Times change--and the connected world just gets more expensive!

I am in Texas this week. We will be in San Antonio until Thursday afternoon when we will drive to Austin to spend the weekend with Bob LeVitus and his family. My husband is attending a technology conference and we are staying at the Grand Hyatt San Antonio.

I find it odd that while a stay in a top-level American hotel does not include free WiFi access or a free breakfast buffet, most tier two hotels such as a Marriott Residence Inn, Hilton Garden Suite, etc. include those items in the cost of the room.

Here at the Hyatt, there are two levels of Internet access costing $9.95 or $12.95 per day. A continental breakfast bar cost $11.00 and the full breakfast bar is $18.00.

Even more problematic is the rules for Internet access. Have a computer, an iPad and an iPhone? That counts as three separate devices. Staying with your spouse who has similar equipment? Now you potentially have 6 devices to pay for! Each of these devices has a different MAC address, so they count as separate items.

If you are willing to attach one of the computers to the Ethernet cable, then you can use Internet sharing to set up an ad hoc network, but this is not allowed in the terms of service.

Since I bought the Virgin Mobile MiFi2200, I activated it for the month and I am using it to provide Internet access to our other device when thy are not connected by a different data plan.

I purchased the $60.00, 30 day, 5 GB plan for the MiFi. I suspect I could have gotten by with the $40.00 plan, but I wanted to make sure I have adequate data for any activity we wanted to try.

Because I have not modified our existing contracts, both my husband and I have unlimited data plans on our iPhones. If I would modify our contracts, we could add iPhone tethering which would allow us to use the iPhone to provide WiFi Internet service to one computer at a time. I do not think there is a way to provide WiFi to our iPads from the iPhone, unless we jailbreak them. I do not plan to do that.

While my husband’s iPad is WiFi only, mine is the 3G model. I purchased the data plan before AT&T changed the plans, so for the moment, I have the unlimited data plan.

As you can see, I have several overlapping data plans in place. Therefore, I have turned off the WiFi on my 3G iPad and on my iPhone while I am in range of the MiFi. Since there is a Starbuck’s Coffee with free AT&T WiFi in a nearby mall food court, I used it yesterday morning and went back to upload a large audio file yesterday evening when the upload speeds on the MiFi were too slow to easily upload a 125 MB file.

My Virgin Mobile Broadband2Go MiFi does not require a monthly contract and I can change the plan each time I buy more data. Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile probably offer similar devices (or they will soon). The important part of this device is its lack of a contract. If I plan to be home for a month, I can simply tuck it away until I need to activate it for another trip.

While I had planned to remove the data plan from my iPad 3G, we have found it to be very useful in day-to-day life around town. I often tuck my iPad into my purse when we are away from home. Being able to surf the web anywhere, at any time on the larger screen is a big improvement over the iPhone screen. I also hand it to my husband if he is going to be away from home, waiting for a car repair or something else.

Eventually, I will need to trim our costs and I will need to cut some of the overlapping Internet services. However, for the moment it is very convenient to be able to be online on any device at any time. It’s too bad that money doesn’t grow on trees!

If you need help choosing the best sources of Internet connectivity for you and your family, give us a call at Bob LeVitus Consulting. We can discuss your needs and help you formulate a plan that will give you the best “bang for your buck.” You can reach us by telephone at 408 627-7577. Or send an email to urgentrequest@boblevitus.com. Our service for this costs $60.00 per hour.

-- Pat

Tags: iPad, iPhone, Internet

Our daughter, Courtney and Andy were engaged last summer. The wedding was set for late July 2010. We have a large family and Courtney wanted to include her brother and sisters, nieces and nephews in the wedding party.

Our daughter, Monique, is the mother of three young sons. She was to be a bridesmaid and her sons were to be the ring bearers. During the year, Monique announced that we would have a new grandchild this fall. The pregnancy has been a difficult one and she was hospitalized in June until our new grandson is born. Not only would Monique not be able to participate in the wedding, she would also miss seeing her sister and her sons in it.

Being the techie that I am, I bought the new iPhone 4 on the day it was introduced. My sister, Sandy, also bought an iPhone 4. We could use FaceTime to stream the wedding to Monique!

Unfortunately, while the idea was a good one, there were lots of problems to overcome.

