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The 411 for Macs in Alaska
Save my iPhone battery
Written by IT Doc | 
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We, who use and adore our iPhones, sometimes find that they seem to run out of power before the end of the day. Has that ever happened to you?
Well, this tip will not help you recharge your iPhone battery using some exotic source of energy, like solar power, but it might help you to stretch it a bit.
The other day I was working over by Point Woronzof, you know - down by the airport, and I noticed no cell service - sad, but true.
The iPhone, like many similar devices, always wants to keep in touch, so it will continue to increase its power level as it tries to communicate with AT&T (this action will use a lot of battery power), so I simply put the iPhone into Airplane Mode (which shuts off the WiFi and Cellular transceiver) and voila my battery life was greatly extended.
One must remember to turn off Airplane Mode when one returns to civilization with cell service.
Happy Computing - And if you have any questions about computer, cell phones, etc, be sure to send it to me.
Does your wireless...Written by IT Doc | | |
Does your wireless seem to fade? Is your iPhone wireless signal less that before - is your life slower in general? You may be the victim of WiFi interference!! But how do you know for sure? Well, if you have an iPhone, go and download the free WiFi app - eWiFi by eFusion - when you run it, the app will show all the wireless access points that your iPhone (and other WiFi enabled equipment) see. When I ran it, I saw that three other access points were using the same channel to communicate as my equipment - repeat after me - this is bad! But Doc, is there a solution? You bet your bottom dollar, there is - hop on over to you wireless access point - mine is an Apple so I started the access point management software (Airport Utility), clicked on Manual Setup, clicked on the wireless tab, then selected a Channel from the drop down box that was not being used. Other access points are typically managed via a web interface - check your documentation to find out how. Once that change was made, the access point restarted and now all the wireless equipment in my house have a interference-free super-highway. But what if I don't have a fancy-smancy iPhone - how do I tell if I have interference? Well, you could hire me and my fancy iPhone to come to your house OR on your wireless enabled Mac click on the wireless icon (top of screen looks like a slice of pie) while depressing the Option key - when you hold the pointer over an access point name, a little box will pop up showing you many things, including the channel that the access point is operating on - Neat, No? Good luck, and drop me a line if you have trouble following this advice.
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iPad - What it isn'tWritten by IT Doc | | |
Well, I must say that I am very disappointed that SJ does not consider me a close enough friend to let me try out the new iPad - after all we didn't go to school together and we've never met - but I have given him so much money over the last 20 years, that we should be close. I am expecting great things from Apple and the iPad - I expect it to entertain me, keep me connected and informed, much like my iPhone, only cheaper - notice that - cheaper!. Has anyone noticed that the iPad 16GB with 3G is only $29 dollars more expensive than an unsubsidized 16GB iPhone? And it has more of everything? How can that be? Is Apple trying to buy the market, or will they make more money on the back-end? Anyway, I do expect the iPad to be an excellent computer, minus hard disk drives, expandability, viri, and update hassles - ever notice how infrequently the iPhone OS is updated? I guessd that they got it right. Be sure to watch this space as I put the iPad (and some software) through its paces. Anyway, I'm anxiously awaiting April 3 (something) to get my carbon-based digits on the silicon based iPad - are you?
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