iPhone, Hotel Rooms and Internet Access or How to Use an Apple Airport Express While on the Road

iPhone 4 is a perfect companion for travel – light weight, fast and has all the right applications. On my latest trip to Seoul and Tokyo I didn’t want to lug around a heavy laptop to stay connected to the Internet, so the iPhone seemed like a logical solution.
There were some problems to solve. All hotels I visited have free wired Internet access in the hotel room. Wireless Internet access was only available in the lobby or in the hotel room at extra cost. In Japan finding a Wi-Fi network is even harder to find because the NTT DoCoMo network standard is used much more. How do I connect an iPhone in a hotel room with free wired Internet access without running into extra costs?
Luckily I found a solution. The Apple AirPort Express is a small light weight IEEE 802.11n router. Apple specifically mentions on the Airport Express web page that the router can be used to share a wired network connection in your hotel suite.
Even though Apple mentions you can share a wired connection in your hotel room, the manual does not help you a lot. It basically suggests to plug in the AirPort Express and to configure it with the AirPort Utility. There is one little snag: the AirPort Utility requires Windows OS or Mac OS. There is no iOS app to configure the AirPort Express. So does this mean I still have to take a laptop with me?
The alternative was to configure the Airport Express at home and hope that it would work with the hotel wired network. But which configuration should I use?
After evaluating all possible options the AirPort Express offers, I decided to configure it as a bridge. Here is how I configured the AirPort Express before I left home.  This configuration worked in all the hotels I visited!
Start the AirPort Utility and use the following information to configure the Airport Express:
Click on the AirPort icon and enter the following:
* Tab Base Station
Airport Express Name: <your name>
AirPort Express Password: <your password>
Verify Password: <your password>
Set time automatically: check and set the server to time.apple.com
Time Zone: CET
Allow setup over the Internet using Bonjour: uncheck
* Tab Wireless
Wireless Mode: Create a wireless network
Wireless Network Name: <your network name>
Allow this network to be extended: uncheck
Radio Mode: 802.11n (802.11b/g compatible)
Channel: Automatic
Wireless Security: WPA/WPA2 Personal
Wireless Password: <your network password>
Verify Password: <your network password>
Click on the Internet icon and enter the following:
* Tab Internet connection
Connect using: Ethernet
Connection Sharing: Off (Bridge Mode)
Click on the Music icon and enter the following:
* Tab Music
Enable AirTunes: uncheck

Before you leave your home, try out this configuration. Connect the AirPort Express with a LAN cable to a wired network with an active DHCP server and working Internet connection. On your iPhone select the Airport Express Wi-Fi network and enter the wireless password. When the iPhone has successfully logged in, check if you have Internet connection.
In a hotel room plug in the AirPort Express into the mains and wired network connection. Wait until its light turns green. Then, fire up your iPhone and try to connect to the Wi-Fi network of the AirPort Express. You don’t need to change your Wi-Fi settings, since the network name and password stay the same. If you are lucky you will have Internet access. You can even try to connect a second iPhone! The Airport Express supports a maximum of ten simultaneous wireless devices.
So, how does this all work?
First the AirPort Express requests a connection with the hotel network. The hotel network will allocate an IP address to the AirPort Express and tell it how to connect to the internet (DHCP protocol).
After this connection, the AirPort Express will function as a bridge between its wireless network and the hotel’s network. Wireless devices with the right credentials will be accepted by the AirPort Express and all network requests will be passed on to the hotel network unmodified. 
From the hotel network side it looks like all the devices are connected to the hotel room’s network connection. Data packets over the LAN cable will be translated to Wi-Fi packets on the wireless network, and vice versa. By default an iPhone uses the DHCP protocol to obtain an IP address. The hotel network will allocate this IP address for the iPhone.
 
AirPort Express router in action in a Tokyo hotel room.
Tip: bring along your own LAN cable. Most of the time the spring loaded tab (or “hook”) is broken off with the hotel supplied LAN cables. This causes the modular plug to slip out of the Airport Express and disconnect the LAN connection.

iPhone 4 Photography Apps

The iPhone 4 is also a very good camera – 5 megapixels and most important small, light weight and I carry it always with me!

Here is my list of photography apps which I use to take awesome photos:

ProCamera
ProCamera replaces the standard Camera app on my iPhone for the following reasons:

• Faster startup
  ProCamera loads much faster when you exit the app and re-open it.
• Expert Mode
  You can set the focus point and exposure point on two different areas on the photo. In the standard Camera app the focus point is also used to determine the exposure. This is not always desirable.
• Virtual Horizon
  Helps you to keep the horizon level in your photos.
• Anti-Shake system
  ProCamera takes the photo will take the picture when you hold your iPhone still.

