Category: Average Joe’s Tips

Categories
Average Joe's Tips

What is Photostream

Photo stream is a great way to privately share your photos with friends from computer to computer and iPhone to iPhone. The way photo stream works is by wirelessly sending photos to designated devices using iCloud. Before we get started on using photo stream make sure you have all of the requirements: IOS 6.0 or later on all iPads, iPhones, and iPod touches, iPhoto 9.4, and an iCloud account. Now getting started is very simple, go into Settings (System Preferences) > iCloud > select photo steam On. For personal photo syncing, remember to use the same iCloud account for all devices that way everything will sync up (for example when you take a photo with your iPhone it will sync to your computer). To get shared photo streams on your iPhone start by going into Photos > Photo Stream > + > send to a friend’s email > Create. After the shared photo stream is setup, putting pictures in is the next step. Start by clicking on Edit > Add > then select desired photos. One great feature shared photo stream has is being able to like and comment on photos. All in all, photo stream is great because you are able to share photos privately without having to put it on a social networking site.

Categories
Average Joe's Tips

How To: Use Mission Control

Mission Control is a new application that comes with OS X Lion. It gives you the ability to control and organize all of your windows and applications. Mission Control is a very basic and user friendly application. To quickly access Mission Control hit f3 depending on your keyboard. To use Mission Control you can add extra desktop spaces with the + button on the top right. To organize the desktop spaces just drag from side to side in desired order. Next when you open Mission Control it will display all of the windows opened in each of your desktop spaces. This allows you to see which window you want and to select it quickly. To go between desktop spaces swipe three or four fingers depending on what your preferences are. To check or change your preferences, open System Preferences, click on Trackpad, and go to More Gestures. Now that you know the basics of Mission Control, you are now ready to explore it on your own.

Stay connected at my new twitter handle to stay updated 24/7 @TRMGaveragejoes and @realmacgenius What do youthink? Let us know in the comment section.

Categories
Average Joe's Tips

The Basics and More: Stickies

Use:

The application Stickies is the simplest application on the Mac making it great for making reminders or lists. One of the basic use of stickies is changing colors, this is done by going to the top Menu Bar and selecting Color then scroll down and select the color you would like, or another thing Stickies allows you to do is make it transparent by going to Note on the top Menu Bar and then scrolling down to Translucent Window. To change fonts hit the keys Command + T then different fonts and colors will appear. To get a new stickie select Command + N and to delete a stickie select Command + W. One cool feature of Stickies is that it has speech enabled by selecting the desired stickie note and going to Edit in the top Menu Bar scrolling down to Speech and then selecting Start Speech. Clearly, Stickies is an application meant for simple everyday lists and reminders with special color-coding that you can use to organize as well as nice add-ons like Speech.

Stay connected at my new twitter handle to stay updated 24/7 @TRMGaveragejoes and @realmacgenius What do you think? Let us know in the comment section.

 


 

Categories
Average Joe's Tips

Top 5 Essential Applications for Every iPhone User

Guest Post:

I know that there are a lot of similar articles reviewing top 5/10 and so on of essential applications every iPhone user may need but I think that the majority of such reviews are based on the personal preferences of a reviewer while I’ll in the following post to describe the so-called “default” applications actually everyone who uses an iPhone may need despite his age, occupation and social status. Surely, you are free to add to my top 5 your own essential applications you got used to apply day by day and can’t imagine your life without their features.

Find My Phone won’t make you an iPhone “loser”!

Offered for free in the AppStore

This is one of those programs that should be installed to all iPhones. The application was developed by Apple and it is strange that it is not included by default, along with a calculator and other standard software on an iPhone. To prevent a disaster after the accident loss of your iPhone, you can use this smart program. Find My Phone gives a chance to find your Apple’s device anywhere worldwide, as well as to protect all personal data a stolen/lost iPhone keeps.

To let Find My Phone determine the location of your smartphone, it must be connected with the iCloud service (choose “Settings” to set up this connection). The application is available for free in the AppStore and runs on iPhone, iPod touch, iPad having iOS 3.1.3 or higher.

Gplayer allows playing any format of audio and video files on your iPhone

Price in the AppStore: $ 2.99

 The diversity of media formats is constantly growing, but by default an iPhone still supports only.MOV and ALAC. Gplayer is a video/audio player and video converter for your Apple’s phone. This app plays on an iPhone video and audio in any format. A Gplayer lite version is also free for the users of the AppStore.

Supported formats are:

  • Audio: WMA, OGG, MP3, WAV, FLAC;
  • Video: MKV, RMVB, XVID / DIVX AVI, WMV, ASF, H264, TS, M2TS;
  • Subtitles: TXT, SMI, SUB, ASS, SRT.

Gplayer is compatible with the iPhone 3GS/4/4S, iPod touch 3 and 4 and iPad.

DropBox: probably the best “cloud” service for storing and sharing data!

Distributed for free in the AppStore

I’m sure you are aware of Dropbox being is of the most convenient cutting-edge “cloud” services for storing and sharing files. Users of iPhone/iPad can also access their DropBox’s accounts via their smartphones and tablets.

The program runs fast enough, folders are displayed almost instantly. Through the application I can access not only those files on my hard drive, but also to the resources other Dropbox users chose to share with public via this “cloud” service. Any file can be downloaded and viewed on iPhone and then saved on a hard drive while you are calling your friends or listening to music on iPhone. The program allows you to view all major file types – PDF, Word, Excel and even Pages. You can add any file to the folder “Favorites” and then it will be available in an offline mode. To the service can be also downloaded made by iPhone photos or videos.

To sum up, I must say that this application has a user-friendly interface, supports an ability to view files within an application, can playing music files and allows downloading files from the iPad/iPhone to Dropbox service.

Skype for iPhone — because it’s better to use to call for free!

Free distribution in the AppStore

 Skype for iPhone is an official mobile application released by the developers of the popular VOIP software — Skype. This mobile application allows making free calls worldwide and it is available on all devices supporting iOS – iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Via this smart program you will be able to communicate with friends, family and friends wherever you are, using IM chat, audio and video (webcam) calls. Skype for iPhone application supports video calls via WiFi and 3G, can connect via calls computers and other mobile devices, offers a profound video display in two modes, as well as a vibration reduction technology that allows you to communicate on the go. I can’t tell more about SKYPE than you already know since it is one of the most popular VOIP program all over the world.

Evernote makes is easier to keep your notes and files organized!

Free download from the AppStore

 Evernote is very useful and free application that allows you to store various data (files, notes, to-do lists and so on) on any device, including MacBooks and iPhones. By means of program you can quickly take notes, create a to-do list, or simply save an image. There’s even a voice memo recording function I constantly use and like.

Evernote’s features you will definitely like:

  • Sync any note on any device;
  • Create to-do lists and text files as well as notes;
  • Support of the synchronization of different files;
  • Transfer the saved files to your PC and vice versa;
  • Create memos;
  • Search text data in the images;
  • Send multiple files to friends by e-mail;
  • Share your notes on Twitter and Facebook.

Read more guides about iPhone on http://www.softwarewithstyle.com

Categories
Average Joe's Tips

‘Geeking’ out with GeekTool

There are many different things that you can do with a Mac OS X desktop. For example, you could use your screensaver to run in the background, a picture of your pet, or something pretty amazing for us geeks called GeekTool.

Continue reading “‘Geeking’ out with GeekTool”