Some of my favorite travel apps

I'm way behind on app reviews so now it's time to catch up - or start to catch up anyway. We just returned from an eight day road trip with seven planned stops along the way and I'd like to tell you about my favorite travel apps. Of course I use a traditional map app for much of the travel and I prefer Apple maps since it continues to show the route even if you lose Internet service which we did on two occasions. You can also use Google Maps or Waze for navigation and each has its own benefits.

Most of the following apps fall into my FuF category - free or under four dollars. I use them on my Apple devices  so I can't guarantee they work on other platforms but certainly the most popular ones should.

iExit travel app

• To start with there's one "must have" app if you do much interstate travel - iExit. This easy to use app available on both Apple and Android shows a scrolling view of upcoming freeway exits and the services available there - hotels, restaurants and service stations including the price of fuel at many of them. This makes it a snap to decide whether to stop at the next exit or go a few miles further to one offering different services. We use it frequently to find a hotel and it also shows rest stops for those of us who are always asking "how many miles did it say to the rest stop?" No reason to take an exit if all you need is a rest stop.

• Before we left I used PinPoints
to plan the trip. You enter the stops in the order you want to visit them either with an address or by tapping on a map - maybe just a city name. The app will show a driving route and provide a list of stops with time and mileage from one to the next. It's easy to add, delete and rearrange stops and you can open any segment in the Maps app for navigation.

• I used BatchGeo
a web app (no download required) to store and display information about each of the stops along the way. You enter any information about each stop into a spreadsheet - name and address - along with other items you'd  like to recall - phone numbers, confirmation numbers, etc. Then copy and paste this spreadsheet into the BatchGeo website and see a map with pins at each point. Click on one of the pins to see information from the spreadsheet.

Other travel related apps include
• OMG Transit
for bus schedules and

• FlightAware
for tracking flights (app and website) and

• MeasureMap
to outline map areas and calculate perimeter and area.

• Finally, CityMaps2go
let's you download maps to use if you don't have an Internet connection. GPS does not require Internet access to display your location on a screen. However, your location will just be a small dot in the middle of a blank screen unless you have a map coming from the Internet or preloaded in your device.

All tech companies are not created equal

We often compare tech companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft and Samsung without realizing they represent two significantly different types of businesses. Apple and Microsoft are the "purest" of the group; they both have a relatively small number of related products; they began in the PC era and evolved to embrace the current mobile craze. Their  fortunes are in some ways easy to predict based on how the "PC sector" develops  . Samsung and Google (now officially called Alphabet) represent entirely different models.

As a business, Google is primarily an advertising company - most of its revenue comes from selling ads that show up on searches and YouTube videos. The company uses a lot of technology but does not sell much of it. In addition it has a vast array of experimental projects including self-driving cars and balloons to deliver Internet service around the world. It's possible some of these will eventually go into production and make money but many - likely most - will be cancelled. Their free Android operating system for mobile devices is intended to get Android based phones in as many hands as possible so - surprise, surprise - ads they sell will pop up billions of times per day. Google cannot control much that happens on Microsoft or Apple devices but Android is another story. The image above shows the complexity of the Google structure.

 Samsung most closely resembles a "conglomerate" a collection of unrelated companies - hospitals, construction companies, smartphone maker and chip making foundries to name a few. It diverges from what most people consider a traditional corporate structure and operates more like a hereditary monarchy. When the founder died his son took over; that elderly son has been incapacitated for two years and his son is planning to take the reins when he dies. It's not as simple as it seems because the intrigue as the shift occurs resembles the power struggle in the Saudi monarchy more than a mere passing of the baton.

 It is important to understand these changes since many people are wondering who will be the next Microsoft. As large as some of these companies are some will gradually diminish in power as others become dominant. 

Self Driving Cars - the missing stats

In January I described the results of my December survey on autonomous vehicles and the next day another surprising report came out on this topic. Google - a major promoter of this technology - often mentions that their cars have been involved in a tiny number of accidents and the majority were not serious or the other driver's fault.

