Apple Aperture Software for a Great Deal

I'm still using Apple Aperture to organize my photos. Just spent a week really getting my digital photo library in shape. Spent time at God's Pocket doing this also. Big job, finally done.

They are now selling it for $79 at the App Store! folks who bought it recently for $199 are pissed.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2709758?threadID=2709758&start=15&tstart=60

I bought Lightroom but never have used it. Just started using my Canon full-frame body to duplicate photos. Both Canon and Lightroom have a utility ideal for this -- see the viewfinder, focus, take shots on your computer screen rather than at the camera. Holy moly, much easier.

AT&T’s GoPhone plans offer mobile web and email, Canada and Mexico roaming

Folks -- sorry.  As of 4-22-12, AT&T changed their GoPhone plans.  The only way you can get data on a smartphone now is by buying a $25 or $50 package each month.  This means that I can no longer recommend AT&T's GoPhone service as a good, inexpensive choice for someone needing minimal data and voice. 

I am pretty impressed with the capabilities and reasonable rates of AT&T’s GoPhone plans:

Here's how it works. Buy a GoPhone (there are phones as cheap as $10 at the local department store, and you can see phones online). I myself have an old Blackberry that is unlocked. Any GSM phone that is unlocked should work on AT&T's network. If you buy a new phone from AT&T, you might want to consider a phone that has mobile web and email along with a full QWERTY keypad. These seem to start at about $50. The GoPhones in a local Fred Meyer were far less expensive than the phones in the AT&T store.

Next, buy $15, $25, $50, or $100 cards so you have time in your phone. The $15 card only lasts 30 days. The $25 card lasts 90 days. The $100 card is good for an entire year. I personally think that the $25 card is the best deal and works best for me.

If you buy another card and renew before the time expires (eg 90 days for a $25 card), then any unused amounts roll over.

Here’s what I did. This procedure will be the same for folks that buy a new AT&T GoPhone:

I already had an unlocked Blackberry that I bought last year on Ebay for $100 (an unlocked T-Mobile Blackberry, which is a quad-band phone that will work on GSM networks around the world). I went to the AT&T store today, and they confirmed that their GoPhone SIM card did indeed work in my old Blackberry. It cost $15 plus tax to activate the card. If I do not keep the phone active (eg buy $25 every three months), then the phone will become inactive, and I will have to pay this fee again.

With the $25 card, I have a choice of buying a data plan also. $5 for 10Mb, $15 for 100 Mb, etc. I chose the $15 plan. This comes out of the $25 prepaid card, leaving me with $10 for voice calls. I chose the $0.10 per minute plan.

If I roam and use the phone in Canada, my calls within Canada will cost $0.39 per minute. I see that there will be data roaming charges of $0.0195 per KB.

Here’s the web page explaining international roaming rates:

http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/international/roaming/gophone-international-roaming.jsp

As usual, I knew more than the store representatives about their plans. The clerk who initially helped me stated that it was not possible to use a GoPhone in Canada or Mexico. I asked him to check the internet, then directed him to the above page. While he was browsing that page, I picked up a few brochures about the GoPhone. Every single brochure, as well as the very large poster on the wall, explained that roaming in Canada and Mexico was now possible!

I am thrilled with being able to have email and web access on a phone, using AT&T’s GoPhone service, at what could be as low as $25 every three months, which works out to $8.33 per month or $100 per year. I am also thrilled to have a phone that will work in Canada and Mexico at reasonable rates. Awesome!

Please note that I am using my old Blackberry as a simple smartphone for web and email, but at these rates and on this plan, I don't believe that I can use the Blackberry's email and web services. Instead, I am using Opera as my web browser, and Gmail for my email. I am not getting push-email, which is Blackberry's killer app. This is too bad, but for this budget, I am not at all unhappy.

Update 11-30-11:

OK, I've now had the plan for a couple of months, and I've learned the following.

1. Texting and voice calls while in Canada worked, both to and from my phone while in Canada (For newbies, this is "international roaming"). However, even though AT&T's website lists a rate per Kb of data while roaming in Canada, I was unable to get data while in Canada. It may be as simple as calling AT&T and asking them to allow my phone to have international access. I somehow doubt it will be that easy, however. I am sick and tired of calling phone companies and knowing more about their plans and services than the agent that I am talking to.

2. This really is a heck of a good deal for voice calls and email service in the US. There are many options, but this is how I am using and paying for this plan. I pay $25 and this keeps my phone active for three months. Out of this $25, voice calls are 10 cents per minute. I rarely make voice calls so this suits me. Also out of this $25, I purchased a $15 data plan that gave me 100 Mb of data. The first month, I used less than 10 Mb of data. I signed up to automatically purchase $5 worth of data each month, which gives me 10Mb of data each month. By doing this, the extra data that I purchased initially and did not use rolls over every month.

I now have a phone that I can use for voice calls and to check my emails everywhere in the US, for less than $100 per year. Awesome. I don't have the patience to use the Opera web browser much at all, so I am only using this for emails (web access is very slow and frustrating on this phone too).

