Things that make you go hmmm…
Imagine that you are in a Planet of the Apes movie. You are having a conversation with your fellow human. You’ve found a book from ancient times that depicts animals in cages and humans shepherding over them. You look at each other, both of you are wondering out loud “What was the tipping point that gave the apes control?…”
That was my first thought when I read this story about the Miami Jungle Island Zoo. Seems that they have decided to give their young orangutans iPads. Using iPads as communication tools, the zoo is using software that was invented to help those with autism. The report doesn’t say which software, but it could be FirstWords, Shape Builder or the software Proloquo2Go. Pictorial-based software.
The older orangutans are said to be completely disinterested, while the 8 year-olds have taken to them just like human 8 year-olds. They are using the iPads to draw, play games and developing new vocabulary.
Presently, the trainers are the ones holding on to the iPads during the interaction, as the large hand-size and strength of the orangutans make the iPads seem like delicate playthings. But they are hoping that technology can develop a larger-more durable physical device so that the apes can interact and correspond with the public.
Hmmmm….
:::
It’s only a few weeks until Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC), which means the rumor mongers are in high gear. We’ve got stories of Apple buying TV makers, a security company claiming Apple wants their help (and then backtracking), 7 inch iPads…
The weird part is, once these stories get posted, they get reported so many times that people begin to think they are factual because they’ve seen them in so many places. But really, if you want to know if a rumor is true or not, consider the source.
If the source is the Wall Street Journal, John Gruber of Daring Fireball, or Jim Dalrymple of the Loop, you can bet it’s pretty reliable (and maybe even leaked from Apple on purpose). On the other hand, if the source is DigiTimes, Forbes, or most other places, they are generally guessing (and in the case of some, like DigiTimes, almost always wrong).
Sure, these other places occasionally get something right – but it’s more ”a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut” sort of thing than anything else.
So when the Journal says there’s upgrades coming to iCloud to allow for some sort of gallery option, like is going away with the soon-to-be turned-off MobileMe service, you can bet money on it. As for the rest…we’ll all know in a few weeks…
Back in March I wrote about losing my iCloud email for 24 hours. The same problem has cropped up several more times since then, although none of the outages has been as lengthy. What is disturbing is the increasing frequency and Apple’s continued silence on the subject. Last Friday it was out for 3 hours. Yesterday it was 90 minutes, although my time frame didn’t coincide with the time (allowing for time zone difference) Apple finally listed — well after the system was back up. Credible sources say that Apple is getting ready to add more features to iCloud, and while that’s all fine and good, let’s fix the email problems first. Over the years, I’ve moved all of my personal mail to my .mac/.me address because it was always reliable and I had it no matter who I used for an ISP. I have a Gmail account, but I use it for the non-critical/non-business/non-family things. It is, in essence, a throw-away address. Yahoo mail? Nope. I won’t have a yahoo account. Every time I’ve heard of someone having an email account compromised or hijacked it has been a yahoo account.
So, now I’m asking you, my techie friends, who is your email provider of choice, and why. I never thought the day would come when I would dump my Apple email address, but the day is coming soon if Apple can’t get a handle on this. Especially when Apple doesn’t acknowledge the problem until after it has been fixed.
Although I’ve been on Lion now since 10.7.2 and have either found work arounds for the things that bothered me or I’ve adapted, there was still one annoying default that I couldn’t overcome. No matter what, if you restarted your Mac running Lion you would have to manually uncheck the box each time to NOT have Lion relaunch all your Applications and Documents. Relief for this default came in the latest update 10.7.4. The checkbox is still there, but now it’s “sticky”. When you uncheck it, it will remain unchecked until you check it again! FINALLY!
I still need to get my photos from my mobile devices to my computer…
Years ago, at a family party, there were a few of us gathered in one side of the room showing off the apps on our iPhones. Joyfully, getting quite a kick out of the things this great new phone could do. Did I mention that I was a geek, and happy to be one?….
One of the apps I showed off was Bump. Bump was a wonderful easy-to-use-free contact sharing tool—when it seemed like all the other contact sharing apps made you jump through hoops. Bump allows you to send contact info by launching the app and just bumping two iPhones together. It was fun.
Now, Bump will help you get photos to your computer in much the same manner, bumping your iPhone to your computer. No, kidding.
First you have to set things up:
- Have the Bump app on your iPhone
- From the iPhone Settings > Bump > Turn on Location Services
- Bump will then be able to access your Photos and Photostream
- Choose the photos you would like to copy to your computer
Then:
- Go to the Bump webpage: https://photos.bu.mp
- You must choose “Allow” > Keep the web browser as the forefront app
- Tap your iPhone on the spacebar of your computer
- The chosen photos will show up in the web page
- Drag/Drop or Download them to your desktop
Still fun, still easy, still free.
