What I Learnt Today

Ring Ring, The Happiest Sound of them All

Don’t you just love getting a phone call at home at 7pm each night to let you know about some fascinating opportunity to save money? Or a call tat gives you the chance to help an organization in need?

And Isn’t it nice to be able to chat with some interesting person from another country.

Over the last five years I’ve signed up a new telephone plan each  and bought every raffle ticket on offer. Strangely, my phonebill gets higher and higher, and I’ve yet to receive my new house, boat, car, and cruise.

Alas, our phone is quiet now. We signed on to the governments ‘Do Not Call’ program. ( I acknowledge that we may be the last house in the country to do so. That woud be why we got so many calls – we were the only number left on the call centre’s list)

Most remarkably, the ‘Do Not Call’ process through the web site was quick and easy. Who are you? What numbers do you want blocked? Done.

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Our Kiwi friends can breathe a huge collective sigh of relief.

Full time has been called on Rugby World Cup 2011 – with the same results as the first one in 1987.

The same four teams make up the top four (although in 1987 Wales beat Australia 22-21 in the Bronze playoff, to claim third place). 

And New Zealand today defeated France in the final – by just one point. (9-8)

Although France played the better game today, one can’t begrudge the All Blacks the victory. 

There is no doubt that they have been the dominant team over the last four years, and the best team at this World Cup. They defeated France 37-17 only one month ago, and had to beat both their world cup ‘bogeymen’, Australia and France, to claim the cup.

Captain Richie McCaw showed that not only is he the best player in the world, he is the best at interpreting what is permitted under the laws of the game.

If you get in now you can secure your tickets for the World Cup Final in London on 17th October 2015, when their captain David Pocock will lead Australia to victory over the All Blacks 28-6, Quade Cooper being announced Player of the Tournament.

PS Hamish, if not for a French goal that just missed, I’d be directing you to Bluff Your Way in the World Cup Part Three.

 

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Tonight we watched the Sound of Music. (Millie’s First Time) The film was first released in 1965, and is the third highest grossing film of all time, behind Gone With the Wind and Star Wars. It is based on the true story of the Von Trapp Famly Singers, who had a successful career in Austria (winning the 1936 Salsburg Festival), and later in America. The basis of he story is true. Maria Kutschera actually was an orphan training to be a nun., When aged 22,  she was sent from the Abbey to be he governess at the house of a widower and retired Naval captain, Georg Von Trapp. She subsequently fell in love with his children and married their father. Von Trapp was against the Nazis, such that after the Austrian Anschluss (annexation) he and his family were forced to flee Austria. Of course, the film does differ from fact in many respects – particularly in the portrayal of the characters of Maria and Georg. They were in fcat married for 10 years before leaving Salburg, and didn’t escape by foot over the alps (luckily, because Salsburg is a very long way from Switzerland. In fact, they all simly caught a train to Italy, having per-arranged a singing tour of America. The National Archives of America has chronicled the story of the Family Von Trapp and in this 2005 article compares their real story with that portrayed in the film. As is often the case, the true story is the more interesting.http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2005/winter/von-trapps.html

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The last in our series  ‘iOS 5 – what now?’. Today – Ten Things about iCloud

 1 iCloud is Apple’s new ‘cloud computing service’.  It allow users to store their files and data remotely on Apple’ servers. This allows data to be easily synced between computers, iPads and iPhones – keeping them all up to date with the same files and information automatically. Create an event on a calendar on one device, and it is automatically added to all your other devices. Create a document in Pages on your iPad, and it available on your iPhone (but not yet on your Mac – see 10 below)

 2. Apple has invested $1 billion in a ‘server farm’ in North Carolina to host the world’s data. 

 3. iCloud replaces MobileMe, but has  a number of new features. Current subscribers to MobileMe have until July next year to make the switch to iCloud. This is easy to do – viist http://me.com and follow the links.

 4. The iCloud service is free for the first 5 Gb of data. An extra 10 Gb costs $21 year. Current MobileMe subscribers get 25 Gb of storage when they switch.

 5. iCloud require an AppleID, which you already have. This is the email address that you use to log in to the iTunes store. This is known as your Main Account.

 

6. If everyone in the family uses the same Main Account, they can all access any of the apps or songs or videos or books you have purchased from iTunes. Indeed, they will receive any new purchases automatically. You will be asked to enter your Main AppleID when you first set up your device with iOS5.

 

7. You can also create a new free personal AppleID for each member of the family. This is a good idea. You do this in Settings>Mail,Contacts,Calendars>Add Account>iCloud>Get a Free Apple ID.

