I want a calendar that I can edit on my iphone AND on my home computer AND have one of my co-workers edit on their computer, and they all sync up automatically without me having to remember to plug my iphone in. This post explains how to set it up so that your iPhone calendar and iPhone are automatically synced up all the time via Google calendar.

MobileMe doesn’t achieve this. iCal shared calendars via itunes doesn’t achieve this. After much experimenting I found the best way is through Google calendar.

Google calendar allows editing and viewing from iCal on your mac and from your iPhone, plus you can let anyone else edit your calendar if you want them to. So Google calendar becomes the hub. Here’s how it all works:

STEP 1. GET A GOOGLE CALENDAR ACCOUNT.
You can set up a new calendar in Google at http://google.com/calendar

STEP 2. SYNC ICAL WITH GOOGLE.
Google has released a program called calaboration that will automatically put all the settings for your Google calendar into iCal. Download and run calaboration. It looks like this, you just select the calendars you want to add into your iCal account.

STEP 3. SYNC IPHONE WITH GOOGLE

If you have iphone version 3 you can just use the built in CalDAV to access your Google Calendar. Go to Settings then Mail, Contacts, Calendars then Add Account then Other then Add CalDAV Account.
You’ll see a page like this:

Enter the settings for your google account here and that’s it!

NOTE – More than 1 Calendar.
If you have more than one Google Calendar you’d like to sync, you need to copy the URL of the calendar from ical across to your iphone. To do this, AFTER you have used callaboration to put the google settings into ical, go into ical, preferences, Accounts, Server Settings – it looks like this.

You need to type that URL into the ‘Advanced Settings’ – ‘Account URL’ of the Calendar on your iphone. It’s quite a long text so the easiest way is to copy it from ical into mail, mail it to your iphone, copy it out of mail and paste it in.

NOTE 2: Old iphone software.
If you have iphone software version 2 you’ll need to use Nuevasync. You set it up in your iPhone as a Microsoft Exchange server that points to Nuevasync. You can sync directly from google to iphone but all the calendars come across as one calendar. To choose which colors the calendars are on the iphone, you need to enable them one at a time from neuvasync, checking the iphone calendar each time, and they will import into the iphone in order of the following colors: red (first calendar) , orange (2nd) , blue, green then purple. eg the first calendar you enable will be red, and so on.

Here’s the cheapest way I could find to make a conference call that uses your computer to set up a conference call between any normal landline phones.

1. Set up a free account at http://www.freeconferencecall.com

They will give you some details like:

Free Conference Call
Conference Dial-in Number: (616) 597-8000
Host Access Code: 123456*
Participant Access Code: 123456#

To make the conference call, all you need to do is ring the number 1 616 597 8000 from a normal phone and when it asks you, enter the Access Code on the phone keypad. (eg 123456*)
Then every other person who want’s to be on the conference needs to ring the same number and enter the same Code (123456*)

The problem is the number us a USA number, so it’s going to cost a lot.

To get the call to the USA cheap, I signed up with pennytell, then go to their Web Callback page.
Enter in your phone number, then the conference call number, like this:

This will connect your number to the conference call number.

You can repeat this for every person you want to connect – replace your number with their number – and it will ring them and connect them into to the conference call. (Make sure you give them the access code (eg 123456*) and warn them what’s happening!

The people you call into the conference will not have to pay, your pennytel account will be charged at 3.2 cents per minute per caller.

1. Download and run this driver from here.
2. Put a memory card in the phone.
3. Plug in the phone and post a comment here if it works, or if you have to change some settings on the phone. (I have not tested on the bird phone).

Well, I’m on a bit of a run here with my new samsung D900 mobile phone, the latest being what are the best settings to compress a movie to watch on my phone. The phones resolution is 320×240, which I think is similar to an ipod. I use Handbrake to encode DVD’s, you can also use these settings to export from Quicktime pro, but Handbrake is free.

FILE FORMAT: MP4
CODECS: MPEG-4/AAC Audio

VIDEO:
OUTPUT: 320×240 You may need to CROP to get the aspect ratio right, for example, 150 or so pixels off each side, depending on the original. Just play with the crop settings till the picture looks OK and not stretched.
FRAMERATE: 15 frames per seconds (fps) (Normal framerate is 25fps, but it’s hard to notice this slower framerate except for panning which is a bit staggered.)
AVERAGE VIDEO BITRATE: 200kbps (Any lower and you start to notice a decrease in quality. I tested 850, 500, 300, 250, 150 and 100kbps.)
2-pass encoding
AUDIO:
FORMAT: AAC
BITRATE: 128kbps.  (At 96 I could notice a discernable decrease in audio quality.)

