by Michael Krupa on August 30, 2010
Today’s Tuesday Tech Tips is a guest post from Travis Phillips. Seems that Travis knew I would not have time for a Tech Tips post since I am vacation and surprised me by sending along this guest post. I hope you all find this post as entertaining as I did.
Okay, so I’m in the downtown Portland Apple store dodging the hipster throng so I can meet with a “Genius” to determine why my oh-so-cool-looking iPhone 4 no longer receives voice mail (which is not so cool). I arrived early for my appointment, which turned out to be totally pointless … except that I now have time to jot down this little ditty. That and watch the 3-year-old next to me having an ADD meltdown over an iPod Touch. Or a seizure. Could be either, but his mom’s absent and unconcerned gaze leads me to believe it’s the former. But I digress.
So here’s the deal: I’m an Apple convert. Yup, a convert. I used to do the PC thing (and still do at work), and I tried a Blackberry for a while but before the porky Droid babies were even born, I made the iPhone switch. Now, I’m not the brand of Apple convert that thinks Steve Jobs can do no wrong. Clearly, that little iPhone 4 antenna snafu is evidence to the contrary. And the fact that I’m in the Apple store waiting for support–but at least Apple has a store for support. Try that at the Verizon store. Or Sprint store. Or AT&T store. Did I mention that the voice mail issue is an AT&T issue? And that the iPhone is only available on AT&T? Sigh. Anyhow, I have a few other gripes–or, um, suggestions–as well. Read on …
Perhaps you’ve noticed: all the cool kids are talking about the iPhone. Well, Mike alternates between his iPhone and iPad. And maybe Old Spice Guy, but that’s beside the point. I’m talking about the iPhone. Ooh, it is pretty (at least until the nerdy bumper goes on). Sorry Droid. And Blackberry: does the word “aesthetics” mean anything to you? No? Oh. Obviously.
And the iPhone works. Well, maybe not so much as a phone. But who talks on a phone anymore anyhow? I mean, it IS illegal in 8 states and DC. Aside from that little hiccup, I’d argue that the iPhone has relatively few flaws compared to its competitors. And it works right out of the box. My last Blackberry came with instructions that I was supposed to charge it for, like, 18 hours or something before the first use. Who’s really going to do that?
But the iPhone does have a few curious omissions. Not the “oh, that will be on the NEXT one” kind of omissions. More like the “why can’t I respond to a calendar invite–from a Mac” kind of omissions. Or why can’t I add invitees to a calendar event or forward the event from my phone. I mean, the iPhone will forward complete contact information via TEXT for goodness sakes, why not calendar entries? It’s not an iCal limitation–I can do it on the Mac desktop. Same thing for customizing fields for a contact–like adding anniversaries or birthdays. You can make a calendar entry for it (just don’t try to send it to anyone), but view it with the contact? Sorry.
And really, would it have been so hard to be able to customize function for the (few) buttons on the iPhone? I’d love to be able to snap a photo by pressing the volume buttons or double-clicking the home button. Or maybe using the volume buttons for zoom and double-clicking the home button to shoot. Just somewhere besides the touch screen. Hello? Doesn’t anyone take blackmail–um, I mean candid–shots anymore?
The same customizing gripe goes for iPod functionality. Picture this: you’re on the treadmill or mashed on the N-Judah or whatever and you’re really into the groove pumping through the headphones. And then (insert needle-screeching-across-vinyl sound effects here) … how the #*!* did this song end up in here?!? So you fumble for the click-slide-tap routine, but tap in the wrong spot because you were running or smooshed or whatever and in the process jacked up the volume and and turned your iPhone sideways into cover flow then went back to the home screen and … oh, nevermind. Too late. Right Said Fred is now indelibly stuck in your head and on permanent repeat. Honestly, I’d much rather use the +/- keys for skip/repeat than for volume. Once I’ve got the volume set, I’m done. But the songs? They keep a-changin’.
By the way, did you know that if you open Right Said Fred’s video in multiple browsers at the same time, it’s like they’re singing it in a round. Talk about indelibly tattooed. Ugh.
And with that note, I’ll return you to your regularly scheduled Tuesday Tech Tips with Mike. Peace.
Dear Travis: Thanks so much for the guest post. I don’t want to burst your gripe bubble about iPod controls but you ought to know that the Apple headset that comes with your iPhone 4 has the following built in controls:
| Pause a song or video |
Press the center button once. Press again to resume playback. |
| Skip to the next song |
Press the center button twice quickly. |
| Return to previous song |
Press the center button three times quickly. |
| Fast-forward |
Press the center button twice quickly and hold. |
| Rewind |
Press the center button three-times quickly and hold. |
You can find all the rest of the headset controls in the iOS4 manual. Thanks again for your guest post.
by Michael Krupa on August 16, 2010
So last week I mentioned I might do a special blog post to highlight some items from our favorite “Don’t be evil” corporation. Buckle up, the boys and girls at Google have been very very busy lately.
Gmail
Many of you probably already noticed some new contact functionality and a slight tweek to the user interface in Gmail. In case you didn’t get all the scoop the official Google Gmail blog and Louis Gray have all the details.
I’m not really a drag and drop kind of guy. I guess my command line roots are showing. But for all you new fangled GUI users, Gmail now lets you Drag and drop attachments to save them to your desktop. Enough said.