It turns out there is a more important metric that was recently reported - how often did the test driver have to take control when the car "requested" or the driver decided on their own to do it. Companies reported many such incidents but  there is no way to know how many avoided accidents but it is safe to assume this some of them did. It is important to remember that Google's big change in this area was to switch from cars with driver controls to ones that are completely autonomous - no steering wheel in sight. They decided it would be impossible for most ordinary drivers - not the test drivers in their current vehicles - to be sufficiently alert to respond to emergencies.


We know that airplanes can and do fly themselves much of the time but there is still a pilot in the cockpit. These pilots are highly skilled and take their jobs more seriously than the average human cruising down the freeway. In spite of these unique circumstances, there is growing concern that airplanes are so automated that even a conscientious pilot may not react properly in an emergency.

As a side note - much of the research in this area is focused on tech enhancements that improve the driving experience and safety but stop far short of autonomous operation. These changes range from self-parking technology to adaptive cruise control that alters speed based on the vehicle ahead.


This Forbes report is a good read on this topic.

Two mobile photo apps that will help you get to the next level

It's been a while since I've taken a "deep dive" into photography so I think it's time. If you want to take your smartphone photography to the next step, you should get two types of apps. The first will help you take better pictures; the second will help you understand how images are captured so you can go back to step one and take better pictures.

There are many apps that will do these things. I'm going to describe Shoot and Exif Photos for the iPhone; DSLR Camera Pro and JPEG Exif Viewer for Android appear to be similar although I have not used them.
 

Exif Metadata shown on the left

It's easy to "point and shoot" with any camera today but if you wonder why your pictures don't look as good as you think they should, these two apps will help. The camera app in your smartphone can be replaced by many others that you download. I really like Shoot that allows you to control exposure settings like you would with "real" cameras. If the scene is too dark and you can hold the camera steady, you might slow the shutter speed below 1/15 Sec - the default value for Apple's camera app.

Second, you should install an app like Exif Photos that lets you see the metadata - the information about a photograph - after it's taken. In addition to date and location, you can then see why a picture was bad - or maybe good! If it looks grainy, you could see that the ISO was very high; if it's blurry, you might notice the shutter speed was too slow for an action shot. Remember there are really only three settings that determine image quality - shutter speed, ISO and lens opening (aperture). By using these apps, you can learn the basics of how a camera works and gradually improve your own images.

Apple's fall 2015 lineup

In its semiannual product roll out Apple made several significant announcements. Here's a short list
          • A 13" iPad
          • iPhone 6s and 6s Plus
          • A long over due version of Apple TV
          • iOS 9 with split screen
          • 3D Touch
          • A Smart back button

1 - a 13" iPad which could be a serious competitor to similarly sized laptops as well as the Microsoft Surface tablet. This last comparison is all the more interesting since a Microsoft employee came on stage at the Apple event to show how MS Office works on the iPad  - what were they thinking??

2 - iPhone 6s and 6s plus - significant improvements in several areas in spite of the "s" designation.

3 - A long over due version of Apple TV to compete with a variety of other Internet connection devices from the likes of Google, Amazon and Roku.

4 - iOS 9 - the latest version of its mobile operating system was released. Of the myriad of features included only one appeared "major" to me. Some Android devices have had a split screen for years and Apple played catch up with a great version of its own. I do a lot of writing on my iPad using a Logitech keyboard/case and now I can read or copy from a source (web page on the right) and compose a document or email (on the left). I have MS Office and Apple's office suite on my iPad so I have power tools at my fingertips wherever I am. I can also have email opened on the left and check or update my calendar on the right which makes scheduling a breeze.

5 - 3D Touch is likely to be the biggest one of all. It combines old style pressure touch with common capacitive touch.

