And so it goes…

Hard to believe another publication season of the TR Times is over, and with it the tenure of managing editor Marilyn Collins is ending. Marilyn has been a joy to work for, and I will miss her. I wish her and Jerry fair winds as they embark on their next adventure.

Earlier in the season I promised to write about online video chats, and I never quite got around to it. The idea of seeing a video of the person on the other end of a phone was promised, and teased, for decades, but it is only recently been fulfilled.

I remember seeing demonstrations of futuristic video phones, also known as teleconferencing, when I was a child. By the late 1980's video conferencing systems finally reached the consumer market place. For the system to work, both parties needed  the same device, which if I remember cost around $700, and the pictures were actually slow-scan video — still pictures taken every couple of seconds, giving the images a jerky quality. At the time I was taking part in an educational project between my school district and a school in what was then the Soviet Union, and holding periodic videoconferences were part of our grant. 

Telephone to telephone video conferencing never really made it to the mainstream, but today we have something much better. With a video enabled computer and dedicated software, a computer can be used to make video calls (known as video chat) to other computers, anywhere in the world, and see realtime video of the party on the other end.

Almost all laptop computers purchased today come with built-in webcams and microphones. A webcam is a small, wide-angle camera, located above the screen in the center of the computer. When activated the camera captures either still images or video, depending on the software being used. What you will see on your computer screen when video chat software is running is a video image captured by the computer at the other end of the chat. Since the computer camera are wide-angle in nature, the image area can be fairly large. If someone sits close to the computer you will see just their face, but if they move away from the computer you can see the room behind them — perfect for seeing young grandchildren at play. 

The most well known of the video chat services is Skype, which since 2011 has been owned by Microsoft. All you need to use Skype is for both parties to have Skype software installed on their computers and to register for a free Skype account. Yahoo also has a video chat service, Video Messenger, that, while not as well known, is very intuitive to use. As with Skype, you need to install the free software on your computer and sign up for a Yahoo account. Both Skype and Yahoo have apps for Apple and Android mobile devices, which can video chat with other mobile devices or with computers running the corresponding software. To be compatible with video chatting mobile devices must have a front facing camera.

FaceTime is a pre-installed, video chat application made exclusively for Apple computers, iPads, and iPhone 4 and 4s models. An added feature on the iPhone is the ability to activate FaceTime at the press of a button during a cell phone call with another iPhone. Similar features are available to users of Android devices with the Google Voice app.

For information about Skype, visit www.spype.com, and for Yahoo Messsenger visit messenger.yahoo.com. 

Thank-you to everyone with a hand in editing OnMouseClick, especially my husband, Eddie, who every week reads, and edits, the column before I e-mail it to the TR Times. Safe travels to all our readers — see you next season!

  

iPad Presentation Information

Links cited in iPad presentation — 3/20/2012

• iCloud — www.icloud.com
• Dropbox — www.dropbox.com
•  AirPrint Activator — netputing.com

Multitouch Gestures

• Use 4 or 5 fingers
• Pinch together to go to home screen
• Swipe up to reveal multitasking bar
• Swipe left or right to move between apps

My Three Cameras…

A common theme to this season's OnMouseClick columns has been the evolution of technology, computers and the related devices that all of us use on a regular basis, and one of the most ubiquitous of these devices is the digital camera. Just about everybody has at least one digital camera, and many of us have more than one. I have three, at least three that I use on a regular basis.

I have been an avid photographer since my late teens, even working in the photo department of a magazine after college. Back then I used a 35 mm, single lens reflex camera, shooting primarily in black and white and printing on high contrast, matte paper. Once I began teaching I drifted away from serious photography, for years using a point-and-shoot film camera for family photos. It wasn't until the advent of digital photography in the 1990's that I rediscovered photography as an art form. Today the three cameras that I use are a Nikon D90 DSLR (digital single lens reflex camera), a Panasonic Lumix point-and-shoot, and an iPhone 4. I love shooting with my DSLR and its interchangeable lenses, but when I do not want to carry around a large, heavy camera, I have my smaller cameras to fall back on. Both fit comfortably in a pocket or small purse, and even if I leave the Panasonic at home, I always have my iPhone with me.

One of the main advantages of digital over film photography is the instant feedback. Polaroid cameras were popular because they produced finished photographic prints in a matter of minutes, even if the quality of the prints was less than stellar. With digital photography we don't have instant prints, but we can view our images on the camera's LCD screen, and if we don't like what we see, we can delete.

Another advantage of digital photography is the ease in editing. Instead of using an
enlarger, chemicals, and a darkroom to process photographs, today's photographer uses a computer and photo editing software. In fact, today's photographer doesn't even need to use a traditional computer, but can edit images on smart phones and tablets. As I wrote last week, Adobe had introduced a tablet version of its flagship Photoshop program, Photoshop Touch, for use on the iPad and Android tablets. Last week another popular graphics program made the move from the traditional computer to mobile devices. On March 7, in addition to announcing the newest version of the iPad and a upgrade to the iOS operating system (from 5.01 to 5.1), Apple unveiled a version of iPhoto for both the iPhone and iPad.

Anyone who uses a Mac is familiar with iPhoto, as it comes pre-installed on all Apple computers (a similar application, Picasa, runs on Windows computers). Both programs are image editors, but they also provide a vehicle for cataloging and displaying photos.
With the mobile version of iPhoto, you can edit photos, sort them into albums, and group them by events, locations and themes. Another feature of the app is the ability to "beam" images directly between an iPhone and iPad running on the same WiFi network.

This is a feature I am really going to appreciate, since I like to use my iPhone for picture taking, and my iPad for image editing. Two weeks ago I wrote about DropBox, a cloud computing service, to implement the transfer of photos from iPhone to iPad. While not complicated, it involved uploading an image to DropBox from the iPhone and saving it on the iPad to the built in photo app. Now, with iPhoto, I can make the transfer in one easy step.

The mobile version of iPhoto requires iOS 5.1, the newest version of the iPhone and iPad operating system, and is compatible with the iPhone 4 and 4S, and all iPads except the original iPad 1. It can be purchased from the iTunes Store for $4.99, and once downloaded, it can be installed on both the iPhone and iPad. Click this link for more information.

Cool Stuff…

I listen to a bi-weekly podcast, The MacGeek Gab, and one of the regular features is a segment called Cool Stuff Found. This week I thought I would follow their lead and devote the column to some cool stuff that might be of interest to some of you, especially those of you with iPads, iPhones, and Android devices.

