Welcome to my technology blog!
Adobe's Worldwide Web Evangelist joins us to show how to create HTML 5 web pages and do design using CSS 3 in Adobe Dreamweaver CS5.
Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 Mac | Win
Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 Upgrade Mac | Win
Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 HTML 5 Pack Free Download
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vabpQhJD3FA
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf-BPgOOFmU
I finally got around to giving the iPhone 4's FaceTime video chatting feature a real world test yesterday with none other than music recording legend Seal. While I would have loved to have shared this call with you as a recorded video, I respect Seal's privacy wishes not to show his home here/on the internet. So I'll have to do one later with him when he's on the road. We were both quite impressed with the quality and ease of doing this type of hand held video chat.
The picture quality was great and the audio was crystal clear. As a matter of fact FaceTime is currently working better than the Phone part of the iPhone 4. Sadly, I've dropped more calls on my iPhone 4 in the past two days than I have with all previous generation iPhones that I've owned combined! Granted the Bumper does help, but there are some real issues that Apple needs to work out here. All in all it was a fun chat that lasted just over an hour.
One nice surprise is that while you can initiate a FaceTime chat with someone you're talking with on the phone (provided you are both using iPhone 4's and both on WiFi), the minute that FaceTime Chat is in session you are no longer using your cellular minutes. You can also initiate a FaceTime chat directly with a contact in your Contacts list. Again without using any cellular minutes. So this is going to be AWESOME for my international travels. FaceTime is a winner.
I'm such a tease. I know. 🙂 Although that is Lightroom 3 being displayed on my iPad, it's actually running on my MacBook Pro. Check out how I did it here. I know it's not what you were hoping for, but it's pretty useful nonetheless. Also great for wireless client review in your studio.
One of my main AT&T/iPhone complaints has finally been addressed. Ever since the iPhone 3G (and for some, the original iPhone) came out two years ago, I wondered why AT&T was so adamant about NOT allowing you to tether (use your iPhone as a modem/WiFi hotspot) your iPhone to your laptop and share its 3G data connection. After all they allow this with every other smart phone they sell and they even sell 3G data cards. Also no one ever expected this to be FREE. So I never really got why this was such a big deal? Granted AT&T couldn't do it alone and it would require built-in support by Apple in the iPhone OS (iOS). However, that support came in iPhone OS 3 LAST YEAR. So what took AT&T a YEAR to allow it on the iPhone for us in the US? They claim that they still needed to tweak their network to allow the influx of additional data traffic. While this may be true, the thing is since it's not FREE, not everyone is going to do it. Also it's not something you're going to be using all the time or would you?
I don't doubt that AT&T needed to (and still needs to) work on "the world's fastest 3G network" to get it ready for even the slightest increase in traffic, but I suspect that an even larger issue was not wanting you to be able to pay a flat fee and have unlimited use. Even when you go with a $60/month 3G data card from AT&T there is a 5GB/month cap on it. Up until now all iPhone plans have been "UNLIMITED" data. So while the amount of 3G data that iPhone users currently consume must be HUGE, I'm sure giving users unlimited tethering would have brought this fragile network to its knees.
Continue reading “AT&T Finally Brings Tethering to the iPhone: What you should know…”
(The perils of getting married when you're already known by another name. :P)
Principal
W3Conversions
Phoenix, Arizona
http://www.w3conversions.com
Sadly, I've not blogged in about a year due to too much twittering, but I've started to post thoughts that are over 140 characters on Tumblr: http://stefsullrewis.tumblr.com/
Honestly, though it's not really a little gadget, it's my 17" MacBook Pro. I'm at the computer so much, I really don't find much need for things like iPads/tablets. I'd have to take my computer off my lap to use them.
Late last year one of my colleagues was telling me about Google Voice (in private beta then) and I had him send me an invite so I could check it out. I signed up, got a Google Voice Phone Number and played with it, but I never really used it. However, recently I decided to go ahead and use it. As I began traveling more abroad this year and being in so many different time zones it became pretty much impossible for all my friends, family and colleagues to know which number to try to reach me on and worse, which time of day to call. As you might imagine I got some middle of the night (my time) phone calls from people that just didn't know what time it was where I was. Of course I could have turned off my cellphone, but I just never felt comfortable doing that in case there was an emergency back home. So I really got going on Google Voice. Recently I sent out an email to all the people that call me regularly and gave them the ONE new number to reach me on no matter what. This way I could control which number(s) the Google Voice number would ring (Work, personal cell, work cell, VoIP, Hotel Front Desk, etc.) and setup different rules and greetings by individual or group. I could also use the "Do Not Disturb" feature for those times when I would be asleep. This way everyone except immediate family members (that still knew my direct phone number) would be sent to voicemail during those times when I couldn't answer. Also if I don't have you in my contacts you're greeted with a request to say your name. This cuts telemarking calls way down.
One of the features I like most is the fact that you can have the one Google Voice number forwarded to multiple numbers simultaneously. So for example, when I'm at home I have it forwarded to my office line (Vonage) and my cellphone. That way when the phone rings I can pick up whichever phone is closest. Voicemail is killer! Not only can you record multiple greetings that stay in the system and assign them to individual contacts or groups, but you can have the voicemail messages received forwarded to your email. You can also play them back on the web and you can have them transcribed as text automatically. SMS Texting/Forwarding: You can also do SMS via your phone or via the website. Once you log into Google Voice you can either import your contacts or sync them. You can select a contact and start doing SMS texting right there on the website (both sending and receiving).
