App Review: Diptic. Update.

 Awhile ago I reviewed an app called Diptic. You can see that here. Well here's an update for that review. I recently updated the os on my iPhone 3GS to iOS 6. You can see that here. In iOS 6 Diptic updated some of it's features. You can see their website here. I am only reviewing for my phone the 3GS. There is other features available for different models of the iPhone.

 I hit on the fact that when I sent the picure to my email and downloaded it, the file size was 640x640 and a PNG file. The same thing happened again. See the pic below. I don't know why that is happening?

I saved the collage as "hi-res" and it is still 640x640.

  Let's get to some cool features. So now when I add effects, I can add filters to each individual picture. Or I can add them to all the photos at the same time.

  This was cool. Now I just want the resolution to be fixed when I send the picture to my email to use on my blog.

Finished project.

 I am happy with this collage app but I think there might be another good one out there. I will keep looking. For now this will work. And I don't want to spend another 99 cents until I know for sure it does what I want. I hope this helps you. Till next time.

Cellphone pic Thursday 9-27-12.

iOS 6 on a 3GS. My Review.

 Now remember, this is for an iPhone 3GS. The phone is now discontinued by Apple, and it is three plus years old. I am very pleased but surprised this phone can handle this operating system update. This blog is about my experiences only. This is not a guide on how or if you should do it.


 So as you all know the iPhone 5 was released. And as you know that means a new update for iOS. This time it was iOS 6. I normally skip these updates because I hear they don't work very well with the 3GS. Yes I know, I know, it's time to update, and upgrade phones. I'm working on it.

Left is the last version of iOS I had. Right is iOS 6. Notice the color scheme is different in 6 compared to 4.

 Well I said screw it. (and thinking there was a problem with our phones and with our messages long story that needs not be said) I decided to jump into the update process. I plugged the phone in to iTunes, and started the backup. Then I started to update. It actually only took 35 to 40 minutes per phone. My friend said his iPhone 4, took an hour. I don't know if that was over the air or not? Our phones hadn't been updated since 4.3.5 so we didn't have iCloud or over the air updates. Well after the update process all seemed OK with the phones. I started playing with my phone to see all the updates. I was reading about iOS 6 before the update so I knew a little bit about it.

 After I updated my phone I noticed that my songs were gone. I downloaded those from iTunes that I had purchased at home. That didn't make sense to me. I lost a picture older I had uploaded from my computer. I don't know if that was because I used a different computer for updating, or because of iOS 6? The available space has gone down in my phone since the update also. That's not a big deal for me because I don't have a lot of apps, but I know other people live for apps so space is a premium.

 iMessage.
iMessage was turned on by default. We have a text plan so we don't need to use iMessage. I sent a quick text to a person from my wife's phone, and they asked why it was me Ben using Melissa's phone. Well in iMessage (Can I just say for the record this lowercase "i" before everything pisses me off and annoys me so I'm stopping.) When you have a set email address in itunes imessage uses that persons name even though you have two phones, hence my name showing up on my wife's imessage. I turned off her imessage and all was fine. You have to set up a new account to use that name as your caller id for imessage. Confused yet? Needless to say since we don't need imessage, I'm not setting up another account for Melissa's imessage. Maybe later and if she wants it.

 Icloud.
This feature is great. It saves all of your contacts, camera roll. app information in the "cloud". Well I promptly backed up, and synced both out our phones to the icloud account that came with my itunes account. Well heres the first second problem I encountered. My contacts were inter mixed with my wife's and vice versa. I started deleting the contacts that weren't mine. Low and behold I was deleting Melissa's contacts off of her phone. Well how could that be? It's synced to icloud. I did a quick Google search and found this was a common problem (I'm so glad I was in the loop. (being sarcastic). The fix. you have to create a new icloud account for ALL of your devices or they will all mix their contacts and content. But you can have one itunes account for apps and songs for all of your devices. Make sense? Nope not to me either.

 Well let's get to some new features.

 Text messages.
Text messages are green for sms text, and blue for imessage. Other then that not much has changed (to me at least). One feature I found see picture below. I had always hated when there was a paragraph text. I had to go back to the main messages window, then go back to see the full message. Now you don't have to. Put your finger on the screen above the send button and slide it down. Now its full screen!

Full screen with a slide down with your finger.

 MMS messages.
The only thing I have seen that has changed is the IMG name. Now it says .JPG or .PNG. That's cool to me.

 Photos.
I have noticed that the back and forward arrows are gone when you look at pictures now. They used to be near the message button. Now you have to slide the pictures with your fingers. That's fine but sometimes I liked the arrows.

 Message options.
This was cool to see. It seems like it will be easier to use your pictures how you want to.

 Photo editing.
I belive this was available in a previous ios update but I'm not sure? I like how it added thes little fixes. Therefore you don't have to take a picture, save it, and launch a new app for just a crop or red eye removal. I wish panorama mode was available on the 3GS but I totally get why it's not.

 Photo albums.
I was excited for photo albums because then I could finally make a "beach" or whatever album. Yes you can but, and that's a big BUT you move pictures over to your new album, but it keeps the picture in the camera roll and bascially creates a copy in the new folder. That to me is not what I wanted so I won't be using that. Hopefully Apple can fix that later? Then another thing, when you go to delete your picture from the camera roll, it asks if you want to delete it everywhere.

A copy of my picture in the test folder from my Camera Roll.

Trying to delete the picture from my camera roll.

