Computer,iPhone,Facebook,Google+ Tips--- How to Store All Your Photos in the Cloud

Recently, I had some friends over and they were telling me about how they store all of their photos on their computer and run a Windows task to copy all the photos to another computer in their home on a nightly basis for backup purposes. This is definitely good, but I also consider it essential to keep a set of all your pictures online in the cloud.

Uploading photos to the cloud has a couple of advantages over storing them all locally:

1. You can easily share the albums with others

2. You can always access the photos at anytime as long as you have an Internet conncetion

3. You have a backup of all your photos in case something happens to your local copyI always have a local copy of my pictures and then have several copies stored in the cloud. Depending on what services you currently use, the best solution may be different for different people. In this article, 

I’ll try to cover some of the main ways to store your photos in the cloud.

Before we get into details, I wanted to talk about the source for all of these photos. In my case, there are basically three ways I take photos:

1. From my iPhone

2. From my digital SLR camera

3. From  my digital point-and-shoot camera

Photos From Smartphones Storing photos you take from a smartphone in the cloud is pretty straight-forward and you have a lot of options. For Android or iOS devices, you can use a variety of apps or built-in features to upload your photos to the cloud, usually automatically.

Apple has the Photostream and it’s fairly useful, especially with iOS 6 and the addition of shared photo streams, but it’s definitely not a backup solution. It only stores 1000 photos, which is pretty useless for me. Also, Apple doesn’t really have any type of cloud image storage service like Google does (Picasa) and that’s why I recommend downloading apps.

My favorite apps for this are Dropbox and Google+. If you already use Picasa Web Albums, then downloading the Google+ app is the easiest way to store photos in the cloud. The Google+ app has a feature called Instant Upload, which will automatically upload any picture you take on your iPhone or Android device to an album called Instant Upload on Google+ Photos (which is the same as Picasa Web Albums now).

If you don’t use Google+ or Picasa Web Albums, etc, you can also use Dropbox. Dropbox is a service that basically lets you easily “drop” files into a bucket that is then available on any device or computer you have Dropbox installed on. And Dropbox has an app for every platform out there, including Linux, Blackberry, Kindle Fire, etc.

Dropbox also has an automatic upload feature called Camera Upload, which does the exact same thing as the Google+ app. Any picture you take will be automatically uploaded to your Dropbox account when you 

open the app.

So these two apps can basically take care of all your photos from any smartphone you own. They also work on tablets like the iPad, etc. Lastly, I mention only photos, but both of these apps will also upload videos taken on your smartphone. That’s a great way to backup your photos and videos without having to do much.

If you install the Dropbox program on your Mac or PC, it will then automatically sync all those photos and videos to the computer too, so you have an extra backup on your hard drive too.

There are other apps like Facebook and Flickr, but neither of these apps support automatic uploading of photos. Still, I do upload photos to Facebook all the time, but I use Google+ photos and Dropbox to store all my photos whereas I upload only a few good ones to Facebook. 

Facebook is not setup to use it as a backup of all your photos. Flickr is good, but you have to reply more on third-party apps created by others to get it to do what you want.

Photos from Digital Cameras

Getting photos from your digital camera to the cloud is a little different, but not very complicated either. There are a few more options for uploading your photos from the desktop to the cloud than from a mobile device. For example, if you want, you can also use Flickr as your online cloud storage for photos.

Personally, I suggest either using Dropbox or using Google+ Photos/Picasa Web Albums. Dropbox is nice because you can easily share the photos via email or text message or you can post the pictures to Facebook or Twitter.

Google+ only lets you share with your Google+ circles, but it has some neat image editing tools built right into the web interface. Google is also good because you can download the free Picasa app, which is a great tool for managing photos on your desktop. It’s so much easier to organize your photos using Picasa and then uploading them directly from within the program.

If you’re using Dropbox, you don’t get any nice GUI interface to help with managing your pictures, but if you don’t need the bells and whistles of a program like this, it’s perfect. Just copy your photos from your digital camera, drop the folder into your Dropbox account and everything will be uploaded automatically. You can then easily share the photos with others via email, Twitter or Facebook.

Personally, I have found that using some of these services in combination works out best. On my phone, I use Google+ and Dropbox to upload my photos and videos. It’s easier for me to share them with certain people who are on Google+ and use Dropbox to share with Facebook.

For pictures from my digital cameras, I usually just upload them to Picasa Web Albums via the desktop program. If I want to make it easy for someone to download all the photos for an album, I’ll also copy it to my Dropbox folder and the just send the link to that entire folder.

Overall, it’s a good idea to store your photos in the cloud along with having a local backup copy. If you still are confused about something or need any other help, feel free to post a comment and I’ll try to help. Enjoy!