 

8. There is some data that you want to share between members of your family, and some data that is best used individually. You do this by setting which Services you would like to use with your individual AppleID, and which to use with the family common AppleID. Cathy and I can share Contacts and Calendars and Remiinders between us on all our computers and devices, and the kids can each use their own AppleIDs for their Contacts and  Calendars and Reminders. ( otherwise our contact list quickly fills up with people rather unfortunately named  ‘Reddog’, ‘Jayjay’ and ‘Rumps’)

You set the services to use with each account through

Settings>iCloud

and Settings>Mail,Contacts,Calendars (select each account in turn)

 

9. Photostream is a service which automatically shares up to 1000 photos taken on iPhones or iPads (or added from iPhoto). Your AppleTV can also show your Photostream. You need to update iPhoto to iPhoto ’11 if you haven’t already done so.

 

10.  To enable syncing of Pages documents on your iPhones and iPads, you need to turn it on in two places.

Settings>iCloud>Documents and Data

Settings>Pages

The same applies for Numbers and Keynote

Documents are not automatically synced to and between iMacs/MacBooks, which is a pain that hopefully will soon be remedied. You need to upload and download documents through the web page http://icloud.com

(I had trouble turning on the iCloud Sync for Pages (it kept turning off again). This turned out to be due to a MobileMe account which had been migrated to iCloud but was not my Main Account. Deleting and then re-entering this account on each iDevice did the trick)

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Because buying new running shoes is more fun than actually running. – Merlin Mann

I’m keen on the ‘GTD’ approach to getting organised, and therefore I’m into compiling lists of things to do.

There is very little more satisfying than crossing an item off a list.

Luckilly for me, there are lots of task manager apps in the app store to try out. It is certainly more fun managing the tasks than actually doing the tasks.

Some people are into ‘The Hit List’.
http://www.potionfactory.com/thehitlist/

Others dig the customisability of Omnifocus
http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnifocus-iphone

I’ve been a devoted “Things’ man myself.
http://culturedcode.com/things/

However, I think I’m about to defect.

In iOS5, Apple has disrupted the market by including a free ‘to-do’ app called ‘Reminders’.

Reminders is very simple. You create any number of Lists (Home, Work, Computer, Shopping, Emails, Ideas for WILT, Xmas presents) and then add items.

What makes Reminders special is the way it automatically syncs between your iPhone, iPad and Mac (or PC).

If Cathy adds ‘Champagne’ to the Shopping List on her iPad, it will immediately be added to the Shopping List on my iPhone. If I add ‘Buy present for Brendan’ to a list on my iPad, it will immediately be available on my Mac at work. (Doesn’t mean I actually do it, unfortunately for Brendan)

(There isn’t a Reminders app as such on the Mac – the Lists and Tasks are added to iCal. On Windows, they are synced with Outlook)

You can also access your tasks from any browser at http://icloud.com

Reminders can be set to alert you on a certain date, or set to be recurring (Remind me about my Anniversary on April 7th each year. Remind me to put out the recycling bin every 2nd Thursday).

On the iPhone (or 3G iPad), an item can be set so that you automatically receive an alert when you arrive at (or leave) a certain destination.(Remind me to ring Pete’s Tree Felling when I get to work). So far, this feature has been a bit imprecise for me – tending to remind me to ring Pete whenever I am within a km of work.

On the Apple iPhone 4S, Reminders is integrated with the voice controlled assistant Siri –  which means you can just talk to the phone and it will set an appropriate reminder.

Reminders lacks some of the sophistication of Things (No tagging, no ‘Areas of Responsibility’).

However, its ability to seamlessly sync across devices is winning me over. (Also, I’m getting depressed by the number of uncompleted tasks that Things keeps reminding me about.)

The syncing features of ‘Reminders’ uses Apple’s new iCloud service.

To get full use, you need to 

1) Upgrade your Mac to MacOSX 10.7.2 (through Software Update)

2) On the Mac, In System Preferences>iCloud, enter your AppleID, and tick the checkbox next to Calendar

3) On your iPhones / iPads running iOS5, enter that same AppleID in Settings>iCloud, and turn ‘Calendars’ on.

That should be it. 

No excuse now for not remembering the milk.

(Note: if you have been using MobileMe to sync your Calendars, at some point soon you will need to switch to iCloud. (log to http://me.com and follow the directions) It is best to do this before you create too many lists and to dos in Reminders. I found that after the switch, iCloud does not recognise the Lists and to-dos I had created in Reminders, but persisted with the old MobileMe to-dos. The Lists on my iPad were divided into two sections – ‘On this iPad and ‘iCloud’, as in this screen shot. I had to make new lists in the ‘iCloud’ section, move the tasks from the old lists to the new lists, and then delete the old lists. This probably won’t happen to you – but you’ve been warned)

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