Step one: Acquire iPhone. Go download Echofon for Twitter (available in Free or Pro versions – difference is no ads in Pro). Once you have your account setup in Echofon, do the following:

1. Click Menu in the upper left.
2. Then Account Options at the bottom.
3. Select Mute in the middle.
4. Under the Client section, click New Item.
5. Enter “foursquare” as the new item (no quotes).
6. Follow the upper left breadcrumbs back to your timeline.
7. Done.

That’s all there is to it. Now you can enjoy a check-in free timeline! You can also filter out anything else you want based on it’s application. For example, to filter Gowalla checkins, just enter “gowalla” as the Client – since it is the Gowalla app that sends those tweets.

You can also filter tweets on your desktop using Tweetdeck as well as on twitter.com using Greasemonkey and a simple script!

By the way… if you find yourself swamped with checkins from your friends and do not want to have to filter them all out – you may also consider suggesting to them to not share every checkin to Twitter in the first place.

OK, OK, I may not really be a “people person” … but I like to pretend I’m social on the internet. I use a lot of “social” apps (look to the right!) and I tend to be somewhat an early adopter as far as those things go.

Foursquare is an obvious example of this… I started using it back in March of last year and was in well before their first million users (my ID is 597777). I use it every day to defend my existing mayorships and gain new ones, many of which are local businesses that I like and want to support. Oh, and I love badges.

So not only do I continue to patronize my favorite spots, but the possibility of a new badge or a new mayorship will usually get me to try something new or go to a new venue. It’s really a win-win for me and the area.

But what about those usual spots? I dare anyone to try and legitimately unseat me from my Aniello’s mayorship. I will fight that to the death. But my problem is that as much as I go there, I don’t have a whole lot of variety in my meals. Chicken wing pizza. Chicken wing sub. Pepperoni pizza. That’s usually about it. They’re all awesome, but they have a LOT more on their menu that I’ve never tried (I have had some other things, but not many and not often).

This is where we step outside the foursquare realm and dip into a new app, Foodspotting. It really is exactly what it says… an app for spotting food. You have a nice meal at a place and take a picture, say what it is and maybe leave some thoughts. Other users (your friends or anyone, really) can see that and see where it was and comment or “want it” or “nom it” if they’ve had it.

But what good would this app be if I took pictures of the same food every time I went? None at all.

Perfect opportunity to try new things. And that’s just what I’ve been doing. I’m really just getting started, but I’ve “spotted” 4 different things just at Aniellos since I started using the app a few weeks ago. Of course two them are regular favs of Chicken Wing Pizza and a Chicken Wing Sub… but the other two are things that are NOT usual for me.

Cheese Calzone w/ Meatball

My last two meals there were a Chicken Parm Sub (what can I say, I love chicken) and just today I had a Cheese Calzone (with slices of meatball baked in!). Both are delicious. And while I may have eventually decided to expand upon my horizons and their menu… it was Foodspotting that pushed me over the edge.

I wanted to be able to share some cool things… not the same thing over and over again. That’s no fun.

And now with the combination of these (and other) social apps, I am way more encouraged to do just that. Foursquare lets me share some cool new places that I may not normally go to and Foodspotting lets me share some awesome food I otherwise may not have ordered.

How can you not like that?

That Cheese Calzone today? Awesome, by the way.

(my profile on these and other services are available in the column on the right!)

I got an email from someone claiming to be “Ann Place” from The Daily. You know, that fancy new iPad news app? The text of the email goes like this:

Hi Allan

You may have seen speculation about ‘The Daily’ in the press over the past few weeks, but I’d like you and the readers of Allankintz.com to learn about it directly from us. I’m thrilled to announce the launch of The Daily, the first national news publication created specifically for the iPad and published 365 days a year. Here’s a link to a news release with tons of info, images, video and more:

http://www.thedaily-newsrelease.com

Please feel free to post any of it, and if you do, I hope you’ll email me the link so I can share it with our team. Questions? I’d be happy to help you if I can, so send them my way.

Thanks very much!

Ann

The strange tip-off to me is the URL… some “newsrelease” site? But it has “thedaily” in the name? My first though is, that says spam… or at least some sort of phishing. Googling for this Ann Place turns up virtually nothing useful or anything that would say this is “official.”

But the trick here is again, the URL. A quick WhoIs shows that it is registered to a Christopher Abraham. A quick Google of that guy ends up here. Apparently stating that The Daily is some sort of client of these people. I don’t know who they are or what they do… but they have some pretty random marketing tactics.

Yes, I’m an iPad user… but I’m hardly a news outlet of any sort. And I probably only know 2 or 3 people that have iPads. But apparently I’m important enough for someone to email me passively suggesting that I review the app and post about it.

