Seasoned Ruminations http://sandro.org Technology. Food. Music. Film. Life. All neatly bundled and ready for consumption. Mon, 19 Jul 2010 19:43:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 A Distilled List of iPhone and iPad Apps http://sandro.org/2010/07/a-distilled-list-of-iphone-and-ipad-apps/ http://sandro.org/2010/07/a-distilled-list-of-iphone-and-ipad-apps/#comments Mon, 19 Jul 2010 19:43:44 +0000 sandro http://sandro.org/2010/07/a-distilled-list-of-iphone-and-ipad-apps/ Continue reading >]]>
A friend has finally upgraded to an iPhone and asked me to compile a list of iPhone apps that I regularly use.  When it is was done I thought it worth sharing.

So, in addition to the much used default apps (Mail, Safari, Maps, Calendar, Contacts, Photos, Clock, Settings, App Store), here are, in no particular order, the best free and paid apps I’ve downloaded and use:

Note, several of these apps attain true awesomeness and usefulness when linked to cloud services or because they sync across multiple platform and devices.

Phone and Voice:
Ribbit
Jott
Skype
Google Voice (web shortcut but I use it enough to warrant a mention)

Weather:
Weatherbug

Utilities:
Light
TotalBaby
Downloader
Dropbox
Quickmark
TextExpander
Google Earth

Photography:
Hispstamatic
CameraBag
Autostitch
Flickr
Photoforge
Camera Genius

Reading:
Instapaper Pro
NYTimes
Goodreader
Kindle
iBooks
Reeder

Audio and Video:
Last.fm
Pandora
Shazam
iMovie
Boxee

Food and Drink + Guides:
Yelp
Menupages
Opentable
Epicurious
Foodspotting
Freshdirect
TONY
Starbucks

Productivity:
SplashID
SplashShopper
Evernote
Toodledo
OmniFocus
FMtouch
iFlash
Shoeboxed
Timebridge

Social:
Osfoora
Foursquare
LinkedIn
Facebook
GetGlue
Blockchalk
Boxcar
Bump
Stickybits
Hot Potato

Financial:
YNAB
MyWireless from AT&T
eTrade
Currency

Travel and Getting Around:
Cabsense
NYCmate
Citytransit
Taxi
Tripit
Zipcar
Transit Maps

Shopping:
Gilt 
Redlaser
Hunchable

Design:

Adobe Ideas

Movies:
Fandango
IMDB

Sports:
ESPN Scorecenter

Sleeping and Relaxation:
Pzizz Energizer
Pzizz Sleep
Asleep

iPad Only:
All the aforementioned apps’ HD iPad versions
iThoughts HD
Adobe Ideas (mentioning this a second time because it’s so much better and more useful on an iPad)
Corkulous
Penultimate
Prompster
Pages
Numbers
Keynote
NYTimes Editor’s Choice
Financial Times Mobile Edition
Apollo News
Uzu
Hulu Plus
Starmap HD
Da Vinci HD
Magic Window

Maybe I’ll get to describing these one day or even write about my use cases but for now names will have to do.

Also, I know I have omitted some apps that I have installed and occasionally use, or are city specific (like the city apps I load when I travel) but I needed to trim the list a bit ;)

]]> http://sandro.org/2010/07/a-distilled-list-of-iphone-and-ipad-apps/feed/ 0 My Twitter Environment aka Twitter Tools I Use http://sandro.org/2010/07/my-twitter-environment-aka-twitter-tools-i-use/ http://sandro.org/2010/07/my-twitter-environment-aka-twitter-tools-i-use/#comments Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:47:37 +0000 sandro http://sandro.org/2010/07/my-twitter-environment-aka-twitter-tools-i-use/ Continue reading >]]>
Going through the never ending process of hearing about or searching for and then evaluating new Twitter tools,  I felt that this was as good a time as any to put forth a snapshot of which tools I currently use and how I use them.

