I'm going to continue with the photo/app updates for now. Life trundles on as ever and while it is all going extremely well, there's not a lot to say about things in general. Go to work. Enjoy job for the most part, come home see wife, love her - rinse, repeat.
I decided that one of my New Year's Non-Resolutions (I don't like the pressure of resolutions, so mine tend to be just ideas.) was to learn to play guitar a bit better. The wonderful Kristoph has loaned me a guitar and a friend at work has loaned me a practice amp.
So, the next thing was to download some iPhone apps!
Gibson guitar toolkit (Free): I was going to shell out about a fiver for the Ultimate guitar toolkit, but the Gibson one has pretty much everything in it anyway for free. Not sure if I've mentioned this app before but anyway, it's relevant to the topic. It has a tuner - either a needle-on-a-gauge type or a simple version with the guitar head & you can pick a string & it will play the note. I've not had much luck with the needle version. Could be down to the mic. It also has a metronome, Chord database and some sample lessons. All in all pretty fucking good for free.
Ultimate guitar tabs (1.79): I'm always a little wary of anything that proclaims itself as 'ultimate' but fuck me if this doesn't live up to it. Search for bands, songs or both and access a massive database of guitar tabs. I tried to find several of my favourites - Alexisonfire, which there were loads for. Not really surprised, but it also found songs by Rolo Tomassi and even Shai Hulud, which I was very impressed by. The only band I haven't found on it so far is McRad, but a google search turned up a tab for one of their songs on the Ultimate Guitar Tabs forums!
Pocket Guitar (59p): Gives you a small onscreen fretboard and a section to strum. Essentially plays like a guitar and there are options to add gain, distortion and other effects, which you can layer two at a time. There are also options for what type of guitar, (accoustic, electric, muted etc,) to give a whole range of sounds & I have to say I got a pretty nice sound by playing with the settings.
Amps & Cabs (59p): Kind of like Hipstamatic in a way. You have different amps & cabs, which you slide to change. There are three of each and the option to buy more if I remember right. You can then strum your (real,) guitar & the mic on your headphones will pick it up & pay it through the amp & cab combo you have selected. Great idea, but so far I've only got one combo to really work, but that's playing an electric guitar without amplification into a headset mic. The guys who make this are making a lead to go directly from the guitar into the iPhone...
That's it for guitar apps...
Marvel (free): Made by the same people who make the "Comics X" app, but just for Marvel stuff. As with Comics, it's very slick and easy to use & the panel transitions look great. It has crashed a few times though.
Baby Scratch (free): A cartoon deck with pre-made samples to scratch. There are 3 background beats that you can have playing in the background & you can even record your own samples/voice/sounds/whatever & scratch them. Surprisingly good fun.
Battle Bears (Free): Interesting mix of 3D shooter and tower defence game. You're a brown bear, in a fortified position, shooting hordes of pink bears that come tottering over the hills. Hit them and you get splats of multicoloured 'blood'. Headshots result in a rainbow spraying forth from their necks. Awesome fun.
Birdstrike (59p): Twang a little blue bird upwards from a telegraph wire, then steer with the phone to guide him to rockets to gain altitude. Loads of obstacles along the way from washing on lines, toxic clouds, balloons, blimps and constructed girders that you need to grab a helmet to smash through. Get all the way to the top and a UFO zaps you, at which point you begin to fall with the instruction: "Smash stuff!" Good fun.
Writeroom (2.99): I wanted something a bit better than notes if a flash of inspiration hit (I'm half way through the third chapter of my short novel,) so I bought this. I'd looked into the Mac version a while back & it was between that & Scrivener, which I recently got free through work. Anyway the iPhone writing apps are surprisingly thin on the ground, but this does what it needs to. It synchs your writings online and you can tailor the view to your liking (full screen writing in green on black is good.).
Mill colour (free): Another colour grading app for photos. This one is made by the famous post-production house The Mill & is pretty good. Select a pic, then you can either go for pre-tailored 'looks' or you can get into the nitty gritty yourself with controls for gain, lift, gamma & saturation, most of which you can separate out by colour channel or affect all RGB channels. For free, this is excellent.
On this day (free): Info about famous events/people that happened on the day. You can pick the date too, if you want to look up what happened in history on your birthday for example. Interesting.
IMDB (free): It's IMDB on your phone. Settle all those "weren't they in (x) film with (actor y)" arguments down the pub.
WRC 2010 (free): World Rally Championship info. Videos, leaderboards, info on drivers & teams... You get the idea. Another very slick app.
RPSLS (free): Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock. Anyone who's watched the Big Bang Theory will know this. It contains the rules, (directly transcribed from Sheldon's explanation,) Play vs. Computer & a hand generator - shake it to randomly select a... thing. It then shows you what that shape beats. Obviously this is a simple implementation of multiplayer.
