Author Archive
Syncing Google Calendar with iPhone
When it comes to the Apple iPhone and Windows iTunes, you can synchronize your bookmarks with Internet Explorer or Windows Safari, and contacts from Outlook or Yahoo! but when it comes to synchronizing your calendar you are severely limited, unless all you use is Outlook, because that’s all you can directly sync with at the moment.
I was an Outlook user for years until I gave Microsoft the (thunder) Bird. The biggest problem with making the change from Outlook to Thunderbird was the loss of my synchronization between my iPhone and my calendar, because I don’t use Outlook anymore. I do use Google Calendar (GCal) because it allows me to access my calendar from anywhere (like Gmail) and share calendars between my family.
So how do you sync the iPhone with Google Calendar?
Well, you can’t. But through some sneaky workarounds, it is possible. Since the iPhone only knows how to sync with Outlook, the trick is to get your GCal appointments synced with Outlook.
This is possible with some commercial (pay) services such as ScheduleWorld and SyncMyCal, however the route I went after trying his free trial was David Levinson’s gSyncit. It’s a whole 10 bucks and it works great. After throwin’ down $10 via PayPal and instantly getting the registration code by email, it got rid of the nags, enabled automatic synchronization, and allowed me to add the other 3 GCal calendars that I needed to sync with Outlook. Plus, you don’t need to touch GCal and copy ICAL URLs. Just supply gSyncit with your GCal username and password, then it gives you a list of Google Calendars to sync with.
You can sync both ways, too… from GCal to Outlook, and vice-versa. I am currently only syncing one-way (from GCal to Outlook) so I can’t comment on how well it works the other way.
After configuring gSyncit and clicking the Sync button on my Outlook toolbar, I was able to sync my iPhone through iTunes with ease. Now all my Google appointments are on my iPhone!
…now if I could just figure out a way to get the Chargers to beat the Patriots…
Hey kids look it’s time to eat Mickey Mouse
We’re going to a friend’s house this evening to celebrate their son’s 2nd birthday (Luke). Luke loves Mickey Mouse, so my lovely wife got a cake pan and went to town. Several hours later… BAM! Instant Mickey eatable… she’s a pro!
Apple OK with iPhone hacking
Interesting stuff:
“In an interview given to Gearlog, Apple VP of Hardware Product Marketing Greg Joswiak confirmed that the iPhone and iPod Touch run the same software, and said that Apple is not bothered by the flood of native, third party software for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Joswiak defined the Apple stance as neutral, and while they will not intentionally break the apps with firmware updates, they will not go out of their way to prevent updates from breaking apps either. So iPhone coders, rejoice, you’ll live to hack another day.” – Gizmodo
iChris: How many iPods do you need?
Well, my new Nano arrived today directly from Shenzhen, China, a day early. I ordered it Sept 5th, the day Apple announced their new line-up of iPods. I’m glad I skipped the 2nd gen iPod Nano because it wasn’t much different than the first gen model. The 3rd gen model, however, is crazy different… shorter, wider, does video and games, and if you can believe this… it’s thinner than its predecessor.
Featured is my 8GB iPhone, 1 GB iPod Nano (1st gen), and 8GB iPod Nano (3rd gen).
Tether your iPhone
My Dad was asking me this morning if you can tether the iPhone yet. I said not yet, but I’m sure some developer will figure it out any day now. Looks like they already did!
Go to cre.ations.net for the instructions. AT&T’s EDGE network is tolerable on my iPhone… I can’t imagine it being tolerable tethered to my laptop, however. Still, if that’s the only way to get online then it’s better than nothing!
Adobe AIR
I’m glad to have a social network otherwise I’d miss out on some great tips. Adobe has published a new development environment for building desktop apps. In their words:
“Adobe AIR is a cross-operating system runtime that allows web application developers to use their existing web development skills (HTML, Javascript, Adobe Flash®, Adobe Flex, Ajax) to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop.”
