-enter them every time.
Splash screen while loading.

Please rate CheckSplit in App Store, or update your review if you like it.

In: Software Tags: Apple, AppStore, CheckSplit, iPhone, update
Time: 18:28 Comments: No Comments Post a Comment

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Friday, August 7, 2009

Vaja Classic Retro Case

Front side of a case with iPhone inside.

It’s been 2 weeks since we have received our custom cases from Vaja. I’ve been using classic Retro Dockable case daily and I’m at a point where I’m ready to write a form of a review for it.

Here is exactly what I ordered — Plain Vitelino leather¹, “Passion” body color, “Sabbia” stripe color, kickstand², ultra clip³. The total came out to $111⁴. You can also have them engrave the case with some custom text, but I didn’t get that.

I will start by saying that I’m practically in love with it and this is the best case that I have personally used, seen, or touched. If with other cases I was trying to have “as little” case as possible, this one evokes an opposite emotion. I enjoy it’s bold look and feel.

The craftsmanship is superb with perfect stitching and perfect tight fit. Leather is very pleasant to the touch. Vaja has a multitude of colors available to choose from, although their Flash “case builder” does not give a true representation of actual colors.

Functionality-wise it has its pluses and minuses. I feel that the phone is well protected, yet the switches, the speakers, microphone and dock connector are easily accessible. Camera is unobstructed. The screen cover is held down with magnets, but it can easily be flipped open with a thumb, so one hand operation is still possible.

The kickstand on the back allows the phone to be placed on the table with a screen facing you either in vertical or horizontal position, even though it does add some bulk to the case.

I’m still not 100% sold on the belt clip idea, even though I find the implementation great. I used to always wear a phone on a belt clip before the Treo. And I got used to carrying my iPhone in the pocket. The size of the phone doesn’t seem to place itself on the belt. Otherwise the connection between the case and the belt clip is very secure, yet it is possible to unlock and remove the phone with just one hand.

Inside, the case has a small plastic protector covering the area around the speaker (all sensors work without any issues), but the the area for the screen itself is just an opening, which is great — there is no reason to have additional screen protectors when there is a leather cover on top of it.

This brings me to a couple of problems. When placed in the case the screen ends up being recessed and not flush with the case face. As a result some actions that have anything to do with touching the edge of the screen became harder than they used to be. A good example of this would be moving icons from one screen to another. Although soon you learn that you can drag your finger over the edge of the case itself, but still, not as easy as without the case.

Top with, with connector, speaker and microphone on the bottom.

Also since the home button is covered it’s not as easy to click and you don’t really get any tactile feedback from it. There is something glued to the back of it, but it doesn’t seem to be big enough. It’s a minor issue as well.

In conclusion I want to say that this is a great case and if I had a choice, I would order it again without any hesitation. You get what you pay for and it certainly is true in this case. Get it?

Update: There is a very thorough video review available by a guy named Omar C.

$6 option. [↩]
Kickstand is a $20 option. [↩]
Belt clip mount, $5 option. [↩]
You can find coupons online to get a decent discount. [↩]

In: Gadgets & Gear Tags: Apple, case, Classic Retro, custom, dockable, iPhone, leather, review, Vaja
Time: 17:24 Comments: 3 Comments Post a Comment

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Jon L H says: Subscribed

December 26, 2009 @ 17:29

Just received ours (2 of them). They are extremely tight, making it very difficult to remove iPhone 3Gs. Also the flap doesn’t seem to have much magnet strength making it flip partially open just by brushing it while walking etc. Not as sold as I was at first after reading this article. Looks like the the old Piel Frama has not been bested yet. I have had 3-4 of those from treo 650, 750, and all 3 iPhone versions, and was seeking same function with just a little bit more pizzaz. Also all four corners are exposed making them susceptible to damage. I have no affiliation with either brand, just stating my opinions.

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Wednesday, July 8, 2009

First Week Sales

For those who are interested — here are the results of sales for the first week. I’ve included the first day in the chart, but it should be noted that the app was released somewhere late in the evening.

Overall it’s a pretty interesting experiment. While the app was showing up in new released, the sales very relatively strong. As the app moved off the first screen the “volume” went down. It’s also interesting to note that all other countries combined have got nothing on U.S. market alone.

