You've Got Mail iPhone Mail Alert

With the release of iOS 5.0 for iPhones and iPads it's now possible to set a custom sound for emails (among other items). I thought it'd be fun to use the old school "you've got mail" sound byte for my emails. To set a custom tone for your incoming mail make sure your iPhone/iPad has iOS 5.0 then:

1. On you iOS device click Settings>Sounds

2. Scroll down to the new mail option. After you click on it you can see you can load any of your custom ringtones. (Here's an article on how to make custom ringtones).

Restore Missing Airplay Icon on iPhone and iPad

My Airplay icon went missing from both my iPhone and iPad. Luckily it's an easy, but weird fix to get it back. You need to change your phone language from English -> French (or any other language) -> English. To do this:

1. Settings>General>International>Language
2. Select "Francais" and click done. iPad/iPhone/iPod will change over to new language.
3. Repeat steps one and two but change device back to English.
4. Settings>General>International>Keyboards
5. Click "edit"
6. Delete the non-English keyboard

Now go try to play media. Your Airplay icon will be back!

How I Use Text Message Payments to My Make Life Easier

I recently started using a service called Venmo which is "The Paypal of text message payments." I can pay and charge friends or merchants for goods/services. It's definitely one of those services a la cell phone esque. If you don't have it you don't know what you are missing, but once you have it there's no going back. Below I've listed some simple use cases to try to illustrate the power of the service:

Paying others - Splitting a lunch bill:

• When I'm out to lunch w/friends, one person pays the bill and the rest of us text that person.
• "Pay Jenny $21.37 for lunch."
• Jenny receives $21.37 for the bill from all of her friends. It's great b/c it eliminates the friend who says "I'll hit you later" and then never hits you later. It also eliminates the need for everyone to have cash

Paying others - Cashing in/out of poker night:

• When we do poker night, one person is the "pot" and we all send them buy in money.
• "Pay Brad $20 for poker buy in." At the end of the night cashing out is super simple, no dealing w/breaking of bills or coins. "Pay Jenny $11.41 for poker winnings."
• In this case Brad is the pot. At the beginning of the night we all send him money, then at the end of the night he sends out the winnings.

Charging others - picking up laundry

• When I pick up my brother's laundry I charge him for it. The money is taken directly out of his account b/c he "trusts" me.
• "Charge Andrew $13.75 for laundry."
• $13.75 comes into my account

These are just a few use cases of how to use text message payments to make your life easier. If you would like to try Venmo, which is in beta, to text message payments please email me and I'm friends with the guys who made it, so I can shoot you an invite.

In the comments, tell me how you use text message payments to make your life easier.

Record Video on Any iPhone without Jailbreaking

The app everyone has been waiting for has finally been released: iVideo Camera. With iVideoCamera 2g and 3g iPhone owners can record video without jailbreaking their phones.

iVideoCamera currently only captures video at three frame per second and can only record up a minute long video, but for 99 cents it's a steal. I recommend buying it as I assume future updates will include better/longer video quality.

Space Invaders Floor Decals

It pays to have friends with vinyl cutters...

My boss has a sweet donkey kong 8 bit graphic on her door to her office. I've always admired it so one day I asked her where she got it. She pointed me to blik. After perusing their inventory I finally landed on the idea of putting space invaders on the floor of my apartment, but quickly realized that the stickers on blik would not hold up to the wear and tear that a floor would get.

In come my friends over at Laan Labs. They have a vinyl cutter....after a quick Google search I located the vector graphics I needed, emailed them to my friends, and they cut my decals. I was ready to roll within a matter of days.

Quick Tip: Embed Youtube Playlist in SIte

To embed a Youtube playlist into your site, follow the steps below:

1. Go to the "Playlists" section of your account.
2. Select the playlist you'd like to embed.
3. Copy the embed code from the upper right corner.
4. Paste the code into your website or blog.

Google Analytics iPhone App - View Traffic Reports on the Go

Google Analytics is probably the most essential tool for anyone running a webservice, blog, or other online property that wants to grow traffic and understand existing traffic.

I've been searching for quite some time for a good way to access Google Analytics from the iPhone, have tried a few apps that just didn't cut it, but found yesterday (via @brit) an app that actually works.



The Analytics App gives you access to all your different sites in Google Analytics, so it's perfect if you manage many different accounts like I do. Plus, it has all your favorite analytics reports:
* Dashboard Summaries
* Length of Visit
* Browsers and OS
* Referring Sites
* Keywords
* Adwords Campaigns
* Content Reports
* Top Landing Pages
* Top Exit Pages
* Custom Event Tracking
* Plus, pretty much every other report from Google Analytics

You can view reports by date range, too. I've found it most useful to set the Date range to the Past Day to get a quick summary of what's happening on my sites right now.

I'm loving this app. Check it out at: http://bit.ly/iphoneGAnalytics