Sync - page 2

Popular and useful note-taking and synchronization app Evernote has just updated its Mac app to version 3.30. The new version adds new keyboard commands, a new premium user account, new user controls and LinkedIn support, which is also now available in the web-cased Evernote client. In addition, Evernote sports a handy slideshow option for notes that involve pictures. This will look really nice using Evernote’s new Retina display support.

I love having my photos on my iPad, but I hate using iPhoto to get them there. To be honest, I just hate iPhoto, along with its more complicated and even more sluggish cousin, Aperture. I use Lightroom, and up until last week I was exporting photos from there into iPhoto just to sync them. Not only was this a headache, but it was a waste of space.

Now, you can tell iTunes to sync any folder of photos to the iPad, but with a little bit of effort things can be made much more elegant. By setting up Lightroom correctly, we can have any changes to our photos mirrored to the iPad at the touch of a button, and the whole process is near-automatic.

One of the hallmarks of Google Docs (and now Google Drive) is that you can use it anywhere. Within reason, any device with a modern web browser can deliver some level of viewing, editing, and collaboration. On iOS devices, however, native Office-style apps like Quickoffice tend to deliver a somewhat better user experience and are capable of opening, editing, and syncing documents with your Google.

There’s a clear value for such capability on an iOS device in that most apps deliver a better experience than Google Docs running in mobile Safari. Is there a similar need on the desktop? Would a native app a better solution than using Chrome or Safari on your Mac? According to Mac/iOS developer Tricky Duck, the answer is yes.

Making a list of tasks is a great way to be sure you’re getting things done, right? Without being able to see those reminders across all the devices and computers you may use in a given week, though, that list is going to be fairly useless. That’s the reason services and apps like Evernote have become so ubiquitous: instant access to your notes across all the digital environments you frequent.

Apple’s Reminders system is the company’s foray into a task list, but figuring out how to sync the lists across devices is somewhat non-intuitive. Here’s how to do just that.

Google Drive was announced yesterday, and we’ve spent some time putting the OS X client software to the test. How does it stand up against the list of rivals (which seems to be growing by the day)?

Remembering each and every password to each and every service you’ve ever signed up to is an incredibly difficult task. To make it easier, we create simple passwords that we’re less likely to forget, like the name of our favorite pet, our partner, or our car. The problem with that is, it’s not very secure.

Norton’s new Identity Safe is a free service that allows you to choose stronger passwords and keep your data safe while saving them all securely to your PC or smartphone to ensure that they’re never forgotten. You can then sync your passwords between your Mac, PC, Android and iOS devices so that you have them with you wherever you go.

Microsoft’s online file storage service SkyDrive, got a boost today with the announcement of some new features, including a native Mac client app for OS X Lion. While SkyDrive might lack some of Dropbox’s more advanced features on OS X, it does offer something only a giant like Microsoft can afford: 7 GB of free space for everyone, and up to 25 GB if you already have a Windows Live ID and sign up fast enough.

Quickoffice announced its new cloud service known as Connect at the end of last month. The service is designed to sync Microsoft Office documents between your iOS devices, Android devices, Macs, and PCs. It’s an extension to the Quickoffice apps for iOS and other mobile platforms that offer the ability to create, edit, and view Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files on the go.

Connect by Quickoffice is now available from the App Store and it’s a very slick app and a great addition for any iOS user or mobile professional.

Last week, we showed you how to prepare your old iPad for today’s upgrade to the new one. Now you have your new device, you’ll want to ensure that all of your data from your old one gets transferred over during the setup process. Here’s how to do it — the right way.

Do you own a Mac, but are forced by an employer/spouse/parent/other evil entity to use an Android phone? Then we have some good news for you. No, I’m not going to buy you an iPhone. But I will tell you about a new Android app that syncs with your iTunes library. It’s called Airbind, and it’s free.

Nerds who use Omni Group’s kick-ass task manager Omnifocus have a little bit of good news today. No, you still can’t export due tasks to a Google calendar shared with coworkers. You can, however, rely on the new non-beta status of the Omni Sync Server, which gets its official launch today. That’s not all: Sync is coming to all Omni’s apps.

In addition to iCloud, there are a number of other cloud services available to Mac and iOS users. Dropbox, Box.net, and Google Docs all come to mind immediately and each offers its own set of features. Another option that isn’t discussed so much by Apple users is Microsoft’s SkyDrive.

Although SkyDrive has offered a basic iOS app and web access from Macs and iOS devices, the functionality has been a bit limited. Newly leaked details of an OS X SkyDrive app, however, indicate that Microsoft may be planning to compete against iCloud on Apple’s home turf.

With Mountain Lion, Apple has finally tied iCloud to the Mac desktop. While iCloud has worked seamlessly on iOS since launch, moving documents between iCould and your Mac was embarrassingly awkward, involving web browsers, dragging and dropping.

Now, it has been shoved deep into the heart of the OS, in the form of a kind of alternate Finder.

