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UPDATED: Fun iPhone Keyboard/Accessibility/Sounds Tweaks

Firstly, sorry for the very long post, but I wanted to have all the images included so it would be very easy to follow along on your phone while making these changes. With that said..

With the upgrade to iOS 5 on your phone there are a few, fun additions to the keyboard, sounds, and virbation notifications that really allow you to personalize your iPhone. (Yes, it is something that Android has had available for a while and I’m sure you could have done it with a Jailbroken iPhone, but now it is officially supported. Here are a few tutorials to add some fun customization to your phone.

Reply to a message from a locked iPhone screen.

1 – While your phone is locked, and you receive a notification of a new text message tap on the green Messages icon. It will allow you to slide to the right to reply to the message sent to you. It is a tidbit, but a neat add I think.

Add the Emoji Keyboard to your phone so you can have the cute smiley faces and icons.

1 – Open Settings.

2 – Tap the General menu option.

3 – Tap the Keyboard menu option.

4 – Tap the International Keyboards menu option.

5 – Tap the Add New Keyboard… menu option.

6 – Tap the Emoji menu option.

7 – From the Messages or Mail App tap the Globe icon near the space bar.

8 – Enjoy all the cute icons that other iPhone users will be able to see in your messages.

Add custom vibrations to your phone.

1 – Open Settings.

2 – Tap the General menu option.

3 – Tap the Accessiblity menu option.

4 – Turn on the Custom Vibrations option.

5 – Return back to the General Settings and tap the Sounds menu option.

6 – Scroll to the bottom and tap the Vibration menu option.

7 – Either choose a pre-packaged custom vibration (I use heartbeat), or tap the Create New Vibration menu option.

8 – Tap the screen and create your own custom vibration notification, and tap Save. Then return to the Vibration menu option and select your new vibration.

Add custom shortcuts (commonly called a text expander) to your iPhone.

1 – Open Settings.

2 – Tap the General menu option.

3 – Tap the Keyboard menu option.

4 – Scroll down and tap the Add New Shortcut… menu option.

5 – Enter the phrase you’d like to be expanded, and then add the shortcut you’d like to type. Return to the Message or Mail App and type your shortcut in and a space and see your shortcut filled in. Handy if you constantly need your address, email, anything long or hard to type inputted into a message or text.

Customize the notification tones on your iPhone.

1 – Open Settings.

2 – Tap the General menu option.

3 – Tap the Sounds menu option.

4 – Tap the Notification menu option that you’d like to change. Custom sounds can be added the same as a custom ringtone, but must be under 15 seconds in order to show up in the menu to be a custom tone. I use iRingtones (Mac OS X Application) to create my custom ringtones. It worked like a champ to get my Sonic the Hedgehog, Zelda, Mario Brothers, and Call of Cuty: Black Ops sound effects onto my iPhone.

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iPhone 4 Review (Verizon)

Like many others I stayed up on February 2nd to pre-order my iPhone at 1am Arizona time.  Again, like many others I have been hitting refresh on my FedEx tracking seeing it make it’s journey from California to my doorstep.  Activation was painless (although I have heard of people having issues with activation due to the overwhelming number of activations today) after the mandatory application of  Ghost Armor on my screen.  Ghost Armor is a nice Arizona-based company that provides screen protectors for all sorts of technology.  My iPad, BlackBerry Bold, and my wife’s HTC Incredible all sport the protectors.  It was slightly weird using my Droid X to a picture of my iPhone, and post it to Facebook letting everyone know that beautiful piece of Motorola and Android technology would soon be gathering dust.

Once activated and dried off, I booted up the device and setup my mail (gmail using Microsoft Exchange support for calendar and contact syncronization), my voicemail, and Google Voice number.  After my core messaging applications were in place I plugged the phone into my MacBook Pro for the initial sync (which is known to be notoriously slow and drawn out).  Many of my iPad applications that had been designed for both iOS devices were synced over (including my “must-have” LogMeIn Ignition, DropBox, and Documents ToGo Premium among others).  45 minutes had my music and apps installed and ready to go.  The process was painless, and surprisingly easy.  My only wish would have been to have the option to import all  the settings, accounts, and logins from my iPad to my iPhone.  A small qualm, but it would have made the process even more plug-and-play.

So far the experience has been great.  I have not dropped any calls (but that has never been a problem for me on Verizon Wireless‘ cellular network), I have the familiar iOS experience from my iPad, and at the end of the day it is an Apple product.  I do not see the inability to use voice and data services simultaneously a problem, because I like most other geeks are never too far away from another piece of tech.  Those who enjoy Apple products will enjoy the iPhone.  For many in the tech field we desire technology that “just works”, and while my background would dictate that I would be an Android phone supporter (which I am, I have a Droid X, HTC Incredible, and a Droid R2D2 currently on my family share plan even after my switch to the iPhone) I need a phone that just works.  I do miss Swype a little, bit but I’m sure having it auto-correct me incorrectly more and more will will be a short-lived downside to switching to the iPhone (I would be okay with the option if it was available on my iPhone someday).  This device, much like my MacBook Pro and iPad, is reliable and ready for me consume and create content whenever and wherever I need.

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My Mac’s Menu Bar & Dock

There are many tools one can use to make their computer more powerful.  I primarily use a MacBook Pro laptop (February 2008 Revision) for day to day use.  I thought it might be useful to make a post about what I have running in my MenuBar and stuck in my Dock.  I’ll expand later on particular applications and why I use them.  Don’t worry, I’ll do the same thing for my Windows workstation in my office, and possibly even on my iPad and BlackBerry for fun.