I used to build desktop apps through Visual Basic back in “the day” but since the web came out I have been developing 100% for the web… until recently when I had to build some cross-platform desktop widgets. For that I turned to the Yahoo! Widget Engine. But it is very limited.
Since AIR uses technologies I’m already developing in, this sounds very interesting. I can’t wait to have some time to learn more about this. It says that it’s cross-platform, but I wonder how cross-platform it is? Obviously Windows and Mac are supported, but what about Ubuntu? If all three are supported (Mac, Windows, Linux), then I’m sold! It looks like, however, only Mac and Windows are supported by the look of their runtime download page.
I installed the Windows runtime, and it was a very fast download and super quick install. I then installed the snitter AIR app for Twitter and it works really well.
Thanks Chris Harrison for the tip!
Shuffleboard Sunset
I know it sounds a bit odd, but at Truckblog in the members only area we have monthly photo challenges. What does photography have to do with a pickup truck site? Nothing, really, except there’s a bunch of amateur photographers there that like to improve their skills through the photography forum and these challenges.
I entered this photo and it won the the latest challenge with 39% of the votes! The challenge was called “the waning sun” and the goal was to enter a photo captured during the setting sun.
The good thing about these challenges is that you can enter any photo of yours, even from the past. So that’s what I did… this was a shot I took from a Disney cruise down to Mexico in August 2005 at sunset.
Review: Web hosted cron job schedulers
I use DreamHost to host my blog and while it’s a great and fairly inexpensive service, there are some limitations. One is that you cannot run cron jobs without a shell account, which I do not have. A cron job is a frequently executed task, mainly used for running scripts on a frequent basis for website maintenance. While I already do this on my Windows server and I could use it for my needs here at chrisTHIS.com, I wanted to see if there was another way to schedule a cron job for the average Joe Blogger.
I set out looking for web-based cron services and found a few. Here are my reviews of each. None of these are affiliate links, nor am I associated with any of these services. I am providing my honest personal opinions. If you know of more, please let me know!
Giving Microsoft The Bird
I used to be the biggest evangelist of Microsoft. All other software was inferior. I’m sure that had something to do with my history in Redmond. Slowly over the years I’ve seen the light. A few months ago, after much frustrations with IE7 I made FireFox my default browser. I’m so happy I did, too. And today I gave Microsoft “the bird” by switching to Mozilla Thunderbird.
I have been a huge Outlook user since the early days of Outlook Express. I’ve stuck with it because there really wasn’t anything better out there. Lately I’ve been getting a lot of advice from friends & family to check out Thunderbird. After upgrading to the latest version of Outlook and having major performance issues with it (plus the UI overhaul made me sick), I got fed up after a week or so. Today was the worst, so I installed Thunderbird, imported all my Outlook contacts and email, set up my five mail accounts, then added a ton of extensions to make Thunderbird rock like Outlook always wanted to.
The most immediate thing I’ve noticed is speed. It loads immediately, and responds immediately. And that is with all of my Outlook data in-tact! After I migrated my data I went to town with the extensions. I’ve listed them all below, as I found some really cool ones. My favorites are the Lightning/GCal add-on and the QuickFolders. My only loss was Exchange support for work. Not a huge deal, as it isn’t a requirement to use Exchange, and the POP/SMTP support works just fine.
I did also try out the Outlook theme, which makes Thunderbird look very much like the previous version of Outlook. In the end, I decided to stick with the Thunderbird theme out of respect for the bird.
More »
Every kid should have an Apple IIc
Now here’s blast from the past! I was going through some of my old website files from the early 90′s looking for something specific (I can’t even recall what it was I was looking for now…) and found some Apple IIc print ads from my old Apple II+ fan site:
According to this Apple Computer, Inc. print advertisement (circa 1985), every kid should have an Apple IIc after school. I never had the IIc, but I did have the Apple II+ (I still want to type as “][+”). Maybe that’s why I didn’t turn out quite right.
