Yearly Archives: 2011

iPhone Backup 101

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iphone-water-260x225Rarely a week goes by without one of my friends losing contacts or photos due to a lost or malfunctioning iPhone so welcome to iPhone Backup 101.

I’m a mobile warrior and the father of an 8 month old daughter so my iPhone data is literally priceless. I don’t take chances. You could take my phone and toss it into the river right now and I wouldn’t lose a thing.

Would you like that peace of mind?

Here’s how I backup up everything.

Backup Contacts and Calendar

The key to preserving this critical info is having a copy of your calendar and contacts in the cloud that the iPhone syncs automatically.

The best way I’ve found is synching my Gmail account.

  1. Open Settings, go to “Mail, Contacts, Calendars”
  2. Add accounts, select Microsoft Exchange
  3. Enter your gmail address in the email & username field, then your password
  4. When the certificate verification dialog pops up click cancel and enter m.google.com as the server name.
  5. Select all 3 services to sync, Mail, Contacts, Calendars

Google has detailed instructions and screenshots if you need more help. Note that Exchange only allows one calendar sync so if you use multiple google calendars in follow these instructions. Oh and here are the instructions for yahoo.

Photos

My wife and I have taken just shy of 1000 photos since on our iPhones since my baby girl arrived last Aug. These are solitary moments and that photo is a treasure to us. Here’s how I make sure I don’t lose it.

  1. To the Cloud: PixelPipe – This is a brilliant app that allows you to upload photos to a variety of services. My 2 defaults are flickr and dropbox. I don’t wait untill I get home and sync I upload the photos within minutes of taking them. *Tip – Set up your “pipes” to services at Pixelpipe.com, it’s fast and easy.
  2. To the Computer: Picasa – Google’s excellent photo manager is the perfect way to import photos from the iPhone via USB. It detects which photos I’ve already copied so I know exactly where to begin and it shows me previews so I can choose only the ones I want.

Videos

  1. To the Cloud: Setup a YouTube account and it’s one click to upload the video.
  2. To the Computer: See Picasa above, videos works the same way.

the Apple Way

Before my mac friends have a coronary… Yes, Apple offers a service to do this called MobileMe. It’s $99 a year. I’ve never used it and personally my data is already in Google.

Your turn

I’d love to hear how you backup your phone so share your solution below or if you have questions just leave them in the comments.

3 Tools for better Team Communication

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There are thousands of sites and apps promising to keep us connected but which ones actually get the job done? I don’t need 15 ways to communicate just a shortlist that keeps my group informed and on the move. Here are 3 that I couldn’t do without.team_communication_huddle

The Essentials

Skype

How many emails could you avoid if your team just had a quick group chat? Email is great for 1-on-1 communication but near intolerable for groups.

Get your colleagues on Skype and you have access to group IM, voice, and video chat. Setting your status lets others now if its okay to interrupt and you’ll be notified of conversations you missed. It’s 2011, skype is essential, get it.

Tungle

Need to set a meeting that agrees with multiple schedules? Try doing it without 15 emails. Tungle.me allows you to create public calendar that displays your free/busy time.

Have your team create their Tungle calendar and you’ll be amazed how easy it is to schedule your next meeting. Tungle syncs with everything so no duplicate work required.

GroupMe

This is a new breed of group communication mobile apps and it is by far the best. It works with any phone that can send text messages and can create a conference call with a click.

If your team is equipped w/ smartphones, download the android or iphone app to attach pictures, share your location, or receive messages via push notifications.

GroupMe has gone from being a curiosity to an essential conversation channel. It works so well I’m using it with neighbors to help keep people informed about severe weather. (Great for families as well)

Honorable Mentions

  • Posterous Groups – Possibly the best email list option on the planet. Quick setup and it archives all messages
  • Yammer – Think twitter for private teams

Your Turn

What tools do you use? Did I miss one?

Leave it in the comments, I’d love to take a look.

Reaction Time

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Our ability to use technology often outpaces our ability to do so wisely

As I watched the events of last night unfold on Twitter and Facebook I was struck how quickly the reactions turned into harsh criticism and verdicts. It was a reminder that we have a lot to learn about being human in this accelerated pace.

A few short years ago discussions of Bin Laden’s death would have been relegated to the barbershop and water cooler hours if not days after the event. The delay in that conversation allowed us time to feel a range of emotions and process the event internally and privately. In this connected age that blessed delay is obsolete.

The power of technology is a double-edged sword. On May 1, 2011 Twitter proved that it has become the greatest real-time news source the world has ever seen and possibly the last place you want to be once the news has broken.

We are too in love with our own voice and greatly enamored with our own opinion. Our instantaneous responses are visceral and without a sufficient amount of empathy. We are speaking before we think or have a moment to process what is happening. It’s a process that deserves introspection and doesn’t need live tweeting.

Far be it from me to suggest that Twitter isn’t a place for our opinions but perhaps in delicate situations it would be best left unsaid… at least for a few hours.

Next Time

Next time I will remember:

  • I am not always right.
  • I am not the judge of other’s actions.
  • I do not fully understand the enormity of any situation.

Next time I will:

  • Tweet & Retweet News
  • Share bits news and analysis I find interesting
  • Give myself and others the luxury of time to deal with a situation on their own terms.

Isn’t community about understanding that it isn’t always about me?

