Tag Archives: Iphone

Digital Storytelling – On the Spot Stories

June 28, 2012 9:54 am , Leave a Comment ,

If you have an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, add the free Blurb Mobile app and you’ve got a quick and easy way to capture and share any special moment as a delightful multimedia storybook. Grab some photos and a video clip or two using your device’s camera, then pop them into the Blurb mobile app, add some captions and even audio clips recorded using the app. You can rearrange, resize and style your story in a matter of minutes then publish it (requires Internet connection) to your profile at Blurb. Your stories can also be shared on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or by email.

My stories page in my Blurb profile.

Don’t think you’re confined to just photos, videos and audio clips. In my Sketches story I took several digital sketches I’d created on my iPad, used the Photogene app to add titles to one of them, and created a simple art gallery to show them off. Just about anything you can get into your photo library can be included in a Blurb Mobile story.

Viewing a story online at Blurb

Once published, your story can be viewed online at Blurb. You have the option of making it a public or private story. People viewing your story can comment on it and share it with others.

The story catalog on my iPad.

You can also show off your stories right on your device. Here you see the catalog of stories created on my iPad. Note that your stories are not synched across devices and your online catalog. A story can be viewed on the device but not published online.

A story being viewed on the iPad

On my iPad, there are two viewing options. Tap the finger icon at the top right side of the screen to manually move through the story. Tap the tv icon to view it as a movie. While the iPhone/iTouch devices are much easier for capturing photos and videos, it’s hard to beat the iPad to view your stories.

Blurb Mobile is a great way to quickly share the fun of a live event – wedding, graduation, baby’s first words or steps – with those who can’t be there. Using the iPhone or a 3G iPad, you can upload them or email them right on the spot. It can also be used creatively to tell stories of your ancestors using scanned images and documents.

Although the app is free, a 99¢ in-app purchase extends the limits on photos, videos and audio that can be included in any story and provides additional themes. Give it a test drive and see if there’s a place for Blurb Mobile in your storytelling toolbox.

Related articles:

  1. Digital Storytelling – On the spot blogging
  2. Blurb Mobile
  3. Digital Storytelling – Givit
  4. The Family Blockbuster
  5. Blurb Mobile
  6. Digital Storytelling
Posted in: Digital Storytelling , Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Affordable iPhone?

June 18, 2012 6:00 am , Leave a Comment ,

This week Cricket will become the first pay-as-you-go provider to include an iPhone option. It will be followed by Virgin Mobile who goes live with their program on July 1st. Both will offer the 16GB iPhone 4S and the 8GB iPhone 4 without a contract and with cheaper data plans. One big difference is the cost of the phone. With contract plans, the up-front phone cost is much cheaper since the data plan will help make up the difference. On these pay-as-you-go plans, you can change phones at any time, but you will usually pay retail – or very close – for your phone.

Can you still save money with a pay-as-you go plan? PC World looked at the various carriers and compared their costs over a two-year period using the iPhone 4S with the minimum data plan for the five carriers (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Virgin Mobile and Cricket). While Virgin Mobile has the highest cost for the iPhone itself ($649), the total cost of operation over the two-year period was more than $500 cheaper than either Verizon or Sprint. This was based on their $30/month plan offering 300 minutes and an unlimited data plan that’s throttled to a much slower speed after 2.5GB. Cricket’s phone cost was significantly cheaper but its overall costs were higher than AT&T (the cheapest contract carrier) and almost as high as Verizon and Sprint. Note that “unlimited data” includes throttling as some point with all carriers.

At my house, we’re at a telephone crossroads. We currently use Vonage with an aging cordless Motorola phone system. Both of us also have Virgin Mobile phones. Do we replace the phone system or just go with a mobile option. Others in our family have already done that quite successfully and, having been a happy Virgin Mobile customer for several years, I must admit the iPhone option is very tempting. It’s time to crunch the numbers and decide what kind of communications option works best for us.

