Say hello to Kevin. Among my friends and many of you, he has become known as my “techie brother”.

I know I’m coming from a biased place as his little sister, but seriously. The man is a genius. But even cooler than that, he is incredibly generous with his time in helping countless people with their tech questions & needs. He is as passionate about technology and helping people understand and use it properly as I am passionate about helping people document life. And if you couldn’t tell, he’s all about Apple. He helped us make that switch many years ago. I like to call him an enabler. I’m a fan for life.

Photos taken with my iPhone, using the Instagram app (Earlybird filter + Tilt-Shift feature)

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We’re calling today Tech Friday because:

1. Kevin & his cute family have been with us all week (their Spring Break). The idea just sorta happened.

2. I mentioned this on facebook & invited you to ask Kevin your technology questions.

3. We aren’t creative enough in the moment to think of something more clever than “Tech Friday”.

Without further adieu, I give you Kevin.

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Initially, I thought it would be fun to try and tackle about 10 or so of your questions. After reading through the questions, however, I decided I would answer ALL of them! They were all just too good to pass up. Keep in mind that when troubleshooting some of these issues or answering your questions, it’s much easier to do so with two-way dialog (so I can ask follow-up questions). I apologize if I misunderstood your question.

Here we go…

Q: Oh, I have been so frustrated trying to change my blog’s profile pic on Facebook. I have a Pages account linked through my personal account. Can’t change my info either.

A: To change your Facebook profile image, log into your account, then go into your profile settings. From there, you will see an option to upload a new image.

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Q: How do I make my own ringtones for my iPhone from my iTunes music? Thanks!

A: Making ringtones for your iPhone is not only fun, but can help you to quickly determine who is calling (when you set ring tones for specific callers). To get started, you want to create a new Garageband project (Garageband comes free with new Macs as part of the iLife suite). With Garageband ready, drag the song you want to use as your ringtone from iTunes into Garageband as a new audio track.

Now that your audio track is ready to edit, you need to crop the audio where you want. When you are ready with your 30-second (or less) audio track, go to Share > Send Ringtone to iTunes. From there, sync your iPhone and set your ringtone. You can also make your own custom ringtones. The ringtone I have set for my daughter, for example, is a 30-second segment of her laughing… hysterically. It always puts a smile on my face when she calls.

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Q: I’m trying to figure out the best way for our family to be able to watch cable television shows, but without cable. I want to get rid of the cable bill! How can we watch current TV shows without having to wait for the season to end? All this technology stuff confuses me :{

A: First, let me start by saying I haven’t paid a cable TV bill for over a year… and I love it! Not only is it cheaper, but we watch exactly what WE want to watch, and on our schedule. I accomplish this by using a few different sources. First, I use Netflix for streaming older movies and TV shows via a computer or Apple TV (price: $8/month). Secondly, I use iTunes for current content (price: varies based in your usage). Thirdly, I purchased a $20 HD receiver from Wal-mart for all of our local channels… in HD (and no monthly fees). What does that leave out? Basically your real-time national news (i.e.: CNN) and live sporting events (i.e.: ESPN).

I really believe that we are witnessing the beginning of a massive transformation in the way that we consume video content. Traditional TV broadcasting will be a thing of the past over the next 3 – 5 years for most consumers, and everything will be online streaming.

For more detailed information, check out this blog entry here. Because this is a common question I get, I thought I would document it for all to see.

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Q: Monitor calibration – what is it and how do I do it without spending a fortune?

A: Monitor calibration is the process of ensuring that what you see on your monitor is exactly the same as someone else’s monitor (or printer). When you purchase a new monitor, the color saturation and hues will already be off balance (some more than others, depending on the quality of the screen). Most people either don’t notice or don’t care. However, if you are a heavy photo editor sending your photos to be printed at a lab, you may want to care. If your screen isn’t calibrated, the printed result will likely look different than what you see on your screen.

