Loopt appears to be good, but has proved to be a bit frustrating. Their website needs some major help.

• Login on their website and you’re brought to “My Home”. Click on the Loopt logo to go back their home page and the “login” link still appears on the top right corner as if you’re logged out (but you’re not). You need to scroll down the page to where the front page’s login for was, and it will give you a link to go back to “My Home”. A minor annoyance, but usability-wise, that’s just sloppy.
• On their website, every “search” link brings you to either a search for people, or search through “friends’ places”. So… you can’t search for places to add your own reviews without zooming into a map of the area and manually clicking on each pin until you find the right one?
• I swore that when I checked the “My Home” page on their website yesterday there was a nice Microsoft map that you can zoom in/out using your scrollwheel, etc. (but everywhere else there was a “Tele Atlas” that doesn’t appear to be as user-friendly). I don’t see it now - I only see the Tele Atlas maps everywhere.
• When I click on my “Journal” page, or try to do anything that brings me there, I’m given a pop-up error that the page couldn’t be loaded properly. Perhaps this is because I haven’t posted any journal entries?
• If you make a mistake or typo something, you can’t edit your comments on your places?
• The whole navigation needs to be revamped because menu items and links don’t bring you where you expect, and there’s what appears to be redundant / useless pages and links.

I only have one real complaint about the iPhone app:

• The restaurants that show up on the map have ratings. You can add comments, but you can’t rate it yourself because the ratings aren’t from your friends within Loopt - they come from Yelp. I see the benefit of having the Yelp ratings, but I would really like to be able to rate it and not just add a comment.

I tried Whrrl yesterday too. I actually tried that one first, and then moved on to Loopt (which seemed like a better alternative at the time). It’s still in beta, so maybe the wrinkles will get ironed out soon. It has a lot of potential.

What can it do that Loopt can’t?

• You can give locations a rating (yay!) as well as a review/comment.
• You can mark each location as a status of “I want to go”, “I’ve been there”, etc.
• You can go back and edit your reviews/comments!
• The maps interface on their website is a lot nicer.

What about the negatives? Why did I leave Whrrl for Loopt? Honestly, at this point I forget. I think the iPhone app felt clunky and frustrated me so I decided to give Loopt a try? You can’t zoom in or out from your location - that’s annoying.

A lot of the bad reviews stated that it crashed a lot and the locations were inaccurate. At this point I think I might switch back. Neither of the apps appear to be incredibly accurate on your current location. It looks like they’ve even updated it since I last tried it just yesterday.

I’m trying to keep busy at work, but it’s not very motivating when there’s no direction from management and little communication between the only other member of your team. This place is really going downhill.

People have left. People have been let go. On Thursday we were all on a “MANDATORY” conference call where we were yelled at for 45 minutes by our CEO for something that 90% of us had no idea what it was about. The structure is being rearranged pretty much weekly - yet it’s not being announced, so most people don’t know who they report to anymore. I think it’s only a matter of time before there’s a rash of more people leaving (perhaps myself included if I can get a portfolio together?). I love this company, but this environment isn’t very healthy at all. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve only had the iPhone for 25 hours, and so far I’ve learned a few things.

1. I REALLY like the white iPhone. Does that make me girly?
2. The 8GB would not have been nearly enough for me. I’m glad I went with the 16GB.
3. The Remote app ROCKS. Now I just need to remember to leave my computer speakers on all the time…
4. My old iPod USB cable DOES work with the iPhone 3G.
5. My old iPod Firewire car charger does NOT work with the iPhone 3G.
6. I’m REALLY going to need a case for it. So far, this one is my favorite even though I would really prefer a neoprene case that left the back viewable so you can see the GelaSkin. Otherwise, I’m going to have to forgo the GelaSkin =(
7. Super Monkey Ball is REALLY HARD to play when in a car.
8. It’s only a matter of time before Steve gets one too.

I’m so happy (and completely exhausted)! I’ve been wanting for this for 1.5+ years now and I finally have it. I wish there was more storage so I wouldn’t need to rely on my ipod as much, but I think it’ll work out just fine. The top rated songs only take up approx. 1/2 the disk space (so far). That leaves 8GB for apps, movies (maybe only for travel), video podcasts, photos, etc. Read the rest of this entry »

I signed into DeviantART for the first time in a while yesterday. Unfortunately I found a comment on my wings sketch that was a little upsetting.

Gah, Im sorry. I saw these wings in photobucket and someone said it was theres and I could use them. Ill delete them of my work right away. I really am sorry.

I really appreciated that they came to me and let me know - and even removed them from their work. I don’t yet know who on Photobucket is claiming that my sketch is THEIRS and “authorizing” people to use them.

I really don’t like it when I find my wings in other people’s “works”. Most of the time though, they honestly don’t know any better. That’s why I have since watermarked the sketch and even added a Creative Commons license and lots of CAPITALIZATION to try to make it clear that they are not a stock image.

I spent some time searching Photobucket for “wings”. I thought I was almost done when I realized that there were 58 THOUSAND (58,000) results - and not 58 hundred (5,800). I was heartbroken when I realized that. I’ve spent hours scrolling through page after page. After 988 pages of just under 20,000 images… I’ve found over 20 copies of my wings in various states and sizes.

*does the math* Wow. That’s one offense per 1,000 images (or one every 50 pages). I guess it’s not quite as bad as I originally thought…

I’m torn on whether I’m going to finish going through ALL of the search results or not. It’s just so time consuming… If I don’t do it though, it’ll bother me that there still might be quite a bit out there - and I’ve already come this far…

I have an email prepped to report the offending images to Photobucket’s copyright infringement department. Wish me luck!