Related articles:

  1. Affordable Smart Phones
  2. Genealogy in your hand – Android phones
  3. Eye-Fi Direct to iPhone or iPad
  4. Mobile Payments with PayPal
  5. Portable Scanning
  6. Flickr’s New iPhone App
Posted in: Digital Toolbox , Tagged: ,

Tech Notes – 8 June 2012

June 8, 2012 6:00 am , Leave a Comment ,
  1. Storifying SCGS12′s Jamboree

    Have you seen, heard about, or used Storify.com? It’s a site that enables you to capture social media tidbits from here and there from ar…
    4yourfamilystory
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  2. Genealogy Jamboree Blog: Jamboree Streamed Sessions Announced

    We’re making the last big reveal leading up to this weekend’s Genealogy Jamboree. In keeping with SCGS’s tradition of delivering exceptio…
    Blogspot
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  3. I’m subscribed to Caroline’s Storify account so I won’t miss a word of her reporting. I’ll also be watching Twitter and the presentations the Jamboree folks will be sharing online. I’d prefer to be there myself, but . . .
  4. LinkedIn Confirms, Apologizes for Stolen Password Security Breech

    LinkedIn has confirmed that some of its user passwords have been compromised. The company has also issued an apology “for the inconvenien…
    Mashable
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  5. TheNextWeb
    Bad day for LinkedIn: 6.5 million hashed passwords reportedly leaked – change yours now http://tnw.to/1EhVq by @m4tt

    The Next Web

    Wed, Jun 06 2012 08:25:02
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  6. AdrianChen
    Warning: LinkedIn was hacked. Be on the lookout for spam emails that are slightly different than the spam emails LinkedIn usually sends.

    Adrian Chen

    Wed, Jun 06 2012 09:36:44
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  7. Change your LinkedIn passwords NOW! See the article below for tips on creating secure passwords.
  8. Creating Secure Passwords

    Article on password security. Passwords need to be long enough and complicated enough to protect you, but not so complicated you forget t…
    About
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  9. I hope we will be hearing more about this kind of technology real soon.
  10. Nuance’s Dragon ID voice login could leap from Android to iOS

    As jailbreak aficionados are quick to point out, the stock version of iOS isn’t the most customizable mobile platform out there. Certain …
    Tuaw
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  11. Another avenue to personal publishing opens . . .
  12. Kobo announces self-publishing portal – EBOOK MAGAZINE

    Kobo has announced a new self-publishing service offering independent authors and publishers a simple way to make their content available…
    Ebookmagazine
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  13. . . . and a source for some good reads.
  14. The Researcher’s Digital Toolbox | Moultrie Creek Books

    The popular digital toolbox series from Moultrie Creek Gazette has been updated and expanded to include the latest hardware, software and…
    Moultriecreek
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  15. Genealogy Groups at Goodreads | Moultrie Creek Books

    If you want to get the low-down on genealogy books, take a look at the genealogy groups at Goodreads. For those of you not familiar with …
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  16. Kindle 4.1 update brings font contrast bump, extended parental control, Kindle Format 8 to $79 model

    A new update has been rolled out for the $79 Kindle, bringing a host of improvements including extended parental controls, a higher-contr…
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  17. An iPhone with data plans starting at $30/month and no contract – what’s not to like about that?
  18. Virgin Mobile to offer iPhone beginning June 29 | Macworld

    As predicted earlier this week, Virgin Mobile will be the second prepaid wireless carrier to offer the iPhone, following on the heels of …
    Macworld
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  19. High tech archaeology right here in the nation’s oldest city . . . It’s a fascinating article.
  20. CRPT Spotlight: Documenting Site Boundaries and Ground Penetrating Radar | The Dirt on Public Archaeology

    Posted by Outreach Staff in Amber Weiss, cemeteries, cemetery markers, cemetery preservation, Cemetery Resource Protection Training, CRPT…
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Related articles:

  1. Tech Notes – 15 June 2012
  2. Tech Notes – 1 June 2012
  3. Tech Notes: 18 May 2012
  4. UPDATED: Tech Notes – 22 June 2012
  5. Tech Notes: 11 May 2012
  6. Tech Notes – 10 August 2012
Posted in: G-notes , Tagged: , , , ,

Make mobile typing easier with TextExpander

April 23, 2012 6:00 am , Leave a Comment ,

If you use a Mac or iOS device and you don’t use TextExpander [Mac - $34.99, iOS - $4.99], you need to start NOW. This text replacement app allows you to save commonly used words or phrases with an easy to remember abbreviation, then when you type that abbreviation, TextExpander will replace it with the complete phrase. Since typing can be a chore on a mobile device, TextExpander is a must here. For example, to create the hash symbol (used extensively by Twitter users) you must tap thru to a 3rd keyboard to find the character. Set up snippets for your most commonly-used hashtags and you’re saving yourself all kinds of typing frustration. Another Twitter tip . . . I frequently retweet updates from the same users and I like to include their name or blog as the source. I’ve saved snippets for each of the ones I use the most and just type a couple of characters to enter a complete source. Think of what it could do for formal citations . . .

