Whoops! I Deleted My Documents Folder from My Dock!

Today, I decided to back up my documents folder (which resides on my dock across the bottom) to an external hard drive.  I thought that I could merely drag it to the external hard drive.

In the process of doing this drag, I dropped it on my desktop and Poof!, it was gone.  So I decided the logical thing to do was to drag the documents folder from the left-side of my finder window to the dock to replace the one that I had deleted accidentally.

Alas, this all lead to panic, as I saw that the icon that appeared on my dock was not the nice folder that had once resided on my dock.  In my frustration, I proceeded to perform numerous steps to recreate that folder called Documents on my desktop.  I created a new folder, then dragged the contents from the finder to that new folder, but  I forgot to hold down the option key so that it would just make a copy of the stuff, but instead it moved it.  Wow.  I noticed that my original Documents folder was now empty.  Eek!

More panic as I thought that I had lost everything.

To make a long story short, here is what you do when you accidentally remove your documents folder from your dock.  (Poof!):

Drag your documents folder from the left-side of your finder to the dock, it will be added to the dock.  This is an alias and no files are physically copied.  Now control-click the documents icon on the doc to select the view you want "Folder" and the option to Epand/Fan or Automatic view contents in folder when clicked.

Whew! I need to take a break from this before I truly do loose my stuff! Tweet

Using blogger app on my iPad

This is a test of the iPhone app called blogger to post to my blog.

This is a photo. In settings be sure to set the size of images you wish to post to meet your column widths correctly.

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Yes, Custom Text Tones for Individuals Using iOS 5

 iOS 5 has allowed us to select a different text tone for each of our contacts from a list of default tones for use when they message us.  But as it always happens, users always want MORE than what is offered.

Since I had already had custom ringtones set up on my iPhone, it was no problem selecting one of these custom tones for the text tone.  If you haven't tried setting tones on your iPhone for your family and friends, that is accomplished by going into your Contacts app (Addressbook) and selecting Edit.  If you scroll down the items in the edit field, you should come across the field where you select a Text Tone.  If you have installed some custom ringtones, they should appear in the list along with the default text tones that Apple offers.   Select which one you wish to use as that special text tone and be sure to click the Save and Done buttons to preserve your choices.

I did not see these same custom ringtones on my iPad.  I remembered that there was no real reason to add custom ringtones on my iPad 2 originally as I did not have "phone" capability and there was not an option to set different tones or such.

So I just selected some of my custom ringtones in iTunes and synced to my iPad 2.  These now show up as options for Text Tones under the Contacts on my iPad.  So now I have some pretty funky text tones for incoming messages on my iPad.  I also read online that some suggest that these tones need to be 15 seconds or less.  Guess it might be annoying to have a long ringtone.  Or it might be that anything longer than 15 seconds might not work.  I haven't tested that theory yet.

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Some Great New Features in iOS 5 - be sure to check them out

Here are some features worth checking out on your mobile devices using iOS 5:

•  Creating albums and moving photos into albums

•  Video formats that are now supported on the device

•  Setting individual text tones for your family and friends

•  Setting up iMessage to use for FREE texting to fellow iphone/ipad users

•  Setting up special vibration tones for you iPhone

•  Enhancing photos right in the Photos app: also rotate, crop and red-eye elimination

•  New app for reminders tat can be synced across devices.  Reminders can send alert when you are near a location. 

•  Accessing magazines on a newstand shelf.

•  Tabs in Safari on your iPad devices

•  Set up custom gestures and keyboard shortcuts

•  New search features in Mail app

•  New Reader in Safari to bookmark and read articles later.

•   Use your volume button as a shutter button for your camera.  Access camera from the lock home page.

•  Swipe to view all your notifications and alerts and text messages and email subject titles from one central location.  On iPhone also see stock and weather in this notification window.

• More gestures, wifi sync, pc free, icloud capable photo streaming, find your friends, airplay ....

•  and text style like bold, underline, italic and suggestion for spelling in Mail app Tweet

iOS 5 Tip: Don't Overlook the New Alert Sounds

The new iOS 5 for our mobile devices now includes the ability to set special sounds or tones for your alerts.   Check out the Settings > General> Sounds> now available to customize.

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iOS 5 Tip: Create Your Own Gestures on Mobile Devices

For those who want to get creative with gestures they use on their iPad or iPhone, try selecting the Settings> General>Accessibility> Assistive Touch> Custom Gestures > Create New Gesture.

Your new gestures are recorded and accessed through a Favorites Menu. Tweet

iOS 5 Tip: Creating Your Own Keyboard Shortcut on iPhone, iPad

You can create your own keyboard shortcuts by going to the Settings on your iPhone or iPad that has been updated to iOS 5.

Select the Add Shortcut, enter some keys and the corresponding message or phrase that will replace that text shortcut when you type a message or note.

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Making An Album and Adding to Existing Album with iOS 5 Devices

With the new iOS 5 for iPhone and iPad devices, comes some pretty cool features for photos.  We've all wanted to be able to make albums on our iPhones and iPads and now we can do so.

Select the photo app icon on your device which brings up your camera roll of photos.  Select the curved/share icon on the right side upper bar and then select the photos you wish to put in a new album or to put in an existing album.

If you select the option to create a new album, you will enter the name for that album and those photos will be organized in that new album.   You, will also be given an option to put photos in an existing album and you merely select the name of the album where you place these photos.

Also with the iCloud option implemented your photos will be 'streamed' to the cloud and all your devices for seamless backup and access.  I haven't impemented the iCloud as yet.    If you connect your camera to your device via a camera connection kit, the photos will be automatically handled by the cloud if that option has been selected.

All of this seems to be pretty confusing at first, but Apple has some support documents or how-to's posted for situations that might arise.  Check here for How to Reset Your Photostream and How to Remove photos from devices, Macs and PCs. Tweet

Where do my devices live?

When I turn on my MacBook Air occasionally it comes up with the message that it's IP address is being used by another device or something to that effect.  Thought I could check the IP address for all the devices around here and see if there is a conflict.

 It was necessary to look up the IP Address for all my mobile devices, computers and gadgets, as well as the ones my husband has.  Now, that is a lot of IP Addresses.

How to Find IP Address for future reference 

To find the IP address for your computer, select System Preferences, Network.  Select the Wi-Fi Connected on the left hand side and you should see the IP address listed in the first section under the words Status: Connected.

To find the IP address for your mobile devices, select the Settings icon and then click the blue arrow next to the Network name the device is connected to and you will see the IP address listed under DHCP tab.

To find the IP Address for the Airport Express and Airport Extreme devices, run Airport Utility from your computer and then on the left hand side, select or highlight each of the devices one at a time and then on the right hand side you will see the name of the device, the IP Address, version and Airport ID.
 

For most users that is probably the extent of their devices.  But we have others around here including our Disklavier Piano which connects to iPhone/iPad apps, our computers and to its own remote device.  We also have some cameras that we have been testing.

To find the IP Address for the piano, run DKVBrowser and the IP address will appear on the opening screen as you connect.  If you are already connected and running the piano, you can find the IP address under  the DKVBrowser menu> Preferences.

 To find the IP Address of the IZON cameras, click on the blue arrow next to the camera icon in the camera screen, which will bring up the IZON Settings page for that camera, scroll to the bottom of the screen to the Advanced Section and click the arrow next to the Configuration Data.  The IP address for that device (icon camera) will be listed next to IP address.

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