In truth, I get it. The idea is so simple: click a button, pay $100 for a year and receive your push mail, contacts, calendar, storage for your photos and files, plus a “find my iphone” application all in one handy interface to your computer. However, it forever irks me when I’m told about these services as if they are the only game in town. I mentioned my doubt to the Mac Store genius a few days ago and was told “yes but MobileMe is seemless and far less complicated”…

That sounded like a challenge to me, so I wrote out my alternative to MobileMe system.  I thought it would take longer, but it’s actually quite simple.  Here are my choices:

Push Gmail, Calendar, Contacts

Comes straight from Google for free (Mail was included back in September 2009) and here are the steps to set it up.  When you make a change to your email, calendar of contacts, the change appears almost instantly on your iPhone or iPod touch.

Photos

If you’re using Gmail, you have a Google Account. This means you have a Picasa account, even if you haven’t activated it. Just head over to picasaweb.google.com. Your storage is shared with your email (most people have about 7GB). If you need more space, it’s available for a reasonable rate (see my picasa post for more details).

Storage (iDisk)

Dropbox is a service I’ve talked about before.  It’s easy to use and it integrates with both Windows and Mac.

See the little icon with the box and the check?  i got that to replace the default MobileMe icon on my Mac with several hours of coding…  HA! Just kidding.  It was as simple as dragging the old icon off the tool bar and installing Dropbox (10 seconds).  I would love a free Mac product to store my stuff, but using Dropbox is a breeze and it’s free.

Find My iPhone

Finally a service that doesn’t have a free alternative.  You setup your MobileMe on your iPhone and the service will help you find it if you misplace it or someone steals it.  I won’t downplay how great this service is, but if it’s the only part of the MobileMe family that you can’t get for free… is it worth paying $100?  There is a similar product on the app store right now (who knows for how long) that’s called “Find my phone” which does exactly the same thing (as far as I can tell) for only $0.99.

The moral of the story

I’m not trying to be a jerk.  My new Mac has made me very, very happy.  Moreover, I’m perpetually enthused about Apple products.  My only complaint is that MobileMe is $100.  It should be free or at the very least, uber-cheap.  If that were the case, I’d convert over from my google alternatives in a heartbeat.

In short, don’t believe all the hype quite yet.  If someone is asking you to pay $100, it should probably be for something entirely unique.

Enjoy!

~ab

In a discussion about possible posts with some colleagues, I realized that there were subjects that you might want to know that I either don’t want to or simply shouldn’t write about.  I say shouldn’t because it’s not an area of expertise or more realistically – someone has already written about it better than I ever could. This post will be a mishmash of links to sites that do what I don’t.  Hopefully, it will provide useful reading.

“Why don’t you write review’s on iPhone/iPod touch apps?”

I’d love to but I’m neither qualified nor quick enough to write useful reviews.  I recommend two simple strategies for keeping up with the fast moving app market.

1. Bookmark this link.  I know it sounds silly but keeping a Google search of “best iPhone apps” will give you a simple starting point for iPhone and iPod touch updates.  As an example, I’m writing this on 1/31/2010 and the results I found were:

   1. Top iPhone Applications – TIME

   2. The 35 Best iPhone Apps Of The Year (So Far)

   3. The Best iPhone Apps

2. Check the following sites periodically:
   1. AppVee – simple reviews on nearly every app I’ve every looked for…
   2. FreshApps – a neat  site where apps are ranked based on “freshness”…
   3. AppCraver – similar to AppVee.
   4. Apptism – another in the same vein (there are thousands of sites like this).  I really just liked the name.

“Why don’t you write about the iPad?”

Ugh.  I don’t have anything against the iPad, but isn’t there enough hype without my rather weak thoughts?  If you are interested, each of the following sites has provided full coverage…

1. lifehacker – more than a few articles on the subject
2. techcrunch – a slightly techie bent
3. Ars Technica – if you want the detailed analysis from all geeky perspectives (I couldn’t find a tag for iPad on this one, but there are plenty of articles).

“Why don’t you do more male modeling?”

Just kidding.

Anyway – this type of post might start to be a recurring segment on just an asterisk.  Keep the questions coming – I’ll try to help in whatever way I can.

