Topics on Technology & Photography
January 13, 2012 Leave a Comment
For Mac OS X users:
If you want to stop the DVD player app from starting when you insert a DVD movie disk, try this.
November 20, 2011 Leave a Comment
Lately I have been a bit frustrated when using the iPad / iPhone Mail program with my Gmail account. I use the Gmail labels feature on all of my important mail or when I just want to file stuff away for later. The one problem I keep encountering is how to create new labels while in the iPad Mail app with Gmail.
I recently found two ways to solve this problem:
Solution #1 – Make sure you have iOS 5 installed on your iPad or iPhone. Open the Mail app on your iPad or iPhone, choose your Gmail account from the Accounts section (below the Inboxes). Then select the Edit button at the top, then select NewMailbox on the very bottom. Here is where you can create the new label name. Enter the label name and click Done(keyboard) or Save at the top, and then click Done button at the top. Voilà! Your new label should now be available for use.
Solution #2 – Use the link to the full Gmail site: https://mail.google.com/mail/h/ Normally I would never use Safari to read my email while on the iPad or iPhone, but this in theory is the only way to do this if you are still using iOS 4 and earlier. I would have thought that using mobile Safari and surfing directly on over to mail.google.com would solve this problem but apparently the Google site detects that you are a mobile device and renders it as the mobile Gmail site, which surprisingly also prevents you from creating new labels.
If you have a better solution please let me know in comments section.
November 2, 2011 Leave a Comment
This has been my observation of most home computer users over the last few years.
I find that most of these users (9 out of 10) are not backing up their music, photos, home videos, and documents with any kind of organized or planned/automated process. I’ve come to this observation while helping friends, family, and even small businesses with their computer issues. The range of users is not just novice computer users but also includes advanced users as well.
The typical response when asked, do you backup, is usually one of two responses “no, not currently but I plan to…” or “I have a backup on CD or an old hard-drive from several months ago”. It seems that most people are betting their hard-drives won’t crash or that they won’t lose their computer to theft, fire or any other natural disaster. Basically most people aren’t thinking about it much, and I find this surprising. In digging deeper on those that actually have a backup, I found that it was usually not automated and/or was several months old. Also their backups are rarely tested or verified for the content and if they are working correctly. A backup doesn’t do any good if it doesn’t actually work or if it is missing important files.
However, there is some small but growing upside in this story as more and more online “cloud” hosted solutions and tools are used such as Google Docs, Google Music, Picasa, Drop Box, Flickr, and the new Apple iCloud. Also we shouldn’t forget all of the online backup services such as Crashplan and Carbonite to name a few. These tools are very handy and solve many of the backup needs for people. But with all of that I still find I need local storage & backup for my various home storage needs. This may change as these cloud storage services and tools grow further and become more common place.
Let me know in the comments section, Do you backup your home computers? What services or tools do you use?
November 1, 2011 Leave a Comment
Here is the list of features and improvements I captured from the Apple iOS 5 update. This update contains over 200 new features, including the following:
• Notifications
• iMessage
• Newsstand
• Reminders for managing to do lists
• Built-in support for Twitter
• Camera improvements for devices with cameras
• Photo improvements for devices with cameras
• Mail improvements
• Calendar improvements
• Game Center improvements
• AirPlay Mirroring for iPad 2 and iPhone 4S
• Multitasking Gestures for iPad
• On-device setup, activation and configuration with Setup Assistant
• Software updates available over the air without tethering
• iCloud support
• Redesigned Music app for iPad
• Hourly weather forecast
• Real-time stock quotes
• Wireless sync to iTunes
• Keyboard improvements
• Accessibility improvements
• Exchange ActiveSync improvements
• More than 1,500 new developer APIs
• Bug fixes
Products compatible with this software update:
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