When?
There are iPhone/iPad apps that I have used once and decided they weren’t for me. There are apps that I have used a few times and then found something better. But there is one app that I’ve never been able to use fully, and can’t use because in its present form it is still unusable to most.
Every once in a while I launch it to see where it is in its developement, and to read the scathing criticisms on it. That app is WatchESPN.
I was thrilled when I heard this app was coming out.
I regularly watch tennis matches on my laptop on (was ESPN36, then ESPN3, now) ESPN.GO.COM and thought, “Great, I’ll be able to pull up matches while my iPad and I are out and about.”Well, not so fast.” That online formatting is presently not compatible with iPad.
So, when I heard that an ESPN sports app was coming out, that would provide realtime or replay TV network sport programs, I was joyful. “Well, not so fast.” When I launched the app after download I was more disappointed than if the app didn’t work at all.
No major service providers supported this app. I think at that initial time of download, there was one provider. Bright House. Since then, every time I check back after an update is announced of the app, I look at the service providers. Present are Time Warner, Verizon Broadband, Verizon FIOS TV, but still no Comcast, no AT&T. Rendering this app useless for millions.
Though, to its credit, the app does display nice looping images, static images.
Only time will tell what the holdup is and when this app will work for the rest of us. Much like HBOGo, ABC Player, TV.com and PBS, I’d love for this app to just work.
I also recently came across a really interesting read that kind of makes your head spin:
Time Warner Cable, Comcast and the End of TV as We Know It
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One of the guys at work decided he wanted a Mac Mini, and being the resident Mac expert, he asked me if I’d help him get a monitor and set it up for him. So I started looking around at monitors – the one he really wanted was the one on my desk, but HP had discontinued it.
We finally found a monitor he liked from HP in his price range, a 2509p. Looked nice, big 25″ screen, 1080p with HDMI input, built-in speakers – everything he wanted. It even had a built-in webcam, which he thought was great. (Yes, the Apple monitor has all those things – other than HDMI, but it has Thunderbolt – but it also costs 5 times as much as this monitor; he wasn’t looking for anything that high resolution or that expensive.)
So I started looking over the HP support web pages, checking to see if a special driver was needed for the webcam. There were plenty of drivers listed, but all for various versions of Windows only. Then I hit on this, which quite frankly floored me:
“HP monitors are not supported in a Mac environment.”
Say what? Are you kidding me? I could see if they said “sorry, no webcam drivers for that monitor.” But a blanket statement like that? Seriously? C’mon, HP, we’re talking about monitors, not some specialzed internal card!
So I told my co-worker that there was a possibility we wouldn’t be able to make the webcam work. He was willing to take a chance, saying we’d send it back if it didn’t. I was hopeful it would work, but I was a bit worried because of the need for drivers in Windows 7. I could see XP or Vista not having them, but Win 7 seems pretty complete.
Everything showed up and I put the system together. Lo and behold, while doing the initial setup, it asked if he wanted to take his picture – and there was a nice live shot from the webcam! Everything worked just fine out of the box, no drivers required.
So if you’re looking for a monitor – and 1080p is high enough res for you – you could do worse than this “unsupported” HP 2509p.
I’ve been a heavy reader for as long as I can remember. Growing up, I was nearly a permanent fixture at our local library. I chewed through the best parts of the kids section by the time I was 9 or 10 and had written permission on file that allowed me to check out anything in the place that my little old heart desired. Sci-fi, murder mysteries and historical fiction were among my best friends.
These days, I tend to ignore printed media in favor of ebooks on my Kindle, iPad or iPod touch, but I’m also hooked on audiobooks. My current iPod nanos each carry a bunch of audiobooks for listening on the go. I get my audiobooks from multiple sources, including our local library, a subscription to Audible.com and occasional purchases from Tantor Media. Audible is probably my favorite, and their download/listening app for iPad/iPhone is one of the best. The download is fast, and it’s easy to move between books without losing my place. It always remembers. It also recognizes audiobooks from other sources that are in my iTunes library. Nice touch.
Tantor released their own iPad/iPhone app in November, and I recently downloaded it to give it a try. In all fairness, it’s still v1.01, but it needs a lot of changes before I’ll try it again. Downloads are s-l-o-w. I mean really slow. It will download one chapter at a time or the entire book, but unlike the Audible app, once you start a download, there is no way to abort it. Much faster to download to my iMac and then transfer via iTunes. And playing? That was the real deal breaker. Turn off the screen and it stops playing. Huh? How did they let that pass? Fortunately, my Audible app doesn’t care if my books have been ripped from CDs or downloaded from Tantor.
