Terry White's Tech Blog

July 23, 2013July 22, 2013

Use Any Smartphone on any iPod Dock

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I’ve reviewed several iPod music docks here over the years. Starting with the Bose SoundDock I’ve had an appreciation for these music devices to dock my iPods back in the day as well as my iPhones over the years. As a matter of fact I used to smile when I’d walk into a hotel room and see an iHome or other similar device on the nightstand. This meant that at a minimum I could dock my iPhone and charge it overnight even if I had no plans to listen to music via the dock’s speakers. Well those days are over, or at least I thought they were when I got an iPhone 5. Apple has aggressively phased out the 10+ year old 30 pin dock connector found on several of these music docks and in most modern cars. While Apple does sell Lightning Adapters to adapt older 30 pin connectors to the new Lightning connects found on the iPhone 5, newer iPods and current iPads. The problem is that compatibility can be hit or miss. Some may still play music, but not charge the device.

Enter the CableJive dockBoss 5

The dockBoss is an adapter for the older 30 pin based docks and on the other end is a standard USB port and 3mm audio-in jack. Instead of simply converting the older 30 pin connection to a Lightning connection, the dockBoss 5 converts to a standard USB port for power and a standard audio-in port for music. This means that not only can I use my iPhone 5 on any of these devices, but I can use my iPad or any other handheld device or smartphone. I now travel with a dockBoss 5 in my luggage. When I arrive to an iPod dock equipped room I just plug in the dockBoss and one of my regular USB-to-Lightning cables. Now my iPhone is charging without me have to search for a plug by the bed (some hotels still don’t get this need) and if I want to listen to music I can plug in the supplied audio cable that comes with the dockBoss 5 (as pictured above). If I don’t care to listen to music then it’s just a single cable connection. Also note that the dockBoss 5 includes both an audio cable and standard micro USB cable for connection to most other smartphones and other portable devices.

The Bottom Line

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Since Apple retired the 30 pin dock connector most portable music player manufacturers are now leaning towards bluetooth and wi-fi for connectivity for there new devices. However, if you’ve got an older music dock that works perfectly there’s probably no reason to throw it away! With the dockBoss 5 you can get more life out of it and make it compatible with other devices that it never worked with before.

Order the dockBoss 5 here.

July 22, 2013July 22, 2013

Thank You New Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore

tw-onstage-india — photo by Jason Levine

Once again I had to take a moment out of my hectic travel schedule to thank the over 1,100 people that came out to see my Adobe Create Now shows in India.

After leaving Singapore, we headed to New Delhi in India. This was my first time back to India since 2010 and my first time in New Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore.

Jason is a huge Bollywood fan and couldn’t resist the chance to break out into song on stage. He was a huge hit with the crowds.

In each city the story was the same. Hundreds of Creatives, Photographers, Web Developers and Videographers came out to see the new Adobe Creative Cloud offering.

In each city the venues were filled to capacity with standing room only in most cases.

We were joined on stage by our local colleagues Abhijit Ghosh (photo above) and Hitashi Garg, but Hitashi and Abhijit covered the web portions of the day.

The Bangalore event was standing room only and since we had later flights out that night we were able to show more tips and techniques during the shootout at the end.

I had a chance to do a little photography in Bangalore before heading out.

Thank you India and I hope to get back there again…

July 15, 2013July 14, 2013

One of my NEW photo sharing workflows is powered by Adobe Revel

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Sometimes you can be so focused on what you do professionally that you totally overlook what’s out there for fun. Both Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 and Photoshop CC are at the heart of my day-to-day photography workflows. Many of you have heard me talk about Adobe Revel in the past. I had begun using it as my portfolio App on iPad. I loved that it sync’d my photos from Lightroom to the cloud and instantly to my iPhone and iPads. However, the one BIG THING that was missing from the iOS apps was a “slideshow” feature. Sure you could swipe the images, but you couldn’t simply hit play and let them run. The beautiful new redesign of Revel 2.0 changed all that. The app is gorgeous and has many new features that has me using it as my Portfolio app again. Let me share some of the other updates with you that you may have missed…

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What’s Adobe Revel?

