It turns out you can! Just update your devices to iOS 4.3, enable Personal Hotspot on your phone and Bluetooth. Then open up the Bluetooth menu on your iPad and pair with your iPhone. It’ll pair up and show the Personal Hotspot icon at the top of the screen. Congratulations, you’re connected.

The setup was seamless, and certainly easier than the jailbreak + iTether method I’ve been using thus far. Pages and videos load reasonably fast, and emails come through without delay. And because this is essentially Bluetooth tethering, it has a relatively low draw on batteries.

What You Need

An unlocked GSM phone. If you’re a Canadian that means any recent unlocked phone from Rogers, Fido, WIND, or Mobilicity. If you are on the new HSPA network, your Telus or Bell phone might also be compatible. For this guide I used an old Rogers Blackberry Bold 9000.

If your phone is not unlocked it can almost certainly be done online for a small fee or at the mall (for a slightly larger fee). Some phones can’t be easily unlocked like the iPhone.

Once You’re in the US

Go to a T-Mobile store and buy a prepaid SIM (~$10). T-Mobile is the 4th largest carrier in the US. Their coverage is plenty good for a short visit like ours and much less expensive than AT&T. The staff are very helpful and they’ll help you with the SIM card if you need and print out your US phone number.

The SIM is pre-loaded with something like $3 credit, which is good for about 10 minutes of calling ($0.30/min) or a few dozen texts ($0.10 to send and $0.05 to receive). Those rates aren’t unreasonable, but I wanted a little more for my money.

The good news is that T-Mobile also offers an unlimited Daily WebPass (data) for $1.45. Its good for a day and once you have this you check your email, browse the web, and use as much VOIP (Skype, Fring, SIP, Line2) as your heart desires.

How do I sign up for a Daily WebPass? I was wondering this before I left because T-Mobile nor any other sites seem to have any information. Its actually very easy! In your phone you’ll need to “set the APN” (look up instructions for your model) to epc.tmobile.com with no username or password. On my BlackBerry it was under Advanced Options > TC/IP. Once you do that open up your phone’s web browser (you must use Opera Mini if you have a BlackBerry) and you’ll be greeted with a page that asks you to purchase a WebPass. Just follow the buttons to sign up, the $1.45 will be drawn from your prepaid balance and your data will be activated!

BlackBerry users: Note that you will not have access to BlackBerry branded apps that rely on Blackberry Internet Services (email, BBM, maps, Facebook app etc) [UPDATE: Read next paragraph]. Prepaid BIS is simply not offered in the US by any carrier. You will have to use Opera Mini to browse and a handful of other apps that don’t need BIS. It might be advisable to take along a second phone to use with the prepaid SIM so you can continue to use your BlackBerry services over WiFi. In my case it didn’t matter, because I was using my BlackBerry for Opera Mini and tethering my laptop and iPhone.

Update Jun 2011: T-Mobile now has prepaid BIS! Its $10 for a month (in addition to a regular data plan, otherwise it only works on Wifi), and enables BlackBerry email, BBM and browsing.

Tethering

The biggest use I got out of the service was tethering my laptop and iPhone to my prepaid US phone. Once you have the WebPass its easy to setup on a Mac. Just enable Bluetooth on your phone and pair with your laptop. Set it up as a modem using the same APN as your phone (epc.tmobile.com with no username or password). I tried generic and Sierra Wireless as the vendors for my BlackBerry and both worked. Select the add Bluetooth DUN to menu bar option. Then you can just open the phone icon at the top of your screen, click “Connect Bluetooth DUN” and your laptop will be connected.

Tethering an iPhone: I wanted to use to my iPhone’s email, maps and VOIP apps while out and about. iPhone doesn’t come with inward tethering ability, so you’ll need to jailbreak it and install an app called to iBluever ($5) from the Cydia store. It worked very well during the trip and enabled me to use Mail, Safari, and Maps as usual. Again using the APN epc.tmobile.com with no username or password, but with the dial number *99#.

