iPhone tips

WARNING: iPhone related post. If you don't have an iPhone or don't care about Apple products, close the browser and step away from the computer :-)

Below is a small list of iPhone tips and tricks I've picked up that others might find useful.

1. Two finger tap to zoom out in Google map. Most people know of the 1 finger tap to zoom in on the Google map. Try it with 2 fingers and it'll reverse that process. Any two fingers would do, but I highly recommend index + middle fingers, it just works better, trust me.
   
   
2. Jump to top of a web page in Safari browser. When you get to the bottom of a long web page in the browser, you can tap the top of the screen, right under the time and it'll bring you back to top of the page. I'm not aware of a way to jump to bottom of the page yet. If you do, share with moi :-)
   
   
3. Don't need to type .com in Safari browser. When you're typing an URL, no need to type http://www or the .com portion. Simply enter the doman (e.g. apple) and click "Go". Of course, this only applies to .com URLs.
   
   
4. Quick hover for numbers in keyboard. How do you type a number today? Click on "@123" to change to number keyboard, type a number, then click on "ABC" to change back? Say you just want to enter a number in between your alphabets? Try this trick.
   
   Hover on "@123" and the keyboard will switch to number keyboard, don't let go of your finger, hover over to the number or symbol you want, then let go. It'll insert the number or symbol and switch you back to the alphabet keyboard.
   
   
5. Caps-lock on keyboard. Double click the "up-arrow" will change the icon to blue and turn caps-lock on. Click on the "up-arrow" again to return to normal keyboard.
   
   Update on Jan 26 2008: Thanks to @sassytazcas below. You have to go to Settings -> General -> Keyboard -> Enable Caps Lock (turn on). Then after you have it turn on, you can then double click on "up-arrow" to do cap-lock.
   
   
6. Two finger zoom in Safari browser. We all know the 2 finger pinch gesture on the iPhone to zoom in/out. If you're holding the iPhone with 2 hands, you can accomplish the same gesture by holding your left thumb on the lower left corner of the screen and use your right index finger to zoom in/out easily.
   
   
7. Redeem iTunes gift cards on the iPhone. With the latest v1.1.3 update, you can now redeem your iTunes gift cards right on the iPhone. Go to the iTunes music store -> "Downloads", 4th button -> "Redeem" on top left corner.
   
   BTW, in case I've never mentioned it, that's what I do at Apple. We're your bank, holding all your iTunes gift cards and your balances :-)
   
   
8. Hold the camera button and let go when you are ready to take the photo. When taking a photo with your iPhone, you can actually hold onto the camera button, move the iPhone around until you're ready. Then when you let go of the button, that's when it'll take the picture. Much easier than trying to hold the iPhone and then click the button mid-air.
   
   
9. Added on Feb 07 2008.
   Toggle between "Numbers" and "%" in stock application. I accidentally found this one. In the Stock application, you can tap on the "i" to configure the stock delta in "Numbers" or in "%". But instead of going there, if you simply tap on any of the existing stock's green/red area to the right of the quote, and that will toggle all between numbers and percentage. Neat, huh?
   
   

That's all I can think of for now. Let me know if you have other tricks 'n tips that you use on the iPhone.

Fun weekend!

What a fun weekend!

We started the weekend early on Friday night with dinner at Gochi in Cupertino, thanks to B & N! Bumped into some other friends afterwards at Fantasia boba drink place. Maybe we're all getting old or something, but high decibel in enclosed structures aren't our things anymore.

On Saturday, a group of us headed out to Hog Island Oyster in Pt. Reyes for some fresh oysters. Point Reyes is about 1.5 hr drive northwest of the Golden Gate Bridge. The weather was super nice to our surprise. Jean and I aren't big fresh oysters fan, but we learned to appreciate it more that day. We learned the art of shucking and the difference between regular and fancy schmancy Kumamotos oysters from Japan. Few of us agreed that we've never had this much oyster in one sitting. We ended up consuming 200 for eight people, so average of 15/each.

Somewhere in between all those oysters and the drive home, the guys decided on a day trip up to Squaw Valley in Tahoe for some skiing, gotta love the Bay Area! So 8 hours after we wrapped up the oyster day...