A few days after getting my iPhone 4, I attempted to use FaceTime while at the hospital to place a call to Sandy at her home in Las Vegas NM. Although we could talk by voice, we could not make a FaceTime connection. The hospital network connection was too slow--or perhaps they block streaming, but using the hospital patient network was not an option.

I also knew that neither the church nor the reception hall had an open WI-FI network. While I might have been able to find a way to set up a network at our church, I knew there was no way I would be able to set up a network at the reception site, located at the Washington Navy Yard.

Mi-Fi cards allow you to set up your own Wi-Fi network wherever you go, as long as there is a mobile phone 3G network available. There was one big catch--a contract! If we would sign a one to two year contract, we could get or buy one of these devices for $0 to $200.00. Contracts cost $30 to $60 per month for up to 5 GB of data. Canceling the contract would also be very costly. That was a lot of money to expend to stream the wedding to Monique!

Sandy called. She saw a press release for a new Mi-Fi service from Virgin Mobile. We could buy a VirginMobile Mi-Fi device at any Best Buy for $149.00. Then we could buy data from Virgin Mobile without a contract! Of course, it would require TWO Mi-Fi devices, one for the hospital, and one for the wedding sites.

Sandy had purchased a Wi-Fi iPad. She often wished she had a way to connect it to the Internet using her own Wi-Fi. She decided to by the first Mi-Fi device.

Since I have lots of techie friends, I was certain that I could find a Mi-Fi device to borrow--or perhaps a mobile phone that we could use to set up a Wi-Fi network. While several friends have Mi-Fis, they were paid for by their employers, so using one for a the wedding was not an option.

Although several friends had phones that could be used to set up a Wi-Fi network, no one had actually done it! No one knew exactly what they needed to do! FAIL, FAIL, FAIL!

After a bit more thought, I decided that this was too important an event for Monique to miss. I bought the second MiFi and we quickly tested it out.

FaceTime over the Mi-Fi devices was not perfect, but it was more than acceptable. Now, Monique could “be” at the wedding and at the reception! She would see everyone get ready, see the preparations at the church, see, the ceremony and the reception. Not only would she see it, she could also visit with family and friends throughout the day and evening.

I delivered my iPhone and the MiFi to the hospital. I did a bit of testing and configuring to make sure the iPhone would default to the MiFi instead of the hospital wireless. Now we were ready for the big day.

We made many FaceTime calls throughout the day. Monique was able to visit with friends and family, add her approval to Courtney’s hairstyle, be a part of the group in the wedding room at church, make a final check of her boys in their suits, watch her sons walk down the aisle, see Courtney and Andy exchange their vows, listen to Fr. DeCelle’s homily, suggest yet another picture to be taken after the ceremony. She visited with friends at the reception, saw the table decorations she had helped to make, watched her sons be introduced, listened to her dad’s toast, and watch her sons dance and dance.

While Monique was not able to be physically present, she was able to be a part of our wonderful day. FaceTime and the iPhone 4 allowed it to happen, along with family and friends who took a few minutes to be a part of the stream.

Courtney and Andy provided the fitting end to the day. When they left the reception, they headed to the hospital so that Monique could see them in their wedding attire.

Pat

Tags: iPhone

People are often surprised when their iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad develops a problem. We get quite a few calls for help in fixing these issues.

The first thing I ask is when the person last restarted the device. Just like any other computer, problems are often solved by simply restarting the it.

To restart your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, press the Power button for several seconds. Wait for it to turn off completely and then press the Power button for several seconds to turn it back on. Notice that I said “a few seconds.” It takes more than a quick push. On my iPhone 4, it takes 3 seconds, counted one elephant, two elephants, three elephants.

That solves many problems. Try a quick restart if your device is acting up.

Some problems are a bit bigger. They require a new copy of the iPhone software (the operating system) to resolve the problem. That is called a Restore. Connect your iPhone to your computer. Select the iPhone in the rightmost column of the iTunes application window. Then select the Summary tab in the main window.

You will see the Restore button in the middle portion of the main window. Clicking the button may bring up this dialog box:

In general, I usually let iTunes complete this backup. It can take a minute or two.

