Apple iCal Can Assist Better Than You Think

Posted on April 24, 2008
Filed Under iPhone Tips | Leave a Comment

While adding an event to your Apple iCal calendar for iPhones, you can do even more than just name it and specify a date and time.

It’s a great personalassistant that reminds you of upcoming events, assists in gathering others for meetings, and regulates the access to the right files at rhe right moment.

iCal has got hidden superpowers, and it’s easy to enable them by simple

double clicking on the event’s name
then clicking the Edit button.

To invite other participants to an iCal event, you need to type their email addresses into the Attendees gap, or you can open Addresses panel by typing Command-Option-a, then drag contacts from the list. After adding the desired contacts and event details, click Send for Apple Mail to deliver the event request. If it is necessary to change event, you can send an update with the repeated information.

There are many options here. For instance, you can assign customized, color-coded categories to track work projects, personal arrangements, and other commitments. You can set up the same events with the repeat menu. To create an event that lasts over one or more days, click the all-day checkbox.

iCal can remind you of your upcoming events through an alarm function, which reminds you of one or more event via pop-up messages or email. When pop-up reminders emerge, you can delay them for one minute or as much as a week. It is possible to schedule the iCal alarm to automatically run a script or access a file on your PC at a specified time.

Attach documents, graphics, pictures, maps, spreadsheets, or whatever to an event and include relevant URLs is also very easy. Finally, you can insert additional text where the Note field is, like a phone number or meeting agenda.

After all editing click Done. All the data event you added will be accessed next time you double click on it.

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Apple iPhone Review: iPhone vs. LG Voyager

Posted on April 23, 2008
Filed Under iPhone General, iPhone Reviews, iPhone Tips | Leave a Comment

I was wondering what device comes closest to iPhone in popularity and functionality. In order to find this out I run a Google search and came up with the device that seems to be the biggest competitor of the iPhone. I myself will definitely stick with my iPhone, but, to tell you the truth, the audience supports the other way of thinking.

So, let me introduce to you the most probable iPhone competitor – LG Voyager. When I was researching into the nature of iPhone fakes I never thought that one of those phones can ACTUALLY substitute the iPhone. But I got a comment on the post saying that Voyager was released before the iPhone (so it cannot naturally be its clone), and the functionality of the device is even higher that than of the iPhone. At first I didn’t believe a word from that comment, but gradually I got interested and decided to make a sort of comparison. In my research I relied on the opinions of the audience.

iPhone vs. LG Voyager

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Apple iPhone Review: iPhone vs. LG Voyager. Part 2

Posted on April 23, 2008
Filed Under iPhone General, iPhone Tips, iPhone Web Apps | Leave a Comment

3. Features

We can speak for hours about the devices’ features drawing parallels and finding advantages of each of them, but let me summarize the major differences in features and make the conclusion.

iPhone

2-way sms, but no mms
A fused battery
2.0 megapixel camera
A 3.5” screen
No video recording
No text-to-speech feature
Basic iPhone’s pros: Accelerometer, Multi touch screen, Attractive interface, Pinching images, Visual voicemail

LG Voyager

Full sms and mms capabilities
Removable battery
2.0 megapixel camera
A 2.8” screen
Video recording feature
The LG Voyager has text to speech, so it can read your text messages to you w/out installing anything
The Voyager’s pros: 3g EV-DO network, swappable battery, QWERTY keyboard, GPS, MMS, SD mem, 2 screens, touch screen

The result: 2-1 for LG

4.The quality of Video and Music

iPhone

“The iPhone’s multimedia performance sets bar for cell phones. The video is crisp, and music is as good as any iPod. That’s enough to put it over the top, even without the rich Internet browsing experience”

“Music quality on the iPhone is decent, but the thing that blows the Voyager out of the water is its video quality. Videos just look really great on the iPhone’s wide screen”

LG Voyager

“The Voyager’s music quality was respectable, but its streaming video quality was uneven and the Web browsing wasn’t quite as fluid as that of its opponent. The V Cast Mobile TV quality was respectable, but ultimately it can’t quite compete with the iPhone”

“Music and video quality are pretty good on the LG Voyager, but the streaming video quality isn’t that great”

The result: 2-2 draw

5.Call quality

iPhone

“The iPhone had decent call quality on the whole, but its volume level was too low. Some users have also complained of a background hiss, though I didn’t notice”

“For the most part, the iPhone had decent call quality, but there was a background hiss that could get distracting at times. Also, I found the speakerphone volume a bit low”

LG Voyager

“Though I did notice a slight hiss here, the Voyager beats the iPhone on call quality. The clarity was crystal, and the volume was sufficient”

“The call quality on the LG Voyager was solid. There was little background noise, and callers heard us loud and clear”

The final result

Which device do you think is the winner? According to the audience’s opinion (but not mine again) LG Voyager comes the winner. The Audience proved that touch screen is not enough for the iPhone to beat the more functional LG.

