I’m actually a little surprised I haven’t written about IF before on this blog considering how fond I was of playing Wishbringer or Moonmist on my Atari 800XL back in the day. Even my daughter had even gotten into playing IF games on my iPad with Frotz. She’s an avid reader and also loves playing games, so IF games are a natural fit for her. Back in late August I decided I wanted to try my hand at writing her a personalized game which eventually evolved into the idea of making the game a scavenger hunt of sorts for her birthday in December. That gave me about four months to plan, design, write, and test the game.

The first thing I did was to download Inform 7 and start reading the documentation. Inform is a natural language design system for IF games which makes it pretty easy to learn. In almost no time at all, I was creating the rooms of our house, writing (a LOT of!) descriptions, linking rooms with exits, and creating objects.

The screenshot above shows the basic Inform interface. On the left-hand side is my source code and the right-hand pane is showing the running game for testing. Tabs along the top of each pane allow you to quickly switch between different views, like the skein (a flowchart of in-game commands you’ve run, showing the branches), the map, compilation errors, etc.

Inform’s syntax is extremely flexible, allowing for the simplest definition of objects and rooms to more complex actions like wandering NPCs, conversation tables, almost anything you can think of. The Inform web site contains an impressive library of user-contributed extensions: re-usable modules of code you can include in your own to add features like locking doors (with keys), vehicles, or even writing games in different languages (like Spanish) which let you avoid writing all of that code from scratch.

Over the next few months while I worked on developing the game, I made extensive use of Inform’s built-in help system, code examples, and also participated in the Interactive Fiction Community Forum whose members were very helpful when I got stuck on a particular coding problem or needed advice on how to approach something. At last, I was ready for testing so I “released” my game and published it on my Dropbox account using Quixe, a javascript-based IF interpreter. This made it easy for my play-testers (my brother, sister, and sister-in-law) to play the game without needing to install their own Z-interpreter like Frotz plus I was able to quickly re-publish new builds as I made corrections or changes to the code.

Finally, it was December and time for the game to be released for real. I put the final game into Frotz on my iPad told her I found a new IF game I thought she’d enjoy. Her reaction, once she realized she was playing a game as herself in her own house, was priceless, and well-worth the months of effort it took to write. Unlike my play-testers who had a hard time with some of  my puzzles (since a) they were new to IF games and b) the game was tailored for a young girl), my daughter blew through the game in just under a day and completed the scavenger hunt, laughing almost the entire time. Lucky for me she missed some of the non-critical puzzles so the game still has replay value. She has even expressed interest in writing her own IF game, which is pretty cool.

Of course, my new coding challenge is now … how do I top this for next year?

The real news, though, was the new controller: along with the standard D-pad, buttons, and motion control it sports a 6.2″ color touchscreen (and stylus) and can stream games from the console to the screen (sound and all), no TV required. That’s a cool feature when Junior wants to play Mario Kart but Mom and Dad want to watch TV. I wonder, too, if that would make the Wii U a more portable entertainment system (think: in the car on road trips).

The Wii U will be backwards compatible with all Wii games and controllers, another smart step, similar to how the Wii can read GameCube discs.

What to say about the name? At first glance it looks like some sort of video game school. I can see where they’re going with the “we” (console) and “you” (controller), and everyone got used to saying “Wii” eventually, but now we’ll have to go through all of that again. Oh well.

Would I get one to replace my Wii? Probably not right away. The Wii U won’t be out until 2012 and the pricing has yet to be announced. Since I’m a casual gamer the lack of HD output hasn’t really bothered me and I’m sure the new controller is not going to be cheap. For playing Mario Kart online with my siblings, or Lego Harry Potter with my daughter, the current console works just fine.

Now, someone is trying to broker a peace agreement between the birds and pigs. You can guess how it turns out.

Rumor has it Angry Birds 2 will be told from the pigs’ point of view (Angry Pigs?) and support multi-player! It might be out by the end of the year … just what I need.

Slick.

I’m not going to bother with the specs, or a general overview of the iPad here. It’s been out for about 8 months and you can certainly read/find all the technical details you want fairly easily (just typing ‘ipad’ into Google yields “about 123,000,000 results”). Instead, I’ll talk about how I’ve been using it, the apps I’ve installed, and my overall impressions.

