The Belkin Verve Folio Cover....Surprising Findings

So, a few days ago I finally received my Belkin Verve Folio from Europe.  It is a nice little cover.  It is thicker than I imagined and the blue accents make for a nice and elegant holder.  The phone fits nicely into the "pocket" and feels very secure.  I actually think that the phone could be dropped on the floor and it would be very well protected by this case. 

The first surprise that I got, and something that I think needs to be clarified, is that I ordered the Belkin Verve Folio version 2, but received version 1 of the device.  You may recall the difference between the two versions in my previous post.  I expected the worst response from this and was prepared to send it back, but after trying out the device for a few days, I am going to keep it.

The biggest issue of course is the sensor issue.  I am happy to report that this is a NON ISSUE with this version of the Verve Folio !   I am very surprised given the fact that the para-sensor setup is very similar to the SENA cases that I reviewed previously.  The latter had many problems with the sensor - showing a blank screen during phone calls.  What is more surprising is the fact that the Verve Folio case is thicker than the Sena Case  around the sensor area and it still does not affect the phone.  I have tried it out in over 10 different lighting scenarios that failed the Sena Hamilton, but there were no outages with the Belkin case.

Something that I really love about this case is the way in which the cover drops down in the back to reveal the camera.  The camera does not have to peer through a hole in the case/cover, it is fully exposed.  What this means is that if you use flash photography with the iPhone, the cover does not get in the way.  The pictures are not washed up due to "tunnel vision."  It is also not obscured by the cover which is nice.  With the weird blue tint of the inner case, you can actually do some interesting photography, such as placing the cover in such a way as to bounce the light upwards and even focus the flash a little more.  Very unique, very nice.

Although I miss the belt clip, I can live without it.  In conclusion, to say that I am very surprised is an understatement.  I was expecting the worse when I first saw the packaging and read the reviews from several sites.  But I have not had the problems that these people have had.  Additionally, although I was looking at a few different cases, I am probably going to stay with this case for a while, hopefully for the life of the phone.  The case is very nice and using my Wife Indicator, it's a winner.  So, it's two thumbs up on the ORIGINAL Belkin Verve Folio case.

The Best Video Player for the iPhone is OPLAYER.

(This article is taken from my archives.  I originally wrote it in January and in March, I haven't changed my tune, and yes, this is another one of my rants on codecs and iTunes)...

Update October 19th, 2011:  I have posted a new article reviewing what I believe to be the best video players for both the iPhone and iPad.  It is an update on this article  http://bit.ly/nPR40U



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I waited for a long time to see VLC show up on the iPhone - 2 years to be precise.  But having downloaded it on its first day of release, I have yet to use it.  Why?  Well, upon reviewing the early users of the program, although the reviews were good, one reviewer placed a very interesting comment, something to the effect of, "not as good as Oplayer..."  You don't have to say this twice to know that you may be missing something.   Immediately I took the opportunity to download the Oplayer program followning the VLC download.


The reason for a third party app is due to the fact that Apple's Quicktime refuses to play anything other than .MV4, .MP4 files or other simple file types.  It will not play .DIVX or .MKV files.  I don't know if licensing is an issue or something else, but it has been a frustrating endeavour listening to the Jailbreakers and Android owners boast about being able to play different codecs.  So it was a hearty surprise when an app called CineXplayer was accepted into the iPad app store.  It allowed the above mentioned codecs to be played by going around Apple's codec limitation and allowing the .AVI files to be uploaded via iTunes.  I fully expected this to last for only a few days and be removed from the App store, but it wasn't.  The only problem was that I do not own an iPad.  So it was watchful waiting until the CineXplayer developers released a version for the iPhone and iPod Touch.  The rumor mills were filled with VLC entering the fray and I was thrilled to find out that VLC would be released soon.  I downloaded it the first day.  But it was Oplayer, an App that, until noted in the review, made absolutely no noise in the video environs, that eventually won me over.

