PDF Printer will turn virtually anything you have into a .pdf file.

From the menu, you choose where you want to get the information that you want to turn into a .pdf.  The first option is Documents. You can easily add documents using File Sharing in iTunes. Of course, you ca also convert a document from an email to a .pdf, by tapping on the attachment from within the mail app, and then choosing the funky little arrow icon. When your list of options there comes up, you’ll be able to select PDF Printer.

By linking your Dropbox account, you can quickly and easily convert any document in your Dropbox to a .pdf

Perhaps the most useful of all the options is Web. You can save entire blog posts to .pdf files so that you can read them later, or use as a reference. PDF Printer renders the entire page you’re on, and not just the visible screen. I can come up with numerous uses for this feature alone!

Photos and Contacts, not so much. Although I imagine there are people who can use a .pdf of contact information or a .pdf of a photo.

Of course, if you’ve been working in a document, spreadsheet, presentation, etc. and have copied specific chunks of information to your clipboard, it can be handy to paste it all directly to a .pdf.

PDF Printer gives you a place to find all your converted .pdf documents. Here, you can view them, open them with other apps, such as Evernote or Docs to Go, or email them to share, or keep for your records.

The .pdf format has become so widely accepted, that apps like PDF Converter and PDF Printer are practically required for your business arsenal. I’m quite happy with PDF Printer – and the price is definitely reasonable!

Check it out for yourself on iTunes.

Tonight’s guest, Alli’s Mom – former broadcast journalist, Sheila Small (not on Twitter).

How does the non technically minded person move from a Palm to an Evo.
(Dad thinks the Evo screen is too sensitive.)

Likes and dislikes
Used to like documents and memos on Palm
Like: web browsing, calendars and Google sync, large screen – awesome!, camera
Dislike: virtual keyboard, no quick/easy way to enter notes, predictive text, battery

Customization

Social media integration – synergy

Want your app reviewed on JAGS? Send a promo code to edward@justanothergeeksite.com.

Give-away one license for 1Password for Mac or PC. DM Jerry on Twitter with the name of our first guest on Convertcast?

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http://www.mediafly.com/Podcasts/Feeds/ConvertCast

Calendar Apps – Next generation

Calengoo – http://calengoo.dgunia.de/Start.html
SaiSuke – http://www.saysoftware.net/saisuke_i/SaiSukeTop_E.html
Calvetica – http://calvetica.com/
Pocket Informant and Agendus

Case talk;

Vapor Case – here today, gone today.

Went to best buy and bought:
Apple iPad case: wonderfully thin
IFrogz luxe lean

Got on order:
SGP – Valencia
Using:
Proporta SteriTouch

iPhone 4 Bluetooth
Response (Jenny) – 08/10/2010 10:12 AM
Dear Alli,

Thanks for clarifying that for us. Apple has acknowledged there is an issue with their iPhone 4 and Bluetooth headsets. They recommend trying an iPhone reset but I have found this to be more of a nuisance than anything. Before you try a reset please make sure you back-up all your settings since it resets everything back to default.

Go to Settings> General
Go to Reset Options
Go to Reset all settings

Apple has said that they are also working a software update that they hope will fix this issue.

Hope this helps Alli!

Sincerely,

Jenny
The Jawbone Support Team
www.Jawbone.com
1-877-ALIPHCO (254-7426)
Weekdays 6AM-7PM (Pacific)

RadioAlarm – FTW!

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A special 50th podcast episode with a full panel of great guests.

Mickey Papillon from The Cellphone Junkie
on Twitter
Chris Oldroyd from Supertrader and Mobile Tech Addicts
on Twitter
Edward from msmobiles.com
on Twitter

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Special guest:

Andy: Mobile Tech Addicts podcaster. Mobile GURU, Techie, Blackberry GURU, Adventurer , World Traveller, Tech Writer, Santa’s Neighbor, has owned (almost) every mobile ever SOLD since 1988. Currently abusing an :Apple Mac Book Pro, Winbows 7 CRAPTOP, an iPhone 4, Blackberry 9700, iPad, and a rubber squeaky toy called “BLORT”

Locked vs unlocked and GSM vs TROW

AMOLED vs. Super LCD (Wasn’t AMOLED pretty super?)

