Have Fun

Children remind us of what is simple and most important in life: have fun, the rest will follow.

Playing With The Sun

A play on words and a play on, well, play. There is this awkward time on certain days of the week in between errands and appointments, specifically about an hour before I need to go pick up Lucian from school where it's not enough time to nap or really go anywhere, so on this beautiful fall day, Keagan and I got on the floor to play. We had some little squirt guns that had been gifted to the boys over the summer. Normally I don't allow them in the house, but Keagan was being impossibly cute with the asking so I caved. I figured I could at least have some fun with it if I set some ground rules about where he was allowed to squirt the water. I set up some little targets for him to aim at and as I was showing him how to shoot the targets, the sun was coming through with such intensity so, I decided to do some shooting of my own with my iPhone 5s — also my idea of a good time. I was able to catch a rainbow AND lens flare in one shot and I'm really pleased with the results. The only editing I did was in iPhoto; just some cropping and a little bit of bumping up the contrast on this first shot. I played with some other effects in the other two shots as the challenge was all that sunlight with which to work.

I love all of the elements in this shot: lines, curves, curls, shadows, rainbows, sun rays, color, highlights, the way my son's little lips are formed while he's making little sounds or thinking about where to aim.

Playing With The Sun 

Target Practice

At this time I am reminded of a newspaper clipping photo I once saw of my Grandfather as a middle school-aged child shooting a rifle at target practice during a class. I believe he was in some type of rotary gun club at school in the 1930s. Upon seeing that photo is was no wonder he later became a sharpshooter for the military during WWII. It's hard to imagine that there was ever a time when guns were in schools as a source of education if perhaps some sort of early military inculcation. 

This day, however, I chose to set those negative thoughts aside in order to have some simple fun with my son and some plastic toys that shoot water. He is innocent and unaware, just having a good time knocking little bottles and medicine cups off of triangles with water and studying the trajectory. I am not innocent, but somehow I managed to have fun with this time all the same.

Spritz

Advanced Chore Charting: iAllowance App Review

iAllowance by JumpGap Software

I have been using this app for a couple of years now and I really love where it is headed. This parenting tool is incredibly versatile with amazing attention to detail. The developer truly cares. The most recent update really looks great with iOS 7. I really appreciate how the developer keeps on making improvements and he's also really receptive to feedback! Those are important qualities to me when deciding where to invest mine and my family's time and attention to an app such as this.

First, let me get my nit-picky criticisms out of the way:
• Customizable sounds would make this a 10-★ app!

• I wish I could make the sad face sound ☹ a little louder and the cha-ching sound a tad softer and have different sounds for stars, checks, coins or time. I just think it would help. (Think Pavlov.) It's the sounds that I find the most cumbersome yet. For example, I know I could just turn the sounds off or mute the loud sounds in the app's settings, but it doesn't seem to respond yet. (bug?) I like the audible feedback, I just wish it wasn't so loud. Sometimes I forget to turn the volume back up after using this app and then my alarm goes off and I barely hear it. I'm sure this could be tweaked in another update sometime or maybe I just need to use it differently; or maybe the Dev has something up his sleeve? It's quite possible!

Now, the accolades:
• This app is universal and looks great on all iOS devices. It is still supported on an iPhone 3GS running iOS 6 which is what my littlest learner is using.

• Try before you buy: there is a lite version and a full version along with incremental in-app purchases so you can really make it fit the needs of your family. An app that grows with you — imagine that!

• I use most all of the banking features and my Second Grader has a pretty clear picture of his total net worth right now — which is more than I can say for many college grads! (self included) He enjoys looking at the pie chart and we also show him his savings account where his Birthday and Christmas checks get deposited along with Gift Certificate balances. I use my iPhone and iPad for all of our banking, which includes snapping photos to deposit checks, so both my boys can see the entire banking process.

