Category Apple, Inc

Oct 7 2008

Make Your Website iPhone Home Screen Ready In A Few Easy Steps

My iCon

My iCon

I have wondered how all these sites are able to make their little icons show up on the iPhone instead of a basic screen shot of the site. Well, turns out after a little research it is an extremely easy process!

I hope this helps you all out, and I expect to see you all making your icons so we don’t have those ugly screen shots on our iPhones!

Here it is in 4 easy steps!

Step 1: Open the image you want to use in photoshop or image editor
Step 2: Crop the image to 45×45 pixels.
Step 3: Save the image as a png file with the name: apple-touch-icon.png
Step 4: Save this png in your root directory of your site and you are done!

This is the finished product on my home screen!

The Home Screen With My qPlog Icon

The Home Screen With My qPlog Icon

Jul 13 2008

Glad We Didn’t Have A Reporter At AT&T This Weekend!

So, after finding out that I am again eligible for my AT&T discount on my calling plan with the new 3G iPhone, and the fact that original iPhones are selling for what I paid for the new one… I decided to make the plunge and had to wait it out both Friday morning and Saturday morning to get my new beauty.

I am just glad that there weren’t any reporters hanging out at the line I was in. Hopefully, this reporter learned his lesson! He was at a line in Burbank of people waiting to purchase the iPhone… Not understanding, he asked one guy if he has seen a woman nekid… Here is how it went down:

Jul 10 2008

Having Fun With iPhone 2.0

While Apple hasn’t officially release iPhone 2.0. Some crazy people have found the link on Apple’s site to the software. I have gone ahead and installed it on my phone already! What can I say, Wow, Apple has outdone themselves with allowing apps to be written for the iPhone.

I have already downloaded a bunch of the free apps off the store, like AIM, Twitter, and Remote (which allows me to control the AppleTV and iTunes with my iPhone). I have also downloaded facebook and myspace. But one of the really cool free apps is Pandora Radio. Dan has been using this website for quite a while to discover new music, and now, it is available on the iPhone to discover new music! Another great app for those getting the new 3G iPhone is Where… It will allow you to network with friends so they can see where you are… I tried it on my phone, but it has me about 4 blocks from where I really am.

I downloaded Cro-Mag rally, which is a fun little game (think Mario Kart except with cavemen and women). Looks like it has the ability to sync with other iPhones, and race against other people.

Once the mobileme transition is complete, I look forward to seeing how the push mail and other stuff works, but just having the apps is an amazing day! If you don’t have an iPhone yet, this will certainly sway you in favor of getting one once you see the 500 plus apps already on the store!

Now, where to get $300 to get my iPhone 3G?

Sep 27 2007

iPhone Upgrade Woes… Learn from My Problems!

Today, Apple release iPhone update version 1.1.1. It brings some great new features like the iTunes Store for the iPhone,

Other new features:
– Louder speakerphone and receiver volume
– Home Button double-click shortcut to phone favorites or music controls
– Space bar double-tap shortcut to intelligently insert period and space
– Mail attachments are viewable in portrait and landscape
– Stocks and cities in Stocks and Weather can be re-ordered
– Apple Bluetooth Headset battery status in the Status Bar
– Support for TV Out
– Preference to turn off EDGE/GPRS when roaming internationally
– New Passcode lock time intervals
– Adjustable alert volume

However, in all the greatness, Apple overlooked one issue. When I installed the update to my iPhone, it told me that I needed to enter my passcode to unlock the phone… However, when I went to do this, my phone told me it had to be activated before I could do anything other than make emergency calls.

I was getting quite frustrated, and only more so when I had to wait for 45 minutes to get ahold of tech support. After that, I had to talk with the tech support for 30 minutes to get my problem resolved. Unfortunately, it meant having to do a complete restore of the iPhone, but how does one do that when iTunes won’t recognize the iPhone?

I had to disconnect the phone from the computer, then turn it off. Once it was off, I then had to hold the home button down for 10 seconds, and then connect the phone to my computer. Once I did that, the phone asked if I wanted to restore the phone. Once that was done, I then had to sync the phone, and go back in and reset all my settings on the phone.

One big thing, if you are reading this Apple… Please make a way to delete multiple e-mails at once, as well as a way to empty the trash can!

Aug 8 2007

iPhone Blissness!

Yes, I broke down and decided to buy the iPhone last night… Giving into the temptation that has gripped me. All I can say, is that this is the phone I have been wanting! It does everything I could ever want a phone to do… Effortless to use, and I’ve even been able to master the tiny keyboard with my big thumbs!

I had been planning on getting a new MacBook Pro in October to release my desktop… But after getting the iPhone, it does everything I would probably ever use a laptop for when traveling, so I have decided that come October, it will be a shiny new iMac instead to replace my current machine!

I can’t even express how immediately the connection with this phone was. It was my post to my blog from the Apple store that finally convinced me that I was a fool to wait any longer! I find the edge network to be plenty fast for normal use. Not going to want to be doing any major surfing on the network, but then again, I wouldn’t want to be doing major surfing on the phone or on vacation.

Apple has once again nailed their product on the nose!

May 11 2007

.Mac – Is It Still Worth Apple’s Time?

I have gladly continued to renew my .Mac account for 5 years now. This November it comes due again. As it stands right now, I am in the middle of transitioning everything off of my .Mac website. Now, Mr. Jobs has addressed .Mac in their latest shareholders meeting.

In response to a question about Apple’s minimal efforts in updating its languishing .Mac online services — particularly in comparison to the rapid development in Apple’s hardware, software, and retail business segments — Jobs admitted that .Mac had fallen behind. “We have not achieved our full potential,” he said, adding that the company planned to soon release a new set of initiatives for .Mac.

Apple has already announced some new features for .Mac in Leopard, including the sync of Dashboard items across Macs linked under an account, but the potential for .Mac integration to play a major role in both Leopard and on the iPhone has not been given a lot of attention. Jobs indicated Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference would shed more light on the subject next month.

I have defended the ease of use of .Mac for years and all the unique features that it offers. Things like a fantastic Webmail Interface that syncs with my mail program at home, the ability to access my address book in webmail. A very user friendly public folder for sharing files with friends, and the ability to use the .Mac space for backup for my computer.

Where does .Mac start to go wrong? In three of the biggest categories that matter! Space and price and customization. For the basic $99 a year, you get 1 gig of space with 10 gb of monthly transfer. I don’t get any kind of mysql or anything that would allow me to run a blog outside of their iLife software. For an additional $50 a year I can upgrade to 2 gigs of space and 25 gb on transfer.

Let’s compare that to what I get with my hosting service bizland.com.

For $79.99 a year, I get 200 gb of space, 2000 of monthly transfer. I have unlimited e-mail addresses and 5 mysql databases. With that much space, I can backup my whole computer rather than just my computer settings. Not to mention the ability to work with full fledged html. These are things that Howard and others have been telling me, but I was nervous about it being too difficult. It may have been a little tricky at first, but it isn’t so bad. And I can export the remainder of my .mac website from iLife to a folder that I can upload to my qplog server and bingo, there it is!

Mr. Jobs, you have until November to prove that there is going to be good reason for me to shell out another $99 to keep a service that I have only really been using for e-mail as of late, and, even there, I have already transitioned everything over to a qplog e-mail address.