See the gallery below for screenshots.
:::
Microsoft recently has some trouble with a patch (14.2.1) for Microsoft Office 2011. Many people had no issue, but some had problems with their identities not converting. Still others had a problem where you were asked for your product key after the upgrade. Of course, that’s not a problem – if you haven’t misplaced your key. My laptop upgraded just fine, so I was surprised when I was asked for my key on my MacPro.
Fortunately, I put my key in a secure note in the Keychain, so all I had to do was open the note and..um..really? I put the product code in the note instead of the key. Good Grief.
No problem, I’ll just go to the drawer where I keep all my original software. Yup, here’s Office X, Office 2004, Office 2008, backup copies of each…but where’s my Office 2011? Huh. It must be on the overflow shelf then. Right behind the Adobe Suite box…or the FileMaker box…or…
Yup, no key. No software. Un-flippin’-believable. I’ve got every other piece of software I’ve ever bought. There’s a copy of OS/2, for heaven’s sake! But no Office for Mac 2011.
So I restored my Office directory back to the way it was (thank you, Time Machine). Interestingly, the old software didn’t ask me for a key – it just worked.
A few days later, Microsoft announced a new version of the update that was supposed to work better, especially for folks who had issues with their identity before. But it worked the same for me – install the software, bring up an Office app, and get asked for your key.
So I backed it out again, and posted a comment on the Office for Mac blog. I mentioned that I couldn’t get use the update because I couldn’t find my key. A couple of other folks chimed in with similar problems. I decided to wait for the next patch to see how that would fare.
A couple of days later, I got an email from David Pelton, the Release Test Lead for Mac Office. He’d read my blog comment and wanted to try and help me out! As it turns out, Microsoft had made some changes to how they detect eSATA and Thunderbolt drives. Seems in the original release, if you had eSATA or Thunderbolt drives attached when you installed Office, then you ejected them, Office detected that as a major enough change that it thought it was running on a new computer, and so wanted a key.Bringing the program down and remounting the drive made Office happy again. But I never eject my 2 eSATA drives on my MacPro, so I never ran into the problem – until the upgrade.
The upgrade takes care of the problem, but the new code now wanted my key one more time (most likely it was generating a “new” baseline that didn’t include the external drives). We proved this out somewhat by my ejecting a drive while still on the older version of the software. I then brought up Word, and I was asked for my key. I remounted the drive, and was no longer asked for a key. I then installed the update, brought up Outlook – and got asked for my missing key. But Mr. Pelton was nice enough to give me a new key, and now with the 14.2.1 update Office doesn’t care if the drives are attached or not.
So two takeaways for this week – make sure you have those keys backed up (mine are now in the Keychain and in 1Password), and it does pay to (politely) complain sometimes. Thanks again to Mr. Pelton and Microsoft for getting me out of a jam.
By the way, I see there is another patch, 14.2.2 available as I write this. Time to update…
We all know that MobileMe is going away the end of June. Many have moved to iCloud, but there are many more who are putting it off as long as possible. To help make the transition easier to accomplish and understand, those great folks at Take Control Books have published a nice addition to your tech/reference library — Take Control of iCloud, written by the Senior Editor of TidBITS and one of my favorite tech authors, Joe Kissell. The book has been around for a few months, but an update was released just last week.
Now, I can’t speak for everyone, but I like my books in digital format. This one, like the rest of the Take Control library, is available in print or digital. The big advantage? As Apple changes and tweaks iCloud, the digital version can be updated. I have it on my iPad (in iBooks), and thanks to DropBox (listed as an alternative to iDisk) I also have it on my Nook Tablet.
Joe Kissell has a talent for distilling information into concise, understandable writing. Authors who take five paragraphs to say what can be condensed to one paragraph drive me nuts. I read technical books to learn. Save the verbosity for fiction.
Take Control of iCloud leads you through setting up, migrating from MobileMe, understanding iCloud automatic downloads, making the most of Photo Stream and the rest, all the way to troubleshooting iCloud problems. There is also a section on replacements for lost MobileMe features. I knew some of them, but Joe listed a couple that I missed. I’m currently trying out one of his suggested replacements for the MobileMe Photo Galleries.
If you are looking for good, easy to understand information about moving to iCloud, check out Take Control of iCloud. In fact, check out all of the available titles from Take Control Books. They are some of the best available, and if you’re not sure, you can always download a free sample that includes the table of contents. At the very least, check out the TidBITS website. You won’t be sorry.
