MacStartup

Any startup entrepreneur runs across periods of time where they can get some things done while waiting or they’re on the road. Texting can take a lot of time and sometimes the “fat finger” issue with typing makes matters worse. My wife is a realtor and she’s on the road a lot and “has time” and would like to answer her email on the road, but can’t text or type. Well, here’s a way around that: iPhone Voice Memo.

Wherever you are “on the road” in your car, at your local car mechanic getting your car worked on, or picking up your kids from school or the daycare center, you can use the Voice Memo app to record your thoughts for later retrieval and sharing with your customers, vendors, family members, or other contacts.

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As with any startup business, you often need to see how others are using technology to see how you can apply it to your business case. While some of us may have heard about QR codes, most have not, and may not see how they can be useful to both the customer and a business. So here’s a great way of using QR codes, your iPhone, and increasing sales in your business. Not only think location, but think process, how to get your product to your customer saving them valuable time and energy.

Here’s a video example of how to use QR codes.

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As one that uses Square on my iPhone for selling products and services using a customer’s debit or credit card in my business there’s a new announcement from Square that coincides with Apple’s hush, hush event in the next week.

Will Square And Apple Stores Announce Partnership On Monday?

Now we know why the business team members were added to the change over team starting on Saturday and Sunday, to get ready  for a new retail experience for business customers.

What do you think?

Related articles

• Square credit card reader for iPhone now available from Apple Store (intomobile.com)
• Square launching new iPhone card reader this summer with encryption at read head (slashgear.com)

Apple has violated your personal trust. How?

By installing technology into your iPhone that tracks your EVERY move. Over at MoCoNews.net in their article iPhone Keeps Record Of Everywhere You Go it says that Apple’s tracking of your data will never leave your phone. Here’s the key:

The file contains the latitude and longitude of the phone’s recorded coordinates along with a timestamp, meaning that anyone who stole the phone or the computer could discover details about the owner’s movements using a simple program.

“Alasdair has looked for similar tracking code in [Google’s] Android phones and couldn’t find any,” said Warden. “We haven’t come across any instances of other phone manufacturers doing this.”

And if you get a new phone, the data is transferred to your new phone.

“The Fourth Amendment is a protection against actions of the State, NOT actions of private institutions, or individuals.”

Does anyone think that once the state or any criminal knows this data is available, it’ll go after that data anyway it can, legal or illegal? Even though we have the fourth amendment, the government or criminal can STILL take legal or illegal actions to obtain this data AND use this data against you. And you may never know of it!

Imagine losing your phone “for an hour” and then find it reappearing again. Someone has downloaded your info and returned it without you knowing they’ve done it. Because we as iPhone users were not aware of these location logs anyone could have got the data and done harm to anyone, without our knowledge of it happening.

What if you’re Steve Jobs and your iPhone is lifted from you and this data is downloaded, do you think competitors would love this info? What if you were a CEO or person of means or had other important knowledge? Not everyone is trustworthy in my view, you may believe that everyone or all corporations are good, I don’t.

If the cell phone companies need the data to help improve the quality of my cell phone service, I don’t mind that.

It’s the access that bothers me. The point is that things are possible in some scenarios above and Apple did not ask for my PERMISSION to log my info which others might have access to, and therefore my TRUST is violated, no matter how non threatening it may seem.

Solution? Give us a “911″ tracking of info in case of an emergency, but let me have the choice of turing the rest on or off to the level that I choose.

One of the worst feelings any startup entrepreneur has is having their life’s work and life lost or stolen from them which resides on their Mac. I personally have not had this happen, but having worked selling computers to businesses I have come across any number of people that have had their computer stolen and they are not only devastated, but worried about the identify theft that can occur. Imagine being a graphic art studio and walking into your business and finding all of your hardware gone. It leaves a sinking feeling in your stomach.

First: Back up ALL of your files! Losing the files can delay doing business, so backup your files ensures you can meet deadlines and can still make money. Then you can begin locating your lost stuff.

But there is hope, here are 10 ways of getting your Mac and your life back.

1. MobileMe – finds your lost or stolen iPhone or iPod Touch. Check out MobileMe’s Back to my Mac feature, here’s a story about it and getting a Mac back.
2. Dropbox - Use Dropbox to Locate Your Lost or Stolen Computer is another way.
3. LoJack for laptops - http://absolute.com/en/lojackforlaptops/home.aspx
4. VigiMac - http://www.vigimac.com/
5. PreyProject - http://preyproject.com/
6. GadgetTrack - http://www.gadgettrak.com/products/laptop/
7. Undercover - http://www.orbicule.com/undercover/
8. Hidden - http://hiddenapp.com/
9. Mac Calls Home - http://www.mark-up.com/store/MacBook-Call-Home/
10. Viwer - http://stumpy.vuse.vanderbilt.edu/VUWER.htm

Once you know the IP address (and you can look it up here http://www.ip-adress.com/ ) you can now find a police officer and nab the thief.

