TextExpander has been around for years. I knew about it but never really took the time to check it out. Recently I got the iOS App – TextExpander Touch. Like my love for 1Password, I started using TextExpander on my iPhone and then figured it would be great to also have it on my Mac. Recently TextExpander for Mac was on sale and I couldn’t pass up that deal.
What is TextExpander?
TextExpander allows you to create shortcuts that expand out to the full text that you type on a regular basis. For example, let’s take “MacGroup-Detroit, Inc.” I type that all the time in email, web forms, word processing apps and graphic design apps. With TextExpander I setup a shortcut called “mgd” and now whenever I type “mgd”, it expands to “MacGroup-Detroit, Inc.” It’s not just for simple one liners either. TextExpander can expand a typed shortcut to full paragraphs of formatted text as well. This is great for instant access to your price lists, directions to your location and just about anything else you can think of.
Besides being able to expand basic text, formatted text, text with images and current date/time, TextExpander also has a cool “Fill In” feature. This is where you can create a snippet of text that when it expands it will have fields for you to key in the relevant info for that particular text. I didn’t realize how much I would use this feature until I setup one. Now I’m using it all the time.
Syncs with Dropbox
Like I said, I started with TextExpander Touch and I had already started creating some snippets on my iPhone and iPad. Of course when I got the Mac version I wanted to use those same snippets. The good news here is that TextExpander for Mac and TextExpander Touch all sync with Dropbox. If you create or edit a snippet in one place you’ll have it on all your other devices too.
How does it work with iOS Devices?
While TextExpander is pretty universal with your Apps on your Mac, it’s limited to the Apps that support it on iOS. Here’s a complete list of supported iOS Apps that work with TextExpander Touch. While the built-in iOS Mail App and Message App don’t support TextExpander Touch, you can create new email messages and SMS messages directly within the TextExpander Touch App so that you can take advantage of your snippets
iOS 5 promisses to bring similar functionality to the OS itself. This will be handy as it will be supported in the built-in apps, but like most built-in features it won’t be as robust ast TextExpander Touch. It will be great to have both!
You can get TextExpander for Mac for $34.99 here from the 
You can get TextExpander Touch for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch for $4.99 here from the 
A while back I wrote about a solution to allow you to print from your iOS devices to your printer, even if your current printer doesn't have native AirPrint Support. While FingerPrint (the App I wrote about back then) worked, it didn't work with every printer and not in every case. There was a print to your hard drive PDF workaround, but I've long since forgotten about all that. There were some readers of that post that suggested I take a look at Printopia and you guys were right. I've been using Printopia ever since and it just works!
Easy setup
Printopia installs as a System Preference on your Mac. I installed it on my Mac OS X Server since that Mac is always on and it's been running ever since. I don't even think about it. It shows up on my network to all my iOS devices including iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. I can print directly to the printer or send it to my Dropbox account as a PDF.
Some of the commenters even suggested a free way to do with an Apple Script instead of paying for any of these apps and while FREE is good, you get what you pay for. The free option only works on Snow Leopard whereas Printopia runs on Leopard (Mac OS 10.5), Power PC Macs as well as Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6). You also get more options with Printopia like printing to your Dropbox or to a folder on your Mac. Yes it supports multiple printers too.
I don't print very often, but when I do I just print. I don't think about it. Printopia works!
You can learn more and download a free trial here.
Digital content supplier Zinio has a lot of flaming unhappy customers right now. For the past week or more Zinio.com customers had no access to their digital content.
The Zinio.com website and Zinio Reader apps have been completely unavailable and/or erratic for days now, almost a week. On the Zinio website, customers seeking information, were greeted with only a static image indicating that Zinio was offline. No other information.
Zinio.com is up and running more steadily now, and the Zinio Reader apps are working better, but frustration still looms high for some customers, and especially for those who still have gotten no relief from the inability to acess their digital content.
For starters, there was no information whatsoever listed on this static page to inform customers of what was going on, or when the site would be back online. No redirect, no email to contact. Nada.
Only days later did any info seem to come to light, on the Ziniophile blog. The said problem: "An outage at one of our data centers."
Customers understand that things can go wrong, and we customers understand that issues and problems may take time to resolve; even longer than we may like. But only by searching online for a couple of days was I able to find out anything at all on this problem. I was initially concerned with my computer Zinio app, but when a total of three devices showed the same problem, I knew it was something amiss on Zinio's end.