There is one huge caveat and problem with all of these services with how they score original style (RT) vs new style retweets.  New style retweets seem to be easier to measure and track via the Twitter API while old style retweets seem to not be tracked as well or if at all.  From my own experiences with these services, specifically Klout, Tap11, Twitalyzer (Jeff Katz, Product Lead @Twitalyzer set me straight on their service & RT monitoring), Tweet reach, et al, I have found that they usually miss old style retweets.  This is really unfortunate because I loathe the new style retweet because I can’t add my $0.02 to it, and I suspect I’m not alone.

So, in no particular order, I have broken the tools into these categories: Ranking/Influence, Metrics, Maintenance, Tracking, Search, Backup, Reading/Posting and Photos.

Ranking/Influence:
Influence is a helpful way of gauging your and others’ reach and impact.  Each of these services have different approaches and use different criteria, so scores will vary from service to service.  Also, you may find anomalies in one service’s score for a period of time (see Klout below).  Both of these reasons are why I use several services to come up with a more meaningful overall number.  

I have always liked Klout for putting forth their Klout Score.  That said, recently my Klout score dropped in half even though I added 15% more followers, doubled the lists I am in, had a significant number of conversations and retweets.  Not sure if it’s problems on their end or due to inconsistent Twitter API fun.
UPDATE: I have heard back from the Klout team and they looked into the problem and it was in fact caused by the Twitter API problems of the last month or so.

This is an adaptation of Google’s PageRank and measures inbound and outbound attention.  A much better description is available at: http://thenoisychannel.com/2009/01/13/a-twitter-analog-to-pagerank/

This is put forth by the data junkies at Infochimps and is their take on porting Google’s PageRank to Twitter.  A good explanation of their approach is at: http://trst.me/about

This measures reach and exposure for your Twitter identity by calculating how many people your tweets actually got through to.

Metrics:
I first heard of them at Chirp and really loved their approach to visualizing your Twitter analytics.  I also really like their keyword tracking and performance tools.  They were in beta until recently but are now pay only with the base tier costing $49 a month.

This is a nice tool for visualizing your follower growth.  They also have a great widget and follower button which you can embed on your website or blog.

This has many influencer metrics: impact score, influence type, scores for a variety of indicators, and some recommendations on improving your 

This service will analyze your twitter stream and tell you whether you tweet more or less, by percentage, than the average user on 21 different categories including: Sex, Learning, Media, Time, Emotions, Senses, Work, Constructive, Primordial, Thinking, Control, Negative, Conceptual, Numbers, Anxiety, Self Reference, Present, Social, Future, Leisure, Money.  They also provide you with “People Who Think Like You”.  I need to check that feature out a bit more.

Maintenance:
With this service you can identify users that do not follow you back.  Once you login, you’re presented with all the users you follow who don’t follow you back.  You can then unfollow any combination of users.  This has been really helpful to me as I am currently butting up against the 2001 follow limit.

Tracking:
Follow Mr. Unfollowr and he will DM you with the identities of people who have unfollowed you.  They usually send the DM approximately once a week. This is very useful in dealing with the Twitter trolls who follow you to get you to follow them back and then promptly unfollow you.  That is simply not cool and I am happy to reciprocate.

Another unfollower alerting tool that sends a daily email.

Follow listwatcher and they will DM you when people add or remove you from public lists.  Again, this is helpful in monitoring your brand and engagement levels.

Another follower tracking tool which when followed, DMs you stats about your net gain/loss.

Search:
Naturally the most complete search available but I found it to be inconsistent but it is getting better

Icerocket Twitter Search http://www.icerocket.com/?tab=twitter
Another take on Twitter search.

Real time search results bundled into trending topics.

Backup:
A free service that backs up your tweets and makes them available for export in HTML, JSON and XML formats

This is wonderful bookmarking alternative to Delicious which can optionally import all of your Tweets and make them searchable.