~ab

Step 1: Gather your supplies

It’s probably not a surprise that you’re going to need to do a little legwork.  Your wireless network is putting itself out there.  Buy it dinner and get to know it.  Here are the tools you’ll need:

1. A pen and paper.  Fancy pants McGee might not be impressed, but you’re not reconfiguring a satellite here.
2. An approximate diagram (not a Picasso) of your apartment/house by floor. I say by floor because most people don’t draw well in 2 dimensions, let alone 3… Here is mine (ignore the numbers for now):
   
3. Finally, you’ll need something to measure wireless signal.  My favorite option is an Ipod Touch, but you could use a laptop.  These measurements will be as precise as your instruments, so if you’re basing everything on the little icon, be flexible…  If you have an iPod Touch, check out the app WiFiFoFum.  You can use the RSSI value for data.

Step 2: Metric comes from the Greek for measure (metron) – soooo what you waiting for?

Once you have your supplies, take a walk around your abode and measure the results.  I would try to get two measurements per room. Find a spot, turn your laptop/iPod in the direction of your router (keeping your body out of the way) and wait for about 20-30 seconds.  Then write down what you get.  If you’re just using a laptop, the reading might be 1 bar, 2 bars, 3 bars etc.  If you’re using WiFiFoFum or something more fancy, you might get an RSSI reading like –50 or –11.  These readings are better when they’re closer to 0.

As you walk around writing down your measurements, be as thorough as possible.  You don’t need 1000 values, but then again, 5 is probably not all that useful.  I have the advantage of living in a tiny NYC apartment, but I still took 16 readings.  It didn’t take long and it was helpful in the next step.

When you’re done, you could just move on to the next step OR you can take a geeky detour and put it into excel (with another drawing of your home).  Excel has a sexy conditional formatting feature that will provide lovely depth to the image (my best signal is green, my worst is red).  This does not help with anything… at all.  It just looks nice.

Step 3:  Adapt!

Your goal was to improve your wireless in your home.  You now have a map of where wireless is good, and where it’s not.  I think it’s most likely that your home falls into 1 of 2 categories:

1. You have pretty good coverage with a few dead zones or low signal areas.

2. You have dead zones all over the place.

Let’s start with situation one.  If you (like me) just have a few areas farthest from your router with low signal, the first step should be to try adjusting your equipment.  Here is an example, just to show you how powerful this can be.  I am sitting in the same room as my wireless router.  I get “excellent” signal.  Using a roll of tin foil, I encased my router in layers, one at a time, and measured the change.  Here are the results:

As you can see from the graph, my signal was effectively cut in half just by adding a layer of tin foil… 1 layer!  Now think about what is probably in your wall.  Anything metal will have a similar effect.  Therefore, the first step to WIFI nirvana is to minimize the metal between the point you want to improve and your router.

Remember that this works both ways.  Metal reflects signal, but you can use this to your advantage.  For example, if you could use superman x-ray vision and see from my router to the computer in the kitchen, you would pass through two layers of bathroom tile, a tub, and a ton of metal pipes.  It’s no surprise that the signal, when it reaches its destination is … crappy.  However, this doesn’t mean I’m out of luck.  I built this rather silly looking parabolic antenna out of my lucky roll of tin foil and some tape.  I put it on the far side of my computer and suddenly “no signal” became “very weak”.  I can work with that, problem solved.

The above technique can be thought of as reducing interference or maximizing signal.  However, if you have dead zones all over your home, the situation becomes a bit more complicated.  You can’t just move stuff around or create reflective surfaces.  WiFi typically has a range of about 100 feet, a value that is seriously diminished when you add barriers.  If you want to cover more than an apartment sized space, consider these options:

• A repeater is a device that allows you to grab a weak signal and give it a boost, passing it even further than it’s normal range.  If I’m standing one room shouting “JAA rocks”, my wife might (but probably wouldn’t) act as a repeater, yelling JAA rocks so the neighbors can hear the good news.  These are affordable and available online from many retailers.
• Another option, if you have two connections to the internet, would be to install another router.  You would then have wireless network A and wireless network B (or if you are really slick you could try to make wireless network A extend across both routers).  This approach is not for the faint of heart – you’ll need to do some research.

Whichever option you chose, the solution will involve increasing the size of your network with hardware.  Maybe one day we’ll try to cover it here, but in the meantime, if you are embarking on a project, shoot me an email at ab@justanasterisk.com if you have any questions.

Good luck making your network into a kingdom.  While you’re at it don’t forget to put in some security!!!  There’s no reason to share your hard work with freeloaders.  I’ll write about that soon.

~ab

There is a purity to the idea of music as the primary goal for the iPod (the phrase “it used to be about the music” always reminds me of Almost Famous and this scene above).  I’ve written about the feature craziness of the iPhone (here), but recently got an iPod Touch for Xmas, so I thought I would try an experiment.  You see, the iPod touch really has only two features – it plays music and video, like any iPod these days, AND it has a WiFi connection, a feature that leads to all sorts of mischief.  I wondered what I could get up to with only the WiFi connection.  Would the device still be useful if it were not about the music at all?

