How to Have Multiple Profile Photos on Google+

This took me a while to figure out, but I finally did it! So I thought I’d share the tip!

First of all, you do need a Google+ account.

1) Go go to your Profile page on Google+ and click on Edit Profile (right side)
2) Under your Profile Photo is a link that says Change Photo, click on it.
3) Then upload, or find the photo of your choice in your albums, then add.
4) Repeat Step 4 and add a different photo.
5) When you’re happy with the various Profile Photos, click on the Done Editing button on top.
6) You should be back on your profile page. Now click on the Profile Photo and watch it switch to your other photos!

Pretty cool huh? :) You can test it out on my profile photo.

Join in on the conversation on the Original Google+ thread.

How To Add QR Codes To III Library Catalogs

Adding QR Codes to your Innovative Interfaces Library Catalog is pretty easy! Just follow the steps below. Note, you should be familiar with your III HTML files before attempting to make these changes. If not, contact your Systems Admin. I also recommend testing on your test-webport first.

1. Backup two files in your /screens directory — wwwoptions and bib_display.html, then download to your computer (via FTP)
2. In wwwoptions, look for ICON_RECORDLINK and change it to:

   ICON_RECORDLINK=http://YOUR_LIBRARY_WEBSITE/%s

   where YOUR_LIBRARY_WEBSITE is the URL of your Library Catalog. %s will dynamically display the unique record id.

3. In bib_display.html, add in:

   
<img src="http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=qr&chs=120x120&chl=
<!--{recordlink}-->
" />


   to where you want the QR code displayed. Be sure to put the recordlink token on it’s own separate line and aligned to the left.

4. Upload both files back into your /screens folder and reboot the webports.
5. Do a keyword search in your Library Catalog and find a record. You should see your QR code somewhere on the record display. (See image below)
6. Take your mobile device and scan the QR code (using a barcode app). It should take you directly to the page with the catalog. This makes it easier for patrons to search for something on a desktop computer, scan it, and capture that data on their mobile devices to take to a librarian.

Recommended QR Scanner Apps

If you need a QR scanner for your mobile device, here are some I recommend. Download the appropriate one.

• iOS: QR Code Reader and Scanner
• Android OS: Mobiletag Barcodes Reader
• Palm WebOS: QR deCODEr
• Blackberry, Nokia, and more: UpCode

Further Reading

For further reading and more advanced QR techniques, read about it on Google Code.

Tip: How to Create Gmail Filters

With the introduction of Google Buzz last week and the many emails it introduced, I’ve been actively creating more and more filters to keep my inbox clean. I thought it’d make a nice tip in case your inbox is flooded as well.

If you’re like me and signed up for newsletters, store ads, or other mailing lists, you may want to separate these emails from your more important ones. I personally think important emails should be sent to the inbox and maybe added to an additional label.

Other things from mailing lists can skip the inbox and be added under their own folder, or “label” as Google calls it.
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Social Networks: How to Integrate Them

This blog post is in response to a question someone at a University asked me:

Question: I have set-up/configured our Facebook, Twitter, and Blog this week. We are in the process of posting content to each, but I was hoping you could go over a few things with me. Mainly, how to integrate the 3 so that we don’t have to constantly update all 3 sites? And also, based on your experience, are there any general settings in each dealing with user interactivity that we should enable/disable?

Answer: I would first start with integrating Twitter into Facebook, instead of the other way around. The reason is because I think students are more familiar with the Facebook interface than Twitter.

How to make your Facebook posts go to Twitter

1. In a browser, log into Twitter.
2. In another tab in the browser, go to Facebook.com/Twitter. You will see your Facebook page and a button that says “Link to Twitter.”
3. Click on the “Link to Twitter” button
4. It’ll take you back to Twitter, prompting “An application would like to connect to your account.”
5. Click on “Allow.”

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Twitter Lists

I’m really enjoying Twitter Lists. I know there are a few services out there that do this already, but I like to keep my lists in one place on Twitter.

Twitter Lists are currently in beta, and have been released to a few testers. Note: Some links in this post may only work if you have lists added to your account.

Twitter Lists help you organize and discover new people with similar interests. And since list are created by real users, I’m sure you will find quality twitter accounts to follow.

Some Twitter Lists features include:

1. Ability to create up to 20 different lists of Twitter people
2. Ability to add people to lists, but not necessary follow them
3. Ability to follow other people’s lists

Useful Links:

1. Lists that I created and follow
2. lists that I’m a member of

Note: These links only work if you have Lists enabled in your Twitter account.
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Flickr: People in Photos

Flickr, a popular photography website, just launched their “People in Photos” feature today. And I love how it works. You simply type in a person’s name and it’ll add them into the photo. If you click on the little icon next to their name, you can create a square around their faces to identify them.

Here is a sample where I used the “People in Photos” feature. In the photo below, you can see Louis Gray, me, and Jesse Stay.

