Jules Says

Make typing easier on your iPhone!

The always-engaging David Pogue kindly published a fantastic shortcut for typing on the iPhone before the publication of his iPhone Missing Manual book.

The short problem: many frequently-used keys, such as the comma and the period, are on an alternate keyboard, requiring several clicks to type in.

The short solution: touch the .123? key but don't lift your finger. The alternate keyboard will quickly appear. Don't lift your finger yet - instead, slide to the character you want and release. You'll get the character, and the keyboard will automatically switch back to the QWERTY keyboard.

Fantastic - thanks David! And thanks Tori for forwarding it to me :)

Addressing the iPhone concerns

Update: Today Apple announced improved functionality:

Battery life rating is up to 8 hours talk time, a whopping 10+ days of standby, 6 hours of internet use, 7 hours of video playback and 24 hours of audio playback. In addition, the original 3.5” plastic surface has changed to “optical-quality” glass.

Pretty awesome :)

Original post:

A few days ago, Forbes ran an article entitled Why You May Not Want an iPhone. I'm not overly worried about most of these, but I thought I'd address their concerns.

I currently use a Treo 700, which I synch with 2 Intel Macs. I use Apple Mail and iCal. I pretty much use all the features of the treo except the video and the MP3 player. I also have an 80G video iPod.

My thoughts regarding the iPhone concerns:

1) Lousy battery life. From what I’ve read the iPhone is rated at 5 hrs talk/music/movie/internet time. My Treo is rated at only 4, and I rarely run out of juice. Plus, I expect I’ll be synching the iPhone even more frequently because of the better iCal integration, so that’ll help keep it charged. Yes, I wish I could buy a spare battery and keep it charged, but I’m willing to live with it. Other battery issues are the same ones you’ll find on any smartphone.

2) AT&T's use of the slower EDGE network. I have Verizon right now. My understanding is EDGE is faster than my current network for data downloads, and a little slower for uploads. But other than sending the occasional phone photo, I don’t really upload, and the slowdown for a single photo is negligible. Slow browsing… well, it’s first-generation full browsing on the phone. I’ll live with it. Plus, you can swap to wi-fi, which is even faster. They use the silly example of having to spend $10/month for wifi at Starbucks… well, then don’t get your wifi at starbucks :)

3) Lack of 3rd party apps. “But it’s not clear if Apple will let other people write software for the iPhone, at least right away, and that could be a reason to stay away.” As I understand it, they’re not releasing an SDK right away, that lightweight apps (like most widgets) can be built without one. In fact, here's a Cult of Mac article showing a couple of apps that are already ready to go. Heavy duty apps? Maybe not right away, but supposedly later in the year. In

4) Potential incompatibility with MS Exchange servers. Not an issue for me. I assume this is an issue if you need to use a VPN client to get at your mail. Also, it seems we don’t really know yet whether this will be an issue or not.

5) Lack of a keyboard. I'm not at all worried. I got used to Graffiti on the old Pilots, and I got used to thumb-typing on my old Blackberry (in its first incarnation as a clamshell) and then on the Treos. I’ll get used to this too :)

6) Cost. (Didn’t the author say there were 5 reasons?): Yes, it’s pricey. So were both of my Treos. $90/month for all the services? I pay more than that now.

The only thing I’m not sure about is how much I’ll use the music features. I plan to get the extra memory (I’m remembering long ago debating with myself about whether or not to spend the extra $100 to get a 20MB drive vs a 10MB drive :), but I love having my entire music collection on my iPod. I’ll probably give movies a try while traveling, though, and maybe some podcasts.

So... will I get an iPhone? Yes. The only real question is whether or not I'll stand in line to get one on day one.

Switch to Mac: keep control of your cursor

My short list of complaints after switching back to Mac included the following:

I can't reliably tab my way to pop-up menus. I can never do it in Firefox - I can occasionally do it in Safari. I'm used to rapidly filling out forms without moving my hands from the keyboard, but I nearly always have to go back and manually select the "state", and any other pop-ups.

No more! There's a very simple fix - why it's not the default, I don't know. Simply go to System Preferences and select Keyboard & Mouse. At the bottom of the Keyboard Shortcuts window, select the All Controls radio button. This will give cursor focus back to you for those popup and pulldown menus.

Zoho Notebook

Consider this a pre-review. If Zoho Notebook is anywhere near as awesome as this video purports, I've finally found my idea clipping/note-taking/collaboration tool. I didn't realize until I saw this that that's even quite what I need, but I'm psyched to try it. It lets you:

• Create multiple types of content
• Embed any content type
• Publish notebooks, pages, or objects
• Track changes
• Share documents
• Collaborate using an interactive white board

I'll let you know how it goes. Watch the video - it's a great demo. It's just over 5 minutes long.

Update: I started playing with Zoho Notebook - so far, so good. I kept reading about a Firefox Addon that lets you right-click on selected text and automatically send it to your notebook, but I couldn't find a download for it anywhere. I fired off a support note (which I was able to do from right in the notebook - nice) and got a reply within an hour. The link was apprently on the login page, which I wasn't seeing since I was already logged in. Oops! That's the second time I've encountered that weird UI glitch - happened with notifications on PBWiki, too. The quick reply (and apology, believe it or not) was much appreciated. Get the Zoho Notebook Firefox Addon here.

Working outside - need a solution

I love that I can work outside. I have a lovely patio that's blanketed with thick wisteria vines and sheltered by my house. As a result, it's always 10-15 degrees cooler up here. That and the fact that I like the heat means I can work out here quite frequently. I've worked outside every day for the past week and a half, as a matter of fact.

