West Florida Components

If you have any Apple brand device, chances are you have at least one pair of their headphones laying around. If you use them on a regular basis, here are some tips to get the most from your Apple headphones:

During phone calls:
1 – Incoming calls: Tap the center button to answer a call
2 – Ignore a call: Long-press the center button to ignore the call – you should hear 2 ‘beeps’ and you will know that the caller was successfully sent to voice mail
3 – Swapping calls: Tap the center button once to swap calls – Hold the center button down for about 2 seconds to end the new call
4 – Disconnecting/Hanging up: Tap the center button once again to hang up

When listening to music:
5 – Toggle pause/play: Single tap the center button
6 – Skip a song: Double tap the center button
7 – Return to the previous song: Triple tap the center button
8 – Fast forward a song: Tap the center button two time; long-press the second tap
9 – Rewind a song: Tap the center button three times; long-press the third tap.

Using the camera function:
10 – Shutter Release: Tap the volume-up button to snap a picture. This trick will help you get very steady shots.

For Siri users (iPhone 4S and above):
11 – Activate Siri: Long-press the center button

Remember – any Apple device that utilizes their headphones and have these functions (i.e. iPad and iPod) can also take advantage of these features. Do you know of any headphone tricks that we’ve missed? Send them our way!

Google has released a great new feature for mobile users – Handwrite. It takes just a few seconds to enable this feature on your mobile phone or tablet. Once enabled, using the tip of your finger or a stylus, you can handwrite the term you are searching anywhere on the Google home page. Even with pretty sloppy handwriting, Google’s Handwrite is impressive at recognizing which letters you are handwriting on the search page. For most smart phones, this gives you three options to submit a Google search: type, voice entry or handwrite!

Here’s how to turn this feature on:
Go to the www.google.com homepage (mobile version). Scroll down to the bottom of the page and tap ‘Settings’. On the ‘Settings’ page, choose “enable” in the “Handwrite” section. Go back to your Google homepage and refresh the page – and now you can start writing your search term anywhere on the page. TIP: If you don’t have cookies enabled, you should turn that functionality on first in your settings as that is required in order for Handwrite to properly function.

Handwrite is available in 27 languages for iOS 5 (+), Android 2.3 (+) phones, and Android 4 (+) tablets (on Android devices, Handwrite works best using Chrome).

If you want to stop the Handwrite feature, simply tap in the search box. You can re-enable Handwrite at any time by tapping the cursive ‘g’ in the bottom of the Google home page screen.

In an effort to increase personalized service, British Airways has introduced the ‘Know Me’ program which give airlines staff members the authority and the tools to search online for passenger information.

Using iPads, staff members search through a list of that day’s passenger names for images on Google so that they can recognize them as they enter the airport or the plane. Their name is then used by the employees so that they are greeted and recognized personally. In addition to using the iPads to search for images, the staff can search for other information about the customer including their travel history and any past complaints.

British Airways maintains that their goal is to deal with customer complaints more effectively. As reported in the Telegraph, the British Airways program must comply with UK privacy laws. Assuming the program does comply with privacy laws, the question is do we think British Airways employees should be googling their passengers in an effort to provide better customer service? Is this comforting to think that they care to learn about us or just a tad creepy?

At our electronic components e-commerce business, we love to push the limits with our electronic gadgets. But could we replace our notebook computer with an iPad2? We wouldn’t have thought so, but a writer for PC World did a 30 day challenge where he set out to prove once and for all if it were possible to replace his trusty Windows7 laptop with an iPad2.

There were many computing tasks that he looked at. Most of the criteria he included in his challenge were everyday tasks that most of us could relate to. Some of the tasks that he evaluated during the challenge were interesting.

In the end, he wanted to see if he could:

• Web Surf

• Email

• Office Productivity

• Manage Contacts

• Back Up to Cloud

• VPN to Company Network

• Online Meetings / Video Conference

• Calendar

• Social Network

• Finances

• Printing / Scanning

• Entertainment

The result? A resounding YES to all of the above. Was it a perfect solution? No. Was it even a long term solution? No way. But, other than the physical constraints of the tablet’s small screen and cramped keyboard, the writer had no major operating issues or complaints. In fact, he was even confident that should his notebook computer crash, he’d not have to run out for a replacement that very moment.

Is the next challenge going to be if he could replace his notebook computer with a smart phone? Maybe. That would be a great challenge to see.

Look for new tablets to come from Samsung and Toshiba in the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2010. Interestingly enough both the Samsung tablet and the Toshiba tablet will be running on Android software (sorry, Microsoft!).