To start tagging people, type in their screen name, real name, or email address into the input box. A list of users will appear. If they are a Flickr contact, select the appropriate one. Else, finish typing and select either “Search this email address” or “send an email to this address.”

To add a square around people’s face, click on the icon shown in the image below:

Once the square is created, drag the square over the person’s face. Continue doing this for the next person, and the next.

You can read more about Flickr’s “People in Photos” here.

Google Wave Demo on TWIT.tv

Yesterday, Leo Laporte mentioned that fan video archives were on Odtv.me, so I searched and found my clip!

Here is a short clip of the Google Wave demo that I did with Leo Laporte on Twit.TV on June 3rd, 2009. Thanks for archiving this ODTV!

In the demo, I showed Leo how to navigate around in Google Wave. Note, I only had the account for about two hours before giving the demo, and only tested it for about 30 minutes. :)

MMS on the iPhone!

AT&T in the US finally made MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) on the iPhone today. Yes, finally. Now you don’t have to use my MMS on iPhone workaround anymore. However, if you don’t have an unlimited sms and mms data plan, you may still want to use the workaround to save you money. Otherwise, just use the more simpler way.

So how do you get it on your phone? Here are the steps:

1. Plug you iPhone 3G/3GS into iTunes
2. Select you iPhone and click on “Check for Update”
3. It will ask you to download a new carrier file. Select Download and install.
4. Now restart your phone.

To test it out..

1. Click on the “Photos” app.
2. Select a photo
3. In the lower left corner, click on the arrow
4. You should now have a new choice — MMS
5. Click on MMS and the photo will be inserted into a new MMS
6. Click on the + button and select a contact to send it to.
7. Click on “Send”

And that’s it! Congrats, you just sent your first MMS on your iPhone. Welcome to 2002. :)

How to send MMS on an iPhone

My friend recently upgraded to an iPhone and asked how she could send photos to her friends. Inspired by my friend, I wrote a tutorial on how to send MMS on an iPhone.

If you are accustomed to taking camera photos and then sending them via multimedia message (mms) to people, you’ll be sad to know that the iPhone lacks this mms feature. Luckily, there’s a workaround for this. What you want to do is email the photo to your friend’s phone. This would require you to know who their carrier is though. Here is a list of some popular US cellphone carriers and their mms email:

US Carrier	MMS Email
AT&T	mms.att.com
Sprint / Nextel	messaging.sprintpcs.com
T-Mobile	tmomail.net
Verizon	vzwpix.com
Virgin	vmobl.net

So in this example, let’s pretend our friend John Smith lives in the US, his cellphone number is 1 (234) 567-8910, and his cellphone carrier is T-Mobile. To get his phone’s email address, we would need to append his 10-digit phone number to carrier’s email address format. So John’s mms email would be 2345678910@tmomail.net.

Here are the steps on how to send John Smith a picture message:

1. Edit one of your contacts. (Pictured above)
2. Copy and paste their number into the email field. Remove any special characters.
   1. Click on the phone number.
   2. If you have the iPhone 3.0 OS, press down on the number, and menu will pop up. Select “Select All” and then “Copy,” then “Cancel” on the top left.
   3. Click on “Add New Email”
   4. Press in the email field until a bubble appears, let go, and click on “Paste.”
   5. Now edit the number and remove all special characters, and append the correct carrier email.
   6. If you are running iPhone 2.2.1 or lower, skip the copy/paste steps and add in the number manually, appending the carrier email.
3. Save the contact by clicking on “Done”
4. Now go to the Photo app and find the photo you want to send.
5. At the bottom, click on the leftmost button and select “Email Photo.”
6. This will add your photo into the Mail app to send.
7. Tap on the “To” field and a plus will show up.
8. Click on the +
9. Find your contact.
   1. If the user only has the one email account, it’ll select it by default.
   2. If the user more than one email account, select one by tapping on it.
10. Once you’re back in your mail app, hit “Send.”

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Facebook Privacy Settings

Before you start adding too much data into your Facebook profile, you may want to change your privacy settings to allow only certain groups of people to view your content. This is a good idea if you have friends, family, and business contacts in your Facebook account.

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How To Display 11+ Pages of iPhone Apps

In the latest iPhone OS upgrade, we were allowed to have up to 11 viewable pages of apps. But if you look in the image to the right, you will see that there are 12 pages!

So how did I do that? This was a trick I discovered while moving around my icons. First, you have to be an app-aholic and have 11 pages of iPhone apps (and more hidden ones since they can’t be displayed). Then move some of the default apps you do not use like “Weather,” “Stocks,” “YouTube,” “Audio Memo,” etc. to the last page.

Now take one icon from the 10th page and drag it over to the 11th page. This will force the last icon to be booted off the page and into the iPhone abyss!

Now download another app to replace that empty space. And magically, a 12th page will be created with all the apps you weren’t able to view on it. I repeated the same steps and was able to make a 13th page.