I find myself taking more and more photos with my iPhone. To quote the photographer Chase Jarvis, "The best camera is the one that is with you." While my main camera is a digital single lens reflex camera, a Nikon D90, I almost always have my phone with me, and its 5 megapixel camera takes excellent images. If an iPhone photo is a keeper, I run it through some basic image enhancement before saving it or posting it to Facebook or my photo blog. I prefer to do my editing on the iPad, transferring my photos between the iPhone and iPad with Dropbox, a cloud computing service I wrote about in OnMouseClick on February 24.

Which brings me to the first cool thing, a photo editing app that runs on both the iPad 2 and Android tablets. The app, Adobe Photoshop Touch, brings a host of Photoshop style editing features to tablet computers for $9.99. I installed it on my iPad last week, and the more I use it, the more I like it. It doesn't take the place of the photo editing applications I use on my computer, but when I want to do a quick edit of a photo I took with my iPhone, the app offers robust editing capabilities. With it I can do just about everything I can do with Photoshop Elements and it is not far behind Adobe's flagship program, Photoshop.

If you have a smart phone you can connect to the internet through a G3 (or in some cases G4) cellular connection supplied by your mobile broadband carrier — AT&T, Verizon or Sprint. A cool thing that you may not know is that with most smart phones you can share the internet connection with other devices by turning the smart phone into a Personal WiFi Hotspot. In order to do so you need a compatible smart phone (if you don't know if your particular phone is compatible, call your carrier to find out) and an enhanced data plan with your wireless company. Once your data plan is setup, all you have to do is go to the settings on your phone and turn on the hotspot feature. Once turned on, the network can be joined by other smart phones, tablets, and computers, which will access the Internet wirelessly through the phone.

Each carrier charges a different rate for using a device as a Personal Hotspot, and the allowable data allowance varies. Verizon charges $20 on top of the basic cost of a data plan, and hotspot users are limited to 2 gigabytes of data. AT&T requires a 5 gigabyte data to enable a mobile hotspot, and the cost ranges from $50 to $60 a month, depending on the phone. Sprint charges $29.99 a month to add a 5 gigabyte mobile hotspot to an existing data plan.

Finally, a start-up company, OnLive, has introduced an app that lets users run a cloud based version of Windows 7 desktop and Microsoft Office on their iPads and Android tablets through a WiFi connection to OnLIve servers. The app is free, as is the service with a 2 gigabytes of cloud storage, and additional storage is available for a monthly fee. While initially Office is the only software available, the company has announced that a pro version of OnLive will be available soon that will allow users to customize the service with additional software.

Click on these links for more information about the products mentioned in this column:
Photoshop Touch
AT&T
Verizon
Sprint
OnLive

The Future is now…

In 1987 John Sculley, who was then CEO of Apple Computer, commissioned a mockup of a device he envisioned the company designing in the future. The device was named the Knowledge Navigator and it was envisioned as an artificial intelligence based, magazine sized tablet, capable of anticipating and acting on the user's needs. To showcase the idea, Mr. Sculley commissioned a fictional video, set sometime in the future, using the device to prepare a lecture in collaboration with a colleague in a remote location. While the product John Sculley imagined never came to fruition, it has much in common with the smartphones and tablets we use today — minus the ability to anticipate our every need. In the late 1980s I often used a copy of the video in presentations at educational conferences.

This past week I became aware of a series of new videos, this time produced by Corning Glass. The videos are titled A Day Made of Glass, A Day Made of Glass 2, and A Day Made of Glass 2: Unpacked. The videos feature a family of the future as they go through a day using computer devices that are totally integrated into their environments; environments made of glass and based on Gorilla Glass, which is used in most of the smartphones and tablets computers we use today.

As the narrator of A Day Made of Glass 2: Unpacked says at the culmination of the video "the story is about the way we will use technology and communicate in the future. A story about ubiquitous displays, open operating systems, shared applications, cloud media storage, and unlimited bandwidth." The emphasis on cloud media storage is mine, and brings us back to the topic of my last OnMouseClick, cloud computing.

Cloud computing is here today, and will become more and more prevalent in the future. Last week I mentioned DropBox, a easy to use, free cloud computing solution. There are hundreds of other such systems available for use and you are probably already using some of these systems, even if you are not aware of it. As mentioned in last weeks column, if you upload your photographs to photo sharing services you are using cloud computing. If you use Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo! Mail you are storing and accessing your email in the cloud. Anyone who uses Google Docs is cloud computing. Google Docs users upload documents such as word processor files, spreadsheets and presentations, which are then stored on Google servers and available for online editing from any computer.

Apple recently unveiled a new cloud based service, appropriately named iCloud, which allows users to backup iPhones and iPads online, and share documents across devices. The service offers a free 5 GB of storage to anyone with an Apple ID, and additional storage space is available for a fee.

Services exclusively offering cloud storage for hard drive drive backup are becoming increasing popular with both individuals and businesses. Theoretically, if you backup the data on your computer hard drive to a cloud storage service, you never have to worry about a hard drive crash, a power surge frying your computer, losing your laptop, or a disaster that destroys external backup drives. Companies that provide cloud backup generally store your computer files on multiple remote servers so that client files are available 24/7, even if one of the host servers is down for maintenance.

I say theoretically, because you have to be a smart consumer if you chose to backup your precious data to the cloud. A good place to start your research is an online article published by PC Magazine last August, Disaster-Proof Your Data with Online Backup. The article provides a good overview of cloud data storage, and reviews several of the popular services.

Links to use when posted:

Knowledge Navigator

A Day Made of Glass

A Day Made of Glass 2

A Day Made of Glass 2: Unpacked

PC Magazine Article - Disaster-Proof Your Data with Online Backup

Up, Up to the Cloud…

Cloud computing. Save it to the cloud. Cloud storage. Download  from the cloud. These are terms you might be hearing often lately, but what do they mean?

To understand the cloud, we need to look at how computing has changed in the last few years. Five years ago the software applications you installed on your computer came on CD discs. Today when you buy new software it will most likely be purchased online and downloaded directly to your computer from the internet, or as it is more commonly referred to, the web. When your computer operating system is updated, it happens automatically. The updates are downloaded from the web and installed, sometimes without your even being aware it is occurring. If you take many digital photos, you may upload them to Flickr, Kodak Gallery, Picasa Web Albums, or any of the many other photo sharing websites for storage and sharing with friends and family. If you use Facebook, or any of other social media websites, your posts are stored on remote servers for sharing.

