Dan Fellini

Stories By Dan Fellini

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  Apps

  Apps By Dan Fellini

  No lie: voice stress analysis on iPhone

  So here's the thing. If the new iPhone app Agile Lie Detector really works, and I'm fairly convinced it does on some level, do you really want to have something this potentially powerful in your pocket? Do you really want an application that could ruin your marriage, destroy your faith in humanity and wreck your respect for authority, and on top of all that, pay $7.99US for it?Yeah, you do.I was dying to try this thing out. Truth is, I was skeptical that this app would be anything more than a novelty item. But I had a serious moral dilemma on my hands. What kind of person interrogates his wife and purposely tries to make her cough up lies just so he can test out an app for a blog post? Me. So I was off, for 15 minutes, asking her question after question, spanning a wide spectrum, none of which I'll get into. Very little of my prodding resulted in anything more than a blip on the Lie Graph. None of my deep, life-altering questions drew a response that warranted much more than a light yellow reading on the Lie Meter. A few other quick tests with other people did show a wider range of results.The Agile Lie Detector uses voice stress analysis, a somewhat controversial alternative to the traditional polygraph test, to determine whether or not someone is lying. The bad side of this is that it's not considered as accurate as hooking someone up to a machine that measures more than one physiological response, like breathing and pulse. The good side is -- theoretically anyway -- you don't need to be in the same room as the person you are trying to test. In fact, it's possible to analyze speech through speakers, assuming the quality of those speakers is high enough. To play with this a bit, I searched for video on YouTube that showed people obviously lying (think Clinton's denial of his canoodling with Monica Lewinsky) or obviously under stress (think Sarah Palin talking to Katie Couric). The results of holding my iPhone up to the speaker as these and other videos played showed, in a most unscientific and probably flawed way, a difference, however slight, versus when people not under stress spoke. The very cool part of the application is that it gives you results in real time, so you can see from moment to moment when someone is getting a bit nervous. Theoretically.If I were the feds, I wouldn't be shipping off a crate of iPhones (liePhones?) to Gitmo quite yet. This application is filed under the Entertainment category in the App Store for a reason. It shouldn't be relied on in serious situations. You know, like asking your wife if she really, truly thinks you look good in that new jacket of yours. However, if voice stress analysis is your bag, definitely give this app a try. I won't lie though. It's a tad pricey.

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  Buying Guides

  Buying Guides By Dan Fellini

  Gift guide for amateur video producers

  We all have a friend of family member obsessed with posting videos on YouTube. Their cats, dogs, babies and whatever else are all fodder for two minutes of teh funny. This holiday season, help them improve their craft and produce the next big viral hit with these gift suggestions.SoftwareQuality editing software is not cheap. So it's surprising, actually, that Final Cut Express 4 is reasonably priced ($199US) for the amount of power it packs. I recommend this over cheaper options like iMovie for two reasons. First, it's an extremely capable application that isn't missing much from its much pricer big brother. An amateur video producer won't quickly grow bored of its capabilities. Second, and more important, if the person you are giving this to has any ambitions of becoming a professional, familiarity with the Final Cut way of doing things will be a huge advantage in the marketplace. We are all too aware that the iPhone, in its unjailbroken state, doesn't record video. That doesn't mean it can't be used as a tool in video production. Slate is a simple application that replaces the iconic clapping chalk slate used for years throughout Hollywood. Reviewers in the App Store have some legit complaints about it, but it's still a fun application with a bunch of potential. HardwareLet's face it. You're not going to drop almost $5,000US on this badboy. (Note to wife: want!) But how about under $150US for a camera that captures 60 minutes of video, at decent quality, requiring no tapes or memory cards, and fits in your front pocket? Enter the Flip Video family of cameras. These little machines aren't going to do it for professionals, but for amateurs looking to record precious family moments or spontaneous news events, it'll do the trick nicely. And it's called a Flip for a reason -- it has a USB connector integrated into its design. It flips out and, with a little bit of adjusting (a dozen or so business cards tucked under one side of a MacBook) it connects easily to just about any computer. Flip Video last month announced a high-def version of the camera called the MinoHD. It sells for about $229US. There's also a competing Kodak camera, the Zi6, that has a fanbase of its own.One of the best presents you can give an aspiring video producer -- besides a gig at LucasFilm -- is more hard drive space. Digital video consumes sick amounts of storage. Luckily, hard drives in the terabyte range are coming into the realm of affordability. A quick poke around Amazon.com shows a few options for under $150US. Some of these may not cut it for actual production work, as speed is of the essence, but for nearline storage, they'll do the trick quite nicely. Stocking StuffersLast-minute shoppers rejoice. There are many cheap, easy-to-order products out there with which you can fill your aspiring video producer's stocking. Mini tripod -- Shaky video is distracting when it's not intentional. A tiny, tabletop tripod is very handy for any videographer to have in his bag of tricks; newer Flip Video cameras have a tripod mount built in. Personal telepromter -- I saw this demoed last year at a conference and I was blown away. It works great with any Mac laptop with a built-in iSight camera, it's cheap, and it's very cool. Snowball -- No, not the frozen kind. The Blue Snowball mic is one of my favorite pieces of post-production kit. It's great for laying down voiceovers, and works equally well for recording audio for video podcasts. It's a USB mic, so it's not going to hook up to a camcorder, but for studio work it gets the job done in style.

