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Apr 27 2009

App Store Picks – File Sharing, Photo Sharing, Contacts Syncing and more

iPhone OS 2.1 has landed with all the promised fixes and no bugs! Okay, wishful thinking aside, backups and app installs are tons faster. Meanwhile, new apps have been rolling out of the store for months now. And the quality seems to be improving.

airsharing App Store Picks File Sharing, Photo Sharing, Contacts Syncing and more

Transferring files too and from your iPhone has been one of the most envied features of the jailbreak crowd. For a limited time, you can get an app that allows you to stash files on your iPhone/touch and view them offline.

Air Sharing does just that, and is free for its first two weeks. Since it was released September 9th, that gives us another 10 days to grab it. Sure, this is a clever ploy to get Air Sharing atop the most downloaded lists, but who cares? Its free.

Air Sharing makes your device show up as a WebDAV share drive. If you’d rather go the other way – and access your Mac or other FTP server from your iPhone, look into Caravan.

networkpinglite App Store Picks File Sharing, Photo Sharing, Contacts Syncing and more

It is not free, but it is cheap: $3. I haven’t got it to work with my Tiger machine’s built-in ftp, but it has been easy to set up with Leopard and my web host’s server (1and1 Linux). It also allows you to download files from the web and edit, create and transfer text files.

While we’re talking networks, it is worth mentioning Network Ping Lite, a simple utility that allows you to ping, scan your subnet and telnet to networked machines. Free, of course.

Yahoo just let out oneConnect for iPhone. This app lets you browse your Yahoo contacts alongside your built-in ones. You can also Yahoo IM from the app and post to a ton of Twitter-like sites, including Twitter and Facebook.

If you’re into syncing Google’s suite, you’ll be interested in GooSync, which will sync your contacts with your Google account. You have to have a GooSync account as well. Calendar sync is waiting on Apple to open access to the calendar API.

goosynciphone App Store Picks File Sharing, Photo Sharing, Contacts Syncing and more

If you are a Chandler user, you’ll be interested to know there is a Chandler Quick Entry app in the store. It requires you log in to your Chandler Hub account to use.

To round up our list, check out PicShare for wifi photo sharing, iPhone to iPhone. Also, if you happen to use Microsoft Office Communication Server, you can now log on with a native iPhone client: WebMessenger.

Brian

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Apr 27 2009

Supercharge your instant messaging

By: Jon Gales

These days, instant messages are as common as email. I don’t have to explain the benefits (speed namely), but I can share some of the tips I have picked up over the years of being an IM user. A previous PowerUser Monday article touched on some iChat tips and tricks–we’ll be covering other tips in this space.

First a little background. There are 4 major IM networks:

  • AIM – Owned and operated by AOL. Was the first network and is still the most popular [by far]. iChat uses the AIM network.
  • ICQ – (I Seek You) – Owned and operated by AOL. Popular with long time IM users because it has been around a while. Also popular over seas.
  • Yahoo! IM – Another popular network run by Yahoo. Has a large registered user base due to the number of free @yahoo.com email addresses.
  • MSN Messenger – Run by Microsoft, and has a massive registered user base due to the popularity of @hotmail.com and @msn.com email addresses.

We’re going to talk about AIM / iChat because that is what most Mac users use.

Groups
Groups are now a part of iChat, but the support is weak. If you’ve used the official AIM client from AOL, or something like Adium, you know what groups are supposed to be. In iChat, it’s more of a “buddy filter” than a group feature. If you’re using iChat, stay away from groups. If you’re using something else, use groups–they are quite handy.

Give your buddies a name
Unless you like thinking of your friends as “gogodude12″ and the like, it’s best to give your buddies names. This can be done in most popular clients that aren’t made by AOL (iChat, Proteus, Adium…). In iChat, just select a buddy by clicking on their name, press Command-I, and type in their info. “Address Card” should be selected in the pull down menu at the top of the Info window. iChat actually ties in with Address Book, so you’re killing two birds with one stone by inputting their names in iChat.

Turn on logging
By turning on logs, you’re able to save your conversations. You wouldn’t believe how many times this has saved me. I have recovered many addresses and phone numbers that I needed by searching my IM logs. To activate logs in iChat, go to iChat > Preferences and select Messages. At the bottom, check the box next to Automatically save chat transcripts. iChat saves each conversation in a separate file. To search your logs quickly, download something like chatSearch.

Update your iSight
If you have an iSight, Apple recently (as in this weekend) updated its software. Just run Software Update by going to the Apple Menu and selecting Software Update.

Leave iChat on after you quit
If you always like being online, you can set iChat to stay online after you quit. You’ll be able to log-off via a menu bar widget, but it’s a handy feature for IM power users. Combined with Away messages, it’s really powerful. To turn on the feature, head to Preferences and select General if it is not already selected. Make sure “Show status in menu bar” is checked, and then uncheck “When I quit iChat, set my status to offline”.

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Apr 27 2009

Odds and Ends

This week we have a random bunch of freeware designed to tweak preferences and clean up corruption.

mu Odds and EndsIPMenu

IPMenu is a spiffy little menu item that tells you your current IP address. This is especially handy for people with dynamically assigned IPs. This app includes both your local and external IP.

mu Odds and EndsReturn Receipt

Use the “request return receipt” header in your email? Be a pal and use this script to have Entourage do the same for people who email you. This script, which only works for Entourage X, requires Jaguar or later.

mu Odds and EndsSafari2Yahoo

Swap Google search for Yahoo! search with this script. To make the switch the script requires Panther and Safari 1.2.

mu Odds and EndsCheck Preference Files and PrefBoy

These two utilities help you review and weed out corrupt preference files. Check Preference Files utilizes a terminal command to get the job done. PrefBoy requires Tcl/TK Aqua, and is a script.

mu Odds and EndsFont Cache Cleaner

While you’re cleaning up corruption on your Mac, spread the fear to your fonts. This utility will clean up your fonts by cleaning up the cache.

Thanks for coming by. Come back next week for more free downloads.

Brian

mu Odds and EndsDownloads provided by MacUpdate

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