I was able to immediately use the Oplayer App but not the VLC application due to the fact that the OPlayer application allowed for OTA (Over the air) downloads immediately.  The VLC application, similar to the CineXplayer on the iPad, requires iTunes to transfer its .AVI files to the device.  OPlayer does not. 

Oplayer is far from perfect, but I have not found any significant faults thus far.  It plays Xvid files and other .AVI files wonderfully, while distributing its .MP4 files to the Quicktime player, the native player of the iPhone, thus not duplicating services. 

One very interesting thing that Oplayer does is to change the port for each download.  It's a wonderful security measure and obviously something that the creators of this software program thought about for a long time.  You may start on port 2456, and not the usual 8080, but after owning the software for a few weeks, you will soon see 5255, but never the same port on the same day.  Again, brilliant security feature.

Standard video plays better than HD video due to the iPhone using Hardware acceleration for its native Quicktime videos but not for standards that it does not natively support. But Oplayer even has a solution for that.  Just like in the Palm days, there is a Skip Frame feature whch may improve performance with HD video.

Of note, you can also play .mkv, .3gp, .mov and .rmvb files, not to mention Microsoft's .wmv files.

Some things that I would like to see in the future are batch downloads, support for the Mac Centric AFP network for Airport and a working meter to tell how much longer the download will take. Other than that I really have no issues with the software.  It does its job very well.

So, if you are looking for an alternative to QuickTime, I think Oplayer is worth a look.  In fact out of all the video players that I own on my iPhone, I would rate this as the best.  The cost is $2.99 as of this writing and it is found in the App Store on iTunes.  The maker of the software is Olimsoft.

LDD.


Update:  A few newcomers have joined the fray since my post, but rest assured, although there was a little hiccup in an update made to the software a few months ago, the most recent iteration of the OPlayer app remains my pick for the best video player for the iPhone.   There is now some early support for SMB direct streaming and downloading.  Although not quite AFP, SMB or Samba, is a worthy alternative and OPlayer streams flawlessly.  So if you have a NAS drive you can access movies, music etc directly.  This addition is quite welcomed.  

Updated September 16th, 2011.

LDD.

The best gadget for 2010......

Folks, I know the iPad has had the reputation of being the best device for 2010.  It's on the wish list of many, but here's a story that may make you go Mmmgh?

I had the opportunity to purchase an iPad earlier this year.  It was a gift actually that was to be given to me some time in August.  I passed on the gift immediately.  I was told about how many wonderful apps that were available for it and how the simple act of buying an app once meant that it could be utilized on an iPhone and an iPad.  I was shown the simplicity of reading books and the running of gadgets from remote controlled apps.   I thought that this was wonderful.

However, I declined the iPad!   Yes, folks, I declined the hottest gadget of the year.  The gadget that is simply the best in its class - that of Tablet Computing.  So I know that you are asking the very question that many of my other friends have asked:  WHY?  And more importantly, what is the best gadget, in your opinion, for 2010?

For me, the gadget of the year is quite simply Amazon's KINDLE.

What I did not tell you in the first paragraph above was that I have a very large library of books.  Books that I never get to carry around with me.  They range from novels to sonnets to medical literature.  I have well over 1,000 journals, which I rarely get the chance to read and therefore am subjected to buying a subscription to a Journal Reviewer, reading in depth the articles that are germaine to me.  I rarely get the opportunity to read novels and when I do, I usually don't have the book with me.   What I needed was an electronic book device.  Something that just did electronic books.  I did not want something with email, twitter, You Tube or any such distractions.  I wanted a serious e-book reader.  No tweeting, beeping, ringing interruptions.  Just words on a page.  I wasn't interested in color or pictures.  Just WORDS.

The Kindle or more importantly, The Kindle 3 is perhaps the best e-book reader ever invented.  As of 2010 of course.  The iPad simply does not compare when it comes to reading a novel on the device for over an hour.  I tried to read on an iPad that was loaned to me and I immediately became fatigued trying to read at night.   Additionally, the iPad, excellent as it may be as a mobile utility device, is much too heavy to be considered a dedicated e-book reader or book replacement. It is too distracting, with its apps, alerts etc., to be considered a serious e-book reader.  Now, I am not putting the iPad down, but simply stating that if you are looking to read books and only books, then the Kindle is the better choice.

