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Replacement iPhone charger

Replacement iPhone charger
Originally uploaded by dewelch

Today in the mail I received my new iPhone wall charger to replace the one that was recalled a few weeks ago. The enclosed letter states that you MUST return the defective charger or your credit card will be charged for $30.00. I don't remember giving them a credit card for this particular transaction, but I planned on returning the unit anyway.

The packaging for the charger seemed a little large for the small charger. It seems it could have been shipped in a much smaller envelope and saved a considerable amount of packaging and weight.

Cool Game: Light-Bot

A great way to introduce folks to the concept of programming wrapped up in and interesting and challenging game.

Light-Bot



Link: http://www.kongregate.com/games/Cooli...

A Flash game in which you program a cute lil robot to maneuver around a grid and light up certain squares.

(Via BuzzFeed Latest.)

Noted: Convert .docx, .xlsx, .pptx files in the cloud for Google Docs, Zoho

Noted items are interesting finds from my daily RSS reading -- Douglas

I am seeing issues with these new file formats from the latest version of Microsoft Office. While this always happens during the initial stages of a new software release, it doesn't make it any less annoying when someone sends you a file you can't read. It is nice to see there are a few solutions available other than asking the person to re-send a more compatible file.

Convert .docx, .xlsx, .pptx files in the cloud for Google Docs, Zoho

Wow, what a difference one single letter can make. Take the letter "x" for example. It can take one sip and make it six. Or it can turn a kind hey into an evil hex. Worst of all, it can twist the ubiquitous .doc format into a cloud-hating .docx file. When I use Google Docs, I can't import .docx documents and I get cranky because my current solution defeats the purpose of using the cloud in the first place. I generally end up opening Microsoft Office to save the file over to .doc format. Sometimes I simply ignore the darn .docx file completely, but it never solves the problem. Zoho Writer actually does support .docx files as does Adobe's Buzzword, but you're out of luck for .xlsx or .pptx files on both platforms.

The Apple Blog notes that the on-line file conversion service, Zamzar, converts .docx files. You just upload them and Zamzar spits out a .doc file for you; the service also works for .xlsx and .pptx formats. Windows users could always install the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack SP1, but Zamzar offers a nice web function for those that want less, not more software.

(Via jkOnTheRun.)

Noted: Access your files in the cloud with the iPhone

Noted items are interesting finds from my daily RSS reading -- Douglas

Access your files in the cloud with the iPhone

So you're an iPhone user who embraced the MobileMe cloud, at least when it would let you embrace it.  Now all your files and documents are floating around in the cloud and you'd like to be able to put your fingertips on them from your iPhone, right?  Well now you can and for free.  The folks from Quickoffice have produced a free iPhone app, MobileFiles, that should be available soon that lets you get at those files from your iPhone or iPod Touch.  Finger-touching good.

(via Intomobile)

(Via jkOnTheRun.)

TechIQ: Apple Recalls iPhone 3G wall charger

Just in via Tweet from the MacCast and web at Arstechnica.com.

Replacements are available after October 10, but you are warned to stop using these adapters immediately. Request an exchange via this web page at Apple or at the Apple store.

For more info and links, visit http://welchwrite.com/techiq/

Mobile post sent by douglaswelch using Utterli. Replies. mp3

Join the WelchWrite Mailing List

Stormpulse - Amazing Storm tracker site

It is stuff like this that makes me LOVE the Internet. This amazing site, Stormpulse, is one of the most comprehensive (and beautiful) sites I have seen in a long time. Whether you are trying to protect yourself or property or simple geeking out on Mother Nature, this has more information than you could ever possibly use. (Hint: Look along the right side for a long list of options including historical storm tracks, clouds, predictions and more.)



Click to visit Stormpulse




Many thanks to Crispin Bailey for tweeting about this great site!

Audio: LIVE from the Library - August 8, 2008

Listen to the audio from my twice-monthly Internet Seminar.

Listen: Live from the Library - August 28, 2008

Send your questions and comments to techiq@welchwrite.com or call the Listener Line at 818-804-5049.

---

Join me on these networks:

Douglas on FriendFeed | Douglas on Twitter | Douglas on MySpace | Douglas on Facebook | Douglas on LinkedIn

Tip: 4 Reasons to Consolidate all your email addresses

I was working with a friend the other night when it came to light that they were checking multiple email addresses every day in order to get all their mail. They had mail on a personal account, mail at their ISP, mail at their office, mail on the Blackberry and more. One important change to make in your digital life is to consolidate all your email in one, easy-to-access, place.