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Adobe Revel is Adobe’s “consumer” based photo sharing service. It’s FREE to use for those with modest needs. With the FREE account you can upload an unlimited number of photos in the 1st 30 days after setting up your account and then 50 photos a month after that. If you “need” more than that you can go UNLIMITED for $5.99/month. Yes, that’s unlimited imports, no limits ever. Once you upload your images to Revel they are instantly available on your Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch (Windows and Android is in the works, but no timeline for when they will be available). As with other services like Flickr. com, most will only need the FREE account, but if you want to handle a lot of photos each month you can go unlimited whenever you want.

Download Adobe Revel for Mac here:

Download Adobe Revel for iPhone, iPad and IPod touch here:

Why isn’t this a part of Creative Cloud?

Adobe Revel is on the consumer side of the house and the consumer offerings from Adobe (like Photoshop Elements) will remain separate from the professional offerings in Creative Cloud.

What do the Mac and iOS Apps let you do?

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In addition to uploading your photos, the Mac and iOS Revel Apps allow you to do non-destructive edits to your photos. Think of it as a Light version of the Lightroom develop module for consumers. It’s all slider based and like I said, 100% non-destructive. Once you make edits on one device those edits are automatically sync’d to all your other devices. This means that you always have the most up to date photos with you. You can also use the App to display your photos on screen or via AirPlay to say an Apple TV.

How does this work with Lightroom 4 and 5?

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Lightroom 4 had a Revel Publish Service built-in and Lightroom 5 has a plug-in that you can download for free that does the same thing. Get it here. When I sign in to the Revel Publish Service I see my Revel libraries and I can create collections (or better yet, Smart Collections) that represent my portfolios. This means that I can publish my best/favorite images from Lightroom directly to Adobe Revel. I have created a Smart Collection in the Revel Publish service for each of my portfolios. When I update the regular Lightroom collection with new images, all I have to do is hit the Publish button in the corresponding Revel Publish Service Collection and my images are uploaded and my iPhone, iPad and Mac are updated. This has been the easiest way for me to carry my “CURRENT” portfolios around with me on my various devices. Yes the images can be viewed offline too. Actually if it weren’t for the Lightroom tie in I wouldn’t be half as excited about Revel. Since all my photos live in Lightroom it’s the hub of all my photographic workflows.

You mentioned a NEW photo sharing workflow. What’s NEW?

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Everything I mentioned above is pretty much old news to Revel. The 2.0 iOS Apps and rate plan changes have been out for a while. What’s new is a couple NEW iPhone Apps. The 1st one is called Grouppix. I reviewed it here last week. When you and your friends download this FREE App, one of you can create a “shared” Album and invite the other to it. At that point anyone that has access to the album can upload pics to it and you all see them. This is GREAT for events such as parties, weddings, conferences, etc. Now everyone will have access to all the photos. That’s pretty cool, but what I didn’t realize right away is that those albums are powered by Revel! If you’re a Revel user those Grouppix shared albums show up in your Revel account. This also means that they show up in the Lightroom Publish Service. This makes it really really really easy for me to not only share photos I’ve taken with my iPhone, but also the ones I’ve taken with my DSLR. I can import my DSLR photos into Lightroom 5, select my picks, Develop them and add them to a Revel collection (Grouppix album), hit Publish and everyone that’s on the shared Grouppix album now has access to them. I did this last week during the Adobe Create Now Tour in APAC and it worked GREAT! If you’re into video there’s also a consumer based video editing app for iPhone called Video Bite. Yep it’s free too. It’s basic, but hey it lets you put clips together quickly and output a final movie right on your iPhone. Also did I mention that it’s free?

