Reformatting IPad 2 for the first time

I just reformatted an IPad 2 on my own for the first time.

My friend showed me how to do it last week and I just got it done on my own!

Essentially, what I did was...

1- I launched iTunes
2- I connected the iPad to computer
3- In the left panel of iTune window, I selected the iPad
4- Under the Set Up your iPad window, I choose to "Set up as a new iPad"

5- I assigned a name to the iPad and specified what I want to sync to the iPad

And... I clicked Done!

Solution for my "Skype video disconnect itself" issue

This has been happening... though... don't quote me... it might have started after I upgraded to the newest version of Skype 5.x.  But, don't quite me for this aging rat's memory ain't so good-- especially when I have only the brain size of a peanut.

Skype voice seems to work fine.  Yet, if I try to use Skype video, I will see the signal strength to decrease gradually until finally the connection is lost.

Yet, the only connection lost is that of Skype because I will be able to send emails and browser internet without any problem.

After googling around, I found that it seems to be a fairly well-known problem amongst Skype users and some of them suspected that this problem might have something to do with the Internet connection. (e.g., http://getsatisfaction.com/skype/topics/slow_connection_speeds_on_skype_despite_high_speed_connection)

Funny enough, it was not after I decide to seek out for a solution for the disconnection problem did I realize that... oops... I thought I had broadband connection while, in reality, the service I subscribed to only gives me up to 1.5 mb/s upload and .25 mb/s download rate... (check your connection speed)

Don't know what skype video think... ain't quite broad enough a bandwidth for myself... lol

That was when I started my whole journal toward a broaderband...

After I contacted Timewarner (my internet service provider) back a couple days ago, one of the customer representatives seemed to have helped me done something to boost the speed up a bit-- though my connection speed was still much within the Road runner range.  Interestingly, from then on, though the signal could drop gradually to having only 2 bars, it doesn't go below it and neither would it show me the "connection lost" screen--- however hard I try--- for the purpose of a screenshot.

Now that my internet service upgrade is completed and my speed is up to faster than 91% of US on average, the skype video seems to work OK after I tried it for the first time today.

A few things I have to say is that:

First, I might have to make a few more skype calls to make sure whether this problem is really resolved.  This is why I say the upgrading of my bandwidth might be a "plausible solution."

Second, there is no telling whether it is the upgrade that did the magic or skype did something on their end to get something fixed.

And, third, if 128Kbps upload and 500Kbps download should be sufficient, and, the problem I have been experiencing with skype video these past few months is really associated with bandwidth, why would I need to upgrade my internet service to a connection speed faster than 91% of US in order to use the free service of video skype?  Unless... Microsoft is gonna turn itself into an internet service provider as well?  8-O

Thank God that, due to the promotional offer I subscribe, I am actually paying less for my Internet services now than before.

P.S. Specs of the machine with Skype video problem

1. Thinkpad Sl410
2. Win 7 x64
3. McAfee
4. Internal webcam
5. Road runner basic before: up to 1.5 mp/s download and .25 mp/s upload
6. Symptoms: The signal strength gets weaker and weaker before it loses connection after skype video gets started

(July 30, 2011 update: Yes... the upgrade in internet connection solved the problem.)

Google talk volume really low

I posted a question days back about my intent to port my land line to Google talk... though no one else responded... a few days later, I now have some answers to my own question.  lol oops...

Good thing I didn't jump right in because, after testing google talk for the past week or so, I have come to the conclusion that GV might not yet be a product with good enough quality of services (QOS).... at least for calls that are made to landlines since I have not tried it out doing computer-to-computer kinda gtalk.

The biggest obstacle I have encountered so far is that, although I tune the volume to the highest level, the outcome is still very low.

Since I am using the speaker built-in to the ThinkPad laptop and do not have a headset, a lot of times, when speaking on the phone, it would look as if I were resting my head on the keyboard because the speaker is located right at the base of the screen.

Although it is a common problem experienced by many GV users, well documented in GV-related forums and a known issue to Google, it remains to be an issue unresolved to many.

Someone in one of the forums suggested that she fixed her problem by always allowing mail.google.com to access the camera and/or microphone, which could be done through this link.

Unfortunately, it didn't do it for me.

Hope it might solve your issue, though.

Good luck!

(7/17/2011 UPDATE: Something seems to have happened on Google's end.  The volume of calls through google talk seems to have gone up in recent days while nothing extraordinary was done on my end at all.)

Embedding audio files in Blogger

Tried to embed an audio file in a blogger post earlier.