While you might think the price of TextExpander for the Mac is a bit steep, my copy has more than paid for itself. TextExpander snippets can include HTML code as well as text. The Details box you see here is included on every book posted at Moultrie Creek Books. [When was the last time you stopped in for a look?] All I type is “ddetails” and TextExpander enters the HTML code to build the box, types the word DETAILS at the top of it and creates bullets with Author, Publisher and Formats – in less than a  second. All I have to do is fill in the variable information for each book. Other ways I put it to use is to add an appropriate signature block in emails, and add the badge graphics I include on blog posts to identify them as part of a series.

Creating a snippet is easy – just type your text, then copy/paste it into TextExpander and add an abbreviation. If you can’t remember an abbreviation when you need it, just click the TE icon at the top of your Mac’s screen and select it from your collection. You can even organize your collection into groups – something that becomes useful very quickly as you find more and more snippets to add to your collection. And, TextExpander has already created some very useful groups for you. The Autocorrect group has dozens of commonly misspelled words set of as abbreviations for the correctly spelled snippet. There’s also a group of accented words – like fiancé. Just type the word and TextExpander replaces it with the accented version automatically. Last, but not least is the symbols group which gives you things like a copyright © or trademark ™ symbol in the flash of an eye.

You can keep your TextExpander dictionary synched between your desktop and devices using Dropbox. This insures that a snippet created on one device is available on all of them. I’ve found it easier to build snippets on my desktop – even those mostly used on my iPad – and then just wait for everything to sync.

You may be saying to yourself that you can’t think of enough frequently-used snippets to justify the purchase. That was me too. Within a week of purchase, I had four groups of snippets and more than half of them were – and still are – used daily. I keep trying to type those abbreviations on my work computer and find it frustrating that TextExpander isn’t there when I need it. TextExpander is one of those tools that quickly becomes so much a part of your workflow that you wonder how you ever managed without it.

Related articles:

  1. Forms Management with TextExpander
  2. Typing Tools
  3. Mobile research made easier with Dolphin Browser
  4. Text Expander Tip
  5. Research Management Tools
  6. iPads and Cloud Storage
Posted in: Digital Toolbox , Tagged: , , , ,

Enjoy a bit of Face Time

April 21, 2012 3:04 pm , Leave a Comment ,

Recently my cousin and her husband spent a couple of days with us on their way to Miami to join a dive trip. She’s my age and, like us, their children and grandchildren are spread far and wide. I was surprised and delighted to discover how she keeps in touch with all the grand-kids – via Face Time. It was also quite interesting to discover that all her grandchildren had iPod Touches – with subsidized help from Grannie – just so they can stay in touch. Calls or text messages (don’t forget iTouches do Messages too) were used to make sure the intended callee would be available, then a Face Time connection would be made. It’s a great way for my cousin to be a live part of her children’s and grandchildren’s lives on a daily basis even when thousands of miles separate them.

Our 3rd grandchild celebrated his birthday yesterday and, knowing that both mom and dad have iPhones, I decided to try a Face Time Happy Birthday call. It was a great success! Mom and dad had never tried using the Face Time app and, like me, were pleasantly surprised at how easy it is. And, I just noticed a photo on Facebook where the birthday boy was showing off his new iPod Touch. Hmmm . . . looks like we’ll be enjoying a lot more of our own Family Face Time.

The Face Time app is available for Mac desktops and laptops[$0.99 and requires OSX 10.6.6 or higher]. It’s a built-in app on iPhones, iPads (2nd & 3rd generation) and iPod Touches (4th generation). It only works on a wifi connection. If you’re wondering how Face Time handles multiple devices using the same Apple ID (The email address associated with your Apple account is what you use to connect via Face Time), it’s quite simple. Face Time “rings” on every device associated with the account until someone picks up the call. If you don’t want it to ring on a particular system, just turn it off in your Preferences panel. This also insures that mom and dad will be aware of all Face Time activity.

Distance doesn’t need to limit the time you spend with your family. Face Time is just another of a growing number of affordable video calling options available today. Find one that works for you and start calling!

