Setup your new Ipad or Iphone in Record time.

Nov 27

With the holidays coming around, there is a good chance that you and your loved ones might be catching some Apple-Love under the tree in the form of some i-Devices. The new iPhone 5 might be the biggest overpriced gadget this year, but maybe you are going for one of the new iPads or iPad mini. The bummer with these devices is that you have to configure them. Set up the right Email accounts, Icons on the screen, links to websites or other i-Device related settings all need to be punched in after you unwrap your shiny new toy. What if we showed you a way to do all of that configuration work ahead of time AND from the comfort of your own desktop ?  Let us teach you how.

All you need to download is Apple’s iPhone Configuration tool. This nifty little program lets you pre-configure tons of settings on whatever I-Device you are going to purchase. 

  • The name of your device.
  • Set a passcode to unlock the device
  • Preconfigure the wifi network you want your iPad to connect to (including the wep or wpa2 password)
  • Setup a VPN configuration (should you have such a thing at home)
  • Preconfigure the email accounts on your iDevice.
  • Preconfigure the exchange connection to your Gmail account so you have Mail, Calendar and Contacts in Sync.
  • Connect to your own Calendar and contacts server (You can use Owncloud to set those up should you need to)
  • Preconfigure webclips (Website Shortcuts) on your homescreen.
How do I do it ? 
Just download the iPhone configuration utility (available for Windows and IOS) and open it up. From the filemenu choose “FILE > New configuration profile” and start dabbling away. Once you have configured the settings you want hit the ‘EXPORT” button. This will generate a profile file that, when opened on your iDevice, automatically configure the settings as you set them up in the iPhone configuration tool. You can choose to make a single profile with ALL your different settings ( Mail accounts, Wireless settings etc) or you can make a configuration file for each category. (A separate profile file for wifi , several for email etc etc) 
 
Letting it work for you.
If it comes down to “auto configuring” your own device, it might be a bit of a hassle to use the configuration tool, but it does come in handy when I want to make web-shortcuts to all the web-based devices and servers I have in and around the house. I just shoot out the profile to my iPad (using eMail or Dropbox) and I’m done. 
 
But the power lies in your service to others. Want to prevent the hassle of getting a phonecall from your parents or aunts over in “far-away-istan” the day after they bought their shiny iDevices ? Do you know the horror of talking a total newbie through setting up an email account on an ipad (without the possibility to see the screen) Have you ever explained “swipe here, pinch there” to a touch-interface-lamen ? Save yourself the hassle. Configure grandma’s email account in the iPhone configuration tool and just have her download the profile of your dropbox share. You will be thankful to me once the holiday rush commences.
 
The iPhone Configurator can be found HERE.
 

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Is AIM Pages a MySpace Killer? No Way!

May 29

Sometimes is wierd to say how story's evolve on the internet. One would think, that between thousands and thousands of voices, blogs, websites and podcasts it is hard to seperate the songs from the static. But still. Sometimes a story is written in just the right key that it chimes out and resonates through the internet. Sebastians review on AIM pages is a perfect example. An article that begun on his own website has been picked up by AIM and its hardcopy's are now scattered over the tables of the design team at AOL to guide them in the redesign of AIM pages. Enjoy.

Knightwise.

 AIM Pages by Sebastian Prooth.

As you will find out when you listen to episode 4 of the Global Geek Podcast I tried to sign up to the new AIM Pages service.
I decided to go back today and try and get a profile going over on AIM Pages. I started to create the profile about 20 minutes ago and I have had multiple problems while creating the profile which I will share with you, so you don’t waste your time with this website until you have read the problems you might encounter while registering!

Number one, the site is NOT intuitive, not easy at all. I am glad I have blog creating experience or I would have been struggling to get this profile up and going. Once I selected a profile from the tech group, I applied one I liked, or so I thought, more on this later.

 Then I proceeded to actually fill out the “modules” and build the profile. What a yawn. The about me section malfunctioned every time I opened it up to edit it, and once I had placed the text and said OK I want to keep it, I saw that it did not show up against the background, so I went back into the editor and selected white text, to show up on this brownish clay coloured background.

The photo uploading system is difficult as well, once you figure out that save does not mean upload/keep, and you have to hit upload, you will be greeted with a dialogue box that has an upload interface, good luck getting it to work the first time around! When I selected the images to caption them once I had uploaded them, it took clicking around them, on them, everything, to get the caption box.

I realized after trying to set up the Contact me section, not to bother. Why? Because what you select to show up as methods of contact don’t even show up when you hit apply!

And if all these problems were not enough, I decided to have done and apply the profile. When I did I was greeted with a totally separate theme than the one I had selected, my words did not show up against the background so I had to highlight the text on the page to read it, and most of all when I went to edit the page again, it died in the ass. Totally. I was not able to get back into the edit area where I had been before.

One final problem and the one that just made me leave the entire endeavor. I went to settings, and it brings up a dialogue with one option. Leaving AIM Pages? Click Yes to delete your profile!! Oh yeah, thats a setting alright! You can check out what I eventually got out of the profile here – As you can see, the text is the wrong colour (Invisible)!

Is AIM Pages a MySpace killer? Umm.. Let me think about this one. Absolutely not. There is no way on God’s green earth that this website is a Myspace killer, I could not even configure a profile, with 11 years of Internet using experience. I have been using Myspace to store a profile for over a year, and I have never had the problems like I have had in 20 minutes trying to build a profile on AIM Pages. Web 2.0? More like Web .20. If I were AOL or whoever is behind this, I would be ashamed that some meeting deemed it ready to be released for use… it just isn't – Comments Welcome

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