We (the IT department) got iPads at work since we’re evaluating it as a business tool and we’ll also need to support it once we start rolling it out to our end users. We’ve been using the iPhone for access to corporate e-mail, calendar, and contacts, since late last year so the form factor of the iPad seems like the next logical step for our travelling users, eliminating the need for them to carry a laptop, power brick, etc.

The battery life is pretty amazing … I guess the lack of a power-hogging 3G radio really helps. Unfortunately the iPad requires more power to charge, so you can’t really charge it via a USB connection. Well, it will charge (very slowly) over USB, but only when the screen is off. That being said, I don’t have to charge this thing daily like I do with my iPhone … it can go a few days without plugging in, which is good news for the traveller trying to find a power outlet in a crowded airport because their laptop is dead or dying.

Of course, these Wi-Fi only models also mean you can’t access the internet everywhere like you can with the iPhone. But with Wi-Fi as ubiquitous as it is now-a-days (airports, coffee shops, malls, restaurants, etc.) this really hasn’t been a big issue for me. If I’m in the car and need a data connection for some reason, I still have my iPhone.

The larger screen means a larger keyboard which is much easier to type on than the iPhone, especially in landscape mode. I’m not talking touch-typing here, but I’m definitely faster (and more accurate) on the iPad keyboard.

The iPad is still running the older iOS 3.2.2 which lacks some of the features I have grown used to on my iPhone (like multi-tasking and folders), but iOS 4.2 is supposed to be released next month and will bring those features to the iPad for the first time.

So … after one month with the iPad, which apps am I (still) using?

Work

Citrix Receiver (free) – using Citrix I can connect to our published corporate apps (like Microsoft Office). Using Windows apps on an iOS device takes some getting used to since you don’t have a mouse to work with (how do you click and drag?). I wouldn’t want to have to do any serious work in these apps for a long period of time, but in a pinch, they work. This is one place where a Windows laptop still holds the advantage.

Wyse PocketCloud ($14.99) – there are a lot of free remote desktop apps out there, but most of them have the same problem as I described above: poor (or confusing) mouse support. Wyse’s solution has a really slick virtual mouse interface that makes it easy to click on what you meant to click on, right-click, scroll, etc. It’s on the high-end of the pricing scale for an iPad app at $15 but so far well worth it for being able to manage my servers without having to worry I’m accidentally going to tap on something I didn’t mean to.

iSSH ($9.99) – I had already purchased this app when I first got my iPhone and luckily it’s a universal one designed for both devices so I didn’t have to purchase a separate ”HD” version. I use iSSH to connect to my Linux server at home. PocketCloud supports VNC connections, but not tunneled over SSH so I still need iSSH. It doesn’t have the cool virtual mouse of PocketCloud either, but normally when I’m working with my Ubuntu box I’m using the command-line anyway.

Note Taker HD ($4.99) – I wanted to try going paperless at work, using my iPad instead of my traditional composition notebooks for notes, so I purchased a capacative stylus and started looking at note-taking apps. After trying a few free ones and reading about others like Penultimate and smartNote, I tried the lite iPhone version of  Note Taker. I really liked what I saw so I purchased the iPad version, Note Taker HD. Using your finger (or stylus) you can easily write notes and draw diagrams with multiple pen sizes, and colors, including highlighters. The “zoom edit” feature allows you to write in a larger window and have your handwriting shrunk down to look better. It’s remarkably easy to use and I’ve already used it to take notes in a few meetings. You can export your notes as an image or PDF and then e-mail them if you want. You can tag your notes for categorization, but I wish there was a better search function and I wish you could organize the individual pages into virtual notebooks.

Evernote (free) – I’ve been using Evernote since I switched to the iPhone from my Treo and needed a place to store the random stuff I used to keep in ListPro on my old Treo. With clients for just about every platform, Evernote is a great way to be able to access various documents from my iPhone, iPad, or PC. One cool feature that I’ve started trying to use more is the automatic text recognition for images you add to Evernote: it will scan images and index any text it finds so you can search on it later. Take a photo of a document with your phone, for example, and Evernote will index it. I’ve tried exporting my handwritten notes from Note Taker HD into Evernote with limited success, but that’s mostly due to my poor handwriting (exacerbated by trying to write with a stylus on the iPad).

Goodreader ($1.99) – I picked this app up during a sale for 99 cents. Goodreader is basically a souped up file viewer mainly for large PDF and text files, although it can also view MS Office documents, photos and videos, HTML docs, etc. In addition to viewing locally stored documents on the iPad (through iTunes file sharing or a WiFi connection), Goodreader also supports Dropbox, MobileMe, Google Docs, and other online file storage services. I was unable to get it to connect to my Jungledisk share, however (probably because it’s encrypted).

