App Advice » How-Tos

How To: Using Bento App And Syncing With Bento For Mac

Caleb Kingston — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 12:00:51 +0000

If you want to find a simple solution on how to organize your life or small business, Bento will help you find the answer. Bento started out as a simple desktop program for the mac by the creators of FileMaker Pro. Now there’s a Bento iPhone app and it works and syncs beautifully with the desktop companion. Like all database programs, Bento for the iPhone might take some introduction and getting used to, but once you do you’ll be able to understand its full potential. Here are a few tips to get you synced with Bento for mac and to get started with the powerful app.

Getting Started

When you first launch Bento on your iPhone, you will be greeted by the New Library window. Here you have a list of over 20 templates to start your library off like: Projects, Contacts, To Do Items, Recipes, Diet Log, and more.

Choosing from a list of these templates will get you set up with specific fields for that item. For example, To Do Items will have start and completion date fields, and Home Inventory will have item description fields, etc. All these fields in the template are completely customizable. You can can delete certain fields you feel you wont use or change the names of certain fields if you prefer.

Lets say you start with the inventory template to keep track of the items in your home. You can tap the Edit Fields button on the top right of the screen to change names of fields or delete certain fields from the library.

You can also add new fields to your library in the Edit Fields menu as well. The New Field Menu lets you chose whether you want to add Text, Numbers, Choice, Checkbox, Media, Time, Date, Duration, Currency, Rating, Address, Phone Number, Email Address, URL, or IM Account.

You can search for any field in any library with the search tab. Your search results will appear as you type and will be categorized by the library they are in for easy browsing.

Syncing With Bento For Mac

If you own a desktop version of Bento 1.5 or greater, you can sync your desktop database with your iPhones database in just a few simple steps. This process requires that your iPhone and your Mac are on the same WiFi Connection.

When you tap the sync icon in bento, you will be presented by a passcode and instructions on how to enter it into Bento for Mac.

Launch Bento on the mac and go to File > Set Up Sync with Device. Here you will see your iPhone if your on the same network and you can select it. Enter the Passcode given by the Bento App and the syncing process will begin.

After setting up your iPhone to sync with Bento, select your iPhone in the devices category in the events column of Bento. Here you can chose to only sync certain libraries or the entire database in bento.

Bento is very powerful and there is much to be learned in creating databases but hopefully this tutorial will get you started out in organizing your life or business better in Bento!

Review: Sonos ZonePlayer S5 With ZoneBridge 100 and iPhone Sonos Remote

Caleb Kingston — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 12:00:08 +0000

Overview

The Sonos ZonePlayer S5 is a wireless music system that lets you stream thousands of songs from iTunes and all your favorite Internet radio stations like Pandora, last.fm, Rhapsody,Sirius, and many more. The ZonePlayer S5 features two tweeters, two mid-range drivers, and one bass driver all powered by their own amplifiers. With the free Sonos iPhone remote you have full control over your music selection. You can play a song from any room, and even play the same song through speakers in multiple rooms.

Features

I have completely fallen in love with the Sonos ZonePlayer S5, because of its jam packed features, and its ease of use. The set up only took me five minutes tops. With the optional ZoneBridge 100, I was able to plug the Sonos player in anywhere in the house and get instant wireless service for all my iTunes and Internet music. Here is a list of some of the best features I have found in the ZonePlayer S5

Stream iTunes library – Setting up iTunes streaming on your computer takes a few minutes for ZonePlayer to index your iTunes library, but once you’re done, streaming is smooth and simple. You can place songs from iTunes in your ZonePlayer que, and select the song order.

Stream Thousands of Internet Radio Stations – Stream from local radio stations or from music services like Pandora, Sirius, last.fm, Napster, Rhapsody, and more. With specific radio stations like Pandora, you have the same music services available to you, like rating your song thumbs up or down, and bookmarking songs you have listened to.
Customizable Alarm Clock – Perhaps one of my favorite features. With the Sonos iPhone remote you can customize your alarm clock for different settings each day. For example, you can choose to wake up to your “Mr. Pitiful” Pandora radio station on monday at 7 a.m. at a quarter of the volume. Then on Tuesday wake up to a local radio station at 8 a.m. at half the volume. Another great feature is the way the ZonePlayer starts the music quiet and slowly raises the volume so you don’t wake up surprised to a booming sound system.

Controls – With the Sonos remote app you have full control over all your ZonePlayers in the house. Choose different stations to play in each room, or play one song in sync with all rooms in the house. You can also control the bass and treble tones for each speaker.
Line in port – Let’s you input music from any non-wireless sound source. Perfect for when you want to plug into your television and upgrade your sound quality.