Menu Bar

From Left to Right:

Dropbox: Dropbox is a folder syncronization application developed by a team of MIT students.

VMWare Fusion: Virtualization application that allows me to run Microsoft Windows and Linux in a virtualized environment while Max OS X is running.

VZ Access Manager: Verizon Wireless’ Tethering Application (used with my BlackBerry).

Microsoft Live Mesh: Another folder synchronization application with more flexibility, but less device support, than Dropbox.  (That’s why I have both)

Air Display: Application that allows me to use my iPad as a second monitor via WiFi.  Made by the wonderful people at Avatron.

Tweetie: Twitter Application (I’m @zeronome)

MobileMe Sync: Built in OS X application.  (I do not pay for MobileMe, but use the program to talk with my Google account to sync Calendar and Conatacts down to iCal and Address Book).

VPN: Built in OS X Virtual Private Network application that allows me to tunnel into my home network for secure access.

iChat: Built in OS X Jabber client I use for Google Talk and Facebook Chat.

Time Machine: Built in OS X backup application.  I have it backing up to a local 1TB external USB Harddrive.

Skype: I realized that Skype was not running when I captured this screen shot.  Skype is a video conference/chat application

Dock

(Click to Enlarge)

From Left to Right:

Finder: Built in OS X Application

VMWare Fusion: Virtualization application that allows me to run Microsoft Windows and Linux in a virtualized environment while Max OS X is running.

Safari: Built in OS X Web Browser

Mozilla Firefox: Alternative Web Browser

Google Chrome: Another alternative Web Browser

Filezilla: FTP Client

Colloquy: IRC Client (Internet Relay Chat)

FaceTime: OS X Video Chat client (Snow Leopard supported only)

Skype: I realized that Skype was not running when I captured this screen shot.  Skype is a video conference/chat application.

iChat: Built in OS X Jabber client I use for Google Talk and Facebook Chat.

Tweetie: Twitter Application (I’m @zeronome)

Audacity: Open Source audio editing application.

Toast Titanium: CD/DVD Authoring application.

VLC: Media player with many, many codecs.

iTunes: Apple’s official music and iOS app store.

Pandora: Amazing Adobe AIR application for streaming Internet music based on the music Genome project.

TextEdit: Built in OS X basic text editor

Text Wrangler: OS X alternative to Notepad++ for the mac.  Great for coding web pages.

Microsoft Word 2008: Official Microsoft Office application.  The word processor if you work in an Enterprise (especially a Windows environment).

Microsoft Excel 2008: Official Microsoft Office application.  The calculations/spreadsheet application if you work in an Enterprise (especially a Windows environment).

Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection: Official Microsoft Office application.  Allows access to Windows-based machines running Terminal Services.

Team Viewer 5: Great remote access application I use to access family’s computers in a pinch.

Chicken of the VNC: Great VNC (Virtual Network Computing) application for the mac.  Used as an alternative to Remote Desktop, and in some other implementations.

Copernicus: Screencasting application for the mac.  It allows me to record what is happening on my screen in video format.

Grab: Built in screen capture application.  Similar to Copernicus except it is capturing single images.

VZ Access Manager: Verizon Wireless’ Tethering Application (used with my BlackBerry).

Please let me know if this is useful or if you have any questions about some of the applications that I use the most.  There are others, but this is what I see on my desktop everyday.

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Microsoft H5D LifeCam Cinema

Ever since I got a MacBook Pro I haven’t had to worry about a webcam for Skype or some random need  to capture video quickly.  The built-in iSight camera does a great job for what I needed.  When my Aunt moved into an assisted living facility, I decided it would be neat if we could get her to use Skype to chat with us.  We tested it out for the first time last weekend, and it turned out great.  Click here to see the call in action She enjoyed it, and we plan on doing it in the future.  While preparing these plans I looked around for a nice webcam for my workstation.  I found the H5D which had nice reviews so I picked one up at TigerDirect.  The reason I pulled the trigger on it was the compatibility with both Windows and OS X.  The video on my blog shows it running on my MacBook Pro.  The picture quality was great (720P), and I would recommend this unit to someone wanting a better quality Skype call than a less-expensive webcam would get you.  I also bought a Logitech C250 for $19.99, also at TigerDirect, and while it works fine with her Windows 7 laptop, the video quality is definitely much more grainy than the LifeCam.

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Tether a Black Berry 8830 via BlueTooth to MAC OS X

1.) Pair the phone with your Mac via Bluetooth using the Bluetooth Setup Assistant (this is the easiest way)

2.) After pairing, be sure to check the box that says “Access the internet with your phone’s data connection”

3.) For verizon this is the information you enter as the username, password and phone number:

Phone number: #777
Username: [your phone#]@vzw3g.com
Password: vzw

*** For other carriers use the following information ***

Cingular
Phone Number: *99#
User name: ISP@CINGULARGPRS.COM
Password: CINGULAR1

T-Mobile
Phone Number: *99#
Username: [blank]
Password: [blank]

Sprint
Phone Number: #777
Username: [blank]
Password: [blank]

4.) For the modem script make sure you set it to “WWAN Support”

5.) Click continue

6.) Your all finished! Just click on connect and it will dial out and make the connection for you. BTW your speeds are around 250 – 300k (real speed) for the connection.

When your connected your phone should say “modem active” at the top. By the way make sure you have a data plan otherwise it will not connect and in the “odd” event that it does, you will pay out the nose in data charges. Oh yeah calls can still come in while your connected but they terminate your connection if you answer the phone.