Painting a bedroom last weekend, I discovered something peculiar. Scattered throughout our home are all these mysterious little faceplates with incorrectly sized Ethernet jacks in them. Apparently, they are tied to a quaint 19th century technology called "telephones." Remember those? They are just like cell phones and VOIP, except that they do a whole lot less, and ground you to one location.

New for Terifik Apps this week is another brilliant iPhone photo app from Takayuki Fulatsu, one of our favorite App Elves.

LiquidPics
available from the iTunes App Store, for $1.99
by: Takayuki Fukatsu


For under 2 bucks, this is one of the most fascinating apps available for the iPhone. Liquid Pics is an incredibly fun photo distorting reality-warping machine. You can pour your photos across the screen like warm syrup, or push ripples into them with true multitouch functionality.


With thousands of apps out there competing for your attention, it can be nearly impossible to decide where to spend your hard earned dollars. Liquid Pics is simple, fun, and totally enthralling. It could easily find its way out of the photo section of the app store and into the entertainment section. For $2, you won't be disappointed.

Pandora, the Greek equivalent of Eve, was constructed collectively by all of the gods on Mount Olympus, who each gave her a gift. Hermes, ever the innovator, bestowed upon her the Internet. Thus Pandora Internet Radio was born.

It's a glorious manifestation of the Music Genome Project, which has set out to mathematize songs with the use of over 400 musical attributes. All you do is enter a band or song name into Pandora, then some sort of scientific wizardry happens behind the scenes, and out come songs from bands with similar sounds. For free.

It works remarkably well, which seems to legitimize math for me. For instance, create a station based on Led Zeppelin and you'll get some Pearl Jam and The Rolling Stones. Or if Barbra Streisand is more of your cup of tea, you'll get The Carpenters and Melissa Manchester (yeah I'm not sure who that is either).

If you don't like a song that pops up, click on the down-turned thumb (a nearly universal sign of displeasure) and the song is skipped. Give the same artist this treatment twice and they won't appear again. Conversely, a thumbs-up will make it a bit more likely that future songs will have even closer musical traits to the current song.

The level of control is empowering, and advertisements are rare, making the experience far more enjoyable than broadcast radio. And though the Pandora of Greek myth unleashed evil into this world (aside from opening that box, she was apparently a very pleasant woman), Pandora Radio is a jackpot in this chaotic cyberspace of ours.

Want more? Check out our review on the Pandora iPhone app.

This week's Terifik Apps highlights two powerfully simple photo apps for you iPhone. QuadCamera and ToyCamera, developed by Takayuki Fukatsu, combine limited options and simplistic controls to create a duo of apps that not only turn your mediochre IPhotos into save-worthy pics, but do it in such a delightfully simple way that you may actually use them.

QuadCamera
available from the iTunes App store, for $1.99
by: Takayuki Fukatsu

QuadCamera simulates a multi-lens camera cum time-lapse video camera. It renders a single image from multiple exposures delayed by a iser-adjustable timer. The final image can be a grid or strip of up to 8 images. You can also choose to tweak the colors from standard to b/w, vivid, or high contrast. It's a blast, and well employed for action sequences and/or moving subjects.


 














ToyCamera
available from the iTunes App store for $1.99
by: Takayuki Fukatsu

Toy Camera is an equally fun image app surpassing QuadCamera in its simplicity. ToyCamera creates ethereal, funky, romantic images from your everyday photos by emulating the look of toy cameras. With point and shoot control, the app transforms your iPhone's digital snap into a light-leaking, bad film, low-grade construction, art school masterpiece. The effects are random, and controls art limited, giving a very realistic rendition of the toy camera experience. Here is a sequence of images taken moments apart:

I've been in several bands in my life.  Currently I sing in a cover band, mainly for a good time and a little extra cash on the side.  When I originally started on stage, I didn't know a good microphone from a hole in the ground.  But now that I've used a bunch, and tried a bunch more, I know exactly where my vocal bread is buttered, and the Sennheiser e845s Pro Performance microphone is it.

