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Eidetiq Review – Notetaking for the Modern Student

By
Edel Alon
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3

College students are spoiled with awesome technology. Every kid has a laptop, cell phone, PDAs…and I’ll stop before I show my age. Back to the point; I was browsing iTunes store and stumbled upon a really cool app–Eidetiq. Eidetiq is a phone app created by Chubby Weasel Technologies. At first glance this app records the class lectures (sound only). What good is that? There’s the voice recorder already in the iPhone. Eidetiq steps it up a notch by adding the ability to take photo snapshots of whiteboards and maybe your classmates’ notes while recording sound.

I’m sure Eidetiq comes from Eidetic. “Eidetic or photographic memory is popularly defined as the ability to recall images, sounds, or objects in memory with extreme accuracy and in abundant volume.” –Wikipedia

Replaying the lecture is easy. Select the lecture, press play. When you first replay the lecture, you’ll see the first picture taken as you start to hear the lecture. Then as the lecture progresses you’ll see the next picture at the point where you took the picture and so on. I wish I had this when I was in school…I might have gotten better grades.

The app is really easy to use and the desktop client to replay the lecture makes playback easy. The icons are a cool addition too.

While the main purpose of this app is to take notes for students, teachers and professors, I’ll use it in my daily work life where I need to take notes and take pictures of those whiteboards of some office meetings. No more inaccuracies in meeting minutes! Yes, I’m just a little bit excited.

I don’t normally give ratings but this app is definitely 4 out of 5 stars.

Here’s a description from Chubby Weasel:

Students, teachers and professors use Eidetiq to take notes, to remember facts and to catch missing points from lectures where audio recording is approved. With Eidetiq, you log your notes automatically so that you can concentrate on listening and interacting with your professor and class in order to retain what’s really important. You can use Eidetiq to record approved lectures, simultaneously capturing the audio and clicking pictures of important events. The pictures are synchronized to the audio, so that you can easily replay what was said during the time where you photographed the event. Professors and teachers use Eidetiq to capture what works in their lecture for future reuse, as well as to record photos of white board and overhead in-class work.

Using free software that you download on your laptop, the Eidetiq app automatically syncs to your Mac or Windows machine. On your computer, you can review your recorded lecture including photos timetagged to audio for better retention and clarification of important points. Collaboration and improved learning and study techniques will result.

Here are some features I’d like to see in next versions:

  • Highlight the picture or mark it up
  • Bookmarks in the lecture
  • A way to search for lectures

References:
http://eidetiq.com

Talk Like a Pirate Day

By
Edel Alon
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0

Ahoy! You’ve been warned.

“…the man who did the waking buys the man who did the sleeping a drink, while the man who did the sleeping listens to a proposition from the man who did the waking!” -Jack Sparrow

Dad Life

By
Edel Alon
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0

This was just way to funny not to post.

Find Your Ambition

By
Edel Alon
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0

I’ve been dragging my feet around for the whole summer to a point where some people were worried about me. I’m not sure why or what caused the drag but there definitely was a drag. The other day one of my buddies sent me a link to a blog. I read a couple articles and I fell in love with the organizational tools (it remind me of some of the tools I’ve made for you on this site).

More importantly, there is an article on team building that talks about the different ingredients needed to form a great team.

Here are some point from the article:

  • There are people who are driven intensely by the ambition to create exceptional experiences. The key word here is ambition, and I could see it in the face of everyone I interacted with. Ambition is one of the prerequisites for effective action. There are many times where the desire for exception experience is expressed, but when the ambition is lacking there just i no personal investment driving the action forward.Expressing the ambition is the mission. I think a good team knows that it’s the magic that they’re creating that’s important, and removing barriers to letting the ambition express itself fluidly is one of the prime metrics of a good team. By “expression”, I mean that ideas and desires are made visible so they can be directly experienced by another person. Another way of putting this: “the good of the project is greater than the individual interests of the team members”. If this mentality isn’t shared among all team members, you have a broken team.
  • A great team shares the same ambitions, and reinforces this with every action taken. In the past, I would have evaluated teams by looking at personalities, communication, mutual respect, and other such indicators of a healthy social group. Many such teams are quite pleasant to work with in a social sense, but never quite reach the heights of productivity they imagine. The key indicator may be, for teams I’m interested in working with, is the level of shared ambition.