"computer,iPhone Tips--- How to Store All Your Photos in the Cloud"

Reference : online-tech-tips.com

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iPhone Tips: Your iPhone or Smartphone Gets Water"What to do"

It happens to everyone at some point in their lives: their wonderful and precious phone slips out of their hand and into a toilet, sink or some other unforgiving liquid! I remember when I jumped into a swimming pool and forgot to take the phone out of my pocket first. Not so smart. 

At that time, I had no clue what to do and after some vigorous shaking, blowing air into it with my mouth and using a hair dryer, it died.

Luckily, if your phone has not been submerged underwater for a long time, there are some things you can do to fix it and possibly save yourself the cost of having to replace it. Some of the stuff I mention you think would be common sense, but for some reason it didn’t click in my head at that moment when my phone got wet. Hopefully, some of these tips will help you one day if you’re in a similar situation.

First Things First

Before we get into the different ways you can dry out your phone, there are a couple of things you want to do immediately. If your phone had a quick dip or got splashed, your chances are going to be a lot better than if you drop it in the deep end of a pool and it takes 30 seconds to get it out. Either way, here’s what you should do first:

1. Make sure the phone is off or that you turn off the phone. Most phones die because they short circuit due to the fact that the electronics inside are still being powered. Water and electricity don’t mix@

2. Take out the battery if you have a phone that allows you to access the battery. For something like the iPhone, you can only turn it off, but if you can get to the battery, go ahead and take it out quickly.

3. Next, take out the SIM card if you can access that. If you have important data saved on the SIM card, it might be worth the few seconds to take it out. If you can’t figure it out or it’s taking too long, just forget about it and move on. On the iPhone, the SIM card is along the side or top of the phone depending on your model and requires using a paper clip to open it. 

However, the iPhone doesn’t store much of anything on the SIM card, so it’s not a huge worry if the card goes bad.

You can always go to your cell phone company and get another SIM card. Now on to the most important thing, which is the process of drying your phone. And don’t even think about turning it on for at least a day or two until you are super sure it’s dry. Even a drop or two of water can cause the phone to corrode or short-circuit.

4. Remove all cases or covers or anything else that might be attached or covering the phone. You basically want it to be bare so that you can start the process of getting all the water out of it.

More Water, Maybe?

As crazy as this may sound, you may need to pour water into your phone depending on what it got splashed in. For example, if your phone gets dumped into the ocean or if a can of coke spills into it, only drying it out will not help. Why is that?

Because of residual salts and substances! Even if you dry a phone that’s been in the ocean, it probably won’t turn on because all the components will have salt stuck to them. In these types of cases, you can do one of two things.

1. You can use alcohol to give your phone a bath. Put it inside of a container and pour in rubbing alcohol until it’s covered. You can gently move the phone around so that the alcohol can properly move around in the device. Note that you can’t use just any alcohol, it has to be a denatured alcohol or at least 95% alcohol. You can probably find this in a local hardware store or you can get it online too.

The alcohol evaporates completely, so it won’t damage your phone in any way. This is also something I wish I knew earlier! I figured any liquid would damage the phone, but that’s not correct.

2. The second thing you can try is distilled water. Do this only if you dropped the phone in salt water of any kind or anything that would leave a lot of residue behind once dried up. It’s not the best option since you have to wet your phone even more, but as long as you have the power off and it’s already wet, using a little distilled water will not hurt.

Initial Drying

One of the first mistakes I made when my phone got wet was that I started shaking the crap out of it. I thought that if I shook it really hard, I could force all the water out of the open ports and holes at the top and bottom. Big mistake! Shaking your phone really hard will just allow the water to find it’s way to the other dry parts of your phone. DO NOT SHAKE!

Now you want to get a dry cloth and slowly and gently wipe your phone. Try your best to keep the phone flat and horizontal as that will prevent the water from moving around inside the phone. If you are able to open the battery compartment, go ahead and wipe the inside also.

If you have an iPhone or device that cannot be opened at all, you’ll have to wipe the outside and then try some of the methods mentioned below. So the two important things for initial drying are:

1. Do not shake the phone

2. Try not to move it around a lot. Keep it horizontal as much as possible.Drying Techniques Hair Dryer

There are a bunch of different things you can at this point. Your phone should still be off and you don’t want to turn it back on or even try to turn it on yet. Another big mistake that I had made was using a hair dryer incorrectly. It seems like the perfect choice for drying something out right? You have a head of wet hair and a hair dryer will dry your hair in just a few minutes! So why not turn it on full blast with high heat and stuff it into every hole in the phone?

Using a hair dryer I learned can cause moisture to be pushed further inside the phone! And if you use the hotter settings, it can actually melt the components inside! You have to use it correctly, which I describe below.

Fans and Blowers

Obviously, using air in some form is not bad. What you can do is put your phone in front of a fan or in front of a heater where the air is warm. If you have a space heater that can blow air, prop up your phone on something and let it sit in front of the blast for a few hours at least.