Reading/Posting:
This is my OSX app of choice for so many reasons – too many so I’ll just enumerate a few here: it has a minimized view; I can quicklook photos; it actively tracks read/unread tweets for the main timeline and lists; it has a tab view; I can create custom filters based on strings or even grep to ignore annoying trends; it color codes my timeline based on conversation and sender/replies; it shows me in realtime whether the follow status is mutual; there is a drawer with all of a person’s info; and so on.  It really is a swiss army knife.  It does have one point of failure though, it doesn’t allow one to schedule tweets.

Osfoora [iPhone, iPad] http://www.osfoora.com/
By far and away my favorite client for both the iPhone and iPad.  It has a great UX and provides easy access to everything you’d expect and need: list and drafts access; read/unread tracking; multiple image, video, link shortening services; instapaper integration; textexpander integration; autocompletion of user names and hash tags for tweeting and search; google map integration for showing nearby tweets; full contacts list and views.

This Adobe AIR app supports posting from a Brand, ie. it shows you how to create a Twitter app and then post from that app.  In other words, you know when you look at a tweet and it says “sent via web” or API or Hootsuite?  Well, with MarketMeTweet you can set it up so it can say “sent via Whatever_You_Want”.  Pretty cool for brands.

I first saw them at the ReadWriteWeb NYC Summit and was really taken by their approach of attempting to calculate the optimum time to publish a tweet.  Amid all the noise, it really is about timing your tweets so that you reach the maximum number of people.  I suspect I will be using this quite a bit once I get my invite code (hint).

Hootsuite / Cotweet  http://hootsuite.com / http://cotweet.com 
For team based workflows, with scheduling and approval processes, these are the two tools I go to and recommend.

I occasionally use this when I need to get past the 140 character limit but I really try not to as it breaks many of the systems I have in place, makes users click to read, and no doubt adversely impacts tracking and metrics.

Photos:
Flickr offers up a simple way of posting to your Flickr stream and cross-posting to Twitter via email.  I can’t remember if it requires a Flickr Pro account or not but it’s super simple to set up.

A great way to quickly get photos up and into the Twitter ecosystem.  I use this occasionally when I don’t want a photo to pollute my Flickr stream

The dead simple email to blog service have an iPhone app which allows you to take and collect photos on your iPhone and assemble them into a collection, and then upload them to your posterous blog.  Very cool.

I hope these help and I don’t doubt they will update over time.  Follow me on Twitter, drop me a message/@reply or DM me with feedback or other services that I missed.

]]> http://sandro.org/2010/07/my-twitter-environment-aka-twitter-tools-i-use/feed/ 2 Not sure what the @etsy crew was up to today in DUMBO. Any ideas? http://sandro.org/2010/07/not-sure-what-the-etsy-crew-was-up-to-today-in-dumbo-any-ideas/ http://sandro.org/2010/07/not-sure-what-the-etsy-crew-was-up-to-today-in-dumbo-any-ideas/#comments Thu, 08 Jul 2010 22:51:35 +0000 sandro http://sandro.org/2010/07/not-sure-what-the-etsy-crew-was-up-to-today-in-dumbo-any-ideas/ Continue reading >]]> On the sidewalk right outside my building in DUMBO, Brooklyn. I know they’re right here because I can see their wireless network from my house ;)