Create a WiFi hospot: If you have multiple devices, or ones that can’t easily bluetooth tether, you might want to create a WiFi hotspot. You can do this by using something like a MiFi device, or a phone that supports a hotspot feature (like Android + Barnacle WiFi tethering). For some useful information see the comment by CB.

For talking and texting I used Toktumi’s excellent Line2 app. I just signed up for a 30-day trial account with a local number in the city I was staying in. It worked very well texts and reasonably well for VOIP over T-Mobile’s EDGE network. Calls and texts came in just like I was using the native app, and for free instead of the ridiculous $1.45+/min or $0.60+/txt that Telus, Rogers and other Canadian carriers charge.

And that’s a wrap. If you have any questions please feel free to ask in the comments. Any money saved from going prepaid in the US is money not encouraging extortionist roaming rates.

iDentify file list

So let’s say you have a bunch of movies or TV shows converted for your Apple TV / iPhone / iPad / iPod. It syncs and plays great on your devices–but something is missing! Its the metadata (aka tags).

When you buy media from the iTunes store it comes with epidsode info or a film description, posters, cast info, air dates and more that make it easy to find what you’re looking for or pick something good to watch. Media ripped from discs (or obtained by other means) simply doesn’t come with those goodies.

Enter iDentify

But we can add that metadata after the fact. All you need is a piece of software called iDentify 2, and it will do all [at least most] of the magic for you. It works very well and once all is said and done it looks just like iTunes store content.

To use simply drag all the files you want to tag into iDentify. Let it scan them, check at least a few to make sure it got the right show or film (hint: click edit tags to view) and click “Process Files”. Then import your freshly tagged media to iTunes, and stream or sync to your heart’s desire. That’s it!

iDentify "Edit Tags" page

For the app to work, your files have to be named logically (eg: house.s05e03.mp4, lost.s04e16.m4v). Once and a while iDentify will mess up. If you’re tagging a batch of TV episodes and it can’t find any data, you can select all the files in the app, click “Edit Tags” and manually enter the “Show Name”. Then “Rescan Items” and 9 times out of 10 it’ll work. If you have trouble with movies, first try adding the release year in the filename or the iDentify directly. If that fails find the film on IMDB and paste its code (last number of the film’s URL at IMBD) into the “Edit Tags” page and “Rescan Items”.

Also certain files will crash the app rarely for no apparent reason. Just file an error report when you reopen iDentify (it asks you on launch). The developer is extremely responsive and helpful. If you like the app you might consider making a donation to the developer or registering your copy (this will gets your more features like file renaming).

So we convert. I’ve found a relatively painless workflow that will allow you to convert your media from just about anything (AVI and MKV included) to Apple friendly formats, and tag it with metadata so you can enjoy film description, movie posters, episode information and more on your Apple TV (just as if you bought it on iTunes).

Conversion

The first, and most time consuming step, is to run all your media through conversion software. I’m using two pieces of software. Video Monkey and Handbrake.

The benefit of Video Monkey is that it has a queue interface, so you can drag a selection of videos into the app, choose your options, hit start and grab a coffee.

Handbrake is a little smarter than Video Monkey and it allows you to preserve 5.1 audio tracks if your vidoes have them. It also has a queue, but its cumbersome and you have to add each file individually.

If you’re using Video Monkey:

1. Drag in your videos
2. Select the Apple TV preset
3. Check “Limit output params to input” (doesn’t work with MKV’s)
4. Default quality is good enough for me, but adjust to your fancy
5. Hit Start (it could take minutes or hours depending on your machine)

If you’re using Handbrake:

1. Use the Source window to choose one file (or drag the file from the Finder into the Source window)
2. Select the Apple TV preset from the presets pain on the right (might have to “Toggle Presets”)
3. Handbrake automatically limits output parameters to input, and this does work with MKV’s
4. Default quality is good enough for me, but adjust to your liking
5. Hit Start (it could take minutes or hours depending on your machine)
6. To add another file to the queue, click Source from the toolbar and repeat the process, clicking “Add to Queue” instead of Start at step 5

I recommend trying it with one file first to make sure quality is what you expected.

