Posts Tagged iphone app
GoGo Mobile App for iPhone, iPad, and Blackberry Review
Ever fork over for GoGo wireless Internet access when flying? It’s easy to use and makes the time literally fly! There are some affordable price packages especially for a month-long subscription perfect for those heavy flying times of the year.
But, not every airline has wifi-equipped planes, and even if they do, the entire fleet may not be equipped. It can be cumbersome to take out your laptop in a cramped coach seat to check for a wifi signal. But, the new GoGo app for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch and Blackberry devices makes it easier by detecting a signal and letting you know on your phone if it’s available. The app will soon be available for the Android too.
You can then open the app in one click and are instantly connected rather than going through the various sign-in pages on your Internet browser. You have to create a GoGo account and store your credit card before using the app. But, that helps to save time once inflight.
The free app can be downloaded from the iTunes store and saves a couple of minutes off the time it can take to log into the Internet (which when you are buying the service for a limited amount of time on a flight is appreciated).
On shorter trips when I do not travel with a laptop, this app allows me to access the Internet directly from my phone onboard.
It is worth installing on your phone simply to give you free access to the airline’s web site to check your flight status or book future flights. There’s no charge for that, which is what makes this app such a good idea for frequent travelers.
There’s an app for everything these days, but this app truly does make accessing the Internet a few clicks easier inflight.
See the Top free apps and Top paid apps on the iTunes App Store
Posted by Ramsey in Business Gear, Travel Light on July 4th, 2011
iHound app for lost or stolen smart phones
As a busy traveler, I have lots of things to keep up with when on the road, and in today’s connected world, my iPhone is always in my hand. When deplaning or leaving a hotel room in a rush, it is easy to set it down while collecting other things and leave it behind. Let’s just say I have done that a few too many times. After the ordeal of begging the Apple store to let me buy another iPhone at full price (and being refused by the manager to buy another even at full price…imagine that, a company refusing to take your money for the full retail price of an item), I realized I needed a better plan to protect me against my own carelessness. Apple has no insurance for the iPhone rather an annual fee of almost $100) for its MobileMe recovery service. Such a high fee for a product that is already costly did not seem right, so I set about to find an alternative.
I discovered iHound software, which is an affordable app (only $3.99 for three months or $3.99 for a year for Android). It runs constantly in the background using the GPS software in your smartphone helping you to locate your phone on their web site if it is lost or stolen. You can also send a message to appear on the screen of the phone or sound a siren (or even an authoritative voice message) via a push notification so that you can locate it more easily.
The company has been in business for almost four years and provides an affordable way to track your phone in case it is lost or stolen. It works with iPhones, the iPod touch, and Android. There is even a way to easily gather information about your phone via the iHound web site to prepare a police report if needed. The app can be purchased via the iTunes store with payments possible via PayPal.
Special stickers are also available for purchase to put directly on the phone giving a protected form of contact for someone to reach you if it is found.
While the app does not require a wifi signal to work, it does need to have cell phone connectivity to be located via GPS. When wifi is available, it can also connect via wifi automatically. Save yourself the hassle of paying hefty annual fees and buy this affordable peace of mind. It has certainly saved me more than a few times!
Posted by Ramsey in Business Gear, Travel Light on May 2nd, 2011
SugarSync Program is a Life Saver for Frequent Travelers
If “your whole life” is on one laptop or smart phone, what happens if you lose it? If you use a desktop at home and a laptop or small netbook when you travel, how do you make sure you have all the files you need on both devices, in their most current form? What if you need to get one of those docs from a third device, like an iPhone or iPod Touch?
I used to sweat and worry about these questions before I discovered SugarSync a couple years ago (including when I had GoToMyPC, which was often a bust). Now I’m completely relaxed when I travel, knowing I can get to anything I need from any device anywhere. It’s a file sync program, an online back-up program, a file sharing program, and a photo upload program all rolled into one. At a price that starts at $50 a year for 30GB, it’s really cheap insurance and is cheaper than a sleeping pill prescription. If all my devices get wiped out in one day and the backup hard drive does too, I’ve still got my files and photos.
I seldom feel comfortable raving about a software program as there are always a few annoyances that keep it from being as useful as it should be and most of them let me down on a regular basis. I can honestly say this SugarSync one works like a dream though. You just tag the folders you want to share between devices and with “the cloud” and let ‘er rip. After the files, photos, songs, and videos are uploaded, each time you make a change to any of the folders on any device, behind the scenes this program makes the updates. It works in the background, seldom taking up much in the way of resources or slowing down your system.
Then you can access those files from either registered device or just log into your dashboard online and view or download what you need. You can also e-mail a file link to someone (like YouSendIt), attach a photo to send them, or share a whole folder of files/photos by invitation.
