Tips: June 2008 Archives
Now when you're waiting to find out if you've bought an item on auction at eBay, you can be out and about with your phone and receive text updates on the sale. E-mail updates have long existed, but the text option may be preferable if you don't have an Internet-enabled phone, you're already paying for flat-rate texting, or you just find it simpler to read a text than an e-mail on your device.
When you click on the link to receive notices via SMS (text message), you'll be asked to identify your carrier and then put in your phone number: There is a 25-cent fee for up to 10 notices per item. You can set whether you want to receive messages every time there is an alert or only between certain hours.
Once you sign up, eBay will send a text message asking you to reply to confirm your registration. A few more messages will arrive and then you can monitor your bids on the go. When you want to stop receiving the messages, you can simply text "STOP" or go to the Personal Information page within My Account on eBay. Under "Email and Contact Information" unsubscribe from the "Mobile phone number for SMS alerts" option.
For most people, entering text on an iPhone isn't going to be as fast as when using a hardware keyboard. Take it from me, though, you can get close(r) with practice. This is where a Web-based program, TypingWeb for the iPhone, from FTW Innovations can help.
With this free typing tutor, you can get your iPhone typing skills up to speed faster. And, if you want, put your thumbs or index finger to the test to find out just how good you are at entering words and numbers on your iPhone..
Using TypingWeb is simple.
Author: Philip L. Graitcer
The iPhone keyboard has been billed as the smartest keyboard in the world, but it takes knowing a couple of tricks to take advantage of its braininess. The clearest way the keyboard shows off its smartness is by anticipating the word you are typing and spelling it out on the screen.
The keyboard gets smarter the more you use it. It "learns" words and abbreviations you type and the next time you type them, it will offer them up as suggestions, complete with capitalization. And it already knows how to add punctuation to common contractions like "I've" and "they'll."
Author: Philip L. Graitcer
We're in the midst of summer. What are the possibilities of a little rain, or maybe even a cold spell, be great? Take out the trusty iPhone, tap on the Weather icon (it is always sunny and 73 degrees on the icon) and take a look.
What? The weather is set for Cupertino? What's going on here?
Tap on the "i" at the bottom right of the page and you'll get to the edit page. Tap on the "-" and you can get rid of the Cupertino. Then tap on the "+" and type in a few letters of the name of your city and tap "Search." 
In a few seconds, you'll get back a list. Select the correct city. You'll be back on the edit page. Tap "Done" and you'll get that city's weather. Each city has its own page. To scroll through the different cities, drag your finger across the touch screen in either direction. 
The iPhone can be set up to check Yahoo weather forecasts in most major cities in the world…. a nice feature when you want to gloat or be jealous about the weather.
Author: Philip L. Graitcer
In these troubled financial times, having quick access to stock quotes is useful. The iPhone has a native application - Stocks- that can keep you in touch with the market, with quotes delayed by only 20 minutes. With it, you customize your stock watch list in just a few easy steps:
Tap the Stocks icon - that's the one that looks like a graph on the home page. You'll see the default stock page listing the Dow Jones Industrial average, and stock prices for Apple, Google, and Yahoo. Gains and losses can be tracked in dollars and cents and by percent change. 
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You can track other stocks: Tap on the "I" at the bottom right corner of the page, you'll get the edit page. To delete a stock, just tap the "-" and tap delete. To add, tap "+" - then type in the name of the stock or the stock symbol, then tap "Search". Tap on the correct company name, you'll get back to the edit page, then tap "Done" in the upper right hand corner. Your new stock will be listed. 
Give the iPhone a few seconds to update the stock quotes, and you're ready to go.
Author: Philip L. Graitcer
One of my favorite built-in programs on the iPhone is the Notes application. I use Notes to jot down ideas or to help my memory - like the names of books or CDs that I want to get. No more post-it notes or paper to-do lists in your wallet. Keep your notes on your iPhone.
On the home screen, you'll see an icon that looks like a lawyer's legal pad. Tap on the icon, and then tap on "+" in the upper right hand corner. Your note pad is ready to take notes - tap on the pad and the keyboard will appear. Tap "Done" in the upper right hand corner. Each note page is saved with the time and date stamped on it. 
At the bottom of the notepad screen are four icons: a back arrow, an envelope, a trash can, and a forward arrow. Tap on the envelope to email the note to some, forward and backward arrows scroll through the notes, and the trash can discards the note.
Author: Philip L. Graitcer
The iPhone is a great phone - just as it is. But what if you wanted to use it on another mobile network, where the signal might be stronger or the per minute rates a little lower…. Well, unfortunately, you can't. Unless you "unlock" it.
An unlocked phone can run on another network - all that's necessary is taking out the ATT SIM card and inserting one from another mobile network. (A SIM card - Subscriber Information Module - is a little circuit board that contains information about you - your phone number and your mobile network).
Unlocking a phone voids your Apple and your AT&T warranties. If something happens to your iPhone, you're on your own. Apple and ATT won't help you figure it out.
There are at least two ways to unlock your phone - a hardware modification - which means opening up your phone and making some changes to the circuitry. This is technically difficult to do and should only be undertaken by experts. The other way is to run a software program that will do the work for you.
A friend gave me an iPhone that had a cracked screen, since he didn't need it and I had my own already, we wouldn't be in trouble if the unlock procedure didn't work. I decided to use the software method.
There are many free programs widely available on the internet to unlock your iPhone - I tried two: Ziphone and iLibertyX.
Both programs are easy to download and their operation is self explanatory. But on my iPhone, Ziphone didn't work. It unlocked the iPhone, but I was unable to get YouTube working again and occasionally my iPhone locked up allowing me to make only emergency calls and Ziphone gave me a message telling me to restore it using iTunes.
I wound up restoring the iPhone back to its factory settings (using iTunes) and then running iLibertyX. iLibertyX worked like a charm and within a few minutes the iPhone was unlocked. I put in a SIM card from T-mobile and could make and receive calls, email, and use all the other built-in programs on the iPhone.
Another feature of iLibertyX is that it also "jailbreaks" the iPhone. That means I can download 3rd party programs on to my iPhone. More about that soon.