Now, take some action before something happens.

A suggestion: One of the ways of helping out in such a stressful situation is to email this link to these various solutions to a Gmail account and keep it always “on file” to be brought up when such an event hits you. Or, bookmark (hide it so the average thief won’t know it) it so that your browser bookmarks are shared among your various Apple devices and you can access.

The Gmail suggestion means you can access it from anywhere, such as a police station, if needed.

Related articles

• Man Gets Lead On Laptop Thief Using Dropbox Program (consumerist.com)
• “Find My iPhone” App Locates Lost Apple Gadgets [IPhone Apps] (gizmodo.com)
• The Independent advises gadget owners to opt for comprehensive home insurance (money.marksandspencer.com)
• Using DropBox Client Kickbox for Windows Phone 7 (brighthub.com)
• GadgetTrak app tracks stolen iPhones (macworld.com)
• Find My iPhone app thwarts another thief (tuaw.com)
• Lock Down Your Life: How to Secure Your Home, Auto and Smartphone (livescience.com)
• TGWK’s Tutorials – Set Up “Find My iPhone” (thegamerwithkids.com)
• MILLION-DOLLAR IDEA: This Software Will Locate Your Stolen Laptop Or iPhone And Take A Picture Of The Thief (businessinsider.com)

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Keeping track of my time via iCal is essential to any startup entrepreneur. But I’d like my wife (or when I get a virtual assistant) to keep up with my goings on. I used to use MobileMe, but had too many issues, so I switched to Google Calendar.

But my primary reason for keeping my calendar up-to-date using Google calendar is so that if ever my iPhone of Mac laptop when down I can still keep working or have access to my data, just as I have a Zumodrive and Dropbox accounts. There is nothing worse that having a sad Mac and not being able to continue working.

Besides, having my wife and a virtual assistant keeping track of where I plan on going or doing keeps the IM, phone calls, and emails to a minimum.

Here’s what I did to get mine to work together.

1. iCal and iTunes Sync. I deselected my Google calendars in iCal in iTunes so that only my iPhone, Mac, and Google calendar would work correctly once I had correctly set them up. I have other calendars in iCal that I do not use Google calendars sync for.
2. Start with Google Calendar. Here’s where it all starts. You can’t start from an iCal calendar (unless you export/import it into Google calendar), but if you have not started a calendar, make a calendar in Google calendar first.
3. Google Calendar Sync Setup. Next, you need to use Google Sync to get your Mac and Google calendar talking together. If all you want to do is sync with a Mac, you can stop here.
4. iPhone CalDAV for Google Calendar. Check out Google Synch for your phone for more instructions. There are  on the right side of the web page, but this page works better for iPhone.While the Google “iPhone” instructions are for Exchange, use the iPhone > Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add Account… > Other > Add CalDAV Account and enter in your Google account info. This will only show your PRIMARY calendar, no others will show up, do the next step for adding the others.
5. Adding two through 25 calendars. Here’s what took me over an hour to find the answer. Only your primary calendar is sync’d with you phone, you go to this https://www.google.com/calendar/iphoneselect to add the rest of your calendars.

This took me almost two hours to find the answer, hope you get it done quicker.

Let me know how it worked for you.

Related articles

• Tips and tricks for Google Calendar (ask.metafilter.com)
• How to switch to Google Calendar (macworld.com)
• Bringing Google Calendar To The iPad, Cloud Calendar Just Works (And We’re Giving It Away) (macstories.net)
• How To Easily Sync Your Shared Google Calendars On iPhone (GOOG) (businessinsider.com)

Entrepreneurs, startups, and those thinking of starting a business and Macs have a way of getting giddy with their Cool Mac Tools. They make things so easy that you get more done quicker, which means you make more money or enjoy more of your life.

When it comes to graphic artists, you just can’t carry a large portfolio with you everywhere you go. So what’s an artist to do? Well, if you have an iPhone (and maybe a smart phone) you can load up your photos from iPhoto and sync them through iTunes and load them on your iPhone so you can show them off in a jiffy. How? Let’s walk you through those steps.

1. Create a portfolio folder in iPhoto. You need to create a folder for iPhoto, maybe named “Portfolio” that will contain all of your special images that you want potential customers to view. You can create any album folder to hold your photo or images in, but here I have created a smart folder album of my wife and each time I change the keywords it automatically adjusts the number of pictures in the folder.

2. iTunes and photo folder conduit selected. Starting up iTunes and connecting to your iPhone or smart phone you need to ensure that your portfolio folder is selected to be synch with your iPhone. Here with the Photos tab selected I have a clear idea of what portfolio I want to load up on my iPhone, my wife’s folder “Ruth Ann.”

3. Sync your iPhone. All you need to do now is sync the iPhone up with your Mac.

As you can see from the images you can upload any album folders onto your iPhone. Adjust as you see how to use it to your advantage.