Category Archives: Technology

A great slide show of cell phones through the years.

You know that neat little one you carry around now? A few years from now, it'll be in a gallery like this one and we can all laugh at how primitive and clunky it was.

What can you do about cell phone spam? Answer: Not enough.

Recently, I mentioned here some problems I was having with Microsoft Outlook, which is what I use for Contacts and Calendar but not for other things like e-mail or Tasks. (I'm a Windows guy, by the way, though I sync both with an iPad and an iPhone. A lot of us Windows guys have iPads and/or iPhones and the Apple folks do a good, subtle job of making us feel like we're aliens operating on their planet.)

I said I'd solved my problems but didn't say how, which has brought much e-mail. This is just for those of you who've had problems with a sync of Outlook screwing up your Contacts list. This is apparently pretty common.

First, what I think caused my problem is that while two of my computers run Windows 7, one is still Windows XP. When the Apple folks decided to get rid of MobileME and push everyone into iCloud, they presented me with a problem of how to sync that XP computer since iCloud doesn't support XP. There's a hack/workaround on the web and I used that…but right after, I began having my sync problem. I'm assuming that was the cause so now that I've fixed my Contacts list, I'm no longer running iCloud on that computer and it will just have to go unsynced until I get around to upgrading it.

Fixing my Contacts list took a bit longer. They'd gotten full of useless, erroneous info…like appending "United States of America" to every address, no matter where the person lives. Somehow also it had a birthdate — usually wrong — listed for most of my Contacts and it kept wanting to add those dates (almost all in 2010) to my Calendar and wouldn't take "no" for an answer. There were other things I had to expunge as well. Outlook is a pain to edit in bulk so here's what I did.

First off, I created a new, empty Contacts list. Then I imported all the various backups I had on my three computers. This pulled in a few old, unwanted Contacts and would have brought a ton of duplicates had I not checked the option to not import dupes. Most did not come in. Then I saved this list and exported it into the format for Microsoft Excel. It was very easy to edit it in Excel and to wipe out the phony birthdates and to clean up the address mess, delete the rest of the dupes and to fix other problems. Then I exported this file. Then I created another new, empty Contacts list in Outlook. Then I imported the file into Outlook and all was well with the world. Or at least it was after I got rid of all the extra, inaccurate Contacts lists and backups I had. I didn't delete them because you never know what you might need later. I stuck them all in a big ZIP archive.

I still wish I had something better than Outlook for my Contacts and Calendar. Last time I asked about this, a lot of you had nominations but I couldn't find one that seemed much better and would sync, as Outlook does, with everything. One of these days…

My Microsoft Outlook crisis seems to have abated but it got worse before it got better. At one point, a suggested "fix" I found on a Microsoft website caused my entire Contacts list to disappear from the computer on which I was trying it. That was bad enough…but I have iCloud set up to sync all my computers. When I lost all my phone numbers and addresses on that one computer, I thought, "Oh, well. At least I still have 'em on two other computers, my iPad and my iPhone. And as I was thinking that, iCloud "synced" everything and wiped the Contacts out on the two other computers, my iPad and my iPhone. How wonderful. Fortunately, I had a recent backup.

The backup doesn't seem to be experiencing quite as big a problem with Outlook deciding everyone is in the United States of America. It inserts that info in more places than I want it and I'm still groping for a way to turn it off. But it's no longer telling me France is in the U.S. of A. What I need to do now is find a way to delete all the bizarre birthdays I've been stuck with since I foolishly tried a utility that imported data from Facebook for anyone who was already in my Contacts list. If you are and you entered your birthday on Facebook, your birthday is now on your listing in my Contacts list except that the year has been changed to 2010. I don't know why it did that but it did that.

Okay, Microsoft Outlook 2007 has now decided that everyone I know lives in America. So even if someone's address in my Contacts list says they live in Barcelona, Spain, Outlook has fixed that so they now live in "Barcelona, Spain, United States of America."

I'm running Outlook on three separate PCs which all sync via iCloud. I have the feeling that if I call Microsoft, they'll tell me it isn't their problem; that iCloud is screwing me up. And if I call Apple, they'll tell me it's that awful Microsoft stuff I'm using and the only way to solve the problem is to switch to Mac.

Anyone have an idea that doesn't involve me throwing out thousands of dollars worth of hardware and software and starting all over?

I have all my contacts in Microsoft Outlook 2007. Every so often, the program seems to undergo a patriotic surge and it adds "United States of America" to the address of every contact listing. This includes contacts that are not in the U.S. if I have no address specified. For instance, I have about fifty listings which feature a foreign person's name plus either their phone number or the e-mail address. But all fifty or so of them now have "United States of America" in their mailing or street address field, which I'd left blank. Anyone have an idea how to fix this?

My buddy Bob Elisberg has written a good, in-depth article about several software packages via which one can write a screenplay. Knowing Bob, I assume he knows what he's talking about although the only one with which I have any real experience is Movie Magic Screenwriter. I've used it from its inception, back when it was called Script Thing, and I Beta-tested various versions and made suggestions. Its whole function when it outputs numbered dialogue scripts for animation recording was put in there because I suggested it and showed its inventor how to format such documents.

