A: If by your question you mean, .”Can my wife and I share an iPad and access both of our Facebook accounts on the same device?” then the practical answer is no.  Unfortunately the iPad was not designed to be a multi-user device.

BUT – what you might be able to do — and I haven’t tested this — is to download the Facebook app for the iPad and then have you use the Facebook App to access Facebook, while your wife uses the web browser for access.  It’s not a perfect solution, but until Apple make the iPad easy to use for multiple users then this may be a workaround.

Good luck!

Allowing Users to Save Entered Form Data in a .PDF

1. Once you are done editing the form, you need to save the .PDF file in a particular way to allow people to save their entered form data.

2.  Go to File -> Save As -> Reader-Extended PDF -> Enable Additional Features

If for some reason “Enable Additional Features…” is greyed out, make sure that you are not still in the form editing mode.  Under the tasks panel (usually in the right-hand column) click the “Close Form Editing” button and it should solve your problem.

The Dell UltraSharp U2211h – as Close to iMac as you can get?
Now I have two u2211h’s living  harmoniously in a dual-monitor configuration – in no small thanks to DisplayFusion Pro which revolutionized the way I manage dual monitors -  (I run them horizontally and I should have gotten the 23″s, but I digress).   As you may or may not recall, these u2211h’s are the Ultrasharp Dell Monitors with IPS Panels that are supposed to be the “closest” you are going to get to an iMac IPS display — at a reasonable price — e.g without buying another Mac.  So I figured I’d set one of these u2211′s next to my 21″ iMac and see how it goes.

The Setup
The setup was really easy.  I plugged in the AC on the Dell monitor, attached the USB cable to the iMac, and popped the VGA connector to the DisplayPort to VGA adapter that I bought a long time ago (~$30).  The monitor was recognized instantly and a few moments later I was configured at an equal resolution on both monitors (I brought the Dell to match the iMac).

The Experiment
So after installing the monitor (which was pretty quick) — I started to use the two displays and that’s when the fun stopped. I lined everything up and I played with a few applications.   First let me say that it just didn’t look right.  I disconnected it so quickly that I didn’t even take a picture — which I should have.  And, ok,  so putting aside esthetics (because productivity is really what matters, right?) how did things work?  Well the answer is — not well.  Spaces was fine and it did a nice job of seeing both displays.  But there was something about having the iMac next to the Dell that just didn’t feel right.  I do have DisplayFusion Pro on my PCs, so window management across monitors is easy — but moving things from iMac to u2211h and back just didn’t “get it done”.  It felt forced and awkward, with no flow.

So I rotated the Dell vertically (love that you can do that) and figured that maybe it’d be great to have a vertical “browser-only” monitor to play with.  But once again it just didn’t “fit’.

The Verdict
I really, really wanted to have my 21″ iMac + Dell u2211h dual monitor combination experiment work out well.  I’m so used to dual monitor work on the PC that I’m not sure I could “live” full-time in the world of OS X with a single screen.  And to those of you who would suggest that I try the 27″ iMac, I personally just find it too big.  (My other complaint about super-large monitors is that I love that on my dual I can easily maximize an application to one screen — without having to tinker with settings as I would need to do on a 27″ so that applications share the screen).  So my verdict is no.  Don’t do it.

So that concludes my short-lived iMac-u221h hybrid computer.  I wanted to love it but it just wasn’t meant to be, Maybe someday Apple will come out with a 21″ cinema display that won’t cost more than a car — but until that time — I’m either going to have to stick with my PCs, or get used to being a one-screen guy in OSX.

www.yourdomain.com and yourdomain.com.

When using Google Sites for your website, setting up the “www” version of your domain is easy and is detailed in the Google Apps setup instructions.  However, Google Sites makes it clear that at the current time you cannot — via Google Apps – get the “non-www” version (or naked version) of your domain to link to your Google Sites website.

So here’s how to setup a simple domain forward in GoDaddy for the naked domain:

1. Login to GoDaddy and head to your account management section.

2. Select the domain in question and then next to the “Forwarding: Off” option, select “Manage”.

.

3. A popup window will appear.  In the window, enter the url TO which you wish the naked domain to go to (sorry for the “TO”‘s here):

So you would enter “www.mydomain.com” (without the quotes).  Note you can also click the “Preview” button at the top right to make sure the forward is going where you expect.