Both Samsung and Toshiba are itching to capitalize on the portable tablet market that Apple created this year with the introduction of the iPad. Apple, which has sold over 3,000,000 iPads since this spring will keep the tablet crown for now as there are so many applications and components already released for the iPad and iPhone devices that it will take a while for the Android based tablets to catch up.

HP, Dell and LG are all said to have their own tablets in development but it is expected that the Toshiba and Samsung tablets will be the only ones to make an appearance in 2010.

The price of both the Samsung and Toshiba tablets has not been finalized but it is expected that they will be comparable to the iPad in price and features.

One notable difference with the Toshiba tablet is that it will have a larger screen than it’s iPad counterpart. What ever else may be different will have to wait until it’s closer to their release.

Jailbreaking an iPad

If you have an iPad, you may be intrigued by the thought of jailbreaking it.

Jailbreaking a device permits you to install and use third party applications and utility programs. In the case of a jailbroken iPad, you would be able to then run apps like Adobe Flash which is not available through the Apple OS, or access files like you can on a PC. One app that caught my eye was the multitasking app which would allow you to run multiple programs without having to save/close them. Another great app called Wi-Fi Sync gives you the flexibility to sync your iPad with Wi-Fi – no plugged in USB required.

Of course, jailbreaking the iPad is not without risk (the number one concern would be warranty) but PCWorld.com has put together the definitive guide to jailbreaking your iPad. In fact, PCWorld’s guide is so complete, it even gives you instructions on how to revert back should you get cold feet (or have to go back).

Once you’ve hacked your iPad, be sure to avoid the iPad updates from Apple since your device can be reverted to the non-jailbroken state. Should that happen, you can jailbreak your iPad again after the update is installed.

PCWorld – How to Jailbreak an iPad

One major drawback of the iPad is the inability to easily move files from the iPad to a desktop or notebook computer or other mobile device.

That’s where DropBox steps in. No, it’s not perfect, but it is the best app we’ve found – it’s free and there are no wires or cables necessary!

DropBox uses cloud-based storage to make your files available to another device. The basic, free DropBox service gives you 2GB of storage to manage your files. We think that’s plenty for most users.

Here’s how to use it: on your iPad with DropBox opened, click the ‘+’ sign to upload a file to your DropBox storage. When you are logged in on your desktop PC, notebook computer or other mobile device, log into DropBox to retrieve and download your file. Easy! Another benefit is the integration of the DropBox app with the native iPad productivity apps like Keynote and Pages.

You can find the DropBox app in the iTunes store: DropBox for iPad. There are also versions for the iPod touch and the iPhone which are useful, but this version takes advantage of the larger real estate available with the iPad screen.

Apple sold 3 million iPads in 80 days and is still having a hard time keeping the iPads in stock – a situation that is not totally unexpected, but even analysts are revising their projected sales figures upward based on what they call the ‘strongest product cycle in the company’s history, led by the iPad and iPhone 4′.

In terms of apps, there are over 11,000 apps already developed for the iPad. What is surprising the analysts is not the number of apps available but the number of businesses that are finding new ways to use the iPad. In fact it may be the unexpected adoption of the iPad by businesses that are finding so many useful business related apps that is fueling the increased demand.

If you are using the iPad for business, here’s a short list of recommended apps from Apple’s iWork suite of products (all available for $9.99/each):
-Pages
-Numbers
-Keynote

Also of note is Quickoffice ($10 through iTunes) which is an app that brings the usability of the iPad together with the best features of Office. Definitely worth checking out if you are using your iPad as a substitute for a traditional notebook computer while traveling.

Yes – there are a few key things missing from the newly released iPad…besides our number one gripe that USB plugs aren’t so universal when it comes to the iPad…the chief complaint we’ve heard about the iPad is that you can’t view sites that require support for Adobe Flash.

No worries! Here are 5 sites that don’t require flash to be able to view their video content:

www.youtube.com – With their adoption of HTML5, you are now able to browse videos on YouTube with Apple products.

www.vimeo.com – Like YouTube, Vimeo has made the transition to HTML5. About 90% of the videos uploaded in the past year should be supported by the HTML5 player.

www.myspace.com – Add MySpace to the list of sites where you can view video in HTML5 format.

www.flickr.com – Flickr is the latest site to announce their adoption of HTML5 format.

www.ustream.com – While UStream isn’t serving videos in HTML5 format, it does have an iPad app available so you are still able to use their site with your new iPad.

There are many other sites (like www.nbc.com, www.cbs.com and www.abc.com) where having a flash-enables viewer installed is no longer a requirement. As other devices (like smart-phones and iPad-like tablets) are released to the market, we’ll see more and more sites adapting. The staff at West Florida Components is happy to find more flash-free sites every day.