One complaint I’ve heard about borrowing downloaded audiobooks from the library using the required Overdrive software is that they expire too fast for some people. Easy solution — copy the files from the Overdrive download folder to iTunes. Overdrive only looks for the files in one place. While Overdrive will transfer directly to a connected iPod, I always transfer using iTunes.
If audiobooks are your thing, try the Audible app. You don’t even have to buy your books from them, but you might want to give them a try. They have some nice sales, and their tech support people are the best.
Many of you may remember that with the original iPad you had a switch on the side that allowed you to lock the rotation of your display into either portrait or landscape. Nice. Then along the way Apple switched the function of this switch to Mute. Many users complained about this switch and Apple ultimately did a compromise allowing you to choose a preference as to whether this switch Mutes or Locks Screen rotation. I have always preferred this switch to be set to Lock Rotation since there are already volume controls on the side. I set it to Lock Rotation and never looked back.
There’s still a Mute Function and You Need It
Little did I realize that not only was Mute still a “separate” option, but very necessary until iOS 5 came out with the Messages App. With the Messages App you can send iMessages (txt, picture messages, etc) to other iOS 5 users. I love this feature, but there was one big problem. Even with the volume turned all the way down on the side (which I assumed was doing the same thing as Mute) of the iPad incoming iMessages would still sound an alert. This drove me so crazy one night that I got up and turned the iPad OFF. I couldn’t believe that Apple wouldn’t give any controls for alert volume for this App if they were going to ignore the volume controls on the device itself. After doing a little research I found out that both FaceTime and Messages ignore the volume controls for incoming communications, but they do respect the Mute function. Yureka! I found a way to use iMessage but not have it disturb me at night or while in meetings. Even if you have your side switch set to Lock Rotation, you can always access the Mute feature by double tapping the Home button and swiping the task bar to the right. Tap the Mute button and your iPad will be totally muted until you un-mute it. I hope this helps those of you who have been frustrated by this issue.
Find My Mac…?
My local news ran a story the evening past of a local resident whose iPhone was stolen, but fortunately retrieved because the owner had enabled “Find My iPhone.” During the retrieval process, the owner was able to give police directions as the location of the iPhone changed and finally the law enforcement officer was able to pinpoint the corner of the thief’s house in which the iPhone was hidden.
The law enforcement representative was visibly in awe as he related the story to the news reporter.
I smiled thinking, “Yeah, I got that, too.”
Then I thought, there’s been a few equipment changes lately, I’d better make sure that all is turned on and working.
First the iPad, check. Then the new iPhone. Oops, Find my iPhone wasn’t turned on. I’ve only had it a week, but that’s no excuse. Check. Then on to my laptop. I’d converted over to iCloud, Lion OS was installed, but here in the Preferences, I could not select “Find My Mac.” The iCloud panel was indicating “Recovery partition required.”
Doesn’t Lion OS automatically create a recovery partition on your existing hard drive during installation? Yes, it does. Where was mine? Well, it was there. But recently my drive was replaced and restoring from Time Machine restores the contents of my former drive, but does not restore the separate Recovery HD partition.
So, after spending time searching online for how to get my Recovery partition back on my hard drive, the answer was thus: Reinstall the full OS X Lion software download. While that may sound painful, it actually wasn’t. This solution just took a little time.
- I initially tried the 10.7.2 Combo Update. Didn’t work.
- I was concerned about whether the new download would be the original 10.7 or the latest 10.7.2. It was the latter.
- I was also concerned if any settings would be altered. So far my experience has been as if nothing had changed other than reinstalling Java for Photoshop to run. I was given the alert when I launched Photoshop, it was automatic install.
“Find My Mac” setting now available to me.
Now, I’d already purchased Lion from the App Store and created a USB startup thumb drive months ago. How do you download it again when the button reads INSTALLED?
To download it again:
- Sign in to your account
- Hold the Option key as you select PURCHASES
- The resulting screen will allows you do INSTALL again.
After the download was finished I immediately created a new USB startup thumb drive before I started the installation process. I wanted to have the latest version on the thumb drive and for “just in case.”
After the installation was complete and computer restarted, I launched System Preferences, selected iCloud and was now able to check on “Find my Mac” and went through the motions to make sure I could.
So, thanks to the news report of the stolen and found iPhone, I was serendipitously directed to make sure my iDevices were covered in the “Find My” department.
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I’ve noticed an annoying problem with OS X 10.7.2 (Lion) and Time Machine. Maybe you’ve seen it, and maybe not, but I thought I’d mention it here and how to work around it.
Sometimes I need to log out of my machine – occasionally, something will start acting a bit oddly, for example. I usually try logging out before rebooting as it’s much quicker. If logging out and back in doesn’t work, then I reboot.