And now... the gallery:
I decided that one of my New Year's Non-Resolutions (I don't like the pressure of resolutions, so mine tend to be just ideas.) was to learn to play guitar a bit better. The wonderful Kristoph has loaned me a guitar and a friend at work has loaned me a practice amp.
So, the next thing was to download some iPhone apps!
Gibson guitar toolkit (Free): I was going to shell out about a fiver for the Ultimate guitar toolkit, but the Gibson one has pretty much everything in it anyway for free. Not sure if I've mentioned this app before but anyway, it's relevant to the topic. It has a tuner - either a needle-on-a-gauge type or a simple version with the guitar head & you can pick a string & it will play the note. I've not had much luck with the needle version. Could be down to the mic. It also has a metronome, Chord database and some sample lessons. All in all pretty fucking good for free.
Ultimate guitar tabs (1.79): I'm always a little wary of anything that proclaims itself as 'ultimate' but fuck me if this doesn't live up to it. Search for bands, songs or both and access a massive database of guitar tabs. I tried to find several of my favourites - Alexisonfire, which there were loads for. Not really surprised, but it also found songs by Rolo Tomassi and even Shai Hulud, which I was very impressed by. The only band I haven't found on it so far is McRad, but a google search turned up a tab for one of their songs on the Ultimate Guitar Tabs forums!
Pocket Guitar (59p): Gives you a small onscreen fretboard and a section to strum. Essentially plays like a guitar and there are options to add gain, distortion and other effects, which you can layer two at a time. There are also options for what type of guitar, (accoustic, electric, muted etc,) to give a whole range of sounds & I have to say I got a pretty nice sound by playing with the settings.
Amps & Cabs (59p): Kind of like Hipstamatic in a way. You have different amps & cabs, which you slide to change. There are three of each and the option to buy more if I remember right. You can then strum your (real,) guitar & the mic on your headphones will pick it up & pay it through the amp & cab combo you have selected. Great idea, but so far I've only got one combo to really work, but that's playing an electric guitar without amplification into a headset mic. The guys who make this are making a lead to go directly from the guitar into the iPhone...
That's it for guitar apps...
Marvel (free): Made by the same people who make the "Comics X" app, but just for Marvel stuff. As with Comics, it's very slick and easy to use & the panel transitions look great. It has crashed a few times though.
Baby Scratch (free): A cartoon deck with pre-made samples to scratch. There are 3 background beats that you can have playing in the background & you can even record your own samples/voice/sounds/whatever & scratch them. Surprisingly good fun.
Battle Bears (Free): Interesting mix of 3D shooter and tower defence game. You're a brown bear, in a fortified position, shooting hordes of pink bears that come tottering over the hills. Hit them and you get splats of multicoloured 'blood'. Headshots result in a rainbow spraying forth from their necks. Awesome fun.
Birdstrike (59p): Twang a little blue bird upwards from a telegraph wire, then steer with the phone to guide him to rockets to gain altitude. Loads of obstacles along the way from washing on lines, toxic clouds, balloons, blimps and constructed girders that you need to grab a helmet to smash through. Get all the way to the top and a UFO zaps you, at which point you begin to fall with the instruction: "Smash stuff!" Good fun.
Writeroom (2.99): I wanted something a bit better than notes if a flash of inspiration hit (I'm half way through the third chapter of my short novel,) so I bought this. I'd looked into the Mac version a while back & it was between that & Scrivener, which I recently got free through work. Anyway the iPhone writing apps are surprisingly thin on the ground, but this does what it needs to. It synchs your writings online and you can tailor the view to your liking (full screen writing in green on black is good.).
Mill colour (free): Another colour grading app for photos. This one is made by the famous post-production house The Mill & is pretty good. Select a pic, then you can either go for pre-tailored 'looks' or you can get into the nitty gritty yourself with controls for gain, lift, gamma & saturation, most of which you can separate out by colour channel or affect all RGB channels. For free, this is excellent.
On this day (free): Info about famous events/people that happened on the day. You can pick the date too, if you want to look up what happened in history on your birthday for example. Interesting.
IMDB (free): It's IMDB on your phone. Settle all those "weren't they in (x) film with (actor y)" arguments down the pub.
WRC 2010 (free): World Rally Championship info. Videos, leaderboards, info on drivers & teams... You get the idea. Another very slick app.
RPSLS (free): Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock. Anyone who's watched the Big Bang Theory will know this. It contains the rules, (directly transcribed from Sheldon's explanation,) Play vs. Computer & a hand generator - shake it to randomly select a... thing. It then shows you what that shape beats. Obviously this is a simple implementation of multiplayer.
And now... the gallery:
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Hope you and your lovely wife and doing just fine! You coming to mine and Mark's birthday meet in July?!??!!