Holy multiple Gmail accounts Batman. If you are like me you probably have more than one Gmail account but can’t access both accounts in the same browser. Google’s gone and fixed us up real fine by allowing you to sign-in and toggle between multiple account.
I have fielded a couple of calls from people wanting to move from Outlook to Google Apps Mail so I wanted to make sure you all knew that Google has recently enhanced their migration capabilities by adding support for IMAP and PST data migration.
Android
Do you have an HTC Android phone? If you are not a big fan of the HTC Sense UI, Lifehacker has the steps to turn off Sense.
Ever been in the middle of something using the Chrome browser on your desktop and wished you could magically send it to your Android phone? Wish no more. The new Chrome to Phone extension is now available and adds a button to your Chrome browser to send the current web page, map, YouTube video, or selected phone number or text to your Android device running Froyo (or Android 2.2).
Voice control of your Android phone is here! Well okay, you can’t do everything by voice control so head on over to the Google blog to find out which commands are now available. Speak Android speak. Good boy.
General Google
Calling all Weather geeks!! You can now see Weather in Google Earth. Not sure what else of value I can add on this one.
Back button, forward button, Google search, click link, back button. Wait, how do I get back to that site I found via Google search? Never fear, Google just launched a new search history feature available on your Android phone, iPhone or desktop to help you quickly get back to sites you have been to.
Normally I am the one scouring the blogosphere to bring you tech tips but this time I thought I would pass on to all you small business owners a new Google blog that will be focusing on Small Business. You can thank me later.
In the category of “Finally, what took so long”, all of you hosting your blog on Blogger should be aware of 2 improvements to Blogger’s comments system: much better spam filtering and the ability to view all comments on your blog in one place.
Oh my. I’m exhausted and after all these new features from our friends at Google I think it’s safe to say they are still not evil.
by Michael Krupa on August 10, 2010
Sorry boys and girls for the missing Tech Tips post from last week. I was long overdue for a vacation (trust me, it was definitely time for a few days away from work) so we packed up the dog in a rented Winnebago View and headed out for a 1 week, 3 state tour. We all had a great time especially the dog. Who knew that greyhounds loved boats.
Enough about my vacation and on to the wonderful tips for the week.
Those fantastic people over at the Library of Congress ruled that you can legally unlock/jailbreak you cell phone. BGR has the write-up and press release on this fantastic news.
I’m not sure what I think about this new device but the folks over at Clear have introduced a new 4G mobile hotspot device called the iSpot that can only be used to provide 4G WiMax access for Apple Mobile devices (iPhone, iPod and iPad). This restriction nets you a big monthly discount of only $25/mo for unlimited data. For more information, an unboxing and speed tests, Dave over at Zatz Not Funny (love that title) has it all.
Looks like the Dell Streak is finally seeing the light of day. The Streak is Android device with a 5-inch WVGA screen and cellular radio thrown in for good measure. Boy Genius got their hands on one and has a great write-up including shots of the device and the UI.
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, no it’s an Apple Magic Trackpad. Imagine a MacBook Pro trackpad in a slightly larger standalone package and well, you don’t have to imagine it, just read all about it and then head over to you local Apple Store and buy one.
Yakity yak yak yak. I haven’t been very good at giving some tech tips love to all you Palm WebOS users out there. All 5 of you. So I’m going to throw you a bone and send you over to the pre|central.net site to learn all about the new Twitter client for WebOS called Yak. Now don’t talk back.
All kidding aside on the WebOS users, I do know that many of you are glued to the physical keyboard on your Blackberry. So how about a touchscreen Blackberry with a slide out keyboard? Got your attention now do I? Engadget has a hand on review including some pretty raw video of the new phone.
That’s it for this week’s tech tips BUT our good friends at the “Don’t be evil” corporation had a ton of announcements last week so I thought I might do a special blog post just for all the new non-evily goodness sometime later this week. Or I might not.
by Michael Krupa on July 26, 2010
No time to dilly dally around this week so I am just going to launch right into my tips!
One of areas that the Android operating system beats the iPhone is the native implementation of Google Maps. Google continues their expansion of Maps functionality by adding a Yelp-like location based information called Places. As always, the Google Mobile blog has all the details on the new Places application.
For my Windows 7 readers, the Supersite for Windows blog has all the details on using the Reliability Monitor built into Windows 7 to help you find out what’s wrong with your computer.
Got an iPad? The app that is all the rage this week is the Flipboard. This free app for the iPad takes all your social networks and turns them into an attractive print style layout. I have not yet had a chance to try out the app but Engadget has great review of Flipboard if you want to learn more.
I know many of you use Google Voice so pay attention to this great article from Lifehacker on Top 10 Clever Google Voice tricks. No sit, stay or play dead tricks but I do like Tip #9 to set your Google Voice number as your Skype Caller ID.
Fed up with Windows but can’t make the move to an Apple device because you need all your Outlook mail to move with you? Hold on to your socks and head over to How-To-Geek to learn how to use the Mozilla Thunderbird email client as the go-between to convert all your Outlook email over to the Apple Mail.app email client.
Zowey. For some geek chic wristband fashion you might not want to pass up the Bluetooth Wristband Speakerphone from Atomic9. It vibrates, it voice dials, it tells you who is calling AND if you act now it will warn you when you are too far away from your phone. As an added bonus the URL for the product is in UPPER CASE (for some strange reason).