The Breakdown:

The Good:

The ZonePlayer’s sound system has a powerful and crisp sound, with a very deep base and great midrange. I was very impressed with what I was hearing through the small speaker system.

It was great not having to worry about all the wires of a traditional sound system. The only wire you have to worry about on the Sonos ZonePlayer S5 is the power cord, everything else is all wireless if you purchase the optional ZoneBridge 100.

The Bad:

One thing that I noticed right off was that the ZonePlayer could not play your computers sound output wirelessly as the Airfoil app does with the iPhone. I was really hoping to be able to watch movies on iTunes or Quicktime on my computer and have the audio stream wirelessly to the speaker. One other thing I wish I could see on the ZonePlayer S5 is more controls on the speaker itself. The only controls on the device is volume and mute. Any other functions for the speaker must be controlled by either the Sonos remote, iPhone remote, or your computer itself.

The Verdict

Overall, I found the ZonePlayer S5 and Sonos iPhone remote to be a true winner. Some might balk at the $399 price of the ZonePlayer S5 and the optional $99 ZoneBridge at first but after experiencing all the features you receive with this price, you find you are very well getting your moneys worth. Especially after considering the sound docks like Bose SoundDock 10, which you pay anywhere from $300-$600 just for the speaker system, and no wireless functionality or internet stations. I would refer anyone looking for a wireless multi-room system to go with Sonos!

Mentioned Products

Sonos ZonePlayer S5 – $399

Sonos ZoneBridge 100 – $99

Sonos iPhone app – Free

How To: Import A Custom Voicemail Greeting To Your iPhone

Caleb Kingston — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 12:50:23 +0000

A few years ago I made a custom voicemail greeting .mp3 file that I always wanted to import to my iPhone but never found a way to do it. Well today I discovered a slightly complicated way and made a step by step tutorial just for you! The first couple steps are pretty simple but the last step can get be tricky so just make sure you follow along and you should be fine.

Step 1: Convert your sound file to adaptive mult-rate (.amr)

Go to media convert in your web browser. This is a free media converting site that requires no software downloads.
Select chose file and upload your desired audio file for the voicemail greeting.
Change the input format to the same format as your uploaded sound file and the output format to adaptive multi-rate
Under advanced settings, change the bitrate to 12.2 kbps
Hit the I accept the terms button and your audio file will start converting
Once conversion is complete, upload the file to your hard drive. We will use it in a later step.

Step 2: Record a voicemail greeting

On your iPhone, launch your voicemail, tap greeting and record a custom greeting for a few seconds then tap stop. Do not hit save yet as we will be navigating to the voicemail file and replacing it first.

Step 3: Browse your iPhones files and replace the voicemail file with your audio file

Using iFuntastic or SFTP, navigate to thru your iPhones files to /var/root/Library/Voicemail or sometimes it will be in var/mobile/Library/Voicemail depending on your iPhones setup. There is a file in there called “greeting.amr” this is the voice recording you just made.
Delete the “greeting.amr” file and replace it with the .amr file you created earlier. Rename this file to “greeting.amr”
Tap save on your iPhone and you should be set! You may also want to tap play on your iPhone to verify that is the right file and then tap save.

Your iPhone now has a custom imported voicemail greeting! Pretty cool huh?

If you have a preference on what How-Tos you would like us to write about, please let us know in the comments!

How To: Stream Your iTunes Music To Your iPhone Or iPod Touch

Caleb Kingston — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:00:49 +0000

Let’s face it, everybody wants their entire music library with them on their iPhone or iPod Touch at all times but cannot afford the hard drive space it takes on your device. I know my library has more music than my iPhone can hold so it was of great relief to me when I heard about a great app called Simplify Music 2. This app lets you free up your iPhones precious hard drive space by making your iTunes Library available to be streamed on not only your iPhone and computer but up to 30 of your friends iPhones and computers also.

To learn how to share your iTunes library, just follow these simple steps and you will be streaming in not time!

Step 1 – Launch Simplify Music 2 and set up a user account

Under the Settings tab, Tap Create New Account
Fill in all required info and tap Create on the top left of the screen

Step 2 – Download & run SimplifyMediaSetup

To download SimplifyMediaSetup, go to http://www.simplifymedia.com/download.html
Once it is downloaded, drag the SimplifyMedia file into applications
Browse to the applications folder and Launch Simplify Media
Here you will be greeted by the Simplify Media Setup Wizard. Simply Check that you have an account and enter the screen name and password you created on your iPhone or iPod Touch
Click continue to be guided through some quick steps to set up your sharing preferences

Step 3 – Enjoy Your Tunes

Launch Simplify Music 2 on your iPhone or iPod Touch and start playing your favorite iTunes songs

It is important to note that simplify must index your iTunes library and this may take a few minutes before it is available on your iPhone or iPod Touch. Also, an internet connection is required on both your computer and your iPhone to stream music.

