Tag Archives: app

‘droid app review – Google Sky Map

Posted on by Posted in Nerd Girl Tech Toys Leave a comment

Sky Map by Google

Okay, I’ve got something really nifty for all us ‘droid nerds out there this week. I was reviewing a rather nicely set up mobile phone & broadband website and seeing the next generation of Samsung Galaxy S class phone out there listed under “Best Selling Phones”, it reminded me I have been wanting to review my newest ‘droid app I stumbled upon a couple of weeks ago. (The next generation of Galaxy S phone is, btw, white. Weird, considering I am so used to mine which is black with a purple, shock-absorbing case surrounding it.)

google sky map detail

Google Sky Map is the best app you could possibly hope for if you are a night sky watcher. A free, Open Source program donated by Google, over 175,000 users rate it a 5 out of 5 and with good reason. Point it anywhere, ANYWHERE, day or night, and it will show you exactly what is out there beyond planet Earth. It views stars, constellations, planets, Moon, Sun, Meteor Showers, the Horizon line, poles & Messier Objects (whatever that is). Any of these objects can be switched off with the flick of a finger for clearer viewing of your object(s) of study.

Perhaps one of the more fun perks of this app is called, “Time Travel”. Choose a date and a time somewhere between the years of 1900 – 2100 and view the sky as it would appear on that date. How cool is that? The Apollo 11 moon landing and solar eclipse of May 29, 1919 are pre-loaded under popular dates, but any date and time is programmable into the interface for your viewing study and pleasure. Once in Time Travel mode, one can tap the buttons to move forward or backwards in time at the ratio of anywhere from real time (1 second to 1 second) to 1 week per second. Teach kids how the movements of the planets appear from Earth in a real neat way.

Having trouble locating the object of your interest? There is a search mode. Just plug in the name of whatever it is you want to view and the app will find it for you on the map. Under the Gallery you can view beautiful shots of our sister planets, nebulas, galaxies, the Pleiades and star clusters as the Hubble telescope has caught them on its cameras.

This is by far the most fun app we have come across in our reviews AND if you pick it up NOW, you will be able to see many of the planets aligned in a straight line including Pluto, Neptune, the Sun, Mercury, Uranus, Venus and Jupiter. Quite a line up, especially when the Moon gets into the act during the evening hours.

As always, we welcome feedback, comments, etc. Pick up Google Sky Map for yourself, check it out and let us know what you think.

‘droid app review – Facebook version 1.7.1

Posted on by Posted in Nerd Girl Tech Toys Leave a comment

The “official” Facebook app is an improvement over the earlier version of the app and worth it for all us Facebooking fools out there to either pick up or upgrade from an earlier version.

It opens up to Top Stories. When tapped, the “All Stories” button at the top opens up a scroll-up at the bottom with options to view Status Updates, Photos, Links, Pages, Events or Videos – an improvement over the old version of the app. The Photo and Status buttons at the top are convenient since they are the most often function used by people checking in on Facebook (the photo button also gives the option to upload videos). Status Updates is not to be confused with the “Status” button. The Status Updates are everyone else’s statuses while the Status button in the middle of the bar below is the one used to update your own status.

facebook 9-icon dashboard

For those that liked the convenience of the 9-icon opening panel, you can still access that dashboard by clicking on, weirdly enough, “Newsfeed” at the top left of the screen. (Guys, you could have just called it something plain yet familiar like…oh well, say, “Dashboard”? That way you wouldn’t have confused the heck out of us.)

I confess I have not yet tried the chat function, so if anyone has experience with it, please feel free to drop a comment on the end of this blog to let us know how it performs.

Note: version 1.7.2 is now available. I will be updating this review as soon as I install it and get some practical use out of it. Give it a day =D

‘droid app review – CurveFish’s Battery Life

Posted on by Posted in Nerd Girl Tech Toys 1 Comment

thumbs_batterylife_1 thumbs_batterylife_3

App Homepage

One of my favorite ‘droid apps, CurveFish’s “Battery Life” is everything you could want in a phone app. – colorful, functional, useful and most importantly, it’s ACCURATE and it WORKS. Set it to show how much of a charge your battery has left, or get real nerdy and also set it to show the battery’s temperature (in Fahrenheit or Celsius), voltage AND technology. Mine is on my home screen and is so much easier to see and read than that tiny little icon up in the corner of the screen. It can also be color customized. AWESOME!

