iLove iPhone
A good six weeks ago, I finally bought my first iPhone. I’m surprised it’s taken me this long, as I am absolutely in iLove with my Mac…the Powerbook G4, my first baby, and now my MacBook Pro. I’m a bit of an unusual Apple iLover, as I don’t have an iPod or and iPad. And it’s taken so long to finally get an iPhone. This also means that I am just now using iTunes…I’m practically an iVirgin! ;p
When I first signed into iTunes, I had trouble getting my account set up. The customer service rep…the first one…kept regurgitating pre-written responses and refused to address any of the issues I presented. But a rep named Adam picked up the claim and through dozens of emails over the course of two+ weeks, I finally got iTunes to admit that they had a problem that they needed to fix and that it did not, in fact, have anything to do with me or my account details. iHint to anyone communicating with Apple – use screen shots!
Once my iTunes account was active, I felt like a kid in an iCandy store, able to choose anything I wanted! I downloaded the entire first season of Glee’s soundtrack, and then resorted to any number of free apps and podcasts. The TEDtalks are my iFavorites right now! Recently, I’ve downloaded some photography apps (not free) which I am absolutely falling in iLove with! My favorite at the moment is Hipstamatic. It mimics old cameras and allows you to choose different types of “film” and different “lenses,” creating all sorts of fun effects!
Other fun iStuff I’m crushing on are Talking Larry and Talking Tom. I get such a kick out of how they repeat what you say and the other fun tricks they do. And of course I am totally connected to my social media outlets, so I am well connected to all those far away. I’m never really that iFar away!
I feel like I didn’t have an iLife before I got this iPhone and so now I’m just super grateful to have such a cool iToy and all these little life-enhancing apps to play with. My taxi rides are now informative via podcasts and I’m starting to post more and more of my cool photos on Twitter. (Please follow me on Twitter if you don’t already – I’m @sushibananas – I’ll follow you back!!!).
Anyway, I just wanted to take a moment to profess my iLove and encourage you to iGet the iPhone and Mac if you’re not already on iBoard!!!
Twitter me senseless
I’m really starting to love the internet. Oh, I’ve always liked it, but in the last couple of weeks, I’ve researched a bit some social media outlets and become more active on twitter and am acutely interested in the new Facebook “Like” features which we will see peppered through the internet shortly.
I’ve always been a pretty open person. It started with the weekly emails I sent when I was at City Club. I’d list the events of the week or of note and at the end, a little personal comments about what I did over the weekend or a movie review. Once I moved to Japan, I started writing regularly. At fist that was also a group e-mail letter. Then I got my Mac and created newsletters. On December 27, 2005, I started On The Bright Side blog, via blogspot (which I am now migrating here). I loved posting regular stories, photos and even a “guess” contest. It was a good lead-in to my current website, which you may have gathered, I really enjoy maintaining.
You can probably see I’ve made some adjustments to my home page here. I’ve added a twitter box so you can go find and follow me on twitter. I’ve also added a facebook button, so if you want to add me as a friend, you can do that from here too. I’m learning what features I can add to an iWeb supported site (like a sitemap and favicon), and so I’m excited to see what features I can use to enhance the “performance” of my site. I’m even linking OTBS with a Facebook Page so that the site will be more visible and you all can become a fan! (ok, it’s a bit dorky and nerdy, but I’m having a blast!)
Sometimes I do worry a bit about privacy. My post below shows you that not all happy, peppy nor bright people visit this site. But ultimately, I don’t post anything here which I don’t want to and I monitor my site and also my privacy settings on other networking sites religiously.
I’ve also been encouraging you all to get connected to skype. I talk to my folks nearly every weekend with skype. It’s easy, it’s free and it’s wonderful. If you don’t have it, you should. As with other applications, you can manage your privacy settings so that only people you add can call or chat with you. And you can decide to add or not someone who requests to be on your contact list. You don’t have to talk to anyone you don’t want to!
I hope to see you tweeting away, chatting with me on skype and perhaps sharing a new application you’ve discovered. It’s fun, it’s fascinating and it’s a great way to keep in touch. I can’t believe how many of our high school friends have reconnected simply because of Facebook. With me living in a place like Vietnam, it feels good to be connected to the outside world and to YOU!