TechnologyIQ

$ As we approach the end of the calendar year, we all have friends and family complaining about tax preparation issues and such. To help ease this yearly burden, I would suggest that your think about tracking your finances for the coming year in some sort of system. This can be an inline program like Mint.com, software like Quicken or Quickbooks or even on paper or in an Excel spreadsheet. Like most tasks, it is more important that you DO it than HOW you do it. Tracking your finances is one of those tasks that is much easier when taken in small pieces. If you take a few moments to enter in financial data -- checks written, bills received, donations given -- as they appear, it can save your significant time and frustration later. First, doing this in small chunks is less intimidating than trying to do it each month or, even worse, all together at the end of the year. I try to enter data at least once a week and reconcile my accounts religiously at the end of each month. By the time I ge...

Here are a few apps that are on my iPhone. A friend just recently purchased an iPhone and asked what apps I found most useful. Here they are! Social Tweetdeck G+ App Facebook LinkedIn Tumblr Facebook Messenger Pinterest Trickle for Twitter - Display Twitter stream in full screen Navigation Waze Mapquest Geocaching Location Foursquare Google Latitude HipGeo Banjo - Which friends are near me now? IntoNow - what show are you watching GetGlue - what show are you watching, etc Arrived - send push notifications/email you arrive at locations Games Wild West Pinball Sol Free Wordly Words with Friends Free Angry Birds Seasons Books iBooks Kindle Goodreads Stanza Book Reader LAPL To Go - LA Public Library App Weather WeatherUnderground Web App ( http://wunderground.com ) iMap WeatherRadio - Weather alerts, watches and warnings Utilities Find My Iphone - Set this up IMMEDIATELY!!!! (LAUGH) Flashlight Vlingo - Siri-like voice control Boxcar - Push notifications (although many are in new i...

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I have been using CardMunch for a while to import business cards and the added information should be very useful. -- Douglas LinkedIn Matches Business Cards With Profile Data In New Version Of iOS App CardMunch : Earlier this year, LinkedIn acquired CardMunch , an iPhone app that lets you take a snapshot of a business card and have it added to your iPhone contacts. Today, LinkedIn is relaunching the CardMunch iPhone app with a brand new mobile experience for the professionals on the social network. For background, CardMunch uses Mechanical Turk to convert business cards into phone contacts. In fact, millions of business cards have been digitized on CardMunch to date. [...] While CardMunch used to be a paid app, the iOS app is now free for users. Read the entire article

I received this question from a client via email this morning and thought I would pass on the information -- Douglas Any user ID or password that is stored and automatically retrieved is prone to be forgotten. I run into this with  many clients and their Apple IDs. This is the login used to verify you own music, books and apps from the Apple store and is being used more and more for other services, too, such as Find My iPhone, iCloud and changing your Mac admin password. If you have forgotten your Apple ID, don't despair, visit this page,  " Apple ID Support " and it will step you through a series of processes to recover both the ID itself and help you reset the password. Most other web sites will allow you to do something similar, when needed. Link: Apple ID Support Page

Tablets and laptops and iPhones, oh my! Yes, it is that time of year again when visions of iPods dance in your  head and you are trying to figure what technology gifts to get your friends, family and co-workers. Do you need advice on this year's technology gifts? Let me help you make your way through the dense thicket of tech possibilities. Ask your questions as: Comments on this blog, TechnologyIQ On my Facebook Wall Via @douglaswelch on Twitter Via my profile on Google+ Let's make this technology holiday the best that it can be! You can find technology gift recommendations in The WelchWrite Bookstore and more! I will be adding new items each day.

Apple's iTunes actually makes it quit easy to move your entire library from one computer to another. Why would you want or need to do this? I find that sometimes clients want to begin syncing their iPod or iPhone a different, newer computer. Perhaps they are moving from Windows to a new Mac. The secret lies in the iTunes folder. Everything that uses iTunes is normally held within that folder. This includes music, apps, books, the iTunes Library database and more. Copy your iTunes folder to an external hard drive, or directly from the old machine to the new using your network connection and file sharing. Place the iTunes folder in the expected location for all iTunes files. Where is that? Here is a trick to find out. Download and install iTunes on the new computer and then run it for the first time. This creates a new, empty iTunes (or iTunes Music) folder, depending on the version of iTunes. Quit iTunes. Find that folder, which gives you the proper location, and then replace it wit...