Happy forwarding!

1. I Lost My DropBox Public Folder.  How Do I Create a New One?

If you’ve lost your DropBox Public folder (and you are not going to undelete what you’ve lost — e.g. you want to start over with a Public folder or you’ve never had one), then this step is easy.  Simply navigate to your Dropbox folder and create a new folder called “Public”.  Naturally you don’t use the ” ” and you need to make sure that the “P” in Public is capitalized.  That’s it.

2. I have a Public folder on the Dropbox Website, but I Don’t Have it On My Desktop Dropbox Folder.

Yeah — it happened to me, too.  This is a sync issue and I was about to reinstall Dropbox and start over until I found this solution.

A. Go to the Dropbox icon in your system tray (e.g access the Dropbox application), right-click to bring up the menu below, and then left-click on “Preferences…”

B. Once you’ve clicked “Preferences…” you will be in the Preferences dialog box.  Look at the top right and click the “Advanced” button (it looks like a wheel/cog).  Go halfway down and click “Selective Sync”

3.  Once that’s done you will be in the Selective Sync dialog box. Make sure that you check the box next to  “Public”  (and Photos if you want, as well).  Once you’ve checked the boxes, click “Update” at the bottom (not shown) and the Public folder from the Dropbox website will now sync to your desktop.

Happy DropBoxing!

Naturally you need to have a good product that you know that you can sell to people — so I won’t go over this aspect of eCommerce. So let’s talk about the basic options for getting started:

1) Hosted eCommerce.
Hosted eCommerce is the term used to describe a turn-key setup for an online store. You simply signup with a vendor (do a Google search for “hosted eCommerce”) and the vendor takes care of the overwhelming majority of the aspects of running your store. They will let you pick a nice template, handle the payment and payment processing for you, and will make it easy for you to upload your product images. These sites usually charge you based on how many products you have, or based on your sales volume. In addition to the monthly fees, these stores may also charge you a percentage of your sales or some kind of transaction fee. Lastly, when it comes to making a custom or very complex sales website design, hosted eCommerce can be somewhat limiting. Ultimately you need to take a look at hosted eCommerce websites to see what features these sites do and do not have, and then make a judgement for yourself. Also note that with some companies you will need have a web address such as mystore.website.com, as opposed simply to mystore.com. Lastly, hosted eCommerce solutions, in addition to handling the payment options as discussed above, will also usually take care of the security concerns such as encrypted connections with SSL (that’s the padlock icon you see in your browser when you are working over a secured or encrypted connection).

2) eCommerce software.
In the same way that Microsoft Word is software that’s designed to help you write things, eCommerce software such as OSCommerce is online software (you install it on a web server) that’s designed to help you run an online store. If you wanted to type a letter on your computer, you could call a programmer to write you a program that will allow you to complete this task — but it would be a heck of a lot easier and less expensive to simply go out and buy Word (or at least to use Notepad that comes with Windows [or Pages for the Mac crowd]). So while you could hire someone to write you a program that could help you run an eCommerce website, these eCommerce programs (such as ZenCart) are setup so that you install the software on your web host (or someone does that for you) and then you configure the software. You still will need to enter products, manage SKU’s and inventory (if you need to do so), and you will need to setup a payment solution (such as PayPal), but using software like OSCommerce or ZenCart can often times give you a little more flexibility than you have with a Hosted eCommerce solution. But when you are using eCommerce software, there are more things you need to keep track of — such as the web hosting itself and website security. Because of the complexity of setting up one of these programs, I’d recommend this solution for someone who has already proven success with Hosted eCommerce (or in the brick-and-mortar world — though success in phyiscal retail does not always translate to success in online retail) because if you are going to invest the time and money to get it right — you should already have an established base of sales to help you recover some of the costs.

