This is why you would think that something like Things, developed by Culture Code, would be the perfect application for someone like me.

It certainly has earned a lot of love with so many reviews out there from MacWorld, MacLife, and Apple-related blogs. When I read up on its features and surf around the interface, I felt promised a new level of organization.

But as I play around with Things, I can’t shake this feeling of déjà vu. I feel like I’ve been in this interface before, but with one dramatic difference: I was ten dollars richer.

Things launches you straight into getting things done with a series of Lists. These lists are broken down into several categories, but the heart of Things is in the middle section where you organize your “To Do” items under several categories: Today, Next, Scheduled, and (for the optimistic) Someday.

The items that take priority and have to get done on that particular day, you file under Today. Tap on to the Today option and then touch the “Add Item” (the plus sign) at the bottom left of the screen to add in your first item of the day.

Give your “To Do” a title such as “Write up a review of Things” or “Pick up kid from school” or whatever the job may be. The next step is to give the item a Tag. By default, your tags are listed as Home, Work, or Errand.

You can, however, create new tags in Things and conveniently organize and in some options view your agenda under a specific category. You can also add in any relevant notes in the Notes section, and finally assign this To Do item the all-important deadline under the Due Date option.

It is under this final option that you can have the To Do Item appear either under the Today listing or if you want it to appear under the other categories such as Next, Scheduled, or Someday, although the latter should really be reserved for something that is not time sensitive.

“Keeping It Simple” is a wonderful mantra to live by, especially when you are a busy person and are spinning many, many plates in the air. With Things, the process of adding whatever items you wish to enter in your personal or professional (or both) “To Do” list is the same for every category.

Even at the application’s immediate launch, the “Add Item” offers you a chance to fill in every little detail you might have on an idea that strikes or a new responsibility put upon you, and then asks you where you wish to file this new item under.

With the interface being kept to the same options offered, this makes scheduling your life and its priorities simple as can be.

Things, from the first screen, offers to file any new items under “Inbox” which is the repository for all your ideas that you have, but aren’t sure where you are wanting to organize them.

This is particularly nice if you are uncertain if the new item is something you will be able to get done right away, be able to schedule in the future, or simply something to add on the great Wish List of productivity a year or several down the road.

Nothing is worse than a lost idea, and the Inbox serves as a wonderful resource for anyone who makes their business on ideas, and hates it when said brainstorm is lost when either the cocktail napkin is run through the wash or that scrap of paper has gone missing.

As I tend to be such a user who thrives on ideas, it is this next feature of Things I find most appealing.

The “Projects” option allows you to group multiple “To Do” Items under one heading. This is a step up from other organizational software offered as any new items appearing in a Project can also appear in your “Today” category as a reminder that while you have other things on the day’s agenda, the project you created will also need some attention.

The items within a project can also be moved from their location to either the Next, Scheduled, or Someday category, pending the progress of the project in question.

Another option with Things is sending others in your network (along with yourself) alerts via email. You can send a reminder, complete with notes and deadlines, as to when your time and attention will be needed and when you’ll want to have this To Do item completed to others involved in your project.

Send it to family and friends trying to schedule a get-together, or simply to yourself so you don’t miss an all-important deadline. By tapping the “Send E-mail” option, you exit Things and enter your iPhone’s Email app.

Here you address the email, add or edit anything from the automated message generated, and then send. Things works to keep you in the know, but also offers the option of informing others in your own circles.

The Good:

As a writer, ideas come and go, and I truly regret not always having something on hand in order to jot down a concept, a quote, or even a juicy plotline. The same goes for when I have an idea for a blogpost or something I’d like to cover for Apple iPhone Apps.

The dismissive thought of “I’ll jot it down later…” is a death knell for ideas, and Things really helps to make “lost ideas” a thing of the past. With its Inbox feature you have a “braindump” for anything that might pop into your head; and then, on the long commuter train home or a casual stop at your favorite coffee house, you can dive into that Inbox and organize where those random thoughts belong.

I love that with Things, you have the option to take an idea or a simple “To Do” goal and either give it a hard-and-fast deadline, an optimistic listing under Someday, or perhaps elevate it to a Project status, assigning other ideas and items within it.

You may even find yourself coming up with projects for yourself just to take advantage of the Projects option. This, I will argue, is the strongest feature of Things.

The Bad:

However, the strongest feature of Things is hardly worth its price tag.

The interface, as I mentioned earlier, kept things simple; but simplicity does not always equate to intuitive. On entering in a few items into, I was notified I only had one “To Do” item do in a single day when I knew that as soon as I finished one deadline, I had two others to tackle.