I fired up iTunes the other day and realized that my iPad hadn’t backed up in almost a month. I wondered how could this be since I have WiFi sync enabled and I have both devices on the same WiFi network. Then it dawned upon me that I probably haven’t had both my computer awake and iTunes open while the iPad was connected to power long enough for this to happen automatically. I initiated a manual sync right then and there and it got me to thinking that it’s probably time for Apple to separate out iOS device management from iTunes. I would backup the iPad to iCloud, but I don’t have enough free space on iCloud.
In the beginning…
When Apple created the iPod it made perfect sense to have it sync and be managed directly with iTunes. After all that’s where all your music was and pretty much all your entertainment that you downloaded from the iTunes store. However, does that still make sense today? Sure your music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, etc. are probably in iTunes and of course you want the ability to have this content on your iOS devices. However, your photos are in iPhoto, Aperture or a folder and you can sync those just fine. So why does the iOS management have to be in iTunes? I think it’s time that Apple create a dedicated iOS utility that would sync in the background at the OS level without requiring a dedicated App to be opened. Think about it like the Mac App Store. It’s a dedicated App just for managing your Mac Apps. Perhaps Apple could make an App Store App that would manage all Apps and devices. This could also end a lot of user confusion around music libraries, playlists, etc. when you have multiple users wanting to sync to the same computer, but with different photo, music, contacts, calendars and Apps. Perhaps iTunes could still manage the Apps, but the New iOS Utility would be configurable as to where to get the content from for each user and work across multiple user accounts of the same computer.
Here’s a test for my theory
If you think things are just fine the way they are, ask yourself this question. If Apple was building the first iOS device today AND it wasn’t an evolution of the iPod, would it be managed via iTunes? I’m going to guess that the answer would be no. They would make a slick new App for their slick new device.
Perhaps it just time for an iTunes overhaul
Maybe iTunes is the right App, but perhaps it’s iTunes itself that is starting to show its age. Maybe it’s time to tear down iTunes and build it back up from the ground up again. The name iTunes alone lets you know how old it is because back then it was just about music.
The Bottom Line
In any case I think it’s time Apple takes another look at the growing number of iOS users and ask the question, is iTunes the right first experience for those users to manage their new devices? Granted much of it’s moving to the cloud anyway and perhaps in a year or two you won’t really need iTunes to do anything to an iOS device anyway, but for now as long as backing up locally, system restoring and certain other functions can only be performed via iTunes, it would be nice to have a dedicated utility that is separate from iTunes sort of how there’s a separate AirPort Utility.
Well, we take our names personally.
Some of us more than others.
I have really enjoyed Siri. I’ve asked Siri to do things for me like make a call for me while I was driving. This keeps my eyes on the road where they need to be. Siri has created Reminders for me and iCal events and played requested songs. Just like you see on the commercials, Siri is a real convenient treat to have. The only thing I didn’t like about Siri was it’s pronounciation of my name. Siri buthered it just like most people do on a daily basis.
I have little patience for that. I mean, really, there has to be a way for “my own talking phone” to pronounce my name correctly. And there is, actually several ways to pull this off.
First option: you can just tell Siri what to call you.
On one iPhone commercial a young adult tells Siri to “Call me Rock God.”
- To tell Siri what to call you, first activate Siri by holding down the home button and wait for the beep.
- Say “Call me ____.”
- Fill in the blank with whatever you want Siri to refer to you as.
- This can be your name or anything else.
- Siri will reply “From now on, I’ll call you ____. OK?
- Reply “OK.”
Siri will then update the nickname field of your contact info with this name. This is also how your name will appear when Siri types out your name.
I wasn’t too trusting of this since Siri couldn’t pronounce my name correctly in the first place, I didn’t want to give Siri creative license to spell it.
Another option is to manually create a nickname for Siri to call you. Within Contacts you can add a Nickname field yourself and enter the desired moniker.
The option I used was also within Contacts. The option to add the Phonetic field. This way, you can spell a name phonetically and actually play with it, just in case you need to mold how Siri pronounces it. My total satisfaction was achieved when I placed hyphens between the syllables. Otherwise Siri seemed to run the syllables together.
:::
You might recall when I accidentally tested the durability of my iPad, which led me to dump Apple’s Smart Cover for a new cover from Mophie. That cover was OK, but it had one big problem – the band used to hold the cover shut connects to the bottom of the case by hooking through a loop. The problem is that the hook is constantly slipping out, and it’s a pin to get back in.
So when I picked up my new iPad, I passed the case along, with the old one and went shopping for another. I finally decided on this one from Belkin. Instead of the strap, this one has a magnetic flap.
Otherwise, it’s pretty similar. The magnets don’t always seem to line up like they always did with the Mophie, but the clasp is much less of a hassle than the clasp.
So if you’re in the market for a new cover, this is one I recommend. It’s $49.95, so not cheap but not really expensive, either.
Loading ...
