DIIA Blog

As the social networking scene continues to explode, developers are increasingly finding novel ways to use services such as Facebook and Twitter. Through the Facebook Connect technology, the developers of a web app called Aardvark seem to be onto something. Their service basically crowd sources your contacts and contacts of contacts in Facebook to help answer any question you may have. Any question. So how good would this be for students? Probably pretty good unless you are taking a test, in which case asking the Vark might not be a good idea.

For getting answers to questions stumping you, you can submit your question to Aardvark which is then interpreted by the system’s artificial intelligence system. It then sends the message out to people in your extended social network who might be able to answer your question. The question is sent out anonymously and the replies back are as well (as far as I can tell), so no question is too ridiculous. Your identity should not be revealed. A average response time is about 5 minutes. And of course an iPhone app was just released. This is an intriguing application that will be interesting to see how it matures, especially in higher education circles.

Keene

TAKING NOTES - CREATING DOCUMENTS

Everyone’s favorite academic pastime - taking notes. Yes, its a little tricky to get typing down on the an iPhone/iPod Touch, but it can be done and done effectively with a little practice. Here are some tools that help you keep track of all our class notes and more. Many of the text editors/note taking apps listed here allow you type in landscape mode which is easier (and faster) for typing, especially for longer entries. The built-in Notes application is fairly decent but for those needing more, these apps are worth, ah hem,…taking note of

EverNote (free) - The iphone/Touch companion to the desktop app. Syncs with you online account to give you access to your notes virtually anywhere you are online. Offers the ability to create tagged photos, add notes to photos in your photo library.

WriteRoom ($4.99)- Does one thing and does it well just like its desktop big brother. It offers a customizable writing experience with typing in landscape mode if so desired. Notes are shareable on local networks (but not password secure yet).

SyncBook ($3.99) - Offers landscape mode typing, ability to categorize and label your notes, email them and share them. Crashed on me a couple of times, so not completely stable yet but has a clean, pleasing interface.

Take a Note ($4.99) - This is probably the most complete note taking app currently available. It is from Readdle and allows you to take typed text notes, audio notes via the microphone, drawing notes which allow you to actually draw on the screen with various pen widths and it also allows you to load or take a photo and add a comment to it. All notes can be categorized and emailed out of the application. You can also access notes via WiFi if both the device and your computer are on the same network. For a one stop, do all note taking app, this one looks hard to beat. The drawing note is particularly innovative. The interface is a bit overdone in my opinion, but that is a minor complaint. The other downer is that it costs

iSheet ($3.99) - Spreadsheets for the iPhone/Touch. Should you be so inclined to deal with text in a spreadsheet format, this is your ticket. It can cut and past between cells, import/export to Google Spreadsheet and email out as CSV. Also allows searching and horizontal view mode. You can use numbers but you cannot perform numeric functions such as sum, average, etc.

For Sharing and storing documents and media files, see the offerings in Part 1 of this overview.

PHOTOS

The camera is the weak link on the iPhone (only 2 megapixels, no flash, no zoom, no video) and even weaker on the Touch (it does not have a camera). But despite this, the convenience of having an image capture device in your pocket does still make it useful. Here are a few apps worth considering.

Panorama ($9.99) - This is a very innovative application that allows you to create a panoramic image by stitching together photos as you take them. It stitches quite well and offers three resolutions in which to save your photo. If you are into panorama photography, this can allow you do some of this on the fly, but its no substitute for dedicated panorama photo gear and software.

CameraBag ($2.99) - While more of playful addition, CameraBag provides some very artistic and original filters to your iphone camera pictures. For even more interesting results, apply a filter,

SteadyCam and SteadyCam Premium - This app allows you to get sharper pictures by steadying the iPhone camera which is very easy to shake due to the device’s light weight and small size. The Premium (currently only 99 cents) adds a timer and the ability to utilize the entire screen as a shutter trigger rather than the small touch screen button. This makes taking self-portraits, for instance, much easier.

Night Camera (99 cents) - The iPhone camera is no low light champ. Night Camera attempts to fix this using the device’s accelerometer to tell when your hand is not moving and will quickly take an image, greatly reducing camera blur, a common problem in low light images. This is something which cannot be Photoshopped out of the image. It works quite well and is the only app really like it currently out.

Photo Lab Daily (Free) - From the makers of Night Camera, Photo Lab allows you to apply common filters to images to enhance or customize them. There are two higher level paid version of this app, Photo Lab 640 ($1.99) and Photo Lab 1600 ($3.99) that allow for unlimited editing and editing of larger resolution file sizes. The free version only lets you apply one effect per 24 hrs, which is a downer.

Scribble (Free) - Allows one to mark up a photo by drawing a layer over the image. This can be undone or erased. You can choose colors and line thickness. No text annotation as of yet. Handy for pointing out specific things in images for students of geology, art history, studio art, photography, etc. Scribble is made by a company called Zintin. Searching the Apple iphone App Store for Scribble will take you to the download for it. The link on Zintin’s website loads up iTunes Store and leads you to Zintin, there collaboration, sharing tool that is currently free too.

There are literally hundreds if not thousands more applications, these are just a few that have caught my attention. If you have other favorites, by all means, let me know. There are far too many apps for one person to review. Part 3 to follow…

Keene

Building online databases is a foundation of Web 2.0 (a term that is starting to feel a bit long in the tooth) applications. Just about every web app has a backend database usually running mySQL and connecting to the browser through PHP which performs the heavy lifting of retrieving data from the SQL database and serving it to the user on the fly. Creating these web apps requires a programmer with some decent skills in SQL and PHP to make all this happen. But now, a new application called ModelBaker may change this. While the app claims no coding is required, its really not that simple. One does need to understand how databases work and are put together in order to fully appreciate this application and what it can do. However, for small departments that need webapps but can’t afford a programmer, or for programmers who want to quickly deploy an app for testing or protyping, ModelBaker may be a great tool to use. A nifty feature of the program is the ability to create iPhone, iPod Touch and Android compatible web apps on the fly which turns your web app into something that looks good on these devices rather than just viewing a traditional web page on a mobile’s rather small screen. There is a 30 day free demo and academic pricing is available at very good discounts for approved colleges and universities. The standard version is $399 for a single license and $99 for an academic license. Multiple licenses are available.

Happy New Year everyone!

Keene