James Andrews

Photography is one of my hobbies. Sometimes I’ll do a wedding for a little extra money, sometimes I’ll shoot models. Trying to keep track of everything is a pain. Last night I was organizing apps on my iPhone and decided to look for some new ones while I was at it. I came across one called “Photographer’s Workflow”. From the images in iTunes App Store it looked like it did pretty much everything, and it was $3.99. Cheap enough for me to want to give it a try.

I downloaded and synced the app to my first generation iPhone. The first thing I noticed was that it requires use of Google Calendar. I give it my gmail account and password and it connected. Fulfilling that requirement, I attempted to add a project.

I add my project and the app crashes. I go back to the app, and enter the project. None of the information is there, and there’s no way I can see to delete the project and start again. I add another project, and wouldn’t you know it happens again. App == FAIL.

This app looked so very promising. I was really upset about the requirement for Google Calendar. I don’t want all my business information on the cloud, I’d rather have it sync to iCal through iTunes, or at least have the option for it not to use Google, and just keep it on my Phone. I couldn’t get a project to work at all which means that the application was totally useless to me.

I have contacted Apple for a refund.

Don’t waste your time, the app needs a lot of work.

I am in Toronto International Airport. In the wing that contains flights heading to the US. My flight is at 6:40PM EST, and I am departing for Boston. I am writing this blog entry in Textmate a simple text editor for the Macintosh operating system OS X. Why am I mentioning this? Well you would think that with access to Wireless internet, I’d be able to just up and connect to the internet open my blogging software and go go go go go… That however is not the case.

I sit down at my gate, and find the wireless access point I need to connect too. Boingo uses special software; for unknown reasons, the allow you to log into they system. My computer is new, and this is my first trip to an airport with it so I go ahead and download the software. I don’t travel enough to warrant hthe $12/month charge, so I use Boingo’s as-you-go which is $10CAN. The problem, there doesn’t seem to be a way to charge me for the service. I’m logged in. AIM is working, but the web browser isn’t. Was I charged for the access or not? I have internet yet I don’t have internet, and I am really confused. I think maybe I am charged for internet, but something is wrong with DNS so I manually change my DNS IP to GTE’s public server. No change, so I change it back. I log out of Boingo’s application and log back in. Still nothing. I am frustrated. Maybe my account hasn’t charged a credit card, so I create a new account. Finally a connection. I send a Facebook message, browse a couple quick websites, and then suddenly. Nothing. Gone. WTF. I go through the sequence again, even going as far as rebooting my computer. Nothing.

It ends in futility, and me calling Boingo for a refund. Where does Boingo go wrong. First is this “application”. Why do I need to run their stupid little app in order to connect wirelessly. I go to coffee shop after coffee shop, just create an account, and pay for the service. When I return, I log into the account, and pay for the service. I fly Airtran, and I create an account and have internet as I fly, using the same kind of interface that the coffee shop uses. Boingo tries to make things easier with a little application, but instead they fail.

I give Boingo 0 of 5 wifi bars.

Please fix the problems so I can not be bored during a 3-4hr lay over…..

On my flight back from Japan I decided to take in a foreign film. The one I chose was from Korea, and is called. “My Girfriend is an Agent.” This is a tale of love Soo-ji (Female Lead) is an undercover NIS agent (South Korea’s version of the CIA/FBI) she is in love with Jae-joon (male lead) who also happens to be an undercover NIS agent. Both working for different sectors, and neither knowing of each other’s profession. Their relationship is in danger, and at the beginning of the movie Jae-joon calls everything off and leaves the country. Fate would have them meet again 3 years later where they would once again try to rekindle their love with their work constantly getting in the way. Will their love survive or will it perish in the midst of their secret lives?

This movie is fun, intelligent and action packed. I totally enjoyed the random instances where the 2 agents would find each other each while working on their NIS cases. It keeps you laughing constantly. If you like foreign asian films you’ll enjoy “My girlfriend is an agent”.

5 for 5 stars.

I am a huge fan of Cirque du Soleil. For many years I have tried to see as many shows as possible as they have come through the Boston area. I even got to see La Nouba at Disney World in Florida, which is one of the shows that does not travel around. I have enjoyed them all immensely. Today my wife treated me to ZED. This is one of the non traveling shows and it is hosted at Tokyo Disney.

As with most Cirques ZED starts out with 2 clowns, that wander the amphitheater harrassing members of the audience, and doing silly things. We were in the first row stage left all the way in the corner. The clowns did there thing, and one was even hiding under the stage near us, we knew he was there, there was no surprising us. The show starts off with the 2 clowns opening a very large storybook, then a very dramatic start to the show begins. The way they drew the curtain open. The main character ZED’s entrance which scared the day lights out of me. I thought for sure something had gone wrong, but it hadn’t. With the curtains drawn it revealed a steam punkish kind of set, which was pretty cool.

All the acts were wonderful. Very well performed with only a couple acrobatic mis-steps, but I expect that, they do this every day, sometimes twice, that’s a lot of hard physical work. The last act was not interesting to me, but I do know that it’s physically hard to do.

I found out that Japanese don’t usually give standing ovations. I don’t know why, but I was standing up clapping, and a few other audience members joined Miho and I. The performers really appreciated it. Some came and shook our hands, and gave us high fives. It was very cool to have them interact with us.

If you are in Tokyo, and haven’t seen ZED, it’s a good time, and you should try to go. As usual it was wonderful. I’ll give it 5 of 5 juggling balls.d

Tonight I decided to get away from the Wedding planning insanity and take a break and see a movie. The movie “9″. I had seen the trailers and loved the animation. From the trailer I expected this movie to be really good. Unfortunately that was not the case.

While the animation was indeed excellent the thing that really disappointed me in this movie was the lack of character development. From beginning to end the characters were very stagnant. The story didn’t really go anywhere that Terminator hadn’t taken us before.

I was truly disappointed.

1 out of 5 popcorn boxes.