I use the Spyder (by Datacolor) to calibrate my screen. The process usually only takes a minute or two, and if you do a lot of printing at a lab, you may want to run the calibration once a month (air temperature and other natural changes can affect your screen’s color accuracy). I would also recommend finding a lab you like, and asking them for their color profile (in the form of a file). You can then use that color profile to ensure your computer screen and their printers are 100% in sync.

Your total out of pocket investment could be as little as $90 (for the Spyder Express).

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Q: I would be interested in knowing the kind of program that he uses to make the videos on your blog… the ones that play music behind you. And if he has any tips on that subject.

A: I use a Mac, so there are two different video editing apps I use: iMovie (free with new Macs, part of iLife) and Final Cut Pro. I use iMovie when I need to do something quick and want to add some of their really cool built-in filters, etc. These projects are mostly for home use. For anything professional, I resort to using Final Cut Pro. Final Cut Pro is part of Apple’s Final Cut Studio, which sells for $999. Don’t rush out to buy it just yet, though. This past week, NAB (the National Association of Broadcasters) was held in Las Vegas. Apple unveiled their brand new Final Cut Studio X, which is a completely re-written suite of video editing apps. It will be available in June via the Mac App Store, and will sell for a jaw-dropping $299! This is the same software used to edit movies like “Lord of the Rings” and “The Social Network“.

For Windows users, I would check out Pinnacle Systems or Avid.

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Q: I want to know how I can get my very own brother like Kevin!

A: Unfortunately, there is only one of me to go around, but I do love helping people get the most out of technology. Feel free to stop by www.kevinallgaier.com any time to get help and to stay current on technology trends. You can also follow me on Twitter @kevinallgaier.

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Q: Can I hook my laptop up to my TV, so I can view videos, movies on the TV? Thanks!

A: Yes, but how depends on your laptop and TV. If your TV is new enough, it may have a VGA input on the back. If so, it’s nothing more than purchasing a cable to go from the VGA output on your laptop to the VGA input on your TV. If you don’t have VGA, then you may need to purchase some adapters. The best way to do this is to take an inventory of what video ports you have on your laptop and TV, then take that list to your local Best Buy or Radio Shack. Show them to a sales rep there, and they can help you find the right adapters.

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Q: What are your favorite apps for the iPhone? And, on a related question; what cool thing the iPhone have that most people are unaware of?

A: When I show people what my favorite apps are on my iPhone/iPad, they usually end up yawning. That’s because my favorite apps are pretty geeky. For example, I love using the GoToMyPC client on my iPad. This allows me to remotely control any of my traditional computers from anywhere. For the non-geek, I really love Camera+, Remote, Angry Birds, Tiny Wings, Netflix, Facebook, Twitter, Delta and Adobe Ideas. All great apps. I also use the built-in apps very heavily, like Calendar, Mail, etc.

As for hidden features, that’s a tough one because everyone uses their phone differently, some more advanced than others. A feature that I am guessing is NOT used as heavily as it should be is AirPlay. AirPlay allows you to share video and photos stored on your IPhone on your TV, via the ($99) Apple TV. Here’s an example: we took the kids out for a ride through the desert the other day, and I took photos and video along the way. As soon as we got back to the house, I was able to immediately display those on the big screen for the whole family to enjoy. Very powerful (and useful).

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Q: What video camera do you use for the blogs and how are you able to achieve such good lighting and audio? Is there an external microphone on your camera and if so, which one. Wow. I can’t wait for your response! Thanks.

A: For video that will ultimately be posted on the web, you don’t need any fancy equipment. Remember, the target screen will be relatively small compared to a TV or “the big screen”. I’ve actually created full videos that were shot 100% on my iPhone 4, and the quality is incredible. As you hinted at in your question, lighting and audio are also very important.

Most good lighting can actually be done naturally. You just have to pick the right place and the right time of day. Artificial lighting can be used if needed, but that can also be simple. You don’t need to invest a lot of money in expensive equipment. Sometimes a floor lamp sitting around your home is sufficient. Whatever you use for lighting, make sure it isn’t too harsh.

