An Effective Cable Hanger

I’ve been looking for a solution to the millions of cables I have lying around the studio.

From USB to Sata to XLR to DVI to HDMI to extension cables/cords of all sorts I have a mess that makes Medusa look like Jean-Luc Picard.

The standard studio solution is a piece of metal, bent at a 90 degree angle, with lots of slits.  Most retailers want upwards of $20 for this $1 piece of flimsy steel.

One can easily enough craft one out of scrap wood (simply cut a bunch of 1/4” slits in a board), but I am hoping for something a little more interesting.

Points to this guy for making one out of a spring stretched on a piece of molding.  Probably my favorite of the online solutions I found, if for nothing else than innovation and using scraps he found laying around (he actually scavenged the spring from inside an old scanner –looks kind of like the same sort of spring that would pull grandma’s screen door shut).

I actually bought a bunch of hose hangers from Harbor Freight a couple of months ago when they were on sale for $.99 a piece thinking I’d use them to hang cables, but even mounted in an “x” pattern I’ve decided they’re too bulky and take up too much wall real estate, so they’re going in the garage and shed (for their intended purpose: hoses and extensioncords).

So for now I may try the stretched spring approach or break down and just cut a bunch of slits in a board or three.  In the meantime, hopefully some kind, inventive soul will come along and post a glorious solution in the comments.

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Time Zones with Google Calendar and Synced Devices

I take a call in Denver from someone in LA who wants to set up an appointment (in LA) with me at 3pm.  I put it on my Google Calendar which syncs to my Android phone.  When I get to LA, Android/Google thinks they’re doing me a favor by “updating” all my appointments with my phone’s new time setting, so now my calendar is telling me the appointment is at 2pm (since I placed it on my calendar in Denver, where the time is off by an hour).

Why won’t Google fix this massive problem?!  Why did they set it up WRONG in the first place?  Everyone is complaining about it.  Who doesn’t travel these days?  Why would you ever enter an appointment time into your calendar for the WRONG time (to adjust for time zone shifts)?!  This issue is a result of Google “helping” us, when in fact it ONLY causes problems.

I can’t think of a time when this “shift all my appointments” could POSSIBLY be helpful.  If I place an appointment on my calendar, it’s for the time zone of where I’ll be for that appointment.  I’m not ever going to “accidentally” be in a different time zone.  I guess MAYBE this could be helpful for a phone appointment, but not so helpful that it’s worth screwing up the rest of my appointments as soon as I land in a different time zone (you SHOULD just be able to tick a box to select a time zone for an event if you want it to shift according to whatever time zone you’re in).  I also shouldn’t have to set up an appointment and think, “Hmmm.  Now what time zone will I be in compared to the one I’m currently in?  Now, adjust for the time zone, and I should actually enter the appointment into GCalendar at XX:XX time.”  Stupid.

There is a new “world clock” plug in that will display multiple time zones, but it does nothing to fix the issue of Google adjusting all your appointments when you enter a new time zone.

This seems like an INCREDIBLY easy issue to fix, so why the eff isn’t Google fixing it?!

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PocketCM Contact Manager (free) WinMobile App

Yesterday I stumbled across, downloaded and installed a contact manager from PocketCM. I can honestly say I'm impressed. I didn't have high expectations, especially after what I've seen of other contact management apps (like iContacts), but this thing is really great.

I'm a designer, so the first thing that really grabbed my attention was the animation transition between screens. The transitions are thoughtful, and not so gimmicky that I feel their power consumed to functionality ratio is off balance. The current version as of this post is 0.29. From what I see comparing it to previous versions, I'm not a fan of the new default skin (text-only buttons instead of more finger friendly graphics, the dial pad is too small, etc...), so I immediately updated to a user created skin called Dark Diamond II v_0.3 (make sure to get the Omnia appropriate size). The combo is infinitely superior to Samsung's phone program and contact manager.

The PocketCM contact manager provides you with finger-friendly iPhone-style up and down scrolling, but you also get an alphabetized content bar (instead of a hard-to-use scroll bar) on the left and right (visibile as an alphabet along the edge in the default theme, invisible in some other themes... but still completely functional). Slide your finger along the left or right edge of your screen and you quickly scroll through the letters of the alphabet; just stop on the letter of the name you're looking for. This system is fantastic for finding a contact quickly and easily even if you have hundreds of contacts. Not only that, but the dial pad that shows on the page features opacity, so you can see the full screen of contacts even when you have your dial pad open.

