Notes From an Isolated City

I recently learned that Snap Shots popup boxes were annoying visitors to my website by appearing whenever the site visitor hovered their mouse cursor over one of the many links on my webpages.

It took a little bit of Googling for me to find the answer as to how I could disable this feature, not only on my website but on other webpages that I may visit.

The most disconcerting aspect for me was that I hadn’t realised that this feature was enabled by default on WordPress.com blogs.  

You can listen to my audio segment on the NosillaCast podcast on 7th September explaining how to disable the Snap Shots feature .

If you would like to learn how to prevent the Snap Shots boxes appearing on sites you visit, or on your own WordPress.com blog, then view my video below.

A few days ago I wrote about how the iPhone application, 1Password version 1.3, had a bug which prevented it from auto-filling your username and password into website login pages, something it’s desktop version does wonderfully well.

A fix for that bug is now available for download from the iTunes App store. I have installed the new Version 1.3.2 of 1Password onto my iPhone and it is working just fine, doing all the things its developers say it will do!

See my earlier article posted on the 19th August for the full story about the 1Password software application.

As my free trial of the desktop version of 1Password draws to an end I will definitely be paying the US$34.95 licence fee to continue using this clever bit of software.

Twitter is one of those unexpected phenomena that occasionally appears in the tech world and takes it by storm.

Introduced in 2006 Twitter rose to fame in early 2007 when the ability to micro-blog on Twitter was taken up by tens of thousands people around the world. In just 140 characters you tell the world what you are doing now.

Why?

For many the introduction to Twitter is one of bewilderment. “What’s it for?” “Who is on it?” “I don’t know anyone on Twitter” are some of the thoughts I had when I learned of Twitter’s existence from podcasters.

Initially I checked it out, became overwhelmed by the mass of apparently disjointed comments or Tweets and promptly gave up. Then earlier this year, while house-bound for a week with a bad back and plenty of time on my hands, I gave Twitter another go.

I started to follow a few of my favourite podcasters on Twitter. I watched their Tweets and finally plucked up courage to say something myself. I held my breath and awaited a reply….. finally I turned blue and fainted. No-one replied to my Tweet! I was saddened.

But I wasn’t going to give up. I continued by Tweeting about my inability to grasp the purpose of Twitter. Eventually I received a reply, well two actually. Wow! they were talking to me. One, Allison a podcaster from California, USA, the other Damien a climber & hiker from Queensland, Australia. Even more surprisingly, they started to follow my Tweets. 

Over the next few weeks I was Followed by others and, in turn I Followed those. Along the way there were some “unusual” characters that chose to follow me (and thousands of others) so I blocked them from my list of Followers. I only want quality Followers, with whom I can have intelligent conversations I only Follow those that interest me. I have no desire to gain large numbers of anonymous followers, so I undertake a regular pruning of the Twitter-bots and the unsavoury or irrelevant characters.

You soon build up a network of fellow Tweeters who become “virtual friends”. You may never get to meet these people in real life, but they are as helpful as any good friend could be. A Perth-based businessman, and good Twitter friend, Mark, gave me advice when I couldn’t fathom out Domain Name Server problems on my website; Los Angeles Times photographer, Robert, helped me with my digital SLR camera queries; a friend in Ireland, Bart, advised on iPhoto editing and a friend from Hobart, Rose, cheered me up with her witty remarks on Twitter. They all remain good Twitter friends, plus there are many more who have joined me along the way. 

Today, Twitter is used by news agencies such as the BBC and CNN. Barack Obama has a Twitter identity for campaign updates, emergency services use Twitter to spread essential information at times of major disasters. Twitter has become mainstream, and the proliferation of web-enabled mobile phones increases its efficacy.

Methods of communication are changing. We are using this new technology to expand our horizons, to link to others around the globe, to people in different social groups or disparate ideologies. Understanding of others is achieved via communication and Twitter provides the threads that link many of us together. It fulfills our desire to be heard and to be informed.

I started this article about Twitter intending it to be a couple of lines long (I could learn a lot from the Twitter brevity rule!) and to link to a video from the commoncraft website. The video explains one way that Twitter can be used. In fact, just watch the video and don’t bother reading my post above, it is much more eloquent!

Follow my Twitter Tweets via the link near the top of my blog.

Don McAllister of the ScreenCastsOnline podcast has produced an explanatory ScreenCast on the basics of Twitter. Check out Don’s excellent ScreenCastsOnline website.

In my totally non-expert way of thinking, one of the simplest operations to have on any operating system is the ability to copy & paste between applications. But Apple has chosen to ignore requests for such a feature on the iPhone.

Not surprisingly, third party developers for the iPhone are chomping at the bit to produce an application that performs this function. However, Apple’s software development rules prohibit applications that provide cut and paste functionality outside their own application.

Proximi’s MagicPad is a rich text editor app for iPhone that offers copy and paste functionality within that app, but now Proximi has proposed an interface for system-wide copy and paste on the iPhone. It is not a downloadable app as I first thought, but an open source project called OpenClip which developers can incorporate into their own apps, enabling the copy and paste function between supported apps.

To date, developers of eight iPhone applications have agreed to participate in the openclip.org project. WordPress was originally shown on the openclip.org site as one of those participating, but within the last hour it has mysteriously disappeared from that list.

Visit the OpenClip website and view this GeekBrief.tv video to learn more.

1Password software securely holds all your website login details and other sensitive information allowing you to log into your websites without having to remember all those pesky passwords.

It runs on Mac OS X and there is a version for the iPhone.

I installed 1Password on both my MacBook Pro and iPhone. It worked perfectly on the laptop, but not so on the iPhone.