• Right now we're only using stars for my 4-yr old along with tracking his savings account. We began using iRewardChart with both boys when they were younger so the 4-yr old is especially fond of earning "good stars" and knows that "bad stars" (his term) mean a deduction. iRewardChart has great sounds which really got their attention. (I still recommend that app for a great introduction to using chore charts!)

• I recently started filling out the description section of individual "chores" in addition to using pictures. This is great because the 4-year old can "read" each item by looking at its picture icon (which you can choose your own or select from an in-app picture bank) and the 7-year old can practice his literacy skills by reading the descriptions I enter. This cuts down on the "but wah, you didn't tell me I had to do xyz."

• Pro-Tip: view this app on your Apple TV via AirPlay and it's a great way for the whole family to become involved with household contributions. Sometimes we ask our 7-year old to review his iAllowance on the big TV and then we discuss money, transactions and things he wants added to his rewards list together.

• The best part of this app is the syncing. (Unfortunately, there is no legacy support on older devices running iOS 4, but that's an Apple  issue, not the Dev.) The ability to sync with DropBox was a long-awaited triumph and well worth the wait. Now that our little ones have their own hand-me down iDevices, this app is that much better because now they are (mostly) in charge of checking off their own Contributions and good behaviors (or negative behaviors). I love how I can lock out each child on the other's device. Our 4-year old is oh so fond of giving his big brother time outs and wanting to x-off contributions his big brother did not fulfill! We gently remind him that only parents can decide on that, but I'm glad he understands the message about being accountable for contributions to the family! (I changed the "Chore" bank to "Contributions" as it just fits us better. Yes, you can call it whatever you like. Thumbs up for tweakability!)

• Reliable syncing is absolutely crucial if you're an iFamily. It works best when children are made accountable for their own input and then parents have the ability to approve that input with feedback despite which device it's queued up on. Parents who work different shifts or even a babysitter will see the value in this feature alone!

• Bottom line, you get out of this app what you put into it. It can be overwhelming in the beginning, but investing the time to populate and customize it is worth it. If you're consistent and diligent, you'll definitely see results by using this fantastic tool!

Download it or gift it today!

If you liked this review and you haven't yet signed up for DropBox, do me a huge favor and click this affiliate link which gives us bonus cloud space! https://db.tt/9vTsqNJu

Disclaimer: I was gifted the full version of this app by the developer for the purposes of a review but no other compensation has influenced any personal bias in favor of reviewing this software.

Smartphone Photographers Point and Shoot for November 7, 2013

Join my comrades and I for an informative discussion on smartphone photography tips.

Siri Still Has A Sense of Humor

Either Siri still has a sense of humor or she's just been trained by many a parent who use her to play the "Bad Cop" in setting a timer for Time Out. By the looks of it, she's capable of assisting even Jeffrey's Mother.

Who remembers this (one of my all-time favorites) comedy skit by Bill Cosby?

Guest on 'Not Another Mac Podcast - Episode 117'

I join Mark Greentree on Episode 117 of his Not Another Mac Podcast along with John F. Braun and Kirschen Seah




Click here to listen:

http://www.markgreentree.com/storage/NAMP117.mp3


from Mark's Show Notes:
• Melissa plays with "Woz"
• The film "Jobs"
• Polaroid iS2132 21x optical zoom (25mm - 525 mm) camera.
• Photography and pro Mac applications
• Consumer-based applications and iCloud
• We reminisce about technology changes
• Internet connections and associated access

Other Random Mentions:
Steve Jobs: The Journey Is The Reward
Topaz Labs - Photography Software
John's Dragonfly photograph


Our Picks:

Alfred

HardwareGrowler

Little Snitch 3

iTeleport

iTeleport Developer Site




John F. Braun contributes to: The Mac Observer, Monday's Mac Gadget, Mac Geek Gab Podcast and tweets @johnfbraun

Kirschen Seah can be found at http://www.freerangecoder.com and tweets @kirschen

RSS Feed for Mark's podcast and blog

MacJournal for iOS

I'm finally getting around to trying to blog from my iPhone using the MacJournal app. I'm disappointed right away by the fact that I don't yet see a way to add an image or place a text link. This is a severely underdeveloped app! I see I can "attach" an image. What is this? An email? Even emailing a blog post is better than using this app at the moment. Lets see how posting goes.

