How the dutch police lock their bikes
Walking in den Bosch this afternoon I saw these two police-bikes standing in front of a shop. I just couldn't resist taking the picture.
via SimplyTweet
Walking in den Bosch this afternoon I saw these two police-bikes standing in front of a shop. I just couldn't resist taking the picture.
Today was the first time I went for a run with the babyjogger with my 7 months old daughter in it. The weather was great: 23 degrees with mild clouds and a little wind. She had a lot of fun, as had I. This was also the first time I used my new iPhone 3GS to track the map using InstaMapper. InstaMapper is a free tool that sends waypoints periodically to the InstaMapper server. Below 120 seconds between updates it keeps the gps on, over that time it turns the gps off. It won't send an update until the configured accuracy is reached. This time I used 100 meters and 60 seconds. When the gps stays on InstaMapper claims that it will drain the battery in 5 hours. On the InstaMapper website you can make a track from a series of waypoints which you can than export or share with the world. Until Posterous supports .KML files the following map is created with an iframe to InstaMapper.
I regularly check these podcasts:
I will add comments per item soon.
Today was the second edition of a long, to be standing, tradition. A neighborhood BBQ for a big part of our street. Maybe street BBQ is a better term? Where we had beautiful weather last year, this year we were in doubt. We did the preparation, building the tents and everything, in very heavy rain. The wind even teared a hole in the green tent in the picture. We had to secure the bouncer to keep it from blowing away.
After these preparations I did a 10k run to pick up the sun. From the moment I got back we enjoyed a nice sunny weather. All the kids where playing on the street which was closed for traffic and the adults couldn't resist the bouncer. After a nice meal with a lot of meat we put the kids to bed and gathered together round a fire for some after-drinking. Some even tried to play the guitar.
Around midnight we cleared everything, put the tents back in the boxes and moved to our beds. Plans are already made for next year.
In the comments of "How I listen to podcasts" I wrote that I was sure that my quest for the right solution is still not over. Well, after experimenting with a hybrid RSSPlayer, iTunes and Music App workflow for over three weeks I just moved back last night to RSSPlayer only.
RSSPlayer rocks. Not able to multitask is the only problem of using RSSPlayer but it is nothing compared to the huge workflow of downloading the files the native or the hybrid way. Downloading directly is also saving a lot of time in the difference between RSS-publication and iTunes-publication of a file. I can really recommend buying RSSPlayer in the App Store.
Notice: this post applies to listening to podcasts, without the use of iTunes on a computer, directly on an iPhone or iPod Touch.
I am not a huge fan of Office, but I really like this "movie"-trailer...
In a previous post I talked about the why of listening to podcasts. This post is about the how. I started listening to podcasts on my Apple iPod last year.
I discovered some podcasts in the iTunes-directory and downloaded them. The iTunes-directory is very nice to search for podcasts and try them out. When I liked one I started to download it. I didn't want to use the iTunes program for this purpose because that would require a computer and damage my workflow. But the workflow was still not optimal. For downloading the initial podcast, no problem. But how do you know when there is a new item? Well, you open the music app, go to the podcast, hit "get more episodes" and get send to the right directory in the iTunes app. Most of the time you will find out that there is no update. You then either go back to the music app and try the same sequence for the next podcast or hit search in the iTunes app and enter the name. With 15 different podcasts to follow this is quite a hassle.
This was the moment I moved to RSSPlayer, which is a great app! I searched for the RSS-files of the podcasts I liked, most of them could be found through its native search, and entered them in the app. Once in a while I let the app look for updates and when updates are found download them. You then have an agenda of unlistened podcasts which is kind of like a playlist. RSSPlayer plays the files itself which works great. There is even a built-in web browser to surf the web while listening to a podcast. This is needed because Apple does NOT allow third-party apps to play in the background and files downloaded by RSSPlayer cannot be played by the music app. Another thing I found out was that publication in iTunes is sometimes hours behind RSS-publication.
And that is the reason I changed my workflow again. I really like to listen to a podcast and at the same time mail, twitter or use other apps. On the bike or while running I like to have iTalkingClock say the time every five minutes. This is all impossible with RSSPlayer. So what I do now is look for updates in RSSPlayer and download the podcasts through the music app and iTunes, hoping that Apple is not too much behind. Although I really like RSSPlayer, background playing is too important for me, accepting the extra worflow. I am sorry Alex.
With OS 3.0 came the option to listen to podcasts at double (or half) speed. This is a really great and time-efficient option. I was stunned that listening to speech at double speed is not that much of a difference to normal speed. It is not as noticeable as with music. This is great: you get twice the information at half the time!
Congratulations! After celebrating my parents in law's anniversary and my daughter's babyshower we had another party in the Gasthuiskapel Zaltbommel.
