More pictures and video after the jump.

The guide told us that they see humpbacks breach on only 10% of their tours, but when they do see one, they usually see many (the theory is that it’s a form of communication between the whales). We were lucky enough to get a 1 in 10 day:

For anyone who’s interested, I’ve posted more pictures from the trip to Flickr.

For tools, I’ll be using only my Android phone and free apps that are readily available in the Android Market (all of which are also covered in my forthcoming book).

First, and most obviously, I’ll be tweeting from the road. My Twitter app of choice is Twidroid, with the additional google maps 4 twidroid plug-in to add my current location into each tweet and allow all fans to pinpoint our team’s progress on the course:

This app combination uses my phone’s built-in GPS to insert a Google Maps link to my precise location:

Anyone following along from home can click the link in my Twitter stream to go straight to the map:

So, that’s how you’ll know where I am, but I know you’ll still miss my smiling (hopefully) face and still want to hear from me about what and how I’m doing. So, I’m going to try to stream live video from the race course using Qik. It’s pretty easy to use. Just launch the app, go online, and start recording. The video feed will start streaming to my personal Qik page, and I can configure my settings to post an update to Twitter when I go live. Here’s what it will look like on my phone:

And here’s what it will look like on the web, all nicely geotagged and everything:

But I won’t be just a talking head. You can participate too. See that “Share your thoughts…” box in the previous screen? Whatever you type there will show up on my phone screen, allowing me to “take calls” during the show. Finally, if some episodes are good enough to save or publish for posterity, I’ll tweet its archived URL or embed it on my Facebook wall:

For other media (audio, photos, or video I don’t intend to stream live), I’ll use Pixelpipe (okay, the free version gets you photos only, but the Pro version is only a dollar):

I’ll send media to my blog, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever, so keep an eye on all outlets of my online media empire for minute-by-minute updates (for as long as my stamina holds out).

Thank you, Donny.

When I read Infinite Jest, the 1,100-page book required two bookmarks to read: one for the body text and one for the 100+ pages of end notes, which actually advanced the plot and were not considered supplemental to the text. I would have loved to have a more convenient way to access these endnotes where they occurred in the main narrative, popping them open to read them and collapsing back to the main text when finished. And the end notes were in a tiny font, which I would have loved to increase to read more easily. And the book weighed more than an iPad, so reduced weight would also be a feature, not to mention an easier form factor (have you ever tried to hold open a 1,100-page book for reading over an extended period of time)?

With regard to the endnotes, I could see many different ways of handling the content in ways much in the spirit of DFW’s intent. Here’s one approach that The Atlantic took for an online version “Host,” a print story by DFW that included heavy footnotes (linked as pop-ups on the page).

As a comparison, here’s what the story looked like in print:

What will it look like on the iPad? I don’t know, but I’d be willing to bet that I’d read the whole book again to find out.

UPDATE 4/15: Here’s what the sample looks like in iBooks, but selecting the endnote takes me outside the scope of the preview, so I’m not sure how it’s actually integrated into the experience:

Does it just shoot you to a page in the back? If so, is it easy to get back to the page you were on before clicking the link? I don’t see any “Back” button in the iBooks interface.

UPDATE 5/19: I’m reading Outliers now, and I like how it handles endnotes:

Note: I’ve coauthored a book on Best Android Apps. I’m running this post simultaneously on my support blog for the book and at O’Reilly’s Answers site.

Last night, I needed my Garmin to get somewhere important, but when I reached for it in the glove box, I remembered I’d loaned it out to the other car in our family and hadn’t gotten it back yet. What to do?

No Garmin in the glove box, but I did have my G1 on me, and the directions on Google Maps had saved me on numerous occasions, so I fired it up and plugged in my destination:

That Navigate option was new to me. I’d remembered hearing about Google Navigation coming to phones running versions of Android below 2.0 (my G1 is running Android 1.6, but note that Navigation is still not available for my Motorola Cliq, which is still back on Android 1.5), but I hadn’t had the chance to look into it yet. So, here was my chance. I pressed Navigate …

Turns out I wasn’t quite ready to roll yet, because Navigation required an additional (free) text-to-speech download to work. The download process was a little buggy, which forced me to install it a couple times, but I after I closed Maps and started back up again it seemed to work. I pressed Navigate again …

Here’s what my new turn-by-turn directions and route map now looked with Google Navigation turned on:

Ready to get driving, I switched over to the turn-by-turn map screen, but I could have used Street View if I’d wanted (it’s neat to look at but not as usable for actually driving, especially since I actually had a real-time street view right in front of me):

I also could have turned on a selection of layers to show gas stations, banks, traffic, and parking along my route:

All of these bells and whistles are great, interesting, and good fun, but for my phone to actually serve as a viable replacement for my Gamin GPS, it would need to speak to me, telling me when to turn. Well, it does, and in my experience, it worked just as well as my Garmin, and all for free. If you’re looking to buy a GPS unit for your car but already have a phone running Android 1.6 or higher, at least give Google Navigation a try first. You might just save yourself a few hundred dollars.

But what does Google Navigation Lady sound like? Take a listen: