Rave: Square Up

This small contraption in my fingers in a Square card reader. What does you do? you ask. Well that is simple, it reads credit cards. Where does that headset plug plug into to make it work? An iOS or Android product of course. (Supposedly the most preferable is an iPad, but I am happy to use my iPhone 3gs.)

Here is the actual information. You download the app called Square, which has an icon that looks just like the card reader, then they check your credit and if you are not a terrible person they will send you one of these card readers for FREE. Once you receive it you can use it to take credit card payments and generate receipts. (Very awesome for a small business or someone who does jobs like computer repair on the side.) Like any credit card taking company SquareUp does take a small percentage, (2.75% plus 15¢ per scan.) but it is comparable or better than most other companies, and the card reader comes free. All you need is to have a phone before and you are golden.

Square thank you for letting me avoid having people give me checks or change. Me, welcome to the future.

Rave: Blue Coat K9

K9 Web Protection I just have to give a shout out to. If you are a parent who wants to control what your children are doing on the internet, or a worried wife,or just a guy who wants to make it impossible to get to bad website, this is for you.

K9 is the best web filter I have ever seen. It is finds bad sites, and it doesn't bother you about good ones. There are some things that I unblock,. like social networking, because I like facebook and twitter. Overall it is a really good experience.

The thing that makes K9 better than most is that it runs in the background of your computer without letting you know. This does two important things: one, doesn't annoy me, two makes it so that the web is controlled on anything. Some filters only work for one browser, but not K9, it will filter your web if you are using IE, Firefox, chrome, or even something like the web browser hidden in iTunes or something. It does not let you around. There is only one way out, the password (if you lose that, the email that you signed up with, so wives you sign up.) If you try to close the file running in the background, no internet will work till you restart your computer, so it does not let you go around it. (The only way I know how to get around it is use a different OS. This has been very tricky till recently when you can put Linux on a flash drive and just plug it in whenever you want to boot from it, convenient, but not cool for filtering.)

There are some other cool features too, like you can turn down your filter, but it will alway, no matter what, keep a history of all the sites you go to. Something else cool is restricting times when people can use the internet. I have a friend whose kid was staying up all night watching online videos, so she blocked it after midnight, problem solved.

The only down side to K9 is that it is only available for Windows and Mac, for most users that is awesome, Linux nerds need to find another way.

I just wish there was something like this for smart phones.

Rant: Google Calendars on iOS

This is only a rant because it is complicated. It took me a while to figure this out, and my friend didn't know it was possible till I told him yesterday so you all get a blog.

If you have an iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad and use google calendars you may be frustrated to see only one calendar sync. This means you no longer get all those cool colors and organization. Good news is google already fixed the problem, you just have to set it up.

First thing is you need to have your gmail account set up through google sync/active directory not the regular google icon.

Second just go to m.google.com/sync on your mobile device and choose which calendars you want.

Tada you have all your calendars and all their color back.

If you are having any problems go to http://www.google.com/mobile/sync/ and google will help you through it with pictures and all.

Rave: General Conference

Today and tomorrow we have the chance to listen to Apostles and the Prophet and other General Authorities. Take advantage of the opportunity.

Watch, read or listen to any of it here: http://new.lds.org/general-conference/sessions/2010/10?lang=eng

Rave: The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games are some really fun books. The second book, Catching Fire ended very abruptly so I am waiting for the next book. Luckily it is not too far away.

Rant: People Who Change Personal Settings in Windows

I am a CSR, and I also just like helping people with their computer problems. Category A,: simple fixes, things go screwy sometimes so they need fixing. These are about 90% of all problems. Category B: real errors, like viruses or something really broken. They take a minute to fix and are around 5% of all problems. Category C: User Preferences: not any kind of real problem, but rather that people tried to personalize something too much, that it ended up breaking other things. Sadly his last 5% takes more time to fix than all of Category A because you have no idea what they did, and thing are just weird. Yesterday I had a friend ask for help in converting files from Apple's stupid unsupported everywhere format AAC, which is another Rant altogether into something her old MP3 play could read. Switching to MP3 is an A problem, something annoying that Apple did, but has a simple fix, it just take a minute for apple to change it for you. That would have been all simple to solve except she is a C kind of person. Instead of files just opening like they should, she decided to throw in a little Windows 3.1 action, and have each folder open in a new window. Completely useless and very confusing. In a matter of seconds, while trying to locate the folder I was looking for I now had 15 windows open and no idea where I was. That would have been annoying enough, except she decided to throw another fun unexpected change. If you are guessing left handed mouse, that is a common C problem but not this one. She decided to switch windows to the single click system. For those who don't know about it, usually when you use a computer you click once to select something, and again to open it. Very intuitive, easy for selecting files to move and such. Hers instead would on that first click just open things. New folders, iTunes, random other applications. It was a mess. I eventually learned that to select you just have to hang your mouse over and it would select on it's own. Scary for those of us who ctrl click to select only the files we want. All and all it made something that should have been super easy become super complicated. This isn't the first time I have run into something like this, like the man at work, who needs everything flashing colors and bigger, or the lady who decided she needs to personally backup the servers, but sometimes you just need to fix what you can. Take a deep breath and move on and try to forgive and forget.

Rant: iPhone 4.01

I haven't ranted about anything in a while, mostly because i am generally a nice guy, but something are still annoying, or at least funny, as in today. Apple just released iPhone OS 4.01, which fixes the antenna problems in the new iPhone 4, and supposedly all the old ones too, like my 3Gs. I would like to show you what it actually did.

Before:

After:

Now focus, with all your might, on the signal strength on the left to see the difference. The iPhone is now magic and will never not work, because the bar has grown tall enough that even when you have no signal, it will still tell you that you do. Yay for Apple!