How To: Post A Map Of Your GPS Track To Your Blog

Caleb Kingston — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:00:15 +0000

Have you ever wanted to share a map of your GPS tracks on your blog? With a few apps on your iPhone you can do just that! In this tutorial we will be using the following apps: MotionX GPS Sport, Mail, Safari, and any mobile blogging app of your choice. So lets get started!

Step 1: Record your GPS track using MotionX GPS Sport

launch MotionX GPS Sport and start your track. Once your track is complete, tap save

Step 2: Email the saved track to yourself

Navigate to the Logbook page and tap on the Tracks tab. Here you will see a list of all your saved tracks.
Tap on the track you most recently saved and tap Share Track Now
Enable Email Sharing and enter your email in one of the lines below then tap Share.

Step 3: Copy & Paste track info from mail to your mobile blog app

Launch your mail app and browse to the email you just sent. it will be from noreply@motionx.com
Copy all the track information to your clipboard starting with track name and ending with the longitude.
Start a new blog in your mobile blogging app and paste this info into the body.

Note: the text wrapping of the blog may look squished, but once its posted, the character spacing will be the same as the email.

for our next step, we will be exiting the blog app so we want to save the post as a draft for now so we don’t lose our work
Tap Save in the upper right corner and then tap Save Draft Only. You can now exit the app

Step 4: Copy and Paste a google map link of the track to your blog

Exit your mobile blogging app and Launch the same email from noreply@motionx.com
If you scroll down you will see a part of the email that says “Click on this link to display the track…” Tap on the link and it will launch the map in safari.
Copy the URL link of the webpage and launch your mobile blogging app once more to paste the link into the body.

Your new blog entry should now have your GPS stat info and a link to google maps showing the track you just rode for all of your friends and followers to see!

How To: Transfer Photos & Videos Between iPhones

Caleb Kingston — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:00:23 +0000

From bumping to flicking, developers have created multiple innovative ways to transfer the media taken from your iPhone to other iPhones directly via WiFi and Bluetooth. Here are a couple key apps that let you transfer your candid moments with mobility and style!

Bump

The famous one-millionth app downloaded in the appstore lets you bump your contact information and photos to other bump users, and now has the ability to bump phones for discovering mutual friends. Bump is very simple to use and has for main categories in the app.

My Contact – Transfer your contact information to other iPhones
Other Files – Select up to four photo’s at once in your camera roll and bump them to another iPhone
Compare – Bump phones to discover mutual friends
History – See who you bumped with and when. Also has map functionality for seeing where the bump occurred

Mover+

Mover+ has a great and fun user interface with a collage styled background for your photos, videos, and contacts. To copy your media to another phone, launch Mover on both devices and discover each other with WiFi or bluetooth. When your phone is discovered, you can then flick a picture or contact you want to share in the direction of your friends phone, and the picture will magically slide onto their screen.

Both apps give similar results but for now, bump does not support the sending of video between phones. So if you want to share each others videos, Mover+ is the way to go!

How To: Record The Hours You Sleep At Night

Caleb Kingston — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:30:09 +0000

For all of you who are worried about the amount of sleep your getting each night, Cohaus has developed Nights (Sleep Logger) for tracking and recording your sleeping hours. This app has a very simple interface and allows you to view your sleeping time in a graph and view stats like your average, maximum, or minimum hours of sleep.

To start using this app, simply hit the record button before you go to bed and if for any reason you wake up during the night, hit the pause button. The next morning when you have woken up, you can hit the stop button and it will add that night in the record.

The app keeps a list of the nights you have recorded and allows you to edit the time you slept afterwards. What I found missing is the ability to add a night manually. The only way to add a night is hitting the record button the night you of your rest.

After you have recorded your sleep, you can view your all your averages, totals, and times getting to bed and waking up. If you ever want to clear your log, there is a reset button on the bottom left. There is also an option to track a night for the previous day if you go to bed after 12 am that night.

This app is very simple and straight forward. It does exactly as advertised and has a great graphical interface. If you who want to make sure you are getting your 8 hours of sleep, be sure and check it out!

How To: Export SMS, Voicemail, And More From Your iPhone

Caleb Kingston — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:05:29 +0000

Since the iPhones release, apple has restricted disk use of your iphone as well as what information can be exported to your computer from your iPhone. Ecamm network has created a program to work around these restrictions enabling you to export just about anything from any iPhone or iPod Touch onto your computer!

