CALL FOR BACKUP

We love our iPhones and use them for everything.  We take them everywhere and take photographs of everything, whether they move or not.  Some of us even record movies with our phones.  Unfortunately, shit happens and sometimes the beloved phone is lost and there goes everything with it.

I've tried a few different methods to backup my iPhone and was unhappy with them.  In no particular order, they were Apple iTunes, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and Mophie Space Pack.

Apple iTunes costs nothing to use, mostly.  Some people may have only a smartphone as their only communication device, but most people also own a computer.  They would then need to download iTunes, hook the iPhone to the computer and everything just gets backed up to the computer.  Technically speaking I can go back to this method now, since these days I have regular access to my MacBook Pro.  Until a few months ago, my son hogged the computer most of the time and I didn't use it that much.  Logging onto the computer, connect the cable, wait for the backup to occur, etc seems like too much hassle.

Google Drive worked fine for a while but before I know it, 5 GB was almost gone.  The trouble with Google Drive is it holds not just photos you uploaded but also your Gmail stuff etc from other apps in the Google universe.  Sure I can buy more space but I hate the whole idea of renting if I can help it.  Again, I probably should re-visit Google Drive, that is, get the app and set it to sync my phone's content automatically and regularly when WiFi signal is found.  I recently ran some tool on Google Drive to convert photos to other format and free up a ton of space.

I have no space issue with Microsoft OneDrive.  15 GB is plenty for my photos and the few videos I occasionally take.  However, I cannot recommend OneDrive because new users only get 5 GB.  I almost missed the opt-in to retain the 15 GB.  5 GB nowadays is not too much.

Lastly, a big disappointment, is Mophie Space Pack.  A rugged phone case, 32 GB of space to store, and a batter pack, what is there not to love?  The case works great as long as you don't drop the phone face down, which ultimately happened to me.  The battery pack, perhaps like all batteries, dies slowly over time.  To get to the 32 GB of space, you have to go through a free app provided by Mophie.  It wouldn't be so bad if it actually works.  For me, it rarely did.  In the end, perhaps through some Apple updates, whatever I managed to put into the 32 GB somehow just disappeared.  By then I was too tired of the Mophie to bother troubleshooting it.

Finally, I think I have the solution in the Hootoo Flash Drive with Extended Lightning Connector, aka PlugMate.  The particular model I have is the HT-IM003, with 64 GB of space and made of aluminum alloy.  Like the Mophie Space Pack, to get to that big, empty space you need an app, in this case, iPlugmate.  Unlike the Mophie app, iPlugmate actually works, all the time!  Plug it in, iPlugmate asks for permission, and if you already configured the app to automatically backup photos and videos, that's what it will do.  You can also backup the address book.  It would be nice if settings for other apps can also be backed up, but just photos and videos is fine for me for now.  I manually backed up all my music files just now.

For peace of mind, this is all you need to do with the PlugMate.

Select the Setting symbol in the upper right (the gear).

Select Backup

Touch the toggle by Auto Backup to make it green.

That's all there is.  Now at least once a day, connect the Hootoo Plugmate to the iPhone and you'll be rewarded with a message so many photos were backed up.  You would be told if any files failed during backup, it hasn't happened to me yet, but your mileage may vary.

Dumb Move With Smartphone?

The Garmin was not my only recent, big purchase.  I know, $200 is considered big by us frugal people.  After years of using a plain old cell phone, I finally made the jump to a, drum roll please, smartphone.  No, it was not an iPhone, but just some Android thingie that the salesperson offered.  Much as I would love to have an iPhone, the cost is still beyond my budget.  If it is just myself, I could bite the bullet but I have a family plan.  The kids have the same phone model so the adults might as well have the same crappy phones.  No one is jealous that someone else has a better phone.  At least that was the plan.  To be exact, I have a Samsung Galaxy S with 8 GB of storage.  The OS is Frozen Yogurt, I believe.  I read a bit about AndroidOS and the different versions have food names, like Ice Cream Sandwich and Donut.  Weird choice of code name.  I had to make a cartoon for ATPM.com poking fun at the names.


I never own an iPhone but I had an iPod touch and still have a first-gen iPad.  iOS is not perfect but then the experience with Android is even more imperfect.  When I got the Galaxy it already had many apps so I do not what apps are standard.  I listen to music and such a lot so Music Player is my most used apps.  I send files from the Mac to the Galaxy via Bluetooth then manually create playlists.  I have not tried hard enough to find an app that would sync playlists, files, etc so it is a pain to manage music.  Per Leo Laporte on TWIT, Winamp for Android may be just what I need.


A smartphone is not much use if you do not have a data plan.  I think a typical plan with an iPhone is $30 a month.  My plan is $10 a month, but for only, you better sit down in case this makes you laugh too hard, a whopping 200 MB.  I only do email and Facebook so, hard to believe, but 200 MB is really more than enough.  At this moment, I have about seven more days to go before the new month rolls in and I only used 27% of that 200 MB.  I did blow that 200 MB once when I tested the tethering feature on the Galaxy and my son watched some YouTube video.  Dumb mistake!  Still, it is nice that the feature is built-in and can be used as long as your data plan can handle it.  Not like how with Apple you have to play the game of cat-and-mouse with jail-breaking.


I can live with the measly data plan, but I wish the apps would behave more like iOS apps.  They just don't work right.  First time I launched the Facebook app, the one that has the UI more like the latest iPad app, it asks me to "Download Browser.  Download my new app: fast and save power Browser!", I clicked "Download", it downloaded something and installed it.  Next time again, it offered the same choices of "Download" and "Ignore Forever".  I clicked "Ignore Forever" and guess what the next time I launched the app?  "Forever" already came and went so it asked me to download again!  One time, after being sick of telling the app to ignore forever, I clicked Download and it tried to download from the MarketPlace but lo and behold there was nothing to download.  Likewise, trying to post to the Plurk social network is a pain.  There's a Plurk app but it somehow needs Maxthon app, which turns out to be an alternative web browser!?  Wait, there's more!  Each time you want to use the Plurk app, it will just tell you to download the Plurk app.  No, to use Plurk, you would launch Maxthon.  It is a lousy experience, like how I often envision those people who buy the cheapest netbook running Windoze only to put up with Windoze errors and problems.  Maybe my next smartphone will be an iPhone after all.  Help me reach that dream by clicking on them Google Ads liberally sprinkled around the blog!

iWait

Last Friday, after dropping off my son at his music class, I walked about half a mile from Chinatown to SoHo to take a few shots of the iPhone frenzy outside the Apple Store. Lately, I've developed an interest in producing panoramas without the hardware, i.e. without a panoramic camera or lens. The picture above was made from four separate photos. I've learned that panoramas can be made more easily and more convincing if the individuals photos don't have objects in perspective. I actually took a total of six pictures but couldn't use the first two as they wouldn't blend well. Because of the building entrance (near the center of the photo), the long line of prospective iPhone owners was broken up shortly it rounded the corner. I got too easily discouraged and didn't snap more pictures. Perhaps I'll make up for it by capturing the Leopard release in October. Instead of my measly camera phone, I'll bring along a bona fide digital camera.

The panorama was put together using Photoshop Element's Photomerge feature. It did a pretty decent job, even if I had to manually place two photos. I tried other dedicated panoramic software, namely HuginOSX (open source) and DoubleTake (shareware), but didn't quite get it. HuginOSX looks totally incomprehensible to me, while DoubleTake, although raved about by a few bloggers, didn't work well with the set of photos I threw at it. It could be because of my photos.