Found: A Car Charger with Two 10 Watt (2.1A) USB Ports!

After a number of days looking around for a charging setup that can accommodate at least two devices that require a 2 Amp draw on the USB port we settled on the following:

• Scosche reVIVE II - Dual 2.1A USB Car Charger for iPod, iPhone, and iPad IUSBC4

The reason we ordered these units was that the basic USB chargers we have in our vehicles only support 500mAh draws. That is one quarter the capability of these units.

So, when using a Windows Phone like my HD7 or Monique's Lumia 710 while plugged in they were still losing charge if frequent calls were being made or we were streaming 8Tracks or listening to Zune content.

The HTC HD7 charger's USB port has a little over 1A at the port. The Nokia charger has 1.2A at the port.

So, we figure that 2.1A should be more than enough to provide a charge and run the phones at 110% _all of the time_ and not be stranded with a dead phone at our destination.

Next up will be to pick up their ISUBH4 wall wart (dual 2.1A USB port A/C charger).

We may also pick up a couple of the goBAT II - Portable Charger & Backup Battery units for those days when out and about to provide a backup power source while at a client site. They would be handy for long plane trips too.

Have any pointers to power accessories used to keep things charged up? Please do point them out to us!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

iTunes Error: The iTunes Library.itl file is locked, on a locked disk, or you do not have write permission for this file

While we were working on transferring a client’s iTunes library from one machine to another we hit this error when we went to configure all of their iDevices in iTunes:

iTunes

The iTunes Library.itl file is locked, on a locked disk, or you do not have write permission for this file.

Okay, so we don’t seem to have the ability to open the library after the file copy finished.

We searched for some clues on what was going on with an obscure reference to file attributes being found on one forum.

Sure enough, we checked the iTunes’ folder properties and we found:

The iTunes root folder was somehow set to Read Only during the copy process between machines.

We made sure to clear the Read Only attribute”

Note that the speed of the system and the size of the iTunes library can greatly impact the amount of time the attribute change takes. In this case we waited a couple of minutes for the 3.8 GB worth of files to be touched.

Once the attribute change completed we needed to force iTunes to open that library by doing the following:

1. Hold the SHFT key.
2. Double click on the iTunes shortcut.
3. Click the Choose Library button.
4. Choose the library.lti file located in the root folder.

We ended up creating a number of playlists and setting each iDevice to only synchronize the playlist assigned to it so that our client could have a number of different devices tied to the one user account’s iTunes setup.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Apple iOS 4.1 to 4.3.3 Update is . . .

For several iDevices:

A whopping 666.2 MB large!

We are working on transferring iTunes from an old desktop to an HP TouchSmart PC that is hanging on a wall in a small desk type alcove for a client.

When we plugged their iPhone 4 into the system iTunes wanted to update right away. The connection here is fairly quick so we did not have to wait too long for 666.2 MB, though long enough, while the update on the phone took somewhere around 10 minutes.

We have a few other iDevices sitting here on the desk waiting for their turn to be plugged in so we shall see if there are any additional device firmware updates that need to happen.

The verdict is in on the iPad:

Weighing in at 593.3 MB all hopes were dashed that the previous six hundred Megabyte file would also do for the iPad.

And then the iPod Touch:

Yet another six hundred plus Megabyte download. There are a few more iPod Touches that need to be updated. Hopefully the above file will be used for the others. Otherwise this will turn into a very painful process as there are a few more to go. :(

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Windows Phone 7 – March Update _Really_ Improved My WP7 Experience

We get to work with all sorts of devices from a large variety of vendors.

There was something about the HTC HD7 experience that did not quite sit right with me though it was not quite possible to figure out just what that was. . . at least until now.

When using an Apple iDevice the touch interface is probably one of the best out there.

The ability to touch, hold, and move the cursor about on the iDevice while working with text in the various Apps and the GUI is excellent.

The HD7 Windows Phone 7 (WP7) on the other hand was Neolithic in its implementation. Trying to get the cursor to move about precisely in IE, Word, e-mail, texting, and other places in the HD7 was nothing short of painful.

The WP7 March update that included the ability to Copy and Paste changed all that.

Not only do we now have the ability to copy and paste, which works really well, but now have the ability to move the cursor about with an almost absolute precision.

The cursor movement improvement will make, and already has made, the HD7 usage experience that much better.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

An iPad Killer From Down Under?

We are in the process of finalizing an order for a product that is just in the process of being released to the general public.