What does all this have to do with cloud computing? The term cloud is being used as a metaphor for the web, and the many thousands of servers that make it work. In 2012 computer use revolves around the web, and cloud computing is the delivery of computing services via the web. When you save data to the cloud, it is saved on a remote server and can be retrieved from any device that is connected to the web. 

I have written in earlier columns that I use an Apple notebook computer, iPad, and iPhone. My husband also has an iPhone and iPad, as well as a Windows laptop, and I can use the cloud to transfer data between all of these devices, wherever we happen to be. If my daughter-in-law posts new photos of our granddaughters on her Facebook page, I can download them to one of my devices, then distribute the photos to all our other devices using cloud service, such as Dropbox. 

Dropbox is an web-based service that allow users to upload files, store them on a remote server, and access them from any computing device. The service is free for the first 2 GB of storage — which works fine for me — with additional storage available for a modest fee. To use Dropbox you download and install a free application on your computer, tablet, and/or smartphone. Then all you have to do to share files between devices is drag and drop them on the Dropbox application. When you open Dropbox on another device, the file will be visible and ready to save.

I save the photos of our granddaughters to the Photo app on our iPhones and iPads. On my husbands PC I save the photos to the Windows Pictures folder for use as screen savers and desktop backgrounds.

Dropbox is only one of many Cloud services available, and next week I will write about some other Cloud alternatives.

Is a tablet for you…

For the past two weeks the subject of OnMouseClick has been my iPad and its many uses.  I realized that I forgot two valuable iPad options — one is watching videos, the other is its photo storage ability. My iPad works great with both You Tube videos and Netflix. We subscribe to Netflix, and with the Netflix app, we can watch movies and television shows right on our iPads. I also use my iPad as a photo album. Ever since I received my iPhone in June of 2009, I have tried to keep up-to-date family photos on the phone. Since I often have my iPhone with me, I also have the photos with me. Now that I have an iPad, I also have an easily portable, extensive photo album. In addition to family photos, I also plan to set up my photographic portfolio on my iPad.

Today, I am going to finish writing my series of articles on tablet computers, covering some things to consider if you are thinking about buying one. The other night we were having dinner with friends, and I brought along my iPad to show off the most recent photos of our granddaughters. My friends were very impressed with the iPad (and our beautiful granddaughters as well), and they both agreed they each wanted one. Which got me thinking – while it is a very impressive, versatile device, it isn't for everyone.

Tablet devices work by touch screen. To operate the device you use your fingers to select icons and move objects around the screen. When you need to enter information, an on screen keyboard appears. Using a touch screen can be a lot of fun, but does take some getting used to — and may be more trouble than it is worth for some people. Not only do you need to adjust to the touch screen technology, but each tablet uses finger swipes, known as multitasking gestures, in different ways. For multitasking gestures on my iPad, I use one finger to make selections, two fingers to move from one photograph to the next, and four or five fingers to switch between apps. To reduce or magnify what is on the screen, you place your thumb and forefinger on the screen and pinch them together (reduce) or move them apart (magnify).

Another thing to remember is the size of the screen. The most common screen size in tablet computers is 10-inches, such as the Apple iPad, and 7-inches like the Amazon Kindle Fire. Understanding screen size can be confusing, because measurements are made on the diagonal, and for every inch there is an increase in total screen size. Thus, a 7-inch screen has half the actual surface area of a 10-inch screen. EIther way, the screen is much smaller than the one on desktop, and even laptop, computers.

I have a friend who does a fair amount of traveling, and she just bought herself an iPad. She basically uses a computer for email and the internet, and decided that a lightweight iPad would be the perfect device for her travels. However, this same friend has a low frustration level when it comes to technology, and I have horrified visions of her chucking the iPad out the window when she cannot get it to do what she wants.

If you decide to buy a tablet, take a trip over to Best Buy, or one of the Apple Stores, and take a test drive before you buy. Spend some time getting the feel of using a touch screen and learning how to use multitasking gestures. 

What my iPad can do…

**A caveat about iPads, and tablet computers in general. Apple's iPad is by far the most popular of the new breed of tablet computers, but it is by no means the only tablet on the market. I am writing about the iPad, because that is what I use. Also, in this column I will be referring to APPS, which are small software applications designed for use on smart phones and tablet computers.**

Today, as I prepared to write this column, I received the March issue of MACWORLD magazine, and coincidentally this month's lead article is "iPad at Work: Is the iPad Ready to Replace your Laptop?" The magazine answers that the iPad is not quite ready to replace the laptop, but it comes pretty close. 

As I have written before, I have an Amazon Kindle eReader, which is an exceptional device for reading books that do not have a lot of graphics. The Kindle is small, lightweight, and the screen can be read in the brightest sunlight. For other types of reading the iPad is far superior. Last year I subscribed to the New York Times on my Kindle, and a new issue was downloaded each morning. Now, with the New York Times app installed on my iPad, news stories are updated several times a day. Magazines that are available for the iPad are interactive, often including video content as well as text and images.

Every year when we pack out RV for the winter months, I fill an entire cabinet with reference books on digital imaging, web design and book art. I am looking forward to replacing many of these book with iPad versions — literally putting the reference material at my fingertips and freeing up some much needed storage space.

I mentioned in last week's column that I started a recipe file on my laptop using the database program BENTO. In addition to the computer version of BENTO (it is an Macintosh only product) there is an app version for both the iPad & iPhone, with files synchronizing across devices. When I first set up the database on my laptop, I would move my laptop to the kitchen table when I wanted to use a recipe. Now  I have my recipes files on the iPad, which it is much more convenient and takes up less space. I also don't have to worry about touching my laptop keyboard with messy fingers. If I get my iPad touchscreen dirty, I just wipe it clean. 

I also use Bento to keep track of our RV travels. I make a record of every campground and service station we visit, with rating information that we use when we pass that way again. Having copies of the database on both my iPad and iPhone makes it very easy to search for the appropriate records while traveling.

I keep a spreadsheet on my laptop for our medical records. The spreadsheet software is another Macintosh only program, NUMBERS (EXCEL compatible), with an iPad app version. With the spreadsheet on my iPad it is much easier to keep track of doctors appointments and prescription purchases. I am writing this column on the iPad, using the app version of PAGES, the APPLE word processor I use on my MacBook (Microsoft Word compatible), and a wireless keyboard that makes typing on the iPad much easier than using the on-screen keyboard.