I may… I may not. I just wanted to post something about it in case others get this email and wonder WTF is going on. I also wonder just how many people this went out to…

UPDATE: If you check out the comments below, you can see that this has been confirmed as a legitimate email from the firm associated with the app. Good to know!

I’ve been throwing around the idea since they came out. In my head it could just be another cool toy to occasionally play with but I’m hoping I can find more value in it than that. I knew I couldn’t just go buy one randomly and be like “wow, I have an iPad… now what?”

I needed to at least make an attempt to justify it to myself. The best I could come up with is to use it to replace my laptop (currently a late 2007 Macbook). I really only use the Macbook when I’m on the couch – checking email, tweeting, some occasional video editing with iMovie. And that’s about it. I do take it with me when I have personal travel (I take my work laptop any other time). But it mainly just sits there on the couch, doing not much of anything. If I have any graphics or photo work to do, I still have a Windows 7 desktop that I use. And that certainly is not going anywhere.

Well with this recent surplus of overtime and other potential bits of income, I figured it was time to look into this iPad thing. I started reading around the internet and a lot of people swore up and down it would not be a laptop replacement. There’s just no way.

Thing is, the iPad is to be used for what you need it for. If all I do with my Macbook is surf the internet, read some news, check email, tweet a bit… then those are things the iPad can handle quite well – and did I mention the games? Ya, it can do those too.

So the current deal with myself is to try out the iPad for a while and see if I can get along day to day without using my laptop for anything specific. The only thing I’ll have to find out about is video editing – but I just have to find something that I can do on Windows for that. Not a big deal. If the iPad proves useful, I keep it and sell the Macbook (which might fetch up to about $600 on eBay – not bad for a 3 yr old laptop that was $900 new). If I can’t find a place for the iPad, I’d either sell or return that. Either way, I get some of the money back and end up with one device that I know will meet my needs.

Initially I had tried to order one via Apple.com but it wouldn’t even ship until 6/29 and likely not arrive until 7/2. Well, normally not a big deal, but I leave for Salt Lake City on 7/5 and a) I’d like to take the iPad with me and b) I’d like to have more than 2 days to get used to it before traveling. So I canceled the Apple.com order and called up the “local” Apple Store – which happens to be in Victor NY (near Rochester) at the Eastview Mall. There’s also one in the Carousel Mall in Syracuse, but that’s about a half hour longer drive. Victor is almost 1.5 hours as it is.

I should backup a second… I decided on the 32 GB version with Wifi + 3G. I decided I don’t care about the data fee for the thing if I’m really going to use it everywhere. Of course I’m not going to tote it literally EVERYWHERE with me like a little fanboy, but if I feel like taking it to visit family so I can show off pictures or something, I want internet. And the 32 GB should be plenty for some movies, all of my photos, and some music… oh and apps.

Anyway… the Apple Store in Victor tells me they do have a few of the 32GB 3G models but they CANNOT hold one for me. Eh… fine, whatever. That was early in the morning. I start thinking about it and if I end up leaving after work to go get this thing and I end up making a 3 hour trip for nothing if they’re sold out, I would be PISSED. So after lunch, I decide to head out early. I call them up again and confirm they still have some in stock – they do – and again I plead to hold one at least for the amount of time it takes me to drive there – nope. No can do. Fuckers.

So Jen and I make the drive to Victor and thankfully they have ONE left in stock of the particular model I wanted. Close call. I must admit, at this point, I’m half giddy, half in shock. Do you realize how much these things cost? I just paid almost $800 for a tiny little tablet that I’m not even sure yet will do what I want. Ouch.

No matter… after some other shopping (while we were there) and a partial nap on the way home, I can finally get it out and see what it can do…

That’s kind of where I am with it now. I’ve got a bunch of apps installed (lots of free ones) and I’ve setup my mail, contacts, and calendar through Gmail/Exchange. So that’s all good. Now it is a matter of getting to a comfortable point with it.

I also picked up some other super awesome apps that you may want to look into…

• Flight Control HD – Firemint – seriously addicting game
• Pulse News Reader – Alphonso Labs Inc. – fantastic RSS reader (for real, I’ve never used anything RSS before this)
• Strip Designer – Vivid Apps – fun for making little comics… like the ones below

Currently I’m a regular on Foursquare and have started playing around with Miso and MyTown. Foursquare is fine. It has become my default. But it also has competitors (mainly Gowalla and Britekite – neither of which I’ve touched at all). Foursquare just seems to be the most widely used at this point. So why bother with the smaller ones when barely anyone around here is even using the biggest one?