These days, It's completely unacceptable for companies not to proactively communicate issues of this magnitude with the customers they want patience and understanding from. And for the most part, customers will be understanding.
And, I'm pretty sure that the staff over at Zinio is working long and hard to resolve the problems that they find themselves knee deep in. But I think they got on the communication to customers part a little late.
I'd like to take this opportunity to wish Steve Jobs a Happy Birthday. And, to add good vibes out into the universe for his recovery.
Like millions of others, I have been touched by or benefited from Steve Jobs' vision, commitment to his ideas and tenacity.
My Mac and Apple devices have brought me great joy over the years. The iPod literally lit up my life. It has brought a world of music to my ears that I never imagined, yet alone, thought possible. In the old iPod commercials where you see the persons shadow dancing while they actually may be just sitting, standing or walking…oh, yeah, that's me.
Some devices have enhanced my life greater than I could have imagined and some have even changed it altogether. I wasn't even into computers. I took a look at a, funny-looking, Macintosh 128K computer, and wondered, "What will that thing ever do for me?" Two years later I was doing CAD drawings, yes CAD, on a Macintosh SE. It was a clinic in scrolling, but, I have been a Mac lover ever since.
So just like the light bulb, the automobile, the telephone; my computer of choice is happily, just as ingrained in my day to day existence. The saying still applies, "I love my Mac."
So, thank you Mr. Jobs, Happy Birthday, and wishing you the best of health.
CH
:::
The 1st iPod was introduced in 2001. Yes that was 10 years ago. It was revolutionary in many respects. Although the original model included a Firewire cable and was Mac Only, Apple followed up with the now standard iPod "dock connector" model in 2003. The dock connector has been great and widely adopted by peripheral and car manufacturers. While the dock connector is cool, I ask the question do we really need to plug in a cable to sync our iOS devices today?
Let's lose the cable!
Of course Apple still makes iPods that don't have built-in WiFi. These low cost models obviously need some way of connecting to your computer to sync the media. For those models the sync cable still makes sense. However, for iOS devices that have WiFi (the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad) I wonder why we still "need" to plug in a cable to sync media? Don't get me wrong, given a choice I'll gladly plug in a cable when I have several gigabytes of data to sync to a new device over doing it via WiFi any day. Yet that doesn't mean that I should have to plug in a cable for day to day syncing.
- Apple TV streams Gigabytes of Movies Wirelessly
- MacBooks, iMacs, Mac mini's, etc all can backup Terabytes of data Wirelessly
- iTunes allows Home Sharing via WiFi
- iOS devices can download Gigabytes of data/media direclty from the iTunes store via WiFi
Still waiting for my dream to come true
I remember having a day dream when I got my first car with an iPod connection built-in that some day I would pull into my garage, reach into my glove compartment and press a sync button on my iPod (or iPhone) and my device would connect to my computer in the house and sync the latest playlists, podcasts, etc. via WiFi. I'm still waiting for that dream to come true and technically there is no reason why it shouldn't be a reality today. My iOS devices have WiFi. Apple already allows you to download gigabytes of data (movies and apps) from iTunes via WiFi directly to these devices . Why not allow us to do it from iTunes to iOS device? Hey, it's 2011: I shouldn't even have to press a sync button. The device iOS device should just auto sync (via a preference) when I enter my WiFi zone!
FAQ
Whenever I bring this up to my gadget buddies, someone always has a "but what about ______" objection. I can usually shoot these down pretty easily so let's go through the common ones.
Q. Isn't WiFi too slow?
A. Yes and no. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be able to use a cable if you want to. I'm just saying that we should have the option to do it wirelessly. Also remember that Apple already lets you download gigabytes of data directly to your iOS device via the internet. My Navigon App weighs in at 1.52GBs and I can download it direclty to my iPhone today from the App Store via WiFi.
Q. What if you were doing a OS update via WiFi and your connection died or battery died?
A. OK, what happens today if you accidently unplug the cable during an update? In other words there are problems that can happen today even with the cable. If Apple were truly worried about this they could require you to use the cable for OS updates or provide the same warnings they do today when updating a MacBook/MacBook Pro when you're not plugged into to power. Lastly Apple could do it more like they do it on the Mac. Let the iOS update download first to the device before installing. If the download/sync were interupted then there would be no harm.
Q. Users would complain that syncing takes too long.
A. Yep, they probably would. Apple could easily pop up an alert stating that syncing more than XXX amount of data may take a while over WiFi. Let me make that choice and of course disable the alert.