Of course, I use the iPad for email, web surfing, weather forecasting, and game playing. Sudoko, solitaire, backgammon, and Angry Birds are fun to play on the iPad, and I have a large selection of learning games for our almost three-year-old granddaughter. I highly recommend ANOTHER MONSTER AT THE END OF THE BOOK, and interactive games featuring ELMO and GROVER from Sesame Street. Brianna loves them and her increasing understanding of the iPad touch screen is very exciting to watch.

I really, really like my iPad…

First, an apology for once again putting off writing a column about video chats. We just returned from a six week visit with our son's family in Arizona, and since we saw our granddaughters in person everyday, there was no reason for video chats. We miss them terribly, and I will arrange a video chat soon — after which my skills will be refreshed and I will be ready to write a column on the subject.

For this week's topic, I want to discuss our families tablet computing history. For Christmas 2009 Santa brought me an Amazon Kindle. As I have written in previous columns, I love the Kindle and it is a boon to a voracious reader like me living in a motor home for half the year.  I am always reading a book, sometimes more than one at a time, and, being able to keep a book collection on the Kindle is a great space saver. I also subscribe to the New York Times on the Kindle, which provided my breakfast table reading material. When I first got the Kindle, I thought that I might also be able to use it for my recipe files — and while it is possible ( I gave it a valiant effort), it was not a good solution for my electronic recipe file. 

In 2010 Santa brought my husband Eddie an Apple iPad. He uses it to visit web sites , read newspapers, magazines, books, and videos. He reads the New York Times on his iPad, but because we are subscribers of the print edition of the paper at home in New York, the iPad version is free — more on that point later. I certainly liked the iPad, but I had my Kindle and was very content. Except, I did think that the iPad would work well in the kitchen. I had already begun to create a database of favorite recipes on my Apple laptop, and since there is an iPad version of the database software I use (BENTO, more on that in a future column), it occurred to me that using an iPad for recipes would work even better. 

Eddie OK'd my putting Bento, and my recipes, on his iPad, and it worked out well, except of course if Eddie was already using his device. Then, this fall when we arrived at TR I decided not to subscribe to the New York TImes on my Kindle. The price had gone up, from $15 to $20 a month, and it seemed unfair that as print subscribers we could download the iPad version for free, but had to pay for the Kindle version. So, at breakfast, while Eddie was reading the St. Petersburg Times (the name hadn't changed to the Tampa TImes yet), I would read the New York Times on his iPad until he was ready for it.

The more I used the iPad, the more I appreciated the elegance of the device, and thought that it would be really nice to have one of my own. And, much to my delight and surprise, Santa brought me an iPad2 this Christmas. Now, I not only get to read the New York Times and have my recipe database to use whenever I need it, I also use it for word processing (I am typing on it right now!), spreadsheets, and a wide variety of other purposes. I really, really, like my iPad.

Next week I'll give you an in depth look at how I use my iPad, and how it integrates with my Mac Laptop and iPhone.

Click the Like Button…

I am postponing for another week a column on video chat. I had some technical difficulties and did not resolve all the specifics of using video chat programs before writing the column. Stay tuned — I plan to write about video chat next week.

Meanwhile, I realized that there is one very important FACEBOOK feature that I did not cover in the last two columns — the LIKE button. With the LIKE button you can let your FACEBOOK FRIENDS know that you enjoy their comments, without leaving a comment of your own. Once you LIKE something, your friend will get notification that you liked the post. Examples of things you might like are family pictures, funny videos, political quotations, and personal comments from a friend to you. 

There is a second kind of LIKE in FACEBOOK, and that is LIKING a business page, also known as a FAN PAGE. A FAN PAGE can be the page of an actual business (such as Travelers Rest Resort), an entertainment venue (a movie, TV show, radio show, or a podcast), an informational website, a magazine, or even a celebrity. You may have been invited to visit a FAN page when you listened to a radio or television program. FAN PAGES have a LIKE button at the top of the page. Click on the LIKE and you become part of the FAN community with access to updates and messages from the page owner, and the chance to post comments on the page. 

If you no longer wish to receive updates from a particular FAN PAGE, you can UNLIKE the page by going to FAN PAGE and scrolling down the left-side of the page until you see UNLIKE. Click it and you will no longer receive updates. 

In other technology news, since Christmas I am the proud owner of an Apple iPad2. Having a tablet doesn’t take the place of my laptop, but it is a wonderful complement to my digital world. Later this winter I plan to write about life with my MacBook Pro laptop, iPad2, iPhone 4, Amazon Kindle, and two digital cameras. 

If you have been using FACEBOOK and have questions, please do not hesitate to email me at onmouseclick@digitalquinn.com.

Making Facebook Yours…

FACEBOOK is many faceted, and as you use it you will discover numerous ways to customize it to fit your needs. One thing you will want to customize on your FACEBOOK page is a profile picture. 

Profile pictures appear in the top-left corner of the page and can be changed as often as you like. Most people choose a self-portrait, while others include pictures with family, friends, pets, or even a favorite landscape. My current profile picture is one of me with my two beautiful granddaughters, and the page of a good friend of mine features a picture of her cat.

To add a profile picture to your page, begin by choosing a photo on your computer hard drive. I suggest a close-up photo that will show up well in a small, thumbnail size. Open your FACEBOOK page and click the EDIT PROFILE button in the top right-hand corner. If at first you don’t see an EDIT PROFILE button, click on your name on the on the right side of the blue bar at the top of the screen.

The first screen to appear is BASIC INFORMATION, which can be filled in if you choose. Along the left side of the screen are other choices, one of which is PROFILE PICTURE. Choose PROFILE PICTURE and you will see an empty box just waiting for your picture. Depending on the browser you are using, you will see either a CHOOSE FILE or BROWSE button — click on it and navigate to the image you want to upload. After you have selected your image, click on OPEN or CHOOSE (again, which one you see depends on the browser you are using), and the photo will upload to your FACEBOOK page. Click on the HOME button and you will be back on your WALL page.

Your PROFILE PICTURE is now in place and you are ready to tackle adding comments and pictures for your FACEBOOK “friends” to see. Comments are what you want to say, and for every comment you can choose to add one photo, or a group of photos which will then be grouped together into an album.

