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Disappointed

Osfoora for Twitter

Over the last few years I have been using the Osfoora client on my iPhone and iPad to use the Twitter.

On June 11th, Twitter turned off their API 1 and developers were only allowed to use API 1.1

As a result (well I think as a result) Osfoora stopped working as a Twitter client.

What is disappointing is that there was no news from Osfoora and no updates to the apps available.

What is disappointing is that this wasn’t a free app, these were apps I paid for.

I am not sure who I am more disappointed with Osfoora or Twitter.

There was an update for the Osfoora client for the iPhone, that allegedly used the API 1.1. It though, required 6.1 (something I had been putting off), I did that, updated Osfoora, rebooted the phone and now the app doesn’t work at all…

The end result is that I am looking for a new iOS Twitter client, in the meantime I am using the official iOS Twitter client, which is okay, but not really my cup of tea.

Update: Deleting and then reinstalling the app has fixed the app. Of course this won’t work on the iPad I believe as Osfoora HD hasn’t been updated and is not available.

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…still not working!

I mentioned a week or so back the problems I was having with connecting a Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD2000 HD video camera to a TV via HDMI so I could playback the videos I had taken with it on the big screen. I said I was going to try and use a different TV and see if that would make a difference.

Did it?

No it did not!

I even tried a different connection method, using component video, but that did not work either.

I still can’t work out why it would not work…

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…but it should work!

Sometimes technology frustrates me no end.

I have been playing with a Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD2000 HD video camera and it comes with a docking station which has an HDMI connection.

Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD2000 HD video camera

I thought if I docked the camera and connected the docking station via HDMI to my TV I could watch the video and see the photographs I had taken on my TV.

Well that’s what I thought what would happen.

Well no it didn’t, even though the cables were connected, the playback was still on the camera and not on the TV.

I then thought, it might be because the dock was not connected to a power supply, I did that and still the TV remained blank, though this time the camera went blank too!

So I went to read the manual, which was to be honest no use at all. It gave no additional information, as according to it, what I was doing was what I should be doing. As for the troubleshooting guide, well that was not very insightful.

Even the Google failed me with finding a solution.

Going to try with a different TV and see if that helps. However it shouldn’t be this complicated and this challenging, it should just work!

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No more space…

Nexus One

One of the key issues I have my (slightly ageing, but still useful) Google Nexus One is one of storage. Yes it has an SD card slot, but the problem I am having is with the onboard phone storage.

There is only 200MB of onboard storage and though many Android apps can be run off the SD Card, some of the key apps I use can’t.

I recently downloaded an update to the Google+ App that comes in at 10MB which immediately resulted in the Nexus One throwing a hissy fit. I was able to get that app moved to the SD card, so the phone calmed down.

What this actually means is that I can’t use the Google Nexus One in the way I would like, in trying different kinds of apps. This was never a problem on the iPhone where the onboard storage of 8GB or 16GB made it much easier to manage apps.

There is no way to upgrade the onboard storage from the 200MB, so for the moment there is very little I can do.

Does anyone know if this is still an issue with the newer Android phones?

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Flickering

Well Flickr has undergone a makeover and their website is now very modern and stylish.

Flickr

It reminds me very much of the iPhone app, so where is the iPad app then?

Yahoo have also changed what you get in the “free” account, before you had a limit of 200 photographs and no full size images. Now for free you get one terabyte of storage and full resolution images.

Flickr

I have a Pro account on Flickr and there are still some advantages to having that, but it’s impressive that Yahoo have taken the plunge to move Flickr forward to compete with the likes of Facebook and Google+.

Certainly with the way that the Flickr API works, it makes sense to grab a free account and use Flickr as a backup to your other photo sharing services. Having an account doesn’t mean you need to partake in groups or have contacts.

Flickr for me is quite old school Web 2.0 and I think that’s the reason I have stayed there, rather than move to shiny new services. I do do the Instagram, but will usually copy images from there to Flickr.

It’s interesting to see how old school Yahoo is now evolving, as it’s not only do we get a new Flickr, but they’ve just gone out and bought Tumblr. Interesting times.

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Adding Apps to Google Drive

If you are a regular user of Google Docs (sorry Google Drive) you will know how useful it is. What I didn’t know, well didn’t register with me, was the way that you can integrate a whole range and variety of apps making it much easier to create stuff.

On a regular vanilla Google account when clicking Create you see the standard document formats that we are all use to. However at the moment if you look down you can see Connect more apps.

Connect with apps

Click this and you will bring up a new dialogue with lots of different apps.

Connect with apps

I do like Draw.io which makes it very easy to create diagrams.

Draw.io

Movenote is a very nice presentation tool that combines video with a document, making it very simple to create short learning objects.

There is also MindMeister mindmapping.

MindMeister

As all the files are stored in your Google Drive you can access them from any computer with a modern web browser.

I am still exploring the different apps available, but if you are already using an app, drop me a comment about which apps you are using.

Update: Just a quick thank you to Yousef Fouda @YFouda who showed me this at the AOSEC meeting today.

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Goodnight Netflix

When Netflix started in the UK back in January 2012 I was quite intrigued having heard about it a lot on TWiT network podcasts.

I was initially disappointed with the range of films and television programmes, older films and television series, but did give it a go. So I have now been subscribing for well over a year and have certainly watched some good tv series and films.

This month though I have decided to relinquish my subscription. The main reason is threefold, since moving house and changing from FTTC back down to ADSL, streaming video has been a bit of an issue, more so when other people in the house want to use the internet tubes. There has been a fair few times I have cursed Netflix for stuttering, only to find out that my son was streaming BBC iPlayer at the same time! Secondly, I am not really using it very much, I seem to be watching a lot less television as I get older and certainly a lot more selective; this leads into the third reason which is what I am actually watching on Netflix in the main are repeats of things I have seen before. For example I re-watched BBC’s Hustle and enjoyed that, but I had seen that on the TV before. I am certainly not taking advantage of other stuff on there. As for films, they do add new films regularly, but apart from the “B” movie dross that use to fill the shelves of your local video rental place, there are very few films that I want to watch and many of the new films I do want to watch I have found I have already seen at the cinema, I bought the Blu-Ray or rented the DVD from the local library.

So after a little consideration I am going to terminate my subscription and say goodnight to Netflix.