It’s a nice trick, especially if you’re an iPhone app addict like me. There never seems to be enough pages! I think forcing a default icon off the pages will bring it back on an extra page, but I’m not quite sure. I was able to create the extra pages a few times, and after much testing, I was unable to duplicate it the 5th time. If you see a logical pattern or explanation on how to do this, please let me know. I can’t seem to bring back the 13th page, and would like to. ;) Also note, this is not a jailbroken iPhone.

UPDATE 11/22/2009: Additional note, this was tested on iPhone OS 3.0. However, it has been working in the updated versions of iPhone OS as well. I’ve stopped creating extra pages because the moment I sync with iTunes, only 11 pages will be displayed.

As mentioned by Jeff K. below in the comments, moving the “Voice Memo” icon seems to be the trick to creating an extra page.

PHP: mysql_insert_id()

Sometimes it is necessary to get the ID value of the last record you inserted into a MySQL database.

For example, let’s say you have a shopping cart function that added records into the database. But you need to print out a receipt that includes the item tracking number. And this tracking number would be the record’s ID value, which is also the PRIMARY KEY of the table.

An easy way to do this in PHP is by using the function mysql_insert_id().
NOTE: This will only work for AUTO_INCREMENT fields.

Pretend STEP 1 is a form with a list of items. If you change the QUANTITY of the item, and submit, you will be at STEP 2, which is the sample code below.
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Quick Tip: View Source in Firefox 3.5

I recently updated my browser to FireFox 3.5 and discovered a very useful feature. While looking at the source code of my webpage, I noticed that all anchor links were clickable. Clicking on them will let you view the source code of that link. Clicking on image links will display the image. This comes in very handy since I look at the source code of my projects often to make sure scripts are outputting the correct HTML codes.

To view the source code of a page, go to “View -> Page Source.”

Hope you enjoyed this tip of the day. :)

iPhone App Review: Kindle for iPhone

Name: Kindle for iPhone (iTunes Link)
Written By: Amazon.com
Category: Books
Price: Free
Size: 3.9 MB
Requirements: iPhone / iPod Touch
Version: 1.1
Rate: 4.5 Stars

Do you enjoy reading books? Well now you can on your iPhone! If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, download and install the Kindle iPhone app. Once it’s installed, click on the little (i) on the lower right, then click on “Register this device.” Log in with your Amazon account, then click “Register.”

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Tip: iPhone/iTouch Screen Capture

I just learned this new feature for the iPhone/iTouch from Cali.

There’s a way for your to screen capture in your iPhone/iTouch.

Step 1: Hold down the Home button.
Step 2: Tap the Power button.

You’ll see the screen flash, and your screen shot was taken. So easy!

To access your new image, click on the Photos button and all your photo albums will show up. Your image should be in the Saved Photos album.

Then you can easily add these new images online through your Facebook, Myspace, or other apps.

Unfortunately, the iPod Touch doesn’t have a built-in camera, which would be something I would love. So all my mobile uploads to Facebook will screen captures for now. lol

Linking on Plurk

A lot of people have asked me how to link text on Plurk.  It’s kind of hard to show you how to on Plurk itself, so I thought writing a post about it would be more helpful. ;)

In the above image, you can see that all you have to do is type your link first, and then put the words you want it to link to in parentheses.

I found this out by accident while typing something.. and have been using this trick ever since.  Now you can too. ;)  Enjoy your Plurk Tip of the day!

Create Surveys using Google Docs

I just learned how to create simple forms in Google Docs & Spreadsheets today.

First, go here to create you own Survey form. Start typing in the title, description, and adding your questions. This step is very intuitive and easy to use. Creating forms have never been this fun!

Next, click on “Next, choose recipients.” You can send the survey to specific people using the “Invite People” box. Or you can put the “Go to live form” link on your website.

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WordPress Visual Editor

Wow, my name was mentioned on The Neal Show! Thanks Jeff! Thanks Neal!

As for the media upload problem, it may be the Visual Editor breaking the code. I remember embedding a flash video once and my post just kept breaking every time I edited it. I ended up turning the Visual Editor off so I can paste HTML code without the editor changing it.

If you’re still running a WordPress version older than 2.5, you can turn off the visual editor by doing this:

• Go to the “Users” tab, and find your author (usually ‘admin’).
• Click on “Edit.”
• Uncheck “Use the visual editor when writing. (See image above.)
• Click on “Update User”

This will then give you only the basic buttons when editing.

Adobe TV

I’m currently watching Dr. Brown’s Photoshop Training videos. He’s so funny, and makes learning fun. :)

Here’s a sample of his class:

See the full video here.

For more great Adobe Photoshop Videos, check out Adobe TV and xTrain Training.

What is RSS?

I have a colleague who’s trying to understand the concept of RSS. I helped him set up a blog for his newsletter a while ago, and his supervisor wanted him to add RSS to it.

I explained RSS to him a few times, and I think he got it. But a visual explanation never hurts! This is a lovely video from Common Craft does very well in explaining RSS in simple English.

Thank you Geek Brief TV for the resource!

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