Referral via Daring Fireball - tap tap tap ~ 10 useful iPhone tips & tricks.
There were two things on the list I didn't know about, including how to create 'curly braces' for quotes. I've also reset my phone rather than turn it off when apps slow down, but recovery from off is faster so I might try that.
There are many things about the iPhone that frustrate and worry me, but the virtual keyboard is a work of genius and beauty.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Google's SMS integration - assigning a 406 area code phone number to your Gmail ID
Google has added a (phone) SMS gateway to their Instant Messaging and Video (Chat) Conferencing Gmail extensions.
This would be more interesting if we didn't pay 40 cents every time I sent Emily a text message.
As it is, the most curious part is how they enable Gmail to receive SMS messages ...
Makes me wonder if there's a GrandCentral angle to all this.
It's not clear whether other phones, with whom you've never communicated, can use that unique number to send Gmail an SMS.
From my perspective this is backwards. I want Google instant messaging on my iPhone, I don't want to bother with SMS at all.
Update: Chris, in comments, notes that 406 is Montana's area code (I also had a 404 typo I've corrected). They chose it to get lots of free numbers.
This would be more interesting if we didn't pay 40 cents every time I sent Emily a text message.
As it is, the most curious part is how they enable Gmail to receive SMS messages ...
Official Gmail Blog: Really new in Labs this time: SMS Text Messaging for chatMy interpretation of this cryptic announcement is that the first time you use Gmail to send an SMS message, your Gmail identifier is assigned a unique 406 phone number. From that moment on SMS to that number go to Gmail.
... On the receiving end, when you get a text message from Gmail on your phone, it will come from a number in the 406 area code... You can reply to this text on your phone just like you'd reply to any other text. The reply gets routed back to our Gmail servers and shows up in your friend's Gmail chat window...
... messages will come from a [unique] 406 number so you can reply to any message and it will get back to the right person. Messages from the same person will always come from the same number, so you can even bookmark it in your phone....
Makes me wonder if there's a GrandCentral angle to all this.
It's not clear whether other phones, with whom you've never communicated, can use that unique number to send Gmail an SMS.
From my perspective this is backwards. I want Google instant messaging on my iPhone, I don't want to bother with SMS at all.
Update: Chris, in comments, notes that 406 is Montana's area code (I also had a 404 typo I've corrected). They chose it to get lots of free numbers.
Apple's iChat (videoconferencing) problem
I was looking at using iChat for some business videoconferencing. That's when I realized what a mess OS X iChat is. Great client software, but a mess on the back end.
iChat depends on a network service to establish a connection. I thought that could be either MobileMe ($$) or AOL's AIM service.
I have an old AIM account, so I took a look at them today. They're in disastrous shape. I ran into authentication issues, services that were "down", security errors (bad certificate chain) when attempting to create an account in IE 7, etc.
Wow. That makes iChat much less useful. With AOL/AIM dying in the Dacopalypse I don't want to expose anyone to them, but MobileMe isn't an option.
Ben enough, but it gets worse. MobileMe has an AIM depency too.
MobileMe: About expired accounts and iChat
... When you create a MobileMe account, Apple creates an AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) account for you that uses your MobileMe member name and password. Your MobileMe account and its entry on the AIM service are linked, so that administrative actions, such as password modifications, are carried over from MobileMe to AIM.
As long as your MobileMe account is active, the associated AIM account will also be active for your use with iChat...
So is MobileMe really using AIM's infrastructure? Brrrr. That's ominous.
At least Intel Macs can use Google Video Chat, and I think Oovoo and Skype will work on any OS X machine.
Apple needs to extricate itself from it's AIM dependency -- yesterday.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Google Tasks show up -- in Gmail?!
I thought Google might add Tasks to Calendar -- but instead they show up as a minimalist Gmail add-on.
No API, no import/export, no calendar integration and, obviously, no synchronization with Appigo's Todo.app.
Reminds me of the pointless task feature Apple added to Mail.app in OS X 10.5 (Apple completely screwed that feature).
Yawn.
Google, my offer stands.
No API, no import/export, no calendar integration and, obviously, no synchronization with Appigo's Todo.app.
Reminds me of the pointless task feature Apple added to Mail.app in OS X 10.5 (Apple completely screwed that feature).
Yawn.
Google, my offer stands.
My review: LaCie 1 TB USB 2.0 External Drive 201304U
My 200 MB Venus enclosed backup drives needed a size boost. They're a 2-3 years old anyway, that's getting geriatric for today's short-lived consumer drives.
I like the Venus enclosures, but the fans do tend to die, or just get noisy. I wanted a fanless design since they seem to work with today's cooler drives. I also wanted to get the drive and enclosure together to cut down on the hassle factor.
The LaCie USB enclosure was on sale at Amazon (Black Friday), so that's what I got. Here's my Amazon review ...
Update 5/6/09: I did run into problems. I discovered I couldn't start the system with the USB drive on. I have to restart with the drive off, then leave it off until startup is done. I don't think this was a LaCie problem, I suspect other causes.
I like the Venus enclosures, but the fans do tend to die, or just get noisy. I wanted a fanless design since they seem to work with today's cooler drives. I also wanted to get the drive and enclosure together to cut down on the hassle factor.
The LaCie USB enclosure was on sale at Amazon (Black Friday), so that's what I got. Here's my Amazon review ...
Amazon.com: LaCie Hard Disk 1 TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive, Design by Neil Poulton 301304U: ElectronicsThey seem fine, I'll update this post if I run into problems. I hope to get a few years out of them. I do have to figure out what to do with the old 200-300MB drives. The 300 MB will replace a 200MB drive sitting in a firewire enclosure, but then I'll have to figure out what to do with the others. Maybe I can donate one to a friend who doesn't do backups yet ...
