I'm Loopt for Android

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Mark & Wes, in Lafayette, CA at the Swad Restaurant.

Mark and Wes console each other about their stock market losses. In our fantasy, our podcast is better than KenRadio. Use your phone to display membership cards? Of course you can, so long as the bar code is visible and the facility approves. What tools were available in the old days of computer game programming? Take for instance the Atari 2600? Woz used the 6502 processor for the Apple II, and used it because of the manufacturer handing out free processors at some conference he went to. Steve Jobs and Woz created Breakout for Atari. At what point in history were KeyPunch Operators highest in demand? Could YOU live off of unemployment? T-Mobile reports high numbers of pre-orders for the G1 Android Phone. Digsby is really one guy?

BTW, instead of waiting to gain an audience, Mark and I are going to come and get you!

Sites of Interest:

• KenRadio is one of the podcasts that inspired us to start our own.
  
  
• Scan membership cards and keep their images in your phone, instead of filling up your wallet.
  
  
• The MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor chip was the heart of the Kim-1, Commodore 64, Apple II, etc. Commodore later bought the chip manufacturer.
  
  
• Punch card computing with wire plugboard programming for tabulating and reporting functions.
  
  
• Keypunch machines.
  
  
• Magnetic drum memory, and how real programmers wrote code for early machines with drums as their only memory.
  
  
• Mark loves the FileTracer shareware program and has used it for years, but there is no Vista version.
  

• The "Everything" free program does basically the same function as FileTracer, but it does support Vista so Mark is happy again.
  
  
• The GoPhone unlimited data plans are being dropped. GoPhone sim cards will work in cellular modem cards and devices used with notebook computers.
  

Wes' iTouch Application of the week:

• WikiMe - Automatically displays GeoLocated Wikipedia articles for landmarks near you. This is perfect for traveling to strange cities and immediately seeing the tourist attractions around you.
  

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

• Loopt lets you see where your friends are on a map, and shows pictures and brief descriptions of other Loops users near you who opt in to that service.
  
• WhosHere is similar, but only for the function of showing other users near you.
  

Stanfords Restaurant & Bar

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Mark & Wes, in Walnut Creek, CA at Stanfords Restaurant and Bar.

Wes meets Wes, at Stanfords, where he and Mark discover what a 'butter burger' is. Mark discusses how to train a Cat by using a clicking device combined with treats and warm fuzzies. Apple drops the developer NDA for applications created for the iPhone, but what does this really mean? Wes complains the the Sarah Connor Chronicles will end of life soon, but then nothing good lasts forever. Mark bought the domain name RapKids.com for Wes' recording program in Byron County, and much of the music used on the WNO PodCast comes from his work with 360. If you followed Mark's advice and jailbroke your iPhone or iTouch, he has a slight warning for you, and describes what you must do NOW to protect your iPhone if it gets 'bricked'.

BTW, instead of waiting to gain an audience, Mark and I are going to come and get you!

Sites of Interest:

• The good lord willing and the crick don't rise.
  
  
• The cat training revolution.
  
  
• Apple drops the iPhone SDK NDA, possibly because of the controversy over the Podcaster app.
  
  
• Google offers a blog search engine that not only lets you search blogs, but automatically shows what stories are active right now in blogs around the world.
  
  
• Google has an experimental audio search engine where you type in keywords, and it will show portions of videos that contain those words in the audio track.
  
  
• Wes likes the Sarah Conner Chronicles.
  
  
• Myspace Music Recording Deals.
  
  
• Watch the video about the amazing future Plastic Logic Reader.
  
  
• Duke Nukem gets released for Xbox 360.
  
  
• The original Adventure game, and you can play it online or on your computer.
  
  
• The only other video game Marked ever liked was The Prisoner for Apple II.
  
  
• Z-machine interpreter for Infocom games.
  
  
• Nintendo releases DSI in Japan; comes to us next year?
  
  
• Mark's new external battery for charging an iPhone/iPod on the go.
  