I saved this under a profile called ‘phone’ and it works well. A 2 hour movie takes about 12 hours to encode, but comes out at about 500MB and is almost perfect quality on the small screen.

I know this is a little of the ‘Macintosh’ topic but I thought I’d post it anyway.

Enter the number: *#8999*8378#

This will put your Samsung D900i into test mode and give you a new menu where you can change all the audio settings for the phone, all the gains (eg microphone, speaker) in various modes (eg handsfree, carkit etc). Make sure you take a note of the settings before you change anything so you can change it back.

The following abbreviations mean:

- Loud Speaker SUP : slide up
- Loud Speaker SDN : slide down

And the others are various versions of handsfree etc. post a note if you work them out.

I just got a Samsung D900i but it doesn’t sync with isync as isync only syncs with the D900.

I modified the isync plugin so here’s how to get it going…

1. Download this file and unzip it, you should end up with a folder called Samsung-D900.phoneplugin.
2. Go to applications, isync and right click or control click and go to ‘show package contents’
3. Open the isync Contents folder, then Plugins, then ApplePhoneConduit.syncdevice, then Contents, then Plugins.
4. Drag my Samsung-D900.phoneplugin file into that folder, next to all the other phone plugin files. it will ask if you want to overwrite the existing folder, say Overwrite.
5. Make sure bluetooth is turned on on your phone (applications bluetooth) , and on your computer (preferences/bluetooth). Choose add new bluetooth device under the bluetooth preference pane on your macintosh and add your phone. Open isync and it should now sync with your new D900i.

6. Note: if you want to mount your  D900i as a USB drive that is a separate issue, look here.

If you find this helpful please consider a link to this site! Thanks.

Some people have asked for a G600 version. No idea if this will work but you could try this one. It’s just the D900 with the name changed. Same instructions as above but I’d delete the D900 plugin as it may clash with his one. Let me know if it works!

Well it seems that OSX won’t recognise any Samsung phones. A bit disappointing given their TV adds on how Macintosh is friendly with everything! I rang Samsung and they said ‘we don’t support macintosh’

So to get my samsung D900i working on OSX I had to do this: (I’m not suggesting you do it for whatever reasons like you might sue me if it doesn’t work, but it worked for me).

1. Download this file: D900iUSB.pkg.zip

2. Run it

3. Put some memory in the mobile phone miniSD slot because it is only the external memory that the phone uses as a USB drive. (I got 2G for $25 so it’s pretty cheap)

4. Go into the USB settings on the phone and set it to USB mass media, not USB modem.

3. Plug in your Samsung D900i and wow, it mounts AND itunes now recognises it and imports the photos automatically!

Note: if you want to SYNC your samsung D900i that is a separate issue, look here.

BROADBAND INTERNET
You need broadband with at least 128Kbps UPLINK speed, but to work well you really need 256.

Eg 512/128 is too SLOW.

1500/256 is GOOD.

1500/512 is EXCELLENT.

YOU NEED A PHONE TO INTERNET ADAPTER, called an ATA. (Otherwise You’ll have to have your computer turned on all the time and use a program like skype)
The ATA plugs into your network, and then your normal phone into it.
You can spend lots of time looking for a good one, but the SPA3102 I use is pretty good, it plugs into the phone line as well so that if your internet is not working (eg in a blackout) you can still call out via your normal phone line.

YOU NEED A VOIP PROVIDER
Engin is very popular, but like telstra, popular doesn’t mean the best deal.
I tried 4 or 5 for a month, and now I use pennytell, 2c per minute calls, 13c per minute to mobiles.
Also you need to pick a good codec, this is a bit tricky. Make sure whoever you buy the SPA3102 from can help you set it up.

I’ve found G726-32 is good.

G711 may be better quality theoretically but breaks up too much when the line speed drops.
G723a. I think may be good too.
I read this somewhere…
“The most commonly used mode G726-32 , since this is half the rate of G.711, thus increasing the usable network capacity by 50%. It is primarily used on international trunks in the phone network. It also is the standard codec used in DECT wireless phone systems.”