Gmail to the rescue

Over 6 months ago I decided to forego using any desktop computer-based email program like Outlook, Outlook Express or Entourage to manage my email. While I was able to consolidate my accounts so that all email flowed into one Inbox, Entourage was getting progressively slower as I stored more and more email. I was also needing to access my email while on the road far more frequently than before. I had heard that some of my fellow Friends in Tech members had switched over to Gmail for all their mail needs, so I figured I would try. So far, I have never looked back.

Gmail offers many advantages to me over a typical email program:

1. Access to the current state of my email from any device
   
   I can access my Gmail account from my home computer, a client's computer, a public workstation and my iPhone and my Inbox always looks the same. If I have deleted something, it is deleted everywhere. If I have archived an email, it is archived everywhere. If I reply, that reply is stored on Gmail and accessible anywhere, not just the machine I from which it was sent.
   
   
2. Easy sending of mail when connected to public/private networks
   
   One big problem my clients often face is the inability to send email when on the road. Due to various SPAM-blocking setups on some networks, typical email programs cannot contact their main outgoing mail server. Usually they then have to resort to loading up the web mail interface to their email in order to reply to messages. Since Gmail is already a web-based email, replies and other outgoing mail go out with ease. There is no need to go through the hassle of reconfiguring your email settings, which in some cases, still won't work.
   
   
3. Easily pull mail from existing email accounts
   
   If you have multiple email accounts, you can pull the email from those accounts right into your Gmail Inbox. I have many email accounts, some which are actual email boxes and others which are simply aliases (sometimes called forwarding accounts or re-directs) Now, all my mail is either pulled or re-directed into my Gmail Inbox. Don't worry though. Each email is still labelled with the original account is was received from and when I reply, it the message appears to come from that original email address.
   
   
4. Easy email searching with threading
   
   Since Gmail uses the Google Search Engine to search your email, finding the proverbial "needle in a haystack" is easier than ever. I can find every email sent to me from my bank, my buddy or my Boy Scout troop amazingly fast. Message threading also means that all parts of the conversation are held together and I can review the conversation at a glance to see exactly what was discussed over time.

Don't spend time rummaging through countless email systems looking for your mail. Use the technology we have to consolidate your email into one location so you can spend more time responding to your email than searching for it.

For more information on Gmail and how to use it to improve your productivity, listen to the Gmail Podcast by fellow Friends in Tech member, Chuck Tomasi.

Video: Live from the Library Internet Seminar - August 28, 2008

Here is the video from this week's Internet Seminar.

Elsewhere Online: Make your own paper CD cases

A great video from Real World Green with Eric Rochow. Re-use some of that paper before it even makes it to the recycle bin. A great Tech Tip with a green twist.



iPod Ready Video

Google Adsense for Feeds/Feedburner Migration Goes Wrong

UPDATES AT BOTTOM OF THIS POST

Today Google started to merge Feedburner.com into the Google family. Part of this integration includes Adsense for Feeds, which include Google ads into your RSS feeds. I requested to be migrated today and after enabling the Adsense for Feeds in my control panel, all my Feedburner hosted feeds started reporting a 404 Not Found error.

As of this post, those feeds have been offline for about 8 hours. I am in contact with support at Google and have seen others report the same issue in this support discussion on the Feedburner Support Google Group.

If you were thinking on migrating, I would suggest you hold off until this issue is worked out. I would hate for others to suffer the same outage I have.

I will report more information when I have it.

August 16, 2008 - 1105pm PDT: In talking with Adsense Support, they asked if I was somehow blocking the new Google-based address for the program that accesses the source feeds for Feedburner. This doesn't bode well, as it could mean that there could be some issues between the new Google bot and GoDaddy hosting services. Feedburner reports a Error 502 - Bad Gateway when trying to access my feeds, regardless of what blogging software created them.

August 17, 2008 - 1043am PDT: Feeds appear to be working again. No word yet from Google regarding why the issue occurred, but I was working with them via email until 1am this morning. Somethings changed and that is a good, good thing.

Sometimes the printer wins...

more cat pictures

Audio: LIVE from the Library - Intro to iPhone - August 14, 2008

This week I spend the entire time talking about my new iPhone and introducing everyone to its features.

Listen to the audio from my twice-monthly Internet Seminar.

Listen: Live from the Library - July 24, 2008

Send your questions and comments to techiq@welchwrite.com or call the Listener Line at 818-804-5049.

---

Join me on these networks:

Douglas on FriendFeed | Douglas on Twitter | Douglas on MySpace | Douglas on Facebook | Douglas on LinkedIn

DIY iPHone Dock and Moleskine Stand

DIY iPHone Dock and Moleskine Stand
Originally uploaded by dewelch

I came across this idea at Lifehacker.com and had to make one of my own. Make is probably a strong word, as I just put the pieces together as shown on their blog post. It works very well and helps to clear some of the clutter from my desktop.