You can use a hair dryer, but it should be at the warm setting and also should be a decent distance away from the phone. The problem I mentioned above is when it’s really hot and you put the hair dryer right up against the device. As long as the warm air is just blowing over the phone, it’s not a problem.

Vacuums

Another thing you can use is a standard vacuum. Obviously, you’ll need to use some of the attachments and get something small enough that can actually move around on the phone. Even though this can work, there are some risks you should know.

1. Vacuums can cause static electricity, which can short circuit your phone!

2. It’s hard to create a tight seal around the phone to get really good suction.

If you do use a vacuum, make sure you keep it a little bit away from the phone. Again, this is one of those things that I would have never known unless someone told me (and because I suck at science). The other thing you can try if you’re reading this and want to be prepared for a future disaster is to buy a mini vacuum. They have a lot of tiny ones for desktop keyboards, but you could technically use it for sucking the water out of your phone!

I even found a set of micro vacuum attachments that you can just attached to your current vacuum. Of course, this only makes sense if you haven’t already gotten your phone wet. I’ll mention other emergency water kits at the end of this post if you like to be one of those people who have stuff ready ahead of time.

Uncooked Rice

A lot of people swear by uncooked rice! Go ahead and take out a bowl of dry uncooked rice and stick your phone right in the center of it. It will naturally soak up the moisture, but it’s a fairly slow process. I only mention it because a lot of people use it.

The downside is that it’s really slow. You should only use the bowl of rice if your phone got only a small amount of water inside. If there is a large amount of water that is in the phone, you’ll need a faster method to get the water out otherwise it will damage the phone.

Also, you’ll probably have better luck if you put the phone and the rice in a ziplock bag or something similar. How long should you leave it in? At least for 18 to 24 hours in my opinion, though some people say you don’t have to wait that long. If your phone is an expensive smartphone, the extra time is definitely worth it. If you try too early and it shorts, your phone is dead.

The other thing to note about rice is that you should use rice that is from a sealed pack. If you use rice that’s been exposed to air for weeks, it probably won’t be able to absorb much of anything. If it’s sealed and hasn’t been exposed to air for a long time, it will soak up more of the moisture from your phone.

Desiccants

What the heck are those? I had no clue either until I started doing some research on the topic. Apparently, it’s those small little packets of silica that you find in shoes and other clothing all the time.

You can buy these from Amazon on the cheap and basically stuff your phone and a bunch of these into a tightly sealed bag. You can also buy other desiccants like drierite and use it in the same way. This method is way faster than rice because these things can really absorb moisture.

The main thing here is that you need to create a tight seal so that the moisture from the phone is being absorbed and not from the outside air. Once you do that, leave it for as long as you can. Again, the longer the time, the more dry your phone will become. It takes a really long time for water to dry up, so be ready for a 2 to 3 day wait to get your phone completely dry.

Commercial Drying Products

If all else fails or you don’t want to try some of the more advanced stuff yourself, you can always buy a drying kit. iFixIt has a product called the thirsty bag that goes for about $10. Put your phone in, seal it and wait.

Another one I found is the Dry-All Wet Emergency Kit that again just uses a type of desiccant. Or if you have a smartphone and feel you might need one of these in the future, it’s a good idea to get a kit and have it ready. Our family has 4 iPhones between all of us, so it was a no-brainer for me to purchase a thirsty bag for some future calamity.

Other Methods

There are other methods of drying that you should avoid like placing your phone in the sun, using a microwave or using an oven. All bad ideas. The sun might be ok, but you have to do it properly. For example, place it on a towel to avoid excessive heat from the ground and leave it out for no more than 15 to 20 mins.

Some people have tried putting their phones in freezers and though it could work, it’s best to try this after you have done everything else above. 

Excessive heat or excessive cold can harm the components in your phone, so its best to avoid those extremes, if possible.Vacuum chambers are another great way to dry out phones, but you won’t have one at home. Usually, these are at schools or universities, so if you are lucky enough to be around one and have access or can get access, then you are lucky! It’s one of the few ways to dry out a phone fast without heating it up.

Last, but not least, even if your phone does not turn back on, don’t think it’s dead. It could be just a dead battery. If the batter is dead and the components are fine, you just need to replace the battery. You can try to do this yourself or you have have to find a local cell phone repair company and have them do it. It might be worth the cost if your phone is brand new and expensive!

Hopefully this guide is comprehensive enough to help you gain a better understanding of phone to dry out a cell phone! I didn’t realize it was so complicated and there were so many ways to do the wrong thing when it seems right. Take your time and be patient and hopefully you’ll have a working phone again. Enjoy!

"iPhone Tips: Your iPhone or Smartphone Gets Water"What to do"

Reference : online-tech-tips.com

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iPad-iPhone tips: Increase iPad Battery Life Use 5 Ways

I have an iPad 2 and I realized over the last few months that my battery was draining faster than I would have liked. I was determined to increase the battery life and I was suprisingly successful. At first I thought the battery was just getting old and could not hold the charge as long, but I had been so particular with charging the iPad that luckily that wasn’t the case.