So, are there weaknesses to the Kindle?  You bet.  First, you really do need to have the same brightness that you would have to read a regular book available to you.  Otherwise, you will need to buy a cover which has a built in light source or buy another light source.  There is no back light, as seen with the iPad.
Second, if you are into color pictures, the iPad is for you.  The Kindle shows only gray scale images.  Again, it is for reading.  Thus I would not recommend it for Magazine reading.  Nor would I recommend it for PDF books.  The manipulation that needs to go on with trying to read a PDF is just not feasible for long articles.
Third, after playing with the iPhone, any Smart phone or an iPad or iPod Touch, you have this feeling that everything that has a small screen needs to be touched to make the words and images move.  Thus page turns, character enlargement etc., are intuitively managed by Touch Screen -- On An iPad.  But not on a Kindle.  There are still ancient Touch buttons on the side and a relatively antiquated hard key keyboard.

But what beauty there is lies in the Software that Amazon has chosen to use.  Let me first say that Linux is always loved and the OS appears to be a version of this.   You can add books to the Kindle in many different ways.  You can use Amazon's WhisperSync which does over-the-air downloads via 3G or Wifi.  And did I mention that the 3G is free, without registering?   Yes, it's relatively slow if you want to surf the web, but for obtaining books, it's wonderful.  You can also Archive by just erasing a book off your KINDLE.  You can save an entire folder, which contains all of your books from the KINDLE to your PC.  This is great if you want to upgrade a Kindle.  You just download the folder and store it on your hard drive.  This also allows you to save files on the Kindle and use its 4 gig memory as a hard drive.  You can upload Audiobooks via this route also or MP3 files.

One amazing feature that I loved was during an hour of reading a classic.  I couldn't move, but I had to go to the bathroom.  Well, you can let the Kindle read to you.  It will ( in its really nice phonetic voice, which I might add is quite human-like) continue reading where ever you have left off.  Really great for bathroom breaks :).

The Kindle is small enough to keep in your bag or jacket.  It can download updates if you like, in the background.  Additionally, you can turn off the Wifi and save the battery.  I have used it for 22 days straight on a single charge once.  Normally, I will charge it on weekends though.  What is good however is the ability to read anywhere, anytime.  And if I forget the device, well, I can continue the reading on my phone if I wish.

One important feature about the Kindle is the lack of a back light.  I point this out because it is very important.  I can read a Kindle for at least an hour straight, without stopping because I do not have a large back light shining into my eyes.  That back light is okay if you are reading at 7pm.  But at 10pm, this is a strain.  I have tried reading my iPhone at night and I hate it.  It's too bright.

Of note, the 1000 journals will not be archived.  For that I am actually going to use an iPad.  The PDF restriction is an issue there.  Also, for technical reading, I really would not recommend the Kindle, at least for medical technical reading.  If you have to jump back and forth, several times, then an iPad is better.  But luckily, I have found a wonderful niche for my Kindle.  It is now the proud provider of all of my classic novels and since they are free, the list is now well over 100 in size.  I look forward to reading Moby Dick and Brave New World many years later and from a different perspective than I had before.  The non reflective nature of the Kindle makes it a winner anywhere.  And the fact that I will not be distracted by the web when I am reading is just icing on the cake.

This is why I am calling the KINDLE 3 with WIFI & 3G the best Device for 2010.

NAMECHANGER

So you have a camera that you bought a few years ago and you run into the biggest problem plaguing everyone who owns a digital camera.  And if you think that you don't have this problem, well let's just say that it is something that you are going to find out about very soon.

You see there is a little problem that just about every camera manufacturer forgets to tell you about.  And it is a problem located on ALL digital cameras.  It is similar to the 1999  Y2K problem.  Without backing up your photo collection this problem will wipe out a lot of fond memories. 