AT&T GoPhones Seem to Have Good Canada Rates

I've recommended prepaid, monthly, pay-as-you go cell phone providers and services in the past. I've been using Net10 prepaid phones and services for the past three years and have been pretty happy -- about $15 per month for 150 minutes each month has worked well for me.

It looks like AT&T has quietly introduced a 10-cent per minute prepaid plan. I am not sure, but it seems that you simply pay a flat 10 cents per minute, and the minutes don't seem to expire every month or two like Net10's do.

Another big plus is that the AT&T GoPhones seem to work in Mexico and Canada, offering reasonable rates. Here's a link:

http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/international/roaming/gophone-international-roaming.jsp

The above link shows rates to use AT&T GoPhones in Canada and Mexico. The rates for Canada are 0.39 per minute. These are AT&T's prepaid phones, pay by the minute.

You can buy a phone for $20 and just keep it for your trips to Canada and Mexico. I think I am going to do so. I have an unlocked Blackberry that I used to use on the T-Mobile network, which is GSM, as is AT&T's network. I ordered a SIM card that will hopefully work on the AT&T GoPhone network in my old Blackberry. I'll post to this blog how things go in Canada with this phone.

My other recommendation for folks who want an inexpensive, prepaid plan with emails is to purchase a Blackberry at Walmart that works with the Virgin Mobile network. These cost $100 now, and the Virgin Mobile network will then work with the Blackberry for only $35 per month for unlimited data and 300 talk minutes. (To get Blackberry email and web browsing, you have to pay another $10 per month above this). Pretty good deal, but if you need to use your Blackberry internationally, you will have to go with AT&T's contract service (like most intl travelers that I know). As far as I know, the Virgin Mobile Blackberry service won't work outside of the US.

A perfect solution would be an AT&T GoPhone service that will work with my Blackberry, is prepaid, and works all over the world.

Showing the Present Folder Location of an Email in Thunderbird

Here's what I recently wrote my friend and computer expert Michael McFann:

"I have a question about Thunderbird that has been driving me crazy for a long time.

Tbird's find function works great. It will find all emails mentioning "shark" for instance.

But if I am actually within an email message -- I have it open, I can even see the thread (see screengrab) -- I can't for the life of me figure out how to see what folder that message is in. I can move the message to a folder, but I can't see the current folder.

Perhaps you can tell me what I am missing. "

Mike replied, and his answer works!

"The column header bar above the found messages allows customization of the columns displayed. Click on the little icon to the far right on the bar to show a drop-down menu of columns you can display. Choose the one called "Location" to display the folder the message is stored within."

Now this seems fairly obvious.

Thanks, Mike!

Extracting Pages from PDF Files

I have recently had to do a lot of work with PDF files. One of the jobs is to print emails to a PDF file, but then to separate all of those emails so that they are on separate PDFs.

I do my work on Macs, so the below procedures apply to Macs.

I use Thunderbird to get my emails, and I organize emails into folders. To print all emails in a folder, I have found that if I select a bunch of emails, Thunderbird only prints summaries of the emails. So I've been exporting all emails as a .mbox file, then bringing that .mbox file into Entourage 2004 (part of Microsoft Office for the Mac up to version 2008). Entourage then can print all selected emails as a PDF, rather than just a summary of the emails.

To extract separate emails from the long PDF, I use an old, old version of Adobe Acrobat. It still works on my Snow Leopard machine, which is kind of amazing, but it is old and clunky. Buying a new version seems wasteful since the program is expensive, I don't use the program all the time, and I know that there are alternatives out there. I try not to use or buy Adobe software if at all possible, because I have had so much trouble with their registration and activation of licenses for software, and in trying to transfer software licenses when I buy new computers.

My friend and computer expert Michael McFann suggested this instead:

"If the task is to simply extract pages from an existing PDF file, then OS X's built-in app "Preview" will allow you to extract one or more pages from an existing pdf.

For example, I have included a document on Facebook security and a second pdf that has just one of the pages from the original pdf file.

The trick is to make sure you display the sidebar which displays the page thumbnails and simply drag/drop the pages. You can also combine pdf's this way. "

Keeping Data Charges Down When Traveling With the iPad

I don't travel as much as I used to. When I was traveling six or nine months out of the year, then having a Blackberry with AT&T was an essential tool. You could get emails on the Blackberry all over the world. The AT&T network is GSM, rather than Verizon's CDMA, so it works in far more countries than Verizon.

It was pretty awesome and relatively inexpensive when I was overseas. I could get emails in the most remote places, like Sorong (eastern Irian Jaya) and off Komodo Island, Indonesia! I saw Eric Cheng do this and went and got myself one. The Blackberry was well-suited for getting emails, but not web browsing, so it was relatively easy to avoid huge data charges.

While I liked the Blackberry, I hated the commitment (I didn't use my Blackberry when I was home). I've been waiting for the last few years for a company that would offer a Blackberry plan with international capability that is around $35 per month (my old rate, but 2-year contract), would work overseas, and could go month-to-month. There's been nothing. Virgin Mobile sells a Blackberry, with a plan that is about $35 per month, but they use the Sprint Network -- which is CDMA and is unlikely to work overseas. T-Mobile is a possibility, but as far as I can tell (and their plans and rates are always changing, despite what the website says, and despite any promises their sales staff in their stores make) the cheapest Blackberry plan is $50 per month (T-Mobile's network is GSM, a good thing, and they do seem to offer prepaid Blackberry plans rather than only long-term commitments). AT&T's Blackberry plans seem to be all expensive and require long-term commitments.