Once the backup is completed, you will see this box:

This is the one to think about. In order to restore the iPhone, iTunes must erase EVERYTHING that is on the device. Putting things back in place can take a bit, possibly several hours. This is NOT the procedure to perform when you need to be at a meeting, with your phone, in 10 minutes! It is not such a bad job if you can let it take place when you won’t be needing your iPhone for a while. I tend to restore iPhones and iPads at bedtime!

Let’s focus on the small print:

At the end of the restore, you will have two options. The first is to use the backup file that iTunes made to restore everything to your iPhone. Although it can take a while, it is pretty painless. HOWEVER, if the problem is not the iPhone software itself, but a problem in one of your data or settings file, restoring the iPhone from a backup will NOT solve your problem!

I have had several instances when erasing the iPhone or iPad and restoring it from the backup did not fix the issue. It was only solved when I set up the device as if it were brand new.

If you want to try restoring from the backup, click that button and sit back.

If you decide to do the complete replacement, you will loose all your preferences, game scores, and data. While this can be disconcerting. Many games such as WeRule, WeFarm and MyTown store your data on their server. You device only stores the login and password. Other games such as Solitaire City store all of your data on your device, so setting up again will mean that your high scores disappear.

In the case of things Evernote or DropBox, your data is stored on their server, so you will need to log in to retrieve it. If you are using applications such as Bento, be sure to sync your device with your computer before you do a restore.

If you have decided to leave your old data behind, then click “Set up as a new” iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

Sometimes if seems as though iTunes takes off on a run! To prevent that, scroll down in the main iPhone window until you see this area:

Click the box to manually manage music and video, then go to each of the tabs across the top of the iPhone window and make your selections.

Use the Apply button at the lower left corner of the iPhone window to begin the process of moving things back to your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

If you are having a problem with your device and you want Apple to replace it, they will ask you if you have done a software restore and if you have set it up as a new device. If that does not solve the issue and if it is truly a problem, Apple will generally replace the unit if it is in the initial warranty period or if you have purchased AppleCare.

If these directions still seem intimidating, we can give you a hand. This kind of help qualifies as a tutorial. While our rate for troubleshooting at Dr. Mac Consulting is $120.00 per hour, tutoring costs $60.00 per hour. We specialize in hand-holding and we explain exactly what is happening as we work. Most important, we are extremely patient! Give us a call at 408 627-7577 or send us a message at urgentrequest@boblevitus.com.

--Pat

Tags: Troubleshooting

While adding notes to calendar events and people in your address book are good for many purposes, there are other notes that need to be somewhere else.

Until the release of iPhone OS 3 I used several different note apps on my iPhone. Each had some method of syncing, most involved having another application on my computer. That was one more thing to add to my dock and often one more web site to pay money to each year.

Now that the Notes Application on my iPhone

…can sync with the Notes in Mail

…I am pretty happy.

Let’s review how this works.

When you open the Notes app on the iPhone, you will see one of the two screens below. If you see this screen, you either have no notes or you are looking at notes you have previously made. To add a note, click the plus icon in the upper right corner of the screen.

If you see this screen, you are looking at the note you were last using. Click the plus icon in the upper right to add another note. Click the arrow icons at the bottom of the screen to navigate to your other notes. The envelope icon attaches the note to an email so that you can send it to someone. The Trash can icon deletes the note.

If you want to add a note on your computer, it is done in Mail:

Click on the Note icon in the toolbar at the top of the screen to add a new note. Click on the Notes icon in the Mail sidebar to view your notes.

There are many options when making Notes in Mail. It is possible to change fonts and colors, attach files and photos and even to make To Do items in a note:

Syncing notes

While it is possible to sync Mail accounts, Contacts, Calendars and Bookmarks to the iPhone using MobileMe, Notes are not included.

Instead, synching is set up in iTunes:

This means that in order to see the latest changes you have made on the other device (iPhone or Mac), you must connect your iPhone to the Mac and do a sync.

While there are lots of other applications that can be used for notes, I prefer Apple’s Notes application. Since it is an application made by Apple Inc., I can check my notes at any time. For example, when I am talking on the telephone, playing a game, listening to my podcast or music. For me this availability is not to be missed!

--Pat

Tags: iPhone

While storing notes about people or companies in the Address book on the Mac (or in Contacts on the iPhone) makes perfect sense, some information just doesn't belong there.