LIVE from the Library - Mainly iPhone - August 14, 2008

Here is the video from my twice-monthly Internet Seminar, LIVE from the Sherman Oaks branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. Learn how to make the Internet do more for you!

Tonight I ended up demonstrating my new iPhone 3G for the students.

Make quick iPhone Photo blog with Fuzzy Shot

Since I picked up my iPhone last Sunday, I have been spending a lot of time playing with it, as well as making great use of it for business.

Today, I noticed a Twitter message from Jeff Turner (respres) directing me to Fuzzy Shot, a blogging service dedicated to iPhone photos.

I like the service because it doesn't require me to email photos anywhere. Rather it has a companion application that loads on the iPhone and then allows me to caption and title the photo, and then click one button to upload it to the site.

I like that it uss the GPS in the iPhone 3G to automatically Geotag the photos and show the location on a map. I wish there was a way to embed the photo in a blog post like this one, though. I sort of fooled it into doing it for this post.

I will play around a bit more with this, but I can foresee it becoming an interesting part of my daily work flow.

My Treo 90 Retires

As of this afternoon I am the owner of an Apple iPhone 3G, which I ordered before we left on our Arizona trip.

This means I can finally retire my venerable Treo 90 that has served me well for a number of years. It synced contacts and calendar really well, but as I moved over to Gmail and Google Calendar I lost a number of features and was using it less and less. The screen had started to lose entire blobs of pixels, which made the screen hard to read at times, too.

Farewell, buddy. It isn't often that you can retire such a well-used piece of computer hardware before it dies on its own.

Audio: Live from the Library - July 24, 2008

Listen to the audio from my twice-monthly Internet Seminar.

Listen: Live from the Library - July 24, 2008

Audio: LIVE from the Library - July 10, 2008

Listen to the audio from my twice-monthly Internet Seminar.

Listen: Live from the Library - July 10, 2008

Video: LIVE from the Library - July 24, 2008

Real World Example: Getting a network connection where you need it most

I have a long time client who has always had difficulties with their wireless network. The construction of their home, and outlying office suite, seems to suck up whatever bit of wireless signal a typical WiFi router sends out. In order to reach the outlying office, I had previously installed a Linksys Range Expander. While this worked, partially, it often needed to be restarted and wasn't nearly as reliable as I would like. What I really needed was a way to link these remote areas back to the main router without using wireless. Luckily, I found a solution.

This client called last week and said that the Link Expander had failed completely. That wasn't too surprising as it was living in an un-cooled garage. The heat probably finally did it in. This meant, though, that I needed to come up with a different, and hopefully better, solution. I had looked at the powerline network extenders, which use your home of office electrical wiring to distribute network data, but most reviews seemed lukewarm, at best. I then turned to my fellow Friends in Tech members and George Starcher directed me to the powerline product he is using in his own home office, the Panasonic BL-PA100KTA Ethernet Adaptor Starter Pack. You can find a diagram of George's entire network on the Friends in Tech web site, in the post entitled, My Home Network - Yup I am a GEEK.

Setting up the devices was a simple matter of plugging them into the same wall outlet for power and pressing the Setup button on each unit. After about 5-10 seconds, the status lights showed that they had seen each other and established a connection.

This Starter Pack comes with 2 units, one which operates as the Master and the other which operates as the remote terminal. In my case, I plugged the Master unit into the existing Linksys router and then plugged its power cable into the wall jack. I took the remote terminal into the remote office, plugged it into the power outlet there and then connected an Ethernet network cable from this box into the client's Macbook.

It was then the moment of truth. While I had hoped it would work, issues with the electrical wiring in a home and electrical noise can cause issues with the devices. Luckily, it was simply a matter of firing up the web browser on the Mac and it quickly showed we were connected to the Internet. Even better, the speed of the Internet seemed much faster than using the previous Range Expander. Success...and it only took about 15 minutes total to set up. You can also add additional terminals to extend the network into different rooms.

Only time will tell how well this unit works, but I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to set up and how well it worked. Your mileage may vary, but if you need to get an Internet connection to an out-of-the-way part of your home or office, this might just be the best answer available.

Link: Panasonic BL-PA100KTA Ethernet Adaptor Starter Pack

Noted: Totem Destroyer - A Game

Noted items are interesting posts I recently found in my RSS feeds -- Douglas

Totem Destroyer Totem Destroyer ... a puzzle game where you strategically remove blocks in order to lower a golden idol closer to the ground. Get it within 3 squares from the bottom, but not touching it, and you move on to the next level. (via)


(Via Douglas' Clippings.)