3) WordPress as an eCommerce Platform, and “Add to Cart” Buttons to Sell a Limited Number of Items
For some people who are selling one or two products, and don’t need a full blown eCommerce infrastructure, WordPress can be a tempting solution. While WordPress is a blogging platform at its heart (like Word is a document writing program), it’s not designed to really do eCommerce. (If you’ve ever tried to layout a page in Word and position graphics you know what I mean. If you are going to layout a single page then you can get by with Word, but if you are going to layout a 100 page book with tons of images, you really need a dedicated desktop publishing program like InDesign). There are a few plugins (software additions) for WordPress that will help you sell products, but ultimately if you have one or two products that you want to sell, and don’t need a management tracking system (e.g. how hard it it to keep track of 10 sales per month by hand?) — then using PayPal with “Add to Cart” buttons is a great place to start. Without getting too techincall, the concept is easy. You go to PayPal and setup and account and then setup a product or two or three. For each product you setup, PayPal will give you HTML code for a button. You simply paste this code into your website and a button will appear to the user. The user sees your page, sees your item and your “Add to Cart” button, and then can press the button to begin to purchase your item. The cart is hosted at PayPal and the processing is done by PayPal. So you simply stand back and set it up so that when someone buys your product, you get an email from PayPal that a purchase has been made (and that you’ve been paid) and then you can go ahead and send out the item. It’s a little more complex than I describe above, but the above method is the simplest way to get your foot in the eCommerce door.

This article covered three ways to start selling your product online. There’s a lot of material out there to cover and I encourage you to do a lot of reading before you take any action. I hope this article provides you with some direction and as always, please feel free to ask questions is you have them. Happy Selling!

Once you install one of these programs (do a Google Search for “eCommerce sofware”)

eBook theft and intellectual property piracy is on the rise. It’s a lucrative activity that is nearly impossible to prosecute and thus provides ample motivation for an eBook thief. If you’re selling an eBook online, you need to be aware of how you can be ripped off — but also how you can protect yourself and your business.

Lets define an E-book thief as:
1) Someone who plagiarizes your work and/or resells your product to collect money from customers who believe they are buying from you.
2) A competitor who wishes to undermine your business and anonymously posts your product on a file sharing site where it can be downloaded freely.
3) A customer who buys your ebook with a stolen credit card resulting in a credit card charge back.
4) A customer who buys your ebook with the intention to ‘return’ it after making a copy.

If you are considering a protection solution for your eBook or sensitive documents, make sure it meets the following 5 requirements.  And if not, KEEP LOOKING.  A comprehensive ebook protection solution…
1.MUST prevent file access for unauthorized individuals, password sharing and illegal file distribution.
2.MUST prevent unauthorized copying reproduction of your PDF documents.
3.MUST prevent uncontrolled printing and redistilling of PDF documents.
4.MUST prevent access from refunded or fraudulent users.
5.MUST allow easy set-up and use, so as not be a hassle for your customers.

(For more details on these 5 requirements, see http://file-secure.com/real_protection.php)

Putting a watermark on a document is a great idea. BUT unfortunately on its own, this provides virtually no protection. Here’s why. Do you have the time to monitor the hundreds of file sharing sites like Pirate Bay to find your ebook ‘in the wild’? And once you find it, what do you do next? It’s nearly impossible to get a file sharing site to remove copyrighted material. And it’s probably a moot point anyway. Your intellectual property may have already been downloaded thousands of times and in the hands of your competitors or other thieves. You can’t un-ring that bell. And in the unlikely scenario that you can actually discover who the thief is, how do you go after them? What if they live in another country? You will need to hire a lawyer in that country to pursue it further. This adds up to a major waste of time, energy and money.

The takeaway is this: PREVENTION is the only real solution.

File Secure Pro (www.protectyourfile.com) was created to prevent this scenario from happening. Our customers are commercial ebook sellers, corporations, Internet marketers, private newsletter publishers, writers, lawyers, accountants, and health care providers who are required to be HIPAA compliant.\

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Abadi has over over 20 years in the software development industry and since 2001 has been active in the development and management of web based businesses. File Secure Pro which was founded in 2001 by Anthony Ellis after he suffered years of document theft and copyright infringement. To combat this, the File Secure Pro system was developed, allowing authors to securely distribute, monitor and control usage of their intellectual property. In 2005 File Secure Pro was made available as a commercial service and has been serving customers in the corporate, legal, distance learning and other industries needing intellectual property theft protection.
Please visit http://www.protectyourfile.com to learn how you can start protecting your information today.