Before I started this endeavor, I noticed that the iPad would last about 3 to 4 days with my regular use, which was about 30 mins to an hour a day. After I implemented some changes, I was able to get the iPad to last almost 7 to 8 days without having to charge it! And a lot of them were very easy fixes that just never occurred to me before. In this article, I’ll mention the 5 tweaks that increased the battery life of my iPad. If you have others not mentioned here, let us know in the comments.

Method 1 – Charge When Low Battery

One of the main reasons why my iPad battery has lasted two years is because I still follow the charge only when the battery is really low rule. Yes there are some that say that doesn’t matter as much now, etc, etc, but whatever. I still do it and it seems to work. For example, I usually wait till the iPad is below 5% and then I start charging it.

Also, I do a couple of other things. Firstly, I make sure that I let it charge all the way to 100% without disconnecting it. A battery gets worn down by charge cycles, so if you stop in-between and then charge it again and then stop, over and over, the life of the battery will decrease.

Lastly, I try my best to disconnect it immediately after it hits 100%. The iPad has some mechanism to let the device run on battery and then re-charge when it hits 100% and you keep it connected to the power source. It’s supposed to make the battery last longer, but the fact that it keeps having to do that just means you’re wearing the battery down more. If you can disconnect it ASAP after a full charge that is best.

Method 2 – Disable Lock Screen Notifications

The next major tweak that made a whole lot of difference was disabling notifications on the lock screen. Basically, whenever you get a notification from any app (and I got a whole lot because I have 100+ apps installed), it will appear on the lock screen and they display will turn on in order to show it. The display comes on for a short time, but I realized that this was happening all the time. Every 15 to 20 minutes, my iPad would turn on to display a Facebook notification, iMessage notification, new magazine notification or something else.

All that time the display was on for showing notifications, the battery was being slowly eaten up. I quickly realized that I had to just turn off notifications on the lock screen and no more constant screen light-ups.

You’ll have to go through each app under Notifications, but it’s well worth the time. You don’t have to turn off notifications completely, just make sure that you turn off View in Lock Screen for anything you don’t feel is very important. I switched off notifications on the lock screen for pretty much everything except a few apps I wanted to get visual alerts for.

What’s nice is that once you unlock the iPad, you’ll then see all the notifications appear in the banner at the top. Make sure you also turn on Banners instead of Alerts. Recently, I also turned mine off for iMessage because I realized with the new unified iMessage in iOS 6, my iPad would keep turning on every time I got a new iMessage on my iPhone. If I had an extended conversation, the iPad would light up the whole time. Definitely not necessary.

Method 3 – Auto-Lock

If you go to Settings, General, and Auto-Lock, you should set this value to the lowest possible, which is 2 minutes.

Unless you really need the display on for longer, 2 minutes without using it is more than enough. After that, you want it to automatically turn off. The less the screen is on when you’re not using it, the longer your iPad battery will last.

Method 4 – Turn Off Cellular Data

My iPad is Wifi+3G and the 3G used to always be on. I realized this was pretty useless since I only used it when I left the house. So maybe a few times a week, I would be using 3G, otherwise it was always connected to WiFi.

For the new iPad, you’re talking 4G, which probably eats up even more battery. I just turn off cellular data until I actually need it. Just go to Settings and tap on Cellular Data and switch it to Off. 

Method 5 – Bluetooth

Lastly, I also disabled Bluetooth as I didn’t use this feature all the time either. Whenever I needed to connect my bluetooth headset, I would just go in and turn it back on. After I’m done, I turn if back off. It saves quite a bit of battery if you can be disciplined about it and turn it off when you don’t need it.

Bonus Method – Do Not Disturb

if you recently updated to iOS 6, then you probably heard of Do Not Disturb. It’s a new feature that will silence all FaceTime calls and any alerts. This is useful if you don’t feel like doing Method 2 mentioned above. Then you can just leave everything and turn on Do Not Disturb for the portion of the day you don’t use the iPad.

If you go to Settings, first turn on Do Not Disturb. After that, tap on Notifications and turn Scheduled to On. Then choose the time you want to enable do not disturb. You can also allow FaceTime calls from favorites if you like or disable it. They even have a feature so that if you get a repeated FaceTime call within three minutes, it’ll ring.

That’s about it! Using these methods, I was able to significantly increase the battery life of my iPad. If you do something different than what I mentioned here, post it in the comments. Enjoy!

"iPad-iPhone tips: Increase iPad Battery Life Use 5 Ways "

Reference : online-tech-tips.com

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iPad and iPhone Tips: Remotely View Webcam on iPad or iPhone Apps

I have a 2 year old child and I also happen to have a computer in pretty much every room in my house. When I need to do something in another part of the house, it’s a real pain having to stop what I’m doing and go check to make sure my daughter is not about to dive off the bed. Once I realized I had a webcam already in every room of my house because of the laptops, I figured there had to be an iPad/iPhone app that would let me wirelessly stream a live webcam feed.