6 - In another development that some would say is a "catchup" move iOS 9 now has a "back button" of sorts which I really like because it is tailored to the application. For example if you tap a date in an email message it will open your calendar to that date and display a "back to email" icon at the top of the calendar. The same thing happens if you click on a web page in a specific document - you will see a back to that source on the web page. I'm sure the debate will rage about whether the more generic Android version is better than the more tailored version of Apple.

Ransomware: a serious and growing threat

Last month I explained how you could avoid visiting "bad" web sites. This article describes the very serious threat of Ransomware. I don't like to write "scary stories" about online dangers but this one is serious and has afflicted several acquaintances. The latest plague on the Internet Land is dubbed Ransomware because these attacks take control of your computer and demand payment. There are two different versions - one not too serious and one really, really serious.

In the first case, clicking on a link in an email message or web page takes you to a fraudulent web site. You will immediately lose control of your computer which is now controlled by code in your browser. The web page displayed will be overlaid by messages saying your computer is locked and you need to "call this number" (don't) for assistance. You cannot get rid of the message or do anything else with your computer. Even if you restart your computer or the browser, the problem often persists. There are so many browsers and operating systems versions I can't tell you exactly what to do. I will say the problem is usually not "fatal" meaning no loss of data and there are ways to deal with it that should be found by a search - obviously on another computer.

The second case is much more serious. Again, clicking on a malicious link (do you see a pattern here?) can cause a total lock up of your computer AND YOUR DATA. Your data is encrypted (unusable) and you will be instructed to pay a fee of several hundred dollars to fix the problem - which of course they may or may not do when you pay up - remember these people are criminals. Sometimes your data can be retrieved by an expert and sometimes not. What can you do?

Prevention is the only good approach because there is no certain cure; you should have a good back up system. Assume all your data will be lost sometime. This can include a backup disk strategy that is well thought out - unconnected backup disks (otherwise they might also be corrupted), disk rotation including off-site copy, etc. Increasingly we are turning to cloud storage to put our information in an entirely different location. Dozens of these service exist - Dropbox, Box, Sugar sync, MS iDrive, Google drive, Apple iCloud, etc.

Of course the best strategy is to use more than one - combine local storage with a remote service. I was a cautious at first but my preference now is to use cloud storage - iCloud and Dropbox - for my "originals" and make copies on to my local hard drives from time to time. Having the originals stored in the cloud makes them accessible from any device anywhere. I use the word "originals" advisedly since the original meaning of original no longer applies. My originals are the cloud based working copies - which are occasionally backed up locally.

Recognizing suspicious websites

You would certainly be cautious when opening your door to let someone into your house. You should be just as careful when opening your computer to someone you don't know. A single mouse click can let a total stranger take control of your computer and all the information in it. We often hear you should only click on links sent to you by people you know. The bizarre assumption here is that you don't know how to spot bad web sites but all of your friends do - so apparently ALL of your friends are smarter than you. I doubt that.

The important thing to remember is that a web site is identified by two different character strings. The first one is the one you see displayed as a "link". It might be something like "click here" or www.IBM.com. It could also be a picture. The words are usually underlined and often a different color. The second string is the real "website address". It is always a string of characters such as www.com.com/abcde/mnop.html and it is always hidden from view. This is the one that matters. The one you can see may have no real meaning at all and if someone were trying to get you to go to the Toyota web site, they could show www.Honda.com but connect it to the address www.Toyota.com.

More likely scammers would link www.Honda.com to a fraudulent web site. That's how it works - what you see is not what you get. If you are not certain a website link is legitimate you need to view the actual (hidden) website address. How you do this varies from device to device but you can usually right click or copy the displayed link and paste it into the address/search field of your browser. The supposed www.IBM.com link might look more like "www.companyyouveneverheardof.ch - a company you've never heard of with a website registered in China (ch). Be very suspicious when there are two unrecognized letters following the first period. These are country codes - MX Mexico, RU Russia, etc.