My next post covers tagging your converted media so it displays nicely in iTunes/Apple TV.

Following these instructions and these instructions (more or less) on HowardForums I was able to get custom ringtones on a Telus m540.

My Suggestions

1. Don’t use UniCDMA. Get ahold of the CDMA Workshop software instead.
2. Don’t waste your money on a legit ringtone, download and edit the ones below. (I wasted hours trying to make them from scratch)
3. If you’re having lots of trouble try the sample files I’ve included in this post without any edits first. They should work. Leave me a comment or go post in one of the forum topics on HoFo if you need some help.

Included for you here are a sample 11.txt, 11.dd and 11.gc file (its Speechless by Lady GaGa in case you’re wondering). To make your own ringtone follow all the linked instructions (CDMA Workshop method is best) then edit my .txt and .dd files, replace the .gc with your own .mp3 and upload to the folders described in the HoFo instructions. Best luck.

1. Click the Account tab on the right.
2. Click Edit Friends (the first link under your name)
3. Type the person’s name under the Facebook logo
4. Click the X to the right of the their name
5. Wonder why they made it so difficult??

At least its less complicated than removing a friend from real life..

Using the built-in zoom and screen sharing capabilities (or any VNC) together on OS X can be a real pain in the posterior. If you leave your screen zoomed it becomes virtually unusable via screen sharing or VNC. That’s because there is no way to effectively move the cursor (and therefore the screen position) or turn off zoom (since you can’t easily access System Preferences, and the keyboard shortcut isn’t applied to the remote machine).

As someone who uses zoom quite extensively, I often find myself trudging up flights of stairs to manually zoom out one computer so I can access it from another. Its pretty counter-intuitive. I would have though Apple to make zoom usable remotely, make it easy to shut off or just disable it when the Mac is being controlled remotely.

But no, there was no solution. So I found one myself. I put together a cute little AppleScript and packaged it up as an Application. It executes the keyboard command to zoom all the way out, re-enabling your Mac for remote use.

It can be used in a number of ways.

1. Put in your dock for a painful, yet possible, launch.
2. Executed via SSH in Terminal (I’ll explain in a follow up post)
3. Soon using a companion app on your local Mac (this will do the SSHing for you)

So here’s the app. It is an AppleScript that zooms out your screen. That’s it, it zooms right out and quits. As usual, released under the Creative Commons license (with no warranty).

I know this of limited utility even to a small group of people, but it was irritating enough to me I though I would share. Tell me if this turns out useful for you.

If you use WordPress as a CMS, or just want to customize your sidebar per-page, then there is a solution for you. I’ve spent a long time looking for a way to show only the sidebar content I want on each page. For example; I might like to show the latest news on the home page, helpful links on a resources page and photo thumbnails to add interest to an About page.

Up until now I’ve been using the K2 Sidebar Manger. Its worked well in practice, but is buggy, unsupported by some widgets and is now discontinued. The replacement I found is something called Widget Logic. It uses exceeding powerful conditional tags built into WordPress and allows  you choose where you want specific widgets to show up. It is a little difficult to setup at first, and you’ll need to familiarize yourself with the proper syntax. Here are some examples that you can use once you install the plugin.

1) We’ll start by showing a widget on one page only.

is_page(‘About’)

That’s all you need to place in the Widget Logic box. The code is actually quite intuitive, you just specify which page you would like to show the content on. This will show the widget on any page called About. You could also use the page’s ID number.

2) Now lets show the Latest posts on a static home page, the blogs index and on single blog posts. 

(is_page(‘Home’) || is_home() || is_single())

 Same idea, but wrapped in parentheses where ”||” represents “or” to WordPress.

