Al Lustie's Tips and Tricks

I use my iPod 5 as a handy camera a lot.  Last week I was in the Northwest, and coming our of the motel I caught this sunrise on my iPod. 

I used Snapseed to enhance the picture a little:

And I tried  Alt Photo to get this:

What do you find helpful?  Leave a comment and let us know. 

One of the apps I use pushed us to get our first iPad, and iPad 1.  Star Walk  is a fantastic app in many ways.  We love it, our grandkids love it, our friends love it.  If you have a newer iPad, one with a Retina display, it even looks better. 

If you enjoy radio, or music, try  Pandora  If you are in a space with other folks, use your ear buds or earphones, but find the kinds of music you like and enjoy.

My wife used the Timer+ app in teaching, and I used it regularly when doing the physical therapy part of recovery from a knee replacement.  It can be set up for six different times, with descriptive names, and with various sounds than play when "time's up!" 

I use Numbers (made by Apple) for basic spreadsheet work.  Specifically, I have an invoice form ready to go.  I fill in the services I did, the client name, etc., the time spent, and my hourly charge and I can email it from my iPad to the client while still on site.  It can also be saved in Numbers format, Excel format and as a PDF.  Or printed to a wireless printer using PrintCentral. 

Let me mention Print Central.  It's not perfect, but it works.  Epson and HP also make printing apps for their printers, but I prefer one that I can use with almost any wireless printer.  Printer Pro gets great reviews.

What do you use?  Leave a comment and let us know. 

Windows Secrets email newsletter mentions today that the "program cannot open" scam is roaring back.  The message wants you to download a program to clean the infection off your computer.  Instead, the downloaded program infects your computer.

During the install on Windows the computer will probably try to warn you.  You are in the habit of clicking an "OK" or "Yes" and Bam!  you get infected.

Again I warn you -- be very careful, and don't download when you get these kinds of messages.  It is best to SHUT YOUR COMPUTER OFF!  Yes, hold down the ON/OFF button for 5-10 seconds and shut it off.  Get away from that as quickly as possible.  When you turn the computer back on it may ask if you want to boot into Safe Mode.

Do it.

Then restart after it is fully booted.  You will be in regular mode and probably avoided an expensive situation and the corruption of your computer.

See the link to Windows Secrets and become a paying member.  Even $10 a year helps, and you get these warnings.  Even one is worth the price.  I usually charge about $185 to clean off a computer after backing up data, and leave reinstalling programs to the client.  If I install, I charge more.  And I am less expensive than most.

Leave a comment and let us know your experience or your opinion. 

More apps I use include Scrabble for the iPad.  Granted, it can't add, and it cheats, but I enjoy the practice, training my brain and eye so that when I play with humans I am a bit better.  I'm working on increasing the number of words that use all my tiles these days. 

For further recommendations I took my granddaughter's advice and downloaded Spell Tower.  It's another great word game.

A Mahjong solitaire game is fun, but I get tired of it fairly quickly.  I'll keep looking for a better one.

I enjoy Toy Physics, but don't play it as much now that I am not able to spend time with my granddaughters.  It's a great game and helps with vector physics as well. 

Finally, I have a game of Klondike Solitaire that I enjoy, especially when on hold while using the home phone.

On my iMac the Scrabble game quit working when I upgraded to Mountain Lion, and the maker of the game won't answer support questions.   But Solitaire 3D gives me challenging variety in solitaire games, but not as good as the Windows Spider Solitaire, for sure. 

What do you enjoy for recreation on your iXX device or computer?  Leave a comment and let us know. 

On my iPhone 4s I use the Phone app.  Seems obvious, but when I don't need a phone I use my iPod 5 or iPad.  I also use the Messages app, but not as often as I do not text much.  I find that in a hospital, however, sometimes texting is the only way to get out without messing up instrumentation. 

I would like to use the Passbook app, but only have three vendors that might accept it.  So far, it is only a dream.

Goodreads is a fantastic app.  In addition to letting me keep track of hardback and paperback  books I read I can scan the ISBN barcode and it will enter the information on the book automatically.  Very convenient.  I can share with others the books I am enjoying as well. 

Did I mention Google Maps?  I use it often, but as I don't use the 3G or 4G option very often, I don't use it as a substitute GPS.  I had a tire going flat the other day, however, and used the Google Maps app on my iPhone to find a tire shop. 

Contacts and Calculator both get quite a bit of use.  I sync with my gMail account and a Comcast account and have my contacts all loaded, and I use the calculator for quick arithmetic when I get lazy. 

What apps do you use the most?  Leave a comment and let us know. 

I use my iPad, iPod and iPhone.  Probably I don't use them like anyone else, and probably no one else uses them as do I.  Let me share a few apps I use nearly every day.

Reminders -- I may be walking, a passenger in a car, in a meeting or worship service, and when something crosses my mind (including topics for blog articles) I use reminders to jot it down.  Whether on my iPhone, iPod, or iPad, they are all synchronized and I can retrieve my ideas or "to do's" easily and quickly.  I have versions of Reminders and Notes on my iMac so I can catch what I have jotted down on my desktop computer.

Notes -- Ditto for notes.  Books to read, ideas from someone in the coffee group, possibilities for blog articles, names and phone numbers I don't need in my contact list and even addresses are all in my Notes.

Both of those apps come with IOS.  No extra cost.  I use them all the time.

Evernote is useful and I am finding it an expansion of Notes -- more flexible, and maybe more useful.  I use the free version and sync between my iDevices and my iMac. 

My iPod Touch takes good pictures, and I take quite a few.  So, the Camera app that comes with IOS on my iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch gets a good workout.  I have several editing programs, but do not yet have a favorite.

Finally, for today, I use the Kindle app every day.  As I increase the number of eBooks I read, and decrease the number of printed books that take up space, I find the Kindle app a nearly constant companion.  It is also free, and our public library has some Kindle books to borrow.  Not enough, so I do buy most of mine.

What apps do you use, and how do you use them?  Leave a comment and let us know. 

Maybe "Curse" is a bit too strong, but printing has been the difficult part of computing since computing was started.  I have been struggling with printing, dare I say, "As usual", for several weeks. 

My Brother multifunction printer printed our Christmas letter well.  Then it would no longer print any black ink.  I had a new inkjet cartridge.  No Black.  I got another new black cartridge.  No Black. 

So I now have an HP.  Brother has served me well, but newer Brother printers do not seem to be my friend.  I couldn't get any support, either.

About that time my wife, who has a Brother color laser printer that has been her workhorse for a couple of years, began to notice. that when she tried to print from Windows (VMWare Fusion, Windows 7, on an iMac), the iMac would shut down suddenly.  Not always, but usually the first printing of the day. 

It was most pronounced when printing .pdf files. 

Then it began doing the same from the iMac side, especially .pdf files. 

A tech from VMWare worked with me for several hours, and we thought we had it fixed.  Today, the first print job, and the machine shut down.  The print job was on the iMac side, not the Windows side.  So I called Apple (we have an Applecare contract.) 

He was helpful, but no luck.  "Check with Brother -- maybe it needs a firmware upgrade." 

So I did, and Brother suggested plugging it in to a different outlet, and using a new USB cable.  I have done that. 

It is printing well so far.  We'll know more tomorrow.  Stay tuned.