I love that this contact manager incorporates a dial pad. I'm not going to completely ditch iDial just yet (sometimes I like having a huge dial pad that takes up the whole screen... big giant buttons are so much easier to use), but I'll definitely never use the phone's old dial pad (or contact manager) again. Maybe I'll even work up a theme that features a full screen dial pad... or maybe somebody else will, so I don't have to.

I've already used Green Button to map my phone's "call" button (the button you use to send a call) directly to PocketCM. I've also ticked the "set as default" box within the PocketCM settings, so PocketCM is my default contact program.

In addition to a great look and feel, PocketCM incorporates your SMS conversations (threaded) and all call history. You can open a contact and with a click you can quickly see all SMS history and/or call history with that person. Fantastic.

There are also features like "favorites" and "filtering." You can compile a list of favorite contacts for quick dialing, or you can filter your contacts by Company, City, Category, etc... Again: fantastic.

I highly recommend you check this application out. PocketCM touts itself as a "more finger friendly" app, and I couldn't agree more... and that's just the tip of the iceberg as to why this application is a superior contact manager and dialer.

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The developer has a couple of other apps like a calendar and a photo viewer that utilizes an interface like the iPhone's cover flow music browser. I'm not sure I'm ready to give those a shot yet, but something that I will definitely be trying out in the very near future is the keyboard app.

PocketCM Keyboard features a customizable keyboard (yes, you can change what letters, symbols, etc... are available on each screen), but more importantly it features the iPhone-like "letter magnification" that I so love. You can also skin the keyboard and set it as the default keyboard for your phone.

So more on PocketCM Keyboard soon!

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Google Sync goes live... and doesn't work at all!

Well, Google went live today with their Google Sync to sync contacts and calendars via Exchange Server. So I deleted my NuevaSync.com connection and gave it a shot.

I set everything up via the m.google.com server and... nothing! For the life of me I could not get my calendars to show up on my mobile device, so I removed the server and went back to NuevaSync.com.

Maybe it will work in the future, but for now, I see no reason to leave NuevaSync.com (which actually works).

Sync your Google Calendars with iPhone or Win Mobile device using NuevaSync.com (free)

This information is of course in my Omnia i910 "how to" post.

Our family uses Google Calendars. It seems to be the simplest way for us to keep our lives known and available to each other. It works from any computer and across all platforms. It's simple and robust and it works for us.

Now that I have a new WinMobile device, the problem for me was finding a FREE way to keep my Omnia synced with Google Calendars. OggSync will let you sync with one calendar for free. To sync with multiple calendars, you have to pay $30 a year.

It seems odd that Google's only mobile solution is viewing a scaled down version of Google Calendars via your mobile browser. What kind of crap is that? That's not syncing... it's just a whole lot of work to see and add calendar entries (open your mobile browser, browse to m.google.com/calendars, log in to your account, try and maneuver the clumsy interface from your phone's tiny browser... ugh!).

So I searched the web for a while, and finally stumbled upon NuevaSync.com. You don't have to install any software on your phone, because it works with software already on your phone (iPhone via whatever dark arts it uses, or Win Mobile via ActiveSync). You can sync Mail, Contacts, Calendar and/or Tasks... and all over SSL. You simply set up a NuevaSync account, "allow" the partnership via an automatic link presented to you by Google, and you're good to go.

It took me about 5 minutes to set things up and start syncing my calendars. Changes I made online were visible on my phone, and changes I made on my phone were visible online. Perfect.

One caveat is that if you use the service, when you start using it it will erase any information (for the service you're syncing) already on your phone. So back up any calendar information that exists only on your phone. Luckily, I hadn't started creating events on my phone yet.

Also, I suppose there is some risk entering your Google log-in information into NuevaSync's online database. I don't really care if someone sees my calendar entries, but e-mail is another story. I do like that the sync connection is SSL though (if you tick the box during your setup).

I'm not a fan of Google's contact structure (no first and last, just "name," not enough "other" fields for multiple mobiles, home phones, etc...), so I'm not using NuevaSync for contacts (though I'm sure quite a few people will be excited about this feature). I'm already using Google's stellar IMAP set-up to push e-mail to my WinMo device, so I don't need to sync mail. I have no idea what "tasks" are yet, so obviously I'm not using that.

Thus I'm only using NeuvaSync to sync my Google Calendars with my Omnia, but so far, it's fantastic. And it's free!

Kudos NuevaSync.com.

[update: I am experiencing difficulties with repeating events like birthdays and anniversaries; if you use this service and are able to sync repeating events, please post in the comments and let me know. Thanks!]