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  Apps

  Apps By Dan Fellini

  Mobile Safari search via toolbar points to clearer results

  Google quietly fixed a problem yesterday that bugged at least a few iPhone users -- the results page it returned when searching through the toolbar in Mobile Safari. In a pre-Tuesday world, Google would return its standard, not-iPhone-formatted results page. Why? I honestly don't know, but personally didn't question it too deeply. It was what it was. I'd do my search, zoom into my result, and be on my way. That was so 2008. Now searches through the toolbar return nicely-formatted-for-iPhone results. Just as it should be. Thanks to DJT for sending this in.

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  Apps By Dan Fellini

  Use 'Company' field in iPhone's Contacts app for tagging

  The social media movement has trained us well to tag just about everything we see. The presence of tags on photos, videos, blog posts and even to-do items has become ubiquitous.So this simple tip, from reader Greg F., struck me as an obvious, easy trick to help categorize contacts inside the iPhone's Contacts app. It involves using the Company field in Contacts to record tags -- just put in your tags, separated by a space, instead of a company name.First things first. Why would you want to categorize contacts with tags? Consider Greg's example. When using the contact search feature to make a call, send an email or text message, he enters a tag, like 'drinkingbuddies,' instead of individual names. In return he's presented with a full list of contacts he can invite out for a beer.Simple, powerful and a great way to prevent leaving anyone out when sending a quick, after-work invite. Other useful tags that come to my mind are 'family,' 'taxis,' 'pizzaplaces' and 'therapists.' It's not ideal, obviously, for contacts that actually have a real company name associated with them.There's more to this though. Often I find myself sending photos from my iPhone, through email, to my Flickr, Facebook, Tumblr and Twitpic accounts. So I tagged each of those contacts 'Photos.' Now, it's a simple task to look these addresses up and pick the appropriate ones.It's unfortunate the iPhone doesn't allow you to select more than one contact at a time, though. So even with this tip, it's still a time-consuming process to add multiple contacts to an email or SMS.

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  Smartphones

  Smartphones By Dan Fellini

  Music video shot entirely on an iPhone

  Behold, what is claimed to be the world's first music video shot entirely on an iPhone.This gem comes to us from GOSHone, A self-described "mad scientist with computers, gadgets, and musical equipment and stuff," G1 used his jailbroken iPhone and a copy of Cycorder to produce what I can only describe as a little slice of wonderful. I can't verify with any certainty that this is, in fact, the "world's first," but I'm going to go with it. GOSHone says that, while making the video was fun and relatively pain-free, he did struggle with the lack of a preview screen, and "tried to rely on the shiny black back and the chrome Apple logo for reflection." That's a simple, clever trick I hadn't thought of, mostly because I always have a case on my iPhone.Have a look at his video, then download his free album. It's good stuff.Thanks to Valerie for sending this in.

