Two of my favorite pieces of software, Dropbox and Sparrow are now combined to make attaching files to emails even easier. Just as simple as dragging and dropping the file into your composer window will upload the file to your Dropbox and append a link to that file within the email message. I’m sorry for you Windows users, as you are SOL because Sparrow is Mac only software. 

Yep that is right, Apple has released iOS 5.0.1 that is suppose to fix the battery life as well as some other minor fixes. You have two ways to update, you can either go to Settings>General>Software Update on your iDevice or, use the all too familiar iTunes download. If you do use iTunes to complete the update then be aware that it is a 813MB download compared to the iDevice route that is around 55MB. Over wifi the 55MB update should take no more than 10 minutes. Some users are also reporting that if you do not see the option to update on your iDevice then you should try again after completing a soft reset.

As I posted before, I noticed my iPhone 4S, as well as other peoples’ iPhone 4S batteries were having some issues. Apple is now actually admitting there might be a problem. The problem they think has to do with a bug in the location services. Also while this is not the only problem, Engadget has decided to take a poll on what common problems people are having the latest iOS. Among one of them is the popular Siri not working by saying there is no connection when you actually have one.

Whenever I notice my Mac is starting to run a little sluggish or when my laptop’s small solid state drive is running low on space I usually run one or the combination of Cocktail and CleanMyMac. Also, because I have a Macbook Pro and a Hackintosh the MacBook Pro is only used when I’m traveling or at a remote location where I can’t use my Hackintosh. The problem with this is OSX runs daily, weekly, and monthly scripts that get skipped if the laptop is not on, causing things to slow down a bit.

Cocktail - Pilot Tab

Cocktail

The first one I want to talk about is Cocktail. Cocktail is the free one of the two and by itself can do most of the work. All you need to do is download the app, install it, open it and go to the “Pilot” tab. From the “Pilot” tab select all the check boxes and hit run. This will run all the tasks at once. You can have it play a sound or quit when it is done as well. If you don’t want to do things automatically you also have the option of going through each one of the settings and doing them that way. Cocktail will run those daily, weekly, monthly scripts I was telling you about as well as clear caches, repair disk permissions, and clear log files. There is also a bunch of other cool things it can do such as tweak your Network settings and enable/disable certain default Mac settings that could slow or speed up your computer.

CleanMyMac

CleanMyMac

While this next one is not free, it is also not that expensive, only costing $14 dollars for a 6 month membership or $29 for a lifetime membership to the application. It is also not absolutely needed to get your Mac running smoothly but it is nice to have as a backup to catch what Cocktail misses. When you get this and open it just click the green “Scan” button and when it is done scanning hit the blue “Clean” button and your done. When it is finished it will tell you how much space you saved. The Application itself cleans your Caches, Logs Unneeded Langauge Files, Universal Binaries, System Junk, and Trash. It also comes with a Quick Erase to quickly erase files and an Uninstall Applications utility ,and lastly it comes with a Extensions Manager. So overall you are getting more features than just some basic maintenance program. 

OK so after much debate I decided to purchase the iPhone 4S but only because I was able to sell my iPhone 4 for $300 covering the cost of the new one. Now that I have it I have noticed , like many others, that the battery on the iPhone 4s is just terrible. Some people as myself report about a 1% loss in battery life every minute either on standby or not.

Although people are posting “tricks” to fix the problem and Apple customer support suggest turning off all or most of the features to fix the problem I think Apple is going to have some explaining to do. I hope it is just a matter of an iOS update and not a big recall. 

So I was really excited about the new iPhone until I just saw it. The new iPhone 4s (No not iPhone 5) is just like the iPhone 4 but with a faster processor and better camera. As long as the new iOS works on my  iPhone 4 then I will just stick with that. The biggest changes is in the software and I can’t wait to use its new voice recognition software known as Siri. There is a lot more cool features and to see some of them just watch this video and to see them all just go to the official Apple website.

Apple has released a date for an iPhone event to be held on October 4th @ 10AM. It is also going to be held at Apple’s Cupertino, Calif. campus. This is probably going to be a good time for Apple to release its new iOS as well as its new iPhone 5.  What do you think or heard the new iPhone is going to have?

Engadget posted an article saying that the ball is in Apple’s court because T-mobile in a Mobilize 2011 conference  has pointed out that 90 percent of its smartphone sales were Android. Did they forget to mention that they only have 10 customers and that they are doing so poorly AT&T is buying them? There is more to the article so you might want to check it out.

According to nielsenwire Android phones have outsold the iPhone by almost twice as much. If you look at the graphic above it shows a chart with the Android having 43% of the network while the iPhone only has 28%. TechCrunch was quick to point out that although Android has seen more buyers this does not really prove anything. The Apple only has two iPhones on the market while the Android based phones are in the hundreds.

Lifehacker just pointed me to PDFExpert as “The Best PDF Viewer/Editor for iPhone“, and now I plan on using this to handle my on site work orders. A lot of my work orders are sent in PDF format that I usually print out, make the changes, scan the paper, convert it to PDF, then send it back to the company. With this I can simply save the PDF to a DropBox location, edit it onsite with my iPhone or iPad, have them sign it, and then email it directly to the company. This will also help with the economy and environment by making everything paperless.

If you do any kind of contract work and usually get your work orders in PDF format then you too should check this out. It will make the job a lot easier and if you are like me it will make your tech notes legible.

Read more to see the features

Features (From Lifehacker’s Article)

• Works with PDFs, iWork documents, Microsoft Office files, Powerpoint presentations, text files, images, music, and video
• Highlight text in multiple ways
• Fill out and sign forms
• Create notes on your PDFs
• Draw on a document with your finger when annotating
• Underline and strike-through words when annotating
• Bookmark document locations
• Copy files via iTunes, Wi-Fi, iDisk, Dropbox, Google Docs, and more
• Save email attachments from Mail directly to PDFExpert
• Email annotated files directly from PDFExpert
• Lock down the app with a password to keep your documents secure