I bought two of these for my rotating backups at a sale price of $120.
I wasn't impressed by the case, but I was impressed by the 2 year limited warranty. La Cie has been around for a while, so this long a warranty suggests they expect the drive to last. That's all I care about. For the purposes of storage attached to my backup server performance is irrelevant.
Some quick observations:
1. You could cut an artery on the case. Really, it's a bit silly even without LED glow. I prefer a sturdier case with softer edges.
2. Vents are in back and the base, so you can stack on atop another. I would still recommend not stacking though, these things should stay cool.
3. I believe it's fanless.
4. On XP SP 2 it doesn't spin down. I don't know if it would spin down on a Mac. Too bad, spin down preserves life in these cases.
5. Comes with a standard 2A 12V compact power supply with a modest brick in mid-cord. So easy to plug in. Completely generic brand, not La Cie branded. The power cords is not excessively long, just right for me.
6. The attached USB cable is very short. I have lots of cables, so I was happy to get a new one that's short. I used another cable with this.
7. When you plug it in you have the option of formatting for OS X or XP. I tested both. With OS X it seems to do a full formatting, but with XP it formatted far too quickly. It must have been preformatted. Unfortunately, with XP I ran into some odd behavior with delayed write errors. Could have been chance, but I did a proper full XP format (takes hours) and the drive then behaved properly. I don't like those funny formats, I like to format myself and look for errors. I then follow the formatting with a disk test.
8. Mine came with a Samsung HD103UJ internally, but I suspect that varies.
Update 5/6/09: I did run into problems. I discovered I couldn't start the system with the USB drive on. I have to restart with the drive off, then leave it off until startup is done. I don't think this was a LaCie problem, I suspect other causes.
Update 2/2/10: You can't open the #$!$!$ enclosure. Ok, so you can -- if you use credit cards to slightly separate the front, left, and right sides from their tabs then pull out the drive using string that's been threaded through the drive vents. Who the **** would ever make a sell a drive enclosure that couldn't be opened. LaCie, you are on my black list.
See also:
Use Reader's subscription trends to eliminate dead blogs
By chance I discovered today that Google Reader has an excellent feature for detecting and eliminating dead subscriptions.
It's not a new feature, so rather than add to the blog clutter with a screen shot I'll direct to a nice post with images ...
Great feature.
It's not a new feature, so rather than add to the blog clutter with a screen shot I'll direct to a nice post with images ...
Using Trends In Google Reader To Manage RSS OverloadI found a bunch that have been inactive for 2 years. Some people, like Tim Berners-Lee only publish every 6-18 months, but these don't fall into that category.
... The Subscription Trends can be very useful because it has a list of Inactive feeds where it shows rss feeds which haven’t been updated since months. Hence you just need to start clicking on the delete or trash button and start unsubscribing from those inactive feeds which are just a burden in your reading list...
Great feature.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Pixelpipe, Picasa and my Google password
I've used PictureSync for years to upload images from iPhoto SmugMug. Lately I've used a specific iPhoto plug-in for Picasa and SmugMug uploads, but the app did well when I needed it.
Now the author has launched a web service that performs similar functions: Pixelpipe. The beauty of the service is that he can create single high quality uploader for OS X or iPhoto or Windows, and then the middleware will route the image to one or more services.
The good news, at least with regard to Picasa, is that you don't have to provide Pixelpipe with your Picasa/Google password. That would be unthinkable -- I have far too much wrapped up in my Google password to hand it over to a 3rd party. [Update: see comments.]
Google has a good API for this sort of thing. If you're authenticated with Google, then Pixelpipe requests access and Google asks if you want to grant it. Pixelpipe never gets your Google info.
I'm sure not all the services work that way, but Google is the one I care about. My SmugMug un/pw is only for photos, but my Google un/pw is a big chunk of my digital identity.
Update 11/9/08: Signing up for SmugMug does require a un/pw, but that's a much smaller risk than handing over my Google credentials. I commenter tells us that SmugMug will also move to the "OAuth" standard, so even that won't be necessary. I recommend, however, that when you share a password like this you use either a unique password or, more practically, the password you use for all the stuff you don't really care about.
In the crash of '08 a big advantage of Pixelpipe is you can spread your risks. I pay for storage at both Picasa and SmugMug -- and I have lots of it. Might as well replicate anything I send to SmugMug at Picasa.
Now the author has launched a web service that performs similar functions: Pixelpipe. The beauty of the service is that he can create single high quality uploader for OS X or iPhoto or Windows, and then the middleware will route the image to one or more services.
The good news, at least with regard to Picasa, is that you don't have to provide Pixelpipe with your Picasa/Google password. That would be unthinkable -- I have far too much wrapped up in my Google password to hand it over to a 3rd party. [Update: see comments.]
Google has a good API for this sort of thing. If you're authenticated with Google, then Pixelpipe requests access and Google asks if you want to grant it. Pixelpipe never gets your Google info.
I'm sure not all the services work that way, but Google is the one I care about. My SmugMug un/pw is only for photos, but my Google un/pw is a big chunk of my digital identity.
Update 11/9/08: Signing up for SmugMug does require a un/pw, but that's a much smaller risk than handing over my Google credentials. I commenter tells us that SmugMug will also move to the "OAuth" standard, so even that won't be necessary. I recommend, however, that when you share a password like this you use either a unique password or, more practically, the password you use for all the stuff you don't really care about.
In the crash of '08 a big advantage of Pixelpipe is you can spread your risks. I pay for storage at both Picasa and SmugMug -- and I have lots of it. Might as well replicate anything I send to SmugMug at Picasa.
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