]]> http://sandro.org/2010/07/not-sure-what-the-etsy-crew-was-up-to-today-in-dumbo-any-ideas/feed/ 0 How To: In Honor of the iPhone4 Arrivals – Extracting Your Blackberry Contacts, Calendar, & Todos in BULK http://sandro.org/2010/06/how-to-in-honor-of-the-iphone4-arrivals-extracting-your-blackberry-contacts-calendar-todos-in-bulk/ http://sandro.org/2010/06/how-to-in-honor-of-the-iphone4-arrivals-extracting-your-blackberry-contacts-calendar-todos-in-bulk/#comments Sat, 26 Jun 2010 13:11:32 +0000 sandro http://sandro.org/2010/06/how-to-in-honor-of-the-iphone4-arrivals-extracting-your-blackberry-contacts-calendar-todos-in-bulk/ Continue reading >]]>
After ordering her iPhone4 through AT&T, they graciously sent my wife a “so you’re switching from a blackberry to an iPhone” email in anticipation of the imminent pain of a cross-platform device migration.  In that well intentioned email they said that to transfer all the contacts from the blackberry to the iPhone, she would have to save all of her contacts to her SIM card, transfer the blackberry SIM to the iPhone, import them to the address book from that SIM, then put the new iPhone SIM card back in.  

That sounds simple and wonderful, in theory.  Unfortunately in practice RIM only provides bulk import options for a SIM to blackberry address book transfer.  Get this, if you want to get your contacts out of your Blackberry to your SIM, you have to save them one at a time. You read that right.  All together now, AT&T and RIM both want you to copy your contacts to a SIM card one at a time.  Have you ever copied a Blackberry contact to a SIM card?  It’s a fairly heinous procedure which in my wife’s case we would have had to repeat 1454 times.  Also due to SIM car limitations, and perhaps this has changed but SIM card contacts can only hold one number.  So those 1454 contacts could have easily become Thousands of entries and that doesn’t even take into account addresses, notes, et al.  What kind of user experience is that?  I can safely safe that it’s beyond ludicrous.

So, having gone through this exercise a couple of years ago, I set about doing it my way which involves a few steps but far less data entry and processing than the manual one at a time method endorsed by AT&T and RIM.  If you have fewer than a manageable number of contacts, stop now and just type as it will be faster.  My threshold is about 10 :)

You’ll need Outlook & Blackberry Desktop Manager running on Windows; I used Parallels on my Macbook Pro

  1. You’ll probably want to create a new Outlook profile to start clean
  2. Go to Start Menu > Control Panel > Mail
  3. Create a new profile and Uncheck the default checkbox
  4. Start Blackberry Desktop Manager
  5. Plug BB into USB port and if on OSX, make sure it connects to and is mounted by Virtual Machine
  6. You could be asked for the PIN – on my wife’s it was her keyboard lock
  7. Select Backup
  8. Perform a full backup, creating a folder and saving it somewhere memorable
  9. Then go to the Advanced option and selectively transfer a few key files by selecting them on the right column and then hitting the <- arrow
    • Address Book
    • Calendar
    • Phone Logs
    • SMS Texts
    • Tasks
  10. Go to Synchronize in BB Desktop Manager and hit Synchronize (I opted out of reconciling email)
  11. If all goes well then you should get a confirmation dialog box that looks like Figure 1. Hit accept. Now you know why manual was not an option ;)
  12. Hit Accept
  13. It will go through and sync all your contacts, calendar and memo pad objects
  14. Now go to Outlook and all your contacts, calendar and tasks should now be listed
  15. Go to File > Import and Export…
  16. Select Export to a File
  17. Select a file format; I opted for Comma Separated Values file Windows format
  18. Next up is what to export.  You can only do one at a time so I started with Calendar
  19. Name your file and save to the folder that you hopefully created in step 8
  20. Repeat steps 15-19 but for Contacts and then Notes
  21. In your folder that you created in step 8 you will hopefully find 4 files: the backup and the 3 export files
  22. Now unless Outlook is your final destination, you will need to import the files into your apps of choice. I went to her laptop and launched Address Book and imported the csv file.
  23. Make sure you go through when mapping fields because you don’t want to loose data
  24. Don’t kid yourself though, you will have data scrubbing to do and that can be done at the CSV stage (not fun) or at the Address Book stage (slightly less painful).  Either way it’s going to suck but at least at the Address Book stage you can sync to you iPhone and edit at will over time.

