Barb’s Connected World

Archive for the ‘iPad’ Category

I’d forgotten that I’d converted many Battlestar Galactica Recorded TV files recorded using  Windows Media Center to mp4 files and stashed them away on a NAS drive.

I just had one of those A HA moments and uploaded one of them to my iDisk in the cloud  (which comes with my MobileMe subscription).  I had been thinking of iDisk as a place in the cloud to stash files, but not as a streaming server.  I downloaded the iDisk app to my iPad (and to my iPhone) and yup, I’ve got another place to store media files that can be served to my computers and iPxxx devices over the Internet.  Apple supplies 10GB of cloud storage space (compared to the 25GB Microsoft supplies with SkyDrive, but MS doesn’t seem to have an App in the App store <G>).

Here are a couple of captures from my iPad:

I have been struggling trying to keep 3 copies of Outlook (non Exchange) Calendars and Contacts in sync for a long time. There are lots of manual kludgy ways to do this. But when I add my iPad and a need to be able to accept meeting invites (not to mention a Blackberry), I’ve been pretty frustrated.

My second problem: Apple for whatever (probably business) reason, can’t read Outlook ICS meeting requests files (and apparently won’t let any third party app to update the iPad Calendar).  And third, there is RIM, whose Blackberry Desktop Manager doesn’t even support Outlook 2010 yet.

I’m happy to report that I’ve solved problems one and two. And still using Outlook 2007.

Microsoft, I hope you are listening..

I’ve started a 60 day trial with MobileMe. After a couple of hours of doing some backups of my Contacts and Calendars and installing iTunes and the MobileMe Windows Control Panel, I’m happy to say that all three computers are marching to the same drummer and are in sync. I’ve added my iPad and yep, 4 devices all with the same data. I’m still using the Blackberry Desktop Manager via USB to sync that device to Outlook on one of my computers.

My  remaining issue was what to do with meeting invites while away from the computers. Enter a nifty app called RDP Lite from the iTunes store that I’d already been using for some time. This app will work with all versions of Windows that support being a RDP host. Since I’m using W7 Ultimate on everything, I’m covered. While it is a little kludgy, if I get a meeting invite via email on the iPad, I’ll just use RDP Lite to a computer at home (and BTW, RDP Lite supports port specification so if you have multiple computers on your network and change the RFDP port for other computers, you are covered).

I open Outlook (if not already running) and retrieve mail, click the ICS and add to the Calendar on that computer.MobileMe takes over from there and syncs with the other computers and the iPad. And if I schedule something on the iPad manually, MobileMe syncs with the three computers.

Here is a screen shot of RDP Lite on my iPad. You can see the MobileMe icon in the system tray (clouds on a blue background). It’s really working!

I still have to jump through some hoops to sync Notes and Tasks, but I’ll figure something out for that.

Is MobileMe worth $99 a year? Well, 59 days left in my trial period before I get charged. I’ll post an update when I decide.

This FREE app in the iTunes store is a keeper. Most of the other iPad apps for Twitter and Facebook are light year’s behind in readability when compared to this iPad app that just hit today.

Your newsfeeds, tweets, et al are displayed in a magazine type layout that is easy to read and stunning to boot.

I can see why the Flipboard servers are busy busy busy. Every iPad user on the planet must be trying to set this little gem up simultaneously. Be patient. It’s worth it.

Start page for Flipboard. You can add your own content!

Twitter post displayed in landscape format. Really gorgeous!

If someone knows where I can buy the Apple iPad Camera Connector, PLEASE let me know. I just grabbed another brass ring off the iPad carousel.

Eye-Fi on its own is cool enough. Send digital photos from your camera to your desktop via 802.11n (2.4 GHz only)  for editing, to various online photo sharing sites, Facebook, and so on. It sure beats connecting cables or removing cards from a camera.

I thought that the advertised free iPhone app for Eye-Fi (available in the App Store of course) might be useful on my iPad since its function is to send photos from the iPhone via 3G to your desktop or a supported online photo sharing site (Facebook, Flickr, MobileMe, Picasa, Smugmug). And I was right.

Surprisingly, there was virtually no setup to speak up. You authenticate by entering the credentials for your Eye Fi account and the little app “just works”. Once I logged in, the computer showed an additional tab on the left labelled iPhone (which I promptly changed to iPad). A settings window popped right up (and it can be accessed at any time) that let me specify a folder hierarchy and type and some other options.

Back on the iPad, since there is no camera and because I don’t yet have my hands on the camera connector for iPad, I was able to upload photos stored on the device. I used this feature to take the screen captures I made of the Eye Fi functionality on the iPad and send them to my desktop for editing and inclusion in this post.

Well, I can’t take a photo with the iPad as I said, but I sure can choose an existing photo and upload it. I just selected my Saved Pictures folder on the iPad and selected three images. The two above and one showing all the saved screen shots (appears below as iPhone005.JPG inside the Windows Explorer image).

I could tell the image uploads were completed via both a tool tip in the system and the Eye-Fi center window below.

Here’s the Windows Explorer view.

Yup, this is way cool. I really want to get my hands on that iPad Camera Connector. I’m relishing the thought of all my pictures being uploaded and ready for editing on the home computer when I walk in the front door at the end of a day of photo shooting.