Miso is basically Foursquare for movies and TV shows. You “checkin” to report what you are watching. It seems OK. The concept is cool enough to be able to share what you are watching and what you enjoy. They’ve even worked in Foursquare’s “badge” idea – though I’m yet to unlock any other badges except the newbie TV and newbie Movie badges. So there is a minor incentive to play. It really seems to be in its infancy though. There’s no actual website side of things (other than a place to download the app). No profile online yet. No apparent use for points that you earn. But you can have friends.

MyTown is almost another Foursquare competitor. But I don’t want to say that’s what it is. It feels like it at first because you check into places as you go out… but it is a LOT different. It takes Foursquare and builds a much larger “game” out of it where you can buy and sell the locations (“shops”) that you check into, upgrade them, and collect rent on them (ie, makes Foursquare more complicated). What the “end goal” would be is anyone’s guess. I suppose maybe just to compare/compete with your friends. Ya, I have one friend on both Miso and MyTown: my girlfriend. I have a few more on Foursquare, but none of them really use it as much as Jen and I do.

Which brings me to another point… all of these checkin services are more than happy to link up with your Twitter and your Facebook to share all of the wonderful places you’re going and things you’re doing. Now consider the three services that I use… could you imagine my Twitter feed or Facebook wall if I were to allow all of them to publish everything all of the time? HELL NO.

I cannot imagine being a friend of someone on FB that publishes ALL of that stuff. Or following someone on Twitter to only see checkins all day. Why bother? I’d just unfriend you or unfollow you. By default I have ALL of those things turned off. As I checkin somewhere I enable certain things certain times depending on where I am or what I’m doing. If I’m checking into a car wash (don’t judge me), I don’t need to let my friends and followers know about it, now do I?

What this all comes down to is taking up my time. Not a huge deal… I mean, it does give me something to do some of the time I’m out. But when I go somewhere now and have to remember to check into Foursquare and MyTown (cannot imagine if I were using Gowalla and Britekite as well, omg), even those two services take time and effort. One is no problem. Open the app, checkin, move on. Now I have to open a second one, checkin, make sure it recorded, collect the rent on the shops I bought, make sure I apply the right bonuses to my next checkin, etc, etc, etc.

I’m not sure how long I’ll continue all of these. I feel like I’ll keep up with Foursquare for quite a while. I don’t know too much about the others… just have to wait and see how I feel about them.

FOLLOW UP (5/10/10): I quit MyTown. It was pointless. You can just checkin all you want, anywhere, and still get points and bonuses and whatever you want. No wonder I read that they just imposed a checkin limit per day. I can’t imagine the point if there wasn’t one at all. You’d just play for like an hour, check into everything, buy as much as you can and be done. Game over. No fun at all.

So far, if my numbers are correct, I’ve been to the gym about 38 times since February 1st. And even though I’ve been out of town for nearly 3 weeks total in that time frame, it somehow still works out to about 3 times per week. Not bad I guess. We do still try to go every other day (when possible).

What have I been working on all this time? Well I think I touched on some of the stuff in other posts, but here’s my “regular” routine:

• 20-30 min on a recumbent bike
• 3 sets of 12 or 15 reps on each machine:
• chest press
• chest fly
• ab crunch
• bicep curl (usually alternating with tricep extension)
• lat pull

Sometimes I leave one out. Or change the order. Or as mentioned, alternate a couple things. It is rare that I do all 6 machines in a single visit (including the triceps, I mean). Something is usually rotated in and out. And if I end up doing 30 minutes on the bike, it usually means something gets bumped from my schedule.

I thought it might also be neat to include some recent graphs of exactly what I’ve been working with. So the next part is just a bunch of screen captures from the iFitness app on my iPhone so you can see how I’ve been improving (or not improving). Some of these are last 7 days and some are last 14, but you’ll be able to tell from the charts.

Bicep Curl

Tricep Extension

Ab Crunch

Chest Fly

Lat Pull

Chest Press

So as you can see… some things are making improvements more than others. Just takes some time I guess. Everything is progressing in some way I think. It’s just that some are slower than others. Nothing more to do than to keep at it.

I’m actually pretty good about remembering my passwords. But it’s a PITA to have to do a “forgot password” thing for some website I haven’t logged into in 6 months or something. It is way easier to just look it up. And since I always have my phone on me, 1Password is a life saver. Luckily, I picked up the Pro version a while back when it was on sale.

To be honest though, I don’t think it would have mattered if I got the Pro version or the regular version… I honestly don’t know the differences. Wait… I’m going to go look it up… brb.

… (no, seriously, i took a break here to google it) …

Ah, here we go… you can read about the differences on Agile’s website. Nothing crazy, but like I said, I got a deal I think. I don’t remember – it was a while ago. So which should you buy? I don’t know. Most of the stuff I’ve read says that if you think you might eventually want some of the Pro features, buy that first and get it out of the way (honestly, it’s worth it). They don’t really have an effective “upgrade” price in place (which sounds like an iTunes problem). So if you choose to get the standard version first and have to pay for it, you’ll have to pay again for the Pro version.