*Author’s Note: I took great care to use inclusive pronouns. We are all guilty to a degree. (self included)

4 Ways Consume Faster

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drag-racingThere is a ton of content these days and while I’ve been in the process of pruning my social streams I’m also reexamining how I consume content.

I want to find what is important with the fewest distractions –

Here is how I manage:

  • Read Faster: Use RSS – Use a feed reader to subscribe to blogs. If you aren’t familiar with RSS you should be. Start here. Use Google Reader and collapse the posts to headlines only, you can skim 15-20 posts at a time. (A reminder how important headlines are).
  • Let Others Read for You – Find people that curate content and follow them. I put them in a twitter list or follow their shared items in Google Reader
  • Read without distractions – Ads and other junk slow you down so if you are going to read more than 10 words on a page use this Readability Bookmarklet
  • Read it later – Get an instapaper account (free) and use it to bookmark links to read when you have more time.

That’s it.

Reduce the Noise in Twitter

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Yesterday I helped clean up your Facebook feed by unliking multiple pages so I todays tip is reduce noise in Twitter.

earplugsTired of seeing foursquare check-ins or soundtracking posts? You don’t want to unfollow your friends but you aren’t interested in seeing these tweets. There has to be a middle ground solution.

There is. It is a little known feature in Tweetdeck that can radically improve your signal-to-noise ratio.

Tweetdeck Global filter to the rescue

Filter by Source Client

Assuming you’re using the desktop Twitter client Tweetdeck (you should its amazing.)

  1. Click the wrench icon in the top right corner to open Tweetdeck settings
  2. Click “Global Filter” in the left menu, and you’ll find a screen called “Filter Updates

filter2

Every tweet lists its a source client, e.g., web, twitter for iphone, tweetdeck, and you can use these sources to filter them out of your stream.

To find the source of the tweets you want to filter look at the bottom of a tweet, it’s listed behind the word via in the metadata line (see figure below). Add this to “From Sources:” field and use commas to separate multiple sources.

filter3

I’m not the judge of what is noise but my personal list of sources I filter:

runkeeper, paper.li, itunes ping, getglue, nike, miso, soundtracking, tweet old post, empire avenue

Takeaway

Tweetdeck Global Filter allows you to fine tune Twitter to your interests and isn’t that the point?

Other ways to use the Global Filter

  • DVR proof your stream – Hide spoilers by filtering tweets that contain the shows name or hashtag.
  • Mute a friend – Add their name/ID in the “from people” field to hide their updates for a while.

Hat tip to @scepticgeek for highlighting this feature last year.

Unlike Multiple Facebook Pages

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I like Facebook but it’s easy for your feed to get cluttered by liking too many Facebook Pages. Sure at the time you thought it was a good idea to like “Pray for Big Bird” or “Kerri’s Colon” but after a couple of years it’s time for a page purge.

Unfortunately Facebook doesn’t make it real easy to unlike multiple pages with ease and after weeks of looking for a good method I finally found the answer.

Update: I’ve simplified the instructions. Just visit https://www.facebook.com/editprofile.php?sk=activities then click “Other Pages I Like”

Here’s the easiest way to unlike multiple Facebook Pages:Facebook_Dislike_Button

  1. Click “Edit Profile”
  2. Select “Activities and Interests”
  3. Click “Show Other Pages”
  4. Remove pages to your hearts content.

Screenshots of the process

unlike1

unlike3

unlike4

I may be the only one that hasn’t found this tip already but I wanted to share it just in case.

The RT problem

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I really like the new style retweet and  use it often to forward well-crafted tweets but I’ve become more bothered of late that “New RT”  doesn’t show up in Twitter lists.

Many power users rely heavily on twitter lists and its important that everyone can see a RT.

The Good (New RT)

  • Tweets with several of new RTs float to the top of searches.
  • Tweets show avatars of the people that retweeted it via the new style
  • Easy to use and eliminates confusion of what the original tweet said.

The Bad (New RT)

  • They don’t show in Twitter lists
  • They don’t show up as mentions so most people aren’t you retweeted them

The Ugly (Old RT)

Old style retweets can lead to messy tweets & confusion

Should I abandon the new style? Which do you prefer and why?

UPDATE:

I asked for feedback and it seems everyone is leaning toward the old style RT.


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GeoSocial Finally Discovers Events

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46664776_84705ef393

It seems that Foursquare and Facebook have gotten the memo that not everything is a place or venue. Events have been the mostly forgotten element to GeoSocial services and it has the potential to be one of its biggest benefits.

Whether it’s a conference or concert people are much more likely to check-in, interact, and discover places and people when they are at an event but beyond this the opportunity for event organizers to plan and engage attendees through location based social networks is tremendous.

Let’s Review

Next up..

These are all steps in the right directions but it still leaves us lacking a few needed features.

  1. Eventbrite Integration – I think this is the killer feature for Foursquare or Gowalla is to allow people to check-in to an event organized through Eventbrite.
  2. Organizer Tools – Allow us to create an event prior to it happening and roll out business dashboard tools for organizers to add tips and info and schedule when it goes live.
  3. Engagement Tools – Let the organization that claims the event tie into it and interact with attendees as well as get check-in analytics.

I’m certainly not the first to have these ideas and I’m sure these services are already working toward these goals but the service that gets there first will get some serious attention from bloggers and business alike.

PS: Kudos to Gowalla for doing this a year ago and while I give 4sq a hard time about the global venue I really like their emphasis on exploring and their latest updates. Good stuff.