GregFalken.com

Thoughts on humanizing technology

Ford Sync and Bluetooth Audio

Ford Sync and Bluetooth Audio

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For six months, I fought with the Ford Sync in my 2010 Fusion. First with a Motorola Milestone 2 and then with a Nexus 4. The promise was great: Audio from your smartphone through the car’s sound system with no wires. Problem was, it didn’t work. Every time I got in the car I had to argue with it about making a connection.

Ford Sync: Line in, please say a command.

Me: Bluetooth audio.

Ford Sync: No Bluetooth device is available right now. I will try to connect one.

Then…nothing. I would turn Bluetooth on the phone off and back on again, push the button on the steering wheel and repeat myself until eventually, maybe, Ford Sync would chime happily and I’d get to listen to my podcasts.

Finally, I gave up and bought an audio cable, turned off Bluetooth audio and went back to life sans-Sync. When I got my new Nexus 4, I had high hopes that it would be able to converse with Ford Sync but it behaved mostly the same.

Then a few days ago I found the answer and it’s been completely reliable ever since. I get in the car, turn the key and audio starts playing exactly where it left off when I exited the vehicle. No palaver required. How did I achieve this miracle of technology? I turned the audio system off. That’s right, just hit the power button and Bluetooth picked right up.

I’ll tell you, I spent a lot of time searching for the answer to this problem and I tried a lot of people’s suggestions but this one never occurred to me. No one ever said, “oh, just turn the sound system off and everything will work great.” So that’s my message today to all the other Ford Sync owners who can’t get their Bluetooth audio to work. I hope they will be as unreasonably excited about it as I am.

Going Contract Free On My Mobile Phone

Going Contract Free On My Mobile Phone

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Here in the Central Sierras, our choice of cellular carriers is, shall we say, limited. In Tuolumne County there are exactly two: AT&T and Golden State Cellular. I have been a Golden State Cellular customer since moving here in 1994 and have generally been very satisfied with their service. Of course, for most of those years I used a “dumb” phone, resisting the smartphone movement for as long as I could. Finally I could ignore it no longer and learned the joys of data plans, 3G and edge networks, tethering and data roaming. Coming up on the end of my second two year contract, I found that I was unwilling to lock in to another two years of the same plan and, especially, the same phone.

The phone that I had been using for the past two years, a Motorola Milestone 2, was on its last legs, which had also been the case at the end of my first contract (at that time with an HTC Hero).  I also wanted my next phone to be a Google Nexus, which will not work on Golden State Cellular’s CDMA network. So I began looking at alternatives to the traditional two year cell phone contract. This is what I learned. [Read more…]

Blog Refresh

Blog Refresh

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When you want to see what’s new, you hit the refresh button. After many months of inactivity, that’s what I’m doing here. This blog was meant to be the place where I could write about the things that interest me, without the need to conform to a business strategy or any particular purpose, other than my desire to share my thoughts with the world at large.

As part of the refresh, I’ve added a brand new theme, which is simpler and, I hope, easier to use than the previous one. It’s also an excuse to try out some new technologies and features that I might also want to use on the business side, at Sierra Online Services. For those of you who care about such things, this theme is based on Going Green Pro, a child theme for the Genesis Framework, from the good folks at Studiopress.

So now all that remains is the actual new writing and other content creation. As you can see from the categories above, it won’t all be about technology. I hope that the topics are of interest and I especially look forward to hearing from you in comments. Thanks for visiting.

Tuolumne, CA
September 2013

Refreshing photo by Pimthida

Social Media: Learn by Listening

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Hey ListenWebdancers and APS Solar are pleased to present a free seminar on using the power of social media to listen, as well as to speak.

At this fun and informative event, you will learn how your organization can:

  • Stay current with news in your field
  • Monitor discussions of your brand
  • Better understand your market
  • Tap into crowd-sourced knowledge

In the hyper-connected world of social media, it’s tempting to jump straight to telling your story, making your case and getting the word out. In this free seminar, we’ll discuss the building blocks of social media, with special emphasis on the importance of listening online. Using free tools from Google, Twitter and TweetDeck, you will learn how to monitor blogs and social media platforms for mentions of your brand, industry, competitors or anything else, to help you meet your business and social media goals.

When: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 12:00-1:30 PM
Bring your brown bag lunch — drinks provided

APS SolarWhere: APS Solar
19472 Village Drive
Sonora, CA 95370

Contact: (209) 532-5925 or (209) 591-8505
Please RSVP (space is limited

Download the Learn by Listening Flyer

Hey Listen photo by Quinn Dombrowski.
Cross-posted on webdancers.com.