To add a comment click in the dialog box at the top of the page that contains the words “What’s on your mind?” Type your comment and then click on ADD PHOTO / VIDEO. You will then be given the option of uploading a single photo (or video) or creating a photo album. If you choose to upload a single photo, navigate to the photo (or video) you want to upload, just as you did for the profile picture. If you choose album, navigate to the folder that contains your images (all of the photos must be in the same folder on your hard drive), and shift click on the photos you want to add to the album (by shift clicking you can select multiple photos at one time). Click on CHOOSE or OPEN (depending on your browser) and the album will be added to FACEBOOK and attached to your current comment.

If anyone has specific questions about using FACEBOOK, email them to me at onmouseclick@digitalquinn.com. The subject of next week’s OnMouseClick will be making video calls with SKYPE and YAHOO.

Happy New Year…

Happy New Year from the high desert of southern Arizona. We have been visiting with our son and his family since early December, and we cannot put into words how wonderful it was to be with our two beautiful granddaughters (and mom/dad) on Christmas morning. We plan to be back in Florida sometime in January, but I didn't see any reason to miss the deadline for the TR times. We are living in a connected world, and since this column is about technology, it's appropriate that I submit my first column for 2012 via e-mail from Arizona. 

The theme of last season's OnMouseClick columns was up-to-date technology, with the last two columns devoted to the subject of social media, with emphasis on Facebook. I hadn't planned to revisit Facebook quite so soon, but an exchange I had recently with a TR resident changed my mind.

In early November I was catching up with a TR friend who had just arrived from up north, when she told me that she was a new grandmother, but had not seen any photos of her grandson in two weeks. I asked her if she was using Facebook to keep up with her grandson, like we do with our granddaughters, and she said that she didn't use or understand how Facebook works. It occurred to me that a good way to begin OnMouseClick for 2012 would be to give some simple directions on how to create your own Facebook account. 

Facebook is a website for users, who join for free, and who share information about themselves through text, photos and videos. Our daughter-in-law regularly post photos of our granddaughters, and we are delighted by every photo posted online. True, she could easily send us e-mails with the photos attached, but by posting on FACEBOOK she can share the photos not only with our extended family, but also with friends from around the world. We receive an email from FACEBOOK on each new post of our friends so we do not have to log onto to their account and wonder if new photos of our princesses are available.

First, a few caveats for those of you worried about privacy. A Facebook account can be as public or private as you want. I personally have no desire to have hundreds of friends — I am content with a small group of family members and friends as my "Facebook friends." My actual Facebook page is available only to these "friends,." You can control who reads and views your account.

To get started, go to www.facebook.com and fill-in the requested SIGN UP information. You will be asked for your first and last name, your e-mail address, a password, your gender, and birthday (your birthday can be visible as part of your profile, or hidden, it is up to you). Click on the Sign Up button and you have a Facebook account — it is that easy.

Your main Facebook page, know as the Wall, is where your "friends'" posts and comments will appear. Posts can be composed of text, photos, and videos. You can click that you "like" a post, or make a comment. If you make a comment on the post of "friend", your comment will appear on the other person's wall. At the top of your FACEBOOK page is a blue bar, and at the right end of the bar is a drop-down arrow. Click on the arrow and you can choose to edit your account and privacy settings. 

Once you have set up your account you will want to find "friends". In the blue bar at the top of the screen, just to the right of the word FACEBOOK, is a search box. Type in the name of someone you want to friend (Facebook uses the word friend as both a noun and a verb), and a list of possible matches will appear. To narrow down the list of hits, you can use SEARCH TOOLS to add additional filters, such as a city, educational institution, or workplace. Once you locate the correct person, click to send a FRIEND REQUEST. Soon you will be able to keep up with friends and family, share photos, and find out what is going on in their lives.

You might also find yourself searching for old friends from high school and college. This past summer I located a roommate from my early days of teaching. We had been out of touch for over twenty-years, and when I last saw her she was living in California. We connected on Facebook and I found out that she and her husband now live on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. On our way south in October we stopped to visit with them and enjoy their hospitality — a visit made possible only by Facebook.

Next week OnMouseClick will cover how to go about adding text and photos to your FACEBOOK wall, and giving it your own personal touch. 

Winding down…

Earlier today I discovered that my niece is very excited that she fits into a sweater that was too tight last month, my daughter-in-law is happy that yesterday was a good day with our two granddaughters, and another young mother I know was happy this morning to have some free time to relax. How do I know all this? They posted on their Facebook pages, and since they are my Facebook friends, the comments appeared on my Facebook Wall. 

Last week I wrote about Social media in general, and Facebook in particular. Because of social media like Facebook, the process of social interaction and communication is changing. It is becoming accepted practice, especially for the younger generation (the ages of the women mentioned above range from 27 to 32), to share minute details of their lives on Facebook. I, on the other hand, cannot imagine why anyone, other than close friends or family, would really care if I am taking time to relax or how my clothes are fitting.

Other types of social media that were briefly mentioned in last week’s column include blogs, podcasts, online videos, and wikis. The simplest definition of a blog is an online journal, written by one person, or a group of people, about a specific topic. Blogs are written by laypeople who want to share information on a topic that interests them, by professional journalist as an alternative to traditional print media, and by people who fancy themselves as journalists, but are not part of the established media. What makes a blog different than print media, such as magazines and newspapers, is that the readers of a blog are invited to comment back, making them very interactive. 

OnMouseClick appears weekly in the TR Times, and it is also posted online in a blog at onmouseclick.blogspot.com. If you read the online version and you would like to ask a question or make a comment, you can click on COMMENTS at the bottom of the post and start a dialog. 

The same is true for podcasts. Podcasts are basically radio style broadcasts over the internet, and as with blogs, podcasters are both laypeople and professionals. Most people download podcast to mobile devices, such as iPods and MP3 players, and listen while exercising or commuting, but podcasts also invite listener participation through the internet. Some excellent free podcast are made by Bloomberg Radio, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and ESPN. If you have an interest or hobby, there is a good possibility that somebody podcast on that subject.

The most popular platform for posting online videos is YouTube, where anyone can create a YouTube (www.youtube.com) account and upload videos to share and interact with the online community. With YouTube anyone can become an actor, director, and producer. There are many fledgling musical groups and film makers who post their work on YouTube in the hopes of attracting an audience.