  
• Warning for people who jailbroke your iPhone/iTouch: read this article and keep it handy because you might need it in case your iPhone becomes "bricked". BUT RIGHT NOW, BEFORE YOU GET BRICKED, you must set up the OpenSSH facility, or you won't be able to do what that article says. For Windows users, install the Putty program on your PC to talk to the OpenSSH connection.
  
  
• TwiddleBit makes Microsoft Project-like apps for Windows Mobile and Symbian phones.
  
  
• Leo Laporte is already using "Munchcast" as the name for a podcast, but they don't actually record from a restaurant so it isn't the same as our slurpcast.
  
  
• But Mark wins because he owns shitcast.com! (This will re-direct to slurpcast.)
  

Wes' iTouch Application of the week:

• iBlueSky - Mind Mapping Tool

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

• Backgrounder (for jailbreaked devices only; install with Cydia). Mark has been using this since the podcast was recorded and he finds that it only keeps the background apps running for a while. At some point, when the OS needs memory, you will find that the app may stop running in the background. This doesn't cause any harm; it just isn't as great as we expected.
  
  
• BeejiveIM - Instant Messaging Anywhere. Kind of expensive; Palringo does most of the same functions for free. But Beejive is worth it because it keeps IM sessions open for 24 hours when you exit the app. (Note that the settings for Beejive and many other apps appear in the iPhone's Settings app; you will not find them inside the Beejive program itself.)
  

Why not JailBreak?

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Mark & Wes, in Orinda, CA at Baan Thai.

Wes knows nothing about condoms. Mark jail breaks his iPhone 3g, which he then explains in more detail. They talk about how this hacking of the internal iPhone device started, and the discovery of the internal encryption key. Is it true that the jail broken iPhone runs applications better than the standard OS? The idea is that apps have more control over the device, than the standard Apple SDK allows. What is Mark to do with all the Esquire Digital Ink copies he owns? Wes thinks Apple watches the ideas that come out of the Jailbreak community to see what they might want to add to the standard firmware. Mark talks a bit about Android, and both discuss the positives and negatives regarding the HTC and T-Mobile introduction that should be more available next month. Is Municipal WiFi even a possibility? The Elvis Card.

Sites of Interest:

• Jailbreak your iPhone from a Windows system with iTunes 8 and this link. This is the method Mark used so we know it works. The same website has a similar jailbreak method for Macs. Note that the first iPhone boot after jailbreaking may take a very long time, so be patient and don't think that the process failed.
  
  
• The two competing App store programs for jail broken iPhone and iTouch devices: Cydia and Installer, and Cydia seems to be the newer method with the most apps. The above method for jailbreaking offers to install both of them, and you should let it. You will find these as icons just like any other iPhone apps, and the links above explain how to use them.
  
  
• Jailbroken iPhones can be used like a cellular modem for Internet access from a notebook. The best method for doing that is PDAnet which can be installed from Cydia.
  
  
• Jailbreak app IntelliScreen for showing info on the home screen.
  
  
• Google hired Andy Rubin, developer of the Sidekick, to lead the Android project.
  
  
• Android phones will work very closely with google's web apps such as gmail and Google Docs.
  
  
• The T-Mobile G1 Android phone.
  
  
• The way you pronounce linux, is...
  
  
• Video of Steve Ballmore being the PC guy.
  
  
• Craig of Craigslist has a boring twitter feed.
  
  
• Google has products under development for you to check out now.
  
  
• Very funny video of what it was like to use YouTube in 1985.
  
  
• This is the 25th anniversary of the cellular phone network. Mobile phone history from the perspectives of Motorola and AT&T.
  
  
• Ricochet wireless Internet was available in some areas of the country in the late 1990's. They used battery-operated modem boxes that you would Velcro to your notebook. This picture shows a Ricochet modem next to a notebook so you can tell the size.
  
  

Wes' iTouch Application of the week:

• X-Plane 9

Mark's iPhone Application of the week:

• Categories (install from Cydia for jailbroken devices)