Upgrading from iPhone 4S to iPhone 6  gave me the capability of using my new phone as a Personal Hotspot. That means that I can share my iPhone’s cellular data connection with other devices over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or USB.  Initially, I didn’t think too much of it but now I realize that it’s a huge time and money saver!  My iPhone 6 connection is faster and more reliable than my iPad 3G connection and, with today’s relatively large data plans, I can easily use my iPhone as a hotspot without worrying about eating up my data plan.

So here’s what I’ve done: I’ve discontinued the data plan on my iPad and now, when I need access to the Internet and I’m not near Wi-Fi, I use my phone as a Personal Hotspot — easy peasy!  It saves me $180 a year and, since I always have my iPhone with me, I know I can be connected quickly.

Here’s how to share your iDevice as a Hotspot – it works with iPhone, iPad or iPad mini.  On the device
that’s providing the shared connection, go to Settings > Personal Hotspot and turn it on.  Tap Wi-Fi Password and set one.  To connect to the Hotspot on the device you want to use, go to Wi-Fi settings (turn on Wi-Fi if it’s not already on) and select the Hotspot device name. Enter the password when prompted and you’ll be connected. While devices are connected to your Personal Hotspot, the status bar at the top of your screen will be blue and will indicate the number of connected users.(Note: if you don’t see the option for Personal Hotspot on your iPhone or iPad, confirm with your carrier that this feature is supported and your wireless plan is configured for Personal Hotspot).

I’ve used my iPhone Hotspot with my iPad and also with my MacBook Pro.  Recently, my wife, Debbie, and I went away for a weekend and the hotel’s Wi-Fi was awful. Debbie connected her iPad to my iPhone Hotspot and streamed a TV show; it worked fine.

You can share your Hotspot via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and USB; The maximum number of supported connections may vary depending on your carrier or iPhone model.  And keep your Personal Hotspot off when you’re not actively sharing it; that way, it’s not being broadcast as a connection to those around you.

With iOS8 and my iPhone 6 and iPad 4, I find that the way I use my devices has changed a lot. Having a bigger iPhone means that I use my phone when, in the past, I might have used my iPad. It really doesn’t matter, however; I have my settings arranged so that all of my apps are available in both places so now I really am device independent.

Top Apps That I Use Every Day
Here is a screenshot of my iPad Home screen. The third-party apps that are important to me and I use all the time are there, of course:

• Noteshelf (note taking with a stylus)
• Readdle Calendars 5 (replaces the stock calendar)
• Evernote
• SwiftKey Note
• Chrome
• Google

Other Apps on my iDevices
Here are the other apps I rely on regularly. Most are free; some are not.

In addition to these apps that can be used no matter where you are or what you do, I have several apps that are specific to the service providers I use and where I live. For example, I have apps for my financial institutions (Banks, Brokerage houses, Credit Cards, etc.), my cable provider (so I can watch TV on my iDevices) and parking apps (so I can get discounts when I travel into New York City).

Most of these apps are free. I encourage you to go to the iTunes store and read about the ones that look interesting. You might find some that will help you and those you don’t like after you’ve installed them, you can simply delete.

Enjoy!

Using the time tested tools of a ruler, a pencil and a piece of paper, I created a graphic that, when printed at actual size, shows you the dimensions of the new phones and the iPhone 5S. Click here to view and print my drawing so you can check it out yourself!

Which iPhone are you going to get?

I live about 35 miles north of NYC so I drove to the Brooklyn Marriott. During the workweek, that car trip can be 2+ hours; on the weekend, it took less than an hour to drive there. I mount my iPhone in my car using a Keno Airframe holder, plug the phone into a car charger and connect it using bluetooth for hands free control. The Keno Airframe attaches to the car’s air conditioning vent, swivels for portrait or landscape viewing (useful when the phone’s a GPS) and holds the phone great. It’s compact and portable so you can take it with you to another car and it works with other phones too.  I got mine on Amazon for about $25. Highly recommended!

At the conference, I used my iPad to take notes during the sessions, check my mail, visit websites suggested by the speakers, review issues I have with my website gigs with experts, and keep up with social media. For note taking, I use Noteshelf; I wrote about that in Issue 2 of iBusiness and you can see it on my blog (blog.meshbiz.com). Writing with a stylus on my iPad with the Noteshelf app is a pleasure and is way better for me than typing.  I set up a notebook called ‘WordCamp’; I went to WordCamp Connecticut in May and I added my NYC info in that notebook.  So now I have all the newest WordPress topics in one place for easy review and information retrieval.  Noteshelf backs up my notebooks to DropBox in pdf format so I always have access to them.