Play

Ok, so I don’t use my iPad exclusively for work!

Yes, almost all iPhone games will work on the iPad in zoomed (2x) mode but they just don’t look as good. Thus, I had to repurchase the HD versions of my favorite iPhone games, Angry Birds HD ($4.99) and Azkend HD ($4.99). I also put a few of my other favorite iPhone games on my iPad, like Words with Friends (free or $2.99), Chess with Friends (free or $2.99), Sword & Poker 2 ($3.99), and Frotz (free).

“TRON Legacy” is only two months away, so why not indulge in some multi-player light cycle action with Lightbike 2? There’s also Disney’s official TRON Legacy app, but it’s really a big advertisement for the movie (although with a decent multi-player tank game in it) and is not HD.

Last month as I was taking fuzzy photos of Jupiter through my telescope, I purchased Star Walk ($2.99), as seen on the iPad TV commercials. This amazing and beautiful app lets you literally point your iPad at the sky to identify heavenly bodies. Or, use the search feature to look up a star, constellation, etc. and it will guide you which way to look. I particularly like the all-red mode so it doesn’t ruin your night-vision.

Reading

I do a lot of reading on my iPhone, so I immediately put Stanza (free) on my iPad along with my e-book library. I definitely don’t need a Kindle now! Yes, the screen is a bit reflective and hard to see in bright sunlight but reading e-books in Stanza is great (I haven’t even bothered with iBooks). I just wish there was a way to synchronize my place in the book between my iPhone and iPad (similar to what the Kindle app (free) does).

Occasionally I will also like to catch up on my RSS feeds or the latest news. For those purposes I am using Feeddler (free) which synchronizes with my Google Reader account, and USA Today (free), complete with the crossword puzzle! There is clearly no shortage of news-gathering apps in the App Store but these two are all I need for now.

Media

Since my iPad only has 16gb of storage I don’t even bother synchronizing my iTunes music library with it (I still have my 32gb iPhone for that) but I did install Pandora Radio (free) in case I do have a need for music (although I haven’t used it yet). But why bother with audio at all? The iPad has a gorgeous 9.7″ screen … it’s the perfect portable video device!

You can obviously sync all the same iTunes video content (video podcasts, purchases/rentals, etc.) to the iPad that you can with the iPhone, but what if you want to play those other formats like AVI, DivX, or MKV? Enter the iPad version of VLC (free). Just use iTunes file sharing to copy your video files to your iPad for playback. The app can’t take advantage (yet) of the iPad’s hardware acceleration, so some playback could be choppy, but it’s a good first effort at playing non-iTunes video content on your device.

I use my Netflix subscription primarily for the Watch Instantly feature on my TiVos, but you can also use the Netflix app (free) to watch shows in your Instant Queue on your iPad. Of course, this is streaming so you need an active internet connection for it to work … no watching Netflix on the plane (unless your flight has WiFi).

In Conclusion

Wow, the iPad is a really cool device and after using it for a month I can see why it’s the fastest selling electronics device ever. That being said, can it really replace my work laptop? I think I can do almost everything I would need to do remotely on the iPad but I haven’t had one of those “emergency” situations yet to really put that to the test. Time will tell for me but not everyone thinks the iPad can replace the notebook in corporate situations.

I will say, though, that the iPad has me wondering if I still want/need my EeePC 900A netbook. Other than using the Eee to try out the latest netbook Linux distros and the fact that it has a physical keyboard (which I’m not great typing on anyway), the iPad has a larger screen (9.7″ vs. 8.9″), more storage (16gb vs 4gb), is thinner (but weighs about the same) and pretty much does everything I use the Eee for. I have a feeling I might not own the Eee for much longer.

So that’s my initial iPad wrap-up. Got any other must-have/must-try apps for me, or other iPad advice, tips, or tricks? Leave me a comment!

I already had the HBC installed and working, but the first problem I encountered was during the DOP-Mii step. For some reason my Wii wasn’t able to download the IOS updates/patches from NUS (Nintendo’s Update Servers), the same issue as described here (even though wireless connection was working). I wasn’t able to figure out how to get the required WADs onto my SD card for a local install, and trying to re-run the DOP-Mii step was now causing scary crash messages, so I gave up. I noticed that after attempting this, when my daughter went to play Wii Sports Resort, the Wii re-downloaded a system update, so luckily that seemed to reverse whatever the failed DOP-Mii patcher had done to the IOS.