Pro HDR
I use Pro HDR to take photos with an increased dynamic range. Photos with extreme light/dark situations look much better when taken with Pro HDR. Pro HDR lets me tweak the end result, the HDR mode of the standard Camera app does not allow this.

Flickr
This is the official Flickr app. Good to do a quick upload, or to set the privacy level of a photo.

FlickStackr
I use FlickStackr to do some serious browsing through Flickr photos. Automatic caching of photos makes this app much faster then the official Flickr App.

Photo Wallet
I use Photo Wallet to download my Flickr photos on my iPhone. I can show the photos without being connected to the Internet.

The Photographers Ephemeris for iOS
The Photographer's Ephemeris (TPE) is a handy app to determine when and were the sun will come up and where it will set. I use this to plan my arrival times at locations where I want to shoot photos. There is also a free Windows version. I wrote about this version in my blog post ‘Sunrise and Sunset For (Landscape) Photographers’.

360 Pano
360 Pano creates panoramas in real time. Just start up the app, pan around and save the results. I got some pretty good panoramas with this.

Panorama of Jongmyo Shrine in Seoul, South Korea taken with 360 Pano
Click here to see a larger version.

Photoshop Express
I use Photoshop Express for those pesky photos which are rotated with the wrong side up when viewed, or to do a quick crop.

Instagram
Fast and fun way to share photos.

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The Seven Types of iPhone Owners

Which type of iPhone owner are you? I am ‘The Hacker’ type.

by All Area Codes

Mapping your Way on a Holiday with The Cartographer iPhone App

Before starting a trip I always make a custom map in ‘the My Maps’ section of Google Maps containing the locations of all the sights I want to see. It helps me to visualize which locations are close to each other, and which place is nearby when I am walking around. After inputting all the locations I had to make printouts of all relevant regions of the map. I used these maps while travelling.
An iPhone app called ‘The Cartographer’ changed all that for me.



The app gives me access to all my locations pinned in a ‘Google My Map’ (the software syncs with Google Maps). You can even pin locations on your iPhone and sync them back to Google Maps.

The most important feature for me is offline maps. The Cartographer can download maps from the OpenStreetMap database for offline usage (at the time of writing Google Maps are only available with an online Internet connection). On a recent trip I downloaded the maps of Seoul and Tokyo beforehand into my iPhone. This way I could navigate around without paying expensive charges for Internet access from a foreign country.

Downloading the maps is easy. In the app you can trace an outline of the area you wish to download for offline viewing. Next step is to select a zoom level. The app will tell you how many kilobytes/megabytes of data must be downloaded for a certain zoom level. You can then instruct the app to download the offline map. Please note the download can take 1-2 hours or more when you select a detailed zoom level.

The Cartographer worked flawlessly while travelling in Seoul and Tokyo. I could walk around in Tokyo, see where I was on an offline map (no Internet access needed!) and walk straight through my destination, thanks to the built in GPS support. I also placed pins on interesting spots on the map so I could find back home where I was exactly.
Here are some screenshots:


Tokyo Map

The black ‘lollypop’ drops a pin in the center of the screen. You can use this for later reference to see where you were. The ‘crosshairs’ repositions the map so that your current position is in the center of the screen.
The yellow tabs are all the sights I pinned down into a Google ‘My Map’. The blue dot on the right hand side shows my position – in the Narita Express heading for Tokyo.

The Cartographer showing my position on the South Korean Island Jeju-do.


Near Harajuku station in Tokyo

During my stay in Tokyo version 1.2 of the Cartographer was released. In this version you can adjust the ‘vintage effect’ of the map. Here the ‘vintage effect’ is removed leaving a ‘clear map’ in ‘Google style’  While I like the ‘vintage effect’, I used the ‘clear map’ more often because it shows more information with less clutter on the screen.

I liked The Cartographer a lot and I will certainly use it on my next trips. No need to printout all your Google Maps, just keep them in your iPhone. The developer is also very responsive and answered all my questions I had when I started using version 1.0. You can seem many more screen shots and demos at http://cartographer-app.com/ 
Highly recommended!

Must Have iPhone 4 Apps

A personal digital assistant must be easy to use and have all the functionality I need. To give you an idea how I am using an iPhone 4 let’s start with the list of apps I use regularly:

Pocket Informant
Pocket Informant (PI) is a great calendar app. It has much better list and month views than the standard Calendar app. PI can also sync directly with Google Agenda. PI also supports ToodleDo.

ToodleDo
ToodleDo is a to-do list manager, accessible from the webm iPhone, Android and Blackberry. Starting with IOS 5 a default Reminders app is included in iPhone, but is is very basic. ToodeDo offers folders, tags, contexts, subtasks and more.

