Add Qik to my Social Agenda

Last Updated on Thursday, 22 January 2009 09:31 Written by webguyatwork Thursday, 22 January 2009 09:28

Giving in to the hype from other iPhone users, I downloaded the Qik application through Cydia on my jailbroken iPhone, and recorded a couple of very pointless videos to test it out.  I may play around with this a little more, but don’t expect anything too fancy.  My life just isn’t fascinating enough for you to watch everything I do.

My initial thoughts on Qik:

1. This seems very cool for those who are on the go and want to share what’s going on with friends or followers, assuming you have something of importance to share, which so far I have not.
2. I find it interesting that the Qik iPhone app is technically capable of streaming live video to the web, even over the AT&T Edge network, yet it can’t view the videos that it has uploaded. Perhaps this was a design flaw, or maybe they’re holding out for an official App Store release.  Who knows?
3. It appears to be simple enough to add your Qik videos (both the live stream and recorded sessions) to a web page or blog using the code that is provided with every video.
4. It’s a place to hold my iPhone videos so they don’t have to be stored on the phone itself.  I tried the Cycorder apps, but frankly didn’t have time to figure out how to add it to a stream on my website.  Qik does this automatically, so what more could I ask for?

See my video samples at http://www.qik.com/webguyatwork if you’re up for a good laugh (or not).

iTunes fails to recognize iPhone (PC/Windows)

Last Updated on Monday, 12 January 2009 10:01 Written by webguyatwork Monday, 12 January 2009 09:18

For the past few weeks, I’ve noticed that iTunes running on my PC wasn’t recognizing my iPhone at all. My wife’s iPod Nano came up just fine though, so I started wondering what was up. Realizing at some point I would need to connect for a backup and future upgrades, I started looking into fixing the issue.

The following steps are intended to help you out of a similar situation without going through what I did to my iPhone, which ended up requiring a full restore from scratch. I’ll let you know how I went wrong.

To get your PC to recognize your iPhone, you’ll have to essentially uninstall every piece of Apple software that you have running (assuming you’re just a standard iTunes user):

DO NOT FOLLOW THE PROCEDURE TO PUT YOUR DEVICE IN RESTORE MODE
(I did before I ran all of the steps below, and it cost me a lot of additional time and headaches.)

1. Navigate to your Add/Remove Programs (Programs and Features on Vista) area within the Control Panel.
2. Start removing these apps (in this order, do not reboot until they’re all removed):
   • Quicktime
   • Apple Mobile Device Support
   • Apple Software Update
   • Bonjour
   • iTunes
3. Reboot your PC
4. Using Internet Explorer (I know, I know, shoot me later though), browse to apple.com/itunes and click the download link for the latest version of iTunes. From here, run the install program directly from the link, do not save it to your computer. (I do not know the reason for this, I just followed the instructions per a video I saw on Youtube).

You should not need to reboot after the re-installation of iTunes is complete.  My copy even found my library automatically, which I assume is due to some saved settings in the registry.  Connect your iPhone in and, voila!

Disclaimer: The procedure listed here worked perfectly for me AFTER I already put my phone in restore mode.  I am 99% sure that it will work WITHOUT putting your iPhone in restore mode first.  I just happened to find the steps after I had already bricked my phone. LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES!!!

Snapture Labs to sell Xenon-powered flash for iPhone

Last Updated on Thursday, 5 February 2009 02:35 Written by webguyatwork Saturday, 27 December 2008 11:10

I just caught wind of this announcement via InstallerApps.Com this morning.  Snapture Labs, the creators of the best iPhone camera software around, Snapture, is currently working on delivering a prototype of their Xenon-powered flash attachment for the iPhone.  According to their website, the attachment will act as a protective case and works seemlessly with their camera software without any additional components.

As you can see, the attachment is not big and bulky as some other iPhone attachments of the past have been.  This case is sleek and very stylish and doesn’t add much to the size or weight of the phone.  I can’t wait to see what the price of this toy is going to be.

Check out the Snapture Labs website to see more photos of this beauty and to get on the waiting list to have one delivered to you.

Snapture Labs Website: www.snapturelabs.com
Snapture Flash Website: www.snaptureflash.com