OH on Twitter: Yay! RT @maevro: MTA signed contract to install WiFi & /or cell signal (gsm?) in 277 Subway platforms in NYC area. #WiFi #MTA #subway

VZW network getting hit by Droid X fever – finally sympathy for AT&T and the iPhone?

Cloud computing hit me at school (hard! in the nose!), and nobody could name it.

If someone you know got an iPhone and wanted to install a free app for starters – what would you recommend?

If you had to choose one app to put on a device – what would it be? Only one answer allowed!

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And yes, we can mention “antennagate” since we’re going to discuss cases.
I did speak to an RF engineer, who suggested the only way to fix the current problem would be to put the antenna back on the inside. Form vs. function.

Case offer from Apple – Bumper? Rebate (bumper owners), or 3rd party Apple offering?
How many cases do you already have in your possession?
How many do you have on order?
Screen cover/shield?

Parent update! Both are getting Evos…which required a dissertation on the difference between 3G/EVDO and WiFi. Things we take for granted.

App update
What do you have that’s best taking advantage of iOS4?
iHound (wow!)
iMovie
Streaming software – TuneInRadio and MLB AT BAT 2010
Podcaster (wow!)
Zagat (Calendar Integration)
MotionX GPS Drive / Tomtom
Calendars
(MyWireless update includes AT&T WiFi locater)

Windows Phone 7 speculation – haha!

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Episode 17

Monday, November 16, 2009

Nephews, tropical storms, and ooooooooo…9 and oh baybee!

Parental update – started looking at VZW cause Dad noticed the Droid Does commercials. I think they’d like VZW, but not the device. Mom really wants an iPhone. Little reception in the house with AT&T, perhaps they’ll wait on AT&T’s femtocell. Holding pattern.

Top 5 Must Have applications and mini review- for any platform

Jerry – iPhone:  Non JailBreak: 1) PocketInformant 2)Faces Lite 3) Tweetie 2 4) iXpensit ) WhatsApp

Jailbreak: 1) sbSettings 2) Backgrounder 3) 3GEnabler 4) GVMobile 5) Intelliscreen

Alli – iPhone – 1) TaKePhOnE…only cause I love the old Palm stuff. 2) TV Forecast, while not a productivity app is definitely one of my absolute favorites. 3) PocketInformant 4) iCanSee***** 5) 10 Thousand

Jailbreak….1) GV Mobile. 2) LockCal Not really taking advantage of much beyond that for jb besides wallpaper/themes even though I have SBSettings and Backgrounder installed.

We both tried Shape’s (IM+) new app Business Card Reader. Working about 80% for me. Only getting one phone number.

80-85 recognition, but always lists the work number as home.

JottNot

Jailbreak stuff in general. Gonna help @clarescoffee j/b. Slow down on icon design, but maybe do an entire new theme now that I know how easy it is. DiskAid – vavavavoom! No need to ssh.

Waiting on Element – new lock screen

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The update finally came on my birthday (and I’m sure it was intentional!). If you are a former Palm Treo type, then you probably don’t even need to read further. You probably used TaKePhOnE, and you probably loved it. It was one of the first really useful apps I bought for my Treo (the 270, I believe), and it just kept on gaining function and form. Shimon was active in user community forums, and on both mytreo.net and Treo Central, the TaKePhOnE threads grew to massive lengths with replies numbering in the thousands.

For those of you still wondering what the big deal is, allow me to elaborate.  Sometimes when you want to make a phone call, you get lazy. You want to look at your dial screen and just … well, dial. You don’t want to have to go to your contacts and search or sort. But you also don’t want to have to memorize the phone numbers of all your contacts. So TaKePhOnE does that for you.

Here you can see where I wanted to call David. But I never can remember David’s last name, so I can’t even just look him up in my contacts conveniently. Sure I could go to search and type it in, and then scroll to his contact information, choose the number I want, and then dial.

Or I could just start typing the name, old school style on the dial pad. It’s especially convenient for those people with like names. For instance, I go to call a relative, but they all have the same last name, so I still have to sort through them. Or one of the 6 Michaels in my contacts whose last names are largely unimportant to my way of categorizing things in my mind. So on the same screen, I can either punch in a phone number, or just start typing the contact’s name. If I’m feeling particularly lazy, or have many contacts with similar names, I can use the * (and) key to type just a portion of the first and last names to come up with the correct contact.

