After failing on various tools to keep the necessary files synced over the different devices me and my family are using, I am nowadays the happy customer of AllWay Sync, which provides both automatic and manual sync opportunities, and powerful filters that are useful for e.g. excluding those thumbnails and other app or OS-dependent database files from the automated syncs. It also keeps nice log files so you can follow what is happening and where in your networks. Lately, I have noticed that video and photo files still figure in the logs in their usual style, but music folders only occasionally sync the album cover files (subject to updates in different music clients). This is due to the Spotify Premium account: there is no longer need to get CDs or do mp3 file downloads – pretty much all music I have time for is there, and then there are also all those (net) radios and podcasts. Times are a-changing..
Month: September 2010
iPad has been praised for its accessibil…
iPad has been praised for its accessibility, proven by even a toddler can immediatelly get it, and enjoy using it. The downside: if there are children in the house, it is not possible to use iPad for anything else. They will do anything to get their hands on it.
Typing Finnish in iPad
Finnish is one of the languages that are not happy with the basic, US centric ASCII character set: in order to make sense, we need also all those fancy umlauts, also known as “ääkköset”.
It is currently possible to get umlauts and accented characters by pressing and holding certain US keys in iPad, but typing anything but a single sentence that way is too much work. There is also a “Finnish Keyboard” app published for the device, but that has a non-standard keyboard layout and it does not integrate with the other apps, making it waste of money.
The system I have found to work best is to install and use iPhone rather than iPad apps for writing Finnish in iPad. For some reason the full Finnish keyboard emerges when you launch the iPhone app – probably the iOS of iPad has also the iPhone software libraries (necessary for running those iPhone apps in native mode), and the Scandinavian languages are supported in iPhone so – voilà – there you have the Finnish keyboard in iPad. It is a good idea to press that “2X” button at lower right corner to have more comfortable writing room. WriteRoom is currently my favourite app for those writing works; it is simple, focused on distraction-free typing and has sync to online service (at http://www.simpletext.ws) that does its job for importing text to PC.
According to tech news, iOS 4.2 should arrive in November and bring support to new languages, so supposedly true iPad text editors such as Pages will get their Finnish keyboard layouts later this year. Meanwhile, the iPhone app workaround appears to be the best solution I have found.
HDR in iOS 4.1 – yes or not?
There has been reports around that show how you can shoot HDR (High Dynamic Range) photos with iPhone that has been updated into iOS 4.1. What is weird, since I have the update and looking into the Setting > Photos, I cannot see that option. Yet, e.g. in this video it is there – getting curious… http://www.mobiiliblogi.com/2010/09/15/videolla-iphone-4n-uusi-hdr-kuvausominaisuus/
iPad wifi issues: to be fixed in iOS4?
I am having persistent, irritating problems with Wifi/WLAN of Apple products in our university wireless network. Both iPad and iPhone are having trouble to connect to our local base station (all other wifi-enabled devices work with it just fine, the signal is strong, etc.) Searching around, I can see others experiencing similar issues, plus troubles of their own, hoping Apple would issue a wifi driver firmware update. I am not totally sure about this, but I think my iPhone has been having much less wifi issues after the latest iOS update (4.1) — so maybe we just need to wait until iOS4 arrives to iPad, too, until the wifi gets fixed? Some links from here: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/05/apple-offers-possible-solutions-for-ipad-wi-fi-problems.ars?comments=1#comments-bar
Tieteen päivät 2011
Here is some advance information: I will be speaking together with Pauliina Raento and Tuukka Tammi about value and money in fantasy games in Tieteen päivät conference in Helsinki, 13th January 2011: http://www.pelisaatio.fi/ajankohtaista/61/
Bluetooth issues
My iPhone has been unable to connect with the Nokia noice-cancelling headphones (Nokia BTH-905) for some time now – I suspect it was around the time of upgrade to iOS 4.0 when the link broke down. Nowadays it cannot even recognise the headset any more. Bluetooth appears to be one of the least reliable connection technologies, at least to my experience. Well, iOS 4.1 is coming out in one week, bringing some bug fixes — putting my hopes in there, atm…
frans goes blog 