I’ve been lucky with most of the teams I work with. There’s definitely a sense of ambition. Right now, I’m stuck in the cycle of trying to keep it all going.

References:
http://davidseah.com/2010/07/finding-ambition/

GOP Chair Heads to Guam to Help Island’s GOP Candidates

By
Edel Alon
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0

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Michael Steele is traveling to Guam in September to help raise money for the island’s top GOP candidates.

In a statement published by the Pacific News Center, Guam Gov. Felix Camacho (R) announces that Steele will be providing the keynote speech for “the September 7th Republican Party fundraiser benefiting the Republican nominees for the Governor of Guahan and Senators of the Guam Legislature. Additionally, the Chairman will be the honored guest at a luncheon fundraiser on September 8th benefiting the Republican Party of Guahan.”

On Aug. 27, the Saipan Tribune also reported that Steele would be going to Saipan, in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), to endorse former governor Juan N. Babauta as the islands’ representative to the U.S. Congress, making him the first RNC chair to ever visit the CNMI.

In February, two RNC staffers, State and Local Development Director Shannon Reeves and Director of Political Strategies for New Media George Alafoginis, were also in Guam. RNC Communications Director said their trip was “part of party building activities the committee undertakes everyday to ensure the Republican Party is competitive in every state and territory.”

In January, National Journal reported that the RNC had transferred $20,000 to CNMI over a two-month period. Many critics wondered whether the funds were the RNC’s political payback for helping Steele become chairman. Steele received heavy support from the U.S. territories — CNMI, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Guam — who hold outsized influenced in the RNC elections. Under GOP rules, each territory receives the same number of committee members as each U.S. state.

Camacho is term-limited and cannot run for re-election. In his statement, he said that he is “confident that Chairman Steele’s visit will help the Republican Party secure the necessary resources we need to regain control of the Governor’s office as well as a majority in the Guam Legislature. As part of Chairman Steele’s mission to reinvigorate the Republican Party as well as attracting new voters, his visit to our island demonstrates that the Guamanian voters in the continental U.S. are an important part of this mission.”

References:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/29/michael-steele-guam_n_698565.html?ref=twitter

Fifteen – Taylor Swift

By
Edel Alon
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1

Just Fifteen by Taylor Swift

iCal and Google Apps Calendar Bug

By
Edel Alon
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1

I ran into this error message while using iCal and Google Apps Calendar, “The server responded with an error. The server did not recognize your user name or password for account “[email protected].” Make sure you enter them correctly.

I checked my password several times. I even made changes to the iCal calendar and they made it to the server. It seemed like the connection was working fine but this error message kept popping up.

I changed my password on Google. I didn’t get the error message again. Here’s where I think there’s a bug. If you have a semi-colon ; in your password, you will receive the error message. I don’t know if any other characters are having problems.

Here are the instructions on how to setup Apple iCal with Google Apps:

To set up CalDAV support for Google Calendar in Apple’s iCal, follow these steps:

  1. Open Apple iCal, go to Preferences and then the Accounts tab.
  2. Click on the + button to add an account.
  3. In the box that pops up, enter a description for the account and your Google Account username and password.
  4. Under Server Options, add the following URL:https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/[email protected]/user

    Replace ‘[email protected]’ with the email address that you use to log in to Calendar. Make sure to include the ‘@domain.com’ portion (which is @gmail.com for Gmail users) in this section. DO NOT substitute your username for ‘user’ at the end of the URL.

  5. Leave the Use Kerberos v5 for authentication option unchecked.
  6. Click Add.
  7. Under the Delegation tab, select the calendars you’d like to add to iCal by checking the boxes next to them. You may need to hit refresh to get the latest list of calendars.
  8. Add your email address to your Address Book card by selecting Add Email. You’ll be prompted to add your email address only if your address is not already in your Address Book.

You won’t be able to invite or email guests to Google Calendar events within iCal if your address is not in your Address Book.