Sony F717 

The problem is this.  When you take a photo, your camera starts a counter.  The first picture is labelled 0001.  If you have a Sony camera it is proceeded by the letters DSC ie. DSC0001.JPG, with the suffix .jpg added to let the computer know that it is a jpeg file.  Other cameras will do the same, ie. MSC0001.JPG, Cannon uses IMG, ie IMG0001.JPG. The first thing that  you will notice is that there are only 4 digits.  That is where the problem arises!

When you get to picture #10,000 the camera rolls back to 0001.  If you are using iPhoto and you do not relabel your photos this is akin to wiping out the original 0001.jpg photo that you have in your catalog.  In my case, those were the pictures of the birth of my son.  I was saved only in knowing that I had a back up of those precious early photos.  Additionally, I did not realize the problem until I took picture # 10,110 !  That's right 110 of my original photos taken 8 years ago with my Sony DSC-F717 were completely gone from my iPhoto catalog.   Again, I was saved only by the knowledge that a backup existed for these.

The next problem that has arisen is what happens when your spouse or child decides to get a camera?  In the old days you would buy a simple point-and-shoot and take it to the store to be developed.  You would then scan the photo into iPhoto.  But today, just about everything is digital.  And if you buy a camera that is made by the same company as your original camera then you are in trouble!  Major trouble if you are using iPhoto.  In this case, I had the opportunity to pick up a used Cannon SLR, which is now 8 years old, but takes the most wonderful pictures.  It is digital.  And it cost me pennies to purchase because it was used and the owner just wanted to get rid of it.  It was also an inevitable purchase after my Sony F717 broke down.  This was a God send because I was able to integrate it painlessly with iPhoto because it had a different prefix - IMG.  So my first pictures were IMG0475.JPG and this did not interfere with the original Sony DSC0475.JPG.  Dandy, until I get to 9999 in which the original problem that I discussed will inevitably arise.  But then my wife's birthday came up and you guessed it, she wanted a simple point and shoot camera for her big day.  Nothing expensive, but something that was not as clunky as my Canon ( a huge beast by today's standards) - just a simple point and shoot.  I had a 100% chance of running into a problem.  If I chose a Sony or Canon camera then the number problem would again be an issue.  I found out also that Nikon uses the DSC prefix as well.  She chose the Canon camera and this is where things got interesting. 

iPhoto has become very long in the tooth and although there are dramatic changes being made to the program, including face recognition, mapping etc., the basics are being left behind.  This numbering system for instance should be a thing of the past.  Almost everything is digital.  Just about every photo is digital, so why not keep up with the times on this one? 

Simple Batch Processing

For now, I can no longer just plug in the camera and hope that everything will fall into iPhoto and be arranged.  We are well over the 10k range and due to the fact that we have more cameras on tap, the overriding of DSC and IMG numbers is something that will always happen.  In speaking to a few friends of mine, they have told me that Lightroom and Aperture are better at handling this sort of thing.  But they cost a lot of money.  And from what I understand, once you go Lightroom, you're there forever; same holds true for Aperture.  I have also been told that Aperture is better at cataloging, while Lightroom is better at editing.  I cannot vouch for either, having not used either one of them.

So what do I do?  Well, if you own a Mac there is always someone out there with a solution that has been peer reviewed and investigated.  The program that I found and which is literally saving my bacon these days is called simply NAMECHANGER.  It is a public domain FREE program written by Mickey Roberson at http://www.mrrsoftware.com/ Mickey has done a great job with this and makes several different versions depending upon which flavor of OSX you have.  Donating a dollar or two for his efforts would be a good thing to spur him along to continue doing what he is doing. 

More Complex Batch Processing

With NameChanger, you get a simple no frills interface and you can drag and drop your files  and preface them in any way that you desire.  So, if you put in a batch of files with the numbers IMG0050.JPG THRU IMG0100.JPG and you took them at the same venue or during the same shoot, then you can do the following:  Change sequence starting from IMG0050.JPG TO IMG0100.JPG and batch change (that is change all of the files so that they begin with whatever it is you want, instead of IMG) to BirthdayParty001.jpg to BirthdayParty050.jpg and you will have a listing that is not readily duplicated.  You can get more specific and do something akin to Nigels5thBirthday001.jpg.