3) You could also show text on any given pages. In this example I included text on a page and all of its child pages.

global $post; return (is_page(‘Society’) || $post->post_parent==”26″);

The “global $post; return” section is necessary because the conditional tags don’t officailly support child pages yet. “Society” is the parent page and “26″ is that page’s ID. When we place this code in the Widget Logic box, “Society” and all of its children will show the widget you’re working with.

Hopefully the fine people at WordPress can cook up something a little more smooth, but in the mean time we have a very functional way to show page specific widgets. If you have any questions about Widget Logic, or need some help with syntax, I’ll do my best to answer in the comments.

It started a few months ago when I got my new iMac. Long story short; it was a disaster, I got a new one, its a little off as well.. Anyways, it scratched my Leopard DVD. No problem though, I acquired a new image and tried to burn it to a double-layer DVD. Toast quit halfway through and seems to have toasted the DVD drive. The half-baked disc was stuck in my iMac and the drive isn’t recognized anymore. This pushed me to find a different way to install OS X, and I learned a lot in the process.

Booting from an External Hard Drive
Most people know you can boot almost any OS X capable Mac from a FireWire hard drive. All you have to do is restart the machine, and hold down the Option key until it shows you the list of bootable disks and click on it. Many people don’t know that all Intel Macs can also boot from USB hard drives. This means you can clone your internal HD to your external USB drive, and have a fully bootable backup whenever you need it. Its also possible to copy the OS X installation DVD to an external, boot from it and install (this method is faster than using the DVD). This takes us to the next possibility.

Booting from your iPod
I recently went on a house-call where an OS X reinstall was needed. Rather than carry around a bulky external HD, I stuck the OS X installation in a partition on my iPod video. Just like any other USB drive, its fully bootable (by Intel Macs) and be used to install OS X.

Leopard is Universally Bootable
But the system that needed a repair was PowerPC Mac mini. Uhoh. PPC Macs can boot from USB drives, right? Well that’s true, but if you install OS X 10.5 (Leopard) there’s a way to get around this problem. As long as you own or can borrow an Intel Mac you’ll be fine.

1. Start the PPC Mac in Target Disk Mode. (Turning into an expensive, shiny FireWire HD)
2. Plug the iPod or USB drive into the Intel Mac.
3. Boot the Intel Mac holding down the Option key, boot from the USB drive containing OS X Install. 
4. Choose the PPC’s HD as the destination (you made need to change to use the GUID boot record).
5. Install OS X as normal.

This fresh OS X Leopard install is universally bootable. That means it’ll run on either a PPC or Intel Mac. So after the install is complete and you restart the PPC computer, it’ll work just as if you installed it directly on that machine. This method is typically faster, and great if your PPC Mac doesn’t have a DVD drive (or doesn’t quite meet the requirements like my 800Mhz iMac G4). Its also worth noting that you can use Leopard recovery discs from one Mac to install OS X on the HD of another. Just follow the instructions as posted above, but the PPC Mac could also be another Intel Mac. For example, I used this method to reinstall Leopard on my MacBook and my iMac G4. I’m not sure about the licensing implications of this method. I own a Leopard family pack disc, its just scratched.

1. Choose your colours: always pick ones that have good contrast and compliment each other. You can read a good post about colour schemes on the MyBB Comunity forums.
2. Pick a font: stick with one basic font throughout the content areas. Variations on size and colour are acceptable, and the header is free for creative expression.
3. Plan your header: the top of your site is the first thing your visitors will see, and it makes big impressions. Be creative with your header and make it unique. Stay away from things like flash banners or unoptimized images.
4. Spacing and borders: consider how much spacing you want between elements of your forum. The balance of padding, margins and borders is crucial for both functionality and ascetics.
5. Think different: I can’t say this enough. Customize the theme to fit your forum’s purpose as best you can. Users will develop a stronger connection with forums that have interesting discussion and a unique look. 

These are some brief considerations to help start the planning of your theme. In future posts I intend to look at the technical side of things and even develop a new theme step-by-step.