Dad Therapy

Wives Will Shoot Down iPad

 
Dads, this is serious. After a brief talk with my wife this evening it seems there is no chance an iPad is heading to the Thomas household. I thought it would be a nice, lightweight alternative to the better-half’s clunky Dell laptop for her chatting with friends in forums and for recipes in the kitchen.

We also have our iPhones out all night long after the kids are down for twitter, facebook and email of course. So it could help with eye strain. Seriously.

But when I mentioned it as a technological innovation to her she said, “what do I need it for? I have my laptop.”

Damn. Foiled. Again. A Twitter pal reiterated this same scenario played out in his household. So dads everywhere share your iPad spouse stories below. 

QuadCamera iPhone app Makes Kid Photos Cool

 
I’ve had the QuadCamera app for a while and use it for some car shots, especially interiors to get a panorama effect. But I’ve had some fun recently capturing a Carter meltdown or two. Then today after realizing I spend a long time just sitting and watching Carter play with his toys I decided to play with one of mine.

I was surprised at how good the pictures were when I actually tried to frame them and took some time. The quad effect I think works best because the finished product is full size. If you try one of the long strings of images I’m not sure where you’ll ever view it anyway.

QuadCamera is $1.99 which is about the limit I have for paying for an iPhone app. A few more images below.

Resistance is futile

Yesterday Carter figured out that the wireless keyboard could control his DVD on the Mac Mini. For some reason, instead of putting the rather expensive DiNovo Edge out of reach my wife pits it in his lap so he doesn't completely freak out. He knew the space button paused the DVD but in the course of twenty minutes he learned the mute button and that the arrow keys skipped chapters. How soon until he's blogging?   

The Year in iPhone Photos

 
I was thinking of doing our annual slide show but was daunted by the thousands of photos we've been taking of the kids. How could I detail the year with so many? It'd take forever and be kind of boring. Then I thought, what if I just use the photos I took with my iPhone. They are a little more spontaneous.

It also reminded me of the little black camera my grandfather used to keep in the car in case we ever were in a situation that required it. I tried to find a picture of the camera, but it was inexpensive and black and had a pop-in type of film that you ratcheted to wind. He had like three of them just to make sure he didn't miss anything. If he was in my generation he'd probably love the iPhone because you have it on you at all times and you snag shots that you wouldn't take with film with its cost. He'd really appreciate the whole cost saving aspect of it that's for sure.

That's my set up. The gallery can be found here. Enjoy.

Two Months with Direct TV

When we moved to the burbs I got the OK from Courtney to get Direct TV for the Sunday Ticket. I was excited for all the football but worried about having to rely on a dish for our reception. When all was done and paid for, we got Sunday Ticket with five months of the top tier programming for free. It was a pricey first payment but monthly fees were right in line with what I was paying for Comcast in the city, plus sports package for NFL network plus HBO for True Blood and Entourage.

Now it's two months later and if you take the Sunday Ticket out of the equation entirely Direct TV is just phenomenal.

Cardboard iPhone Case Reminds Me of Moving a Bit Too Much

I have no idea why anyone would actually want one of these cases, but at $.99 it's probably the cheapest one on the market.

My co-worker @mattraskin handed me one after a bunch were delivered to him at the office — I know, sounds sketchy right? You can access all the buttons but it sure won't fit in my pocket easily. 

Just seeing the broken down, flat cardboard in miniature — below — was like a flashback to our move. I can't escape cardboard boxes!

DirecTV Sunday Ticket iPhone App: The Review

I promised it, so here we go. What was the first Sunday like testing out DirecTV’s live streaming iPhone app for the NFL's Sunday Ticket? Good. Not great, not bad, just good. It certainly isn’t $350 good as many gadget sites say it costs when you count for the price of the Sunday Ticket package on your DirecTV bill. Of course, I got five months of free programming when I signed up so I’m actually ahead on the deal.

As a stand-alone app however there’s a lot to like.

Madden 10 iPhone App Review

Yesterday, a co-worker was jazzed about Madden coming to iPhone. As someone who rarely pays for iPhone apps I was swayed to plunk down the $7.99 special price after I watched him play a game with my own eyes. The graphics were so good for the iPhone I thought this was a must have. That is until I took it for my own test spin.

Best iTunes 9 Feature for Dads

If you’re like me, one of the big selling points of the iPhone was the photo capability. Not just taking photos, but storing your favorites of the kids to show colleagues and family when you’re traveling or catching up. Sure, that’s obnoxious, but we all do it.

That’s why I was surprised that the iPhone through iTunes had no way of breaking out which photos you wanted to import onto your phone. You had to manually create an album apart from the Events that are automatically created when you import photos from your camera. Otherwise you had to sync every photo in iPhoto.

iTunes 9 solves all that. Now, you can check off exactly which Events from iPhoto you want on your iPhone. This is such a straight forward way of doing things I’m a bit annoyed they didn’t think of it with the first generation of the phone.  

DirectTV Sunday Ticket App Live in iTunes App Store

Last night a buddy DMed me via Twitter that the Sunday Ticket Supercast app was live. Ten seconds later I was downloading it on my iPhone. Unfortunately it won’t be functional until Sunday Sept 13 (don’t they know the season starts Thursday!), but if you have Sunday Ticket it might be a good idea and download it now in case anything wonky happens on Sunday the 13th.
 
I’ll have a review of the app on Monday, September 14th.

Download the app here.