A few days later I found another guide at WiiHacks.com and decided to give this another shot. This time I had the required WAD patches downloaded locally on my SD card so the DOP-Mii step worked as expected. But then I ran into a problem trying to install the cIOS. After some more Google searching I figured out I had to use the AnyTitle Deleter to clear out IOS249 before the new custom IOS would load properly (it’s possible that this was something left over from my last experiment with homebrew). After getting past all of that, though, I was able to complete the rest of the Lifehacker guide as documented.

For my initial testing, I used an old 40gb laptop hard drive I had laying around connected to a barebones USB adapter (pictured to the left) but I’ve since switched to a 320gb WD Elements drive split into two 160gb partitions (one WBFS, one exFAT).

Using the amazing USB Loader GX app, I backed up all of my games to the hard drive and then had it download the various box and CD cover art. It looks fantastic:

I tested running a few games from the hard drive and they worked just fine (even the online ones like Mario Kart). Sweet! Check out the little video I made below to see it in action.

A helpful note: I kept having problems where the USB Loader would crash. It turned out that while moving the SD card back and forth between my PC and Wii, at some point the lock switch moved down slightly so the card was effectively read-only. Fixing the switch resolved the crashes. Just something to keep an eye out for!

We had pretty good seats, right down the third base line.

We were in full sun the entire game, so it actually got pretty warm (mid-60s), which was a nice change from the chilly weather we’ve been having lately. It was great to be out at the ballpark eating some hot dogs, drinking a beer, and watching some good baseball. In just over a week and a half I’ll be in Arizona watching the Indians for three games … can’t wait!

We’re in the early stages of testing the iPhone with our corporate e-mail infrastructure: Microsoft Exchange and GoodLink. Since my AT&T account has been upgrade-eligible for some time (the last time I “officially” upgraded was when my Treo 650 was the hot new device), my boss told me to go ahead and get an iPhone (16gb model, but I paid a little out-of-pocket to get the 32gb one since my current iPod is 30gb). I need to start learning how to use it so I can eventually support it as we roll the device out to other users in the office. It’s been two weeks now since I abandoned my trusty Treo 680 and I had some free time while on vacation last week to really spend some time with the iPhone. Here’re some of my thoughts …

What I Like

• the design and form factor: the iPhone is truly a beautiful thing to look at given it’s mostly screen and a single home button. Even with my Otterbox impact case on, it still fits comfortably in my pants pocket. I miss having a physical keyboard (see “What I Don’t Like” below) but the buttons that are present make sense.
• it’s a widescreen iPod: when music is playing and a call comes in, the music fades away and then the phone rings. When you’re done with the call, the music fades back in, picking up where you left off. One minor nit here, though, is that if you have the e-mail notification sound enabled, your music will fade briefly to play the mail sound, which isn’t necessary (the notification should just be suppressed). I replaced my old Belkin Tunebase FM with the new version for the iPhone so I can charge the device in my car and still listen to podcasts while driving. It includes a speakerphone for handsfree and a single button that works like the home button on the phone: click once to pause/play, twice to go forward a track, twice and hold for fast forward, three times to back a track, thrice and hold for rewind. I like being able to turn the phone sideways and watch video podcasts in widescreen too (although scrolling through podcasts is uncharacteristically choppy).
• the GPS: using the built-in GPS and compass for location-based/direction-based services is really slick. Pulling up Google Maps and watching the blue dot move along a highway as I drive is like a scene out of a spy movie. Check out Yelp’s monocle feature for a perfect example of augmented reality using these features.
• the camera: I’ve been stuck with the VGA (640×480) camera in my PalmOS devices for so long! It’s great to finally have a mega-pixel camera (with video even!) that takes pretty good pictures. I love the geo-tagging feature too.
• the speaker: being able to play music without headphones or external speakers is a definite plus.
• oh yeah, it’s a phone: when held up to your ear, the screen turns itself off. Take it away from your ear, and the screen fades back into view. You don’t have to navigate through a voice response system to record your voicemail message or retrieve your messages, just tap the buttons on-screen. It’s those little things that continue to impress me. Of course, I haven’t actually used it a lot as a phone since it does so much other cool stuff.