The problem was that I had the first item filed under Today while the other two were files under Next. So, I had to go under Next and activate the option “Show under Today” even though their due dates were already set for “Today”. Once I did that, the items appeared without problem…and Things even moved the one “Today” item I had into the “Next” category. Why? I don’t know. Clear as mud.

So was how Things organized multiple “To Do” items. Under “Today” it was in the order in which I entered the items. However, when I jumped to “Next” the items were arranged alphabetically, and I was not allowed to rearrange them manually on this list either.

This trips me up a bit because I don’t normally enter in “To Do” items alphabetically but by their order of priority. It’s little organizational quirks like this that make me stop and question just how efficient this tool is.

My main problem with Things, though, is that everything it offered (with the exception of the Project feature) I had done all before on my iPhone. Perhaps this my own fault with expectation levels, but when I purchase and download a productivity tool, I expect it to do something that my current tools do not.

Now for the Windows users that’s using an iPhone, I can assume that they will not be taking advantage of iCal, at least for its ability to sync up with desktop applications; but for a Mac user who bought his iPhone specifically for organization and mobile syncing with his home computer, Things tends to be just a rehashing of iCal, and a very poor rehashing at that. For one thing, when you want to be notified of an item’s pending deadline you are offered a date.

iCal will offer you a date, a time, and several times when you can be notified of an event or deadline. When you are notified, you are given a notice on both your desktop and iPhone. If your iPhone is asleep, iCal wakes it up with the alarm notifications. You also have the ability to email a list of people with the details of a single item or even listed in iCal, and offer to put your schedule of events online for people to subscribe to.

Granted, while iCal’s “To Do” features of are not offered with the iPhone, Things falls short of what you can do already. And to be notified of pending items with a simple icon in your menu seems anti-climactic with the aural and visual alarms that iCal already offers.

Things for the non-Mac user or for the Mac user not using iCal (and I’m sure they are out there) can prove itself to be a valuable tool in organizing your thoughts, your agenda, and your priorities for the day.

If you are already using iCal and taking advantage of its features in setting up deadlines and due dates for various priorities in life, you will find Things to be slightly redundant, and at $9.99 this application becomes an expensive redundancy.

So as far as organizing my life a little better, I think Things offers two nice options (hardly worth the price of the download) but this is nothing new. I’ve been here before and I think Apple tends to do it better than Culture Code.

1beforeflight1detailsUpon first opening FlightTrack Pro you are prompted to forward your flight confirmation e-mails to plans@tripit.com. This requires you to first sign up for a Tripit account if you don’t already have one. Tripit is a free online travel planning site and the process of signing up takes all of five minutes using Mobile Safari or a computer. In testing, I used a computer. Once that’s done, tons of information about your flight(s) are at your fingertips.

Tripit integration is also one of the primary differences between FightTrack Pro and FlightTrack, the $4.99 base version. In FlighTrack, the flight numbers can only be entered manually. You can search by airline and flight number or by route. Either method works well and only takes seconds. FlightTrack also lacks certain airport details that FlightTrack Pro has, like local time, temperature, weather and delays.

Forwarding a flight confirmation e-mail to Tripit works great.After sending the e-mail, I immediately moved over to FlightTrack Pro and the flight information was there, with plenty of pre-flight details.

FlightTrack Pro is all about delivering flight information fast – flight number, gate and terminal numbers, scheduled as well as actual departure and arrival times and airport details. Once the flight begins, the app even delivers air speed, altitude, flight path and weather radar.

This information, of course, is probably useless if you’re actually boarding the flight, but for anyone picking up or dropping off a passenger it’s extremely cool to see. During a friend’s flight from New York to Los Angeles, I watched the plane make a detour over Texas because of a major storm. That definitely felt like one of those “couldn’t do this without an iPhone” moments.

The Good:

The data is available fast, it’s accurate and the interface is easy to navigate. FlightTrack Pro is great for providing at-a-glance information about flights.

The Bad:

Like so many other apps, FlightTrack Pro suffers from iPhone 2.0’s software limitations. If there’s a delay, cancellation or other problem with your flight, there’s no way for FlightTrack Pro to tell you unless you to go into the app.

The main market for FlightTrack Pro is probably frequent flyers who encounter all manner of travel catastrophe. For them, FlightTrack Pro needs to be able to warn about problems. Push notifications coming in iPhone verison 3.0’s summer release could be a potential solution. Lastly, Tripit account creation from the iPhone was not as quick a process as it should have been.

We contacted the developer and asked a couple of questions. Ben Kazez from Appropos Mobile informed us that they’re working to improve the process of signing up for a Tripit account in future versions. However, Kazez would not comment about whether or not push notifications would be implemented in a future release. Appropos Mobile does state all upgrades to FlightTrack Pro will be free.

