Best Applications For The iPod Touch and iPhone:Communications

I’m sure that many people who received either an iPod Touch or iPhone for Christmas this year are looking for good applications for their device. I’m going to do a series of posts on the best applications by categories of apps. All applications I’m review are currently running on my 2 generation iPod Touch.

As I’ve written before, I love the iPhone, but I don’t like AT&T. The iPod Touch is perfect for people like me that love their Blackberry phones and Verizon service, but still want the utility of the iPhone.

Communications
Skype (free) is a voip app that allows you to chat free to other skype users and allows you to make voip calls. I’ve used this app to make short calls and it worked fine. I don’t believe it’s of such a high quality it should replace your phone, but it’s very useful if you want to chat with users for free. If you have an iPod, you’ll need headphones with a microphone (standard iPhone headphones work perfectly with the Touch.  You can download Skype here.

Part Three: More Blackberry Pearl Applications

As I find good apps to add to my Blackberry, I’m going to post about it in this blog… and this time I’ve found some REALLY good apps!

Soft Reset – allows you to do a reset of your phone instead of having to do a battery pull. If you’re wondering why I wouldn’t just pull the battery out? Try it with a hard case on and get back to me. I like it a lot, but it seems like you have to go through too many steps to make this happen. Soft Reset requires you to go through 3 or 4 steps, and IMO, it should only be two… click the button, “are you sure?”, then reboot. I’m going to try Quick Pull too, just to see if it’s any quicker. You can get SoftReset on your phone here or for a desktop install here.

Palringo – is a multi-platform instant messaging client that enables you to talk to all your contacts, whether they’re using AOL® Instant Messenger®, Google Talk™, Yahoo!® Messenger®, Gadu-Gadu, ICQ®, Jabber® or Windows Live. You can download it on your computer here or on your phone here. You can talk via IM, take pictures and send them in IM, or even record your voice and send it! This is, by far, the best instant messaging app (not to mention being one of the only free multi-platforms) I’ve ever used on my phone.

Iheartradio – I’ve talked about Slacker in a previous post, and I’m reviewing Pandora today as well, but they both lack something. Maybe I’m old school, but in this era of iPods, endless playlists, and podcast time shifting, I miss over the air (OTA) radio. Maybe it’s hearing another human voice, or the fact that it’s live, but I love it. I’m also a big fan of Air America Radio. Now with the IHeartRadio app, I can get my fix! The blackberry application has 150 stations steamed in AAC format and allows bookmarking of stations and tagging songs. You can get here.

MobiPocketReader- is an ebook reader for your phone. You can buy books online at places like e-Books or Amazon, but I found a lot of free books at Project Gutenberg. Just today I downloaded The Importance of Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Ulysses by James Joyce, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, and The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf. The books at GP are public domain, but there are a lot of older claissics there that I haven’t read.

Tiny Twitter and Twibble – I’ve reviewed/used twitterberry for a while, so I’m itching to find something different/better/more user friendly. Today I downloaded both Tiny Twitter and Twibble. So far, I’d say that Tiny Twitter’s layout sucks, but functionality is good. Twibble bills itself as a twitter client with GPS abilities. I’m not sure if I want to twitter my GPS location, but I’m willing to try it out. So far the GPS function isn’t working on my Pearl. In the next installment of this topic, I’ll give you the results of trying both of them. If you want to try them yourself, you can get Twibble OTA here and Tiny Twitter OTA here.

Blackberry App World – Is Research in Motion’s answer to the iTunes App Store. So far, I’m loving it. I downloaded the new Pandora version for Blackberry. I had been using Slacker, but I already have a setup at Pandora from years of listening. Both Slacker and Pandora use ratings of songs to find new music. My only issue with Slacker is that lately it’s been starting up on its own. You can get the new version of Pandora at their website or you can just download it from Blackberry App World (BAW). My first swing around the BAW block and I’m already impressed. You can look for apps (many of them free), look at screenshots, and even read reviews of the applications.

Adding (and especially running) a lot of the previous applications at one time may kill your battery life. I also use my pearl as a modem for my Macbook so my battery life can really suffer. I found a pretty easy answer to this. I bought a Energizer “Energi To Go” recharging device. Combined with my Rayovac PS 5-B, I have a quick and easy way to keep my phone charged. The cool thing is that I bought a cell phone charger at Pilot has adapters and the one that fits my phone also fits the energizer charger. So I can keep 4 batteries in my purse and run my phone for very long time, even when I’m multi-tasking.

If you have any applications you just can’t live without, please tell me about them in the comments!

Great Balls of Turkey!