A demo of Google Docs with Templates

A quick demo showing the new templates features within Google Docs.



iPod Ready Video

Google Docs adds templates

I have started to move away from using Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc) in favor of online tools like Google Docs. Even as a computer consultant, I find that I use probably less than 10% of the features in any of these projects. One feature I really like in Google Docs is the easy, online file sharing that also allows you to edit simultaneously with someone else.

Today, Google Docs added some templates including business cards, brochures and more. At the moment, it looks like they are rolling out this feature over time, so you might not yet see the templates on your account. When available, you will find the templates under the New... menu item.

From Open Loops...

Today, Google quietly rolled out a new feature for their Google Docs Applications: Templates! It's so new that it isn't even listed on the new features page at this time. When one opens their Google Docs account and chooses to start a new document, a new "From Template..." command is present. Clicking on it reveals a quite extensive list of templates available for use: Calendars, Budgets, Business Cards, Letterheads, Scrapbook Albums, and Credit Card Payoff Calculators abound in this list of 308 templates, which is a much more comprehensive list than Zoho offers. The quality of these templates appears to be quiet good as well.

Unfortunately, I can find no way to create and save a document as a template. It appears to be a use-only feature at this time.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Google Docs Template Gallery Launches [Google Docs]
• Templates bring Docs to life

Are you getting the broadband speed you deserve?

Many times when I visit a new client for the first time, I can tell their broadband Internet connection, either DSL or Cable, isn't really working as fast as it should. To confirm my suspicions, I point my web browser over to http:/speakeasy.net/speedtest/ and give it a run. You can find another speed test site at http://www.speedtest.net/

If you want accurate results from the test, you should make sure that your computer, or others who might share the network, aren't doing something intensive like downloading files or system updates. If the network is already busy, the test results will be lower than they should be.

When you run the test, you should be looking for values near these, depending on what type of connection you have to the Internet.

DSL: 1.5 Mbps Down - 384 Kbps Up
Cable: 3-6 Mbps down - 384 Kbps Up




You will never get these maximum numbers, due to the overhead of the network itself, but you should be getting close to these numbers. If not, there might be an issue with your Internet connection. Sometimes, these problems are transient. Perhaps there is an issue in your neighborhood or your ISP (Internet Service Provider) is having issues. Check again in an hour or so and maybe even the next day. If you continue to see slow speeds, though, you will want to contact your ISP and have them run a check on your line.

Problems can arise at any place along the connection from your ISP to your computer, so it might take some time to troubleshoot the problem, but keep at it. You are paying,sometimes a lot, for your Internet connection and you should be seeing full speeds on that connection.

Sometimes the problem might be in your own home. Do a quick check to make sure that something hasn't damaged the phone or cable lines coming into your house. I noticed the other day that it appeared some raccoons decided to use my cable line to shinny down form our roof and their weight pulled the cable out of all its tie downs. While this hadn't seemed to cause any problems, it easily could have. You can never tell what might be effecting your Internet connection, so it is always worth a look around.

In some cases, your DSL line might be going as fast as it can, due to your distance from the telephone company's central office. I have a few clients who live in the hills above Ventura Blvd here in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. The farther they are from the valley floor, the slower their Internet connections. It seems that environmental conditions, distance and, in some cases, sub-standard wiring prevent them form getting full DSL speeds. In some cases, I am seeing speeds as low as 384 Kbps on downloads. While this is faster than old dial-up methods, it isn't that much better. Such slow speeds can make downloading software updates, photos and videos a trying experience.

So, run a speedtest on your Internet connection today. Then, run it again in a week or so. Don't let a slow Internet connection slow down your productivity or, even worse, cost you money.

Short Lively.com video from Seesmic

I recorded a short video of my Lively.com room for my Seesmic buds a few nights ago. I forgot that I could embed it here, so I figured I would do that today.

Lively.com is Google's new virtual world. It is Windows only at the moment, but check it out if you can.

You can find my room here -- Douglas Welch's Room

Video: LIVE from the Library Internet Seminar for July 10, 2008

Join me for my twice-monthly Internet Seminar LIVE from the Sherman Oaks Branch of the LA Public Library.

** Note: uStream's recording seems to have missed a lot of tonight's show, but here is as much of it as it recorded.

Part 1



Part 2



Part 3



Links from tonight's show:

Lively Virtual World from Google - Doug's Room on Lively
Friendfeed
Hedgehog Launch
Apple's Time Machine
JungleDisk
SyncBack

Video: Amazing Panoramic Picture Project with Robert Scoble

Tech reporter, Robert Scoble, shot this video of a new project to document Yosemite Valley with a host of panoramic pictures that can then be zoomed and panned with incredible detail.