Get Adobe Grouppix for iPhone here:

Get Adobe VideoBite for iPhone here:

Learn more about what Adobe Revel has to offer here.

July 12, 2013

Thank You Bangkok & Singapore!

Photo of me on stage by Panchalak Bhirakit

It’s Friday afternoon here in Singapore and I just wanted to take a few moments to THANK ALL OF YOU who attended our events this week in Bangkok and Singapore!

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It was a pleasure presenting all the new things in Adobe Creative Cloud to these two sold out events.

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It was also nice to present with Paul Burnett for the 1st time. He kicked things off both days with the new Edge Web Tools and of course Dreamweaver CC.

wpid12436-BOtWnO3CMAAdPDO.jpg-large_sm.jpg — Photo by Jason Levine

It’s always a pleasure receiving such a pleasure presenting the tools and services that I love to such enthusiastic crowds

Continue reading “Thank You Bangkok & Singapore!”

July 10, 2013July 11, 2013

Thanks goes out to my now over 75,000 Subscribers on YouTube!

I just wanted to take a moment to say THANK YOU for subscribing to my YouTube Channel. I just blew past the 75,000 mark and I’m thrilled that so many of you like my content. Having over 75,000 subscribers and over 13 Million Views is no small accomplishment and again thanks.

Hey if you’re in the subscribing/following kinda mood, don’t forget to follow me on Twitter (approaching 25,000 followers) and Like my Facebook Page (over 15,000 likes). Also add me to your Google+ Circles (over 25,000 have me in their circles) and follow me on Behance.

In other news

My Learn the Adobe Creative Suite with Terry White App has now been rebranded to “Learn the Adobe Creative Cloud with Terry White” as well as some bug fixes. Be sure to download the update. (note – I did have one person tell me that he’s having issues with it on iPad 1. So if you have an iPad 1 you might want to hold off till I confirm).

Grab the app here:

July 8, 2013July 8, 2013

Scandock Turns Your Smartphone Into the Ultimate Document Scanner

I have been using my iPhone to scan documents for a long time now. My App of choice is Scanner Pro. However, no matter what phone you have or which App you like, the problems of scanning documents are universal. You have to deal with lighting and positioning the document in just the right spot. Also if you’re scanning multiple pages chances are each one is going to be slightly off in terms of orientation, cropping, etc. due to not being able to hold the phone in the same spot for each page. Atiz, the makers of Scandock, want to solve this problem.

Scandock turns your smartphone into a document scanner

This combo hardware device and App will turn an ordinary iPhone or Android camera into a fast, efficient document scanner. I must admit that when I received my review unit that it was way more than I expected in terms of size, craftsmanship and design. I thought “whoa! They’re serious!” It took me about 5 minutes to put it together, plug it in and download the free Scandock App. Once I had the App, I placed a document on the bed and immediately noticed that they have a mat that’s designed to smooth out/hold down folded papers. I tapped the scan button on the App and like with any photo, it only takes a second and you’re on to the next page. Certainly faster than the fastest sheetfed scanners out there because it literally takes a second. It takes more time to position the paper than to do the scan. If you are scanning more than a few sheets then it will probably be on par with the time it takes to do it in a sheetfed scanner, but way faster than a flatbed scanner.

As you would expect, the App allows you to convert the document to PDF and share it. The one feature that blew me away was the multiple-doc feature. This feature allows you to place multiple items on the bed at once, such as several receipts or business cards, and it will auto-detect and scan each one as a separate document. I’ve not seen a smartphone App do that before. The built-in LED lights are the key to this device. By evenly lighting your documents you never have a shadow of YOU holding the phone over the document. There are trays for both iPhones and Android smartphones. You can even get it in Black or White.

The Bottom Line

Sounds great! Does everything that I would expect and more. What’s the downside? The only real downside to this solution is the asking price. At $499 (B.Y.O.D.) it will be out of reach for many and puts it in direct competition with other document scanners. Granted, other document scanners require a connection to a PC/Mac (which probably costs more than your smartphone) and perhaps the newer “Post PC” generation will see the benefit of this kind of solution.