I ran my first “website” on my Apple II+ which back in the day was called a BBS and I was the SySop (LOL). I ran it on one dial-up 300bps line with an AppleCat modem and four full-height 5-1/4″ floppy drives. I programmed the BBS using Apple Basic. Good Lord, those were the dark ages of personal computing, but I loved every minute of it. Now if I can just find that old photo of me in my Adidas cut-off t-shirt holding my Apple II+ with the cover off, oh that would just be real special. I think all that was missing was a propeller cap.
Well, enough of my geeky childhood… read the text of this ad for a good laugh. Click the image to view it full size and look below for two more print ads.
Review: Logitech MX Air Mouse
Amazon started shipping “exclusively” the new Logitech MX Air mouse last month and of course I had to check it out. Here’s my review of this new toy:
First and foremost: don’t read any review from someone that just got this mouse or has used it for only a day. If I had written such a review it would have been a 5/5 star glowing review.
It’s total desktop eye candy… a sexy input device with revolutionary features. I decided to give it at least a week of use before writing my review. I’m glad I did.
Championship Off Road Racing (CORR)
I love having this new blog… I can post about anything now which is great! Since I didn’t have this set up a few months ago, I thought I’d post it now before I forgot again.
I love trucks and off-roading. While I don’t currently have a truck, my last two vehicles were Ford trucks. I had a 2000 F-150 SuperCab and then a 2001 F-250 Super Duty CrewCab V10! I got rid of my last truck due to the high cost of gas and it carried some baggage (long story) that I wanted to unload. I now drive a 2006 Chrysler 300C (yes, it gotta HEMI) but I really want to build up a truck again.
To satisfy my truck obsession, as part of my side business, X7 Media, we cover the CORR events when they are in town (Chula Vista International Raceway). CORR stands for Championship Off Road Racing, which is basically an off-road race event on a closed course. You know those crazy off-road machines they race down in Baja that have over 900 HP? Yeah, it’s those puppies… and they haul ass around a closed course, bash into each other and get airborne with crazy jumps. It’s so much fun to watch. Having media credentials, I get to go down to the track and be in the middle of it. By that I mean I get to be on the track itself… standing within feet of these machines. Don’t worry, Mom, it’s safe… they have specific (safe) zones for press.
Last year (2006) we (Frozone and I) covered two events. There are two this year, and the last event was June 9. Frozone did the video while I covered the still photography side of things. This is by far the best video he has cranked out for us. I did the titling and animation while he did everything else…
Another event is coming up at the end of this month and we can’t wait to do it all again!
12 mints leaves (the ultimate mojito recipe)
With my sister & family in town for the past week (they left on Wed) I gave another attempt at making mojitos which have been my favorite drink for the past year or so (sorry Jack & Coke!) Last time we tried, it just didn’t work out and we moved on to lemon drops or something. I gave it another shot and nailed it! Here’s the deal…
I found some great mojito recipes online but what really did the trick was this Bacardi Mojito video. I love Christian Delpech’s “mints leaves” reference:
Batala De Los Tambras
If you like drums and rock music, then check out this drum battle called “Batala De Los Tambras” between Sully and Shannon from Godsmack. It’s amazing on so many levels. These guys have some serious stamina! Frozone, thanks for the link!
WordPress mods
I spent the evening “pimping out” my WordPress blog scripts a bit more. I found a cool Flickr badge replacement that is not Flash (shown to the right), added in a plug-in to easily add videos to my blogs, added in my Nike+ run widget, Twitter summary, and perhaps the coolest thing ever: the ability to blog by email/phone with photos.
I first tried the Flickr WordPress integration, but it didn’t work well at all. It did post a blog, but it completely ignored my text and for some reason ended up making 3 posts instead of 1! Weird! I ended up going with a WordPress script called Postie that does the job, and does it extremely well. The only problem I ran into was I don’t have access to cron with my current Unix host, so I found a web-based cron service that was easy to set up and works great.
This means that not only can I now send messages to Twitter using SMS on my iPhone, but now I can also snap a photo and email it to my blog, along with a headline (email subject) and a description (email body). Now that is some cool stuff.