App Crap – Slurpee Nation

Posted on by Posted in Nerd Girl Tech Toys Leave a comment

slurpee

I gave this one months of  hope because I LOVE Slurpees. After installing it late last year, I tried it once a week or so to see if I could get the blasted thing to work. No such luck. I tried logging in after creating a new account through the app and then through their website. Neither ever got me past a consistent, “force close” warning, though sometimes I would be lucky enough to see the screen beyond that where a Slurpee mountain vomited fruit all over my screen…a mind-bogglingly useful screen to waste my battery life on, let me tell you.

To be fair, I did get in – once, but we were on our way to see Harry Potter and couldn’t stop for a Slurpee so I never got any real, practical use from it. After perusing the many and wildly varied experiences of users in the reviews (ranging from “It’s great!” to “It sucks!”), I am giving up – a painful decision as anyone who knows me will tell you since I have been drinking coca-cola Slurpees since back when they were called “Icees” and since I was little. Yes, I know, they’ll rot my stomach and kill me in the end…hopefully I’ll last longer than coffee’s planet-full of victims, but I will tell you this – I won’t waste my time any longer trying to get this brain-paralyzingly LAME application to work on my Android.

Update on Android/Vibrant App Review – iTriage

Posted on by Posted in Nerd Girl Tech Toys Leave a comment

Still sucks, even after last week’s update of the application.

 I was finally able to find “average” emergency room wait times – not “current” – as advertised. And that was for only a specific hospital when a search was done for the nearest facilities to my location. It was under “comprehensive emergency services”. Sorry folks – WRONG ANSWER!!!

 For those who think I am being too critical, let’s look at why you want to use this app. in the first place. You are violently sick, broke your leg or are dying. Your friend or relative is fumbling around on your phone to find the nearest and fastest help because you are too cheap to call an ambulance, or you are unconscious and your friend is too cheap (or too stupid) to call for an ambulance. You want an app that will, with only a couple of keystrokes, tell them where to take you and how fast they will get to you.

A better alternative to this stupid app. is to get the information directly from the hospital. For example, West Hills ER – the people who sent me the flyer on this android app. in the first place, included their text messaging info in the second flyer they sent me. Replying to the text gave me the instant gratification of knowing that their average wait time at that moment was 25 minutes. (For the locals, to do this you text “ER” to 23000 & reply with your zip code and then you’ll receive their average wait times) Awesome! Now we are getting somewhere! Now, assuming my HMO likes West Hills and will let me go there without asking them to amputate my arm and leg in payment, this could work out.

Bottom line? Use iTriage to find the nearest ER – look on their website or call them for a similar text info setup, then uninstall the app. to save hard drive space.

Android/Vibrant App Review – iTriage

Posted on by Posted in Nerd Girl Tech Toys Leave a comment

web_hand_logo

Hypochondriacs of the world united under one app…how awesome is that? For the rest of us who will use it for more practical purposes – like looking up great new diseases to call in sick to our boss/work with, we can keep busy with it, too. Me? I downloaded it because the flyer I got in the mail (you remember snail mail, don’t you) promised one could “view emergency room wait times”. While we all know these days to bring a really good book, your portable nintendo game or other time-waster to the ER, I would really like to be uber-prepared and oh, know what I am getting into with the wait times from hell before I get there. It’s the difference between packing “War and Peace” or your favorite bedtime story book for the kids in tow.

itriage-app-2

So, did this little app bring satisfaction? Uh, NO! At least not with the ER wait times. Crawled over all the options and missed it somewhere. If someone knows where to find it, please leave me a comment. If not, the next time I fall down an open manhole on the street while looking up the nearest place to get a flu shot, I’ll update this article on iTRiage’s other functions ;>

Hey, there’s a thought…an app to find the nearest funeral parlor when you break your neck falling down one of those manholes…no? Well, it was just a thought.

App specs and other commentaries by users can be found here at AppBrian.com.

iTriage.com’s website for you poor slobs still tied to a desktop PC.