You can learn more about Scandock here and order direct from the company.

Seeing is better; check out this video:

July 5, 2013July 5, 2013

I’m Off To APAC for the Adobe Create Now Tour

AdobeCreateNowBanner

Rarely do I do a blog post on a Friday evening. However, since I totally forgot to do it earlier and I’ll be offline for about 24 hours I figured better late than never.

I’m headed to Asia and I’m actually thrilled to be back on the road. This is my first international trip this year and I get the pleasure of going to a few places that I haven’t been before. Here’s where and when I’ll be presenting with my colleagues Jason Levine and Paul Burnett.

09-Jul Create Now Roadshow: Bangkok, Thailand
11-Jul Create Now Roadshow: Singapore
16-Jul Create Now Roadshow: Delhi, India
17-Jul Create Now Roadshow: Chennai, India
18-Jul Create Now Roadshow: Bangalore, India

I’m looking forward to seeing all of you on the other side of the planet! If you can make it to the Adobe Create Now Tour be sure to come up and say hello.

P.S. If you approach me and I look sleepy, I probably am 😉

July 1, 2013June 30, 2013

How To Animate Scrolling Text on your Web Page with Adobe Muse

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Adobe Muse CC is here and one of the more exciting new features is the new Scroll Motion effect. By using this effect on objects on your page you can have items scroll/animate in different directions at a rate that’s faster or slower than the page being scrolled. In this new episode of Creative Cloud TV I show how to use this new effect with type.

Are you missing out on my Bonus Content?

See more of my Adobe Creative Suite Videos on my Adobe Creative Cloud TV and get the App below. It features EXCLUSIVE CONTENT that no one else gets to see. This episode has a BONUS CLIP that is available only in the App! My iOS App is a Universal App for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. I also have an Android version on the Amazon App Store:

June 28, 2013July 9, 2013

I found the perfect smartphone car mount

airframe_iphone5 — iPhone 5 mounted to the air vent via the Kenu Airframe and running Navigon North America turn-by-turn GPS App.

I have been searching for the perfect car mount for my iPhone 5. All the ones I’ve seen or used to date were either too big or too cumbersome. Let me first explain that I also want a mount that I can travel with and use in rental cars. Most mounts fall into four categories. They either attach to the windshield, dashboard, cup holder or air vent. While the air vent ones I’ve used fit the bill for the most part they usually don’t travel well because they are too delicate or have too many pieces or are simply too big. I like air vent mounts and dashboard mounts best as they position the phone at a comfortable eye level to minimize distraction.

The Kenu Airframe is exactly what I was looking for

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1. It mounts my iPhone 5 on the air vent. 2. It accommodates most phones even with their cases on. 3. It’s easy to clip the phone onto it and remove it (spring loaded). 4. It rotates to either vertical or horizontal. 5. It works on just about any vent style (round, rectangle, horizontal vents or vertical vents). 6. It slides right onto the vent in 2 seconds. 7. It’s small and very easy to travel with.

It reminds me of my favorite smartphone tripod mount, the iStabilizer.

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You can order the Kenu Airframe here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=v0Vn22eRmxw

You’re gonna want one of these too

Get it here.

June 24, 2013June 23, 2013

Get the June Issue of Adobe Inspire Magazine on your iPad

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The June 2013 issue of Adobe Inspire Magazine is here! This month’s issue contains articles on Adobe Muse CC, Photoshop CC, the CSS Designer in Dreamweaver CC and more. There’s even an article and video from yours truly on Photoshop CC’s new Sharpening and Upsampling capabilities.

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Adobe Inspire is a FREE digital publication created with the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite (DPS) and you can get it here:

Don’t have an iPad?

You can also check out the web version here.