GoodReader
GoodReader is a super-robust and fast PDF reader. It is much faster than the built in PDF reader.


Boxcar
I use Boxcar to poll my e-mail inboxes for new e-mail. When a new e-mail arrives Boxcar sends a notification to my iPhone. The 'standard' way of polling e-mail inboxes with your iPhone uses a lot more battery power. With Boxcar I can reduce the number of open TCP/IP connections needed. Boxcar can also send notifications when RSS feeds change, Twitter gets updated etc etc.

Evernote
Evernote is my digital equivalent of a notebook. All my notes are accessible from Windows, Mac, Web and iPhone. The iPhone client supports the downloading and syncing of notebooks to your iPhone storage (only for paid subscriptions). This is great in case you want to access large amounts of information and your Internet access is slow, not available or very expensive (especially travelling abroad).

TuneIn Radio
I use TuneIn Radio to listen to the news broadcasts on Radio 1 and BNR Nieuws Radio.

Reeder
Reeder provides mobile access to all my RSS feeds. I use Google Reader to keep up to date with the news on my Windows PC. Reeder syncs with my Google account to give me a seamless experience. Whenever I read an RSS entry on one device, it will not show up for a second time on another device.

ListPro
Listpro is great for re-usable lists like packing lists and reference lists (reusing a list in ToodleDo is cumbersome). Listpro is more flexible in this respect. Enter all your data wit the Windows client and use the lists with the iPhone app.

PingChat!
PingChat! is ideal to share text, photos, contact info and location info with other iPhone, BlackBerry or Android users. Sending and receiving the information is free. Downside is that you must know the nickname of the person you are trying to reach.

WhatsApp
WhatsApp is another messaging app which allows you to exchange info for free. Your messaging partner is identified with his mobile number. No exchange of nicknames is needed. Just install the app and it will tell you which of your contacts are also using WhatsApp.

Tomtom
I am a Tomtom user since my HP iPaq 2210 days. (I even used Tomtom’s predecessor navigation software for Psion handhelds made by Palmtop). I use the Tomtom iPhone app because it is an offline navigation solution. No internet connection is needed.

Speed Test
Speed Test is a handy iPhone app to benchmark your Internet connection.

Teamviewer
The Teamviewer iPhone app can be used to remote control Windows and Mac desktops. You should see and hear the reactions of people when I ask them to install Teamviewer so I can help them with a problem. I can’t even believe it myself that I can use a smartphone to take over someone’s desktop!


IMDb
The IMDb app is handy when you are watching something on television and you are wondering where you have seen that actor before.

Key Ring
I use the Key Ring app to have a digital copy of my loyalty cards, membership cards and all your other reward cards you might have. Previously they were at home when I needed them, now they are a few clicks away.

MyKeePass
MyKeePass gives me (read-only) access to all my personal and secret information stored in KeePass files. Unfortunately I cannot change or edit the information. I hope a new version of MyKeePass will solve that.
Update: I switched to Lastpass to store my personal and secret information. Haven't used the iPhone client yet.

Dropbox
Dropbox makes file sharing a breeze. Just drop the file in a Dropbox folder, and use it on your iPhone. Did you know Dropbox can synchronize your iPhone photos to your desktop?

iPhone 4

After a Sharp IQ-7000 electronic organizer, Psion 3MX, Psion 5MX, Nokia N73 and an HP iPaq 2210 it was time for a new personal digital assistant, or smartphone as they are called nowadays.

Choosing my next smartphone was easy. My experience with Windows Mobile 2003 on the iPaq was mixed. A lot of Windows Mobile software was available, but you had to be an IT expert to install the applications and keep the system running. The successors WM 5 and 6 were not much different. Nokia was pretty good, but the screen was too small. iPhone 3 was a big step in the right direction, and the multitasking support of iOS 4 and Retina display of iPhone 4 won me over.

Apple got the main things right. The LCD screen is one of the most important aspects of your handheld / PDA. You interact with the screen the whole time. The iPhone 4 display called Retina display is amazing. No more tiny black lines through the characters on your screen. It also reacts very quickly to the gestures you make with your fingers.

iPhone 4 and iOS 4 still have some rough edges. There is no profile support to quickly set your ringtone, SMS tone and vibration to predefined settings (like silent, vibration only, meeting). Losing track of notifications is easy, especially when multiple push notifications are fired off at the same time. The Retina display does not react when you are wearing gloves (this is a problem in cold weather).

In a series of blog posts I will describe how you can use and configure your iPhone 4. For instance, I will share with you how to have profile support on your iPhone 4, and how to get (near) real-time email notifications without polling your inboxes all the time (no, I am not using push email! :-).