Actually, there ended up being a lot of apps! Too many to write about here. What I also realized is that most of them don’t work very well. After going through about 6 or 7 apps, I ended up sticking with 3 apps that work pretty well. Each has it’s own advantages and disadvantages. In this article, I’ll go through the three apps I tested and verified that work well in streaming a live feed of your webcam to your iPad or iPhone over WiFi. I didn’t test the whole 3G/4G remote viewing capabilities because that doesn’t seem like it would work well in any app and I didn’t need that feature.

iCam

The first app that I found when doing a generic search was iCam for $4.99. It seems to be the most popular and has the highest ratings in the AppStore. It’s pretty simple to setup. Just install the Windows or Mac software and install the app on your iPad or iPhone. The interface for the Windows software looks like this:

You can add a USB, Firewire or built-in camera or you can click on the Ethernet/Wi-Fi tab and add an IP camera also if you like. Just give your camera a iCam Login and iCam password and click the Start button. That’s it! Now go to the app on your iPhone or iPad and it will automatically find the source camera as long as it’s on the same network. The iPad version of the app is also designed to use the bigger screen real estate, so that’s a plus.

Overall, the process was easy to setup, but I was not happy with the quality of the video. For some reason, the video was very choppy and also pixelated. The program has a slider bar that lets you move it from Better Frame Rate to Better Image Quality, but neither one worked too well. When I moved it to better frame rate, the video was delayed by several seconds and was very grainy. When I moved it to better quality, the image got better and the delay became even worse!

I thought it had something to do with the computer or my Wi-Fi network, but when I installed the other two apps I am about to mention, the video quality was much better and the delay was usually under a second. I still recommend this app because it’s very highly rated and it could have just been some issue with my setup.

AirCam

AirCam was probably my favorite out of all the three apps. It worked well, had only a slight lag and the quality of the video was pretty good, especially for a cheap built-in webcam on my 3 year old laptop.

AirCam also lets you add IP cameras, so that is another plus. If you want, you can also remotely access it, but that requires extra configuration of your router, etc, which I didn’t do.

If you click on Options, you can enable night vision, configure remote access, setup the listening port, setup recording, motion detection, email notifications and more. The program has quite a few options, including the ability to choose your resolution, which really made a big difference. One downside is the iPad/iPhone app. It’s a little unpolished in the sense that when you start viewing a video stream, there is no way to go back to the main menu! 

You literally have to exit the app and then go back into it. Very strange and hopefully something that’ll be fixed in future releases. The other downside is that it’s $7.99! A little expensive if you ask me.

Overall, though, the app works well and does a good job of streaming video from your webcam and the setup process was again very easy. It automatically finds the sources and lists them in the app.

JumiCam

JumiCam is also $4.99 and also had very good video quality, even better than AirCam. The big downside to JumiCam in my opinion is that the iPad app just displays the iPhone app window. The iPad app is not optimized for the iPad interface and therefore you see everything in the smaller iPhone-sized window. I hope they release a version soon that takes advantage of the extra real estate on the iPad.

The other big downside to JumiCam is that it only has software that will run on Windows and not Mac. AirCam and iCam have both Windows and Mac software. The last downside is that you can only use it with webcams attached to your computer not IP cameras. However, for me it worked because I was only using built-in webcams on Windows machines. 

The quality of the video is where JumiCam stands out. Apparently, they wrote their own optimization algorithms and that’s why the quality is good. I would have preferred JumiCam over AirCam if only they had an optimized iPad version since the price is a lot better.So those are three apps you can use to wireless stream your webcam to your iPhone or iPad. If you have used a different app or software or have issues setting these up, post a comment. Enjoy!

"Remotely View Webcam on iPad or iPhone Apps"

Reference : online-tech-tips.com

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iPhone Tips: You Really Need to Buy an iPhone See few points

If you’re someone who is still using a “dumb” phone as it’s called, then you might be considering either replacing it or getting an additional phone that is a smartphone like the new iPhone 5 coming out soon. Why? Well, there are a ton of reasons. But first, I want to go through the reasons why people still using dumb phones.

Of all the people I know, there are only a couple of people who carry non-smartphones. I asked them why and basically the reasons could be broken down into a few points:

1. They don’t want to be contacted anytime by anyone. They prefer to turn off their phones and use it only when needed.

2. They don’t use email and don’t understand what an app is. They also don’t understand finger swiping and touch screens.

3. Browse the Internet? Why browse the Internet when I can read a book and watch the nightly news and favorite TV shows every week at the same time?

4. Why pay lots in monthly data fees when I use my phone for calls only?If you’re one of those people, I completely understand the lack of interest in a smartphone.