Once setup, 1Password will autofill your usernames and passwords into websites for you. You only have to remember one password for all the sites you visit and the software does the rest.

1Password for the iPhone is now at version 1.3 and is a free download from Apple’s iTunes App Store. Unfortunately this latest version has a bug which can cause the autofill feature to fail, rendering it useless.

Apparently earlier versions of the 1Password worked perfectly on the iPhone, but the latest version 1.3 has a bug which is causing the failure.

According to 1Password’s developers, Agile Web Solutions, a fix has been submitted to Apple and is expected to appear on the iTunes App Store shortly.

This software has received many great reviews, the latest being on The TypicalMacUser Podcast Episode 141.

I hope the fully functioning version is available for download very soon.

Ten years ago this week Apple launched the iMac G3, a new style of computer hardware design intended to turn the world of beige-box computers upside down.

It succeeded in changing the course of not only computer box design, but the white and translucent plastic concept spread across many areas of industrial design.

The original iMac caused a stir when it was released without a floppy drive, relying on it’s CD-ROM drive to install software.

It was a bold move by Apple to deny iMac owners easy use of their 3.5 inch floppy disks and external diskette drives became a popular accessory, but eventually the CD drive was responsible for the demise of the floppy drive. 

The translucent plastic design was extended over time to produce a thoroughly psychedelic range of coloured iMacs brightening up homes and offices around the world.

The 1998 iMac is attributed with starting Apple on the road to the successful computer hardware producer it is today. And the person responsible for introducing the iMac, Steve Jobs, continues to lead Apple into ever more creative computer-based technology.

And not only Australia, but if you are a Twitter user in any country except Canada, USA or India you will, from today, no longer receive Twitter updates via SMS on your mobile phone. Twitter has announced that for financial reasons it is no longer able to offer this service. Mobile operators charge Twitter for the SMS messages it sends out so, unless a deal can be reached with the telcos, Twitter cannot continue to fund the forwarding of messages.

It is such a pity that since Twitter has become so popular as a means of micro-blogging and conversing, that many thousands will now lose the ability to keep up with their friend’s Tweets when away from the computer. Only those fortunate enough to have PDAs or mobile phones with web capability will be able to continue to follow Twitter’s Tweets while on the go.

Surely someone will replace this service with a paid version, let’s hope the price will be reasonable and Twitterers worldwide will once again be kept up to date via Twitter.

The more time I spend with the new iPhone 3G, the more I come to love it. The possibilities for enhancing its capabilities even further lie in the oodles of applications available for download from the iTunes App Store.

Having a little spare time this weekend I perused the App Store for an hour or so, losing myself in the huge selection of applications, everything from a bubble bursting app described as “For toddlers who need a fun distraction” to eWallet, a secure password manager that encrypts your sensitive information.

Whilst meandering my way through the pages of apps I picked three to download and try out.

Firstly I chose Currency, a simple and clear currency converter that displays up-to-date exchange rates for a vast selection of world currencies. you can customize it to your main currency of choice and rearrange the list of exchange rates it displays. For me it provides the information I need on my iPhone wherever I am.

The next app I downloaded was Locly. This fascinating app uses the iPhone’s GPS location finding ability to show you information related to your locality. It will list nearby cafes & shops, taxi firms, museums, hotels, banks and ATMs plus many more. It also offers the facility to view locally based Flickr images and Twitter tweets!

I stepped outside to try Locly and it instantly and accurately pinpointed two restaurants within a few hundred metres of me. I tapped on the restaurant’s name and the display showed the address and phone number of the restaurant together with a Google map indicating its precise location.

I was disappointed that tapping on the phone number didn’t actually call the number though. But, this is the really clever bit: tap on the map image and you will be taken directly to the native Maps app where the GPS will guide you right to the door of the restaurant!  

This app impresses here in Australia because it is fully loaded with local data. I was very impressed and look forward to trying out this app on my travels.

Finally, I downloaded another GPS based app, this one is called Here I Am and simply takes your GPS location, enters the details into an email ready for you to send to one of your contacts. The email recipient can then click on the link to be taken to a Google map pinpointing your whereabouts. Such a simple app and yet one that could ultimately be an exceptionally useful one.

The iTunes App Store is a source of much entertainment for iPhone or iPod Touch owners and many of the apps are free, including all three reviewed here.

Photos of the new Volkswagen Golf have been released revealing the latest evolution of a perennial favourite. The new Golf Mk VI will go on sale in Australia mid 2009 following on from a European launch this October.

There haven’t been any dramatic leaps forward from the current Golf design but rather a modernisation of the classic VW look and in my opinion that is no bad thing.

VW Scirocco

The loss of the heavy-chinned look together with darkened front grill and headlights follow the styling cues from the Volkswagen Scirocco coupe launched earlier this year in Europe, whilst still remaining loyal to the enduring Golf theme.

Volkswagen have introduced some of the latest technology into the new model with Automatic Distance Control and Park Steering Assist appearing in the upper grade trim levels. With luck, Volkswagen Australia will allow that technology to infiltrate this continent, unlike some manufacturers who seem to think Australia is not worthy of the latest safety features in vehicles sold here.  The Golf engines will continue their economy and emissions improvements with the newer range of Volkswagen’s diesels being included in due course. Underneath the skin, changes are fewer, with the suspension and much of the petrol engine range being carried over from the current Golf.

The quality of cabin materials has reportedly taken a step up from the current Golf Mk V standards, which had come in for criticism in comparison to earlier Golfs. It is this perception of quality that draws buyers from the less esoteric but more reliable marques. After-all, the process of a car purchase is, more often than not, based on the feel-good factor. 

Personally I’m looking forward to seeing the GTi version, due later next year, with its Audi-esque LED strips on the headlamp units.