How To Use "Find My iPhone" Feature

"Find My iPhone" is one of the new, useful features that came out with iOS v5. If your phone is lost or stolen this will allow you to locate it on a map and remotely lock or erase it.

How to Turn On "Find My iPhone"

1. From the Home screen, tap the Settings icon.
2. Scroll down and tap on iCloud
   
3. It may prompt you for your Apple ID & password (the same one you need for iTunes). If you don’t remember yours, go here for help.
4. If it asks you to allow iCloud to Use the Location of Your iPhone, tap Yes.
   
5. Scroll down and ensure the Find My iPhone switch is On.
   

How To Use It To Find Your iPhone

If you want to test it out, or need to actually find your phone:

1. Go to iCloud.com and sign in with your Apple ID and password. If you don’t remember yours, go here for help.
2. Click the Find My iPhone icon.
   
3. That should open a map, and it will try to locate your phone using its built-in GPS. Within a minute it should show where your phone is on the map like this:
   

English/Spanish Translator iPhone App

I recently searched through several English/Spanish iPhone translator apps, and found one that is revolutionary. Here is the basic stuff it can do:

1. Type or speak a word/phrase and it will translate it to another language (works for 50+ languages)
2. Push a button, and it will speak the translated phrase

But, what makes it revolutionary is the conversation mode feature. At first this seems like legendary SciFi stuff (very Star Trekkish), but really the app is just combining voice recognition technology, an online translation engine, and voice output to become a personal translation assistant you can carry in your pocket.

See the icon in the screenshot above. Click that to enter conversation mode. You can then click either speak a sentence in English or Spanish and it will use voice recognition software to figure out what you said, automatically translate that into the other language, then say it out loud in the other language … just like a real-life translator would.

Just How Good Is It?

Honestly … I don't know how accurate it is. My wife is certified to teach Spanish, and after looking at how it translated a few phrases she thought this app did a better job translating than most of the other apps I tried. At the end of the day, a machine will never be as good as translating a person who really knows and understands not only the language, but the local vernacular as well. My bet is the translation is rough at best, but would likely get the point across 90% of the time.

Which App Do I Get?

There are 2 iTranslate apps … a free one, and one that costs $1.99. You get the basic functionality with the free one, but if you want conversation mode you need to get the $1.99 one. The free one says you can use conversation mode if you want to pay per transaction … but there is a bug in the app, and it will just steal your money and never work (ask me how I know). To enable unlimited conversations in the $1.99 app they will make you pay an extra $0.99. So total it will cost you about $3. Of course it would be better to learn to speak the language yourself, but it seems like $3 can get you at least 1/2 way there with this revolutionary app.

Here is what the app icon looks like:

Change Voice, Dialect & Speed

You can customize the voice, dialect, & speed it uses to speak the phrase for each language. It might be weird for a trade partner if Kent was talking to a trade partner in the field, but when he said a sentence the app repeated it in a woman’s voice in Castilian Spanish (this is the Spanish someone would speak in Spain … but not in the U.S.). To customize these settings, click the icon in the bottom-right of the main screen, then select Voices, and select the language you want to change.

Helpful Links

• Watch video of iTranslate in action
• View App in iTunes
• More Info From iTranslate Company Website

Setting Free/Busy Status On Calendar Events

A few weeks ago I showed how to use Outlook's Scheduling Assistant feature. That feature is especially powerful when you need to schedule a meeting with multiple people, because it allows you to quickly find a time when everyone has a free spot on their calendar. But that system only really works if:

1. Everyone keeps their schedule on their calendar (i.e. blocking out time when they aren't available)
2. Everyone sets their free/busy status appropriately for events on their calendar (i.e. not blocking out time they really are available)

#1 is simple, but I wanted to quickly show explain #2 and show how to set the free/busy status for events on your calendar. You may sometimes have events on your calendar that aren't really meetings or even events you will personally attend. They might be personal reminders, or I know some managers keep track of their team's vacation schedule by getting them to send a calendar invite for the times they will be out so the manager has it on their calendar as a reminder. If you have events like this on your calendar, you need to ensure their free/busy status is set to Free. That will still keep it on your calendar, but it won't make it appear like you are blocked off during that time when other people are trying to look at when you would be free using Outlook's Scheduling Assistant.

Here is where you would set the free/busy status when you have a calendar event open in Outlook. They call that event setting Show As:

You can also set the free/busy status for a calendar event from your iPhone. They call that event setting Availability:

When you accept an invite from someone, by default the event will be set to busy when it is added to your calendar. So just remember to change it to Free if it really shouldn't block off your calendar.

iPhone Photography Tips

Here are some tips Rick mentioned recently that can help you snap great photos with your iPhone.

• Where is the light? Be aware of where the sun or other major light sources (windows, indoor lighting, etc) are in your photo. You should always prefer them to be behind you shining onto the subject (watch your shadow), but it can also work to have the light coming in from the side. Avoid photos directly towards bright light. If the light is overwhelming, you can always tap on the focal point of photo and the phone will automatically adjust the lighting for that area.
• Wings In, Steady Shot. To avoid blurry photos, hold the phone like you would a camera (2 handed) and tuck both your elbows in toward your body to help steady your shot. If you can rest the camera on a stable surface or brace your hands/arms on a stable surface ... even better.
• Create interest. Most amateur photography is boring. Try to think of different ways you can compose the shot to add interest. Move around and get in different positions to find a unique perspective. You can also add interest by placing the subject off-center or only including a fragment of the subject to compose a shot of something familiar in an unfamiliar way.
• Watch the edges. Pay attention to distracting clutter that may be lurking in the edges or background of your photo. It is easy to get so focused on the subject that you miss other things in the photo that can be distracting. After you snap the shot, look at it on your phone with fresh eyes ... trying to see what others would the first time they look at it, and paying special attention to the edges and whatever is directly behind the subject.
• Use HDR in Low Light. Try the iPhone's HDR setting in low light instead of the flash. This essentially allows a greater range between the lightest and darkest areas of a photo (hence the name "High Dynamic Range"), which can help add more definition to photos with difficult lighting.

Here are a few other quick tips from some pros:

• Zoom with your feet. Don’t zoom in with the zoom on the camera, zoom in with your feet. If you want a tighter photo, get closer. Photo quality plummets with just a tiny bit of zooming with images becoming grainy and pixilated.
• Take multiple shots. The great thing about digital photography is it allows for a lot of attempts and a lot of mistakes. You can just take multiple shots of the same thing and inevitably one of them will be vastly better than the others.
• Clean the lens. Because we use our phones all the time ... they can get filthy. Some protective iPhone cases tend to allow dirt to collect more than others. Wipe off the lens occasionally, because there isn't much you can do with a photo covered with dust.
• Post Process. Most great photographers do some type of post-processing edits & touch ups on every single photo they take. You can correct a lot of common issues using a free, simple tool like Google's Picasa to adjust lighting, color temperature/saturation, sharpen a photo, crop out distracting elements, or apply a number of different effects to add interest.