Wikis are a different type of social media — collaborative websites which can be directly edited by anyone with access to it. The most notable wiki website is Wikipedia, a free, online encyclopedia maintained by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. While much of the information found on Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) is initially written by professionals, anyone can make additions and corrections to entries, although the foundation does exercise editorial control. Other notable wikis are Wikitravel, a project to create an up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide (wikitravel.org); Wikihow, a collaborative writing project designed to created the world’s largest how-to manual (www.wikihow.com); Wikinews, a website designed to present up-to-date and unbiased news coverage ( en.wikinews.org), and of course WikiLeaks (http://213.251.145.96). WikiLeaks defines itself as “a non-profit media organization dedicated to bringing important news and information to the public.” It is better known as the organization, founded by Julian Assange, that recently leaked classified documents to several mainstream news organizations.

And that is my last informational OnMouseClick paragraph for the 2011 season. By the time you read this I hope that Eddie and I will have arrived in Arizona for a month-long stay near our son and his family. I hope that you all enjoy the remainder of the season at TR and have a safe and healthy summer. See you next fall!

Social Media, Social Networks…

Today’s column is about the phenomenon of social media, and more specifically, Facebook. But first, I want to introduce you to a new Google website that recently came online. The website is Art Project, powered by Google and its stated goal is to bring works of art, housed in museums around the world, to everyone’s computer screen. The project is in its infancy, and initially there are only seventeen museums participating, but the project shows great promise for the future. Each museum offers a few works of art to view, both paintings and sculptures. The art work is viewed in high resolution, and can be magnified for close-up viewing. In addition, there are virtual tours of the museums — you can move from gallery to gallery, and even see the view from the outside the museums. One of the seventeen museums is The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, a favorite of mine. I took the virtual tour and enjoyed it immensely. When I got outside the museum, I found that I was also able to explore the streets of New York as well. The website can be found at www.googleartproject.com.

If you have been following the news in the past few weeks, you will have heard that young Egyptian dissidents used Facebook as a way of organizing protests, and “The Social Network”, one of the top grossing films of 2010, was based on the founding of Facebook. But what exactly is Facebook? It is considered part of a wide array of Social Media that is available on the internet. And what is social media? In simple words, it is a way of sharing information with other people over the internet, using both computers and smart phones. The content of social media is designated by the users, and is dependent on user interaction. Types of social media include blogs, wikis, online videos, podcasts, and social networks. 

Facebook falls into the category of social networks. People set up a free account with Facebook, and then proceed to “friend” other Facebook users. You can invite people you know to be your “friends”, people you know can ask to “friend” you, and you can connect with, and “friend,” people who have similar interests. Every Facebook user has their own set of web pages; the main page is called the wall, and all of your friends can post messages on your wall. Users can also post photos and videos to share with their friends.

Some Facebook users have hundreds and even thousands of friends. Others, like me, limit their Facebook friends to friends and family from the real world. Our son was living in Japan when our first granddaughter Brianna was born, and photos and videos posted on Facebook kept us connected  during her first year. When Brianna took her first steps, our son and his wife captured it on video, and it was so exciting to share that special moment with them. In November they moved to Arizona and their second baby,,Julianna, was born in January. Julianna is now a month old, and we have followed her development through the photos posted on Facebook.

The more you use and interact with Facebook, the more you will discover. Many businesses, television and radio shows, artists, politicians, and celebrities maintain a presence on Facebook and urge customers, clients and audiences to follow them. There are games you can play (have you heard of Farmville?), and interest groups you can join. To sign up for a Facebook account, or just to see what it is all about, visit www.facebook.com, and, of course, there is also a Facebook app that lets you check your Facebook message on your smartphone.

Next week will be my last column for the 2011 season. We are heading west to see our beautiful granddaughters (and our son and his wife as well!). Facebook is nice, but there is nothing like being with our family in real life, and we cannot wait! 

This week — Twitter…

Shortly after submitting last week’s column I read a “Blondie” comic strip that was very timely. Dagwood asks his son how things are going with his girlfriend. The son replies, “We’re having communications difficulties! She keep telling me to call her or post something sweet on Twitter or Facebook! But I’s much rather just text her...” If you read last week’s column you know what texting is, but do you know about Twitter and Facebook? 

The word twitter was originally a verb used in conjunction with bird chirping sounds. The modern use of Twitter, however, is a noun that refers to  a “real-time information network” that allows anyone to send and receive short (140 characters maximum), bite-sized bits of information, called tweets.  It is a way to quickly discover news about subjects and people of interest, and to share your ideas, comments and thoughts with others. 

Before you can use Twitter, you need to create a free Twitter account by visiting the Twitter website (www.twitter.com), or by using the Twitter app on your smartphone. Once you have an account, you can sign up to follow the tweets sent by people or organizations that interest you. Messages from the accounts you are following will appear in a readable list on the Twitter homepage on your computer, or on the Twitter app on your smartphone. Instead of sending emails or text messages to a long list of people, you can send one message to your Twitter account, and the service distributes it to all your followers. Twitter users can organize impromptu gatherings, conduct group conversations, or just send up a quick update to let people know the latest updates or activities.

What are some real world examples of Twitter use? First, imagine that you are listening to a news show on the radio, such as the Diane Rhem show on NPR. Every morning the host, Diane Rhem, covers one current, newsworthy topic. During the show Diane Rehm invites listener questions and comments by telephone, Facebook and Twitter. If you find yourself talking to the radio in response to something you hear, now you can send a tweet instead.

Second, image that you belong to a the TR Bicycle Club and you find a route that you think would make a good ride for the club. Send out a tweet to the club members, who have registered with Twitter, and find out what they think before actually planning the ride. In another example, you have a close group of friends who follow each others’ tweets. You are taking a walk at TR and decide to head over to the Snack Shack for lunch. Send out a tweet on your mobile phone, and see if any of your friends want to join you. Finally, there is a celebrity or public figure who you really like. Sign up to follow them on Twitter and you will be privy to their constant tweets — or at least the Tweets posted by their publicist or press secretary.

Using Twitter isn’t for everyone, but it does have some real-world applications that are worthwhile. A recent article in the New York Times highlighted methods of dealing with flight cancellations after the December blizzard in the Northeast. People who followed their airline’s tweets had a much better chance of being rebooked then those who relied on the telephone and airline personnel. Following airline tweets was not something I have done in the past, but next time we fly, I am going to sign up and follow the airline on Twitter! 

Remember that tweets can also be immediate responses to events or thoughts. There have been recent reports of individuals in both politics and sports (as well as elsewhere), that have gotten themselves in “hot water” because of instant comments posted via twitter. Sometimes a little reflection, aka time, is a required filter than an immediate response.

