Monthly Archive for July, 2009

Aardvark

The other day I came across a site called Aardvark. It’s a pretty simple idea. You have a question about something. Chances are someone else around the world has an answer. Simple enough, right? The problem is, most of the time when I have a question (let’s say about photography), I’d go ahead and register on a photography forum, and ask my question there. But then, what if, over a period of a month, I have a question about photography, cycling, motherboards, food, and books? Should I join a forum about each topic? No. And here’s where Aardvark comes in. Simply put, you go to Aardvark, you sign up, you ask a question, and someone else who knows what they’re talking about in that specific subject will attempt to answer your question…and honestly, that’s it. It’s a very simple website, yet at it’s core it’s a very useful site that’s definitely worth bookmarking. And for most questions, you’ll (according to them) get an answer within 5 minutes, which is pretty quick. 8)

The other nice thing is that if you’re done asking questions, you can answer them. There are several IM bots that can ask you questions based on subjects you select. For example, I’ve set Aardvark to IM me “a few times a day”, and ask me if someone has a question about the iPhone, among other subjects. And, really, it’s as simple as that. It’s easy to use, quick to get an answer, and super incredibly useful.

You can find Aardvark here, and if you want to sign up, use this link and you’ll be added to my “network” automatically. :)

PS: Just so you know, this is my recommendation. It sounds a bit like I’m being paid to sponsor them, but I’m not. :lol:

Google Latitude

Google Latitude is Google’s location based service, launched in February. Similar to Brightkite, it allows your friends to see where you are at all times. Simply put, you tell it where you are, and it posts your status onto Latitude. Then, your friends can see where you are. Easy. :)

The service is available to platforms such as Google’s own Android OS, Windows Mobile, Blackberry OS, Symbian S60, and now, the iPhone. However, while it’s either integrated or available as a dedicated application on those platforms, it’s not so on the iPhone. Due to Apple’s stubborn attitude, they said to Google that a standalone Latitude application could apparently confuse people with the built in Maps application. So, Google made it into a web app. Not the best idea, but it works okay. This post is basically a quick walkthrough of it. If you want a proper in depth review, look elsewhere. I’m not a professional journalist. :P
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Getting Facebook Birthdays onto your iPhone

Update – March 2010: A recent change with either Facebook or fbCal has caused problems when accessing the calendar links from your iPhone. There is a workaround for this, however. Visit fbCal.com on your PC, and copy the iCal links that you want. They should start with “webcal://”. Paste them into an email, and then send that to yourself. On your iPhone, open the email and tap the links, and the iPhone should prompt you to load the calendars. Easy! :)

The calendar on my iPhone (and on my computer, for that matter) gets very little use. I don’t really do much to warrant using it much, other then a few reminders each week, birthdays, and Library Loans (which is added in by Delicious Library). So, overall, not much. However, I would like to be able to see more birthdays on my phone then the 5 or so that I had added myself, manually. So, how? Well, simple. Facebook. As I have plenty of friends on Facebook, there’s a nice selection of birthdays that I can access via my iPhone. Or…not. I was going to try and use the built in “Export events” function in the standard Events app on Facebook, push that to Google Calendar, and then use CalDAV on my iPhone to access it, however, that doesn’t include birthdays, so it wouldn’t have worked for what I wanted. Luckily, I found another very simple solution.

After a little bit of Googling, I came across a Facebook application called fbCal. Once you give the app permission, it’ll then present you with a simple screen with a number of choices. From here, you can subscribe to events, download a static copy, or even get an RSS feed. Useful! Getting everything set up is very easy too. To make it easy, you might want to do everything from your iPhone directly.
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Michael McIntyre at The O2

Michael McIntyre

Booked for Tuesday the 29th of September at 6:30PM! Pretty good seats too, I’ll be in block 112, which is right above the stage on the right. :D

Brüno

So, I really want to see the new film, Brüno, which comes out tomorrow. However, one problem. The BBFC have rated it as 18, so, strictly speaking, I can’t see it legally until I’m 18, which is next month (August). I’m gonna try to go and see it anyway though. Hopefully I can get in without them noticing me too much. If not, sorry BBFC, but you’re making me do this…I’ll just have to pirate it.

Even worse is that in Australia, Canada, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, and the United States, I would be able to see it, because it’s rated between 11+ and 17+ in those countries. So, I wonder why the BBFC have gone and stuck an 18 on it? You can see it in Sweden at 11, so…wtf? Why do 11 year old Swedish kids get to see it? If an 11 year old can see it, surely it can’t be that bad?

Moral of the story: ratings encourage piracy. ;) :P