Tag: usb

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iPhone Syncing Issue

iPhone Sync Cable

I rarely synchronise the iPhone with my Mac, since unlike earlier phones there is so much you can do over the air these days.

Syncing it last night I was slightly confused over why it wasn’t syncing. I unplugged and replugged the iPhone into the Mac. No luck.

A quick search on Google found that sometimes problems arise if you have an USB drive plugged into your Mac. I knew I had plugged in a USB 32GB stick into the Mac, I unplugged it and removed it, and then the iPhone was able to sync no problem.

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Printing from your iPhone

So the iPhone has a really nice camera…

Okay so the iPhone has a camera! It doesn’t take bad photographs and ascamera phones go it ain’t bad!

Now with the Nokia N95 which does have a very nice camera, 5MP compared to the iPhone’s 3MP, and a Carl Zeiss lense, it is relatively simple to print images from the phone without needing to dump the photographs first onto a computer. I have printed the images via Bluetooth and USB.

With the iPhone it has been a little more challenging.

I first saw hope with the HP iPrint Photo (iTunes link) however your HP printer needs to be connected to a wifi network. Alas my A618 Photo Printer which is excellent for printing photographs, is not wifi capable; it does memory cards, USB and Bluetooth, but not wifi.

I then heard about the Canon Easy-Photo Print for iPhone (iTunes link) and as the owner of the wifi capable MP600r I thought ah ha a way of printing from my iPhone.

IMG_0242

Alas the application only works with the Pixma MP990, MP640 and MP560. As a result it couldn’t find my printer.

IMG_0241

Of course I am not going to change my printer so I can print from my iPhone.

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Which 3G USB Modem?

I have been thinking for a while about getting a 3G USB Modem.

My preference is to use a Bluetooth connection to my phone and use that as a modem, however this is very heavy on battery life for both the phone and the laptop and I am thinking that a USB modem will have less impact on the laptop and (obviously) no impact on the phone’s battery life.

I don’t want a card solution as I use different computers, some have CF slots, come have PC Card slots and another uses ExpressCard, so a card solution will be too limiting.

I am not overly happy with having a dongle hanging off my computer, but it is better than no internet connection.

So which one do I go for?

My initial choice was “3” which has the cheapest solution at £10 per month, however they do have a 1GB limit and will charge if you go over that limit.  £15 gives you a 3GB allowance.

Speeds are suppose to be in the 2.8Mbps range, but that’s not the case across the whole country.

Having used Vodafone before and get very annoyed with their content control and the complexity of having to pay to turn it off, I am not keen on using Vodafone. Also at £25+VAT per month they are the most expensive. However at 7.2Mbps they are the fastest. Though that speed is not available around me, so is less inticing.

I am coming around to T-Mobile which is around £20 per month now. However it does appear to be the slowest of the lot. It has one advantage that the service also includes free access to T-Mobile wifi hotspots.

Still thinking.

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Annoying Printer

Though I really do like my new Canon MP600r multi-function printer, there is one aspect which does annoy me slightly.

If you need to reconfigure the wireless connection you need to connect it to the Mac by USB cable. This can be difficult if the printer is not near the computer, which it might well be as that’s certainly why I bough a wireless printer. If I wanted a wired USB printer I would have bought the much cheaper MP600.

Canon MP600r

Ah well, at least I have reconfigured the printer to join my new Airport Extreme wireless network, and now I can print and scan over the wireless network.