Anyway, so I have my 70+ passwords in there. I also use the Wallet function for my bank account numbers, reward member numbers (delta airlines, hertz, etc), and various other things. There’s also a Software grouping where I store my product keys for the Windows versions I have. I have a ton of other license codes I should probably put in there too. That’s a whole other mess. But honestly would let me take advantage of the app even more. Not that I need my product codes or anything like that away from my computer – but it’s nice to have them somewhere besides my computer… just in case.

All of this is of course protected by a passcode and various security settings. So if you have a passcode to unlock your iPhone (or iPod touch) AND this passcode, there isn’t anyone getting into your stuff.

Sound interesting? I definitely recommend it. Especially with the ridiculous number of passwords I have discovered that I have.

iTunes Links:

• 1Password: DOWNLOAD
• 1Password Pro: DOWNLOAD

Trenches

I haven’t really shopped for games a lot recently… been busy with so many other things that gaming on my iPhone has really taking sort of a backseat, or trunk position, if you will…

In looking up travel apps the other day I thought I’d poke around a bit and see what else I could find. One of the top sellers I found is called Trenches. It’s kind of a WWII trench warfare game. You (the British) are on one side of the field and the Germans are on the other. You work up to various squads of fighters. Like riflemen, snipers, mortar, artillery, etc.

The levels change by what you have to do and what you have access to. For example, level 1 is just fighting your way across the field with only riflemen. You go in and out of trenches as you pass them and have to blow up the German spawn bunker. One of the other levels, you have to hold off the German advances with artillery and poison gas for 3 minutes.

There are 3 levels (easy, medium, and hard)… and I kind of blew through the Easy in a short amount of time. Working through Medium right now and realizing how difficult this game actually can be. As soon as I get a couple squads together to advance the field, they get blown up by German artillery.

Anyway, the game is actually pretty cool. To me it has a little bit of a Fieldrunners feel to it (not the game play, the look and feel). It certainly provides a challenge though… I’m kind of getting used to that part.

I guess if I gave this a rating I’d call it a 4 out of 5. Loss of points from the drastic difficulty change from easy to medium (IMO anyway) and also for some graphical glitches in the background – which you can see below. Not a total show stopper – but annoying. But especially for $.99 (at this moment), it’s a very cool game.

I would still call this one a “buy” though – even with the graphics problem. That will inevitably be fixed in an upcoming release.

Want to check it out?

iTunes Link: DOWNLOAD!
Current Price: $.99

Trenches for iPhone Background Problem

Trenches for iPhone Background Problem

Or at least try out a bunch of new ones. Not 100% sure what I’m going with yet… but considering I’ll be in a new area and will need to track expenses and such, there are plenty of opportunities for new apps.

First few I’m looking at are these:

• TripCase – Trying to arrange my travel plans in a simple way. Includes flight info (gate, arrivals, etc), hotel, rental car, etc. Have all of my stuff entered into this – will get to test the flight stuff out when I leave.
• XpenseTracker - Apparently there are a ton of expense tracking apps. After reading around a bit online and checking iTunes, I went with this one to see how it is. Looks promising. I’ve had to track expenses before, but this will just give me a central way to know exactly what I spent and where. Instead of shuffling through receipts and trying to remember everything.
• Where - Picked this up for being in a new area. Hopefully it’ll show me some good eats and stuff around there. Also considering “AroundMe” for same purpose. Will probably go with both.
• UrbanSpoon - I’ve already had this for a while – but figured it’ll actually be useful for this trip.

I guess those are the only ones so far that would be specifically for this trip. I’ve read through a few of the ‘iphone travel trips’ kind of things around the internet and a lot of this stuff was pretty common. I’ll be happy just to get a little more utility out of the phone and make my trip a little bit easier.

Will definitely be reporting back as I start to use things and what I think of them.

I finally broke down and ordered a dozen 10 piece tonight. Got an order of medium traditional. The spice was about the only thing that seemed OK.

The wings themselves were on the small side and were pretty crappy IMO. The meat even wasn’t that good. Was tender enough but something was really lacking. I just can’t put my finger on it…

I’m by far no wing connoisseur… but these may actually be some of the worst wings I’ve had in this area. Just not very good at all considering the hype and advertising Pizza Hut is throwing behind them. Even for typical pizza place wings, they just not good.

Save your money.

Side note: Pizza Hut’s iPhone app sucks. The only things you can order through their app are pizza, pasta, and wings. That’s it. No breadsticks. No sides. No appetizers. Nothing. Sure, they’ll offer you 20% off your iPhone order… but after you pay the $2.25 delivery charge (WTF?) it is worthless anyway.