More Android apps!

Posted by ekrunch in Technology, Useful Information on August 28, 2010

Since my last post on my favorite Android apps, I’ve found more that I like and decided to share them. I’ll skip the intro and just get right into the meat of things!

Enjoy the apps and thanks for the suggestions last time!

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The return to my car audio days!

Posted by ekrunch in Technology on August 3, 2010

At the end of 2008, I purchased a new 2009 Nissan Maxima. Up until that point, all of my vehicles had aftermarket audio systems in them. Some more radical than others, but always something other than stock. When I got the Maxima, I was too busy to care so I left the stock Bose system alone.

After some recent discussions with friends, i’ve started to feel the itch again. I’ve really started to miss the magnificent sound that I got from the audio system in my ’02 Accord. The Bose system in my Maxima is so flat sounding and the only adjustment options are Bass and Treble, and they tend to give it a really harsh sound when increased. It makes me miss the sound system in my Accord more and more every time I listen to it. What I don’t miss is not having a trunk any more! Fortunately for me, times have changed… Amplifiers are significantly smaller now, subwoofers take less airspace, and my Maxima has a nice wide opening between the wheel wells where I can put everything and still keep spare tire access and room for groceries.

With all that being said, i’ve decided to install a new system in my Maxima. Thanks to a little encouragement from my best friend, i’ve decided to go back to my roots and do the installation work myself. This should make for a fun summer project and will help me relieve some stress! I’ve purchased the first part of my audio equipment already. An Alpine CDA-117 leads the line up. I chose it for it’s superior audio quality and Alpine’s flexible AI-NET system that will let me chain processors, bluetooth, HD Radio, etc to the head unit. Signal processing duties will be performed by an Alpine PXA-H100, digitally connected via AI-NET to the CDA-117. I’ve got some Stinger RoadKill Expert to quiet the Maxima up a little and help with sound reflection inside of the door panels. Speaker wire is JL Audio 12awg copper wire. Power / Ground wires are JL Audio 4awg copper. Capacitor duties will be handled by my Phoenix Gold 15 Farad PowerCore. The cap is left over from my old system but it’s in perfect condition and I never had the first problem with it so I see no need to replace it.

Here’s a few pictures of the new equipment.

A comical note from my friend Trea … Bose is actually an acronym that stands for “Buy other stereo equpiment”. I couldn’t agree more.

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My favorite Android apps so far!

Posted by ekrunch in Technology, Useful Information on July 24, 2010

I’ve had several friends recently take the Android plunge and ask me what apps that i’m using, so I decided to write them up in a list for everyone to enjoy and comment on. They’re listed in no particular order and I’ve provided a link to them in the doubleTwist app catalog so you can read a description and scan the QR code to install.

If you’re new to Android, this app is the first thing you need to install. With it, you can scan the square bar codes (QR codes) on the app pages and your Android device will fire right into the market and let you install the app. So simple! Check out the description and icon on the following page, then search the Android market on your device and load the one with the same icon. It’s free and it works.

Once you’re ready with that, you’re going to need a good keyboard. I’ve said it before, and i’ll say it again. Swype is the way to go. It’s currently in Beta right now so you won’t be able to get it from the Android market, but trust me when I tell you that it’s worth signing up for the Beta and replacing your old keyboard with the Swype one. Here’s the link to the developer’s site. Give Swype a week as your default input method and you won’t go back.

Now that you’re able to Swype and ready to barcode scan, check out the following links and load some apps!

I hope you enjoy these apps as much as I have. Feel free to comment on them or make recommendations of your own.

Special Thanks to House of The Faculty for providing me with some updates and several of these apps.

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Bracelets for Rylee

Posted by ekrunch in Fishy Fishy Fishy, Personal on July 20, 2010

It is with great sadness that I write this post. Jon and Melissa Simmons (Owners of Boston Aqua Farms) daughter was recently diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and is undergoing treatment. Jon and Missy have been friends of mine for the better part of a decade and they need all of the support we can give them right now.

The treatment plan is 2 years long and the bills are very high, The family has to travel about an hour to Boston twice a week for checkups and to receive treatments. To help pay the growing list of bills, Missy is making bracelets to sell to anyone that is willing to buy them. These are simple beaded bracelets but they are made with love and care and hope for Rylee’s future.

Please join with me in supporting them! Click here to donate or to buy a bracelet. Bracelets For Rylee

Rylee Simmons

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Blogging with swype and android!

Posted by ekrunch in Technology on June 29, 2010

In follow up to my earlier post about Swype and how excited I was to see it, I’m writing this blog post using it on my new htc evo. :-)

Outstanding phone, outstanding input method. I can’t wait until they unleash this product on the world.

Oh and the wordpress app for android is also great! Another fine work from the gang at wordpress!

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Woo Hoo! WordPress 3.0 is here!

Posted by ekrunch in Technology, Useful Information, Videos on June 17, 2010

Check this thing out! Congrats to the WordPress team on making what i’m sure will be another amazing release. Seeing this video reminds me of why I’m using WordPress and why I’ve been using it since the 1.x days. It was great software then, it’s amazing software now, 3.0 looks to raise the bar yet again! (Just when you didn’t think they could get any more features into this thing… SURPRISE!) And now on to the video…

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It’s time to Swype!

Posted by ekrunch in Technology on June 7, 2010

Okay, for the first time in a while, i’m excited about a new technology. Swype looks absolutely amazing. I’m about to take the Android leap and go to a 100% touchscreen phone and i’ve been dreading the messaging part. Looks like my prayers have been answered and somebody has finally invented a better way. As a matter of fact, it was one of the guys who helped to invent T9 word mode, which is absolutely the best way to text on a regular number pad phone!