Kazez also wanted to emphasize that both FlightTrack and FlightTrack Pro use the same data service, FlightStats. “We believe that the foundation of a flight tracker is its data, so we wouldn’t compromise that for price,” Kazez said.

Notification of any flight changes or delays when the App is closed would probably justify the price tag and make this app useful to more than just the frequent flyer. As it stands though, FlightTrack Pro is a slick app that provides seamless synchronization with a Tripit account and detailed at-a-glance flight information.

Features

* 100 Levels Of Mind Pain!

Don’t let the first couple levels fool you because these puzzles get hard pretty quickly. And you can’t even try the hard puzzles until you finish all of the easy ones. So if there’s one that’s giving you trouble- you’d better put on your thinking cap and figure it out, because there’s no advancing to the next difficulty set until you beat it. And if you paint yourself into a corner, that reset button comes in very handy.

Breakdown

The Good:

This game frustrated me like none that I’ve played recently. But in a good way. It forces me to look at the big picture. I can’t just look one move ahead. I have to see it all. Existentially speaking, I have to be aware of my actions and how they affect the rest of the world (game). I have to accept responsibility for what ultimately happens. If my path is blocked, it’s because I blocked it. Me. Oh Jean Paul Sartre, you’re my only friend…

Blocked is such a simple and fun game. I’ve said in other reviews that “this is a game you can pick up and play for a couple of minutes or a couple of hours,” and Blocked proves to be no exception. As a matter of fact, I think this is one of the games that you can play for literally less than a minute- and you’ll still enjoy it and look forward to playing it later. Sure, some puzzles will require a lot more time than a minute or two, but still, you can at least start them. The current puzzle you’re working on is saved for you to come back to later.

The graphics are fine and there isn’t really any sound effects or music. Which is good- because you can listen to your own music while you play the game! Provide your own soundtrack- figure out which songs compliment block moving the best. My recommendation? Modest Mouse.

The Bad:

I guess my only complaint is about the game itself. When looking at the screenshots I was thinking/hoping that you could move the blocks in any direction, like up or down or left or right. But you can’t. You can only move the horizontal blocks left to right and the vertical ones up and down. It would obviously be an easier game if you could move them anywhere. But I would certainly feel like less of a dumbass. So… that would be swell. Cause I’m not a fan of feeling like a dumbass. But I suppose I feel however I want to feel. If I choose to feel happy- then I will be. See, Nietzsche says…

Wait, I’ve got another complaint. I wish you could have multiple puzzles in action at a time. If you start a puzzle, then change to another one, the puzzle you’ve been working on will reset itself. That’s sometimes a bummer.
Verdict

I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys puzzle games. It’s a very simple game yet also very challenging. I’m willing to bet that even my parents would enjoy this game- assuming they could ever get over their fear of technology. “But how does the phone work without a cord?!” Anyway, it’s a buck. That’s a good deal for a solid game that should take you awhile to complete… unless you’re some kind of goddamn genius.

Usability 3/5
Value 4/5
Entertainment 4/5
Aesthetics 3/5

You might also be asking yourself, “Where is Installer?,” but rest assured it is coming soon. Until then, let’s explain Cydia.

Cydia was created by Jay Freeman (saurik), as an alternative to Installer. It took what Installer started and improved on it. It’s open source and gives developers much more flexibility when publishing their apps.

But why is Cydia on your SpringBoard and not Installer?

Well the 2.0 software introduces many changes to the developer’s toolchain, which means that applications written for 1.1.4 and below will not run on 2.0 firmware without being updated and recompiled. At the time PwnageTool was released, Installer itself had not been ported to the 2.0 software, and therefore cannot run on it yet.

Until the developers of Installer (RiP Dev) finish updating the application, it will not run on the new 2.0 iPhone/iPod Touch software. In the meantime, Cydia is your sole method of package installation.

Now you’re probably saying, “But Installer had so many more apps than Cydia.”

The reason there are so few apps (specifically games and customization utilities) in Cydia, is the same reason there is no Installer on the iPhone yet.

These apps haven’t been updated by the individual developers. Cydia will only display apps that can run on your iPhone, and as the individual developers update their apps, they will appear in Cydia as well, so check back frequently.

Apps are being updated on a daily, if not hourly, basis. My favorite app, the NES emulator, is already available. I mean, be honest, the only reason we jailbreak in the first place is to play Super Mario Bros., right?

Installer 4.0 appears to address many of the shortcomings of the original Installer.app, the very issues that sparked saurik to develop Cydia.

Some things the new Installer is said to include, according to RiP Dev, are ‘dependencies’. This means if an app requires another app or package to be installed, it will automatically download the other packages and install them (as long as they are available).