• Ok. That was awful. First off, I attached two images and neither showed up in this post on my blog. So, I headed back here to the MacJournal app on my iPhone to see if I can amend the post. At least that part works. Coming back to the post and making changes (as I'm doing right now) seems to work out alright without the need to re-authenticate.

Before I could submit the first post, I had to authenticate through my 2-step verification several times despite already authorizing the app to post to my blog. This is a major pain and I've seen other apps that get it right so why can't MacJournal? Come on!
Tapping out text in the app is a horrible user experience. The scrolling in portrait mode is unreliable. Tapping text in landscape mode is ok, but the tools are much too close to the keyboard which makes for east formatting mistakes while tapping fast.
Formatting text is not intuitive
So lets say you want to make a word bold. In this app, you tap the 'A' button and then toggle switches for bold, italic or underline. This is redundant since it's much easier to just highlight the word and use the built-in iOS formatting.
When coming back to edit the post, all the single spaces between periods have been removed and all the hard return in between paragraphs have also been removed making it extra work to go back though and put them all back.
Changing the font size does effect the published version, but only the size changes, not the typeface so no WYSIWYG editing there.
When choosing a typeface, they show up in a boring scrollable list but just in Helvetica, not their native typeface.

Sometimes while typing really fast, the text output doesn't seem to be able to keep up and it freezes while tapping out text.

When sending the edited post back out to the blog as published, there's no real indicator that the task has completed. You just have to go to your blog, load it into Safari and refresh to view changes.
I'm not impressed by this app at all which is a shame because I own all versions of the app including for iPad and Mac and feel it was a wasted purchase even if it was on sale. I had high hopes when I used the Mac version but the iOS app versions really fall short. I'll probably delete MacJournal for iOS off my devices to make room for something better.

AirPlay or Apple Remote App Not Working? Try This

Are you looking for this:

AirPlay (double press on Home button then swipe twice to the right on Multitasking Bar)

Or this:

iOS Remote App

and not seeing one or either of these features on your iOS device?

Try this:

If you know how and are able, try changing the Channel setting on your router. This is what works for me! This is a screen shot of what it looks like on my Linksys router. Yours may or may not be similar but you're looking for this general area.

I posted this in part as a reminder to myself for figuring out how to fix this problem, but I thought you might find it useful as well. Let me know if it works for you.

The question I still have is why I need to keep changing this setting from time to time. I believe it has something to do with the fact that I now have more neighbors with routers and the channels are experiencing some kind of traffic or compromise. I don't yet know how else to explain it. One of these days I'd like to take a networking class because this stuff fascinates me. I wish I could fully understand all the ins and outs of my own router. For now, this is what I am comfortable tinkering with when it comes to my router settings and fixing the problem even if it's only temporary.

Back to School App Sale: 1Password

EDIT:
Unfortunately, this sale is now over, but that doesn't mean it won't happen again. Use AppShopper, put 1Password on your Wish List and you'll be notified when the next sale occurs! Until then, read on to learn more about this great app...

One of my most favorite-must-have apps, 1Password, is on sale right now in the App Store!

GET IT WHILE IT'S HOT! (normally it's twice the price)


It's Back to School here in the southwest and pretty soon for the rest of the country. You know what that means? More user names and passwords to store for our little Digital Natives!

I just remembered I need to add money to my son's school lunch account and, since it's not something I've done all summer long, all I have to do is open my 1Password, search for "lunch" and there it is. All I need to do then is tap the hyperlinked text and it will log me right into the website.

Another great thing is that this is a Universal app which means it will work on both your iPhone AND your iPad or iPod touch! If you have a shared family Apple ID like we do, then you could have 1Password installed and synced to all the devices in your family! It really is a small price to pay for keeping everyone organized and secure — and now, that price has been cut in half!