Somewhere between version 3 and the current version 7 of the Palm version, Shimon added the i-Bar. The i-Bar gives you a photo contact strip that will scroll side to side through your choice of contacts with photos.If you look closely at the screenie showing my i-Bar, you’ll notice the small icon in the lower left-hand corner that also shows which number you’ve included (i.e., mobile or home).

The i-Bar does not replace speed dial, rather it’s an extra that must be used only with those contacts for whom you have photos associated. Speed dial contacts do not  have to have photos associated, and it’s your choice (in settings) as to whether or not to show the photos with your speed dial contacts.

Five pages of speed dial is enough to hold 50 contacts, and two ways to access your pages. You can swipe to the next page, or you can tap the page number at the top to go directly to a particular page. Tap and hold a contact will even open a popup menu with Call, SMS, Open Contact Info, Edit favorite name, Move to position, and Remove from Speed Dial options. Sometimes it’s more convenient sending an sms from there than finding the existing thread to add to in your sms app.

The redial tab doesn’t only allow you to redial recently called numbers, it offers you an easy to view call log that includes the duration of each call. The iPhone isn’t missing this, but the way it’s laid out, it may as well not be there. With TaKePhOnE, you don’t have to go into the call to find out how long you were on the phone.

The only thing less than natural about the iPhone version of TaKePhOnE is the way you move the speed dials around. When the option popup opens up and you choose “Move to position,” you are basically moving what you’re holding to the position you choose, which will then move it and everything following down one position. I’d like to see the little bars on the right that allow you to move things up and down.

Being able to edit the favorite name is quite nice. Notice I don’t show any last names on my speed dial page. On the next page I have people with nicknames. Opening the contact, on the other hand, is next to worthless. If you need to edit a contact, go to the Phone or Contacts app. Right now, even if you have a contact set with a custom ringtone, it doesn’t show from within TaKePhOnE, nor can you even view custom ringtones that have been added to your iPhone.

I’m hoping that we will see some of the nifty additions to the iPhone version that we’ve seen in the Palm version – notably skins. Right now there are two very basic skins included with the iPhone version, but there are tons available for Palm. As a heavy graphic device, skins are a natural for the iPhone.

Check out TaKePhOnE in the app store for only $1.99. You won’t be sorry.

Email from our friends at SeeqPod with this news:

We wanted to bring you up to date on a number of exciting improvements for SeeqPod Mobile for Windows Mobile.

We’ve recently introduced the new version 1.3 of SeeqPod Mobile for Windows Mobile, our third major set of new features and upgrades since our initial release in December. We’ve been listening to our users requests and working hard to fix a few glitches we had at the very beginning. If you haven’t taken advantage of our free upgrades since the beginning, you’re in for a big and pleasant surprise!

Our new version now allows users to easily re-authenticate the application if they have done a hard reset to their phone. If you should need to do this in the future, you’ll simply be prompted to enter your email when the application launches and the application will be re-authenticated. There are also a number of other great improvements that you’ll appreciate as well! (see Revision History below)

Users of SeeqPod Mobile version 1.1 and newer are automatically notified of new version upgrades when the application launches and are able to click a link to download new versions. But if you were one of our first users, with the initial version 1.0 application, please point your phone’s web browser to:

http://www.seeqpodmobile.com/wm/downloads

Current Version: 1.3

Choose the link that matches your phone and tap or click. The application will be automatically downloaded and installed on your phone (when prompted to overwrite the older version, click Yes).

Windows Mobile Smartphones (non touchscreen phones) for QVGA Displays (320 x 240)

Windows Mobile PocketPC (touchscreen phones) for QVGA Displays (320 x 240)

Windows Mobile PocketPC (touchscreen phones) for VGA Displays (640 x 480)

Launch the SeeqPod Mobile application and enter your registration email address (the one you used when you initially registered).

And you’ll be back up and using SeeqPod Mobile in no time!

You’ll also find it easier to use SeeqPod Mobile now. There are more options for searching, easier access to the Player screen, and a bit of unexpected fun to show your friends…

So what are you waiting for?! Go get your free upgrade and start enjoying the new and improved SeeqPod Mobile!

Remember, SeeqPod Mobile and SeeqPod.com are great ways to power your parties, no matter where you are! Just connect your mobile device to an audio system via bluetooth or wired connection and dance the night away! Or, fire up http://www.seeqpod.com on your computer and let your guests program the party!