One of the big threads in the Mountain Lion features that Apple has posted is much deeper integration with iCloud that Lion offers. That isn’t a surprise given Lion began a trend of bringing iOS functionality to the Mac, but it may raise some concerns for Macs in the workplace.

In Mountain Lion, Apple is bringing the iOS document syncing feature to OS X along with Mac versions of the iOS Notes and Reminders apps. There’s also a Mac version of the iOS 5 Notification Center. These are all tremendously valuable features for business users, but the fact that they function by passing business content to Apple’s iCloud servers and onto the devices of employees and their family members is likely to be a big concern for CIOs.

There’s no doubt that iCloud offers some great value to Mac and iOS users. It even has some potential as a business tool. Unfortunately, like many other personal cloud services, iCloud presents some major securtiy concerns when it comes into the workplace – either on a user’s iOS device or on a business Mac or PC. Those concerns stem from the ability to sync business data to outside devices and computers as well as its capacity to archive some of that data on Apple’s iCloud servers.

Unlike most personal cloud products, which can be difficult to effectively disable in corporate or business settings, iCloud use can be restricted or blocked. That leaves IT departments with the question of whether or not iCloud access should be managed or disabled. It’s a tricky question, particularly in BYOD settings where the device belongs to a user and not the company. It’s made even trickier because the choices involved in managing iCloud are rather blunt in approach and don’t offer much in the way of fine tuning to specific needs.

We’ve already shown you how to sync your address book with the Facebook app for iOS to add profile pictures and other credentials, but what if you prefer to use Twitter instead? Well, fortunately for you, you can also sync your address book with Twitter, and it’s incredibly easy thanks to iOS 5’s Twitter integration.

Adding contact information to your phone can be a tedious task, especially with devices like the iPhone, which allow you to add a whole lot more than just a name and a phone number. But there is one quick and easy way to add missing information to your address book without even touching your device’s virtual keyboard: Syncing your contacts with Facebook.

If you’re a Facebook user — and who isn’t these days? — and you have the official Facebook app installed on your device, you can add birthdays, URLs, and even photos to your address book in just a few taps.

A couple weeks ago, we posted about TwelveSix’s PlugBug, a cute little attachment that plugs into your standard MacBook MagSafe charger and gives it a 10W USB port, perfect for charging your MacBook and iPad simultaneously.

The PlugBug’s an ingenious little idea, and I’m reviewing one now. However, PlugBug’s days might be numbered: a new patent says that Apple is working on a universal power adapter that can charge MacBook Pros, iPhones and iPads, all at the same time.

When Apple unveiled iOS 5 yesterday and debuted their mobile operating system’s new PC free capabilities, one small but important feature that was mostly overlooked in the coverage: WiFi Sync coming to iTunes. And the way it works is smart.

With all the deals getting inked and all the right hires in place, Apple is increasingly ready to jump iTunes into the cloud… possibly as early as next month’s WWDC. But how exactly will it work?

So you just got your iPad, and have loaded it up apps. Now what? It may seem like a hassle to hunt around for the apps you want and to page through all of those home screens. Well, there is an easier way. In this video, you’ll find out the best way to arrange your apps on your iPad.

I curse MobileMe, but I rely on MobileMe. So do many Mac users, it’s easy to setup and it generally works. However sometimes your info gets mixed up with duplicates or omissions, or a device in your sync setup can get stuck and won’t send or receive new data.

The basic procedure for resetting sync data involves taking the most complete copy of your data and propagating it through all other systems. Pick one system to become your Primary Mac for the steps below.

I recently came across a humorous post on Facebook that made me laugh out loud so I thought I should share it. It read:

I named my iPhone Titanic, why you ask? So that every-time I plug my phone into the computer it says ” Titanic is now syncing”– haha

While the gallows tone of this tidbit of humor might offend some people it definitely makes most of them laugh at the creativity and obvious play on words.

So now the question is did you give your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad a unique name? If you did share it with everyone by leaving a comment.

Apple your idea about iPad file syncing using the manual file-sharing capabilities of iTunes is disappointing. Especially in my case — I sync my media content with my iMac, which by the way isn’t very easy to carry around, and I cannot sync that same content on my Macbook Pro. If I try to sync using iTunes on another computer my syncing options are to Cancel, Transfer Purchases, or Erase and Sync. None of these options are useful, but if I click Cancel eventually I can manually access the files shared on my iPad even on my Macbook Pro.

It isn’t clear why Apple didn’t add a simple thing like automatic file syncing, but that doesn’t matter now after I discovered Ecamm Network’s new Mac application, PadSync, which adds automatic syncing capabilities to the file sharing feature of the iPad.

With the release of the iPad, we have yet one more way to access our email. While the look and feel of the Mail app for iPad is good, let’s dig a little deeper into what’s good, what’s bad and what’s ugly (Hint: Gmail and saving messages).