On Sunday at 4:30AM, while Jean was still sound asleep, Timmy and I hit the road at the crack of dawn. We met up with the guys from SF halfway for some hearty McD breakfast. By 9AM we were all geared up and ready to hit the slopes. We had two beginners in the group, so they took lessons, while the 3 of us hit some the more color ones. I have not skied in several years, so I wasn't sure if I could even stay up on the slopes. But I guess it's like what they say about biking. To my own surprise, I held up pretty well on the black diamonds, not pretty, but I came down with few falls. We all made through the day without injuries! At this age, that's a lot to be thankful for :-)

Links to 20 pics of oyster day and 9 pics of ski day on Flickr. If you're new to Flickr, you can click on the "View as slideshow" on upper-right hand corner and use left/right keys to navigate.

Macworld or MacWorld?

The first few weeks of every new year is like a continuation of Christmas for geeks and all technologist alike. First there's the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas during week of Jan 7th 2008, then there's the Macworld in San Francisco the week after on Jan 14th.

You'll be reading TONs of news, RSS feeds, blogs, Twitters about these 2 events. The only thing I ask of you is....

Officially it's "Macworld Conference and Expo" I know that's long, but just don't type MacWorld.

Update on Jan 5: Just to be clear, I'm not asking you to type the whole phrase. I'm just pointing out the MacWorld (big "W"). Just "Macworld" (small w) would make me a happy boy.

When @clint told Twitterers about the new @arsMacWorld last night, I just couldn't stand to see even Ars spelling it incorrectly and so prominently. Ah... halp my eyes...

I had to contact @clint privately and he, as any nice Boilermaker would, kindly replied to me to let me know he'll do his best. Like I told him, I'm probably the only one who is anal enough to even care.
< / rant >

OK, now onto caring about more important things. Like Charlie (the dog), not getting blown away in this Bay Area storm!

My first vocabularies in the U.S.

Reading Terry Chay's blog reminded me of the impact AD&D had on my own life.

I moved to the U.S. at age 13 from Taiwan without knowing ABCs, let alone any English words. My cousins, who we grew up with in Taipei and continued to be very close, had also moved to California right before us. For some reason, they had picked up AD&D.

Along with falling in love with some of my favorite 80s musicas, Walk Like An Egyptian, We Build the City, we also got to watch A Team and Knight Rider in English for the first time. Back in Taiwan and in the 80s, they were big hits, but only once a week on Saturday nights.

Sorry, I digressed. Back to AD&D... So cousins and I have not played it since the late 80s. But before I learned to construct proper sentences and learn my pronouns, these were some of my first words in the US: magicians, chain mails, swords, monsters, thieves, dice, dungeon-master, hit points.

Not sure if this is an improvement 20 years later, "korrect grammars, I haz dem"

Scavenger Hunt & NYE

This last week was wife's birthday. We're both very low key when it comes to our birthdays, so I thought Jean would prefer a fun game at home. No, not that kind of game, this blog is PG-13!

We pretty much have everything we need or want, so I had to think hard to find something she would like. After doing some research, I went for knitting related gifts given that this is currently her favorite hobby.

Once I got the gifts, I had to come up with a way to give her the gifts. Scavenger hunt seemed like a fun idea.

Started out with card #1, this card was for Christmas
Threw her off a bit with the red envelope. Those are for weddings or from elders, not from a husband to wife for birthday :-) She literally jumped up and down when she found out "it's a game?!??!!!!" and started running around the house.
Several clues later, it led her to the frig.Second card found under the dining table.
This one is for her birthday day. Cute, huh? hee heeThe hint in card #2 led her to the first gift: knitter's bag.Few hints later, she was led outside to my car's trunk where the 2nd gift was found: yarn basket.
See all 12 pictures here on Flickr.

What other good ideas have you had or have tried before for your significant other? Share! Share! So I can try to steal it for next year.

Oh yeah, this is also the first post of 2008 so Happy New Year! What did you do last night? Here's where we were. Thanks Brian and Nancy!