Check out these videos on the Swype site. Absolutely incredible. I can’t wait to get a copy for my Android phone.

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iTunes Cover Art extraction script for Windows

Posted by ekrunch in Technology on May 16, 2010

I’ve recently started using iTunes to organize my music library, but I use TVersity and WMP (via UPnP A/V) to play it back. I needed a way to export iTunes cover artwork to Folder.jpg so WMP & TVersity could pick it up. After digging around for a while, I couldn’t really find a solution so I broke open my text editor and put together a little something to do the job. It’s a JavaScript file that uses the iTunes COM object.

As far as I know, iTunes must be running for this to work and I think you need to have your entire music library open for it to see all files. I’m not 100% sure about that, but just do it anyway. :o

Note: Please consolidate and organize your music library first. This script puts the Folder.jpg in the same folder as the track itself, so if you’ve got tracks scattered everywhere, you’re going to have a lot of Folder.jpg files everywhere.

Download this script here

The following is the contents of the script for those who just want to see the code and derive their own works.

/*
    File: ExportItunesArtwork.js 
 
    Version: 1.0 
 
    Copyright © 2010 Edward Presutti (intellidick.com), All Rights Reserved
*/ 
 
/* iTunes delcarations */
var ITTrackKindFile		= 1;
 
var ITArtworkFormatUnknown	= 0;
var ITArtworkFormatJPEG		= 1;
var ITArtworkFormatPNG		= 2;
var ITArtworkFormatBMP		= 3;
 
var	iTunesApp = WScript.CreateObject("iTunes.Application");
var	mainLibrary = iTunesApp.LibraryPlaylist;
var	tracks = mainLibrary.Tracks;
var	numTracks = tracks.Count;
var	fso = WScript.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
 
while (numTracks != 0)
{
	var	currTrack = tracks.Item(numTracks);	
 
	// is this a file track?
	if (currTrack.Kind == ITTrackKindFile)
	{
		// yes, does it have an empty location?
		if (currTrack.Location != "")
		{
			// no, let's get some artwork
			var artwork = currTrack.Artwork;
			var numArt = artwork.Count;
 
			while (numArt != 0)
			{
				var art = artwork.Item(numArt);
				// WScript.Echo("Album : " + currTrack.Album + ", Artwork Description : " + art.Description);
				var f = fso.GetFile(currTrack.Location);
				// WScript.Echo("Path : " + f.ParentFolder);
				var extension;
				switch (art.Format)
				{
					case ITArtworkFormatJPEG:
						extension = ".jpg";
						break;
					case ITArtworkFormatPNG:
						extension = ".png";
						break;
					case ITArtworkFormatBMP:
						extension = ".bmp";
						break;
				}
 
				if (art.Format != ITArtworkFormatUnknown)
				{
					var fname = f.ParentFolder + "\\" + "Folder" + extension;
					if (!(fso.FileExists(fname)))
					{
						WScript.Echo("Saving artwork : " + fname);
						art.SaveArtworkToFile(fname);
					}
				}
 
				numArt--;
			}
 
		}
	}
 
	numTracks--;
}

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Super Street Fighter 4, time to get funky!

Posted by ekrunch in Games on May 8, 2010

Here lately, i’ve been on a gaming kick. Mostly because work has been killing me and I have a large amount of stress I have to get rid of. A good game is decent for stress relief and i’ve definitely been enjoying it. I’ll never be as hardcore of a gamer as I once was, but it’s fun to play again. Xbox Live has really brought the fun back into it as well. I can play with my friends from around the country and not have to worry about setting up TeamSpeak, Ventrillo, etc and all of the drivers and patches you need to play PC games.

Thanks to Geoff over at 3rdmoon, i’m now playing Super Street Fighter 4. All I can say is “Good job Capcom!” What a fun game. I’ve really been enjoying it. It’s got that old school SF2 feeling but all of the new combos and such that make it so much fun. It’s comical and cartoony, but the style works. The challenges are solid and the gameplay is intense. Definitely a winner!

Seeing as the fighting genre is one of my favorites, I decided to go ahead and splurge on a nice arcade quality fighting stick. Conveniently enough, MadCatz makes one… check it out whenever you get a chance! I just snagged one and if you’re in the market, you might consider getting one. Footnote from Geoff though, there are two versions of this stick. The cheap one uses much lower quality buttons/joysticks and they’re breaking left and right. The more expensive “tournament” ones use high quality Sanwa arcade parts. Definitely the way to go!

Here are some pictures…

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Krunchy’s 4TW tips for email server management.

Posted by ekrunch in Rants, Technology on April 29, 2010

While conversing with my friend over at dopplercow.com, we got into a discussion about how companies allow their users to have HUGE email boxes and other stupid behavioral patterns that they allow. It’s amazing how out of hand email has become. What started as a joke has now become a blog post, here’s some quick tips on how to successfully manage your email servers.

  1. Stop using email for attachments. Collaborative Document Suites 4TW
  2. Stop CHATTING in email. Instant Messaging 4TW
  3. Stop being an idiot and delete your old mail. Cleanliness 4TW

With the addendum from Chris over at Dopplercow

Allow IT to implement mail quotas.

I’ll add my 0.02 to that and say

  1. Allow IT to implement mail quotas. Good IT Practices 4TW
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