Learning to hear German

I'm trying different strategies to improve my German listening skills. I tried recording myself read a passage and then listen back and write down what I said. Interestingly most of it was easy to pick up, but I could only capture a few words at a time; up to three, and I would have to stop and rewind and re-check.

What I stuggle with is und, I keep hearing it as un. I keep leaving the r off of einer. And three words I struggled with were bewaldete, frütterte and wechselte. Even hearing multiple times I came up with wiewoltete, vertote and wuchselte. Funny I should mistake "b" for a "w", but understandable for thinking an "f" was a "v".

Then I tried recording a short vocab list and tried writing down the english. Interestingly I struggled writing the english unless I'd written the german down first for certain words.

My word I'm a world a way from hearing german and then translating it on the fly!

Location:UK

iOS 4 multitasking

Omg very impressed with multitasking on iOS 4. I just put Radio Box into the background and it has continued to work, whilst I go into safari and then into Evernote to write this.

Then left evernote to change radio station and went back in, and it put me back in same place in Evernote, yazah! Very impressed :-)



To close a program, you hold an icon on the multitasking bar, and the a minus sign appears; press again and this closes the app.

Location:UK

iPhone app recommendations

Adobe Ideas is a good drawing package for the iphone and its free.



You can find it in the app store here;

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/adobe-ideas-1-0-for-iphone/id365441166?mt=8

http://iphone.tvcatchup.com



This allows you, after you've registered, to watch live tv, it is very good. Just save it as a button on the home screen and its as good as having an app.

Liebe bis in den Tod - is a german audio book and its excellent for helping improve German listening skills.



You can get the first chapter free;
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/id326139385?mt=8

Or pay for the whole book for £2.99;
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/lernkrimi-daf-liebe-bis-in/id324667094?mt=8

The iPad is awesome!

So I got to try out an Apple iPad, it is really quite simply genius. Loved how iPhoto and iTunes are almost like their desktop equivalent, but with touch controls. Its stunning. I think I will stick with the portrait iPhone style keyboard, then try and touch type in landscape. Documents, numbers and keynote were also very impressive, and the games were amazing!






I asked a very helpful assistance about camera connection and printing.

http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MC531ZM/A?mco=MTY3ODQ5OTY
Apple iPad camera connection, 25 quid, that's alright but should've been built in.

And about printing;
http://wiki.nisi.ro/2010/04/how-to-print-docs-from-ipad/
Print from ipad no apps required, very funny.






http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?t=106716
Ipad print apps, and possible os level printing is coming. Maybe I should wait, but either way it looks like I'd have to upgrade to a wireless printer...

Location:UK

Twitter to Tweetie

They've changed Tweetie to Twitter (iPhone app), and it forgot my accounts, so I had to re-enter them, how rude.



I rather liked the name Tweetie, what a shame.

Location:UK

iPhone issues

Some issues I've experienced with my iPhone;



1) Unresponsive touch screen. I've had this intermittantly since purchased. Quick fix: power button to sleep, the power button on again and slide - should now be responsive.
Genius bar solution: the iPhone is a computer and needs to be restarted occasionally. Hold the power button, wait for scroll to power off screen, hold until it goes black and apple logo appears

2) Can't answer call. Caused by first issue. Fix: pressing the power button off then on might work - though sometimes drops the call.

3) Random shutdowns / Phone crashing and turning off. This happens occasionally. A restart stops it for a while. Its caused by the iPhone running out of memory; at this point it shuts down.

4) Phone unresponsive after call. Sometimes the screen goes black and turns off and won't turn back on, then after a little while will turn back on

5) Shut down during call. This is outrageous and has happened to me twice. I hope there is a planned fix for this.

6) No wireless. Occasionally it won't recognise a wifi signal. But after a few minutes it suddenly recognises it.



7) Dodgy copy and paste. Quite regularly it won't allow text to be selected, or will only allow a large block of text to be selected, rather than an individual item. Rarer is when you select and the context menu doesn't appear. Or when you're trying to paste and no paste option appears.

Do you have any similar experiences?

Location:UK

Seven reasons why I'm not buying an iPad yet

Don't get me wrong I really want an Apple iPad, but here are a list of seven reasons why I won't be buying one yet.






1. Price - its £429 for the basic wifi model and £529 for the basic 3g+wifi model. I don't have that sort of spare cash, plus it means I'm going to be more worried about carrying it around, and have to pay for expensive insurance.

2. No printing - there is an app that does it in a convoluted way, but no built in printing facility is poor, come on Apple! Either wirelessely or via USB would be nice. For example if I purchase tickets online I have to go to my laptop to print them out, come on!

3. No USB or SD Card reader - so I can't plug in my camera. Even the most basic netbooks let me do this, if I'm paying that price, I want to be able to use it to download my pictures to it!

4. No front facing camera - I'm fine with no rear camera - it's too big to be a camera, I get it. But this is the ideal device for video chats, even basic netbooks do this!

5. No iPhone OS 4 yet - we've got to wait until later in the year, longer than for the iPhone. So I'd personally rather wait so I can have multitasking and a better experience overall.

6. Weak wifi - it drives me nuts when my iPhone refuses to join a network that is clearly there. If the iPad wifi issues are true and therefore worse than that, then I don't think I could cope. At least wait until Apple has put out a software fix for this.

7. Price likely to go down? - with such a high price point I'm willing to bet this is going to be reduced some months after release.

Conclusion

Mark II will be better - I kept away from the iPhone until they did it right (with the 3GS) I think I may wait here - at least until the price is reduced to a level where I can accept its limitations.

However, no flash, is not putting me off. The usability, performance and power consumption arguments are compelling. Sites should degrade gracefully to non-flash, so I can live without it.