laura j. rinaldi

What do to with an iTouch

So, now you have an iTouch, now what?

Well, I know what I got it for. I got it so I could have a mobile device that wasn't a phone. Which is why it was invented, for those who have a cell phone, but wanted all the other cool features.

But once you've figured out a bit about the iTouch, then one.  I know I've been exploring all I can do with it, such as post to my blog from bed, and check email and read websites, and check the news. Of course, I can do all these things with a regular computer, but it not from my bed, or my yard, or wherever it is that my WiFi, or someone else's, reaches. And my daughter, when faced with not having access to the web, today, was able to connect and update her blog from my iTouch (as well as fool around in YouTube, when she was done with that.)

I know there must be some things I can only do with an iTouch, but so far, I have only found one, "FlyTunes."If you go to FlyTunes directly from your ITouch, you will go into the menu about channels. If you go there from your computer, it will show you a demo about how it works.

I fiddled with it for a while, and it is a pretty cool program, although I noticed that the podcasts from Comedy Central listed people who weren't who was performing, strange.

Now, to find other things to  do  with my iTouch.

The world of the web as viewed through an iTouch

One of the first things I have discovers from surfing with the itouch is that some sites actually behave differently when they sense you are using a handheld device. Typepad is one of them as is Google news and gmail. The other sites don't change at all the only good thing is you can enlarge or shrink the screen on the no mobile versions of sites. This is quite cool and I wish I could do that on my regular computer.

I have worked on WAP pages before, for one of my clients and so I am familiar with things having to fit a certain way. But this is different. Designing a mobile device page takes a bit more thought then trying to fit all the info you need into a small screen. You have to take into account how people will need to use it for example typepad puts all the major keys on one screen, very easy to use. And gmail has everything together as well. I wish that yahoo mail would design something like that as it is not only hard to use but uses classical Instead of their new an improved stuff.

I wonder how many sites will have two versions. I would think it would be a growing market and more sites will be set up for it.

"you're blog is boring"

What makes a blog entry interesting? I know for me that I either want to laugh or be informed. That is probably why my blog roll has that odd mix that doesn't see to be related to graphic design. But it is. Just as writers need to know what is going on in pop culture so do grphic designers. This is why I don' t hang out in strictly graphic design blogs. I do go sometimes but don't go back. The sites are boring to me.

Now, of course , I have been told my blog is boring, and it may be, but I do try to write about all the things that one needs to know as a graphic designer. And people have at least looked at my blog because of some of the topics I have written about.

My daughter has it easy. She just has to find the humor in situtions and draw a cartoon about them.

Me, I try to find the things that I need to know to do my job. And the thing I have been focusing on, of late, is the itouch because it allows me to blog remotely

I don't know if doing so is going to make my blog more interesting, but it will be easier to post.

Plus, I think I am getting better at writing these things on the itouch.

WIFI incription so good it almost kept me out of my own network

I didn't see a use for WIFI when I first got DSL. At the time I was just happy to not have isdn. So when Sam, my network guru asked which computers I wanted set up for WIFI I said only one. I didn't think why I would ever want to take my lap top into another room, much less outside. Sam tried to explain the joys of remote computing, but at the time it was so my partner could work in her office upstairs.

And that might have been the end of it. Sam decieded to create a password no one could break, made up of radom numbers and letters that went on for a long time. He wrote the code out for me and I put it in what I thought was a good place, but then lost it. I wasn't worried. I figured I would never need it again. But, as I said yesterday, I got an itouch and that runs on WIFI.

Sufice it to say, I did not break the code. Instead I discovered where it was written down by linking to the router and reading the settings. The hard part was typing out the string with no mistakes. I thought I had done it right several times and tried to connect with no luck. Finally I got it right and so this is the second entry I have made from my itouch. I can see how addictve mobile devices can be. If I were to do it again I would STOL have had Sam do that string, but I think I would have made extra copies of the password.

What amazes me as I wonder around with the itouch is how many people don't encropt thier WIFI.

Itouch, without the manual

I bought an itouch the other day. It does not come with a manual. I suppose this is because it is supposed to be intuative. And I suppose in some ways it is. And I am actually the kind of person that doesn't mind learning through doing too much. I learned almost all the progams I know that way, except for photoshop. So, when I saw there was a book out from the missing manual series I almost bought it. But by that time I had figured out all, or most of the cool tips it was going to reveal to me.

This has happened to me before, that I figure something out and find the new info lacking. The wosrt time it happened was with Pagemaker. This was when it first came out and I taught it to meself, from a borrowed copy, that did not have a manual. I kept thinking that if I could only get my hands on one it would let me do all the things that up to that point I hadn't been able to. But, no. The manual, when I did finally get it had nothing new.

So, I have been plugging away with my itouch, learning more everyday, including how to do this entry using it. This means, that wherever I have wifi, I can blog, and, so, this entry, was made from bed.