Steve Jobs 1995-2011

You are going to be so missed by not only super geeks all over the globe! God Speed Steve and thank you SO VERY MUCH for everything you have given to this world!

This wasn’t a problem I’d ever had when I was still with AT&T, and so I suspected it had to do withVerizon’s supposed 160 character text limit, which I had read about online. After a quick look through what I’d sent, though, I realized my texts weren’t anywhere near that long, and that the restriction didn’t even exist. So back to the drawing board I went.

Putting on my best engineering hat, I decided to run a little test. I started texting friends with iPhones and those without; people who had AT&T service, as well as those with Verizon and others. What I found was that texts going between Verizon and AT&T were the ones having issues.

I couldn’t find anyone who had shared a similar experience online, and a sinking feeling started to comeover me: maybe I should have waited until Verizon had more experience with iPhones?

And then, in a flash of inspiration, it came to me – my friend and I (the one with the AT&T iPhone) had been texting together with no problems the day before. I had already been using Verizon without any problems. So what could have changed in a single day?

It all came down to one word… Emoji!

Those cute little Emoji icons I had bought in the app store weren’t just great fun; they were now the source of my technical issues. They only worked with AT&T iPhoners before, a fact I had forgotten. I hadn’t installed them right away with my new Verizon service, and so they hadn’t had a chance to sabotage my texts before.

To verify that the Emoji icons were indeed the problem, I uninstalled the app and sent various long and short texts to friends again. Sure enough, there were no problems or issues at all. So if you’re having a similar problem, where you’ve recently moved your iPhone service from AT&T to Verizon and people are telling you that your texts are out of order and broken, try uninstalling Emoji… it fixed my problem.

And also, don’t overlook the little lesson to be found here: recognize that not every online problem has a complicated solution. I’ve met with countless business owners and web design clients who think their world is coming apart, only to find that their problem can be fixed by making an update or adjusting some setting. Sometimes, the answers we need are hiding right there in plain sight… or in this case…the “cute” print.

It’s my iPad.

Why take the time to write about something that’s already getting so much attention, not to mention marketing hype? Because I felt the same way that I imagine a lot of you did when I first heard about it: that it was just another gadget that the world really didn’t need. Sure, it can connect to the web, play a few videos, and do some other nice things, but wasn’t that just an iPhone with a bigger screen?

But, with mobile websites becoming a bigger part of the Internet landscape, I bit the bullet recently and bought an iPad for my business. After all, if my clients and their customers are going to be seeing websites on iPads, I needed to know how things would look when they did.

It would be hard to explain just how pleasantly surprised I’ve been. Not only is the bigger screen easier on the eyes, but one of the features I hadn’t expected to use at all – reading books on the iPad – has quickly become the one I use the most. I had assumed that reading on an iPad wouldn’t come even close to the “real” thing with a spine and pages, but consider these advantages:

• The iPad is a nicer size than most books, without the bulk
• Searching a book for a chapter or idea is a snap
• I can increase or decrease the font size instantly
• Reading in the dark is no longer a problem
• Pages can be turned easily with my thumb
• The built-in dictionary is only a click away
• I can download new titles from iBooks or Amazon’s Kindle program in seconds
• All my books stay backed up in case something happens to the iPad
• I can “move” books back and forth to my iPhone
• And my favorite… I can carry an entire library with me anywhere

There are a lot more reasons I love my iPad, too, but hopefully you get the idea. By making reading easier and more convenient, it’s allowed me to catch up on things I’ve put off for too long. Just last week, I found myself delving into four different titles on web design – something that would have been nearly impossible without my iPad.

If you are like I was, and might be thinking that this is just another gadget you don’t need, I encourage you to take another look. As I found out, the iPad isn’t just an iPhone with a bigger screen… it’s a tool that can help you stay in touch, and on top, of a lot of different parts of your life.

STUPENDOUS! I hear a lot more details in my music than I ever did before! Yes my friend, that extra $70 really is worth it! Now normally I have my volume all the way up and I SWEAR that the people in the room with me can hear the music better than me LOL. I’m serious my family always knew what I was listening to and would get annoyed that they had to also hear my music while I thought it was just “OK”. I get these baby’s and stick them on and of course my volume was all the way up so that I could hear and this about blew my head off! I very quickly took the volume down…way down. See this picture? If your volume is louder than this then you have a serious hearing problem because this is plenty loud. Another thing I noticed is that I can no longer hear ANYTHING except the music which is great but also not so great because I think you could get hit by a bus or something if you aren’t careful! Seriously, I think it’s a great value though. The sound when talking on the phone is much much better too. I’ll tell you this though…if you actually WANT to hear the words coming out of the mouths of the people around you when you are listening to your music or talking on the phone…you won’t enjoy this headset. For those interested I also did a “sound check” with my family and went into where they were with the volume up to about mid way which is really loud and asked them what I was listening to. My hubby said … I can’t make it out…I know your listening to something though! Fantastic…much much better!