Gravitational Pull - Latest Comments

Re: Dreaded HP inkjet printer cartridge problem strikes

ampressman — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:57:45 -0000

I've never seen it since it snapped off. It's a part of the thingee that holds the cartridge, I think. The point is, once it's broken, they won't fix it.

Re: Dreaded HP inkjet printer cartridge problem strikes

pattypulv — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:48:37 -0000

Where is this "nub"? I am having the same problem with my 6980.

Thanks!

Re: Best way to sync Mac and Google contacts? There isn’t one

ampressman — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:04:28 -0000

My feelings exactly! Well said.

Re: Best way to sync Mac and Google contacts? There isn’t one

tamaracks — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:59:01 -0000

There were applications that let you dial Google Voice with the iPhone contacts, like GV Mobile. Unfortunately, Apple booted them all off the App store due to "duplicate functionality" or "replacing core iPhone functionality". Seems unlikely Apple is willing to improve the user experience any, sadly.

I wish it was easier to sync, because I've been using the Gmail web interface for e-mail, but Address Book to track people. I love the functionality of Address Book, like custom labels, but Google doesn't support that sort of thing, so it seems like any syncing software is going to have drawbacks.

Re: Best way to sync Mac and Google contacts? There isn’t one

twitter-14136768 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:21:24 -0000

SpanningSync doesn't work if you're syncing your google contacts to a blackberry, by the way. Well, it kinda does, but not really. There are black boxes in every contact and it removes the ability to search your address list. This is due to the way SpanningSync handles Google's lack of full fields.

The real solution for this problem is for Google to support First, Middle and Last name fields as well as Address Line 1, 2, City, State & Zip.

Re: Best way to sync Mac and Google contacts? There isn’t one

Scott Rose — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 02:01:25 -0000

Your problems are solved with Spanning Sync: www.spanningsync.com

Re: Best way to sync Mac and Google contacts? There isn’t one

Stephen — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:56:30 -0000

Actually, I sync between addressbook, my iphone and google contacts all the time, and it works flawlessly. But there are a few caveats. For example, Google only supports a certain set of fields. Custom labels on phone numbers will be ignored. And I used to have the duplication problem, but I solved it by starting with a clean slate:

1. make sure your apple addressbook has all contacts in it.
2. export from apple addressbook into a single vcard file (from the file menu
3. go to google contacts and DELETE all contacts.
4. import the vcard file into google. This is recreate all your groups and contacts perfectly.
5. NOW turn on syncing in the prefs of the addressbook program itself, NOT in itunes.

In addition, if you have an iphone like me, google will push contacts, mail and calendar to the phone and vice versa. I never have to plug in my phone any more except for music syncing. Everything else is over the air, free and flawless.

I detail this process on my blog here: http://satoristephen.com/2009/09/28/how-to-impr...

hope this helps. It really does work wonderfully for me.

Re: Best way to sync Mac and Google contacts? There isn’t one

danwarne — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:24:03 -0000

Agreed that Address Book is a trainwreck when it comes to Google syncing, but the third party app Syncman does an excellent job. http://wateree.net/syncman/

Re: Best way to sync Mac and Google contacts? There isn’t one

twitter-14136768 — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:16:02 -0000

VoiceMac is a Mac application that will use your address book to place Google Voice calls. You might want to try that for when you're at your desk.
And the GoogleSync over Exchange on the iPhone is a good way to bring your Google contacts to the iPhone. But if you don't have VoiceCentral or GV Mobile you can't really use those contacts to place a GV call. Try the 406 number trick.

Re: Best way to sync Mac and Google contacts? There isn’t one

ampressman — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 09:21:27 -0000

I have a Gmail account. How can I see my Gmail contacts' phone numbers on the iPhone?

Re: Best way to sync Mac and Google contacts? There isn’t one

abycats — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 02:04:05 -0000

The answer is simply to open a Gmail account to keep your contacts synched. There's a bit of clean-up to begin with but then it's simple. Twitter me at abycats if you want more info.

Re: Cleaning up the office for fall

joelexing — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 01:39:46 -0000

Make it a habit to regularly clean so as not to waste your most precious time if you are to have a general cleaning (which will consume too much time). Early morning routine: a time spent cleaning and you'll surely end-up with nothing to clean at all.

Re: Kindle reviews by folks who actually have seen one

milliebeloska — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:19:58 -0000

Ya wonder if Amazon’s worried about Google, as the news media has it, given what it’s like to read a book from the google project, or if maybe this new app is a how-you-doin’ to the new Sony wireless device we’re all anticipating any day now

Re: How much old software should you save? Me? Too much.

Trumenas — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:33:21 -0000

Oh, all software program disks and manuals I always collect. And now I have a huge collection of them despite of the fact that some of them are not working now. Well I like to compare old programs with news because I am very interested in computers, programs and other technologies. Your post was really interesting for me. Thanks for it and I will be waiting for other great ones from you!

Sincerely,

Tony Samson from software application development

Re: Mac users should stick with online backup Mozy

backupvault1 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:26:09 -0000

For online backup also consider http://www.backupvault.ie/.

Re: Mac users should stick with online backup Mozy

ampressman — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:49:03 -0000

Glenn Fleishman reviewed a whole bunch of the options for Macworld here:

http://www.macworld.com/article/142606/2009/09/...