Not using any apps makes pretty much any smartphone about 70% less useful. No email? Another 10% less useful. So is there really any reason for someone like this to buy a smartphone? Maybe not,

Firstly, it’s worth making the point that unless you actually start using something, you really can’t be certain how much you’ll end up using it. For example, my brother had a regular phone until the age of 30 and was always against getting an iPhone because it was “hyped” and he didn’t want to follow the bandwagon. He used his computer a lot for tracking stocks and kept notecards in his pocket to jot down tasks and thoughts!

He eventually got an iPhone as a gift and it changed his life literally! He uses the thing constantly and readily admits that it has made him a hundred times more productive. Now that being said, we bought my mom an Android phone and she used it for 2 weeks and then returned it because she wasn’t using any data or apps, but was forced to pay for a data plan. She ended up getting a regular phone again. My brother was a lot younger and that could have helped in his getting over the learning curve much faster.

But there is a middle ground solution that I have found works great for people who don’t feel they need smartphones, but maybe want to get some of the benefits of touch screens, bigger screens, apps, etc. Instead of getting an iPhone, you can buy an iPod Touch and get everything that the iPhone has except for the ability to make phone calls and the ability to connect to a 3G or 4G network.

I have found that this reduces the cost significantly since you don’t have to pay for the extra data plan and you still get all the benefits that the iPod Touch provides. It also lets the person learn how to use a smartphone-type device slowly without all the extra costs.Unless you travel a lot, finding a good Wifi connection is a piece of cake these days and rarely do I ever need to use the 3G/4G connection to do something.

I quickly realized this was the best thing for my parents. They had phones for making calls already and getting them an iPod Touch let them connect with the rest of the family who have a combination of iPhones and iPads. So what are the benefits to getting an iPod Touch?

1. You can FaceTime with any Mac, iPad or iPhone, so if your friends and family have them, then it’s perfect for video calling.

2. iMessage lets you send text messages for free to iPhones, iPads and Macs. Also, you can download WhatsApp messenger and SMS to other devices like BlackBerrys all for free.

3. The camera is pretty awesome and lets you capture pictures and videos you could never get with a regular phone.

4. Even though it does not have a built-in GPS, the iPod Touch can still find your location very accurately using Wifi connections. That means you can still use it for directions and maps.

5. Browse the web on the iPod Touch. Even if you don’t use the Internet that much, having the option is still a good thing since pretty much everything has some manifestation online too.

6. Unless you are really out of the modern world, you probably have a personal email or at least a corporate email account. Even if you just receive emails like discount coupons or Facebook notifications, it’s nice to have it available.

Of course, you can do lots more with an iPod Touch than listed above, but it all depends on the comfort level of the user. My main point is that you only need an iPhone for the following reasons:

1. You have the extra cash to pay for a monthly data plan that you will actually use.

2. You know how to use a smartphone way more than the basic level, i.e. tapping to open apps, navigating around by swiping, etc.

3. You need the ability to use apps, email, text messaging, etc while not connected to a Wifi network.

That’s about it! If you don’t have the extra cash for monthly fees and you can live off Wifi, go for something like the iPod Touch. If you only know how to use a smartphone at a basic level and will never use the more advanced features mentioned above, then you probably don’t need either and a regular phone would work just fine. What’s your take? Need one or not.

"iPhone Tips: You Really Need to Buy an iPhone See few points"

Reference : online-tech-tips.com

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iPhone and iPad tips: Get Most Out of Your iPad,apps and setting

When the iPad first came out, I waited a year until they released the second version. I figured the 1st generation model would have issues that would mostly be fixed by the next iteration. So far, the iPad has been an awesome tool that I use pretty much everyday. However, it has not always been that way.

Like most people, I got the iPad and the first thing I started doing was installing apps and setting up my email, etc, etc. I used it heavily for the first few months, but then things slowly started to decline. I wasn’t sure why, but I was using my iPad a lot less! I decided to sit down and really take a look at what I needed the iPad for and what was useless.

I spent about 2 days on this project and after that I found myself using the iPad a lot more again. It was quite surprising and something I hadn’t expected. So in this article, I’ll give you some tips and pointers to maximize the potential of your awesome iPad!

Step 1 – App Cleanup

The first thing I did was go through a 7 pages of apps I had downloaded over the last year and removed all the useless ones and I mean really get rid of the apps I opened maybe once or twice. Don’t worry because even if you paid for an app, you can re-download any app again from iCloud later on.

On my iPad, I went from about 150 apps to about 55! That’s a lot of apps. So what’s the point of doing this? Well, I noticed that sometimes I would pick up my iPad and flip through the pages to find something to do. 80% of the time, I browsed and then just put it back down. The reason? Too many apps I really didn’t care about kept distracting me from the apps I actually use.

Also, just having that many options made my decision to pick something harder. With a lot fewer choices, I now pick something much faster and actually use the app rather than it just sitting there for months and months.