What I Don’t Like

• the keyboard: no one can argue that the iPhone’s virtual keyboard is better than then Treo’s. Typing on glass just isn’t the same. I’m getting better at two-thumbing it, but I still find typing (quickly) a frustrating exercise.
• iTunes: I haven’t looked into this much yet, but having to use iTunes to sync and customize the phone is a pain, especially if you’re using more than one computer. For example I sync my iPhone with my main desktop machine at home. While travelling over Thanksgiving, I had my laptop with me, but could not use iTunes on it to manage my phone. This is really going to be a pain at work when I’m trying to configure multiple iPhones for people in the office. I found the iPhone Configuration Utility but still need to read up on enterprise deployments.
• syncing (or lack thereof): requiring iTunes also makes it difficult for applications to sync their data for backup. Palm had HotSync and conduits which allowed third-party developers to create custom “tunnels” in HotSync that were basically transparent to the user. To sync my eWallet desktop with my iPhone data, I have to open each application (on my PC and the phone), and then start the sync over Wi-Fi (totally outside of iTunes). A kludgy workaround due to Apple’s control freak design. Even the photos and videos you take on the iPhone don’t sync down to your PC through iTunes, instead you have to use the built-in features of your PC since the device appears as a plain storage device (although you can sync certain folders of photos back to the iPhone from your PC if you want to carry a certain collection around).
• I miss the clickwheel: using my iPod in the car without looking was pretty easy with the clickwheel. I was even pretty good at skipping most commercials (half a turn on the wheel was about 30 seconds). The iPhone isn’t as easy since it doesn’t have a lot of buttons. Yes, you can use the home button to skip tracks, or FF/RW, but for more accurate positioning you have to use the on-screen scrubber with your finger, which is pretty dangerous to do while driving.
• lack of customization options: sure I can drag the app icons around to different pages, but I can’t rename them, can’t leave empty spaces on the grid, can only assign a few different options to the home button, etc. Sure, I could mess around with jailbreaking and probably address some of those concerns, but I need to be able to support this device at work so I can’t deviate too much from the delivered experience.
• battery life: forgive me … I’ve been using a Treo on the Edge network for almost 4 years and battery life was pretty darn good. I’d only have to charge it overnight and it was good for all day. 3G and all the other cool stuff I can do on my iPhone really sucks the battery dry quickly. When I had my separate iPod and Treo, it didn’t matter if my iPod died while listening to music during the day since my phone still worked. Now that I have this single device I need to be more careful about making sure I keep it charged. The lack of a user-replaceable battery is a downer too. It’d be nice if I could just buy a new battery and put it in myself instead of having to send the whole phone back to Apple for a “repair.”
• fingerprints: it really sucks that 5 seconds after taking this beautiful shiny piece of technology out of the box it’s covered in my greasy fingerprints. The matte finish screen protectors I got at the AT&T store do a decent job of hiding them, though, and make the screen a lot less reflective and not so glassy to the touch.
• it’s delicate: this will take some time to play out, but the Treos were solid. Not that I drop my phone a lot, but when I do, it’s usually in a bad way. The Treo might have gotten scratched or scuffed, but it kept on working. Little plastic tanks. I’m not so sure about the iPhone. I already dropped it once onto concrete but luckily I have that impact rubber case and it landed screen up. The folks in the office are pretty hard on their devices (based on the drawer full of broken phones in my desk) so it’ll be interesting to see if the iPhone is up to their abuse.

What Apps Do I Use?

There’s an app for everything, right? Another of the big draws of the iPhone is the thousands of applications available in the iTunes App Store. One of the first things I had to do was find iPhone equivalents of the applications I used on a daily basis on my Treo. Here’s what I’ve got so far.

• What I used on the Treo: eWallet
• What I switched to for the iPhone: eWallet ($10 for iPhone, or $20 usable on multiple devices including PC)

Like anyone, I have a lot of passwords, logins, and various personal private information I need to carry around with me. To keep all of this sensitive information secure and portable, I’ve used Ilium Software’s eWallet application for many years. Luckily this switch was easily since Ilium has PalmOS, Windows Mobile, PC, and iPhone versions of  eWallet, and now I’ve used them all. Migrating my data was simple, although synchronization between the desktop and iPhone versions is a little cumbersome since you have to initialize the sync on both devices at the same time over Wi-Fi. Still, being able to access all of my passwords, accounts, and other stuff I store in my wallet on the iPhone is great.