NEXT MONTH I'll explain the two versions of Ransomeware - and what you can do about them

These are a few of my favorite things (apps - that is)

Since apps are generally inexpensive and easy to try out I'm just going to make a list of my favorites as a starting point. You can check them out and judge pretty quickly whether or not you want to try them. PS Photoshop is the most expensive ($10) but it's worth it if you want to do serious photo editing.

I have only used these apps on the iPhone and iPad. I can't be sure they are available on Android or Windows but many probably are. (Note: I'm not a big time gamer - not even a small time gamer!)

WEATHER

Storm, WunderStation, Work Time HD

PHOTOGRAPHY

ImageChef+, Panorama(DMD), Photo Delight, PS Touch (Photoshop lite), FrameMagic, SnapStill

BUSINESS/PRODUCTIVITY

Keynote (presentations), Pages (word processing), EasyCalendar, Microsoft OneNote, Calculator(MyScript), Dropbox

ENTERTAINMENT

IMDb (movie database), TV Guide, Pandora

Because we can - the curse of modern software - Pt 2

(Part 1 was published in February - read it here)
I was thrilled recently when I discovered our new microwave had one hundred "power levels" - exactly ten times as many as its predecessor - which cooked quite well until it quit cooking. Then I discovered a scary fact: that amount of power was what you would expect from the radiation leak of a medium sized nuclear reactor - a scary thought indeed. Upon further research I discovered that power level 100 (new) is exactly the same as power level 10 (old). Just one of many problems we can blame on Ada Lovelace  (1815-1852) better known as "the first programmer" - yes the first programmer was a woman!

A few decades back when you designed something - a car or a toaster for example - every feature you added required metal or plastic pieces and usually some wiring. read the rest of the story here.
Once the product was created, modifying it was very difficult and usually accomplished by the kid next door souping up a hot rod in a month's long undertaking. For better, but often for worse, things are different today due to the curse of software.

Now a new feature or a modification - like increasing the power levels on a microwave - can be done by assembling a series of ones and zeros (called programming) and these can be injected into your stereo or carburetor with the click of an "upgrade now" button. This has lead to the "Because We Can" syndrome. Programmers are known for their dedication to their task, creativity and long hours. And of course the marketing department adds to the problem by dreaming up new "features" in day long brain storming sessions. These powerful forces combine to crank out millions of zeros and ones (called features) every month.

Is it any wonder most of us can't figure out most things we own that run on electricity. It started with our inability to program a VCR so we couldn't even use it to tell time let alone schedule recordings.
I've previously used the example of "feature bloat" in Microsoft Word which grew by their own admission from 150 to 1,500 commands. Why? Two reasons. Something had to change to sell upgrades over the years and software is incredibly easy to modify.

Now - years after we gave up trying to program our VCRs - we face the challenge of programming our microwaves, refrigerators, smoke detectors, auto dashboards and thermostats and - even more exciting - we will be able to do it from any place in the world. Due to this great advance in technology - willy nilly adding more digits - you can now know precisely to the one hundredth of an ounce how much weight you gained over the holidays!

Help may not be on the way

Raise your hand if you've ever ask a nephew, neighbor or colleague for help with your computer - maybe trying to change a page margin or turn off the bold setting in MS Word. That's what I thought, put your hands down. There are really a small number of "experts" like your nephew - maybe 5% of users. Everyone else just tries to get by and learn as little about technology as possible - "I don't want to study it, I just want it to work" you say - and life goes on. Now, imagine the future Internet of Things where "they" want to connect everything you own to the Internet.

"Everything" includes your washing machine, your thermostat, your blood pressure cuff, your garage door opener and your mother's heart monitor. Now imagine what happens if you really don't understand how it all works. It's one thing to have a not so pretty Word document but what if you decide when you wake up that you don't want the coffee maker to start right away and turn it off with your everpresent smartphone - but accidentally disable grannie's pacemaker. Those darned icons look a lot alike without your glasses. The bigger point is that if you think using a handful of PC programs is hard, what will it be like when dozens of other "things with computers" are "upgraded" with a host of features and commands - just like MS Office. "I need to call Philbert 'cause I can't figure out how to make toast"! I'll continue this topic next month with "Because we can - the curse of modern software".