What’s really cool is, you can do all this from your mobile device as well. For the iPhone or Touch you just download the app, sign in once, then magically all your stuff is there. (You can even put files into a “Magic Briefcase” to get at them quickly without searching around.) If you take a photo with your iPhone, it’s automatically added to your “mobile photos” folder and it’s on every device you have registered—no cables required.
In case all that is not enough, the file syncs are done with SSL encryption so nobody snoops, plus they keep the last five versions of your files in case you make changes and then need the old version. And on top of that, you can show off photos from your home PC or stream music that’s on your laptop from your smartphone or Touch. How cool!
There’s almost nothing I wish this could do that it doesn’t and if you don’t believe me, you can take it for a 30-day trial run or test out a 2GB version indefinitely. To me that shows a lot of confidence in the product and it’s well-deserved.
Plans range from $50 a year (or $4.99 a month) to $250 a year for 250 GB. Here’s the pricing breakdown.
SugarSync Online Backup, Sync, Share – Try FREE for 30 days
Posted by Tim L. in Business Gear, General Gear on August 26th, 2010
Turn an iPhone, iPod into an e-Reader
Want to turn your iPhone or iPod Touch into an e-reader—free? It’s not hard to do with the Amazon Kindle free app.
In yesterday’s post, I pointed out some of the shortcomings (and there are many) of the new Apple iPad tablet computer and opined that it might find a place as an e-reader with extras. But if you’re not ready for a dedicated e-reader, and not in the mood to spend $499 or more for the iPad, check out the Kindle app.
It runs on the iPhone or iPod Touch—no Kindle required. And while the screen is much smaller than the iPad, the Kindle app is surprisingly easy to read and use. Text sizes are easily adjusted, bookmarks can be added and changing pages is as simple as a finger swipe, or by tapping on either side of the screen. The text is easy to read with a smooth white background.
The Kindle mobile app can connect to Amazon’s Kindle store and download books wirelessly. And any books purchased can be synced with a full-sized Kindle.
Amazon currently offers more than 450,000 books, including most of the New York Times’ best-seller list starting at $9.99. But magazines, newspapers and blogs are not currently available on the iPhone/iPod version.
The best part is—if you’re already carrying an iPhone or iPod when traveling, like I carry my iPod Touch—the Kindle app adds no weight to the suitcase.
This won’t be the solution for everyone and some will prefer a larger screen for book reading—or the more ink-like look of the Kindle reader. But the Kindle app for the iPhone and iPod works better than I would have expected. And since it’s free, there’s absolutely no risk in trying it out.
Posted by JohnG in Business Gear, General Gear, Travel Light on April 6th, 2010
Give Others a “Glympse” of Your Travels
Ever wish, on a long road trip, that your family could know where you are and when you’ll be home—without making phone calls along the way?
Or did you ever fly into a town, hop in a rent car and want to let someone know when you would arrive for a meeting?
Now, you can “share your where” with Glympse, a free app for GPS-equipped iPhones, Android, and Windows Mobile phones.
Glympse will send your location information over cell phone data channels and let you share it with anyone who has access to a desktop or laptop computer, or a mobile phone with a Web browser. Glympse will show your position on a map, along with travel speed and even an estimated arrival time, if you set a destination.
Testing the software on my AT&T Tilt2 smartphone, it worked amazingly well. The first step is opening the program and choosing who to share the information with and for how long. Then, Glympse will send them an e-mail or text message with a link to the company’s website. Whoever received the Glympse message does not need any special software or registration. The only thing required is a Web browser.
My travels showed there is a slight lag, about one block, from your actual location to the spot shown on the map. But that’s to be expected, since it does take a few seconds for the program to send the information and for it to update on Glympse’s servers. Still, it’s about as close to real-time as you can get.
The movement shown on the map is slightly jerky, not buttery smooth. But that’s understandable and the position updates are still very frequent.
I didn’t notice any huge battery hit when using the program on the phone. But it would be a good idea to hook up a charger if the program is running for a long time.
Glympse also addresses privacy and security issues. It’s not possible to “forget” you gave someone permission to view your whereabouts and thus allow them to track you 24×7. When you start the program, you choose who to allow to see your movements and then set a time limit, up to four hours. For longer trips, the time window can be easily extended.
The minimum age for using Glympse, under the company’s terms of service, is 14. It seems that would be difficult to enforce, though.
For many uses, Glympse is better than other location-sharing services such as Google Latitude. Latitude requires registration and a software download for everyone who uses it. But those who receive a Glympse invitation can track your travels just by following a web link, with no special software or log-in required.
If you’re using a Blackberry phone, help is on the way. The company plans to support Blackberry’s operating system in the next few months and is also working on versions for other popular phones.
There are many uses for Glympse—helping with busy business schedules, keeping up with friends and offering peace of mind to families. Just a decade ago, who would have ever imagined?
Posted by JohnG in Business Gear, General Gear, Kids and Family on January 26th, 2010