Unfortunately, it took me quite a few trials to finally get the seemingly brainless task right... namely... getting a player shown inside of the post and give the users the controls.



What is the modified code I used?


<embed src="URL for the audio file" type="audio/mpeg" loop="false" autoplay="False" volume="30" height="14" width="275"></embed>

Of course, yours truly did not work so hard as to cook the codes out herself... got the original code from the following blog: http://iscocoons.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-to-upload-mp3-files-to-play-in-your.html.

--with the only thing I changed... autoplay="False".. meaning... I will let the users decide whether they want the audio files be played or not.

Potential death of a fantom

I think my Fantom is dead.... just don't know how dead it is...

I would have prefer it to be less dead than to be completely dead... meaning... still able to get some data out of it... particularly the part of data after 2007... though... ain't like I've got so much produced after 2007.... 8-O lol 8-X

A question for users of Google Voice

Because I would like to keep this old number of mine, I am seriously considering about porting this number to Google Voice... for the sake of keeping this line up and running when in need.

Anyone out there with a reason why I shouldn't do so?

Taking screenshots when running Windows 7 on a Mac without third party software programs

A whole lot of things I do in life is absolutely useless and meaningless.

Yet, it is amazing how lessons learned might emerge through the unbearable uselessness in life... 8-O lol 8-X

So, I decided to break my 152-day streak in Cafe world about 2-3 days ago and wanted to take a screenshot to show you my record.

That's when I was confronted with this question... a question that I might have encountered before though the exact solution I used then already forgotten....

 "How do I take a screenshot when using Windows 7 on a Mac?"

....provided... not intention to install any third party screen capturing software programs on this machine...

For those of you who don't quite understand why this is a question...

While there is no "PrtScn" or Print Screen key on the Mac keyboard, the commands of "command+shift+4" alike do not work on windows 7 running on a Mac.

Just when I was about to give up, I discovered a solution, or, to be more exact, a solution someone else discovered and shared through the Internet... 8-O lol

There is a way to take a screenshot without using a third party software while running windows 7 on a Mac.  

Essentially, you can use the On-Screen Keyboard, which gives you the "PrtScn" key to press on.

The second question would be... How do you enable the On-Screen- Keyboard?

One way of doing it would be to click on "Start" and do a search for "on screen keyboard," or, you can simply copy and past the path "Control Panel\Ease of Access\Ease of Access Center" into the location bar for one of the explorer windows to get to the Ease of Access Center.

When in the Ease of Access Center, click on "Start On-Screen Keyboard," the Keyboard will pop up, and, voila, now you have the "Print Screen" Key to press on to take that screenshot of your heart's desire.... 8-O lol

Hope this helps!

P.S., Just found out how I had the problem resolved before with the solution then as a simple combination of  Shift+fn+F11... Didn't know that the solution was already within myself though the exploration did give me an alternative path towards Rome... while, en route, I learned that there exist a thing called the Ease of Access Center inside of the Control Panel... 8-O lol

zip or compress your file on a mac

This is a strange posting coming out here... someone with access to mac once in a blue moon nowadays... typing this thing out on a thinkpad.

Yet, my friend asked me this question today... "How do you zip or compress a file on a mac?"

Compress a single file

Mac OS 10.3 and later has the built-in capability to perform file compression tasks.

If you press down the "ctrl" key and click on the file (e.g., ratology.docx), you will see in the drop-down menu an item stating 'Compress "ratology.docx".' Select this option and a copy of the file with .zip extension will be created (i.e.g, ratology.docx.zip).


On the other hand, if multiple files are selected, you will be able to add them all into the same archive, assigned with a default filename "Archive.zip."

Compress multiple files

At the same time, when attempting to zip an entire folder, for instance, a folder titled "ratology,"  get to the drop-down menu by either right-clicking on the folder, or, by clicking on the folder while the "Control" key is pressed down.   

Compress a folder

Select the item 'Compress "ratology"' (or replace ratology with the name of your folder).  A zip file with your folder name will be created (e.g., ratology.zip).

Hope this posting is helpful somehow.

What Princess luddite think of IPad II so far

It took me less than 4 minutes to complete the second IPad II related posting while almost 2 hours for the 1st one.

Don't know about what it might be for any other ordinary Joe and Jane.  Yet, if you ask this modern luddite, I would say... as a productivity device, IPad II seems to be trailing behind the good old computers in the efficiency, effectiveness and luddite-ly user satisfaction department.