So long Blackberry and thanks for all the fish.

Enjoy.

References:
Here are the basic instructions for the Address Book import:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=AddressBook/4.0/en/ad808.html

Figure 1: Address Book [Similar one for Calendar]

]]> http://sandro.org/2010/06/how-to-in-honor-of-the-iphone4-arrivals-extracting-your-blackberry-contacts-calendar-todos-in-bulk/feed/ 0 Age and Mobile Video – Thoughts on the Nielsen Three-Screen Report http://sandro.org/2010/06/age-and-mobile-video-thoughts-on-the-nielsen-three-screen-report/ http://sandro.org/2010/06/age-and-mobile-video-thoughts-on-the-nielsen-three-screen-report/#comments Tue, 22 Jun 2010 13:27:02 +0000 sandro http://sandro.org/2010/06/age-and-mobile-video-thoughts-on-the-nielsen-three-screen-report/ Continue reading >]]> I just read through Nielsen’s Q1 2010 three-screen report (TV, computer, mobile) and while their conclusions weren’t too surprising there was one thing that really stood out.

The most striking trend I saw was the impact of age on the result set.  In a nutshell, the younger the viewer, the less video they watch across the board for all mediums, including PCs, except for mobile.  There’s an inverse relationship between age group and number of hours watched on mobile devices.  So, for mobile viewing, the teen 12-17 group outpaced the 18-24 group which outpaced the 25-34 group and so on.  As a matter of fact, for all of the screens, the teen group’s data resembled the 65+ group more than it does the 18-24 group.  Now that’s funny.

This has to be great news for all the mobile video companies out there as their addressable market grows and gain earning/spending power, and ought to serve as further proof to the existing content providers that their future consumers want content everywhere, all the time.

One sidenote in all of this is that one has to infer that a significant number of the teen 12-17 group has video enabled smart phones which is an entirely different point and post.  

There are also a couple of variables that weren’t addressed: are teens watching mobile because they actually want to or because they have to?  Could it be due to being out and about more, or being prohibited from watching TV at home or video on a PC?

Anyway, enjoy the numbers below and check out the Nielsen post and download the report

]]> http://sandro.org/2010/06/age-and-mobile-video-thoughts-on-the-nielsen-three-screen-report/feed/ 0 More Sunset Over Manhattan From Brooklyn Bridge Park http://sandro.org/2010/06/more-sunset-over-manhattan-from-brooklyn-bridge-park/ http://sandro.org/2010/06/more-sunset-over-manhattan-from-brooklyn-bridge-park/#comments Sun, 20 Jun 2010 00:08:31 +0000 sandro http://sandro.org/2010/06/more-sunset-over-manhattan-from-brooklyn-bridge-park/ Continue reading >]]> ]]> http://sandro.org/2010/06/more-sunset-over-manhattan-from-brooklyn-bridge-park/feed/ 0 Sunset Over Manhattan From Brooklyn Bridge Park http://sandro.org/2010/06/sunset-over-manhattan-from-brooklyn-bridge-park/ http://sandro.org/2010/06/sunset-over-manhattan-from-brooklyn-bridge-park/#comments Sat, 19 Jun 2010 23:33:29 +0000 sandro http://sandro.org/2010/06/sunset-over-manhattan-from-brooklyn-bridge-park/ Continue reading >]]> ]]> http://sandro.org/2010/06/sunset-over-manhattan-from-brooklyn-bridge-park/feed/ 0 Sign that @Zipcar has officially made it http://sandro.org/2010/06/sign-that-zipcar-has-officially-made-it/ http://sandro.org/2010/06/sign-that-zipcar-has-officially-made-it/#comments Wed, 02 Jun 2010 14:56:51 +0000 sandro http://sandro.org/2010/06/sign-that-zipcar-has-officially-made-it/ Continue reading >]]> I’ve been a huge Zipcar user and fan for years so this is no surprise to me. Their business model was most welcomed by urban dwellers like myself who don’t need a car 24/7 nor pay the exorbitant prices for parking, insurance and inevitable tickets on top of the car itself.

