Save Extensions or Conf Call Passwords Along with Phone Numbers in iOS

A huge thanks to Jim Ray for sharing this tip. This is so useful to me that I felt compelled to share it. Someone, at iPhoneFAQ writes:

The iPhone will store and dial extensions to phone numbers in a couple of different ways, depending on how you decide to interact with the answering system on the other end. In short, you can have a number for a contact in your iPhone's address book to also store their extension or conference call ID/password/whatever. When you place the call, a new button is present on your phone's UI which will dial the stored code. Check out the guide to see exactly how to store these and how it works.

The Return of NetNewsWire

Daniel Pasco, at Black Pixel writes:

First, we intend to bring sync to future versions of NetNewsWire. It's too soon to go into details about this, but you should know that we recognize how extremely important it is and that it is a top priority for us. Second, even though we've been quiet about it, we have been working on new versions of NetNewsWire for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. We have some great new features and a modern design that we can't wait to show you. … As far as sync is concerned, we knew we would likely need an alternative to Google Reader as early as last year. Fantastic news.

Belkin's WeMo Light Switch

I do not think I've ever been this excited about a light switch. Until I saw this post shared around the web, I hadn't really been paying attention to the various home automation products now starting to come on the market in the mainstream.

Sending Rich Text Email with Mail.app

Like me, do you work in a corporate office environment or with clients who are Windows/Outlook users? Do you set your signature to a custom font/font size other than default plaintext? Ever notice that when receiving a reply from someone that your original email is default plaintext while your signature is formatted oddly? This is due to Mail.app's simplistic way of formatting (some would say sloppy) your email as it sends out, which Outlook interprets and renders badly for the recipient. Well, here's how you can fix that as well as a more detailed explanation of exactly what is going technically to cause this. Thanks of a friend of mine, Nancy Seeger for sharing this with me.

Fantasical For iPhone Released

I fell in love with Fantastical for OS X a few years back when it was released and recommend it to anyone who will listen to me and is in need of a better Calendaring application than iCal/Calendar.app. This morning, Flexibits released Fantastical for iPhone. I've bought it already and can heartily recommend it as similarly awesome as the OS X version is. It has now become my default calendaring app for my phone. My only wish was that it was universal for the iPad as well, but knowing Flexibits, they're working on either a universal version now or a dedicated iPad-only version. Make your life better, and get this app.

Black Pixel Opens Up Kaleidoscope 2 Beta

Matthew Panzarino, at The Next Web:

After almost 5 years as a development house for other people’s apps, Black Pixel is undergoing a similar shift today. The launch of its first major in-house app Kaleidoscope 2 — it’s putting its own name on a product and setting it out in front of consumers as an author — marks the beginning of what will be a portfolio of Black Pixel apps. As a big fan of Kaleidoscope, I'm very excited about this.

Cosmo, the Hacker ‘God’ Who Fell to Earth

Mat Honan, at Wired's Gadget Lab:

“I called Netflix and it was so easy,” he chuckles. “They said, ‘What’s your name?’ and I said, ‘Todd [Redacted],’ gave them his e-mail, and they said, ‘Alright your password is 12345,’ and I was signed in. I saw the last four digits of his credit card. That’s when I filled out the Windows Live password-reset form, which just required the first name and last name of the credit card holder, the last four digits, and the expiration date.” After Mat fell victim to similar social engineering miscreants weeks ago, he has begun investigating how widespread this issue is. What he has found, through a goldmine source, is that this sort of thing is prevalent within the industry. This is a must read article. I applaud Mat for exposing these security issues and hope the MANY companies mentioned in this article will take action to close these vulnerabilities within their systems.

NBC News' Fear-mongering Regarding Leaked Apple Device UDIDs

I always enjoy when non-tech reporters write about tech stories and get just enough of the details wrong to make it seem to the average user that the story is true while the story actually perpetuates falsehoods. Keyy Sanders and Bob Sullivan, at NBC News:

The UDID -- which stands for Unique Device Identifier -- is present on Apple iPads, iPods and iPhones, and is similar to a serial number. During the past year, researchers have found that many app developers have used the UDID to help keep track of their users, storing the data in various databases and often associating it with other personal information. When matched with other information, the UDID can be used to track users' app usage, social media usage or location. It could also be used to "push" potentially dangerous applications onto users' Apple gadgets. The way this paragraph is written, it would lead the average reader to believe that any of the leaked 12 million UDIDs could be used to push malware onto the respective iOS devices they belong to. This is a blatant lie. In order for something like this to happen, the culprit would have to register 120,000 Apple Developer accounts, paying $99 each for them which would cost a total of $11,880,000. Then someone would have to manually enter each UDID into Apple's Developer portal. Then and only then would someone have to make some sort of iOS app (that Apple could kill easily by deactivating the offending developer account) and add that app to each of the 120,000 developer accounts they've made in order to be able to generate a link or share a file that users would have to drag into their iTunes or use a service like Testflight to receive over the air (most if not all Testflight users are developers themselves.) As you can see, this is a near-impossible scenario. Yet if you read the quoted paragraph, NBC would like the reader to believe that they are possibly in grave danger of having malware "pushed" to their devices. ::eyeroll:: The question is - did these two reporters not understand how this works or did they intentionally attempt to mislead their readers to make the story juicier?