Stop the insanity!!

Dad already has an iPhone right? Sure he does! The iPhone is a great way to store contacts but inputing them off of business cards is a PITA that no one wants to do. Along comes a great solution, Scanbizcards for the iPhone.

Note: I was given a free copy of this software for review. Below is my honest feedback on the product.

ScanBizCards works by taking a picture of the business card using the iPhones built in camera and using OCR technology to extract the person details from the card. When it works you don’t have to type anything in and you have the persons contact information imported into your iPhone.

My experience with Scanbizcards has been pretty good so far. It is not perfect but I think it is going to be hard to be perfect given the huge variety of business card designs and styles out there. It worked best on plain looking business cards like this one.

I blurred out the contact details on purpose.

As you can see it got the name and title correct. There is a small miss on the company name and your going to have to trust me when I say that it got the phone numbers and email correct. This was the best card out of about 10 I tried, that I got. The more ornate or non-standard a card was, the worse it got.

Lighting also plays a huge part in getting a good scan. In my office, which has terrible lighting, the OCR hit rate was not as good. At my desk at home, which has better lighting, the OCR hit rate was much higher. The ScanBizCards folks say this is the most important variable when getting a good OCR read of a card and my experience bears this out.

Bottom line, the best $6 you can spend to get that pile of cards off your desk and into your iPhone. While not perfect it sure as heck beats putting them all in by hand.

Now you can get a copy of ScanBizCards for free! Leave a comment on this post and I will pick 3 people at random to get codes for a free copy of ScanBizCards. The drawing will be held Friday June 11th 2010 at noon PST. Good luck!

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Photo by mastrobiggo

I have had my iPhone for a little over a month now and it is really starting to change the way I do things. Always (pretty much) on internet access and some killer apps really change the way I interact with the world around me. Here are my current top 5 killer iPhone Apps.

#5. iSSH – Yeah I am that dorky. It works surprisingly well for quick little admin tasks or server health checks. You don’t want to do a server migration using it but for tailing logs, running top or restarting a service it rocks. I HUP’ed my web server while getting a ride down the freeway yesterday. Way cool

#4 Oblique Strategies -  Brain Eno (yeah THAT Brian Eno) and Peter Schmidt used to distribute these as card decks but now they are on the iPhone. Stuck in a creative rut, need to think “outside the box” then get this handy little app, tap the screen and be prepared to change directions.

#3 PhotoNote Lite – I am to cheap to buy the full version because the free Lite version has been more than enough for me so far. This app lets you snap a pic and and notes to it. Great for remembering things like where you parked, what that sofa looks like or what your kids names are.

#2 AroundMe – Driving around and need to get gas? AroundMe can tell you where the nearest station is plus coffee, restaurants and a whole bunch of other stuff. A must have if you travel alot. I use the Yelp application a lot as well but I find AroundMe to be just a bit better in terms of finding stuff I need.

#1 Shazam – Holy crap this app saves me so much pain and sorrow. Have you ever been some place and heard a song and wondered what the song was? Shazam listens to the song then tells you want it is. So far it is perfect in my real world usage. This ends countless debates about who is singing, what band it is, when it was released etc etc etc… My brain thanks you Shazam!

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Great job WordPress team, simply incredible.

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Now there are going to be games, push email syncing, and $100,00,000 in funds from Kleiner Perkins to fund people building iPhone apps. Of all the things announced the fund is probably the biggest deal. This will draw developers like flies. With more developers you have more apps and better apps. We have just witnessed the birth of the next leap forward in computing.

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If you need a web page for something Roxer is a great place to start.

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So the search commenced for a temperature thermometer which would be placed in her room with out being to much of a hassle. At the hardware store, I stumbled across affordable digital thermometer sensors by Taylor USA.

I procured a Taylor USA Model #1453 Wireless Indoor / Outdoor with Remote Sensor for $29.99. For the price, you get a main temperature unit and a remote sensor. The remote sensor is trick because it can also be used to monitor the temperature of liquids (think aquariums, etc). I like the main display, the numbers are easy to read and you can switch between remote sensors with the touch of a button. The range is decent as well, I have the remote sensor on the 2nd floor and the main unit on the first floor at the other end of the house.

After a few minutes of putzing around with package removal and battery installation, I now have a temperature sensor in my daughters bedroom which I can monitor remotely. If I feel really sexy, I can also add up to 2 additional temperature sensors.

At the end of the day, I highly recommend the Taylor product.

Taylor 1456 Wireless Indoor/Outdoor Thermometer Large Readout

Any other dads have a different solution? Please comment, I’ll update the article accordingly.

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