Daily Archives: August 14, 2012

Are you visiting small villages around the world and having fun letting the local kids play with your iPad (or iPhone)? This can be a lot of fun – for you as well as the kids. But it is all too easy for your hard-earned money to be accidentally spent via in-app purchases. Especially when the kids don’t know your native language to understand the notice that asks if they are sure they want to make the purchase. You can alleviate this concern by turning off in-app purchases. It is easy enough to turn the feature back on when you want to make a purchase. I just turned mine back on to buy Spanish lessons — and not bothering to turn the feature back off, I almost made an accidental purchase because my fingers were sweaty and I am tired. How to: Launch Settings and choose General, then select Restrictions. […]

Are you traveling with an iPhone? If so, make it as secure as possible. Those things, like all small electronics, can disappear in a moment — and I do mean moment, not minute. First, click this link to Apple’s tech note on how to secure your iPhone, called iOS: Understanding data protection. KnowledgeBase article HT4175. This way, at least if your iPhone disappears your data won’t be in other people’s hands. Also, make sure you turn on Find My iPhone – and KEEP IT ON! It does require Location Services so you might be tempted to turn it off. Don’t. Read the link I just gave you, then follow that article to Apple’s article called iCloud: Set up Find My iPhone. The direct link for US phones is this.

Recently, again needing to record a Computer Talk Radio segment, but not live with Ben as I typically do, I again searched for a recording app I could love. Apple’s Voice Memos app is unusable without a Mac or PC. Happily, I found Recorder Plus — and I love it. Now I can record, email a segment up to 7mb or use wi-fi to transfer larger segments to a Mac or PC and email it from there. So could I have a great mic again? Yes! I attached the Apple USB adapter in my iPad and connected my beloved Blue Mic Snowflake, a cardioid condenser mic. I fully expected the same old failure message that every USB device has disappointingly generated on the iPad — but this time I was thrilled to see that I could actually use the Snowflake on the iPad! (Recorder Plus simply saw and automatically used the […]