For example, I am taking a Frontier Airline flight to Macworld later this week. I received a confirmation email from Frontier after I booked my flight:

While I might put the telephone number and URL for Frontier in Address Book, information about my flight to San Francisco would be easier to locate in iCal or the iPhone Calendar. I used copy and paste to put the information into iCal:

Then I waited for MobileMe to sync the information to my iPhone:

One of the most interesting things is that although the links from the email do not appear in the iCal event, they are visible and available on my iPhone. The links open to Google maps in Safari. Just think of how convenient it could be to have such easy access for maps to hotels, restaurants etc.

Note that I edited the screenshots to remove personal and identifying information from the images above.

Both Bob LeVitus and I will be at Macworld later this week. Look for blog posts, Twitters and updates as we learn about new products for the Mac, iPhone and iPod Touch. I will be traveling with my husband, Ron--if we don’t get snowed in by yet another DC storm.

--Pat

Tags: ICal, iPhone, Internet

Its time for another blog series. This time we’ll take a look at making notes on you computer

Are you a note taker? I am. Sometimes I wish there was just one place and one way to make notes, but realistically, it would not work well. In fact, I need different ways of taking notes--and they need to be stored in different places or I would never be able to make sense out of them.

Let’s start by looking at making notes in the Address Book. Do you remember the old days when we used paper address books to keep track of people’s addresses. I would use the same book for several years, until it got so messy and “scratched out” that I simply had to begin again.

The worst part of transferring to a new address book was the loss of bits of knowledge that somehow did not make it into the new book. Add to that the time that it took to hand write all the addresses and the possibility of introducing errors in copying the information. That was a task that begged for computerization!

There are extra fields that can be added to the Address Book template to make it easier to organize information. To make changes to the template, first choose Address Book > Preferences from the menu bar:

In the Preferences window, click the Template button and then click the Add Field button.

I have added just about every field to my template. However, notice that I have left Phonetic First/Last Name unchecked. If I need those fields, I can add them while I am in the Edit mode of Address Book. To add a field, use the menu item Card > Add Field.

It is also possible to add multiple items in many of the fields. For example, it is possible to add many different kinds of telephone numbers:

At the bottom of the pop-up are two choices, other and Custom… If you choose “other”, a new item labeled Other is added. If you choose Custom, you will see this window where you can add a new, specific kind of telephone number.

Add a custom field and the label will show the new field:

However, the Custom field is not available in the fields in other address cards. That is a suggestion that I will have to send to Apple!

At the bottom of each address card, there is a Notes field. I add all sorts of information to this area. It could be anything from an old address to notes about what I served the last time I invited the person for dinner. I also add ideas for future gifts and reminders about gifts I have sent in the past. If it is an entry for a business, I add employee names, notes about things I have purchased there, directions to their store etc.

Searching is one of the best features of Address Book. Not only can the name and address fields be searched, but the results will include any information that is stored in any other field, including the Notes area.

When you enter text into the Search area of the Address Book, it will look for that text throughout the Address book. It will include all fields and the Notes area.

If you use MobileMe to sync information from the Address Book to your iPhone or iPod Touch, the information is available in the Notes section of each card. However, at this time, it will not come up in the search results. For example, If you have entries for restaurants and you have added the cuisine that they serve in the Notes area, you would not be able to search the Contacts on your iPhone for Mexican food restaurants. I hope Apple will add these capabilities in new versions of the iPhone software.

If you need help in organizing your address book or you need to move addresses from another application into Address Book, consider booking a help session with me at Doctor Mac Consulting. I can show you how to move your addresses out of just about any program and into Apple’s Address Book. The cost is $60.00 per hour and I can use our special software to “see” your computer. Send a note to urgentrequest@boblevitus.com or call us at (408) 627-7577 for further information.

--Pat

As a blog writer, I pay attention to Google Analytics. The web site tracks every page of MacMousecalls and lets me know a lot about my readers.

This report tells me that I get lots of visits to an earlier article about updating iPhones and iPod touches. However the article is very out of date, so its time to do a complete update.

Keeping applications up-to-date was a bit buggy when the first article was written, but things have changed.

The iPhone and iPod Touch lets you know, right on App Store icon, when there is a newer version of an application.

Clicking on the icon may tell a slightly different story:

In this case, the updates page shows that I have three updates. This happened because I just used my iPhone for the first time today.

You can also check for updates on your computer by using iTunes.