The results were entertaining.  I spent my vacation downloading apps and trying to get as much mileage out of the Touch as I could.  In fact, I’ll give you a preview of the ending: it was a lot of fun.  Let the games begin…

I started my trip to Milan for Xmas with Tripit, a program I’ve used before (but never on the Touch).  I synced my travel plans (with confirmation numbers and quotes), allowing me to tell the rather snotty Italian Avis rental guy that no, it was no ok if the price was 50 Euros more than the quote and yes I do have proof. In Italian this exchange was the rental guy saying  “e normale…” (shrug) and me responding: “NO non e normale.”  (insert look that said “just because I’m foreign doesn’t make me an idiot”).

Once on the road, I could look at my world clocks to make sure that my time zones were in sync.  This isn’t technically a new feature (it’s on the iPod Classic) but I found it very useful.

While in the air, I had read through one of  my kindle books (no not the complete works of Shakespeare – it just makes a nice picture).  It was great to do the same tricks that I do on my kindle:  taking notes, highlighting passages and adding bookmarks.  I also like having access to all my books, with the ability to download the books that I make have deleted or recently purchased using WiFi.  If the screen were 1 inch bigger, this app alone would be a selling point (if you don’t already have a kindle).

At road stops, a quick glance at Google earth provided a bit of entertainment, as I pinpointed my location and explored local attractions.  In the end, I used it for almost the same purpose as Google Maps (also included on the Touch), but I found the controls much more fun…  Turn by turn directions are available from other apps and as there is no GPS on the touch, it’s tough to get more mileage out of mapping features.

Once at my destination, I managed to tune my guitar (picture on the left) and then call ANYONE in my address book for free with Skype (picture on right).

Skype is such a useful app on the Touch that I’d almost buy one if it were a one trick pony.  The ability to call anywhere from any WiFi network saves oodles of dough and somehow, almost magically, the call quality is better than when I call from my laptop.  All you need to make this work is a headset with a microphone built-in – conveniently the same as my old blackberry headset…

Once I had arrived at my destination, there was nothing else to do but enjoy the vacation.  I wrote blog posts using Evernote, my favorite online note taking application.  You can write notes, add pictures, and then sync it all up to the cloud for safe keeping.  I will say that the built-in camera of the iPhone does add to the power of having applications like Evernote, as you can upload shots documents like business cards and such (which Evernote can scan for text and process for you).   However, I enjoyed typing away while in the kitchen with my grandparents.  It was convenient and much more subtle than opening a full laptop.

I won’t go into the details of the rest of my trip, but suffice to say, it was with family so the lively conversation sparked a few ideas which I captured with Remember the Milk (on left), probably the best task application out there (which I wrote about here).  I also had to do some grocery shopping, for which I found the lovely app ShopShop (right).

Also, family conversations inevitably end up in small arguments about relatively insignificant facts.  Wolfram-Alpha to the rescue!  This handy (although expensive) app connects to the full Wolfram-Alpha website (which I wrote about here) and allows you to type natural language queries such as NYC vs Milan (8.364 million people vs 1.298 million people) or my age in days (10061 days).  I find the math functions most impressive in this app (integrals and derivatives computed in seconds), but access to swaths of useless information is an agreeable plus!

For those of you who haven’t had a Panettone, your lives are incomplete.  That said, a quintuple bypass is probably not a life goal so perhaps a fitness app would be useful?  I’ll admit that I haven’t actually worked out per se with this sucker, but it looks great!  iFitness allows you to make up your own works outs from a large collection.  My new year resolutions will involve heavy use of this software – I’ll let you know how it turns out…

To close, I include the apps that are only for amusement.  Flixster allows you to update your NetFlix queue while doing heavy movie research complete with trailers and reviews.  You can also buy tickets and find theatres for new releases.  Also, I’ve included a screenshot of the games I’ve tried so far.  I think Collapse might be my kryptonite (perfectly good evenings gone forever trying to beat the floating bat creature who ruins this Tetris like game with gobs of ink).  Physics free is fun too – it’s not nearly as nerdy as it sounds.

Overall, the grand experiment was a success.  I managed to do many tasks on the one device and could have ignored the music function completely.  I recommend an iPod Touch to any traveler who wants a bit of fun on top of music player.  Let me know if you have any suggestions for me to try in the comments!

~ab