When a brand as big as Hertz decides to alter their business model, it’s sure that Zipcar has successfully disrupted their old mentality and bottom line.

There’s one problem with Hertz’s offering that I see, you still have to deal with humans at Hertz. That’s one of Zipcar’s biggest selling points. Note that point isn’t addressed in the ad, so they aren’t going after switchers but probably trying to stem the bleeding.

Hertz could also be fearing the recent announcement of Zipcar’s IPO. Just a bit right?

]]> http://sandro.org/2010/06/sign-that-zipcar-has-officially-made-it/feed/ 0 iPad Cover + Grips http://sandro.org/2010/05/ipad-cover-grips/ http://sandro.org/2010/05/ipad-cover-grips/#comments Sat, 22 May 2010 20:16:17 +0000 sandro http://sandro.org/2010/05/ipad-cover-grips/ Continue reading >]]> I’ve been asked several times over the last week about my iPad cover so I figured I would share.

the main case is a Griffin case that is made out of rubber , is faceless and is just a bit slick. So I bought some grip strips from grip-it-strips.com and stuck them on in a pattern that favors my right handedness; I hold my iPad with my left hand and need more strips on that side.

So far it’s been working great and actually allowed me to avert a near disaster when I gripped it with one hand and kept it from dropping several feet to a world of pain.

]]> http://sandro.org/2010/05/ipad-cover-grips/feed/ 0 Musings: My Istanbul Turkey Wrap-Up and Musts http://sandro.org/2010/05/musings-my-istanbul-turkey-wrap-up-and-musts/ http://sandro.org/2010/05/musings-my-istanbul-turkey-wrap-up-and-musts/#comments Sat, 22 May 2010 17:34:29 +0000 sandro http://sandro.org/2010/05/musings-my-istanbul-turkey-wrap-up-and-musts/ Continue reading >]]> I’ve been meaning to get this wrap-up done for a while and was finally in-part motivated by Matt Mullenweg’s request for tips which you can find here: http://ma.tt/2010/05/tips-for-turkey/

Anyway, here goes.  This is a list of my musts which I did in about 4 days.  I hope it helps and if it does or you find other great things, let me know.

TRANSPORTATION:

AKBIL and the public transportation system:

Buy an AKBIL.  It’s a rechargeable magnetic dongle used to ride for all the metro, trams, buses and ferries.  You can even take the metro into town from the airport, which I would highly recommend as it will invariably take less time and as a bonus cost significantly less.  Some people say to buy one and share for your group but I found that if you do that you won’t be eligible for transfer past the first rider, and considering how cheap they are just get one for every person.
Taxis
They get you where you need to be but I found them to be less than helpful, at time deceitful (taking us on runarounds which we knew were happening but could not do anything about due to the language barrier), and unnecessarily expensive for what they offer.
Private Vans:
To get to the more obscure spots you may need to navigate the mildly baffling and freeform world of private vans.  Their stops aren’t necessarily marked, their prices aren’t necessarily listed, but they do cover that proverbial last mile.
Renting Cars:
I would avoid it at all costs.  There’s no reason to get one unless you’re leaving town, the traffic can be abysmal, you will get completely lost, and you will get towed.  To the getting towed point, I wish I had a photo or better yet video of this tow truck they have but it was astounding to watch.  A truck pulls along side a car, lowers a side mounted fork lift and lifts the car onto its flatbed.  All of this took place without the driver getting out of the truck and was done in under 15 seconds.  It was completely ruthless.
SITES:
Topkapi Palace
Simply stunning.  The full tour took us about 3-4 hours but was well worth it.  You can break for lunch about halfway at a cafe that has amazing viewsOf the Bosphorus.  The Jewels and Artifacts are truly unique and mind blowing.
Blue Mosque and Aya Sofya (aka Hagia Sophia)
One the most unique and beautiful Mosques I have ever seen.  Color, curves and scale come together for a major Wow moment.  Aya Sofya is another impressive Mosque that’s currently under a massive renovation project.
Basilica Cistern
Underground water reservoir filled with symmetrical columns and dim lighting that made me feel like I was in a Fremen outpost on Arakis? I’m in.