 Battery.
My battery has been going faster then it was before I did the update to ios 6. Now I do have to say I have been sending a lot more pictures and messages then I was because of this blog for instance. I need more time to see how it really is. The fourth day using my phone with the new os the battery is lower then before. I could get 50 percent out of my battery in a typical day. Now I'm using 75 percent of my battery for the same use.

 Well this is not as long as I wanted it to be but I think I hit on some points for the 3GS at least. I hope this helps you in deciding to update or not. For me I think it was worth it. It gave me extra functionality out of my phone. Till next time.

Mars Rover Curiosity 9-25-12 pics.

 The Mars Rover Curiosity made a rock contact. Photo courtesy of NASA Photojournal.

Mars Rover Curiosity pics 9-19-12

 The Mars Rover Curiosity panorama of Glenelg. Photo courtesy of NASA Photojournal.

Cellphone pic Thursday 9-20-12.

Summer day in September.

App Review: Diptic.

 So I have been noticing people on Instagram, have been uploading collages. I started doing research for collage apps. Now, I did have a collage app already, but I didn't like it. There weren't any premade layouts. You had to move and size all the photos yourself. That's fine but I have big fingers so it's hard to maneuver those photos.

This is the old collage app. This picture turned out decent but I know it could have been easier.

 So one app that kept showing up on my search results was, Diptic. So I did some reading about Diptic, and learned it has premade layouts. In the picture sections, you can slide the picture around and size it to your liking. You can round the corners inside, and outside of the picture. It was what I was looking for.

You can see the difference in this picture compared to the other one.

We recently switched our cellphone plan, no we can see the minutes and data side by side.

Melissa's pictures from the Jimi Hendrix grave.

 Sometimes it saves the files as PNG at 640x640 resolution. I don't understand this. The other file type is JPG, at resolution of 1024x1024. (I have a iPhone 3GS or the resolution would be higher). Facebook, and Blogger can accept PNG's so it shouldn't matter what the file type is but it's still annoying. Another catch is that when you round the corners on the picture, then transfer it to Instagram the corners are rounded but the very edge of them or filled in by white.

If you look close the corners are filled out in white, instead of being black like the border.

 So this app does do what I want it to, but there is a couple of catches. It also has a shake to clear function. Meaning if you mess up, you shake your phone and it asks if you want to clear all photos and settings. It was worth 99 cents even with the few annoying things. I hope you liked the review, and it helps you find your collage app needs. Till next time.

Cellphone pic Thursday 9-13-12

Mars Rover Curiosity pics 9-10-12

 Here are some new updated pictures from the Mars Rover Curiosity. As always these photos are courtesy of NASA.

The martian surface.

The calibration unit.

Zoomed in on the calibration unit.

Belly check.

Belly panorama. 

9-11-12.

 Let us never forget 9-11-01. 

9/11 Memorial. 

Weekend Review: 9/8-12 - 9/9/12.

 So with a sick wife at home. this weekend was some much needed house projects. When we built our house, we saw an option for these things called window "cleats". I was like I'm not paying extra for these things. Well cut to now, we should have gotten them. They are for the cords for the blinds in your windows. It's good safety for kids, and keeps pets from chewing the cords. So now I had to go out and find them, buy them, and install them myself.

 No it wasn't hard, but I wish some body else could have done it. Ha ha. Home ownership is good, but you also have to do it all yourself. I'm glad I can figure these things out.

Saturday we went to Five guys burgers and fries. We love this place. You can order a regular fry, and it is the equivalent to a large fry. They fill the fry container, then they pour another scoop full into the bag itself. They cook their fries in peanut oil. This gives the fries a very good unique flavor. If you can definitely check it out for yourself.

 Now this isn't necessarily a weekend review but, this is me being proud of myself (#proudofmyself). Obviously you have heard of Instagram. My photo made it in the second spot for a hash tag. #dirtyjobs. My ultimate goal is to make it to the "Explore" page. So below is my picture, that made it in Instagram.

 At my job every once in awhile, I have to fix or try and fix broken things. Unfortunately this this means toilets. Luckily this time it was the water that wouldn't stop running, so I just had to turn it off. I hope you had a good weekend. Till next time.

Mars Rover Curiosity pics 8-29-11

 These pictures are from the Mars Rover Curiosity. These pictures are courtesy of NASA.

 Have a good weekend. Till next time.

Cell phone pic Thursday 9-6-12

My Blog Keyword Search.

 So on Blogger there is a "stats" section, that tells you all the referring websites, and the Google keywords search. I think some of these referring sites are obviously spam. Some of these are key words that people typed in Google, and found my blog. So I decided to share some of these with you.

 I had no idea how many people were searching for the "Eye of Sauron", or "Dobby gets a Sock", and "Halloween 1978". I'm glad to be of service when it comes to my blog and my movie minutes. And to help people find the picture they are looking for. So this is the validation I needed to keep my movie minutes going. I have only ever gotten comments three times on blogs that weren't movie minutes. So I say thank you, and I will continue to do what I'm doing. Stay tuned for Star Wars Episode II Attack of the Clones movie minute. Till next time.

Weekend review: 9-1-12 / 9-2-12

 Time once again for the weekend review. This weekend on Saturday, we went to Jetty Island. I hadn't been there since I was younger. I hope you enjoy the pictures. Melissa, and I both contributed to them.

This seagull was trying to steal our picnic.

This was shot all in manual. I am very proud of myself.

We got to see this as we were leaving the island.

  We had an amazing time. Parking was three bucks, but it was sure worth more than that. I have new memories of a familiar place. Till next time.