I had my iPhone with me too, of course, and I used both my iPhone and iPad to check mail, share pics on Instagram and Facebook and check out websites referenced by the speakers. There was free Wi-Fi for all conference attendees but, on occasion, I got a connection busy signal so I turned on cellular service on my iPad to access the net.  I have an AT&T iPad 4 128MB and a 250MB per month plan for $14.99. It lets me stay connected wherever I am.

Whenever I travel away from my home or office and know I will be using my iDevices a lot , I carry a portable battery pack. I’m a big fan of New Trent; I have a 12000mAh External Battery charger that can charge both my iPad and iPhone simultaneously.  I have seen other external batteries with two ports but they can only charge one device at a time.  Highly recommended.  I also bought some short cables for the charger so everything is compact and easy to use.   Check Amazon for all the New Trent products and Amazon’s inexpensive, basic charging cables.

Attending conferences with these tools and techniques ensures that I am location-independent for my business and personal connections.

For my backup strategy, I used Time Machine, the continuous backup process built into the Mac operating system. As a second backup, I copy all of my user data to a network attached storage device in my house.

Fast forward to this year — my 500 GB drive was nearing its capacity and I couldn’t safely load any more of my photos.  What I wanted to do was take my user data off of the internal hard drive and move it to an external drive, giving my operating system plenty of room to breathe and my photo library room to grow.  LightRoom happens to play beautifully in an attached storage environment, allowing me to view all of my photos on my Mac, regardless of whether the external drive is connected or not. My MacBook normally stays on my desk and connected to the external drive so the detachability isn’t that important (but it was good to know).

As I was planning the data migration from the hard drive to the external drive, I became very concerned as I realized that all of my photos (my digital negatives), as well as my other user content, would be sitting on one external disk drive on the corner of my desk. Even with the Time Machine backup, I was worried that a corruption or a spilled glass of wine could cause me to lose everything. I guess I felt more secure with my data on the Mac’s internal drive than I did with it on an external device.  So…I did research and formulated my plan.

Here was my refined strategy: I would move all my user data off of the Mac internal drive onto a new 3TB external drive. Then, I would create a new Time Machine drive on an additional new 3TB drive and use my old 1 TB external drive (my old Time Machine disk) as a miscellaneous external storage device.  Once all of that was set up, I would sign up for a cloud-based backup service to continuously save my data outside of my house.

Seeing my MacBook connected to a small USB hub with three external drives attached made me smile.

One of the best-known online backup solutions is Carbonite. I signed up for the free trial and quickly realized that Carbonite has a limitation: the software does not recognize external drives for backup purposes!  That restriction is, unfortunately, buried in the description and I missed it; it took a phone call to customer service to realize that issue.

Further reading on the Internet along with a closer look at Mac-oriented products led me to BackBlaze (http://www.backblaze.com/).  In addition to its ability to backup external devices and unlimited storage capacity, they have an iOS app that lets me access my backup files on my iPhone and iPad whenever I’d like. I had almost half a terabyte of data that had to be sent to BackBlaze and the initial backup took over two and a half months!  I had the BackBlaze control panel running on my Mac all the time and when I was using my computer, I paused the backup because it was impacting my computer’s performance. At night before I went to sleep, I changed the settings in BackBlaze to remove the speed throttle and let it use all of my bandwidth to load up the data.  With my initial data backup on its servers, BackBlaze works in the background to constantly keep my stuff in sync – no action from me is required to keep my data safe and backed up outside my house.

Today, three months after I started, my Mac has redundant external disks with all my data backed up in the cloud.  I hope this inspires you to shore up your backup strategy too!

Spotlight Search – you can search your entire device with one flick of your finger.  From any screen showing the icons, swipe down from the middle of the screen.  You’ll see a search field at the top. Your device is searched for any word you type there: a name, an app, a song…. and you can control what is searched under Settings/General/Spotlight Search.  I use this to find a contact and most often to find the app I want to open; it’s much quicker to type “open” to get to OpenTable than finding the app on one of my 5 screens of icons.