Grand Bazaar

World reknowned market where you can stock up on gifts and booty for yourself.  While it’s not as vast as Chatuchak in Bangkok it more than hold’s its own.Carpets tend to be the big ticket item that’s pushed but there’s plenty more to choose from.

Spice Market

Unreal array of colors, smells and tastes.  Stock up on saffron, vanilla beans, and a variety of other spices, teas or coffee.  Find some Medjools – the fattest, moistest and sweetest dates you”ll ever have.  Enjoy some real and fresh turkish delight.
A COUPLE OF ITINERARIES:

Site Seeing

If you get up really early, and based on the day of the week since most of the sites close a day a week and it isn’t always the same day, you can theoretically do all of the aforementioned sites in one day.  That said, it would be a really long day and probably best served by covering them over two days.  You’ll find that most of the sites are actually pretty close to each other and can easily be walked to/from.
Beyoglu Taksin and Tarlabasi
Take the metro to the tram up to the top of Taksim square so you can walk down Tarlabasi Street.  Believe me, down is the operative term.
Asia Side
Grab a ferry to head over to Kadikoy on the Asia side for lunch at Ciya and to check out a different side of Istabul.  The meal alone is worth it (see below).  The ferry leaves from the main ferry landing strip In Sultanahmet near the Galata bridge.
Bosphorus
Take a half-day to full day if you have the time ride up the Bosphorus.  Gorgeous, refreshing, and you’ll be on a boat.
It’s on the Asia side.  It’s a nice ferry ride over To Kadikoy and the area Ciya is in is quite lively and filled with restaurants and shops.  Food wise, it was my favorite meal in Istanbul. It’s a giant buffet of hot and cold dishes and salads and you just point to a half dozen and they appear on your table.  Totally delicious.  When you find it, there will actually be three of them right next to each other: one is a kebap restaurant and is quite good but you want to hit the one across the way with the hot buffet on your left and the salad bar on your right.  I cannot recommend it enough.
Truly amazing lahmacun.  I think I ate four of them.  It’s also in a hip and upscale neighborhood
Hole in the wall but legendary shish kebab right off of Tarlabasi while walking down from Taksin Square
It’s definitely out of the way but worth it if you’re feeling adventurous.  Their specialty is roasted a lamb in a pit.  Enough said.  The desert looking thing below was something I’d never had before: it was a gooey corn meal polenta like thing with vanilla ice cream and bananas.  So good.
Ayran
It’s a liquidy and salty yogurt drink.  I thought I’d hate it but actually loved it especially in tandem with a lot of the meat dishes. Sometimes it’s even served in bowls with ladles so you can slurp away.  Give it a shot.
Dried Fruits:
The Medjools and apricots are both phenomenal and made the perfect day bag snack for me.  There are plenty of others for you to choose from.
Turkish Ice Cream:
It’s hard to explain why it’s so good but the best I can do its that it’s a bit chewier than what we get in America or Italy – it might be due to some gum arabic or some kind of binding agent.  Anyway it’s delicious.
OTHER MUSTS:
Hamami
Go ahead and do it, get pummeled into submission in a super heated octagonal room/platform.  I went to Cagaloglu Hamami and was really pleased with the outcome.

Cooking class:

Cooking a La Turka - www.cookingalaturka.com

It’s a couple hour cooking class where you make 3-4 classic Turkish dishes in a small group environment then sit to dinner and eat your warez.  I really enjoyed it, the food was great and I learned a few things.  Win.
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