The SeeqPod Mobile Team is always happy to hear from you. Let us know how you’re using SeeqPod Mobile and be sure to tell your friends! We’re also looking for reviews and videos showing SeeqPod Mobile in action and will be linking our favorites on our site, so send us your links!

Cheers!

The SeeqPod Team

seeqpod, inc.

www.seeqpod.com

www.seeqpod.com/mobile

I knew when I bought the Wind that my os choices were limited. I could use Linux or Windows XP. I honestly prefer to do my tweaking on a smaller platform (Windows Mobile or Palm) and not on a pc, so I have studiously stayed away from Linux. Nonetheless, I wanted to see more power (insert Tim ‘the tool man’ Taylor impression here). I have heard that one of the improvements Microsoft made in developing Windows 7, was making it small enough, fast enough, and powerful enough (without being overpowering) to run on a netbook. So I backed up the few files I had accumulated on my Wind, and started the install.

I couldn’t do an upgrade from XP – you can only do that from Vista, so I had to do a clean install. In a way I was disappointed in this, knowing full well that the majority of Vista problems came from upgrading rather than installing new in the first place. However, I can live with starting from optimum conditions. The install took less than 90 minutes, and with only 3 reboots I was up and running.

Basic Windows 7 beta screen

After the system starts fully for the first time, you are (in traditional Windows fahion) prompted to set up some basic things like firewall, anti-virus, and Internet Explorer. Here’s where I met my first snag. Internet Explorer couldn’t locate the website. What website? Any website. Eeek! Not a wireless signal to be seen. So with a little help from my friend Google, I found where Martin Woodward had run into the same issue when he installed an earlier Windows 7 beta back in November. He recommended installing the newest driver in compatibility mode and then go online for further updates.

Forty minutes later, having installed at least two newer drivers, I was still no closer to getting online. I was beginning to get just a little panicky, and then I thought…let’s try this “old school.” I unplugged a cat 5 from one of the many devices on my router that are not wireless, and plugged it into my little Wind. I don’t think I even had time to sit back down before a balloon message popped up to inform me that Windows was updating. Two minutes later (and that may be an overestimate!) I was able to unplug the cat 5 and access my home network and the internet. What a relief!

I quickly connected to my network’s backup drive and restored all my files. So far so good. I remember people having all sorts of troubles with drivers and peripherals when Vista first came out, and that was one of the things that kept me away from Vista. (Until an unfortunate burglary and subsequent purchase of a new laptop forced me to it.) That suggested to me that I should try those things that initially choked Vista. As I mentioned, connecting to my network’s backup drive was a snap, so the next obvious choice was my network’s HP laserjet printer. This also went without a hitch, and printing from my Wind over the network is a fait accompli.

Along with probably the majority of Vista users, one of the first things I did on my HP  laptop, was to disable the user account control security feature. Too many times I was protected from myself, resulting in extreme frustration and many many four letter words. It looks as though Windows 7 isn’t quite so “aggressive” in its duties. It also gives you more options as to how to handle the security, without having to jump through hoops, or modify registry entries (often the best way to make Vista back off).

User Security Control

Next came the one part that had me a bit concerned. Our school system has things so locked down, that they have managed to block most sites not hosted in the US – quite the challenge for us foreign language teachers! So I use my Wind extensively in the afternoons with Pdanet. This way I can check sites recommended by other foreign language teachers throughout the day from FLTeach, as well as some non educational activities – like checking out what’s happening on Twitter! Windows Mobile Device Center came with Windows 7 (unlike Vista, where despite its necessity, you still had to download it!). So after setting up Outlook, I plugged in my Treo 800w. “New device found. New drivers installed.” Really? It’s that simple? WMDC recognizes my Treo and can browse its files. Sweet. Installation of Pdanet was equally smooth.

Options

As you can see from the “Personalize” screen, not much seems to have changed here, although it is pretty!

One of the other changes that I do like, is the Start menu. Mostly what I like about this is the shut down options. Click directly on “shut down” and it shuts down – as it should have all along. If I wanted to restart or go to sleep, I wouldn’t have clicked shut down! As you can see, next to shut down is an arrow which gives you your other options: restart, go to sleep, log off user, etc.

Start

I’m not sure what will happen when the beta expires, but I’m all set to purchase Windows 7. It looks like Microsoft has resolved almost everything that was wrong with Vista, and come up with something that’s functional as well as beautiful.