As for audio, most consumer camcorders these days have a built-in audio line-in port, and I bet most people don’t even know they have it. It will look like a headphone jack. Head to your local Best Buy, show them your camcorder, and they will help you find an external mic that you can use to plug into that line-in jack. Once you add this, I guarantee your audio will see a huge improvement. No more surrounding noises!

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Q: What are your favorite photoshop actions? Favorite iPhone apps or features that love? How do you make specialty blog backgrounds?

A: The only PhotoShop actions I use are created by me to add a signature to image edits, etc. Everything else is built-in to PhotoShop (filters, effects, etc). As I mentioned before, I love to use Camera+ for iPhone. I’ve actually used this for shots from my dSLR as well. That’s because I think the filters are incredibly powerful. It’s not just limited to photos taken on your iPhone.

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Q: mmmwwwuuuaa <– That’s my version of ‘big kiss’. Becky, you truly are so kind and caring. Kevin is a peach. Mrs. A, your parenting skills beam through your children. Congratulations.

A: We have awesome parents, there’s no doubt about that!

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Q: 3 good reasons to switch to a Mac versus a PC?

A: I’ll do better than that… I’ll give you 5 (and even that is holding back). Before I do, I need to give you a little background. Five years ago, I was a die-hard Windows users. So much so that I actually wanted to work for Microsoft. Shortly after, I started to feel frustrated that they were dropping the ball on their products, and had stopped innovating. About that same time, Apple was making some noise, so I checked out their hardware and software. After using their laptop with OS X for 2 days, I was hooked. As a tech guy, I follow (and recommend) the best technology available. Five years ago, that was Microsoft. Today, it’s Apple. Who knows who it will be in five years.

Here are my top five reasons to switch to a Mac:

5) While the Mac is not immune to technical failures, they are very minimal compared to PCs (most of the problems that plague PCs are because of the Operating System… Windows)

4) To date, there are millions of viruses affecting PCs and zero affecting Macs

3) Apple is an industry leader in system integration, from the office to the living room

2) Using their software inspires me to do better work of my own

1) They are an absolute pleasure to use! My motto is, “I use a PC because I have to. I use a Mac because I want to”.

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Q: Candace, I can tell you he uses Final Cut Pro for the video editing. (My hubby’s a videographer so the screen shot Becky shared was all too familiar…) it’s a pretty extensive program that professionals also use, but there are more simple programs like iMovie that can still put out a great product. Hope that helps!

A: See question above. I bet your husband already knows about the new Final Cut Suite, and is super excited for it!

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Q: Does he by chance know of a good app for the iPad that recognizes handwriting and turns it into a document (Pages or Word)?! I would be forever grateful as it would help with taking notes at school!

A: Check out Penultimate. It’s a whopping $1.99. Although it won’t convert hand-written text to typed text (I don’t know of any that do because of the complexity involved), it’s a great note-taking app for iPad.

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Q: My Mac’s idisk is almost full so I think I need to move my photos to an external hard drive to free up space. How do I do that?

A: You have two options here. The first option happens to be the easiest, but it would also cost you a little cash. You can increase the amount of storage on your MobileMe account from the standard 20 GB to 40 GB or more. The additional capacity is an additional cost/year.

Option B would be to, as you suggest, move files from your iDisk to an external hard drive. The easiest way to do this is to turn on iDisk syncing on your Mac. You can do this in the MobileMe section of System Preferences. After you turn this on, you will see a new drive mounted on your desktop. This is your iDisk. Now, you can drag and drop to and from the iDisk, just like you would an external hard drive. Don’t forget to delete the files from iDisk once you have moved them off to an external hard drive.

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Q: Does he know if you can easily move your iTunes library from PC to Mac? Thinking of getting Mac but a big issue would be moving iTunes.

A: Yes, and I help people with this all the time. After you install iTunes on a computer, it auto-creates a special directory that store all of your iTunes content (music, videos, album, artwork, etc). On a Mac, this folder (called “iTunes”) is in your Music folder. On a PC, this folder is found under My Documents > My Music.