Some people might want to kill me for not mentioning the Shure Beta 58a microphone, and with good reason.  The Shure is right there at the top as well.  Both mics offer fabulous, clean, true sound, and the Shure Beta is actually just a little hotter in my opinion.  But the Sennheiser has a few perks that push it over the top for me. 

One such perk is the on/off switch.  When I first got the microphone, I was worried that this might be a problem in live situations.  Not so, and it's a boon if you don't have a mic stand and need to set the mic down, as you can turn it off to kill potential feedback. 

Speaking of feedback, this brings me to the second perk: this thing almost never feeds back.  The Shure does a fine job of cutting feedback as well, but the Sennheiser e845s does better.  Finally, if you think the Shure Beta is clean (and it is), give the e845s a whirl.  The clarity on this mic is nothing short of amazing. 

What else is great about it?  It's about as tough as they come.  This mic is super road-worthy, and with Sennheiser's 10 year warranty, you know this mic's gonna last you a while.  I've personally dropped this thing loads of times, and it just keeps on trucking, no drop in sound quality at all.

Some stats to consider:

• Pickup pattern: supercardioid
• Transducer: pressure gradient dynamic
• Frequency response: 40Hz-16kHz
• Sensitivity (free field, no load): 1.8mV/Pa =/-55dB (odB=1V/Pa) =/-75dB (odB=1V/?bar) (USA)
• Nominal impedance at 1 kHz: 350 ohms
• Min terminating impedance: 1000 ohms
• Dimensions: 1-7/8" dia. x 7-1/3"L
• Weight: 11-2/3 oz.

You can grab yourself a Sennheiser e845s Pro Performance microphone on Musician's Friend for $149.99 which, coincidentally, is $10 cheaper than the Shure Beta. 

If you're a singer who wants to be heard clean and clear and high above the rest, do yourself a favor and pick up a Sennheiser e845s Pro Performance vocal microphone.

This week's installment of Terifik Apps shares a few tools that will turn your iPhone's underwhelming digital camera into a creative masterpiece machine.


CameraBag
from NeverCenter
available from the iTunes App Store for 2.99




CameraBag is an amazing application that greatly extends the utility and fun factor of your iPhone's camera. It uses a slick and simple interface to replicate the look of 9 classic camera styles. In seconds you can post-process pics off the camera or from your camera-roll. It's so easy: no computer, no Photoshop, just fast on-phone processing and impressive looking results. When you're done, save or send them to friends. For more pics and examples of a few effects, hit the jump. 

I am not an expert photographer.  I'd venture to say that my experience with digital cameras is somewhere in the vicinity of intermediate (read: not a total idiot).  What I do have is experience.  I've been on top of the digital camera revolution nearly since its inception, and since that point, the best point and shoot digital camera I've owned is the Canon Powershot SD1100 IS.  Why?

• It has the best image quality* I've seen from a camera at this price point, and better image quality than some cameras three to five times its price.

*mr. stuff says: "When choosing a compact digital point and shoot, don't get caught up in the mega-pixel wars. 10 mp is as high as I'd go with this compact a camera. Higher mega-pixels means more sensors cramped onto a tiny chip. The tighter those sensors are clustered, the greater your likelihood for noise/color distortion.The SD1100IS comes in at 8.0 megapixels, a perfect resolution for its size."

• It's a beautiful little machine, feels good to hold, is extremely sturdy, and comes in an attractive variety of colors.
• The picture processing time* (the time it takes the camera to save each pic to the SD card) is quite quick.  

*mr. stuff says: "Canon DIGIC processing engines have led the pack since the inception of digital photography. Coupled with a high speed SDHC card, the DIGIC III engine has virtually no delay."

• For a point and shoot camera, the videos this thing takes are very nice, and the length is only limited by the size of your SDHC card.
• The Canon Face Detection Technology is nothing short of eery. It's right about 90% of the time, and vastly increases your image quality.
• Plenty of shooting modes for the average point-and-shooter.

• The LCD* is beautiful.   
  