Installer 4.0 will also be fully multi-threaded, so now you can refresh sources, browse packages, and install packages all at the same time; no more waiting for the “refreshing sources” message at the bottom of the screen to go away (sometimes 10 or 15 minutes later).

But the largest improvement that Installer 4.0 will boast is using sqlite database. Previously it used PLIST files which had to be fully downloaded every time sources were refreshed. Some of these files were rather large (700kb to 1mb for larger sources), putting a strain on the webservers hosting the files. Now we just get information added or removed since our last refresh. This will also make searching and startup muchimproved.

Whether your preference is the new Installer 4.0 or Cydia, rest assured they will both play nicely together. Some developers will only package their apps in an Installer repository, and some will only put theirs in Cydia, and of course some will publish to both. No matter what the developer’s preference you will be able to run Cydia, Installer, and AppStore all on your iPhone with no problems.

The app has over 200 stations in melbourne, AU and I apparently don’t have anywhere near them all so i’m guessing the UK and US would have the most channels avalibe. Another great thing is the app is free, so there’s no need to go buy a $5-$10 app although I think it would be worth about $7 if it wasn’t free.

Overall I’d give it a 9/10 for TV and entertainment, I only wish it had the sign in feature like on computers and an alert so you get a text/email/buzz when a show is on that you want to watch.

Palm devices have been “beaming” this kind of info for many years using infra-red transceivers, and was a very popular way to transfer contact information between devices…assuming the people you met also had a Palm device. Most Desktop-based address book applications give you the ability to send a “vCard” which is a widely accepted standard for exchanging contact info. It seems like an essential function to have on the iPhone, but I suppose Apple expects that you won’t mind using the virtual keyboard. That is all well and good, but a real conversation stopper to spend a few minutes entering data.

Along comes Handshake, which adds this functionality with just a few button presses. Launching the app presents you with 3 options, after you confirm that you are who the app thinks you are so it knows which contact is you. Then it briefly connects to Skorpiotech’s servers which is necessary to convert the data to vCard format. This also facilitates trading info with other people using Handshake more quickly. You are given the options to “Send my card”, “Send other card”, and “Send a picture

Choosing “Send my card” automatically picks your own contact data to send and looks to see if there is anyone else who has connected to the server with their copy of Handshake. If they are nearby, their name will automatically show up in the list. You can then pick them and Handshake will connect to their device to ask them if they want to accept the information. On the receiving end, the user is presented with the option to look at the info, and send their own card back automatically, simply preview the info, or deny the transfer. When the data is previewed, there is a button to add the data to the Address Book. The process is pretty quick, even on the Edge network, but maybe not during MacWorld Expo.

The “Send other card” is the same except you are first presented with your Address Book list to pick another contact to send. In both cases, if the other person doesn’t have Handshake or if you want to send contact data to someone far away, there is an envelope icon in the lower left which allows you to email a vCard for them to import later. The email goes through the Skorpiotech servers, but once you have set your email info in Handshake’s preferences, it will appear to the recipient that the message came from your account. Unfortunately, since the iPhone/iPod Touch’s Address Book does not yet support vCards, this info cannot be imported from the Mail app on the device. You will have to import and sync from your desktop computer. This is an Apple issue, not a Handshake problem.

Finally, the “Send a picture” option is ideal if you are connected to another Handshake user and makes exchanging photos quicker and easier. As with the contact function, you can use the email option which also uses the Skorpiostech servers, but the advantage is that it sends a higher resolution image than the built-in, mobile Mail app. For anyone who doesn’t know, sending any photos from an iPhone or iPod Touch using the Mail app automatically reduces the size of the image to…

The app also has a “Share” button, which sends a user a link to download Handshake. The Handshake preferences offer a few handy options like a toggle to omit the transfer of content from the Notes field for the chosen contact, in case you have personal info in it that you don’t want people to have. Another option allows you to add your name and date to the Notes field of the contact you send so the recipient knows where the info came from. Useful for conventions and such.

Overall I’d give it a 7/10 for social networking, I don’t see any improvements that need to be made and i think it’s a fantastic app.

After logging in to LinkedIn with your LinkedIn account, you are greeted with the latest updates from your network. From this screen you can view your co-workers profiles and view their connections profiles. On the Connections screen, you can view your entire network and invite other people to join your network. Along with those options, you can also choose to view your own profile. From your profile you can view all of your profile information, such as Summary, Employment History and Experience, Education Information, and your Industry.

Overall I’d give it a 8/10 for Its the geniune LinkedIn experience, simplified a bit of course, but its very similar and just as powerful. The only thing its lacking is the ability to edit your profile, and any way of navigating your network offline. Definitely worth grabbing this app, and to make things even better, its free!