The Wayback machine

You might think that information on the web stays on the web - but sadly it does not. Quite often embarrassing or incriminating pages just disappear as fast as you can say "delete". Since web resources are routinely quoted for much of our work, what happens when those links are no longer available. Whether it's a class report, a research study or a legal document, the veracity of our work often depends on the sources. This New Yorker report goes into great detail on this very critical topic and the Wayback web archive that hopes to solve the problem.

The future of tablets

It's likely tablets will continue to grow in power, storage and size. If they hope to replace laptops, they will need to be bigger and rumors abound that Apple will introduce a 12 inch model this year. This could be related to the recent agreement between Apple and IBM which is beginning to bear fruit - including their first roll out of business apps.

Speaking of replacing laptops, a good keyboard is a must companion for your tablet and the latest models by Logitech are astounding. I do most of my typing - including this newsletter - on the one shown above at a coffee shop recently. If you want to use a tablet as a productivity tool, you really should get a keyboard. 

What can Samsung learn from Downton Abbey?

My apologies if you are one of the three people not yet hooked on Downton Abbey but there really are striking similarities between the two. DA features the owners of a large English estate governed by a descendant of previous owners. Likewise Samsung is ruled by the grandson of the original founder like many other SE Asian companies.

DA and Samsung are both struggling to find a new business model. In the case of DA they decided to raise pigs! Samsung has lost significant ground in the the smartphone market in the last year due to competition from Xiaomi at the low end and Apple at the top. Their focus at last week's Consumer Electronics extravaganza was not on phones (or pigs) but all the things they could connect to the Internet - the Internet of Things. Samsung still sells more smartphones than anyone - they just don't make much money doing it.

Please forgive me - I never imagined I'd be writing my tech column about a soap opera!

Picture This: Have you tried video/still photography?

For kids, sports and wildlife photography, it's very difficult to press the shutter at exactly the right time for that "special" image. As smartphone cameras improve, you should consider taking action shots in video mode and then extracting the best stills.

Professionals who spend thousands of dollars on a single lens for cameras that can snap ten frames per second and weigh five pounds have the perfect solution - but I only know six professional photographers. For the rest of us a good quality smartphone, a little time to get the best video possible and an app such as SnapStill to locate and save special images is all it takes. The picture at the right was taken on my iPhone originally as a video.

Read this if you're thinking about connecting your TV to the Internet

You can connect a TV to the Internet in two ways. Higher priced new TV sets come with connection circuitry installed and the TV becomes another WiFi device on your home network. The alternative - buying a separate set top box - has the advantage of more flexibility. As this field evolves, you can replace the box - typically less than $100 - and not the TV. Since Amazon announced their new set top box recently, a reporter studied the reviews Amazon members gave to the devices they owned including Apple TV, Roku 3, Google Chromecast, and the new Amazon Fire TV. Here's the report. To make things even more confusing Google just announced their third approach to connecting your TV - 2010 Google TV that was too much like a computer - keyboard required - 2013 Chromecast is an inexpensive "dongle" that attaches to the TV and has received good reviews and now - 2014 Android TV considered a more direct competitor of Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV. (first published in May 2014 Newsletter)

What do you think of Facebook's psychological experiment?

If you're big in social media, you really should read what Facebook just revealed and decide whether you approve or disapprove. In summary, they manipulated the information users received to see if it would influence their behavior - i.e. what they posted. This article gives a good summary that is well worth reading and here's what ComputerWorld had to say. This situation is unfolding just as Google is starting to censor some of its searches! You can read much more about the "right to be forgotten" here - a landmark legal ruling.

(first published in July 2014 Newsletter)

Samsung tablets? have we got a deal for you - a lot of deals actually

I'm always shocked by the number of people who shoot in the dark when they make mobile tech purchases (remember people, these are real computers and not just $400 toys). They go out to buy a Samsung tablet since a friend had one - with no idea there are 22 different models of Samsung tablets available today. They end up buying one of the four models on the shelf of the local electronics store. What kind of decision process is that?

