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Average Joe's Tips

The Basics and More: Address Book

Use:

The primary function of Address Book is to allow you to organize contacts by email, phone number, AIM, and more. It also allows you to organize your contacts to sync with your other Apple devices like the iPhone and iPad.

Basics:

The first thing to do is add contacts. To do this you click on the ”+” in the middle section and fill out the information about the contact. If you want to edit a contact that you previously made, just select the contact you want to edit and press “Edit.” To organize contacts further you are given the option to make groups such as Friends or Coworkers. To do this click the “+” in the first column. You are also given the option for how you would like to view your contacts from columns to just a single contact, this is where you can type in the name to find the contact you want. I prefer to use columns just because it is easier to see all my contacts. To delete contacts select the desired contact and press delete, a screen will pop up saying “Cancel” or “Delete,” if you want to delete it press “Delete,” but if you don’t press “Cancel.” For the times when syncing with your iPod and iPad go wrong and you end up with duplicates, all that you have to do is go to the top menu bar and select cards, after go to “Look for Duplicates.”

Advanced:

Some more advanced options range from syncing accounts, designing a custom template, and taking images from Facebook and using them on your contacts. First, is syncing accounts, which is very similar to syncing iCal. To do this go to Address Book’s Preferences and select “Accounts.” Then depending on what account you have choose from MobileMe, Yahoo!, or Google. Select “Agree” and then type in your account and password. To sync your contacts to your account click on the arrows in a circle symbol on the top of your Menu Bar. This is great if you have multiple computers and can sync so they are the same. Next to customize your contact templates, stay in Preferences and go to Template, which should be on the Top Menu of Address Book’s Preferences. From there you can add or remove cell phone numbers and emails. You can mess around with it and customize it to your likings. Now for my favorite, using Facebook photos for Contacts. To easily do this take your iPod Touch or iPhone and go to the Facebook application. Select the “Friends” section and click on the button at the top right (arrow coming out of the box) button. From there select “Sync Contacts.” Then turn “Syncing” on and “Replace Photos” if you want to take out current photos and replace them with the Facebook photos.

Overview:

Clearly, the Address Book is simple, but effective. It also includes cool things like getting Facebook photos on your contacts and syncing your contacts from computer to computer. Not to mention it comes free on your Mac!

 

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Average Joe's Tips

How To: Find and Use the iTunes Equalizer

For those of you who are new to a Mac or just technology in general the iTunes Equalizer  is what allows you to make the sound of your music less distorted by equalizing its response over a frequency range. To access the equalizer you will first need to open iTunes. After that click on Window which should be located in the menu bar, then scroll down and click on Equalizer. There are two ways you can change your equalizer and that is by manually changing it or by selecting a preset. If you are going to manually change your equalizer I would recommend that you experiment with the sound for a while because it depends on the kind of music you have and your speakers. There is also the option of looking up different equalizer settings if you want a quick customized setting.

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How to use Apple’s AirPlay Feature

What is AirPlay?

AirPlay is a great way to stream your music through a set of speakers or through a home stereo, and in some cases, stream a video from your iOS device, Mac or PC. Apple currently sells two products that support this feature, the Apple TV & Airport Express. Apple does license the feature so that third-party developers may support products with it and I will briefly mention it, but today we are going to cover the apple products.

AirPort Express

The AirPort Express is known as a wireless router. It is nice and compact, perfect for apartments, dorms, or just extending part of a room in your home. It works seamlessly with the Airport Extreme and Time Capsule as an extension, but you should have no problems with other routers. Depending on your setup, you would probably not want to use this as your main router in your home. Reason being it has one Ethernet port. You will only be able to put a line in from you ISP and broadcast wirelessly, but if you are running a home network and have devices that you would want to plug in with Ethernet, tough luck. However, the express is equipped with 5.0 GHz wireless N that is capable up to 300 Mbps, although this will not work with your iPhone or iPad, if you only have wireless N devices in your home, it is an ideal solution. The last limitation to this is it only allows up to 10 devices to be connected to it. The AirPort express features a USB port that is not capable of sharing a USB drive rather a USB printer. If you have a Mac, adding the printer is a breeze. For Windows users, you will have to install the Bonjour software off the Apple website, or with the included CD (download the Latest off apple’s website). But, once Bonjour is installed, it’s a piece of cake.

How does this fit with AirPlay? The AirPort express uses a 3.5 mm aux jack to output audio into a receiver, or just a simple speaker. Once your device is plugged in, connected to your network, and setup properly, you are ready to begin streaming your music to your device. With the Apple AirPort Express, you can even turn your home into a wireless audio system. See our article on how AirPlay an AirPort Express to beat Sonos.

