Archive for April 22, 2014

ProntoForms for BlackBerry 10 Smartphones Launches

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 22, 2014 by itnerd

Ottawa based BlackBerry partner ProntoForms announced today that its mobile form application is now available for BlackBerry 10 smartphones. This app enables users to collect and record information such as signatures, images and barcode scanning in real-time from any location. ProntoForms and BlackBerry are giving customers an exclusive offer through AT&T. When a customer buys five BlackBerry 10 smartphones along with annual ProntoForms from AT&T subscriptions, they get two additional BlackBerry 10 smartphones and two annual ProntoForms from AT&T subscriptions free of charge. The offer will be available until the end of June 2014.

For full details on the ProntoForms BlackBerry offer, visit www.prontoforms.com/blackberry.

 

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Telus To Provide Mobile Device Chargers In Cabs For FREE

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 22, 2014 by itnerd

If you sometimes need to travel by cab and you often have a smartphone that needs a boost, Telus can now help you with that. In a partnership with Play Taxi Media, Telus is introducing smartphone and tablet chargers in taxis.  Taxi-goers in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver will now be able to charge their devices while on-the-go, free of charge. You’ll find the chargers in 1,000 active cabs in those cities over the coming months. Taxis will be equipped with a power docking station located on the backside of the passenger seat headrest that will work with any smartphone or tablet. It’s as simple as docking your device, sitting back and enjoying the ride.

The in-taxi device chargers will be available through 2015 with Blacktop & Checker Cabs in Vancouver, Mayfair Taxi in Calgary, Ambassador Taxis in Toronto and Taxi Union in Montreal. The program will grow to include additional taxi companies over the coming months. That will make life easier for many who rely on both cabs and their mobile devices.

 

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Getting iCloud To Work On An Android Device

Posted in Tips with tags , on April 22, 2014 by itnerd

I got an interesting call from a new customer recently. She got a new Windows 8 PC running Microsoft Office 2013, an iPad Mini, and a Samsung Galaxy S4. She was already using the Windows 8 PC with Outlook 2013 and she wanted the contacts and calendar entries from that to replicate to the other devices. This on the surface wasn’t easy as we’re talking about three different ecosystems here. Windows, iOS, and Android. Now getting the Windows PC and iPad Mini to speak to each other was easy. I could simply install the iCloud Control Panel For Windows and have it replicate the calendar and contacts from the Windows 8 PC to the iPad Mini. The question was, how do I do the same thing with the Galaxy S4?

I did some research and came across some apps made by Marten Gajda on Google Play that would do what I wanted. Specifically these:

Because She was running a Galaxy S4, she also needed two additional pieces of software. That’s because of this bug:

“The bug causes accounts of paid apps to be removed when Android boots up. To work around this issue this app pretends to provide the same account type that SmoothSync for Cloud Calendar provides. That’s enough to convince Jelly Bean to keep the account.”

So after installing everything and setting up her iCloud accounts, everything worked as expected. All the devices were able to data and update data to and from iCloud. Thus proving that it is possible for an Android device to sync to iCloud, strange as that may seem. If you have the need to sync an Android device to iCloud, feel free to try this method and let us know what happens. The apps are ones you have to pay for, but the total price is under $10 for all of them and the results indicate that it’s well worth it.

 

 

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