Category Archives: iPhone
Review: Microsoft OneNote for iPhone
Well, this review is long overdue, but I’ve been putting Microsoft’s latest addition to the OneNote family through its paces. Overall, I’m fairly pleased with how well I was able to reorganize my notebooks, including some older ones from when I had a Windows smartphone but never had the incentive to do anything with until the iPhone app came out.
However, I should make sure to stress the word "fairly".
Geek Friday: Accessing Support Ticket Systems While on the Road
I have had an interesting week. However, it was a week that got me thinking. It also ties in with my increasing disappointment in Intuit in just about every area. To boil it down: How do I create invoices while on the road without breaking the bank?
I hope to look at some of these in the future. For now, I’m listing some of the more interesting. While I am specifically looking at support ticket systems, there’s a lot of overlap with any contractor that travels to customer sites, I’m sure.
Having Quicken on my laptop is nice, but there are times when whipping it out and emailing an invoice isn’t always all that convenient or cheap. The 3G stick is dead slow, but it will work … sometimes … when the signal is good. Furthermore, Quicken isn’t exactly a ticket system.
iOS 5 First Impressions
I jailbroke my iPhone 3GS originally because of my frustration with the push notifications doing stupid things like covering up the controls on a phone call to prevent me from hanging up (imagine trying to make a phone call on the thing, after all!). However, there were problems with doing it that way, not the least of which was Apple plugging up the security hole that allowed an untethered jailbreak in the first place. Downgrading the iOS seemed to make it more unstable (for reasons I never figured out). The last straw, though, was the inability to answer Skype calls while the phone was locked and Notified was running.
So, improved notifications was the major feature I desired when I learned iOS 5 was finally released. And, it turns out to be a major improvement in this area. Alerts happen up in the status area unless the phone is locked, and even then they aren’t modal dialogs. The one strange exception seemed to be the location service which wanted me to turn on wi-fi after I had turned it off because I was going to be on the road. I don’t understand why it would want wi-fi turned on, as IP addresses have very little to do with location (a proxy or VPN server would mangle it even if it were).
Geek Friday: A Keyboard For iPhone or For Using iPhone to Control Computer
This really is one of those things that can only come under geek-dom. Have you ever wanted to control your computer with your iPhone? Now you can! Have you ever wanted to use a keyboard to control your iPhone? Now you can!
Gizmag reported this week that now a “WOW-Keys allows desktop keyboard and iPhone to pool their resources”. I wasn’t sure what they mean by “pool”, so I checked the article out, and they mean just what I said in the intro. You can use the keyboard to type text on the iPhone or use hotkeys to control volume and other media functions. You can also use your iPhone as a touch screen control for your computer by putting it into PC mode with the press of a button (Macs are allowed as well). You can charge your iPhone’s battery and sync as well.
It’s a neat concept, but is it really useful? I’m not so sure it will catch on with any but the über-geek. Sound off in the comments either way.
Stupid iPhone Tricks: iPhone File Explorer/Browser
Well, that didn’t take long. Last week, I posted about the “iPhones and Autorun: Importing Pictures From iPhone After Security Fix”, but by the end of the week, that was already broken beyond repair.
You know, it’s really a simple concept. Storage is storage. I just want to be able to take pictures and videos and be able to pull them off without iTunes and without emailing them to myself. What is this, 1999?
Well, it is confusing. There are a few programs out there that call themselves “iPhone Explorer” or “iPhone Browser”.
Google Code has one called iPhoneBrowser that requires a jailbroken iPhone. That sounds a bit weird to me, seeing as it was working before Microsoft changed something so why do I need to jailbreak the phone?
Macroplant has one called iPhone Explorer, but I downloaded it and it wouldn’t show many any pics on the phone. In fact, it seems that it would show me anything but the pics. Worse, I clicked on something, and they wanted me to buy one of their other products. If the first one didn’t work, I’m certainly not going to pay you for something else that doesn’t work.
I was getting tired, aggravated and thinking very much about using a sledgehammer on the iPhone at this point, when I noticed CNET had one called “iPhone Explorer” as well. At first, I thought it was just another copy of Macroplant’s program, but when I looked closely, I saw it was from a German site Software4u. I downloaded the one from CNET and installed it. When it ran, it asked to do an update, so you probably should download direct from the company’s website if you give it a whirl.
Lo and behold, it did exactly what it said it would do! You can preview all sorts of media files using the buttons on the toolbar to view them, or you can click on the File Explorer button to move and copy them. I’m not sure why the File Explorer is a separate button, but, hey, as long as it works!
It is worthwhile to note that you can also edit your ringtones and use the iPhone as a storage device. If your iPhone is jailbroken, you can also view email and SMS messages on it (the iPhone apparently denies the connection otherwise).
What can I say? Pretty good for free.