Apple TV

The Apple TV is a set top that must be set up with a TV. It features and aux port through the red and white analog ports, although if you are planning on using this system, you will probably want to use the HDMI out port. Another feature is the ability to beam a streaming video in some applications on your iOS device, directly to the Apple TV, and watch them on the big screen. For more details on the Apple TV, check out our full article about it covering it’s high’s and low’s.

Apple Remote

Apple does a great job with integrating their products together. From the App Store, download the Apple Remote app and you will be able to control your iTunes Library to blast the music to your speakers.

Third Party Products

Briefly, Apple currently only allows AirPlay audio streaming to companies to use for their products, such as DENON. Certain network receivers from Denon can be upgraded for $50 over the Ethernet port, to allow AirPlay to be enabled. This will allow you to stream directly to your receiver, without the need for any other products.

After the integration of the AirPlay API in the iOS SDK, developers from Pandora and Rdio are able to let users use their app and play music directly to Airport devices around the house.

Bowers & Wilkins and JBL are also creating products that are built for AirPlay. Soon for a pretty penny, you can purchase devices that will already have the built in functionality of receiving music.

If you are interested to stream with AirPlay, the AirPort Express is your best deal. For it’s price and functionality, it works more than a simple AirPlay streaming device, and is a worthy companion to any home network.

 

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Average Joe's Tips

Heat to Head: iPad 2 vs. Samsung Galaxy Tab

As the tablet wars are just beginning, what device will you choose? Samsung has been doing relatively well with their success on mobile touch screen devices, but Apple has proven their dominancy throughout the past years. Samsung has recently refreshed their beloved Galaxy Tab and has many attributes where it trumps the iPad 2. But overall, which device will fit your lifestyle better. What will your iPad be used for and the price differences that should be considered. Also, don’t forget the cost of 3G service can start to add up.

Remember, that this is only a comparison of hardware. The user experience will differ, the iOS tends to be more user friendly than the Android; however, the Android boasts more of a “geeky” experience. Don’t forget the apps, the App Store has a plethora of apps in contrast to the Marketplace.

Device Apple iPad 2 Samsung Galaxy Tab
OS iOS 4.3 Android 3.0 Honeycomb
Display & Resolution 9.7 inches IPS LCD 1024×768 pixels 10.1 inches WXGA
1280 x 800 pixels
Processor 1GHz Dual-Core A5
9x GPU Performance
1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 Dual-Core
RAM 512MB 1GB
Memory Storage 16GB / 32GB / 64GB 16GB / 32GB / 64GB
Micro-SD Card Slot/Expandable No Yes
Micro SD Up to 32GB
Rear-Camera 720p HD Video Recording Capable 3 MP with LED Flash 1080p, 720p HD Video Recording Capable
Front-Camera VGA 2 MP
Connecting Ports 30 pin connector (limited) USB 2.0
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n 802.11 b/g/n
3G Quadband HSPA
CDMA / EV-DO Rev. A
UMTS/GSM/HSDPA
4G Support No HSPA+ 4G
App Market Apple App Store Android Marketplace
Amazon Appstore
Barometer No No
Gyroscope Yes Yes
Accelerometer Yes Yes
Adobe Flash No Yes
Battery Life (Running) 10 Hours 10 Hours
Dimensions & Weight 241.2 x 185.7 x 8.8
613g (AT&T), 607g(Verizon)
601g (Wi-Fi)
256.6 x 172.9 x 8.6 mm
595 grams
Carrier AT&T, Verizon AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile
Price (3G Models) $629(16GB), $729(32GB), $829(64GB), $499(16GB), $599(32GB)
TestFreaks Average 10/10 n/a
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Average Joe's Tips

How To: Restart Finder

 

You might be asking yourself why do I need to quit Finder? Well a reason that you might need to quit Finder is becasue you are trasfering a file or downloading a file and it freezes, so instead of shutting down your computer you can restart Finder. Restarting Finder is easy and there are multiple ways to do it. The first way to restart Finder is to force quit it by clicking  Command + Option + Escape.  The second way to restart Finder is by typing “killall Finder” into your terminal. This kills Finder which will then relaunch. Usually when you quit finder it will relaunch by itself, but not always, so if it dosen’t just type in “open /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app.” For those of you who may be new to Macs Finder is essentially Windows Explorer for the Mac. It allows you to manage files, disks, networks, and applications.

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