Click on Applications in the Library area of the upper left column. You will be taken to the iTunes store to a special page that tracks your app updates. You can click on the update button for each individual application, or you can click the Download All button in the upper right corner of the window.

Did you notice that there are 4 applications shown here? That is because TweetDeck is not on my iPhone, but it is in my application collection. I have many more applications than I can display on my iPhone.

In the original article I wrote about having to delete earlier versions of applications through the finder. That is no longer necessary. Apple fixed that bug a long time ago!

Happy App shopping!

--Pat

Tags: iPhone

I spent the last week on the Outer Banks of North Carolina with our extended family. Seventeen of us spent 7 days at a beautiful beach house. We swam, played on the beach, did some sight-seeing, ate – and we “computed.”

In taking our family to the beach we packed 6 Mac laptops (and two Windows PCs), 6 iPhones (plus 3 Blackberries and 3 assorted cell phones), a Nintendo Wii, 3 Nintendo DS and at least 4 iPods.

While we did not spend our entire week with the “electrons,” our family was certainly “connected!” Add 11 digital cameras to the mix, and our days were well-recorded.

Taking all those electronic devices to the beach and expecting them to work requires a bit of packing. Since six families were involved, there were a few “forgotten cords, cables, and adapters.

Let’s make a quick checklist to help you pack for your next trip.
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I have to admit it! For the third summer in a row, I found myself in line last Friday to buy the new iPhone 3GS. Since Apple did not change the form between the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 3GS, and since my husband also bought one, we will be needing another external battery pack at our house! Join me as I explore the different type of battery packs and and their features.
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Tags: iPhone

There are lots of iPhone screenshots appearing on the web these days! It seems as though everyone wants to know about the changes coming in the iPhone 3.0 software.

Carl, one of our Dr. Mac Consulting clients sent me a tweet :



The ability to make screenshots was added in the iPhone 2.0 software. To make a screenshot: Click here to read more...

Tags: iPhone

My favorite company for iPod and iPhone accessories is Griffin Technology. Since I am not at Macworld this year, I am really missing my annual trip to their booth to look for new items and to take advantage of their special show pricing. I received a Twitter Tweet from a friend who is a product engineer there.
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Are we a community? As I look around the world of Apple users, it is very apparent we are not just people who use Macintosh computers, iPods and iPhones.

We are a group of people who share a common interest in products produced by a company, Apple Inc. We read many of the same magazines, books and web sites. We listen to podcasts featuring the authors of those items. We also use software produced, created and inspired by them. Some of us even attend events such as Macworld, MacMania cruises, and even user group meetings that feature the works of that group.
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When I got my new iPhone back in July, I was amazed how quickly I could run the battery down! Just talking to a few people, watching a video, playing a game and checking my calendar left a dent in my battery. A day of heavy use meant I had to go running for my charger.

It was time to get energy smart! Although each successive version of the iPhone software has caused the battery to go longer between charges, I quickly found that some power management techniques would go a long way in assuring I had enough battery life to not worry about my iPhone going dead.

Here are some things you can do to increase the battery life of your iPhone. While doing all of these things will give you the longest running time for your iPhone, just implementing one or two will help. For each technique, I will list all the steps, so some pictures, particularly those of the home screen and settings window will be repeated several times.
Click here to read more...

Tags: Battery , iPhone

Okay – I will admit it – I am not a member of the under 20 crowd, I am not a member of the under 30 crowd, I am not a member of the under 40 crowd. But that is as far as I will go.

My five children fall into some of those age groups, and they are much more likely to embrace new technologies a bit more quickly than I do. However, being a technologist means that I have to stay current to help you.

One of the newer things is text messaging. Everyone under 30 seems to just get it, and those over 50 probably need a little help in figuring this one out.

Three of my children don’t have land line telephones. Their cell phone is the only way to reach them. They also attend lots of meetings and appointments when having their telephone ring is not appropriate… Click here to read more...

There is a bug, either in the software for the iPhone or in iTunes that may cause applications on the iPhone not to update properly. I started to write this post several weeks ago, but decided to wait until the iPhone 2.1 software update was released to see if it fixed the problem. The new software has been released – and I am still having issues, so I suspect some of you are too.

This is the easiest way I have found to get iPhone and iPod Touch applications to update properly… Click here to read more...