• What I used on the Treo: ListPro
• What I switched to for the iPhone: Evernote (free)

I also keep a lot of random information on my handheld: gift ideas, vacation days, clothes sizes, various house information/measurements, lists of all sorts! So Ilium Software’s ListPro was another application I relied heavily on, using it both on my Treo and desktop PC. Unfortunately, Ilium hasn’t produced an iPhone version of ListPro yet so I had to search for alternatives. I ended up trying Evernote, which has iPhone and PC versions (in addition to many more, including via a web browser). Evernote requires you to create an account on their website, so technically your notes are being stored on their servers and then synced with your different devices. You can store text, images, documents, etc. but keep in mind the only notes you can actually edit on the iPhone have to be plain, unformatted text (so no checkboxes, bullets, etc.). Creating notes on the iPhone has the benefit of automatic location tagging, using the phone’s GPS. The basic free service has a limit on how much you can upload a month, so there’s a premium service you can pay for without those limits and also includes things like extra security. I had to manually copy/paste all of my lists out of ListPro into Evernote, which was a bit of a pain, but it did give me the opportunity to clean up and re-organize some of my lists.

• What I used on the Treo: Tasks (GoodLink)
• What I switched to for the iPhone: iMTasks ($7)

With GoodLink on my Treo, my e-mail, contacts, calendar, tasks, and notes from Outlook were all synchronized in near real-time. The iPhone handles the e-mail, contacts, and calendar, but not the to do list or notes. I am a heavy user of Outlook tasks so I really wanted those synced to my iPhone. For whatever reason, Apple decided not to bake that in. Instead, I had to purchase RERLSoft’s IMTasks app. Once I entered my Exchange information, the app downloaded my to do list and keeps it synchronized (although only while the app is open). Hopefully the forthcoming GoodLink client for the iPhone will include this, but for now this was a must-purchase function for me. RERLSoft has a version that includes Outlook notes synchronization (and also allows you to manage your out-of-office setting), but since I’m using Evernote now I decided to stop using Outlook notes altogether.

• What I used on the Treo: TealAuto
• What I switched to for the iPhone: Gas Cubby ($5, free lite version available)

Some other data I keep on my phone is car information: gas mileage, repair history, etc. On my Treo I used TealPoint’s TealAuto application to store and track fill-ups, repairs, maintenance, etc. Without an iPhone version, I tried out a few of the vehicle apps in the App Store, including the free “lite” version of Gas Cubby and eventually ended up purchasing the full version. Using the Windows version of TealAuto, I was able to export all of my data from my Treo into a CSV file. Then, using App Cubby’s unsupported import feature, I was able to load it all into Gas Cubby. The import only supports gas events, though, not maintenance, so I manually entered our 2009 maintenance events into the app later (not a big deal since there were a lot less of those compared to fill-ups). If you’re a multiple iPhone home and purchase multiple copies of Gas Cubby, you can even keep the data synchronized across devices, which is a cool feature.

• What I used on the Treo: iSilo
• What I switched to for the iPhone: Stanza (free)

If you read this blog you know I do a lot of reading on my PDA. There’s not a version of iSilo for the iPhone so I had to try out a few free e-readers. I settled on Stanza. Using the desktop version, I was able to convert the book I’m reading from the Baen free library from HTML into a format for the Stanza reader and transfer it to my iPhone. Having the larger, higher resolution screen on the device is great for reading. Plus you can change font sizes, colors, and themes (black on white, white on black, textured, etc.). I’ve also installed Amazon’s Kindle Reader (free), in case I decide to purchase some new e-books. No need for a Kindle now! Interesting, though, that Stanza is actually owned by Amazon. I wonder if eventually they’ll combine these apps?

• What I used on the Treo: tussh
• What I switched to for the iPhone: iSSH ($5), iRdesktop (free)

Why do I like remoting into my Linux server from my phone? Because I can, of course! iSSH let’s me login to my Ubuntu box at home via command-line or tunnelled VNC. The free iRdesktop utility lets me connect to my Windows servers at work when I have my iPhone connected to the VPN. Amazing. There’s even a free Citrix client (but I haven’t gotten it to work properly yet).

• What I used on the Treo: iRogue
• What I switched to for the iPhone: Rogue (free)

My daughter loves playing iRogue on my Treo and I like it too, so of course I needed the iPhone version!