Here’s what Android fan and guru JR Raphael says about the current bumper crop of Samsung tablets. I'm sure there are many fine tablets on the list but they are not all created equal so just buying any old Samsung tablet is not the answer.

(first published in July 2014 Newsletter)

Camera comparison chart now available

As part of a new presentation on photography I've prepared a chart to compare prices and features of the seven common digital camera types - from smartphones and point and shoot cameras at one end to top of the line digital SLRs at the other end. Click here. It is important to note that sensor size is more important than megapixel count when rating image quality. Unfortunately, virtually all smartphones, point and shoot cameras and long zoom compacts have very small sensors. If you want really high quality images that can be cropped and enlarged you should consider the new category of Interchangeable Lens Compacts or Consumer DSLRs with large sensors. And remember if you want a ton of great information on cameras, make sure you check out DPreview.com - everything you need to know about every available camera including prices, reviews and detailed specs.

Looking for great and free apps? (5/14)

Finding good apps can be a daunting task with millions available. To help you sort through this overwhelming selection, you should visit AppCrawlr.com - a web site that lets you filter and search for Apple, Android and Windows apps by category, price and other criteria.

There are even apps that let you search for apps. One of my favorites for Apple apps is AppsGoneFree; every day it lists 5-7 apps that are free for a short time. I check it frequently and have found many great bargains.

Microsoft Office now on the iPad (4/14)

The long awaited announcement last week that Microsoft Office can now run on the iPad is a very big deal. Many people would not use an iPad in the past because Word, Excel and Powerpoint were not available - now they are. I've had the weekend to play with all three apps and I am definitely impressed. Considering this is Microsoft's first attempt at a tablet based version of Office they did an outstanding job. The apps are intuitive, easy to use and well-designed to work on a small screen. I spent most of the time with Powerpoint and found it comparable to Apple's Keynote in ease of use. Based strictly on features, I'd find it difficult to recommend one suite over the other. Of course most comparisons aren't or shouldn't be based strictly on features. Price is always a factor and this is the first big concern with the new Microsoft products. NOTE - If you're just trying to understand this subject, Apple has long had three desktop competitors to MS Office - Keynote (presentations), Pages (word processing) and Numbers (spreadsheets). They have companion iPad apps also.

So what's the price issue? Many people are disturbed to learn that the "free" Microsoft iPad Office suite requires a $100 per year subscription to Office 365. The pricing structure is complex - students get a much lower rate, for example. The other surprise is that the mobile version is not identical to the desktop version. Microsoft had no choice but to do a from the ground up rewrite because, as I've said frequently in the past, Office software was designed for a large screen and doesn't work well on any ten inch device. If you don't believe this, just go to Onlive.com and run Windows/Office on your iPad or other tablet using a remote server/PC. This is straight forward and will work great if you have fingers the size of toothpicks. The following links will help you understand the various price plans for the new iPad Office - Mashable.com and ZDNet.com. A lower priced personal version is coming in the spring.

Why on the iPad and not Android? Because Microsoft put Office on the iPad before Android tablets, they must feel Google is the real enemy. Numerous moves we've seen in the mobile field recently are all about choosing sides in what is likely to be a bloody battle for mobile dominance for at least the next five years. If you're a dedicated Windows user and you choose to use the latest and greatest Office 365 suite, the iPad MS Office apps might just be what you're looking for since you've already paid for the contract. If you're slightly less committed to Windows, you might prefer Apple's iWork version since either approach requires changing software but the Apple apps don't require a contract. Both the Microsoft Office and Apple iWork apps work with standard office files - doc, ppt, xls. Of the three Office apps, I've always felt spreadsheets were the hardest to convert to the small screen. Excel is a beautiful and powerful program and the PC/Mac versions will be king of the hill for years to come.