That is pretty difficult to duplicate by accident.  Once the batch change is done, then you can dump it into iPhoto.

What Apple needs to do is this.  Since it has the ability to separate the photos into EVENTS, it should automatically change the FILE to represent this change if that is what the user wants.  Just having it notice events is not good enough now that everyone and their uncle has a camera.  By the way, did I forget to mention the iPhone and the iPod Touch photos as well?  Yes I did didn't I.  Well you get the point by now.  The overlapping of photos is something that will happen to just about everyone at some point.  For now, NameChanger may be the best solution for those of us not willing to part with $300 to buy either Lightroom or Aperture just for this feature.

Drop Box

I really have to admit, every week it seems there is some new application that is made, mainly for the Mac or iPhone that just amazes me. DropBox is one of them.

There has been a lot of talk about cloud computing lately. What is it? How good is it? And why do I need it? Well, once you've used DropBox you'll wonder why and how you ever lived without it.

First off, I receive no monetary, advertising or any advice from the company. Infact, they have no clue who I am. I have never written to them, never told them of this review or posting.

With the disclaimer done, let me talk a little bit about why I like this program. There is a special download from http://www.getdropbox.com . Once installed, the program will automatically, if you choose, link with the Dropbox server when you turn your computer on. It will automatically update any changes made to the Dropbox folder on your computer with those of the server (in the ether, at Dropbox). This back and forth reconciliation goes on without you ever having to bother with it. Of course, since security is an issue, you can create the directory that will do this service. I chose a folder, not in my Admin Account. Dropbox reads and writes only to that folder. The program does ask for permission to bind to the OS, but I refuse this. That's just me!

You can have the Dropbox program start on Start up of the computer or whenever you please.

So why is this program so brilliant? Well, forget the whole set up thing on the computer for a moment. Although it is great, it may not be for you? Especially if you're very security conscious. There is a web enabled version of this program which does basically the same thing. That leads us to the special case -- the iPhone. The App for DropBox is a WebApp. Just type in the url www.getdropbox.com and it will automatically load the iphone version of the web page. You cannot upload anything from the iPhone, but you can download documents of almost any type (something that beats the Google Office Suite).

More fascinating though is the way that this program handles videos. I will on another day, talk about a program called AirShare, which is a must have for anyone owning an iPhone. This program allows you to download files of almost any type and store it on your iphone and play most of them back. But the playback of video must correspond to Quicktime playability. The only downside to this is the sheer size of the videos, averaging 300-500k on a 16 or 8 gig iPhone/iPod Touch this can become daunting. Enter the DropBox solution: STREAMING.

Dropbox doesn't actually load your movies onto your phone, it streams them. The downside is that a 300 k quick time video or 300 k gp (phone quality video) takes about 2 minutes to start before playing on the 3G network. But once it starts playing (I presume some of the delay is buffering), it is quite good. Pausing has been an issue sometimes, but for the most part, the program streams very well. It has thwarted my need to get a SlingBox, although it does not stream live broadcasts, it is still quite nice.

The nice thing about DropBox is that you can view your files anywhere, enclosed in an AES-256 bit encrypted browsing solution. That is very secure. As long as you have a connection of some type, the program works well.

Lower bandwidths, including some 3G areas should probably not use DropBox for video since the streaming issue can be really quite horrible for video. To be honest, Yahoo's briefcase - which I understand is not available anymore and Google's Office are quite good and good enough for non-video items.

Additionally, DropBox has a recover feature that works similar to Time Machine. If you lose your document, it will refer you back to a version of the document that you made and deleted previously. Of course that brings into account how long does DropBox keep your information/files on its servers. But if you're not too paranoid, DropBox is a must have, especially if you have an iPhone.

For a more "on my machine only" solution I would recommend Airshare.

LDD.