*mr. stuff says: "The SD1100IS is equipped with a 2.5 inch Purecolor II screen, allowing you to preview your results in crisp, accurate color"

I picked up this gem of a digital camera when my Kodak started to kick the bucket (after only  a couple months of use).  The camera salesman at my local Best Buy suggested the Canon Powershot SD1100 IS.  Until then, I had never read a thing about the camera, but once I got it going, I realized his wisdom.  The SD 1100 simply blew my Kodak away in terms of ease of use, functionality, attractiveness, and most importantly, video and image quality.

You can grab one of these cameras at your local Best Buy, or off Amazon for as little as $155. 

With so many incredible iPhone Apps being developed practically overnight, it's hard to keep up with what's worth downloading. This review is the first in a new regular series of iPhone App picks that we're calling Terifik Apps:

In 2008 Pandora for the iPhone was the #1 Free App download in the iTunes store, and for good reason. For the uninitiated, Pandora is a web-driven customizable music streaming system. In a nutshell, you pick any song, artist, or album title you like and Pandora creates a cohesive "radio" station based on your choice. Using the Music Genome Project, Pandora pools a list of similar artists/songs and serves them to you one by one. You can skip songs you don't like, discover new artists, and rate your favorites, achieving a more personalized station. It's nothing short of brilliant, and it's absolutely free.

Version 2.0, released about a week ago, ups the ante providing even more features, and in turn, greater connection to the music. Here are the additions in brief:

• Improved music engine - This is a HUGE improvement, my tastes are eclectic and my experience the past week with Pandora 2.0 definitely proves an impressive upgrade.  
  
• Cover Flow - lets you browse back through the songs you've heard as easily as browsing your iPod
• Artist/Song info - With a quick tap you can get the essentials on who's playing, and why Pandora chose that song for your station.
• Sharing Features - This is amazingly useful: Bookmark songs for future reference or to download them from iTunes, or Email station recommendations.

Available at the iTunes store for less than a wooden nickel.
[more information and screenshots after the jump]
 

I recently purchased a new laptop.  I'm not an Apple guy, so I went over to Dell to do some building. One of my favorite pastimes is building things online -mostly things I'll never be able to afford. 

When it came to the hard drive section, I noticed an option I'd never seen before: 128 Gb Solid State Drive (SSD).  "Faster!  More reliable!  Lighter!  Consumes less power!", it said. 
Being the semi-geek that I am (I played D&D when I was younger; full geeks are still playing at my age...), I got all tingly.  As is often the case with new technology, the SSD drive was both significantly more expensive than the others, and smaller, so I got to researching.  In the end, I decided to pony up the extra cash for the little bugger.  Why?  Well, um... it's faster, more reliable, lighter, and consumes less power.

I've been using my SSD drive for about three months. Full details and reflections are after the jump...

I know there are many who extol the virtues of Apple's flagship over and over again.  I am not one of those, but not because the iPod isn't a great product (it obviously reinvented the music player market and put Apple at the top of its game).  Even someone who hasn't had the pleasure of using one can see that.  But I'm kind of about being down on the man (or at least not being down with one man to rule them all), and let's be honest, as much as Apple wishes it was the anti-man, when it comes to music, Apple is the man.

 

Enter Sandisk, and their wonderful Sansa line of mp3 players.  I've had the pleasure of owning the mid-sized Fuze (a reference to the melding of their smaller Clip and its big brother the View), for a while now and I have to say, I love it.  It sounds great (even better with non-OEM earphones - a pitfall of any mp3 player), looks great, has a simple and intuitive interface, and holds gobs of music.  I purchased the largest capacity Fuze, which has 8 gigs of onboard memory.  But here's the kicker, and what makes the Fuze truly great: it has an available micro SDHC slot, which allows you to expand the memory!  I added an 8 gig card, giving me a total of 16 gigs. Add the newly released Sandisk 16 gig micro SDHC card, and you could go as high as 24 gigs of memory! 

I average anywhere from 20-25 hours of music play on one charge, depending on the bit rate at which you encode, or about 5 hours of video if you so desire (although the screen's a bit small for video playback).  Oh, and you don't have to install iTunes to make it work, either.

The 8 Gb Fuze clocks in at a very reasonable $90-$100, and you can buy it online at Amazon or at your local electronics store if you prefer.