Hope that helps.
-Aaron

Re: Mac users should stick with online backup Mozy

crowley37 — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:33:57 -0000

Even though I like the concept of mozy it NEVER truly worked for me. I am using a MAC with Bootcamp in a slow transition from Windows. Three times the backup do wnload has either bluescreened or disabled functionality - F keys, Sounds etc..

MY techs have advised me to cancel and find something else. Any advice. I have an external hard drive that I could back up to, but know of no similar software that backs up data the way mozy does. Suggestions?

Re: The messy, the missing and the mistakes: Adventures in iTunes Plus upgrading

ampressman — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 07:35:12 -0000

Yeah, I haven't read anywhere how the home sharing treats metadata.
But it sounds like it's for copying brand new songs, really, so it
probably either brings along nothing or whatever ratings etc existed
on the original track. I'd be surprised if it's more intelligent than
that.

Re: The messy, the missing and the mistakes: Adventures in iTunes Plus upgrading

murphy_mac — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 16:02:50 -0000

This is definitely a mess. On the computer where I did the download the new songs replaced the old and got the transferred meta-data.

But I have another machine with its own library. I don't know what I'm going to do about getting the songs over there, but I suspect it'll be messy and semi-manual. With no way to update the metadata.

It would be nice if the new sharing features in iTunes 9 dealt with this, but I haven't checked that yet.

Re: Dreaded HP inkjet printer cartridge problem strikes

EvelinaCrispin119 — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 13:33:14 -0000

Interesting post. I have stumbled and twittered this for my friends. Hope others find it as interesting as I did.
Social Media Marketing Package

Re: Verizon FIOS - wowie, wow, wow

hannahshaven — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 09:52:49 -0000

FiOS is rea invading the nation...I'm liking it...

Re: Apple still isn’t going to kill Amazon’s Kindle, or any other ereader

Andrys — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 22:18:40 -0000

I enjoyed this sense-ridden column and your style.

Even as a Kindle enthusiast though, I think there's a large market of people who would enjoy fewer books (than the avid readers who bought Kindles already) but want COLOR (as ever) and video on their devices, more general-purpose as Jobs said. That WOULD be his crowd.
I think he can't conceive of people who just like reading words in books. But he may be right there aren't THAT many though there are a lot more than he thought, apparently.

When my eyes are bleary from staring at this computer monitor emitting light into my eyes non-stop, making my vision a bit blurred (and I'm talking many hours), I find I can go to the Kindle and read it just fine - it's relaxing -because- it's not shining a light at my eyes.

STILL, if Apple came out with a tablet or iPad and it had magazine subscriptions and access to history/travel books with lots of color maps and photographs, I'd spring for one, unless it required a 2-yr++ subscription to Apple's wireless-provider partner to get a decent pricing on the device. I have no interest in a monthly data plan as part of an increased budget.

But others would be more likely to go for it even then. What's another $35/month to some?, which is the minimum that would be charged.

Keep it useable w/o a monthly wireless plan (we could download via our computers and transfer subscriptions, or via Home/Ofc WiFi) and priced decently, say, no higher than $600, and I would get one too.

I wouldn't use it for reading mere text, which I find really relaxing on my DX, but I'd love it for the items the Kindle cannot handle, and that includes books and magazines heavily illustrated, with color, etc.

His statements about general-purpose devices still means he may come out with something that some feel will 'kill' part of the market for the Kindle -- the part that doesn't want boring old e-Ink, so readable but so static and so inflexible when it comes to movement and color.

- Andrys
kindleworld.blogspot.com

Re: Apple still isn’t going to kill Amazon’s Kindle, or any other ereader

RexHammock — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 21:50:57 -0000

I was joking about the comic book (because you said "please don't bring it up"). I haven't even heard about it.

However, it will be interesting to see if the liner notes of the iTune "Albums" will be DRM'd -- and how.

Re: Apple still isn’t going to kill Amazon’s Kindle, or any other ereader

ampressman — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 18:55:12 -0000

Would you believe July 2006 is before my time? Well, before both the
Sony and Amazon readers, so before I was paying proper attention to
ebook world and, therefore, I must apologize and will add a time
qualifier to that sentence.

I can agree that Apple is dabbling in the realm of music-related
electronic comic books. But that's original content produced to go
with musical content, like liner notes with an album. Now I have to go
buy it and take a look. Is it DRMed? Is it a format that Stephen King
or Nora Roberts might use for their next best-seller? Pretty sure not.

Re: Apple still isn’t going to kill Amazon’s Kindle, or any other ereader

RexHammock — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:56:16 -0000

re: "In fact, the question has never been whether Apple would make a single-purpose, dedicated ereader device. The argument has always been over whether Apple would start selling ebooks on its own out of the iTunes Store, in its own proprietary format, as it does for music and movies."

Point 1. Dedicated reader:

Actually, in July, 2006, I did make an argument that Apple would *not* make a dedicated eBook reader in response to some posts that Apple had filed a patent to do just that: An Apple e-Book? I think not (What I meant was, "and Apple e-Book reader").

Point 2. iTunes store:

In June, 2006, I blogged about iTunes being used to distribute digital magazines (PDFs) when there were some announcements related to some titles trying that out.

Of course, since then, I've decided to outsource all of my opinions on these types of issues to you.

But what about that new music comic book in the iTunes store -- Doesn't that mean Apple’s getting into ebooks? I would think "most people" would argue that.