The fact that my wife and I both have iPhones is a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because well… we both have iPhones. But it’s also a curse. It has become another gadget to upgrade, to pimp up and gulp- to depreciate quickly . We were both going to get the 2nd generation iPhones but after weighting in the fact that the original ones are upgradable via software, it became hard to justify the cost of a whole new phone. Sorry, 2 new phones. So we opted for the software update, which gave us in a lot of ways a new phone. The upgrade was free, but the mostly inexpensive apps add up. This got me thinking about Fairplay, Apple’s DRM technology used throughout the iTunes store for music and now applications as well. Fairplay allows you to register up to 5 computers and unlimited iPods/iPhones synced to those computers. So… it should be easy for my wife and I to share iPhone apps with each other as long as both our iTunes are authorized to use them. All we need to do is authorize both accounts in both computers and re-download the apps. This could work in Windows, but why would I right?

Here’s a step by step tutorial on how to do it.

Scenario

I have 2 Macs, 2 iPhones, 2 iTunes accounts.

I used one account to buy a game, and another account to buy another one. The goal is to have both games playable on both phones legally with no hacks.

Solution

Have each computer be authorized for both accounts. Re-download apps on 2nd computer with 1st computer iTunes account.

Step 1: Authorize Computers

I step into my wife’s mac, launch iTunes, log out of her iTunes Store account and log in with mine. 

Step 1: Log Out and In

Still inside iTunes,  I go to the app store and click the Buy App button on the application I had bought in my computer.

     

Step 2: re-download

iTunes knows I already paid for this and just let’s be re-download it without charging me again.

Step 2: Confirm

The app then begins to download.

Once the download is complete, it now shows in the Applications section of iTunes. 

I can now log out of my iTunes Store account and log her’s back in.

Step 1: Log out and in

Step 3: Sync & Play

I can plug her phone in now and sync.

Step 3: sync

The app should transfer without any fuss.

Step 3: syncing

Once synced, it shows on her phone ready for playing.

Step 3: play

And now both our kids can take over our phones and drain those batteries out. 

Step 3: playing

Enjoy.

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Speed Racer: Visually stimulating, has an odd cast. Go with low expectations and you’ll have a blast.

Didn’t grow up with Iron Man but I’m a huge fan now.

Still to come this summer: Batman, Hulk, Narnia, Clone Wars, Indiana Jones, Kung Fu Panda, Get Smart, Love Guru, You Don’t Mess With the Zohan and Wall-E. That’s a lot of tickets.

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View my “Be Right Back” page

Enough of this blank “Be Right Back” pages we usually throw together when we need to do website updates. It is time for a nicer, more web 2.0 savvy under construction. Next time I do an update to WordPress, I’ll be replacing my index.php file with this one, and then switch back when all is ready to go.

Here’s what I have:

1. Links to my other web sites and web services.

2. Flickr gallery via the flickr.com’s Make a Badge tool

3. Twitter updates via twitter.com’s Make a Badge tool

4. Last.fm gallery via Jeroen’s Last.fm Records standalone version which grabs images from amazon.com. I actually copied the whole script and included it in the PHP file so that it is not dependent in other files. I also disabled album art caching since this page is really going to be up for a few minutes. If you are going to use it for longer, then you should consider enabling caching the images. Consult the original script for more info on this.

To do this yourself:

1. Download my “Be Right Back”. Note, PHP 5 is required for the Last.fm portion to work. 

2. Open it in a file editor and change the following items:

• The page title
• The site links should point to your of course
• The Flickr user number in the Flickr javascript link. It might be best to create your own Flickr badge, grab the javascript and replace this one.
• The Twitter username in the javascript url.
• The last.fm username in the PHP code, right after $lfm->username.
• The footer info.

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Multiple Languages is a feature in Leopard most people don’t know about. Having access to this is great but it can be rather tedious  to switch your spellchecker back and forth between multiple languages. Leopard introduced a Multilingual feature that makes the spellchecker check against multiple languages instead of just one.

To enable Multilingual Spell Checker:

From most applications like Safari or Mail, go to the top menu and select ‘Edit > Spelling and Grammar >  Show Spelling and Grammar’. From the Spelling window, change the pulldown menu to Multilingual and click Change. 

To enable the Character Palette:

The Character Palette gives a quick access to all special characters like accents icons.

From the Apple in the menu bar, select ‘System Preferences’ and go to the International Preference Pane. 

From the International System Preference Pane, select the Input Menu tab and check mark the option to show the input menu in the menu bar. 

You should now see the flag of your country on your menu bar. Whenever you need to look up an accent or special character, just go to the flag and select ‘Show Character Palette. 

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