Sc@-tt3r-ed Thoughts

As I usually do occasionally on my phone, I went to the App Store to check for updates. Since the release of iOS 4, one of the main reasons I repeatedly checked for updates was due to the Skype application.
There was  an application for the iPhone called Fring. and in and of itself, is a great app. For a little while, they even supported the Skype protocol, which was exciting. Not too long after its release though, Skype and Fring got into some legal battle, and since then, Fring removed its support for Skype.

Well this morning, my day was made! Skype finally released its iPhone update, which makes Skype iOS 4 compatible. More specifically, allows Skype to be run in the background. I had always wondered what this would mean, for Skype running on the iPhone, when both my cell number AND Skype number are connected to my Google Voice number, the latter of which is the one that I give out to people.

So I decided to do a quick test:

First I opened up Skype and put it in the background, then I called myself on my SkypeOut number. A push notification popped up on my phone with the Skype ringtone, and I was able to pick up the Skype phone call. FTW! I pretty much expected this test to work ok.

The real test, however, was the case where I would receive a phone call on the Google Voice number. I was wondering how my phone would handle this. Well, it was surprisingly good. When I dialed my Google Voice number, my phone’s ringtone actually sounded, the Skype ringtone did not, however, the push notification still popped up for the Skype call, while the cell number was ringing. Granted, the push notification goes behind the dialer window, so I had to reject the cell call, and then click on “Answer” on the Skype notification. At this time, the Skype app was foregrounded, and the Google Voice greeting sounded.

in a couple of instances, when dialing the GV number, the Skype push notification didn’t actually show up, and that may be due to the order in which Google Voice dials, or rather, establishes a connection to my devices. Not really a big deal, and I’m not even sure that there is a way to really make this problem completely disappear. After all, the way I’m using my cell number and the skype number under a Google Voice number is probably not a very common way people will use these services, but in my mind, if the more complex setups work, then, the simpler ones will definitely work.

Recently I have been trying to use Google Chrome as my main browser, just to see how it would compare with Firefox, and surprisingly, I’ve been quite impressed, to the point where I don’t really mind it. There are a few things that are not completely up to par with Chrome, like some websites (forms) not working quite correctly, and some utilities and extensions that I used in Firefox don’t work quite the same in Chrome. Fortunately, the gap is being filled by having most of these utilities that would otherwise be browser-based, convert to being server based (or in the cloud). Most recently, GMAIL’s formatted HTML signatures becoming native within the GMAIL settings, eliminating the need to use an extension from Greasemonkey, or WiseStamp.

I digress regarding the comparison of Google Chrome vs. Firefox, at least for the purposes of this article. What I really wanted to address is a nice feature that I recently just discovered in Chrome, and that is the Address Bar searching, without any added extensions. If you are a Firefox user, this would be quite close to the functionality of the Omnibar extension.

If you do use Chrome on a regular basis, you may already know that typing any terms in the address bar, will perform a search in Google. However, did you know that if you wanted to search elsewhere, there is a whole slew of search engines that can be pointed to straight from the address bar? You can get to it by right clicking on the Address Bar, and selecting: “Edit Search Engines”…

Once you do that, you will get the list:

From here, you can change the search engines that can be used, along with the keywords associated with them. For any search engines that may have overlapping first characters, you just have to type enough letters of the search engine to make it unique, and press tab. For for Wikipedia, I type wik and press tab:

Then type your search query and press enter, and voila, you are in Wikipedia, with the search results.

Pretty slick!

If you have a Google account of any sort, you are likely using one of Google’s many services.

One of the issues always talked about regarding Google, is how much data they have on you. Of course, there are things like your “Web History” that you can check out. But if you use Picasa, Google Docs, Gmail, Gmail Contact, Google Voice, etc … there is quite a lot of additional information that Google has about you.

Today as I was looking at my account settings, I found an interesting link, which I had never seen before, and that is your Data Dashboard. If you go to this link while logged in to your Google account, you will see a list of all the services, and an overview of what data you have stored in each of these applications. Quite enlightening, in my opinion. As a matter of fact, by looking there, I found out that I had some files scattered in some Google services that I once tried, like Google Sketchup, and never deleted its content. Imagine what more you may be able to find if you go through this exhaustive list of services, you may be surprised.

Give it a shot and see how much of “you” Google owns.

If you’re like me, and you have done away with your cable subscription, and transformed your whole media center to Boxee, or Plex, then this review is for you. In fact, even if you don’t use Boxee or Plex, but have a computer connected to your TV that you’d like to control. This is also for you.

Since I got rid of my cable, I setup an iMac to take care of all my media. It was a nice setup, except I didn’t have full access to the computer, unless I had my laptop, and connected to it via LogMeIn or TeamViewer, or, for much less control, using the native Boxee remote for the iPhone, or even the Rowmote free application.

These were all fine and dandy, but I really wanted full access to the machine without having my laptop or another computer around. Before finding out about Rowmote Pro, or even before it ever existed, and I went and bought the Adesso Wirelsss Slimtyouch Mini-Mac, which I paid $80 for, and turned out to be a total waste of money, in short, very short range, and battery life lasts 2 days at best.

Enter Rowmote world. If you have an iPhone, you’re going to be blown away by what this app does! It’s only $4.99 – well, $4.99 + $199 or $299 at best if you don’t have an iPhone yet You may be familiar with the regular interface of Rowmote which looks something like this:

However, you may not know this interface:  

Yup .. you’re getting a sweet interface to control your mouse and keyboard straight from the Rowmote application. In its original interface, Rowmote now supports over 17 applications, and obviously, anything you can do on the PC outside of the native Rowmote controls. 

Check out the video below for a live demonstration of Rowmote Pro. It’s definitely worth the $4.99.

Rowmote Pro Demonstration