How-tos

iPhone 101: Headphone issues

Recently, my iPhone was having issues. Specifically, it thought headphones were inserted when they weren’t. I first noticed the problem as I was typing and didn’t hear that familiar “click” that normally accompanies a key press.

I thought I had accidentally toggled the ringer mute button (which I seem to do often), but no, it was set to ring. I inserted some headphones and heard everything - the clicks, music, etc.

I placed a call and tried turning the speaker on and off to no avail. Next, I rebooted the phone. No dice. I connected it to my Mac and performed a sync with iTunes and still, there was no sound.

I reset the phone by holding down the power button and the home button. Still, there was no sound without headphones. At last, I got a can of compressed air and gave a couple of short blasts into the headphone port. That did it! The phone must have been interpreting the junk that had collected in there over the past year as headphones.

A simple solution that, hopefully, will save you some time.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Mac 101: Finder window preferences

As we know, the Finder offers four ways to display your files. Namely icon view, list view, column view, and Cover Flow. Perhaps you prefer one over the others (let’s say column view), but your windows open to icon view by default. That can be annoying but here’s how to fix it.

First, open a new Finder window. Next, select your preferred display method and then close the window without doing anything else. Don’t open a folder, drag an icon, nothing. Now subsequent Finder windows will default to your preferred setting.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Text from your iPhone for free

Have you been enjoying the 200 free, monthly text messages that accompany your 1st generation iPhone? Then don’t upgrade to iPhone 3G, because those same messages will cost you $5US per month, unless you know this trick.

Dave Merten at Macsimum News has posted a simple, four-step process that will allow you to get free texting out of your 3G iPhone that you should really check out.

Kudos for Macsimum News for posting the trick. Sure, you’re only saving $5 a month — the cost of one Venti latte from you-know-where or approximately 1 gallon of gas — but it all adds up, my friends.

[Via YourMacLife]

Popularity: 4% [?]

Simplify media transcription with hotkeys and AppleScript

I’ve found myself transcribing different types of media lately; primarily recorded Skype conversations and footage from interviews. I do a lot of work in Scrivener, an application so enjoyable that it makes me want to write a lot more than I do. Scrivener allows for a split pane editor with a QuickTime media file loaded in one pane, and your current document in the other. While you type you can hit Shift-Space to start and stop the media. I loved it, but I wanted to take it to another level. There are applications specifically designed for this, but why not have a system-wide, works-with-anything solution?

Find out how I did it after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry

Popularity: 14% [?]

Use a Red Bull can as a radio interference shield

I love the iPhone, save for one thing. It sits on my desk every night, right near my computer, and the speakers I’ve got hooked up to it. And every 15 minutes, when the iPhone checks email for me, I get that buzzing — the sound of radio interference flying across my speaker wires. And almost every night, I have to jump out of bed angrily just to shut off the speakers and stop the buzzing. Little did I know, all I’ve ever needed was an empty can of Red Bull.

Yes, someone has fashioned a “shield” out of an emptied and carved up Red Bull can, and supposedly it works like a charm — just fashion it around the dock that came with the iPhone, use a little doublestick tape to make sure it stays on there (and I would maybe put some around the edges, too, so you don’t slice your fingers open every time you pull the iPhone off the dock), and no more buzzing sound.

The maker does wonder if it would affect the actual signal of the iPhone at all, but it hasn’t so far. If you’ve got a Red Bull can around to cut up and are driven as nuts as I am by that buzzing noise, here’s your makeshift solution. The other option is to buy speakers that don’t buzz, of course, but this seems a lot cheaper.

Popularity: 8% [?]