The second thing with app cleanup is organizing your apps into folders and putting those folders on the 1st page. Here’s what my home screen looks like:

I use the calendar, so it’s there. iTunes and App Store come in handy for buying and updating apps. Newsstand has all my magazines like Time, Reader’s Digest, etc. Default apps are all in one folder since I don’t use those that often. Then I have other stuff that I use routinely like Evernote, Skype, FaceTime, Maps, Videos, etc. Basically, 80% of the stuff that I actually use on the iPad is on the home screen now. Before the apps were all over the place and I had so many pages because I didn’t use folders to organize them properly. It’s just like keeping your computer organized, makes you want to use it more.

Step 2 – Find the Right Apps

Another thing I realized is that a lot of people could use their iPads to do things that they currently do on their computer, but they just have no clue. For example, my father checks his stocks and retirement accounts regularly, but didn’t realize that all the financial companies have iPad apps that he could use to view, manage, and even trade!

Another great example is my NAS (Network Attached Storage) device that I have at home. It’s a Synology NAS those guys are awesome because they have a couple of iPhone and iPad apps that let me stream music from my NAS to my device, play videos, download torrents, and all kinds of other cool stuff. If you didn’t know that app existed, you would be missing out on a lot of neat uses for you iPad.

Another example is if you are a paying cable customer. Using your login credentials as proof, you can watch live TV or stream movies, TV shows and lots more from apps like CNN, NBC, TNT, TBS, etc. The point is do your research on apps and you could find yourself doing everything on the iPad!

Step 3 – Get a Stand

The title may sound silly, but I have seriously started using my iPad a ton more once I got a stand for it. I’m not talking about a case that protects it, but a stand. The stands basically keep my iPad vertical rather than flat on a table all the time.

Secondly, having a stand saves my arms and actually keeps me using the iPad longer. Before, I used to just hold it in my hand, but after a while, I would get tired and just put it down. After a point, if someone called on FaceTime, I purposely would not pick up because it was such a paint to hold it for half an hour!

I solved these problems with two stands. These may or may not work for you, but they get the job done for me while laying in bed, while at my desk, while traveling, etc. The first is the Book Arc. It’s perfect for FaceTime because you can’t tilt it slightly upwards and downwards.

http://twelvesouth.com/products/bookarc_ipad/

I use this thing all the time. And it’s great to watch a movie when sitting on my desk or anywhere in the house using the stand. The second stand that I use is the Flex Versatility Fit.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GZ8KMG

I basically use the tripod and not the rest of the stuff. That tripod is simply awesome and you can use it anywhere. It’s especially useful when you are laying in bed and need something to hold the iPad while it sits on top of covers and blankets. This thing works amazing well. You’ll see a world of difference once you get a proper stand for you iPad.

Step 4 – Get More Apple Products

The other thing that really started getting me to use the iPad more was having other Apple products. During my time with the iPad, I bought a MacBook Pro, an iPhone and and Apple TV. My wife also got an iPhone, my brother an iPhone, my sister an iPhone and an iPad and my parents an iPad.

Now things started getting interesting. Between my own devices, it was nice to be able to take a picture on the iPhone and have it automatically appear on my iPad and MacBook Pro. It was also nice cool that I could setup the same iCloud account on my wife’s phone and anything she took also showed up automatically using Photostream. We then enabled it for my sister and parents. Now everyone could see the pictures taken by everyone else.

Not something everyone would probably want to do, but it works well for us. Secondly, it’s a lot of fun to Air Play anything on my iPhone or iPad to my HDTV at home. And with Mountain Lion, I could even Air Play anything on my MacBook Pro to the TV too.

But there are other things that make having more Apple products useful. For example, I use the Chrome browser on my Windows machine and I also have it installed on my iPhone, iPad and MacBook. Now when I open a tab on any device, it automatically shows up in Chrome on all the other devices. It’s just convenient, especially if I have to leave home and happen to be browsing a web page.

There are also lots of other benefits to having more than one Apple device and it becomes readily apparent once you start using them. If you are into games, there are a ton of multiplayer games you can play over Wifi. I’ve been whipped many times in Scrabble playing against my wife over Wifi on our iPhones.

Step 5 – Accessories

The last thing that really got me using the iPad a lot was the accessories! I quickly realized that I used the iPad a lot to read emails, but never really responded because it took too long to type. Instead, I would go to the computer and do the writing there.

But then, the Logitech Ultrathin Bluetooth Keyboard Cover came along and I snapped one of those bad boys up in a second!

http://www.logitech.com/en-us/tablet-accessories/ipad/ultrathin-keyboard-cover

It’s super sleek like the iPad and it works wonderfully. I understand some people say to just buy a computer or ultrabook instead of trying to turn your iPad into a computer, but it’s really not that. The keyboard just lets me type faster, it’s not about getting all the functionality of a computer. It’s way more convenient to use the iPad than it is for me to go use my 4 lb laptop. Plus, I enjoy the touch interface and how much better the apps look on the iPad than on a webpage.