Folders – this is a hint many know about but it’s important enough for those who don’t know about it that I’m sure you’ll indulge me.  If you’ve had your iDevice for any period of time, you have a bunch of apps on it and those apps span multiple screens.  iOS lets us group apps into folders so they are easier to find. To create a folder, hold your finger on an app until all the apps start to wiggle.  Then grab the icon you’re interested in and drag it on top of another icon.  A folder will be created with those two icons in it.  Drag an icon onto an existing folder to add the app to the folder.  And move the icons around inside a folder to reorder them the way you want them.  When you’re in a folder with the icons wiggling, you can edit the folder name. Press the Home button to stop them from wiggling.

Multi-Tasking – you tap on icons to open apps on your iDevice.  You can see your previously opened apps by double-clicking the Home button and swiping to the left to scroll through them.  Tap an app to open it on your iDevice.

Closing Apps – Your iDevice is a computer so open apps consume memory, just like a desktop and laptop.  Opening apps doesn’t close the ones you’ve opened previously; they are still open in the background and you have to close them manually.  Closing open apps is simple: double-click the Home button to see the open apps, then swipe the apps up and away to close them.  Bonus hint: you can use two fingers and swipe the apps up two at a time to speed the process.  How often should you close your apps?  I do it every day and especially when my device seems a bit sluggish.

Restarting your iDevice –  Ok, one more important housekeeping hint.  Turning your iPad and iPhone off is easy and a good idea.  You hold the power button until the red bar appears at the top to ‘Slide to Power Off’.  Slide your finger to the right and your iDevice shuts off.  To start up again, hold the power button until the Apple appears.  Even better than powering your phone down is doing a soft reset.  This flushes your device’s memory and is the best thing you can do, short of reinstalling your software and apps, to improve your iDevice’s performance.  I restart my iPhone and iPad like this every day.  Here’s how to do it:  press the Home button and power button at the same time and don’t let go until the Apple logo appears on the screen.  It can take a while (it feels like forever, even though it’s only about 30 seconds).  Once the logo appears, you can let go and your phone will restart, all fresh and ready to serve you.

Siri – If you have Siri, she can help you do some amazing things.  Many people I know don’t use Siri at all;. if you don’t use Siri, be sure to go to Settings/General/Siri and turn it off to conserve battery power.  I want to tell you about a few simple Siri hints that can make your life easier.  You can say

• Wake me at 745am tomorrow morning. Siri sets an alarm.
• Remind me to take the garbage out at 930p Tuesday night.  Siri reminds you.
• Open Safari. Siri can open just about any app installed on your iDevice.  It’s the quickest way to open an app that’s not on your home screen.
• Play ‘songname’ (that song needs to be in your iTunes on your device).
• What’s the score of theYankee game?  Siri gives you the score.

Control Center –  Swipe up from the bottom edge of your screen to open the Control Center. The Control Center is arguably the coolest new feature in iOS 7! From one place you can access connectivity options, screen brightness, rotation lock, and music control.  Along the bottom row is one-tap access to the flashlight, alarm/timer/stopwatch, calculator and camera.  I have this turned on everywhere. Go to Settings/Control Center to set yours up.  And be sure to get used to swiping up to open it.

Notification Center – Swipe down from the top edge of your screen to access the Notification Center.  You have an incredible amount of control over what appears in your Notification Center so go to Settings/Notification Center and check it out. At the very bottom of the settings screen, you can choose to receive Amber and Government Alerts in your Notifications.

Get used to using these quick tips.  They really can help make using your iDevice quicker and easier.

Out of the box, the Reminders app has a single list called Reminders.  You can add additional lists to help keep you organized.  I’ve added a ‘Books to Read’ list and, often, I create a list for a client project to make sure the details are covered.

The settings for the Reminders app are straight-forward.  Go to Settings | Reminders and you’re presented with two topics:  how far back to sync your Reminders and the Default list.  You can choose to sync Reminders from 2 weeks back to 6 months back or all Reminders.  The Default list is where new Reminders are created when not entered into a specific list.  If you use Siri to create a Reminder, for example, it will be set up in the list you choose as the Default.

When you first open the Reminders app, you’ll see the Default list of entries.  The iPhone has an accordion paradigm (tap a list name and it expands to show the entries).  The iPad shows the Lists on the left side and the selected list’s entries on the right side.