Sadly, something has to change. My back is fricking killing me. It started hurting late yesterday. Even a good night's sleep on my fabulous Temperpedic mattress didn't help. And today I can't work in my office upstairs (with the Good Chair) because we had a monster storm last night and I have no cable.

I want to be able to work out here as often as I want, but I need better ergonomics.

Any of my clever, inventorly friends out there have any ideas? Tori? Are you reading this? I did a search for outdoor office chairs and found zilch.

Mac sync magic

Wow, I can't believe I just now discovered this. It's easy - no-brainer easy - to sync your iCal, Contacts, Mail (all accounts & rules), Keychains, and Safari Bookmarks across multiple computers.

Let me back up. I've worked on multiple computers for years. I've always had the problem of certain info living on a desktop computer at home, and different info on my laptop. Email was the worst. Getting mail on both and leaving/deleting from the server from the other is far to cumbersome with any significant mail volume. Back in my PC days, I was never able to get iMap to work for email. I tried numerous times, as did our netops guy, all to no avail. For awhile I was fine using GoToMyPC, which essentially let me work on my desktop remotely from any other computer, even a Mac. (Sadly, they don't have a client for accessing a Mac, but I highly recommend it to all you PC folks).

Then I switched back to Mac. No more remote access. Vine Server is simply too unreliable for me. I guess I've been afraid to try iMap on the Mac - I just didn't want to go through what I went through in the past trying to get it to work. I keep running up against the fact that despite several months back in the Mac world, I still don't expect things on my computer to work as they should. I bumped up against this the other day when I had messed up my font folder. I called several Mac nerd companies looking for immediate help. Finally one of them said "Have you called Apple?". Doh! I simply am not used to thinking that the makers of my system software are available to help me. I even have an AppleCare plan and I still forgot. I called. They fixed my problem in 5 minutes.

But back to iMap. I went upstairs. First I tried to change my existing mailboxes to iMap. No go - I had to set up new mailboxes. I did so. It worked. I came out to my patio and did the same thing. It worked. Then I discovered the little option at the bottom of the mail preferences window: Synchronize with other computers using .Mac. I did so. It worked. I ran back upstairs and did the same thing. It worked!

There was one surprisingly cryptic dialog message along the way - I got this for several sync operations. I was really surprised - I rarely encounter poorly-written dialog boxes in Mac software. Or am I being blinded by the light?

30 minutes after deciding to tackle iMap, I not only can now get my mail on either computer without losing it on the other, I have access to all my appointments and contacts, so I can sync with my Treo (using The Missing Sync) while I'm out of town :)

I'm having one of those "I'm so glad to be back on a Mac" days.

Twitter keeps getting more interesting

A mere month ago I was playing with Twitter at SXSW, thinking there could be some interesting uses for it. Already a couple of interesting new applications have sprung up.

You can join the Drive, uh, flock? covey? murder? Drive is a new Fox show made by Tim Minear, the same guy who made Firefly. It stars Nathan Fillion, the same lead actor. The show and the star had a tremendous following - no doubt they'll be turning out in hoards to test Drive (sorry). Apparently the director of the show is going to serve up commentary via Twitter during the premiere Sunday night. Clever - I'm signed up. Advertisers have to love this. Normally I'd DVR the show and watch it without commercials. Instead I'll be watching real-time to follow along with the tweets.

Dave Armano reports that several media outlets such as Fast Company and USA Today appear to have reserved accounts, while BusinessWeek and Newsweek may have been hijacked by squatters (nesters?) if the silly email address associated with the account are to be interpreted (both are associated with pleasantcreature @ gmail.com). Still, Flicker is a great platform for quick updates from media feeds. Nothing revolutionary here, but it falls into the useful category.

BART in San Francisco uses Twitter to announce up to the minute schedule changes.

What have you found out there that looks promising?

Lifehacker: the Signing

BoingBoing was one of the first blogs I started reading daily. It's still a favorite, but Lifehacker rivals it. Gina Trapani is one of three editors of the Lifehacker blog, which is dedicated to all things regarding productivity. 95% is tech-related, with heavy emphasis on cross-platform, Firefox, and general open-source solutions. It's literally changed how I work. And it's always fun to find rock-star girl geeks. There's a book now, too: Lifehacker: 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day, and it's fabulous. Gina is at SXSW, and I got to meet her yesterday at her book signing. She's delightful, as expected, and seems to be thoroughly enjoying the conference :)

4-hr Work Week

Back at SXSW. I'm listening to Timothy Ferriss discuss his book, The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich. I missed the first couple of minutes, unfortunately. When I walked in he was  pointing out that probably all too smart and too easily bored to ever really retire. Given that, how do our priorities change. And if we get 10% more email every year from here on out, what does that mean? He found some interesting ways to work a whole lot less, and I'm going to miss all the good info if I keep blogging... I've pre-ordered the book.

Had to add a note... he says "life does not improve with Twitter and Dodgeball" and talks about a backlash to information overload. Wonder how many others were blogging and twittering as he said this...

Cl1p.net: the Internet Clipboard

I found an incredibly handy resource – cl1p.net. It's billed as a quick way to “copy & paste between computers”. Just type http:/cl1p.net/anythingyouwant, and you “own” that url for as briefly as 1 hour or as long as 6 months. There’s also an “as long as possible” option. You can add text and upload up to 2 Mb in files. Not much, but it’s still handy. It’s quicker than email – I can easily imagine being on the phone, wanting to send a couple files to everyone on the call, and saying “just go to this url and grab them”. You can own the url, too, for $5 for a year, $20 for 5 years, and $35 for 10 years.