Yes, that is an iPad sized tablet running Windows 7. After a colleague dropped an iPad off at our shop for us to use for a week or so earlier this year we were not too impressed with the machine. The iPad has its purpose but that purpose did not suite us here.

The Tegatech TEGA v2 Touch Tablet was introduced to us by fellow MVP Wayne Small (his article on the TEGA v2).

With a Windows 7 operating system installed the TEGA v2 will do everything we need it to do _natively_ without any additional apps beyond Office 2010.

Running an Intel Atom N455 1.66GHz CPU with a 64GB SSD the TEGA v2 will run circles around some of the older Toshiba Tecra laptops with Pentium M series CPUs that we still use as shop systems. It should also run on par with the Intel Atom based netbooks that we use in our business that have had their spindle based drives replaced with Intel X25-M SSDs.

So, with the TEGA v2 coming with an SSD out of the box that is large enough to host the OS, Office 2010, and a few additional applications and utilities we will have ourselves a very portable and very usable little machine.

Time is Money

BTW, when it comes to deciding on the use of any new technologies we always weigh in on what it will cost us in time to figure the new tech out. With the iPad, there is a bit of a learning curve involved for those that are not part of the “iN” crowd.

That is one of the reasons that we are looking at the TEGA v2. There is no learning curve involved since we already know how to use Windows and Windows based devices.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

The new iPad in Canada May 28

We are subscribed to the Apple News e-mail service via our MacBook Pro registration.

This is the latest:

We here in Canada will be able to purchase the iPad on and after May 28th.

Here is the Canadian Apple iPad site:

The initial 3G version of the iPad will be available on the Rogers network.

Since we travel back and forth in rural areas not covered by Rogers, if we were to purchase an iPad 3G we would wait until Bell picked them up.

For now, we will wait and see if there is a need for one of the devices here. And since we have already had some experience with the device, we will need to see what the Canadian App Store offers us in the way of productivity apps that suit our needs.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Some iPad Thoughts

Yesterday’s iPad post was a bit mixed up due to the struggles to get things to behave while editing in the native Blogger Web page plus being quite tired due to the long days lately.

Check out the multiple corrections made to my butchered hunt and peck typing skills!

I will keep using the iPad over the next few days. But, one thing has become quite clear. If Apple had packaged the guts of a MacBook Pro in the iPad and made it a bit bigger _I_ would have flown to New York to get in line before everyone else to buy one.

A tablet Mac OS X device would kill.

And one as sexy as the iPad is would _absolutely kill_!

I think I have some leads on a blogging platform that can be used to post to Blogger on the iPad.

Next up, word processing.

Posted from my desk. :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Post From An iPad

Kevin Atkey of Atkey Tech, a friend that I collaborate with on various network projects brought it over to the shop today for me to try out for a few days.

The first thing that I noticed is that I am truly keyboard bound! hHow is that you might say? Where are those very handy arrow keys to move the cursor?

Okay, so this is a touch based device and I need to get used to the idea that I need to zoom in on a word to place the cursor where I want to. Oops, I see now, there is a zooming thing that comes up if I hold my finger down long enough in one spot! With that on I am able to move the cursor in a precise manner.

Anyone know how to delete the character in _front_ of the blinking cursor without needing to jump ahead of the character or charters characters that need to be deleted?

Just like it's larger Mac cousins, the Safari browser on the iPad Does not play too well with the bBlogger interface so there is no way to get screenshots into this post without mucking about with manual uploads and links. So, I will figure out how to get the screenshots off of the device tomorrow.

Screenshot Method

To screenshot on the iPad, press and hold the power button then hit the iPad button on the front bottom of the IiPad and Rrelease both simultaneously.

A camera shutter snap sound will happen and the screen will go momentarily white.

Tap the iPad button to bring up the desktop and the screenshot will be found in the Photo app.

After moving the cursor up to the top of this post to make some changes there, it became a real challenge to figure out how to get the cursor back to this line to continue the post.

I had to zoom right in near the bottom of the Blogger HTML editor, hold my finger till the zoomed zoom thing came up, and drag down slowly until the text started to move up. But there was some sort of combination of movements that needed to happen before I could get it to work.

Okay, so the iPad is definitely not a native Blogger editor blogging platform. I wonder if Red Sweater will port Mars Edit to this platform? Maybe they already have, but since I have never had an iPhone and thus no App Store account, how would I know? ;)

Kevin has his App Store account set up on this iPad so I will check and see what can be found there for word processing and perhaps a blogging platform.

This iPad is a neat device and like all things Apple, it is pretty and looks to be very well made.

Model: A1219 64GB iPad. Retail is $700 I think?

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

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