I've never found a way to make it work for me as a tool for writing comic book scripts, though some other writers like it fine for that. I still make mine in Microsoft Word with an array of macros that I wrote. But I do like Movie Magic Screenwriter tremendously for all other kinds of scripts.

That is the full extent of my opinion on such software. Anything else you want to know, listen to Bob.

I don't agree with all of the computer-related columns authored by Farhad Manjoo but I'm with him when he touts the joys of iPadding with a stylus.  So what if Steve Jobs wanted us all to finger-paint on whatever we bought from him?   I don't have the daintiest fingers in the world and a stylus works much, much better for me…though not all of them.  I tried a number that were just too short and I returned to an Office Depot one brand (sorry, I don't recall which one) that was made to work with an iPad but wouldn't register at all on mine.  I also liked the idea of having a pen in my stylus for those increasingly-remote times when you need to actually write on a piece of what some still call "paper."

The Kensington model gives me a great stylus and an acceptable pen — oh, and as you can see, it has a clip on it which I also consider an absolute necessity. It's not perfect. I wish I had a wider, slightly heavier stylus with a gel-pen ink supply. I also wish that on the packaging or in the advertising for these things, they'd tell you how to buy a refill for the pen when it runs out. The Kensington says "Uses Parker ball pen refill" (which alas, does not seem to mean the Parker gel pen refills, just the ballpoint) but the other ones I've seen don't tell you. That's one of the reasons along with its length and balance that the Kensington is the best one I've found. If you want to try one out, here's an Amazon link.

My pal Robert J. Elisberg has just filed his annual very-long report on the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. In it, you will read of many new inventions and services, most of which will fall neatly into one of two categories for you…

1. I need that.
2. Why the hell would anyone need that?

Some of those in each category will eventually fall into the other, and some in both will probably not materialize in final form or will vanish quickly. But somewhere in there you'll find one or more things which will become indispensable — in my life if not yours.

Bob Elisberg, usually seen over on The Huffington Post, wraps up the Consumer Electronics Show for the Writers Guild's website.

My pal Robert Elisberg reports live from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Here's his first report and here's his second report. Do not click either unless you're prepared to read about something expensive you're going to want to buy.

I'm reading a lot of articles on the web like this one saying the iPhone stinks, that it drops calls the way an outfielder for the San Diego Padres drops fly balls, that it's worth paying any kind of megabuck penalty to get away from the iPhone and A.T.&T., etc. Most of these pieces seem to come from folks in or around New York and I have no doubt they're reporting accurately.

But here in Los Angeles…well, I've had A.T.&T. for around ten years now and while I find their billing plans a little confusing, I've been generally satisfied with their service. There are one or two places where calls often drop — like driving down Olympic Boulevard through Century City — but I assume every carrier has a few of those. So far, my new iPhone is proving just as reliable as my old Blackberry, which was on the same A.T.&T. contract. In the month I've had it, I've made or received about fifty calls. Only two have dropped and in each case, the problem may have been on the other end.

Seems like a lot of it depends on where you are…and also when you call. I'm rarely out, and therefore rarely on my cellphone, at rush hour. Make of this what you will.

So, I've now had an iPhone for a day shy of four weeks. Click here for the first message I posted about it and click here to read the second. This is the third and I remain happy with my purchase, especially since I went to my nearby Apple store and bought a good solid case to put it in and a good screen protector.

I first bought those things at a Best Buy and wound up tossing what I'd purchased. The case didn't work with the screen protector and the screen protector didn't protect the screen. I applied the protector sheet as per the instructions and wound up with more air bubbles than you'd find in ten episodes of Sea Hunt. But the ones I then got at an Apple store, though a bit more expensive, fit just fine. So that problem's solved. I still haven't gotten a new car mount…and won't 'til my car returns from spending the holidays at the body shop. (A little accident a few months ago, not my fault.)

What don't I like about the thing? I don't like how fast its battery depletes. I guess I was spoiled by my old Blackberry, which only had to be charged about as often as Halley's Comet went whizzing past. A full charge on the iPhone lasts about as long as it takes me to find the cord to recharge it. That wouldn't be so bad if you could open 'er up and switch out the battery but you can't. The thing's sealed tighter than Joan Rivers' face. I have a little extra plug-in battery thing but it ain't the same.

Still having a tad of trouble with the keyboard where my large hands make me feel like King Kong trying to play Clair de Lune on a toy piano…but I'm getting better.

Apps? I'm having fun with Shazam, which works as follows: When you hear a record playing on the radio or on a store's Muzak-like system or anywhere it's reasonably clear, you hold your iPhone up to it, take an audio sampling…and then Shazam scours its database, tells you what song it is and what CD it's on and gives you the option of ordering it. It's handy to carry Google around with you and I've used Open Table to make (and later, move) restaurant reservations. I like playing with Rimshot, which makes the sound effect of a rimshot and a few others. I've used Facebook to update my Facebook page and Twitterific to Twitter. They've all come in handy. I do miss (though not a lot) the dedicated TiVo programming application I had on my Blackberry.

So still glad I got the thing. And I probably will be until some new, better device comes out week after next.