Beside that I’ve been contacted by some buyers saying that they really like the simplicity and streamlined interface. There also have been some good feature suggestions that I’m going to try to implement.

In: Software Tags: app, Apple, AppStore, CheckSplit, iPhone
Time: 14:47 Comments: No Comments Post a Comment

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Wednesday, July 1, 2009

CheckSplit — iPhone App

After a long time of not moving ahead with this project I was persuaded by those around me to publish an app that I wrote and we were successfully using for months now.

So I added the final polishes to the application, created a mini-site for it with all the information about it, with the help of my wife put together a good screencast that demos the application and its functionality. And then it was uploaded to Apple for a review.

I’m happy to say that CheckSplit was approved by Apple and is up in the AppStore as of yesterday. I would appreciate any feedback and reviews.

In: Software Tags: app, Apple, AppStore, CheckSplit, iPhone, SDK
Time: 10:06 Comments: 7 Comments Post a Comment

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Friday, June 26, 2009

iPhone 3G S

Well, it didn’t take much time or effort to switch to the new phone. Simply plugged it into the computer and iTunes gave me an option to restore from my previous back up¹.

The phone looks exactly the same as the old one with the exception of lettering on the back being done in chrome instead of gray color. The screen is supposed to collect less finger prints and maybe it does, but it still does collect them.

The differences inside are more interesting. Obviously the biggest new feature is the compass. I have no idea how I lived before without it. It’s hard to imagine. But now those sorry days are far behind me.

On a more serious note — I really like the photo camera improvement. The photos above where taken with the phone in the same position. The phone now auto-exposes depending on your selection of focus point, which is done by simply touching the screen. Video is a nice feature, but I don’t see myself using that much as I never did before on my other phones.

Speed increase is much more noticeable than I expected it to be. iLounge has a good video demonstrating it.

Now I just need to find a good case for this thing, so Shublik doesn’t “upgrade” it.

I synced my old phone right before the start. [↩]

In: Gadgets & Gear Tags: 3G S, Apple, iPhone, unboxing
Time: 16:01 Comments: 1 Comment Post a Comment

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Friday, June 26, 2009

Good Morning

My morning started off well today. I got an unexpected surprise from FedEx. You see, they are in fact so bad, that they can not even predict their own delivery date. But this time around it actually worked in my favor, so — I thank you, FedEx!

FedEx box. All the way from China to NYC in 1 day.

I placed my order with a certain company based in Cupertino, CA on Saturday, June 20th. And it took them 6 days to ship my order out. I got an email with tracking information yesterday in the morning, saying that my package was shipped out from Shenzhen, China! And to make it more cruel — scheduled to be delivered on Monday morning!

Yet here it is! 1 day later, all the way from China, in my hands.

In: Gadgets & Gear Tags: 3G S, FedEx, iPhone
Time: 11:18 Comments: 5 Comments Post a Comment

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Daniel says: Subscribed

June 26, 2009 @ 13:06

Yeah, I was surprised too. But FedEx tracking page gives a step by step list and seems like it really did come from China.

Jun 26, 2009 10:14 — Delivered
BROOKLYN, NY
Jun 26, 2009 08:31 — On vehicle for delivery
BROOKLYN, NY
Jun 26, 2009 07:19 — At dest sort facility
JAMAICA, NY
Jun 26, 2009 03:42 — Departed FedEx location
MEMPHIS, TN
Jun 26, 2009 12:21 — Arrived at FedEx location
MEMPHIS, TN
Jun 25, 2009 15:04 — Departed FedEx location
ANCHORAGE, AK
Jun 25, 2009 13:27 — Arrived at FedEx location
ANCHORAGE, AK
Jun 25, 2009 20:17 — In transit
SHENZHEN CN
Jun 25, 2009 12:10 — Left FedEx origin facility
SHENZHEN CN

All times are local.

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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Beejive IM 3.0

Apple has finally approved the newest version of Beejive, the one that supports new push notifications. In essence that makes IM as effective as SMS with a key difference of IM being completely free.

Feel free to contact me through AIM or ICQ on iDR2000 or 424614398 respectively. I will get your messages instantly on my phone.