Continue reading “I Have One Number Now Thanks To Google Voice”
To all my Audio loving Mac buddies, Adobe's Worldwide Creative Suite Evangelist – Jason Levine gives us a special Technology "Sneak" Preview of Adobe Audition for Mac. Check out these two videos:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRc49EKb9VY
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1AblAwOpSA
Signup to be notified of the Public Beta here.
Like many of you, I upgraded my iPhone 3GS to iOS 4 yesterday. I'm traveling in France and the upgrade went great. No glitches or problems reactivating. I was also very happy that it didn't wipe the phone and make me restore all my content (especially since I sync media from an iMac at home). I'm very happy (almost giddy) with the folder management for Apps and the unified inbox for Mail (one of my pet peeves since day one!). Although I've been trying to keep up on the new features as best I could while traveling, there were a few pleasant surprises that I hadn't seen listed anywhere.
It's about freaking time! I never understood why you could sync Contacts, Calendars, etc. via MobileMe, but not Notes to the iPhone (3.x) over the air. Well it's here now and you can do it with MobileMe or ANY IMAP based email service! Woohoo! Finally!
One of the things that surprised me about the iPad's calendar made it's way into iOS 4 for the iPhone and that's the ability to turn calendar displays on/off individually. I cheered! In previous iPhone OS 3.x you could either look at an individual calendar or ALL calendars. I have lots of calendars on my iPhone, but don't need to see them ALL all the time. It's great having a unified calendar view of just the calendars I want to see. However, performance definitely took a hit here. It's sloooooooooooooooooooooow scrolling my calendar in List view for some reason (even though I've now turned most calendars off).
A nice touch that I didn't see coming. You can now create a Real Playlist complete with a name on the fly and add any of your songs to it right on the iPhone itself. It will sync back to iTunes on your next sync.
It was Wednesday afternoon last week and I was packing to head out on a business trip. This usually involves syncing my iDevices so I have the latest tunes, Apps, movies, etc. that I want to take with me on the road. All of this syncing works great between devices, except when those devices happen to be computers! My main music library is on a shared family iMac in a central part of the house. It has music on it from each family member according to their tastes in music. As you might imagine I really don't want to bring a bunch of music with me that I have no interest in listening too. This isn't a problem on an iPod, because you simply sync only the playlists you want to take with you and only those songs will go onto the device.
I have iTunes 9.2 on my MacBook Pro. I have iTunes 9.2 on my iMac. Both Macs are authorized on the same iTunes account and therefore can legally play the same songs. However, when it comes time for me to get songs from the iMac onto the MacBook Pro it's a very MANUAL process. iTunes 9 introduced Home Sharing. However, Home Sharing is essentially just a network copy feature and nothing more. Although Home Sharing DOES automatically add purchased songs to the other computer, there's no syncing and no duplicate management for playlists or anything else. Grab 10 songs and drag them over and 5 minutes later you can grab the same songs and drag them over again. iTunes will not warn you about any duplicates and it will just copy them AGAIN. This problem got a little worse back when Apple moved to iTunes Plus because although you could "upgrade" your songs and iTunes would replace them with the new DRM free versions at a higher bit rate (keeping your ratings, metadata, play counts, etc.), your other computers would be out of luck for this automatic replacement. You would have to do it all manually. I guess from time to time you could wipe your library on one computer and copy over again, but the question becomes why is there no automatic way of keeping two iTunes libraries in sync?
I've looked and so far I haven't found the perfect app yet (or even one that's close). Sure there are some Apps out there that will attempt to keep your iTunes libraries in sync. However, from what I've seen so far either the user interfaces are HORRIBLE and overly complicated or they simply don't do enough. For example, I haven't found one yet that syncs "Smart Playlists". Let's say I have a Smart Playlist of my "Best of the Best" songs. They are the ones I've rated 5 stars. So technically it's not a "real playlist", it's a dynamic one that updates automatically based on the song ratings. None of the Apps I've tried to date will handle this. Yet Apple has been able to sync Smart Playlists to the iPod since day one.
Ideally what I want is pretty simple – I want to be able to choose a few playlists on my iMac (including Smart Playlists) and have those SAME playlists sync to my MacBook Pro. If I change the rating of a song on the iMac, then that song's rating should get changed on the MacBook Pro too and therefore it would appear in the proper playlists automatically. If I have manual playlists that I move songs in and out of, this should happen on the MacBook Pro too.
Yes, I'm very willing to pay for such a solution. Have you guys seen anything out there that really works? It's sad that Apple hasn't built this in directly to iTunes for computers like they have for iDevices.
Sr. Marketing Manager, C-level and Thought Leadership campaigns
Symantec
Cupertino, CA
www.allbymyself.com (children’s videos) – site is currently being updated
my iPhone and the iPad I won and gave to my husband – who’s the best wife ever?
Continue reading “Tech Profile of Carmela Zamora Robertson aka CZ”