The second useful accessory I bought was a stylus. It’s not something everyone needs, but it’s useful if you like to draw or write by hand. There are quite a few apps out there that work very well with a stylus and make the experience a lot more immersive.

Hopefully, these tips will help you get the most out of your iPad and make it worth all that cash you used to buy it! What are your tips? Post a comment here and let us know. 

"iPhone and iPad tips: Get Most Out of YouriPad,apps and setting"

Reference : online-tech-tips.com

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iPad-iPhone and computer Tips: Control iTunes,Spotify,Windows Media Center using Gestures

If you have a tablet such as a Google Nexus or Apple iPad, you of course use gestures to control the music player apps for those particular devices via touchscreen. However, if you use a standard notebook or desktop computer to listen to music and watch videos, then you likely do not have any gesture support, with the exception of MacBooks and some PC notebooks that have gesture based trackpads.

For any computer that has a webcam, you can now control the popular music apps listed above, as well as your digitally stored movies, using a free app.

The app that enables gesture based media control is called Flutter. Before you get started downloading the software, let’s quickly review how it works and how you can use it.

The app is available for both Mac and PC and is compatible with popular media playback software iTunes, Spotify, WinAmp and Windows Media Player.

Additionally, the app does not require a touch screen computer (as noted above), because it uses webcam technology to track hand movements. Here’s an example:

To get started, jump to the Flutter homepage and download the according version for your operating system. Also, make sure that your webcam is connected (if not built-in) and that it is enabled.

Once the download is complete, double-click the Flutter installer to begin installing the app.

Once installation is complete, you will be presented with the Flutter icon on your computer’s desktop. Double click the icon to start using Flutter immediately. The application will initially detect your computer’s webcam and provide you with some simple steps on how to use the program.

Finally, you can simply launch any of the supported media playback apps, such as iTunes, and try out the play and pause gestures for yourself.

Overall, the software is very basic as it only currently supports a limited amount of gestures. However, the Flutter app is a newer, recently released app so in time, it will very likely have more gestures added to it via updates. Thank you for stopping by the site for today’s post. If any of our site visitors know of any similar apps that add gestures via webcam support, feel free to link to them in the comments section. 

"iPad-iPhone and computer Tips: Control iTunes,Spotify,Windows Media Center using Gestures"

Reference : online-tech-tips.com

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iPhone or iPad Tips: When to Shutdown an iPhone or iPad

Devices like the iPhone and iPad are not anything like a running PC or Mac. The components are completely different and the way the devices work cannot be compared. Therefore, you can’t just apply the same rules for shutting down a computer to an iPhone or iPad.

For iPhones and iPads, the only real reason you would ever need to shut it down completely is if the device is not working properly and if you want better battery life. If your apps are freezing or not opening properly, etc, then it’s probably a good idea to do a full shutdown and reboot. An Apple Genius employee told me that turning off the iPhone or iPad at night will help extend the life of the battery. Why? Because most people keep their phones connected to the charger all night and that doesn’t help the battery.

Otherwise, you can pretty much leave them on the whole time. The iPhone and iPad have short sleep times and therefore don’t stay on for terribly long anyway. The sleep setting will also lower the power usage of the device.

The only other time I could think of that you would want to shutdown is if you wanted to really conserve batter power. Maybe you got stuck somewhere and you only have 15% battery life left. Even on the sleep setting, the battery will be used. So you can turn off the device to converse battery power.

For iPhones and iPads, if you just want to conserve battery, you can also put the device into Airplane mode, which turns off the WiFi radio and 3G/4G. In terms of extending the life of the flash storage, it’s probably better to keep the iPhone or iPad on as long as you can. Since it’s using flash storage, the more writes to the drive, the shorter the life. Turning your device on and off probably performs extra reads and writes to the storage, so just leave it on unless the OS starts acting funny.

The optimal configuration is probably to turn if off once at night unless you need it for important calls/emails (to extend the battery life) and that’s it. It will take a lot of on/off to really reduce the life of the storage, but the battery will definitely lose it’s luster faster so shutting down could help. Again, though, since people tend to use their phones at night also for messages, email, etc, turning off is not a big deal if it’s inconvenient.

Conclusion

As you can see, there were a lot of If this, then do that, else… in this post. For each specific person, shutting down depends on what you value more. As a general rule, if you do want to shut down, do no more than once a day. 

And doing so once a day will not damage your PC, Mac or any other device.If you’re not using your device or computer for anything at night, it is better to shut down. It will extend the life of a PC/Mac and let your iPhone or iPad battery last longer. This is a hot debate topic, so what are your thoughts on shutting down every night?

"iPhone or iPad Tips: When to Shutdown an iPhone or iPad"

Reference : online-tech-tips.com

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