The Bottom Line
Beyond the first sync of all your media onto your iOS device, there is little reason that you shouldn't be able to sync via WiFi from that point on. Apple let's me backup my entire 500GB MacBook Pro drive via WiFi to a Time Capsule. Yes, it takes HOURS, but they allow it and even sell devices to do allow you to do it. If I wanted it to go faster I could always plug in an Ethernet cable. Syncing a WiFi enabled iOS device via WiFi wouldn't take nearly as long even if the device were empty. Apple can we please lose the cable? It's 2011!
Do you tire of looking for a Wi-Fi hotspot to connect your iPod Touch?
It's 2011 already…
Surfing the Internet shouldn't be so hard to do no matter what the device or where you are.
But, that's just my opinion.
And possibly the opinion of Sprint as well.
Or maybe just a smart move to step into the iDevice craze.
Sprint is aiming to make your iPod Touch, a Wi-Fi device, into a 3G device, in a round about way, with the "ZTE Peel™."
Admittedly I don't do much printing these days. Also I'd have to say that i can't think of too many times that I was looking at something on my iPhone and thought "I'd like to print this." However, with the iPad things are a little different. I'm not saying that I suddenly have the need to print, but I can certainly see someone making the case for needing to print from an iPad more so than from an iPhone or iPod touch. In many cases the iPad has become a laptop replacement for a lot of people and no one would think twice about being able to print something from their laptop. Apple also sells iPad Apps like Pages and Numbers and certainly you might want to print a word processing document or spreadsheet. Apparently Apple got lots of requests for printing too and they added printing support in iOS 4.2.
The iOS AirPrint built-in printing support is severely limited!
Although iOS 4.2 now includes printing support (AirPrint), the current implementation is VERY LIMITED. Out of the box you can only print to select HP printers. That's right! No Epson printers, no Canon printers, no other printers are currently supported. So unless you're willing to go out and buy a specific HP printer, you're out of luck. Rumor had it that Apple was going to support AirPrint "sharing" in Mac OS X 10.6.5 and the support for whatever reason got pulled out of the final release. That's not to say that we won't see it in 10.6.6 or 10.6.5.1 or whatever Apple decides to call it, but for right now it is what it is. Don't worry though, I found a way to do it now!
FingerPrint to the Rescue!
There's an App for that! If you're on a Mac with a shared printer you can download and test Collobos Software's FingerPrint App for Mac OS X 10.5/10.6. This App aims to bridge the gap between AirPrint and your existing printer. You can download the App and test it for a week at no charge. As a matter of fact they encourage you to test it first before paying for it to make sure that it works with YOUR printer. Yes that means that even with this software there's a chance that your printer won't work and that's exactly what happened to me. Although I don't have any real interest in Printing from my iOS devices, I still want the option if I can have it. So I downloaded FingerPrint and within a couple of minutes I had it up and running and ready to test. It saw my Xerox Phaser 8550DP printer and so did my iPad! Woohoo! However, when I brought up a page in Safari on the iPad and attempted to print it nothing happened. Nothing was ever sent to the printer. I figured, "oh well I guess I will continue to live without printing." Then Collobos updated FingerPrint with a new option. This new option allows you to not only print directly to a "compatible" printer, but also send the print job to the Mac that's running the App as an Adobe PDF. You can either "Send to Mac" or "Send to iPhoto". I tried the "Send to Mac" option and it worked! My PDF ended up in the ~/Documents/FingerPrint folder and immediately launched in Preview. So at a minimum I could at least hit print from there and get the printout that I wanted.
That's not good enough!
my FaceTime chat with my friend and Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak (this was Mac to Mac)
One of the things Apple introduced in their "Back to the Mac" event last week was a public beta of FaceTime for the Mac. I'm very pleased to see this happen as many of were scratching our heads as to why this wasn't introduced as a feature of iChat. I'm actually glad that Apple chose to make it a stand alone App. Why? The reason is I've had very hit and miss luck (mostly miss) with connecting with people over iChat over the years. To the point that I completely gave up on it. Whereas FaceTime almost always works for me. Actually FaceTime was one of the reasons I upgraded my immediate family to iPhone 4s. I'm on the road for work all the time and I have a kid away in school, so FaceTime was a great solution for keeping in touch without having to sit in front of a computer. With that said, there are some that will NEVER buy an iPhone or even an iPod touch. Now we can FaceTime with those folks from iPhone to Mac, Mac to Mac, Mac to iPod touch, etc. This makes FaceTime even more useful than it was before.