Reminders can be timeless, meaning that they are simply in the list as a reminder to do something.  You can assign a specific date and time to a reminder so you are prompted to act.  Reminders can also be location-based, reminding you when you leave from or arrive at a specific place. I use that function to alert me to a do something when I arrive at a customer site and when I need to do something when I leave work.

Your reminders can be displayed in a list or you can chose to show only those reminders with a specific due date and time.  On the iPad, it’s the ‘Scheduled’ list; on the iPhone, swipe down on the list names with two fingers and tap the clock icon.

To get the most out of your Reminders function, go to the Notification Center in Settings to set up how you want to be prompted by the app. You have choices of how and where the Reminder is displayed and if you want to hear a sound from your device.

When you enter a new item in the Reminders app, you can tap the info icon to the right to add details about that entry such as the due date, location attributes, notes, priority and which list it’s on. You can add a Reminder and edit the details at a later time.

Siri adds Reminders really well: I can say “Remind me to test the firewall at 10 this morning” and it’s quickly added to my iPhone list. And because my Reminders are synchronized across all my devices, the new entry is in my to-do list when I get to my office.

I know people who use the Calendar app or Notes app to remind them to do things. While that can certainly work, the Reminders app is easier to add a quick entry, offers time and location-based reminders and gives you the ability to review your completed tasks as you mark things done.

If you are not using reminders on your iDevice, give it a try. It’s easy, free and can help you remember those things that can easily slip through the cracks in our busy lives.

Rather than use one of those calendars you get from a bank or company that has pretty pictures, for years I have been making a custom calendar every month using a website.  I print a single page that shows the current month as well as the prior and next two months.  I can customize my calendar with holidays and events too.  Here is what it looks like:

I happen to like that calendar format but you might prefer another layout.

I use a really cool website to make my monthly calendar – it’s printfree.com.  They have templates for calendars, greeting cards and signs and it works really well for me.  They have a huge selection of formats for all sorts of applications, it’s easy to use and it’s free!

By the way, here is the link to the November calendar template that I used this morning.  And to see all their calendar formats, click here.

Enjoy!

Apple’s iWork suite of apps includes Pages (its word processor), Numbers (its spreadsheet) and Keynote (its presentation program). You can buy the apps in the iTunes store for $9.99 each for mobile devices and $19.99 for the Mac. I am using Pages to write this article.

The key to sharing your documents across your Apple devices is iCloud.  All of your devices must be signed into the same iCloud account and ‘documents and data’ has to be turned on in your iCloud settings.  Be sure that you also have the option ‘use cellular data’ turned on so if you’re not in a Wi-Fi zone, your documents still stay in sync in iCloud.

When you open Pages and start a new document, you’re offered a host of templates as a starting point. Most of the time, I start with a blank page and just start typing. Whatever you write is saved instantly and available on any of your devices for ongoing editing. I often start my documents on my desktop or my iPad and do subsequent editing when I can steal a few moments on my iPhone. I love using my iPhone and iPad to edit because I can use Siri to talk and it types what I say!  I also have a Bluetooth keyboard for my iPad so I can use that when I am sitting in a stable place.

You can email your document from within the Pages app in Pages, Word or PDF format.  I have created a letterhead document that I duplicate and edit when I need to send a letter to a client; the PDF format works great for that.

Apple recently made a very cool change to its iCloud platform –  they allowed editing and creating iWork documents directly in a browser. It’s labeled as ‘beta’ on the site but it works great and I hope they keep it. Here’s how to do it: on your PC or Mac, open Chrome (my browser of choice) and go to http://icloud.com.  Sign in with your iTunes username and password and you’ll be presented with the full set of iCloud apps.  When you open Pages by clicking the icon, you’ll see all your documents, just like you do on your iPad and iPhone!  You can add to and edit your document and all changes are available instantly on all your other iCloud-connected devices.

I use this browser-based editing feature on both my PC and MacBook Pro. That lets me use Pages on either computer whether it has the Pages app or not.

My friend is writing a screenplay and I recently showed him how he can work on it wherever he is.  He can write at home and, when he has a few minutes between meetings, on his iPad Mini. It’s convenient and easy and increases his productivity level…and it’s free!

So check  out Pages on your computer browser and grab Pages from the iTunes Store, if you don’t already have it. I find it to be a great way to write.