This Busy Life

Tech Tuesday: iOS 7 Control Center

Techno Dude — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:00:38 +0000

After watching the Apple Worldwide Developers’ Conference keynote video, I have to say that the one feature of iOS 7 that I am most looking forward to is the new Control Center. This little gem is only a swipe away wherever you are in iOS 7 and it gives quick access to some of the most used features and settings. The top row of icons enables you to quickly toggle Airplane mode, Wifi, Bluetooth, Do Not Disturb, and Orientation Lock (no more digging in the settings app for these switches!).

Then there is the brightness setting which is finally ready at hand as it should be. Today I can double-click the home button and swipe right twice to get at a slider to adjust the volume. Wait, what? Why give me a volume slider when there are already two volume buttons on the side of the phone! I always wished Apple would have put the brightness control in this place, but the new location is even better.

Next there are the audio controls which are currently available via home button double-click. Today’s behaviour is slightly different depending on whether the phone is locked when double-clicking, but the new behaviour promises to be consistent regardless.

The AirDrop and AirPlay buttons will depend on whether they are possible on your device and available on your Wifi network. I routinely make use of AirPlay to stream audio to my Living Room stereo or video to the Family Room TV, so this will definitely come in handy. I haven’t made use of AirDrop yet, but it looks promising.

The final row of icons gives you quick access to your flashlight, timer/stopwatch, calculator, and camera apps. I haven’t yet come up with a better collection of apps to put so close at hand and this will allow me to drop the calculator from my dock area and make room for another frequently-used app. If you have thoughts on other apps that should be here, leave a comment, below. In addition, Control Center itself removes the most pressing reasons to have the settings app up front, so there is another app that can move off of page one and make room for something new.

What do you think of the new Control Center? Are you as excited as I am to upgrade?
Techno Dude

My Father

This Busy Life — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 10:00:46 +0000

My mother passed away when I was two years old and my father was left to raise me and my two older brothers on his own. I can’t imagine how difficult this must have been for him. He may not have done everything right but I know without a doubt he did the very best he could and one can’t ask for anything more than that. He believed in my brothers and me and always asked for our very best. He was loving and kind but he didn’t put up with a lot of nonsense and for that I am thankful. My dad is no longer here, but if he were I’d thank him again for all the sacrifices he made for my brothers and me. If your dad is alive, take time this Father’s Day to thank him for all he has done for you.

Thank you Rebecca for this touching quote.

Tech Tuesday: Review – Apple Earpods

Techno Dude — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 10:00:15 +0000

I have struggled for quite some time trying to find the right earphones for my odd-sized ears. I say that they are odd-sized because they are each a different size. If an earbud fits well in my left ear, then its partner does not fit in my right ear and vice versa. I have tried using the in-ear earbuds with different-sized earpieces, but they quickly become uncomfortable and I can’t listen for very long.

My daughter has obviously been paying attention to my struggles because, when she recently got her new iPhone 5, she offered to trade me the Apple Earpods that came with it for my older iPhone earbuds. I immediately took her up on her kind offer and gave them a try. I have to say that I like them a lot.

I have used them for more than a week in a variety of conditions and situations and they are the first earphones I’ve used that don’t fall out of my right ear every other time I turn my head. These things are comfortable to wear for hours at a time and they have really good sound, too. The bass is full and well-defined without being overpowering.

The Earpods fit loosely within the ear canal and do not significantly mask other noises so, if you are looking noise-reduction, these aren’t the earphones you are looking for. If you just want good sound and a comfortable fit, do yourself a favour and check these out.

Happy listening
Techno Dude

Mini Banana Muffins

This Busy Life — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 10:00:47 +0000

Here’s a little secret about me. I love baked goods. When I go into a coffee shop it’s really hard for me to resist the goodies in the display case, especially the muffins. For the past 9 months or so I have been sticking to the Weight Watchers eating plan and if any of you have ever done it you’ll know that baked goods and Weight Watchers just don’t go together. This meant that for a long time I’ve been having to exercise my self-control when it came to eating sweets. Then I was struck with a brain wave! What was it you ask? To make mini versions of the baked goods I like. That way I could still have a treat but not too much of one. So I took my recipe for banana muffins and made them mini. Not only are they good for people like me who are trying to control how much they eat but I think they are just the right size for little hands! So without further ado, here is my recipe for Mini Banana Muffins and of course you can make them full size if you like!

Mini Banana Muffins

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

15 mins

Total time

25 mins

These mini banana muffins are a sweet little treat. You can also use this recipe to make regular size muffins.

Author: This Busy Life

Recipe type: Dessert

Ingredients

3 bananas
½ cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1½ cups flour
⅓ cup melted butter

Instructions

In a food processor or with a hand mixer mash the bananas.
Add the sugar and mix well.
Mix in the egg.
Measure the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and add to mixture. Blend until moist.
Melt the butter and add to the mixture.
Bake in 350 degree oven for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.
Make 12 regular sized muffins or 24-30 mini muffins.

No Wind Is Favourable

This Busy Life — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 10:00:17 +0000

Every day we must make choices and the choices we make have a direct impact on where our life is heading and where we will end up. It is important that we know where we would like our life to go so that we can make choices that will get us to where we would like to be. Thank you Rebecca for this lovely quote. We’re sure sailing enthusiasts will be able to relate to this quote easily.

As always, Rebecca’s Word Art is available in poster form at her Etsy store.

Setting our sails for adventure!