So I am going to try my iPad (version 1) which offers AT&T's 3G network. I've heard that using an iPhone or iPad when traveling internationally can result in huge, surprising data charges. I've done my research and hope that the below might help minimize my data charges.

First, I will strive to use my iPad when overseas ONLY as an email device. I will try not to use the web unless I am using a wifi network.

The biggest problem with getting emails is if someone sends you a large attachment. From my experience with the Blackberry and reading about data charges, I can see that downloading a small photograph of my wife and dogs can cost as much as $20!! Therefore, finding a way to NOT download attachments is important.

Here's my step-by-step solution to this problem. I'm going to try this on my trip to Vancouver Island, Canada, coming up. I'll let this blog know if this works or not.

Summary of email settings when traveling with ipad.

First, having Gmail accounts is important. Gmail accounts will forward emails to other email accounts. All my accounts are Gmail accounts, even those that have my norbertwu.com suffix/domain --- these are “Gmail for Apps” email addresses. Setting up an email address that uses a custom domain name like "norbertwu.com" and is administered through Google Apps is great, but should be covered elsewhere.

Create a couple of Gmail accounts in addition to the ones you normally use. Let’s call them mytravel_emails@gmail.com and mytravel_emails_w_attachments@gmail.com. Create these accounts on your iPad too.

1. Set your primary email address(es) to forward all emails to mytravel_emails@gmail.com .

2. Set mytravel_emails@gmail.com to filter incoming emails. Emails with attachments are immediately filtered, sent to the account archive, and therefore not sent to my ipad.

This is done under the Gmail settings menus.

Choose main Filters menu: matches: has: attachment and Do This: Skip Inbox.

Emails with attachments are also forwarded to mytravel_emails_w_attachments@gmail.com.

3. When traveling and using the AT&T network, check only the email account mytravel_emails@gmail.com. This email account ONLY shows emails that have no attachments.

In summary, here’s what happens. Any emails with NO attachments are sent to my iPad. Since there are no attachments, I will get only emails that don’t use a lot of data. Any emails with attachments are sent to the second email address that I will check when I have wifi.

On the ipad:

It is possible to turn off email accounts so they won’t check emails when traveling. Turn off your primary email account when traveling. Turn off the email account that is receiving attachments. mytravel_emails_w_attachments@gmail.com.

When overseas or when data usage is a concern, check only mytravel_emails@gmail.com which will show ONLY emails without attachments.

There are certainly lots of other ways to do this. For instance, to check for emails with attachments:

The original forwarding email account will show both emails with and without attachments. I coud search for all emails with attachments using a web browser at the original forwarding email account. I could check mytravel_emails@gmail.com’s Archive for emails with attachments only.

There are other things you can do, such as auto-notifications when you are gone, and setting your reply-to address to be your primary email account. You can even tell folks who send you attachments that you are traveling and may not get their email since it had an attachment.

The above is my plan. It has not been tested. I hope that this will help fellow travelers who wish to keep some of their hard-earned dollars from the greedy hands of the cellphone companies, but I must add this cautionary note: Do this yourself at your own risk. I have not tested the above overseas yet and do not know how it will work.

During my research, here’s a question and answer that I came across on the web:

Is there a way not to download attachments in emails in ipad? no, attachments over a certain size are automatically downloaded. Over a certain size, you have to click on the icon to download the attachment. General rule to avoid data charges: Only check using wifi.

Note that in Gmail’s filters, there’s a way to search for emails WITH attachments, but no easy way to search for emails WITHOUT attachments. This is why I had to go through the relatively convoluted process above.

WATCH OUT for this phishing scam

I would like to think that I am pretty good about avoiding scams. If someone calls me up and tells me that my grandson Timmy is calling, and needs money sent to a Western Union right away, I won't be sending money anytime soon. Nor will I be sending money to the guy in Nigeria who keeps writing me. I have to check and see if I ever posted on my blog the scams based around counterfeit cashier's checks. Quickly -- if someone sends you a cashier's check, and even if your bank tells you that the cashier's check is fine -- don't believe your bank. Wait 3-4 weeks until your bank absolutely and definitely confirms that the funds are in your account. It's astonishing to me that I could take a counterfeit check to my bank (BofA) and that the teller would tell me that the check looks fine but she can't promise anything.

Here's another scam. I almost fell for it. I have a car listed on craigslist for sale. I got this in the email:

Is this your item? It has the same pics. Please check it: http://newyork.craigslist.org/aaa/65200

Thank you.


I clicked on the link, and a page that looked like a normal craigslist page opened up. Except it wanted my login information. That's the only thing that stopped me. Normally, if I am viewing a link on craigslist, I don't need to supply my login information.

I then looked at the link that my browser was trying to open. It was something completely unrelated to craigslist.

SCAM! Watch out!