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.

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.

Currently I am on my way to Japan. I decided this time around to take Air Canada. I have flown with them 4 times to Japan, so this is trip #5 with them. I am absolutely loving the experience. First my flight from Boston to Toronto was excellent. The economy class seat had an excellent amount of leg room. In between my chair and the chair next to me was a power outlet for my laptop. Since I only had slept 4 hours last night I slept. I was comfortable and was able to sleep well. I wasn’t woken for drink service, which was appreciated. YAY.

Now I am on my second flight from Toronto to Narita. It’s a 13hr flight. I have my window seat, not as much leg room as the previous flight, but about what I am use too. Ready for the long flight ahead.

I am assuming that I am on a new plane. The seats don’t look old. On each of the backs of the seats are private entertainment centers (on both planes). With a really good selection of movies, tv and music to keep you entertained. To the left of the 7-8″ LCD display is a USB port. I haven’t tried it yet, but I bet it’s for charging your USB devices. Either that or for the game console with they seem to have not available on the flight. On this plane there is an additional feature on the right of the display. That would be a 110/60Hz outlet. ROCK ON! I have my computer plugged in. If you don’t like Air Canada’s entertainment selection, you can watch my own.

I feel spoiled, and I am loving it. 13hrs of being able to watch my media, program and generally do what I want other than surf the net. Which I am sure is on their list of things to do since other airlines (ie Airtran) already have working high speed wifi on their flights

Now that I’ve praised Air Canada, I have a few comments that I hope they address. The seat in front of me falls back too far. My laptop is 50% on the tray and 50% off the tray. With it protruding into my stomach. If the tray came out a little further that would make me a little happier. The other thing. I’m hungry, yet there are no snacks for sale on the plane. I have to wait for the next scheduled “snack”. The waitress said she could give me some of the little snacks they gave out at the beginning of the flight, but well they sucked, and I am not that hungry.

If only the man in the isle wasn’t asleep so I could go into my luggage and get my bag of snicker doodles.

While its fresh in my mind I think I am going to write about the DragonCon iPhone application. Thursday evening I was browsing either Twitter, or Facebook or Livejournal. I don’t remember which when I saw a link advertised for a Dragon*Con iPhone. It was basically advertised as a replacement for the little panel list booklet that I can’t read because the text is so fraking small. I was pretty psyched.

The application is pretty simple in design. There is a main page that has update information. There is an “Events” button, a “My Schedule” button, and a “Speakers” button. For DragonCon the “Events” button gave you a list of all the panels on all the different tracks and concerts from various acts at the convention. This was really handy. Not having to dig out a little booklet that was hard to read was a real PITA. You clicked on an event and the there was a way to add the event to your “schedule” page that had a day calendar look. You could plan your entire weekend and then all you would have to do is go to your “Schedule” page and see what you had chosen and life was nice and easy, not marking the little book and trying to find an event you read about but were unsure about, simply add it, and then go through the schedule and cull out the things that overlapped or were too far away for you to make it from the previous track. The idea at it’s simplest form is great. No wasted paper, and much easier to find panels.

It’s got problems thought, and to be fair the Application is called “Follow Me” and is created by “Core-apps LLC”. It is an event organization app that allows you to have information on panels exhibitors and updated information on. DragonCon is simply their client.

The biggest problem is the load speed. DragonCon has a LOT of events, and since the application talks to the internet to update those events you’re talking a connection EVERY time the application is loaded. It seems to load the XML (assuming it’s XML) EVERY time instead of doing something simple like checking the last modified date against a db to see if the schedule has changed. With 30000 people at the convention and most of them connected to cell towers trying to make connections for tweeting, surfing or using FollowMe. That lead to a VERY slow user experience. The app should only ever update when the data has changed, and then, only modify new data since that change. There are also a lot of things that they could have added to make the experience of using the application a lot better. “Speakers” for example gives list of all the speakers, there’s no cross talk to the events telling allowing me to see what events that speaker was in. There was no way to search only different tracks. All 3 days of events were listed in one list. Separating out Friday, Saturday, and Sunday would have made it easier for those of us trying to get to the sunday list late friday night to plan things. Instead you have to scroll through hundreds of panels that happen Friday and Saturday. Little things that with a little more thought could make this application rock the convention world.

Basically the idea is great, the execution needs some work. Yay DragonCon for doing this, They may want to consider a web version as well for those non-iphone users. Any web developer with half a brain could write something similar in a couple weeks, and then you’d make everyone’s life easier.

FollowMe gets 2 of 5 stars. DragonCon for using the tech to make my con experience better gets 5 for 5!

Woke up later than planned and made my way to the Hynes for day two. Arrived and the place was packed. Registration was in great order from what I can tell. I think AB has fixed that problem. Yay!

I spent much time roaming the halls, talking to people I know. Stopped by the Funimation booth picked up Crayon Shinchan season 2 part 1. I’ll probably be watching that on Monday.

I didn’t go to any panels though. I guess I was just not enthusiastic about the selection. A lot of it is the same thing that you see year after year. Things like “How to make a plushy.” and “Lolliata Fashion” just don’t do anything for the male 36yr old demographic (ie me). Any of the panels that I would have been interested in seeing didn’t start until 8-9pm which kind of sucks for those who are in my age range who did pay for a badge (I did not, I was comped), that there may only be 2-3 panels a day that they may have any interest.

Now to be fair, most of the attendants are in a much different age group, and I am sure that the selection of panels suited them just fine. It just isn’t my can of Coke. (I don’t drink tea ).

I left early about 5:30pm, I didn’t feel like waiting around until 8:30pm for a panel that I might enjoy.

One last comment before I put Anime Boston 2009 behind me. This is more aimed at the Hyne’s covention center more than anything. The first year AB was in the HCC there was a cafeteria that had tables and chairs where people who bought food from the HCC vendors could sit and eat. Last year and this year, and probably back in 2007 as well the cafeteria has been gone. Instead they have set up vendors outside the area where the cafeteria was. There are no chairs and not tables, essentially no place for people to get off their feet and eat the meal they just paid $8+ for. It is absolutely ridiculous, these guys make a fortune off kids with ridiculous prices, and they won’t even set up a place for them to eat. NOT COOL!

With that I am done, enjoy the last day of the convention everyone, I have an attic to clean out.