David's Blog

I wanted to put some fedora love on my iPhone so I grabbed a couple full size wall papers and cropped them into the right sizes. Here’s the finished product:

Read more »

Ive been exploring the interesting uses of Quick Response (QR) code recently. QR code is a simple machine readable image that can contain a URL, text (up to 250 characters), a phone number, email or SMS. These codes are popping up everywhere, on buildings, in advertisements, on business cards, and more. The most proficient use of them are with smartphones using the camera to scan and decode the information.
iPhone QR Apps
Ive tested a couple apps on my iPhone and came out with my personal favorite QR Scanner. It is fast, and has a number of settings to tweak how you want it to respond, and best of all, no adds.

Ironically Links to the App

Red Laser was a runner up with its ability to scan UPC and EAN as well as QR code, but limited user control. I still recommend Red Laser as the best UPC/EAN scanner, just not QR scanning.

RedLaser App

Other resources:
Dansl has a good article on QR code including some very useful Firefox/Chrome Extensions and has started integrating them into his blog.

I also came across BeQRious a new website that allows you to create QRcode of a photo by assigning it a URL also has a good forum for how to (or not) use QR in a marketing campaign. Beqrious also has an interesting ‘dynamic’ QR code and tracking for the code generated on their site. I am a little worried that I could not find a privacy policy on their main site, but sent them an email via their contact form this morning to clarify their use of our information.

Personally I am using QRcode on my business cards. The link takes the smartphone user to my touch contact site (which will eventually take the place of this blog). I also plan to integrate QR into the next paper based add campaign to recruit new members to the club I started at my school.
Are you using a QR scanner or QR code? let me know how.

My iPhone died agian tonight. For the third time… this YEAR! what am I doing wrong?

Its completely bricked, wont even take a charge. Ive set another appointment with the Apple store, where they will generously give me a new phone. I hope I get lucky this time and get a phone that lasts more than a month.

Today Apple officially unveiled their Tablet PC, the iPad. I was disapointed.

First off, Im not Steve Jobs, I don’t sit around in my underwear all morning and read online articles. I need something productive, something useful.

I currently use three main info devices,

• My Mac-Mini
• iPhone
• A lynux based netbook

I was hoping the iPad would replace my netbook, Its portability is far better than a laptop, and it is perfect for typing class notes into Google Docs. I can type much faster than I write, so even if the iPad has some incredible writing capabilities it’s still not what I need.

So why did Apple choose a tablet over a Netbook?

Here are my thoughts:

Competition:
SJ is no fool, everyone already has a netbook.
If Apple made one it’s price range would probably be around $600.
Netbook’s have been around for a while, and most people who buy one are expecting a laptop, and are disapointed. Apple works very hard to make it’s customers happy, they don’t want to disapoint.

The Alliance:
Google’s Chrome OS is expected to surface later this year, a stripped down OS made specifically for netbooks. With the success of Android and G’s new found talent at making hardware… Who wants to compete?

There have been many rumors about Apple and Google’s joint ventures but I suspect SJ is getting a little annoyed with those kids, especially after the Nexus.

The Audience,
Ive spent alot of time at an Apple store, and despite Apple’s ‘hip image’ I can assure you their main clientele are middle age +

I am VERY impressed with how they cater to my parents ‘technically challeged’ generation. It is Very difficult to get an appointment at their ‘Genus Bar’ and for the most part I see many older people taking advantage of their free one-on-one tutorials.

The Conclusion
It’s obvious that poor college students who need a cheep portable machine to take their class notes will have to wait for google to make an awesome machine.

At least I know what to get my grandparents for Christmas; a trip to the apple store so they can buy themselves an iPad.

Added:
Apple apparently has a peripheral for the iPad, that changes things a bit, I might look into it.

Ive finally been able to get some app reviews typed, thanks to a Facebook app that has everything preorganized.

I should be able to manually import the good ones soon enough.