But often when I log out, then log back in, my Mac will attempt to do a Time Machine backup – and fail. It claims the Time Machine disk is “read only” and can’t be written to. I’m not sure why it thinks that – maybe some sort of timing problem with the drive mounting but not yet being 100% ready. All I know is Time Machine is dead.
The fix? Turn OFF Time Machine (in System Preferences). Then go to Disk Utility and unmount your Time Machine partition. Remount the partition, wait for it to come ready, and then turn Time Machine back on. Tell Time Machine to backup now, and low and behold, the drive has magically changed from “read only” to writable again.
Have absolutely nothing this week. Rather than rehashing something I’ve already covered, I’ll just share a 30th Anniversary video from The Capitol Steps, one of my favorite comedy groups. If you’ve never heard them, check out their website. Political humor/satire at its best. No one is spared.
I have a technology blog at terrywhite.com and while I do review Apple gadgets from time to time, I mostly concentrate on gadgets in general, Adobe products and photography stuff. I was quite surprised today when I happened to look at my stats and to see that for the past 30 days my site had been visited by iPhones more than any other OS including Windows PCs and Macs. It also points to a growing trend of using mobile devices instead of traditional desktop/laptop computers. Over the holidays two of my friends and one of my relatives got either iPhones or iPads as gifts. To date these devices are their only connection to the internet. In other countries many people are connecting to the internet for the first time using their phones.
If you’re designing a website you should really keep these stats in mind and know that your site should be setup to look good on both desktop/laptop computers as well as small screens such as smartphones.
The stat program I use is called Analytics App. You can get it here for iPhone/iPod touch 
and here for iPad .
Welcome to another, but bitterly cold, at least here ……
F R I D A Y
No ice needed for that drink dear, just sit it out on the veranda and the temps outside will chill it for you.
It’s cold outside. “How cold is it?” —– imagine the audience and I am Johnny Carson — “It’s so cold, I saw a mans teeth chattering and they were still in the glass by his bed”
It’s cold outside. “How cold is it?” —– imagine the audience and I am Johnny Carson again — “It’s so cold, I saw a dog stuck to a fire hydrant”
Okay enough of that. Let deal with data preservation more commonly known as BACKUP.
Let just take a short time out to remind you that if you are diligent enough to remember to backup on a regular basis, are you also remembering to store that backup in an offsite location, away from the computer you backed up?
Many of you may say, “Calvin, where should I store that backup?” The answer is simpler than we think.
Just find a place that you consider secure and safe to store your backup.
That could be the following suggestions
1) A trusted friend or neighbor’s home.
2) Safe Deposit Box at your bank.
3) Locked desk at work.
4) An Online backup service.
5) On a USB Flashdrive on your key chain if you don’t have that much data to back up.
I am sure you might have some places of your own in mind. The important thing is to DO IT!
Musical Selection for Treble Clef detection
Jack just inspires me sometime to really go for the flashback
Radio Days
Make sure that you tune in this weekend 1/21/2012 to the InternetAdvisor show on 760 WJR. We will be coming to you Live and in living color, well the color of your radio. Also we also always have out Podcasts available for download at http://www.internetadvisor.net . Tune in, for great conversation about all things Internet and technical. It’s a great geek-a-rama with Gary, Foster, Ed and your’s truly.
C Ya!
It behooves you to audit your monthly utility bills.
The New Year is here and you probably want to get tuned in to your spending for the year.
Things change fast and often with utilities now; about every six months with some providers.
You never know when ‘creep’ will enter into it. By that I mean things that you didn’t expect.
When television went totally digital, we were told that if we had cable service, we wouldn’t need the new digital converter boxes.
Then shortly thereafter, cable providers said, things are changing and you will need converters on all your sets to continue to receive service.
When I noticed that I wasn’t receiving all the service I was paying for with the new little digital converter boxes, I was given a different service.
When the tech didn’t have the correct converter box unit with him, he substituted it out for a different one (more featured unit) but disabled the extra features. Reassuring me that there would be no cost for this new unit, because there wasn’t a cost for the one he was supposed to but didn’t have.
Recently, I noticed that my cable bill increased. On a call to the rep, I was told that I was being charged for any additional cable box that used a silver remote. (I kid you not.) So, I was now being changed for this substituted unit, that was supposed to be free with my cable service.
Eventually, (with another rep) it was resolved that the unit that the tech had given me would be replaced and as a one-time courtesy, the charges for that unit would be refunded. This is the kind of ‘creep’ I dislike.
Though, the call did end very positively. This rep and I had a pleasant conversation and I was happy with the end results. Just as a ritual, I audit my utilities on a regular basis, to see what could change for the better or remove what I no longer need.
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