Tuesday Tech Talk #36

Hello folks and welcome to Triple T #36. Quite a few news items I want to share with you this week so let’s dive right in!

iPad available April 3rd

Get that work overtime in folks to build that iPad fund! It is coming out on April 3rd and pre-orders start on Friday! If you are looking to get an iPad, what features are you looking forward to? I like the eBook reader function of it and how easy it is to access the eBook store from the library. But I also like the ability that iWork will have apps for it via Pages, Keynote, and Numbers. If your not interested in it but would like to see some features added to it and then may get it, what features would those be?

Google Docs for blog posting

So did you know you can use Google Docs to compose and publish to your WordPress based blog? It takes some tweaking but it can be done. The only drawback is the ability to set categories and tags from within Google Docs, for that you will have to do within WordPress. So I guess this means I have a suggestion for Google now. In the meantime I will continue to use MacJournal to write my blog posts.

WordPress blogs get near real-time updates

Speaking of WordPress, they just announced support for PubSubHubbub (PuSH). What does that mean in non-geek terms you may ask? Simply put it now alerts RSS feeds faster meaning they will show up in say Google Reader much faster than before.

Time Warner Cable offering its tubes to AT&T and Verizon

Interesting little article here on TWC teaming up with the telecoms for broadband support.

Apple purging the app store

I’m sure you have heard on how Apple is cutting down on certain questionable apps in the app store. Personally I don’t have a problem with this. A lot of these apps are simply glorified web apps.

This Week’s iPhone/iPod touch apps


Shazam and Shazam Encore - Ok this review is for my good friend Mary from Minnesota who asked me about it. Course if you just want to know what that current song playing at the coffee shop is, then the free version of Shazam will do you just fine. But if you want it to be a little more social network friendly then there is the $4.99 version of Shazam Encore (they also offer a (RED) version of the app as well. With that version you can share your tagged results and it integrates with your Last.fm or Pandora apps too when selecting on a tag for the song.

Trip Journal - If you are a world traveler then this app you will love. It allows you to tag locations with photos and notes. They just came out with version 4.0 and for a limited time it is 99 cents instead of the standard $2.99 price.

Buzzie - If you are really getting into Google Buzz then you will be happy to know there is an app for it now at a modest $1.99. It really is a nice interface and I like it better than the desktop version of Buzz actually.

Google Voice - Ok so technically a web app but a darn good one. Google found a way to circumvent the Apple/AT&T gate keeper (yet Skype has an app...figure that one out for me). Basically you can use it to initiate phone calls like you would on the desktop version. Did I mention I no longer have a long distance plan with AT&T on our landline?

That is going to do it for this weeks edition of Tuesday Tech Talk. Feel free to leave comments below or if you want to send some audio feedback, click on the Call Me button to the right (if you are reading this on my website.) and it will call you back to connect you to my voicemail. Have a great week!