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  Apple

  Apple By Dan Fellini

  How to justify the 'Apple Tax' in a recession

  If you've looked out your window and noticed your neighbors living in refrigerator boxes on your sidewalk, you know the US economy is in the tank. More and more of our friends are getting pink slips, some of whom work at highly-regarded and once lucrative tech companies. These are the same people who, a year and a half ago, had no trouble shelling out $599US for a shiny telephone with no buttons. So much has changed in our little world since then. Including, for the better, the cost of a shiny telephone without buttons. But as the global economy continues to nosedive, and our personal economies struggle to remain intact, it's getting harder and harder to justify extravagant purchases. While a new $199US iPhone might not be over the top for most, a $1,799US MacBook Air requires more of a gut check. Two things are certain. Death (of our laptop batteries) and taxes (the proverbial Apple taxes). So how does one justify paying twice as much for a Mac when a decent -- albeit mostly unusable and impossible to look at -- Windows kit can be had for under $800US? The answer is simple. When the pink slip comes and groceries become luxuries, I'll at least enjoy searching for a new job, selling my car on Craigslist and begging my wife to take me back from the comforts of my $2000US MacBook Pro. If you're like me, and would rather eat trees than give up the Mac, here are practical, everyday tips you can use to justify your Mac habit during an economic downturn. Save heating costs by firing up Final Cut and rendering some video. My MacBook Pro gets soooo hot when I do that, and I mean that literally (although, really, it does get excited too.) Bonus: place it on its side, against a wall, and pretend you're back in your old college dorm room. Just add hissing noises and you've got a very expensive radiator. Did you receive a new replacement power adapter for your iPhone 3G a few months back? Sweet. Hope you saved the box. It's big enough for you and your kids to sleep in. Bonus: use the included 300 cubic yards of foam as a mattress. Better than a Tempur-Pedic. Wish you could hit the pub for a few cold ones, but can't afford to pay the barkeep? Download one of the many beer mug simulators from the App Store and fake yourself drunk. Bonus: the only way to win the game is not to play. Just sayin'. Tap the Stocks app on your iPhone. Quick, turn your iPhone upside down. Wow, things look better now huh? Bonus: Do this with the Stocks Dashboard widget by turning your monitor upside down. Extra bonus if you have a 30-inch Cinema Display. These are just my ideas. I'm sure you have more. Let us know in the comments.

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  News

  News By Dan Fellini

  By way of introduction...

  Hi all. Dan Fellini here to introduce myself as one of TUAW's newest team members. Glad and honored to be here. I live in sunny Portland, Oregon, and work as the executive producer for an online video network. I love my job, love my city and love technology, social media, the outdoors and, of course, my Macs and my iPhone. In previous lives I've been a reporter, editor, sysadmin, programmer and, way back, I was an EMT. Lights and sirens baby! The first time I touched an Apple computer was back in elementary school, when I programmed Logo to act like Joshua from Wargames. Oh yes. My 6th grade teacher freaked. We were supposed to be making cute designs with the turtle, and there I was bringing our classroom to the brink of global thermonuclear war. How about a nice game of chess? Not so much. Now, as an adult, I spend 8, 12, sometimes 16 hours a day in front of a MacBook, a MacBook Pro, or my iPhone. I'm not saying I couldn't live without Apple, but my quality of life would definitely not be as good. And that's the point. That's why I'm here, writing about a company I don't get a paycheck from. Writing about a company that (let's be honest) charges a bit too much for their products. Writing about a company that doesn't know I exist. I'm here because Apple products contribute to my overall quality of life, in a positive way, and when a company or product does that, it's a special relationship. There are so few companies like that these days. I'm not a fanboy. Let's get that cleared up straight away. I'm not of the 'Apple can do no wrong' mentality. What I am, though, is a big fan of products that are well designed, well built and that inspire me to do good work. I'm thrilled to be part of this team. I've been reading TUAW for a long time, and have always considered it the blog of record for the word on Apple. To be a part of it now is something I'm quite proud of. Now, on to more pressing issues...

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