Late last Wednesday I started my trek across Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin to Madison for Thanksgiving. About 2 AM on Thanksgiving morning  I stopped at a 7/11 in Huntley, Illinois to take a restroom break and to get a java refill. When I brought my coffee and snacks up to the counter the cashier tried to make small talk, and said: “So did you just come from the Turkey Testicle Festival? ”

I said “excuse me? Are you joking?” He said, “No, tonight was the Huntley Turkey Testicle Festival, right down the road.” I started to walk away and turned to him and said, “I’m really sorry I missed that! How unfortunate!” as I walked out the door.

Who the hell else but me would stop in a town with a Turkey Testicle Festival?  What are the odds? Ethan and I talked about it on the Radical Trannies and now he’s saying he wants to broadcast live from the festival. Apparently it’s quite the event. You can read about it here and here. Life can be really amusing sometimes… especially when turkey testicle festivals are involved. The only thing that could of made it more amusing would have been Sarah Palin emceeing the event.

Anyone hungry?

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IMG00019.jpg, originally uploaded by mzmartipants.

Nik’s performance
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

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IMG00008.jpg, originally uploaded by mzmartipants.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Ran 2 miles yesterday, 13 mile…

Ran 2 miles yesterday, 13 miles on the bike. Light day, about to go for a two mile run.

The Other Side

I posted over at Transadvocate about my experience at the IFGE convention in Tuscon, Arizona. I kept to the positive, but there is another more negative side personally. One thing I noticed, was the hierarchies within the transcommmunity. How the “pretty people” , the crossdressers, the rich, the poor, all fall into clusters or clicks. Like most of my life, I feel like I don’t really fit anywhere. I’m not sure if that’s self perception, or just a natural reaction to others. Starting a non-profit, I’m going to have to attend a lot of these conferences. I’m finding myself fighting my own inner sense of not belonging. I’m fighting my own demons. One of the big demons right now is my weight. Someone I met at the conference asked me about my sexual preference. It was obvious that she was sexually attracted to me and wanted me. I told her flat out that my own shit, my body image issues, keep me from feeling comfortable with being physically intimate. Mind you, I wouldn’t have had sex with someone that hit on me at a conference. I just don’t do one nighters, but that wasn’t the point. The reality of me right now is that I just don’t think I could let someone in that close to me right now. It would definitely have to be someone that I trusted immensely. These demons are something that I really need to fight, if I want to be successful at the goals that I’ve set.

Then an incident in a online GLBT group I’m a part of really hit me square in the gut. I was reminded where in the hierarchy of importance a transwoman is. I’m still kind of reeling from that. It’s STFU or get out, at least that’s how it felt. Effectively while others can post their opinions, I can’t. Unless I’m quiet, I’m silent, I’m positive, I know my place, I won’t be allowed to be a part of the group. There’s a part of me that knows the importance of this group. I know that being a part of it has opened a lot of doors for me. But I also know that it’s just a matter of time before I’m kicked off. Shut up or leave. I’m really not sure which I can, or should do. Time will tell.

I’m trying to refocus things. I’ve decided that it’s time once again to compact my life, and my goals. Monday I start my part time job. It’s only three hours a day, but it’s going to cut into my blogging and political activities. I’m happy that I found it, but it’s going to be an adjustment. The money from this job is going directly into my savings account and will not be touched except for surgery. Donna Rose has talked recently about balance, and how important it is. One of the things I really miss is doing radio work. I have to make a place for that in my life. It brings me almost as much joy as my writing. But to fit that into my life is going to take removing something else. I’m going to take this weekend to figure out what that is.

I honestly wish that I could bottle the feeling I had in Tuscon. One friend in particular, I wish I had access to on a daily basis. Being around her in Tuscon felt like being around a fountain of youth. Her optimism and hope was really something that inspired me. I want to hold on to that inspiration and hope. It’s definitely hard for me. It’s against what I’ve been taught, what I’ve been told, and how others have treated me. I need more people like her (and my friend R.) in my life.

One of the things I’m going to let my readers into here, is my weight struggle. If you want to see my thoughts, feelings, and struggles on my way to my goal, bookmark Transfatty, my weight loss blog.

At times, hope is the only thing I cling to. This week has been one of those times.

writing about Andre Carson wit…

writing about Andre Carson with chaz giving me funny looks while sitting on my lap.

The Next YouTube?

I really dig this thing… I found OUTFOXXED on it..but there’s sooo much more. It seems way more put together than youtube. I’m gonna investigate it a bit more….

In the mean time…enjoy…

Find this video and thousands of others at vSocial!

I’M GONNA SEE JERRY SPRINGER

Well, kinda. I reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally want to go see “Jerry Springer: The Opera.”

I mean…who can resist dancing Klansmen:

and Jesus and the Satan telling each other to talk to the hand…

I’m so there.

It opens in Chicago May 14th.