For those of you who want complete access to your SMS, call log, voicemail, media files, and more; there is a program called PhoneView. This program is very simple to use yet very powerful.

Once you plug your iPhone/ iPod Touch into your computer, launch PhoneView and your device will automatically be recognized. In PhoneView your information is sorted into two categories, DATA and MEDIA.

The DATA category contains your contacts, notes, call log, messages, web info, and Voicemail as well as the Disk feature that allows you to store any files on your iPhone.

The MEDIA category contains your music, videos, audiobooks, podcasts, ringtones, photos, and voice memos.

From here you can simply browse your information and drag and drop the data right onto your desktop. You can also select your entire music library from yours or a friends iPhone or iPod Touch and click the Send to iTunes button for easy sharing. PhoneView not only lets you export, but allows you to edit your contacts and import new notes.

This program works exactly as advertised and is a must have for all users that want complete control over there iPhones Data and Media!

How To: Edit Videos On Your iPhone

Caleb Kingston — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:00:07 +0000

If you use your iPhone 3GS for taking video as much as I do, you probably have over fifty video clips in your camera roll. Most of these are clips you would like to assemble and share but apple has offered no way to edit your videos on the iPhone short of cutting the start and end of each clip. Well now, thanks to Nexvio Inc. “Theres An App For That” or more precisely, 3 apps. These apps can make your iPhone a miniature video editing studio!

ReelDirector

ReelDirector allows you to assemble your clips in your camera roll into a timeline and apply transitions and text watermarks. The developer also promises to add voiceover capabilities in a later release!

Slowmo

With Slowmo you can chose a video from your camera roll or record a video and change the speed of the clip from 8 times slower to 2 times faster. You can also chose whether you want to stretch the audio to synchronize with the video or Loop/Trim for normal pitch

ReelMoments

ReelMoments lets you take time-lapse video directly from your iPhone 3G or 3Gs. For those of you that doesn’t know what this is, the app takes pictures every few seconds and condenses it to show a fast motion video lapse of a long time period.

For best video results, users should consider use of all three apps for one video. simply save the footage you create with ReelMoments and Slowmo into your Camera Roll and load them into your ReelDirector Movie!

How To: Edit Your Photos Using Multiple Apps On The iPhone

Caleb Kingston — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:00:44 +0000

There are so many photography apps in the App Store and yet, there is no one app that could replace them all. Why not use multiple apps for that one special photo you want to enhance and send off in an email or Facebook?

There is one simple trick that is standard across most photography programs and that is Save and Load from your iPhones camera roll. This allows you to do things like crop your picture with PhotoGene and add a Helga effect to the same photo with CameraBag. Let’s take a look at how you might edit one photo with multiple apps!

To edit this particular photo, we will use the following apps: ColorSplash, CameraBag, and PhotoGene

Step 1: Find a photo in your Camera Roll you want to enhance or take a picture with the iPhones camera.

Step 2: Load the image in PhotoGene and apply a few things like Crop, exposure, RGB, etc. Once You are done editing the picture in PhotoGene, Save the photo to the Camera Roll

PhotoGene adds most of the basic features you would expect in editing a photo, but there are other apps that can bring this photo to the next level!

Step 3: Load the same image in ColorSplash and edit the photo’s background to be black & white. Once again, save to the Camera Roll.

Step 4: Load the same image in CameraBag and add a preset effect of your choice. Once you are done, Save your image one last time.

The Results: Once your editing is complete, it will have the effects of three different Photo editing apps that could not have been all done with any single app. The power behind this (like I mentioned earlier) is the apps ability to save to and load from a central location (the Camera Roll).

App Advice » How-Tos

How To: Using Bento App And Syncing With Bento For Mac

Getting Started

Syncing With Bento For Mac

Related Posts

Review: Sonos ZonePlayer S5 With ZoneBridge 100 and iPhone Sonos Remote

Overview

Features

The Breakdown:

The Verdict

Mentioned Products

Related Posts

How To: Import A Custom Voicemail Greeting To Your iPhone

Related Posts

How To: Stream Your iTunes Music To Your iPhone Or iPod Touch

Related Posts

How To: Post A Map Of Your GPS Track To Your Blog

Related Posts

How To: Transfer Photos & Videos Between iPhones

Related Posts

How To: Record The Hours You Sleep At Night

Related Posts

How To: Export SMS, Voicemail, And More From Your iPhone

Related Posts

How To: Edit Videos On Your iPhone

Related Posts

How To: Edit Your Photos Using Multiple Apps On The iPhone

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