To move your entire library from a PC to a Mac, all you need to do is copy and paste the “iTunes” folder from the PC to the appropriate location on the Mac. Before doing this, be sure that iTunes is completely closed on both computers. Performing this copy across a home network can get somewhat complicated. If you are comfortable doing that, go for it. If not, an alternative is to copy the folder from PC to an external hard drive (via USB), then from the external hard drive to the Mac. When it asks if you want to overwrite the existing folder, choose yes. After it’s done copying, launch iTunes on the Mac, and you are good to go. Your entire iTunes library will look exactly as it did on your PC.

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Q: Are there any good maintenance tips everyone should do to keep their computers running efficiently? I’m interested in Windows. Thanks!

A: Great question. My personal laptop (MacBook Pro) runs like an absolute champ, and it’s because there are a few things I do routinely. The same can be done on a PC. First and foremost, you must ALWAYS be conscience of the software that is installed on your computer. If you ever install something that you aren’t sure of, you are just asking for trouble. Always know what you are installing. If you aren’t sure, always err on the side of caution.

On a PC, I strongly recommend running a disk defragmentation on your hard drive once a month. This can be found by going to Start > All Programs > Utilities. When you save files to your computer, it rarely writes the file in one place. Usually, the file is fragmented and saves to many parts of your hard drive. As a result, your system, will run slower as it tries to piece together all the files. Running a “defrag” (as I like to call it) analyzes your drive, and assembles the files in a more continuous fashion, making it quicker to access them when you need them.

On a Mac, I recommend running a “Repair Disk Permissions” every month. While Mac OS X doesn’t suffer from the same file fragmentation issues that plague Windows, it does suffer from the occasional file permission amnesia. What this utility does is analyzes every file on your system, and compares their access permissions with what they should be. If there is a deviation, it corrects the problem. Not performing this task on a regular basis can result in apps misbehaving in strange ways. To run this, go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility. Highlight your local hard drive, and click the “Repair Disk Permissions” button.

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Q: How do you use iCalendar and have it update in real time and across multiple devices like iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone? Thanks!

A: There are a couple ways of doing this. The first way is by using MobileMe. MobileMe is a service provided by Apple that includes email, web hosting, photo/video sharing, calendar, address book, etc. I consider MobileMe to be the mortar that holds everything together (with the iPad, iPhone and Macs being the bricks). Currently, the service will cost you $99/year (well worth it, if you ask me), but there are rumors going around that there will be a free version available very soon. Either way, you can sign up for a free 60-day full trial now. As long as you have your MobileMe account set up properly on each of your devices, syncing of your calendars, addresses and email will happen automatically (and usually within a few seconds of a modification).

If you don’t want to use MobileMe, you can use a free Google calendar to do the same thing. After you set up your account, you will want to add the new calendar to each of your devices. Is definitely a little more complicated to set this up initially, but the long-term affect is virtually the same as if you were using MobileMe.

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Q: Photo organization in iPhoto – how do you organize your photos, do you give each individual photo a name or do you just tag a group or event? Also how do you copy previous years of photos onto an external hard drive – Do you copy them there first and then delete from iPhoto??? Help please – I have way too many precious photos……

A: I try and keep my photo organization pretty simple. I’ve tried more complicated approaches in the past, but it just cost me more time than it was worth. Having said that, you need to organize your photos the way that makes sense for you. For me, I keep everything chronologically. That’s about it. If I’m trying to find a photo from a trip to San Francisco in March 2009, I go to that date range in iPhoto. Done.

In addition, I do create various albums for photos that I plan on sharing with others via my MobileMe account. Not only does it make it easier for me to filter out the shots I don’t want to publish, but adding additional photos is a matter of dragging and dropping, then syncing.

I usually keep about a year’s worth on my local hard drive, and archive the rest onto DVD and external hard drives. I use a system called Drobo, and if you are serious about long-term storage and not losing your photos, it may be worth a look for you as well. As a brief intro, a Drobo is a unit that contains multiple hard drives that act as one. When you save a file, it saves the files across multiple drives. That way, when a hard drive fails (and they do fail), your data is still protected. A Drobo system does get a little pricey, but I consider it the cost of insurance for protecting your keepsakes.