But do you personally agree with that written above?

Apple iPhone Review: iPhone vs. LG Voyager

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Striking Zeppelin Shaped iPod Speaker System By B&W

Posted on April 23, 2008
Filed Under iPhone Accessories | Leave a Comment

Bowers & Wilkins, or B&W in brief, has been making quality speaker systems with unique and stylish designs for nearly 50 years. The company has recently introduced the iPod via a high-end desktop speaker system called the Zeppelin.

Zeppelin includes a cradle to hold all dock-connectors for iPods, charging even third-generation models (it is supplied with special authorization chip for the third-generation iPod nano or classic, and the iPhone), composite and S-video output jacks for using TV, a remote control and an auxiliary-input audio jack. The Zeppelin also includes a USB port for installing software updates.

B&W applied all their awesome aesthetic and audio design principles to the Zeppelin. Dirigible-shaped enclosure, associated with system’s name, is really massive - 25 inches wide, 7.5 inches high (with a stand) and 8 inches deep. The front side of Zeppelin is black, backside has a chrome cover that reflects the shiny rear of an iPod.

The Zeppelin’s rubber-foot base can be handled slightly upwards, an additional stand lifts the system’s back so the speakers radiate horizontally 17 pounds of weight with no handle makes the device hardly transportable. The dock connector is placed on a spring-loaded hinge and tilts forward for accommodating the player while pressing against a rubber bumper, so there is no need for plastic dock.

The Zeppelin’s remote control is a glossy-black and chrome-plated device with a smooth surface to feel great in a hand.

The Zeppelin possesses the rear auxiliary-input jack, a built-in digital-to-analog converter, a Tone Control setting that enables you to choose a bass level, a new Backlight setting to control the screen lighting in different modes.

Some newest iPhones and iPods’ screens show the Zeppelin’s volume level resembling the iPod’s own volume bar. B&W boasts that iPhones signals won’t cause any audible GSM interference.

The Zeppelin is really good in sound quality. It houses five speaker drivers: a 5 inch central subwoofer, left and right 3.5 inch drivers and 1 inch metal-dome tweeters. And all these are empowered with a 50 Watt amplifier for the subwoofer and dual 25 Watt amps for both channel drivers. So the sound quality is great, especially at lower volumes.

The price tag of 600$ makes Zeppelin one of the most expensive iPod speaker systems. Although the sound quality can be found the same in cheaper products, the design makes it number one anyway.

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5 Tips To Save Your Phone After Dropping Into Water

Posted on April 22, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Accidents happen.
If you’re ever in a situation where your phone is giving you problems because you got caught in the rain, or dropped it in the sink or toilet, here are 5 steps you can try:

1. Turn the device off and do not charge it - You want to keep the phone non-operational while it dries out.
2. Drip dry and shake off as much water as possible
3. Dismantle whatever you can - If you are able to remove the battery and cover, do so. The more you expose the better it will dry.
4. Cover your phone in a bowl of rice - Rice will help absorb moisture (at least it did for this Washington Post writer) like how it does in salt shakers.
5. Draw it away with a vacuum cleaner held over the affected areas for up to 20 minutes in each accessible area, having already removed the majority of liquids and moisture manually and dried all visible moisture by hand, so that none enters the vacuum cleaner.

This method is preferable to leaving it to dry naturally as it halts any oxidation from occurring deep inside, such as can result in functional issues later on. This is the fastest way (less than thirty minutes after your phone drowns, it can be completely dry and working, especially if you are able to also partly or fully disassemble it) to quickly get all the internal moisture out of the phone effectively and stop the internals from ‘rotting’ away.

Remember that the goal is to suck all the moisture and humidity out of the phone not to blow it even further in and create even more evil humidity deep inside.

All in all, the idea here is to get it as dry as as possible - in as quick a time as possible. You’d be surprised how many phones spring back to life once they are dried out. Personally i gave birth to 3 phones after they had taken a ‘bath’. I just dried them out, and they were just as good as new.

Note: Fans and hair dryers are not a good ideas as they tend to force moisture further into the small components deep inside the phone eventually causing corrosion.

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