I woke up this morning to a very upsetting email that my favorite music service in the cloud, lala, is closing its doors on May 31st. Â As a member since the tail end of 2008 and an avid user of the service, I of course wish it weren’t so; but since Apple bought it earlier this year, it does raise some interesting questions.
A week or so ago, Gina Trapani wrote on her website about AppBrain, an Android app that inventories your apps, makes recommendations, and makes it easier to manage them. I installed it and played around with it, and have go to say, I’ve actually started using it more than the native Marketplace App. Read my review after the jump!
Facebook, at their annual F8 Conference in San Fransisco, announced that they were expanding the reach of social networking to make it easier for 3rd party sites to access your information on Facebook. This sounds awesomely wonderful if you don’t care about the info you put online. A possible plus is full integration between your likes and related sites. Maybe you “Like” a director on Facebook, so IMDB recognizes it and changes it’s homepage to some of his upcoming work for you. However, you may also see that this is big brother horrifying. It’s also opt-out, not in. So today’s Quick Tip is how to opt out.
I played with an iPad on display at Best Buy today, and I’ve got to say, I don’t hate it. After reading about it, I bashed it for the same reasons I bashed the iPhone/iPod Touch, not to mention that in my not-so-humble opinion, it is an awful ebook reader and won’t hold a candle to the Kindle. See my thoughts after the break.
Recently, I made it practice to keep my most important web development resources in my bookmarks bar in Google Chrome (which is awesome, because I also use Bookmark Sync). These aren’t my development tools of course (Coda on Mac, Notepad++ and Filezilla on PC, Photoshop on both), these are online resources I use on a regular basis. Click on to see them!
Over the last couple of days, a Facebook virus has been going around, cropping up in user’s notifications that someone has, “commented on a photo of you” or “posted a photo of you.” Upon clicking the link, however, you’re taken to a blank 3rd party app page that is automatically installed on your profile.
From what I’ve gathered so far, there are 2 types of links (but could be more). The link includes “beta-dislike” or “photo-comments” in the URL. Simply mousing over the link in the notification will show the URL in the bottom left corner of your browser. If you see either one of those, DON”T CLICK ON IT. Photo links on Facebook are in this format: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=<ID>&subj=<ID>&id=<ID>. There could also be more info after the ?, but no other slashes in the URL. If you see any other slashes, err on the side of caution.
Don’t fret. So far, I haven’t seen any password stealing, profile changing, or other malicious actions. However, I have read that some of the code found in the app may be storing information and sending it to a 3rd party website. This leads me to believe the writer of the app is probably storing the information to sell it to spammers. Here’s how you can fix it.
First, uninstall the application. Go to Applications->Edit Applications in the bottom left  of the chat bar. Make sure “Show: Recently Used” is selected in the drop down box in the top right on the Edit Applications page. Check those apps, look for an app called “Tagged?,” and uninstall it. If you don’t see “Tagged?,” check for other apps that you did not install and get rid of them. Next, it would be worthwhile to change your Facebook password for good measure.
Finally, report the link. In your Notifications, right click the link and copy it from  the notification in question. Go to this page, fill out the form, and submit.  If you have any more information on this little Facebook pandemic, make sure to leave them in the comments! I will post updates here as well (so if you’re reading this on Facebook, you might want to click through to my blog).
To continue my love affair with the Droid, today I’m writing about the Droid accessories I use the most. I created an Amazon Listmaina List of my favorite accessories, and I will likely continue to add to them as I use more. Here are the five I use the most.
I did this last year for 2008, where I alluded to a possible annual post; here we go! This time around I’m covering: toy, website, service, moment, and book.
When I got my Droid, one of the first things I did was tap into Android’s vast app market  to check out apps and widgets (modules you can throw on one of your home screens for instant access to some app or information). I’ve had the device about a month now and there are a few apps that have proved themselves useful and/or awesome. Here is a list of my favorites. (more…)
Those of you who know me might be surprised that I got a Droid less than one year after I got the Blackberry Storm. Those of you who really know me aren’t surprised one bit. As soon as I saw an Android phone come to Verizon, I was interested. I’m highly dependent on Google (Gmail, Contacts, Calendar, etc. etc.), I missed a physical keyboard, and I did my thesis on Android, which means I can program on the platform. I’ve had it for about 3 weeks now- here are my thoughts.
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