Editing Background for Twitter

Occasionally I like to change the background on my Twitter page.  I decided today to change the photo to a picture we took in Southern Idaho during Fall 2003 of the lovely display of 'fall colors' along the side of the road.

It is best to use a jpeg file format of less than 800K in size.  You may also use Gif or Png formats as well.  Select 'Settings' from your profile or home page. 

Next select, 'Design' from the menu options that appear along the Settings tab bar.

Select 'Change Background Image' below the standard themes. 

Then select from the window the option to 'Choose file',  select the jpg file that you wish to use from the selection window.  Make sure you also click on the 'Save' button.

A message sttating that your custom design has been saved should appear at the top of the browser window.   The photo should appear as a background.   I had a small amount of trouble having my selected photo appear and am not sure what the actual problem was.  I suspected the Twitter server was bogged down at the time I was loading in the photo.

I had tried using Firefox Browser and then decided to use Safari.  The problem persisted and I was not able to see the photo as a background.  I decided to try one last thing.  I went from my Twitter home page to the settings, selected design again and this time clicked on the blue background square and save changes button without reloading the photo and it appeared.  Not sure which or if anything I did caused the photo to appear as a background or if Twitter servers became agreeable to display the image with the passage of time. 

 

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How to Convert Docs to Read with Stanza on iPhone

Often I store documents on Google Docs that I share with family and friends.  These documents are often itineraries, maps, brochures or info on trips and countries that I visit.  Google Docs is a great place to share info with others, even allowing them to edit a shared document such as a spreadsheet, but these documents are often only available via wifi connection and can be expensive to access using 3GS/Edge or WIFI from my iPhone while traveling in foreign countries.

Today I was reading a forum post that suggested a program  Calibre eBook and conversion App for iPhone.   Calibre is  free, open source and cross-platform in design and works well on Linux, OS X and Windows  e-library solution.  It features library management, format conversion, news feeds to ebook conversion, as well as e-book reader sync features and an integrated e-book viewer.

Basically, one can take a pdf file and convert it to a epub format that Stanza (an ebook reader app ) can access on an iPhone.   I selected a pdf file of maps of Cabo that I downloaded from my Google Docs to my hard drive.   I ran the Calibre application from my Macintosh, and selected 'Add Books' from the upper left hand icon bar.   I then selected the pdf file from the selection popup window.

The pdf file then appeared listed in the lower window of Calibre.  I then selected the uploaded document and then selected 'Convert E-Book'.  I then saved it to disk in the userlibrary on my harddrive.

I then selected the 'Preferences' under the Calibre menubar.  From the left handside I selected 'Content Server' and then from the right handside of window, I selected 'Start Server'.   I also ran Stanza app on my iPhone and selected 'Share Books'.   Under the 'Shared Books', I saw the label for my books located on my Macintosh.   Selecting this revealed the options of selecting the books located in the folder on my Mac by either title, author, newest, tag or series. 

I selected the newly converted document and then opted to download to my iPhone.   This will allow me to have books stored on my iPhone to read during trips without having access to WIFI or Edge/3GS networks. Tweet

Back from Tahiti - Tips for Traveling with iPhone

I just returned from a two week cruise around French Polynesia. Basically it looks like paradise, colorful people, lovely scenery, and the bluest water in the world. In fact, it is probably one of the most beautiful places to visit, however, it is very HOT and HUMID. I found that it was amazing that I could sweat while walking in the rain. I would also say that it has some amazing snorkeling and diving opportunities around the lesser populated atolls. I even saw a shark!

I had the foresight to download some excellent podcasts to listen to in the cabin of the cruise ship (which does not have TV). My husband and I enjoyed listening to these podcasts from the iPhone and it was very much like having talk radio available to us.  One of the great things about traveling with an iPhone is that you can preload 'podcasts' from your favorite RSS subscriptions or online bloggers.

Originally I was a little frightened by the acronym 'RSS' ... imagining a great technological knowledge was needed to subscribe to a podcast. But, it sounds complicated and tricky, but actually pretty seamless to use if you are capturing the podcast in iTunes. Apple has made that category in iTunes fairly easy to setup. Normally, one would click on a subscription link or RSS feed link for audio podcast using a browser and these podcasts would appear within the podcast category of iTunes. ITunes also keeps track of the different podcasts that you subscribe to, in an organized manner with episodes, time, release date, description and artist ...  ITunes also uses an indicator (circle) to designate whether you have listened to a podcast in entirety or partially.

There are many interesting podcasts on the internet and also via the Apple iTunes store. Some popular ones might talk about technology, travel, or even be a course on learning languages. I find that downloading language podcasts to iTunes to use while traveling to foreign countries an excellent way to learn a few phrases for my trips.

Once the podcasts are located in iTunes, you can hook up your iPhone and use the 'Podcasts' tab to select podcasts to store on your iPhone. You can also selectively choose the number of episodes from a podcast or select only ones you wish to download to the iPhone. If you download these prior to arriving in a foreign country, you will have access to them from your iPhone while in 'Airplane Mode'. You will not need to download while on the trip and have WIFI connection.

 One other tip, when you are in another part of the world, it is easy to use the clock on the iPhone to set the correct 'world time zone' (general setting ... date and time option).   We found the ability to not only listen to music, play game apps and take video/photos with the camera, but also use the alarm clock app, a great asset ... all in one small and useful device.

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