Once you have quoted text, however, the next question is where are you going to reply — are you going to reply BEFORE (or on top of the quoted text) or are you going to reply AFTER (or below) the quoted text.  I’ve always set my clients to reply to email BEFORE the quoted text, as I find it easier for people to see.  Further, when people reply AFTER the quoted text — especially in an email where you’ve had multiple replies in a single email and thus a long trail of text — it’s often hard to find the newest reply, and some people don’t think to look below all of the quoted text to find your reply.

When I installed the new Thunderbird (that is, Thunderbird 5.0), I found that the program defaulted to having my replies come AFTER the quoted text.  As this is not my preferred way to handle replies, I needed to reset the feature so my replies cam BEFORE the quoted text.  Here’s how to do that:

1. Go to Tools -> Account Settings (not “options” where you think the switch might be located):

Thunderbird 5.0 Account Settings in Tools Menu

2. Now in the Account Settings panel, click the “Composition & Addressing” option under the account you want to modify (note in my example I have two email accounts and I’ve clearly changed the names for the screenshot):

Thunderbird Account Settings Options

Under the “Automatically quote the original message when replying” item (of course, make sure it’s checked so you include quotes in your reply) you can use the “Then,” drop-down box to decide if you want your reply to start after or above the quote (as shown here). or after the quote (not shown).

Once you’ve made your selection, click “Ok” at the bottom to save your modifications.  You may have to restart Thunderbird to see the changes in effect.

you can then decide where you want the quote to be and where you want your signature to be, as well.

Step-By-Step: Force Quit a Frozen iPhone Application

1. With the frozen app on the screen, press and hold the off button on the top of the iPhone as if you were going to shut off the iPhone.  The “slide to turn off” slider should appear.

2. Once you see the slider, then press and hold down the home button on the phone until the main home screen reappears.

That’s it!

The Invisible Shield screen protector was $24.95  and contained multiple parts.  It had a screen cleaner, adhesive liquid, and a very nice rubber flattening-device which I really like.  The box comes with two screen protectors — one for the front of the phone and one for the back.  It’s an iPhone 4 so I guess they want the back to be covered, too.  Personally I would have preferred that they had included two FRONT protectors, as I (and most people I know) have a case that does a good job protecting the bottom or rear-facing side of the iPhone 4.    In fairness to Zagg, however, I didn’t look carefully enough at the packaging to see that there was only one of each front/back protector included.

Moving along, the instructions have you putting the liquid adhesive on your fingers and then on the screen protector, and then putting the protector on the iPhone.  I skipped this step — even though it was in the instructions — because I’m not comfortable putting ANY kind of liquid near my iPhone. So after skipping the adhesive, I used the rubber-flattening device to smooth out the screen protector.  The device works well and makes putting on the protector fun.  I did have a hard time lining it up initially — but in fairness that was the case with my initial screen protector, as well.  So after applying the screen protector I did have some small air bubbles and tiny voids — but for my purposes I really don’t mind.  And considering that I didn’t follow the instructions and use the adhesive, I think the result is pretty good (maybe the adhesive liquid would have eliminated some of my tiny voids).

Further, the screen protector is thick, and while I feel as though it does slow me down slightly in terms of the iPhone 4 touch interface, I do feel that my iPhone is very well protected. So at this point I would be inclined to give the product an excellent rating — but that was until the edges on the protector started to buckle slightly around the curved ends of the front of the phone.  Granted I didn’t use the liquid adhesive, and I am using a case.  But the previous screen protector I had (of which I can’t recall the brand name) did not have the same problems.   After checking both ends (top and bottom) of the protector, it seems to me that the protector is cut slightly long in the top-to-bottom direction.  I reapplied the protector a few times — which I know is sure to introduce dust — but I’d rather have the protector lined up properly vs having a few dust specks.  Unfortunately at this point, however, I’m still getting bunching at the edges.

So overall I give the Zagg Invisible Shield iPhone 4 Screen Protector a rating of Good. I like the thickness of the protector and my iPhone feels safe, and I like the included flattening device for applying the product.  I do not like the fact that the screen protector seems too long (this is the real problem), or that the application of a liquid adhesive is required.  In fairness to Zagg I did not spend a lot of time examining the box (so I’m not going to complain about the lack of more than one protector per iPhone side), but I do expect a screen protector that’ s supposed to be “precision cut for the Apple iPhone 4″ — especially at $24.95 — to fit like a glove.