How does it make calls if it's not a phone?
FaceTime on the Mac, like the 4th gen iPod touch doesn't have a phone number associated with it. Therefore it relies on your registered email address. When you setup FaceTime on the Mac for the first time you log in with your Apple ID and then you can set it to use any email address(es) you want. By default if anyone tries to FaceTime you with that email address your Mac will "ring" and you can choose to accept the call or decline it. FaceTime still monitors for incoming calls even if the app isn't running. You can of course disable this feature.
How well does it work?
In my first test I was setting it up and I actually accidentally clicked on my daughter's name and it started to place the call. I quickly disconnected as it was a mistake and I wasn't trying to call her in that moment. However, she called me right back and we were FaceTiming. (yes that's a word now). She just tapped the call back feature on her iPhone without even thinking about it and since that call originated from my MacBook Pro at first, it (she) dialed me back to that location. The video and voice were very clear and of course the call was FREE!
Although you can setup a Favorites list you still have to scroll up and down your contacts or start to type a name. I would really like to see a standard Search box at the top of the window in the next version. Will there be a Windows version? Your guess is as good as mine. However, if you think about it Apple never released their own iChat client. iChat uses AOL and therefore a Windows user can just use that. They may do the same for FaceTime (as they have published the protocols used) and let someone else do the Windows client. Again, just guessing.
Like most "betas" this product is still under development and therefore there could be bugs in using it and we could see more features come along the way. My assumption is that Apple will roll the final version into Mac OS X 10.7 Lion in the summer of 2011.
Snow Leopard (yes it requires Snow Leopard) users can download the FaceTime Beta here.
One of the most popular features of MacGroup-Detroit and one of the things that sets us apart from most other groups is MacGroup TV. MacGroup TV is the monthly broadcast of our meetings. It allows our members to see the meetings they missed pretty much on any device they choose. While it was already possible to download the meetings or stream time to your iOS device. However, MacGroup-Detroit is pleased to introduce a dedicated App for MacGroup TV.
How does it work?
Like I said, you could already subscribe to MacGroup TV in iTunes and the episodes will download to your computer automatically and sync over to your device the next time you sync. You could also go to the show in the iTunes App right on your device and start watching a meeting stream over the internet or download one. With the App you have a one tap button that takes you right to the show and shows you the most current meeting. You can "Star" your favorites to get to quickly to watch over and over or download them right in the App for offline viewing. Any meeting you start to watch and then want to finish later will pick right back up where you left off. Also unlike iTunes, our App allows us to easily include Bonus Content such as PDF notes/handouts from the meeting as well as bonus clips that only appear in the App. As we move forward this will allow us to distribute even more content besides the movie itself.
The MacGroup TV App is $1.99 and you can get it here from the
One of the most exciting things about the NEW 4th generation iPod touch is the addition of both a front facing camera and rear camera. As you would expect with the rear camera you can shoot stills and HD video. However, with the front facing camera you also get to use FaceTime to make FREE video calls over the internet to other iPod touch and iPhone 4 users. Let's face it, there are people that will never buy an iPhone. The reasons people usually give are things like "I hate AT&T", "I'm happy with my current carrier", "I'm happy with my current phone", etc. However, in more cases than not those same people usually buy iPod touch devices to use the thousands of Apps out there. Now if you buy a NEW iPod touch you're that much closer to having an iPhone without a contract or monthly fees. There were already a slew of ways of using an iPod touch as a phone while in a WiFi area with various VoIP apps. FaceTime on the iPod touch now gives you a native way to do it with video to boot. Although I have an iPhone 4, I use the iPod touch as my "iPod" when I want to dock it and listen to music while still using my phone for other things. I was happy with my 2nd generation iPod touch and saw no reason to go to the 3rd generation, but when I saw all the new features on the 4th generation I decided it was time to upgrade. While I love the Retina display, new slimmer body, 32GB capacity (my old one was 16GB), faster processor and HD video camera I'm most excited about FaceTime for friends and family members. Let's take a look at how it works:
FaceTime is an App
Unlike the iPhone 4, there is no "Phone" app to integrate FaceTime into on the touch. Therefore on the iPod touch FaceTime is a dedicated built-in App. When you want to make FaceTime calls you launch the App. If there are people you FaceTime with on a regular basis you can add them to the App's Favorites for quick access. Also the App does NOT need to be running to receive calls. When someone calls you, the iPod touch will detect the incoming call and start ringing no matter which App you're currently running.
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