If you want find out more about Twitter and how to use it, check out the Twitter Help Center at http://support.twitter.com/entries/13920-frequently-asked-questions. And if you are not interested in using Twitter, at least you have a frame of reference the next time you hear someone mention it on television — or when you are talking to your grandkids! 

Understanding Communications in 2011. And by the way, HRU…

Do you send text messages on your cell phone? If not, you probably don’t know what HRU means. It is a shorthand way of saying “How are you?”, and is one of the hundreds of abbreviations for words and phases used by people who send text messages, or “texts,” on their cell phones. 

In the last decade, the art of communication has changed drastically, mostly among the younger generations, and it is sometimes difficult for us "old-timers" to comprehend what is going on. Today’s teenager cannot imagine life without a cell phone, nor what it was like not be connected all the time, 24/7. With a cell phone you can make and receive phone calls anytime, anywhere, but in this era of fast paced communications, some people feel making phone calls is too slow . The youth of today want instant access to everyone, but without having to stop what they are doing. This is the age of multi-tasking, and “texting” plays a big part.

With “texting” anyone with a cell phone can type out a short message (text messages are limited to 160 characters), enter the phone number of another cell phone, and click send. The message is instantly relayed to the chosen recipient, who is alerted to the arrival of a text by a tone that sounds on their cell phone. Text messages can be sent back and forth while the participants are involved in other activities. (Unfortunately, one of the other activities is often driving, but more about that later). Because of the brevity of text messages, an entire vocabulary of abbreviations and acronyms has been created to make texting easier. Visit the website NetLingo to see page after page of popular shorthand for texting.

Those of us in our generation might think that it is actually easier to pick up the telephone and talk to someone. However, for reasons I am not able to completely understand, many younger people actually prefer texting to talking. My husband has resigned to texting in lieu of talking to our sons on a regular basis. With our younger son, who is in his late twenties, it is often the only way he communicates. If you can get him on the phone, he invariably says he doesn’t have time to talk, but he will send endless text messages on a variety of subjects. 

All of today’s cell phone have texting capabilities, although it is easier to text on a smart phone with a alphanumeric keypad than on a phone with a standard telephone keypad. On a standard keypad phone, each number key is also used to enter several letters, and you often need to press a key numerous times to get the letter you want. Of course, if you watch a young person texting, you will see both thumbs flying across the tiny cell phone keys without any hesitation. Texting is an "dish best served young".

Sending text messages does cost money. If your cell phone plan does not specifically includes text messages, you will be charged on a per-message fee, both for incoming and outgoing messages. However, if you do a lot of texting, most mobile phone carriers offer plans that include text messaging for a set fee. For example, AT&T has four choices for text messaging — 10 cents for each text message without a plan; $5 a month for 200 messages; $10 a month for 1,000 messages; $20 a month for unlimited text messages.

Which brings us to the concept of safe texting. Most authorities agree that it is not a good idea to talk on the phone while driving — but if you do use the phone, it is somewhat safer to use a hands-free device. In many states, it is against the law to use a cell phone while driving unless you are using a hands-free device. With that in mind, texting while driving is the even more dangerous than talking on the phone. I am sure you have probably passed a driver on the highway who appears distracted, maybe looking down at his lap with only one hand on the steering wheel. It is a strong possibility that the driver in question is texting and not paying full attention to the road. There isn’t very much we can do about this problem, except be aware that it is a problem, and to be constantly on the lookout for erratic drivers. 

 Until next week, when I will write about Tweeting and Social Media, GTGB.*

*Got to Go, Bye.

It is so much more…

The night before I sat down to write this week’s column we had some exciting news from Arizona — our daughter-in-law gave birth to our second grandchild, Julianna. Our son had his mobile phone with him in the delivery room, and he sent us photos of our beautiful granddaughter just moments after she was born. Of course, as a proud grandmother, I want to carry her pictures with me. Not too long ago I would be carrying snapshots, but now I have my iPhone.

The iPhone has an amazing high-resolution display, with a built-in photo app to store images. I try never to be without my phone, and I am therefore never without photos of our family. I regularly update the pictures of our first granddaughter Brianna, and now Julianna has been added to the album. As a photographer, I even keep a copy of my photographic portfolio on the iPhone, just in case I meet someone who might be interested in seeing my work.

Not only does the iPhone display photos, but it sports a very capable camera. Recently, when a professional photographer was asked what camera was best for taking pictures, he answered “it is the one you have with you.” As a an avid photographer, I cannot agree more. I like to always have a camera with me, and thus I have a very small, high quality, Panasonic Lumix point and shoot camera that I carry in my purse. However, I don’t always have my purse with me, and since I bought my iPhone, I find myself taking more pictures with the phone, even posting some of them to my Photo Blog at www.digitalquinn.com/photoblog. One blog visitor commented that the quality of the iPhone photos convinced them to buy the new iPhone 4G.

Here are a few examples of photos taken with my iPhone:

Besides taking photographs, the iPhone camera acts as a scanner in several different situations. If you are out shopping and want to compare prices, you can use apps such as Scan&Shop or Pic2Shop to capture the bar code of a product with your iPhone and you will be shown comparative pricing for the product at other stores or online retailers. Another app, Keyring, lets you scan or enter all of your loyalty cards on your iPhone. Next time you shop at CVS, just show the clerk your CVS card barcode on your iPhone and you are good to go.

Chase Bank has even added document scanning to their online banking. Using the Chase Mobile iPhone app, bank customers can take a photograph of the front and back of a check made out to them and have it deposited directly into whatever bank account they choose. Just in time for tax season, Intuit, makers of TurboTax Software, introduced SnapTax app. Users who file the 1040EZ form can take a photo of their W-2 form, and the app does the rest of the filing. The cost is $15 per filing, although for some unknown reason you must be under 65 years of age. The future of smart phones and financial transaction appear limitless.

Last year I wrote about receiving  a Kindle for Christmas 2009 from my wonderful husband. Now, in addition to my Kindle, I have the Kindle app on my iPhone. The app synchronizes with my Kindle, and I can download the same books to both devices. Why would I want to read a book on my iPhone? For the same reason that I use it to take photos, because I have it with me. If I find myself somewhere with time to kill, I can pull out my iPhone, open the Kindle app, and go to the book I am currently reading. The app automatically asks me if I want to go to the furthest page read, syncs to the appropriate page that I was last reading on my Kindle, and I am ready to read. The high-resolution screen, while small, is very legible, and as an avid reader I thoroughly enjoy having a book with me wherever I am.