Tech Tuesday: Converting Audio to MP3

Techno Dude — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 10:00:32 +0000

In a couple of recent Tech Tuesday posts, I provided instructions for trimming and splitting iTunes tracks and I was thinking that some of the information I provided could also be useful for anyone who has devices that cannot play songs purchased from iTunes. iTunes music downloads have not been encumbered by DRM (digital rights management) for several years now, but this is of little consolation if you have a CD player in your car that only reads MP3 and WMA (Windows Media Audio). Both of our cars fall into this category, so I can definitely sympathize.

The key to using iTunes to convert your music is to go into the preferences and set the Import Settings to the audio format you want (more complete details are found in the post, “Splitting Tracks in iTunes”. For MP3, iTunes offers three different predefined quality settings. The higher the quality, the larger the files and the fewer songs you can fit on a CD (or an MP3 player). Keep in mind the quality of your source material as converting the audio to MP3 will not make it sound any better. In fact, you will lose a bit of quality in the conversion process, no matter how high the quality you choose.

Once you have chosen your preferred MP3 quality settings and set them in the Import Settings, you are ready to begin converting your songs. To make this easier, I would suggest you make a playlist that contains all of the songs to be converted. Once you have the playlist created, you can select all of the songs in the playlist and then choose File > Create New Version > Create MP3 Version from the menu. iTunes will read each source file in turn and create new copies of each song in your chosen format.

When iTunes is done, you can view your entire library and sort the song list by Date Added to see all of the new copies, which should all have today’s date.If the Date Added column is not visible, check View > Show View Options and add it. You can now crate a playlist containing all of the new MP3 files and make an MP3 CD by choosing File > Burn Playlist to Disk and then selecting MP3 CD in the dialog presented.

Enjoy your new MP3 CD in your car.
Techno Dude

Etsy Round-Up: White and Neutral Home Office

Rebecca Dost — Fri, 31 May 2013 10:00:47 +0000

I love looking at pictures to see how other people organize their home offices. I love home decor and organization tools. When I ever get my own home office, I imagine it to be white and tan, keeping it nice and bright. Neutrals are great to stay relaxed and get into the perfect mood for working. They also act as a perfect base to add an accent colour in with decor. This picture to the right, which I originally found on Pinterest, is a perfect example of what I mean. And without further adieu, here are four Etsy pieces I’ve selected to go with it!

An office necessity is definitely a mousepad, so why not have a cute one? SSKDesigns has created this funky herringbone mousepad in several different unique colours to suit. I love the circular shape.	A perfect quote to get you in a happy working mood. Work without passion isn’t worth the time. This word art print is available as a poster at rdprints.
What would an office be without a calendar? This floral 2013-2014 planner from greengrass2 is a great way to keep track of those bills, appointments and dates in style. And, it’s completely customizable too!	There’s nothing I love more than simplicity… and notebooks to write down all my thoughts. This pocket notebook by witandwhistle is super cute and a perfect size to stick in a purse or pocket for an on-the-go office.

I’m Blessed

This Busy Life — Wed, 29 May 2013 10:00:18 +0000

This Word Art poster by RD Prints has been a little wake up call for me. For the past month I have been deep into doing improved SEO for one of my other sites. It has been a huge task opening pages, changing keywords, modifying descriptions, including alt tags and cleaning up each page. The site has over 5,000 pages so this has been no easy task. A few days ago, I was ready to jump out the window because the task seemed so overwhelming but this word art reminded me it was this website that has allowed me to stay home and raise my children and helped to educate them, so really it has been a big blessing and when I look at it that way, I can go back and do the last of the SEO work with a cheerful heart.

All RD Prints can be purchased. I may just be heading over there to buy this poster to hang in my office…

I’m Blessed

Tech Tuesday: iTunes Movie Rentals for Apple TV

Techno Dude — Tue, 28 May 2013 10:00:45 +0000

If you have an Apple TV box connected to your television, you may already know about buying and renting movies and TV shows from the iTunes store. We have been doing this for as long as we have had our Apple TV and we thoroughly enjoy watching movies this way. There are no trips to the video rental store and no late fees. There isn’t even any fumbling with DVD disks. With a sufficiently fast internet connection, these downloads start playing almost immediately without having to wait for the entire file to download.

This past weekend, however, I learned a lesson the hard way about doing iTunes rentals the right way. You see, you can select and rent a movie in iTunes on your computer or directly on the Apple TV. There is a disadvantage to renting on the Apple TV and that is that you can only watch the rented movie on the Apple TV. If you rent it in iTunes on your computer, you can load it onto your iPad and you can watch it on your computer, iPad and your big screen TV via Apple TV.

What I didn’t know is that, in order for all of these movie viewing options to be available, you have to wait for the entire movie to download first. If the movie has not finished downloading, then it won’t yet appear in the rentals list in iTunes when using Home Sharing to view your library from other devices. “No problem,” I thought to myself, “I’ll just use AirPlay to stream the movie from my computer to the Apple TV and control it using Apple’s wonderful Remote app on my iPad.”

This is where it all fell apart. In addition to not letting other devices see my partially downloaded movie, iTunes refused to allow me to send it to the Apple TV via AirPlay. No matter what I tried, I could not get it to work. I could send any other content from iTunes to my TV, but not this movie rental. The night was wearing on and the 2 GB file was not going to finish downloading in time for us to watch the movie that night. To make matters worse, we had commitments the next night that kept us from the TV and the 48 hour window we had to watch the movie had started as soon as I tried my AirPlay work-around.

Now I know better: I will only rent iTunes content on the device that I intend to watch it on.

Once bitten, and a bit wiser as a result,
Techno Dude

He Who Has Never Hoped…

This Busy Life — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:00:13 +0000

Just as easily as hope can lead to despair, hope can just as easily conquer our despair.

Thank you for your beautiful Word Art poster Rebecca.

Click on the image above if you are interested in buying a poster of this print.