Related articles:

  1. Research Toolbox: Skype
  2. Building a Family Network
  3. Don’t keep all your Apples in one basket
  4. Conference Apps
  5. This is the face of genealogy
  6. Do You Skype?
Posted in: G-notes , Tagged: , , , , , ,

Portable Scanning

September 2, 2011 9:00 am , 2 Comments ,

Do you have an iPhone or Android phone with a camera? If so, with the addition of one of the apps mentioned below, your phone is now also a portable scanner. I have an Android phone and am using the CamScanner app mentioned here. Not only does it capture the document’s image, it converts it into a searchable PDF – meaning I can find specific words within the text – and lets me upload it to my Dropbox account (along with several other cloud services) or email it. And, it will let me capture multiple pages – keeping them all together in one PDF document.

Does it provide the quality of a flatbed scanner? No, but the quality is still impressive and better than many of the library copies I’ve paid outrageous fees to get. Even the most expensive app listed here, will pay for itself with one trip to the research library. And, that’s assuming research is all you use it for. It won’t be.

For iOS there are several scanning options. Note that although these apps will work with the latest iPod Touch, it has a lower resolution camera than the iPhone and the scanning results will be lower quality.

Book Scan

Page from a history of the Huguenot Cemetery

JotNot Scanner  [both a Free and Pro version which is currently on sale for $0.99] lets you scan and enhance documents, receipts, whiteboards and more. You can add, remove and reorder pages within a document and password protect your document if necessary. Resulting documents can be shared by email, Dropbox, Box.net, Evernote, WebDAV and Google Docs. There are many features to enhance, organize and manage your scanned documents.

Pocket Scanner [currently on sale for $0.99] has most of the same scanning and sharing features found in JotNot, but appears to have a more functional reader that also supports viewing Office, image, video, text and HTML files. It has a smaller audience, but very good ratings.

Scanner Pro [$6.99] has the same features as JotNot Scanner, but with a slicker interface and a heftier price tag. Both are rated very high by their users.

With Android’s CamScanner [free] and its unlimited scan license [$4.99], I photograph a document, select the area to be processed and watch as it creates a searchable PDF of the document I photographed. I can keep scanning pages to this document or create new ones. Need to rearrange the order of pages within a document? No problem – just drag and drop. When I’m ready, I can email the PDF document I created or upload it to Dropbox, Box.net or Google Docs.

Set up is a bit strange. You must first install the free CamScanner app and make sure it’s working. It will only scan a limited number of times so you will then need to purchase the CamScanner license for unlimited scans. There is a quick tutorial that shows you everything you need to know about the app.

I’ve already found a number of uses for this app. My bank lets me make deposits by scanning the back and front of a check then emailing it to them. This app makes that process even easier. If I need to sign and fax an agreement to someone, I ask for an email address and use my phone to capture and send the signed copy. Several of these apps work with Evernote so I can capture snippets – including the title page for citation information – and send it off to my research cloud.

If you’re drooling, but don’t think you can afford a smart phone, you might want to look at Virgin Mobile. They have no contract phone plans starting at $35/month – all with unlimited data. You buy the phone separately and can change phones at any time without penalty. And, phones are sold at any number of places. I bought my LG Optimus at Amazon for significantly less than Virgin’s list price.

Related articles:

  1. Review: Dropbox
  2. Genealogy in your hand – Android phones
  3. Putting Dropbox to Work
  4. Collaborating with Dropbox
  5. How does your printer go?
  6. Phone it in!
Posted in: Digital Toolbox , Tagged: , , ,

HQ iOS – a 21st century tip line

August 1, 2011 5:14 am , Leave a Comment ,

I’ve been asked at work to provide weekly tips for the growing number of iPad/iPhone users. You know me . . . First, the idea of spamming my co-workers with email is pretty disgusting and second, why limit the information just to them.

Then it dawned on me that Twitter would be a great vehicle for a tip line. I’ve set up a Twitter feed to share tips, apps and other goodies. There’s also a little Posterous blog for when a screenshot’s necessary to explain something. And, since there are so many others entirely devoted to sharing great ideas about the iThings, I’m frequently pointing to them too. Got a tip of your own? Add it to the conversation!

It looks best in Flipboard (doesn’t everything?) but the iPad’s Twitter app isn’t too shabby either. If you’re an iOS user, I think you’ll find this offers an easy way to put your device to good use without the constant annoyance of email “updates” clogging your inbox.