Next week I will take a look a some of the other nomenclature I introduced in the first OnMouseClick of the season.

Why I love my iPhone…

Before I retired from teaching, I used a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) to keep track of my calendar, addresses, and class lists. In fact, I was the proud owner of the first PDA ever, the Apple Newton. I used the Newton for several years, and when Apple let the technology flounder, I moved on to a Palm type device. I have to admit that sometimes using a PDA was more trouble than it was worth, and when I retired I found myself using it less and less. Finally, after some neglect on my part, my PDAs battery completely died and I put it to rest. 

I really didn’t miss using a PDA, that is until the iPhone was introduced in 2008. The promise of having all the mini-applications, or apps, available all the time, in a device that would fit in my purse or jacket pocket, was very intriguing. I definitely had iPhone envy, and now that I have an iPhone, I can only say that it is everything I thought it would be, and more. 

Just after I submitted last weeks column, I came across a phrase that is an excellent description of an app — a one trick pony. While most computer programs are fairly versatile, the small programs known as apps have one specific job, and the best of them do that job very well. 

Pre-installed on the iPhone are the basic apps that you would expect, such as an address book, calendar, notepad, clock, weather app, compass, mapping, email, and web browser. 

Contacts, the address book, lets me keep my contact list in groups, so if I need the phone number of a doctor, I can go to my Doctor group for his/her number. Both the Weather app and Clock app allow you to set up a number of locations. My Clock app is set to Eastern Standard Time and Arizona time (our son is living in Arizona), but if we were to be traveling I can easily add time zones from anywhere around the world.

Third-party free and paid Apps are available for the iPhone from the App Store through iTunes, a program that runs on both Mac and PC computers. Before Apple agrees to make an app available in its app store, it has to be vetted for quality. There have been complaints that Apple  censors some material, but with hundreds of thousands of apps to choose from, it is very easy to find an app to fit your needs. Most free apps feature ads, (with an upgrade version that has no ads but is not free) which is a good way to try an app out before buying it. The range of prices for most paid apps are from $.99 to $4.99.

Two apps that I purchased, and use constantly, are Grocery Gadget for my shopping lists and TapExpenses to tally my daily expenditures.  Grocery Gadget, comes with a pre-installed database of hundreds of items, and allows me to keep separate lists for different types of stores. For example, I have a list for local grocery shopping and more specific lists for both Walmart and Costco. I also wanted an app to keep track of how much money I spend, but I wasn’t looking for a full-fledged budgeting application; TapExpenses meets my need perfectly. Every time I spend money I can keep track of how much I spend, when, what it was for, where, and how (cash or credit). I can even call up a report anytime and immediately see what I spent by dates, categories, and stores.

Rounding out my list of useful apps I use regularly are apps for my ToDo List, serving sizer, cooking substitutions app, an app actually turns my iPhone into a small carpenter’s level (really, it works!), mapping (Google Maps on the iPhone are excellent), exercise monitoring, , and locating just about anything.

Next week I’ll complete my musings about “smartphones” and the iPhone with a bit more on using the iPhone to navigate the world around you. I have only discussed the iPhone because that is the only smartphone I have own. There are other smartphones available and although Apples has the most apps available, Google and others have thousands of useful apps for Android phones. 

There's an App for that…

As I begin to write today’s column I know that the local, outside temperature is 65° F., and it is also 43° F.  in Sierra Vista, AZ, where our son and his family are living. I know that because my “smartphone” has an app for that (app is short for application). In fact, my phone, an Apple iPhone 4g, seems to have an app for just about anything I can think of. I have apps for shopping lists, keeping track of daily expenditures, accessing email, viewing webpages, taking notes, looking up telephone numbers, finding businesses, and reading restaurant reviews, to name just a few.

Back in 2001 those of us with mobile phones used them for just one function — making and receiving phone calls. At that time another popular device was a Personal Digital Assistant, or PDA, which was actually a small, self-contained, handheld computers with built-in software for calendar, contact list, world clock, calculator, and note pad. Pagers were also popular in 2001, especially with business professionals, and it was fairly common to see someone with a cell phone, pager, and a PDA all clipped to their belt.

That began to change in 1999, when Research in Motion (RIM), a Canadian company, introduced an updated version of their Blackberry pager. The new Blackberry was a combination PDA and pager with a built-in, albeit tiny, QWERTY keyboard with the capability to send and receive email. The Blackberry became immensely popular, and in 2002 RIM introduced an updated Blackberry with the added capability for both voice and data transmission. The “smartphone” era had begun.

By 2006 the mobile phone market had changed drastically. Phones were becoming smaller, while at the same time increasing their diversity of  features, such as a contact list,  a calculator and a camera. These features were difficult to use on such a small device, and for serious “smartphone” users there was still only one real option, the Blackberry. Then, in January of 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone and the world of “smartphone” was instantly changed.

Apple’s phone featured a full size, touch-sensitive screen, made of scratch-resistant, liquid-crystal glass, with a high-resolution display, visual voice mail, and a two megapixel camera. In lieu of a physical keyboard, the iPhone featured a virtual QWERTY keyboard that filled the screen for typing and a virtual numeric keyboard for making phone calls.

What elevated the status of the iPhone were the many apps available for the device. The word app is short for application, but in terms of “smartphones”, apps are actually very small programs, each designed for a very specific task. While many apps access the web, they only connect to sites very specific to their task. The iPhone managed to carve a large market share, in spite of the limitation of being only available on the AT&T network — something that may have changed by the time this column is published. Reliable sources are expecting an iPhone announcement from Verizon the week of January 9.

Since 2007 the iPhone has been updated four times; the most recent iPhone was released last June. The newest iPhones are available with 16 or 32 gigabytes of memory, feature a five megapixel camera, and can connect to the internet through both a cellular network and WiFi. Until the first Android phones was introduced in 2009, the Apple iphone was the most versatile and efficient smartphone available. Android phones are very similar in appearance and function to the iPhone, and unlike the iPhone, are also available from a variety of carriers. 

As of this date there are more than 300,000 apps available for the iPhone and over 100,000 for Android phones, and there are many versions of the most popular apps that function on both platforms. In the coming weeks OnMouseClick will look more closely at apps, and how they can simplify your life.