Some other apps I’ve purchased/installed include:

• iEmergency+ ($1) allows you to store your emergency contact information (phone numbers, medical info, etc.) in a single place and also has a helpful utility for adding ICE information to your iPhone’s lock screen.
• Using VIP Access (free) means I don’t need to carry around my PayPal football or VeriSign Secure Card since my iPhone can now act as my security token.
• The iPhone doesn’t allow for multiple e-mail signatures when you use multiple e-mail accounts. JohnHancock ($2) lets you create and switch between as many as you need. There doesn’t seem to be an elegant solution, but this app at least provides one.
• RedLaser ($2) is an amazing barcode scanning application. Point your iPhone’s camera at any barcode and the app will pull up a list of prices from other stores. The latest update even uses the GPS to find local prices. If nothing else, it’s fun to play with.
• Chess with Friends (free) and Words with Friends (free) from New Toy, Inc. are basically chess and Scrabble games you can play “online” with other iPhone users. Really cool for playing with friends or relatives who live far away. We used both of these games in the car on our recent Thanksgiving holiday trip to play games without having to pass a single iPhone back and forth.

What Do I Think?

The iPhone is a really slick device. The first few days were rough for me, since I was really set in my ways with my Treo and doing things in a certain way. Over the past two weeks, though, as I’ve had time to get better acquainted with my new shiny toy business tool, I have to admit it is a well engineered piece of hardware and software. Now I have a single device that really covers all the bases. Pretty incredible.

Got any other must-have/must-try apps for me, or other iPhone advice, tips, or tricks? Leave me a comment!

I’ve always said it was a combination of Wii Fit and changing my eating habits that made it possible for me to drop 40lbs. Just playing Wii Fit alone wouldn’t have really done much, but it was responsible for getting me into a habit of an (almost) daily exercise routine … and it’s fun. Going running outside for 20 minutes does not sound like fun to me, but I can do that easily in front of the TV with Wii Fit. I think everyone agrees that fun exercises will keep you coming back and those that aren’t fun turn into the dusty, unused Soloflex sitting in the corner of your den.

The article does concede that some exercise is better than none, and that Wii Fit Plus might be better due to the customization of routines with less lag time in between (which I agree with). It’s an interesting read.

Wii Fit Plus is basically an upgrade to the original Wii Fit that came with the balance board: it contains all of the original games and activities, then adds a bunch of new games (Training Plus) and features. It will automatically import all of your data from Wii Fit so you won’t even need your old disc anymore. So, what’s new and cool?

First off, you can now create profiles for babies and pets. Why? Well, I guess if you want to be able to track the weight of those smaller members of your household it can come in handy. Like in Wii Fit, the balance board weighs you first, and then you holding your dog, cat, or baby to calculate the difference. It’s kinda cute to see our dogs in the Wii Fit Plaza.

A new “multi-player” feature is available from the Wii Fit Plaza which allows a bunch of people to alternate playing the mini-games, but none of it counts towards Wii Fit credits. I guess it’s just a way to allow your guests to try out the games without needing to create a profile, get weighed in, etc.

One new feature I was looking forward to was the addition of routines, basically “playlists” of activities that was supposed to streamline performing multiple exercises in a row without all of the pausing and clicking. Unfortunately, you can only add Strength Training and Yoga activities to a routine, not any of the Aerobics or Balance activities. Also, you’re limited to a certain number of reps. For example, instead of having the option to add 5, 10, or 20 push-up and side-plank reps, you can only choose 6 at a time. To work around this you’d have to add multiples of the 6-rep activities in a row:

Once you do have the routine set up, though, it definitely makes performing multiple activities more efficient. You don’t need to keep clicking the A button a bunch of times to move on, you just see a brief checklist and then the next activity starts.

Wii Fit Plus also assigns METs (Metabolic Equivalents) to activities so in addition to showing you the number of minutes you’ve exercised (Wii Fit credits) it will also calculate the number of calories you’ve burned. New options in the Activity Log also let you track your waist size and the number of steps you’ve taken during the day (assuming you have a pedometer to track that data for you … this is where my FitBit will eventually come into play).

The new Training Plus games are a lot of fun too! Cycling, Segway riding, snowball fights, the obstacle course, and many more new additions can really get you back into Wii Fit if you’ve been getting bored with the old activities.

So, if you bought Wii Fit give Wii Fit Plus a try … it’s definitely worth the $20 (or less, if you shop around).