Your Google Calendar will now appear in iCal’s list of calendars, and changes you make to your Google Calendar in iCal will be reflected when you sign in to Google Calendar.

Event information will automatically refresh every five minutes. You can change this interval by opening the iCal > Preferences > Accounts menu and selecting a new refresh interval under the ‘Refresh calendars’ drop-down. Keep in mind you can also force a refresh by selecting a calendar and pressing the Apple and R keys at the same time.

Calendars that are checked but disabled have already been added to iCal – you can remove them from within iCal.

References:
http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=99358#ical

Cherry Stone Clam Shooter

By
Edel Alon
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0

My cook book adventure is going good. Today, I did a bunch of main dishes like Chicken Adobo, Chicken Kelaguen, Lomi-Lomi Salmon, Epanadas, Scallops, Bacon Wrapped Shrimp, Red Rice, and Pan Seared Parrot Fish. There was more…a lot more but I forgot. It’s a little past midnight and I’m still going through some picture from Saturday morning. I came across the picture below. It’s a Cherry Stone clam shooter. The shooter was a one off thing I made on the fly out of pure inspiration. The main seasoning does not come from different herbs and hours of marinading but from the citrus, sake, and salt.

Ingredients

  • 1 Cherry Stone clam, minced
  • A pinch of green onion, minced
  • 1 teaspoon sake
  • 1 teaspoon lime juice
  • A pinch of green  bell pepper, minced
  • A pinch of red bell pepper, minced
  • A pinch of green onions, minced
  • A pinch of slivered ginger, minced
  • A pinch of black pepper
  • A pinch of sea salt

Method

Boil the Cherry Stone clam until it opens a little. Don’t leave it on the heat because we just want to get to the meat. Mince the clam and add sake, black pepper, salt, and lime juice. Set it aside while you prepare the decorations (bell peppers, green onions, and ginger). When ready to serve, place clams on the spoon and then add the decorations.

Octopus Ceviche

By
Edel Alon
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2

I finally settled down after a long day of shooting pictures for my cookbook. I’m not even sure how many dishes I pushed out. But one of the ones that I’m really proud of pushing out was an octopus ceviche.

Here’s my recipe:

Ingredients

  • 1 pound octopus, diced
  • 1/2 cup onion, sliced
  • 3 tablespoons orange juice
  • 1 tablespoon lime juice
  • 1/2 avocado, diced
  • 1/2 cup tomatoes, diced
  • 1 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon salt

Method

Combine all ingredients. Let rest for 1 hour in refrigerator. Serve chilled.

Dosa – Paper Masala

By
Edel Alon
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0

I tried out Dosa as part of completing my 7×7 food checklist for San Francisco. The 7×7 list recommends the Paper Masala. Here I’m thinking Paper Masala dosa sounds like a cute little origami type dish served with chutneys.

I was completely wrong and should have expected more from a dish that made it to the 7×7 list.

Out comes this giant dosa (a savory rice and lentil crepe), served with tomato & fresh coconut chutney, sambar (a flavorful lentil dipping soup made with vegetables), and spiced Indian potatoes, onions and cashew nuts.

I was completely speechless when it came out. The dosa had to be at least 24” in diameter. The tomato chutney was my favorite. It had enough spice to keep me going but it drowned the flavor of the coconut chutney. The lentil dipping soup reminded me of a black bean soup I had the other day…without the pork fat…so it needed a little salt for my taste buds.

The combination of the dosa, potatoes, and chutneys was a perfect match. The flavors complimented each other well. Overall, this is a fun dish to eat. You should definitely try the Paper Masala when you visit Dosa.

Let me know what you think. Enjoy!

References:
http://www.7×7.com
http://dosasf.com

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Welcome to the curated chaos of curiosity and creativity—brought to you by Edel Alon: maker, thinker, and hands-on problem-solver. This blog is part journal, part resource hub, and entirely dedicated to the art of doing. From culinary experiments and car tinkering to tech deep dives and DIY builds, you'll find stories, guides, reviews, and reflections designed to inspire, inform, and occasionally make you laugh (or at least raise an eyebrow). It's a celebration of learning by doing—with a few detours along the way.

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