Use MobileMe push on iPhone with alternate From address
This hint is for those who have a primary email address, say a@default.com, and would like to use this email address, but would like the 'push' aspects of their MobileMe account, say a@me.com. It would be useful to be able to send email from a MobileMe account, but have a@default.com show up by default as the From address. This hint is similar tothis previously-posted hint, in that one can set their primary email address to forward a copy to their MobileMe account. However, this previous hint does this, but only by subscribing to their MobileMe account as a standard IMAP account, which would not use push.For this hint, one also needs an additional Gmail account (which may or may not be the primary email address) -- assume this account is a@gmail.com. and one would need to subscribe to that within the iPhone as well. Under the Mai...
published yesterday, 23 hours 52 minutes ago
Use Automator to get podcast enclosures
I wanted an easy way to download a single enclosure from a podcast feed everyday. I also didn't want to use iTunes, because this download would need to sync with my Palm Centro for an alarm, and iTunes stinks at exporting things. So I used Automator and iCal to do it. I thought I would save someone else the trouble by listing the steps here. This is the feed URL I was interested in: http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast... -- the single enclosure is a daily poem in the form of an MP3 file.Here are the Automator steps:Internet » Get Specified URLs (here is where you put the feed URL)Internet » Get Enclosure URLs from ArticlesInternet » Download URLs (specify a folder to save the MP3 to)That's it! You now have the podcast without using any extra apps. I also have Automator (after a five-second pause) get the new file, rename it to daily poem, and move it to a new folder. It then gets synced to my Palm with the Missing Sync...
published yesterday, 23 hours 52 minutes ago
Reformat standard web pages for better iPhone display
Mobile Safari on the iPhone does an amazing job displaying web pages. However, I find that in the context of viewing some web pages on the go, that this view isn't necessarily the best way to read some pages. For example, even though the iPhone interface is awesome, I don't really want to waste time zooming and messing with a page to read the actual content. I'd rather just load up a page, read my content, and move on. (Of course, the best solution would be if web designers designed alternate "iPhone-optimized" views that would look great on the iPhone, but only a few mainstream sites do this as of the time of this post.)I discovered back in my Treo days that Google has a page that translates web pages to "mobile-friendly" versions. I find that loading pages using this URL reduces page load time, and makes them easier to read on the iPhone. So, I created a bookmarklet that allows you to take the current page in Mobile Safari...
published yesterday, 23 hours 52 minutes ago
Automatically sync Documents folder to iDisk
Google searches for Sync iDisk largely show results that say something along the lines of "just edit the iDisk version." For me, iDisk is more about backup than anything else. I don't really have the need to share Documents with other people, and the local Documents folder of my laptop is always authoritative for my data. However, it would be nice to have a synced and restorable copy of my Documents "in the cloud" in the event my laptop fails. rsync works well for this.My first step was to log into MobileMe, click the Account link, then to click on Storage Settings. Here I dropped my mail storage from 10Gb to 2Gb and ended up with an 18Gb iDisk, perfect for backing up my critical documents. Next, I wrote up a simple shell script to handle the rsync function and to copy the data from my local Documents folder to my iDisk's Documents folder. The script is below ...
published on Wednesday, the 23. July 2008
View many document types in Mail on 2.0 iPhones
Although a first solution for this problem is already available in the App Store, there are still some shortcomings (no landscape, no iWork docs) apparent in this app. I'm fully convinced we'll see this app in much better shape soon, but until then do this: Simply send the docs via email to yourself.That's it - you can view a lot of document types in Mail -- even in landscape mode.[robg adds: Although not included with the hint submission, I believe the program the submitter is referring to is ReaddleDocs. Prior hints on this subject have covered sending documents to yourself as PDFs, using data URLs, and using Safari on a jailbroken iP...
published on Wednesday, the 23. July 2008
Listen to music while playing games on iPhone 2.0
Simply start listening to your music, then while listening, start your game. Wait until the music stops and the game's music begins. Now just press the top iPhone button; this will put your phone to sleep. Press your headphone button to start the iPod music, than wake up your phone, slide to activate, and you'll be back to the game while listening to your music.[robg adds: You can also double-tap the Home button to bring up the iPod controller, assuming you have the phone's preferences configured to do so.]
published on Wednesday, the 23. July 2008
Share a FireWire drive via FireWire networking
To make this hint work, you need to have a FireWire drive with two ports on it, two FireWire cables, and two Macs with built-in FireWire. To make things easier, I turned off AirPort and disconnected the Ethernet -- I wanted to make sure that I was getting the full speed of the FireWire, as my second Mac only has 100base Ethernet capabilities.Connect the FireWire drive to a Mac with file sharing set up on it, and then connect that drive's other FireWire port to any other Mac. Next enable networking over FireWire in the Networking System Preferences panel. In the setup panel, give the computers manual IP addresses -- I used 10.0.0.2 and 10.0.0.3, and a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. Finally, simply connect to the Mac with the drive showing up in the Finder, and it will show up in sharing!This allows you to network over FireWire and share a hard drive, which for me is useful for today's task of backing up all of my DVDs onto the drive. It could be useful for a multitude ...
published on Tuesday, the 22. July 2008
One cause of Exchange failure on iPhone/iPod Touch 2.0
My company uses Exchange, and hearing Apple chime on about Exchange support started to get under my skin after my first few unsuccessful attempts at getting it to work. What I didn't realize is that Apple has SSL enabled by default. And since my company does not use SSL for Exchange, the verification process will always fail despite the Domain, Mail Server, and other settings from the configure new account screen being correct. The solution is to just save the broken settings, and then manually edit the account and disable SSL. I hope that, in a future revision, Apple fixes the auto-detect settings that Entourage supports, or at least gives access to all settings from the Configure Account screen.
published on Tuesday, the 22. July 2008
Update location information on original iPhone
You might think you are out of luck when using Location services on your old iPhone, but you aren't! You have to perform an extra step, and you are relying on the original iPhone's tower triangulation method instead of GPS, but it's better than nothing. It, of course, requires the iPhone 2.0 software.To use location services with your current local location, before you access any program that needs to know your location, go to the Maps program, and use the Find Location icon to get your current location by triangulation. Then, access the program that plans on using location services, and it will use your current location. (If you've used the "OK to use my location" button to access a program from one location, then move to another location and launch a location-aware program, your stored location will reflect your first position until you force it to update using this technique.)I've had to do this manually every time I wanted to get local information, but it works w...
published on Monday, the 21. July 2008
Make a Pandora (or any web page) into a program
I love using Pandora Radio, but always hated having a separate browser window open all the time. As a solution, I discovered the excellent (and free) Fluid.app, which will make a free-standing application out of a web-app -- and even better, can convert your app to a menu-bar extra!I just opened Pandora, clicked on the 'mini-browser,' and then copied that address into Fluid.app. After creating the program, simply click on the Fluid menu choose Convert to MenuExtra SSB. You can even go to Preferences in your program (prior to converting) and select window styles and transparency.So I now have a small menu extra with a pop-up semi-transparent window that I can instantly open and play/pause Pandora without keeping a separate browser-window open. Of course, Fluid can be used to make apps out of any other webpage as well. I hope others enjoy this as much as I am.
published on Monday, the 21. July 2008