The novelty effects were there, though, when my eyes opened wide at the sight of the beautifully dressed IPad II.

Surely, it is small, light and portable.... excellent for a handicapped like me having problems with weights.

In addition, if your focus is mainly on information foraging and the sharing of info through methods such as emails, once an account is set up, it is simple.

Still...

It is much slower to type on an IPad II keyboard for me and it is more cumbersome to perform simple tasks that are required in the creation of digital contents.

Of course, there must be something out there...

A cable that I could use to connect to my camera or USB drives....

An app available to perform simple multimedia editing tasks (for God's Sake... it is Apple... lol)

Except for...

The belief that da cable and da App is as useful as Da belief that there is a prince somewhere out there for yours princess luddite....  Wonderful belief except for pretty "unusable" for the present especially when people always say that you have to live in the present.  8-O lol

Still need to play around with it more though... yet, looking forward to a more utility-oriented version of IPad...

How many times do you have to kiss them frogs... Perhaps, da III might be what I have been looking for?  8-O lol

Keep my fingers crossed!

Smart Cover for IPad II

Trying out this IPad 2 for the first time earlier today (though, sorry, a bit of an old technology today since it is already a couple months old now)... with the coolest thing I see so far as the magnetic smart cover.

Called me an old dog that can't learn the new tricks... following is the clip I took to show you how this smart cover works.

Ipad 2 4 the 1st time

Trying out this IPad 2 for the first time. The coolest thing I see so far is the clothes this babe has on... the magnetic smart cover.

So I used my camera to take a video clip of this cool clothes da IPad has on... That was when I discovered the dumbest thing I encountered so far...

Since I cannot take a video of the iPad itself with the internal camera, I had to outsource my camera to do the recording. Unfortunately, after searching all around, I simply could not figure a way out to simply dump the video clip from my camera to this IPad so that I can have the clip uploaded to YouTube and embedded in this post.

Well, a simple USB port might be nice.. Except for... Oops... Not available..

As a result, I have to dump the clip onto a computer to upload it to YouTube and, in order for me to locate the clip, I had to set up my email info with the iPad email client in order to get the following URL...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFrezBpTVN

Although I would really Like to properly have the clip nicely embedded in this post... After struggling for almost, 2 hours to have this writing composed... I decided... This is as far as this post will go

--- tbc on a computer


Sent from my iPad

Adsense?

Officially testing out the Adsense thing...

Strangely, I had this expectation that the ads are supposed to sync up with the contents of the posting.  Yet, I found ads for cosmetics on appearing on this blog...

Am I not supposed to see tech related ads? 8-O

Don't know whether it is only me seeing things not supposed to be there... 8-O lol

Where on earth is self-timer in Canon Powershot A570 IS?

I got this Canon PowerShot A570 IS back in 2007.  Remains to be a functional camera despite of its propensity to give out that battery low signal.

For years, I tried to find the self-timer feature common to all cameras even those came out before the digital age.  Yet, either it was because I didn't know "self-timer" was the key word to look for or else, I never found it and eventually came to assume such feature, somehow, doesn't exist in this model.

Then, today, my friend with a broken foot wants to take a picture of yours hardly can walk on a cane with my camera in her House of Disability.

I told her... "I don't think this feature exists in this model unless you can find it."

Her obsessive compulsive propensity played out fine!

Voila...

After all these years and after all the fits my father has thrown over not able to take family reunion pictures using the self-timer feature, we finally discovered where on earth this self-timer feature is in Canon Powershot A570 IS.

To use the self-timer feature, you need to be in one of the photo-shooting mode (e.g., Auto, portrait, landscape).  After pressing the Function/Set key on the camera, a set of interactive menu will appear on your LCD screen.

If you select the icon looking like a square in the horizontal menu on the left hand side, the sub-menu of Drive Mode will appear at the bottom.

The camera has a pre-set timer of 10 seconds or 2 seconds; they are indicated by the icon with the number 10 and 2, perspectively.

The last icon in the Drive Mode sub-menu has a letter "c", which stands for "customize" or "customizable."  If you select this function, you will be able to specify length of delay and the number of pictures to take after the delay.

Now that I got it figured out... it seems to be so simple and straightforward.

Yet, don't know about you... both my friend and I agree that... this is one of the worse example of design usability because why don't they simply call it the self-timer?

Might simply be me stupid.  I personally have come to the sub-menu of "Drive Mode" a million and a time but never had it occurred to me- the association between the self-timer needed to take a family reunion picture.

Hope this helps shall someone else having similar problem