Related articles:

  1. A Journal for the 21st Century
  2. Conversational Twitter
  3. A look at Branch
  4. Digital Storytelling – A 21st Century Cookbook
  5. Newsletter for the 21st Century
  6. Family Cookbook – 21st Century Style
Posted in: G-notes , Tagged: , , ,

Cool Tools: Glif Tripod Adapter

July 27, 2011 4:12 am , Leave a Comment ,

Glif tripod adapter
Combine this with a Gorillapod and you’re ready to capture some great iPhone video.

Related articles:

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  3. Cool Tools: Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover
  4. Cool Tools: Livewire
  5. Cool Tools: Belkin Mini-Surge Protector
  6. Capture the Family at Thanksgiving
Posted in: Great Deals , Tagged: , , ,

A look at Float

July 23, 2011 8:00 am , Leave a Comment ,

Float Reader

A MN Historical Society map on Float for iPhone

Scribd’s new iPhone app, Float, could be yet another revolution in portable reading. While it does a beautiful job of reformatting all kinds of content to read on the small screen, that’s only part of the revolution. Part two is its ability to pull selected content from all over the Internet – not the least source being Scribd’s huge catalog of documents. Part three is a future plan to offer a subscription service similar to the Netflix model.

The map looks great on my Touch, but what blew me away was looking at one of the short guides I’ve published on Scribd. This guide was originally designed in the Pages word processing app using a landscape orientation with several screen shots to support the text. In Float, all the text had been reformatted to fit the small screen and the images designed to fill as much screen room as possible. And, changing the orientation of the device quickly reformatted the text to fill the screen in the new orientation. I was delighted to see how good it looked on the little screen.

Right now Float not only offers access to the huge archive of documents hosted at Scribd, but also content from an impressive collection of publications along with both your Twitter and Facebook feeds. There’s a bookmarklet you can add to your browser’s bookmarks bar to quickly save content you find interesting. I will be interested in their plans for the subscription service – especially if it includes sharing profits with personal publishers using the Scribd platform. I love the idea of a flat fee giving me access to a huge library of books, articles and other interesting content. I would also love to see a bit of monetary return for some of my writing efforts. This model could be something that supports both those wishes.

Oh, and for those of you who don’t have an iPhone/Touch, you can take a look at the Float desktop via Scribd. In the banner ad about Float at the top of the Scribd home page, click the Learn More button to get set up in the desktop. There are iPad and Android versions planned for release this fall. Here’s a look at that same map in the desktop version.
Float Desktop

Related articles:

  1. Scribd Reading Apps
  2. Scribd Desktop Uploader
  3. Scribd Archives Stirs Up Users
  4. Emailing Kindles
  5. Keeping Up With Technology
  6. Document Collections at Scribd
Posted in: Press News , Tagged: , , , ,

Conference Apps: Siri

May 23, 2011 6:08 am , Leave a Comment ,

Before you head out to Jamboree, FGS or any other conference, make sure you have Siri [iOS - free] on your iPhone. This amazing app is a traveler’s best friend. By combining voice commands, search and your current location, Siri can perform some amazing feats. All you have to do is ask.

Looking for a good Italian restaurant in the area? Just tell Siri, “Best Italian near here.” Siri takes the location information your iPhone’s GPS maintains, searches based on your dictated parameters and returns a list of possible Italian restaurants – with reviews. But that’s not all. You can then choose the restaurant you want and tell Siri to book a reservation for you.

Need a taxi? Siri can send one right to you. Find theaters playing the movie you want to see, get show times and buy tickets. Find a gas station. Get a weather report. Siri can do all that. This video shows how versatile this app is.

Apple recently bought Siri and has been negotiating agreements with Nuance, the speech recognition people behind Dragon and MacSpeeech. There are plans to include even more speech recognition technology into iOS devices and expand Siri into a complete personal assistant. Think of the possibilities . . .

Siri working with Lanyrd could be a conference attendee’s best friend.

Related articles:

  1. Conference Apps
  2. Essential Apps for Jamboree
  3. Tip: Dictate an Evernote Using Siri
  4. Conference Apps: Keynote Tweet
  5. Essential iPad: Meeting Apps
  6. A Virtual Conference
Posted in: Society Corner , Tagged: , , ,