Jake Ludington's Digital Lifestyle

I want to take text messages from my iPhone and save them on my computer. Is it possible to save iMessage conversations to my PC?"

Each time you backup your iPhone, text messages are stored by iTunes as part of the iPhone backup, just in case you need to reset your iPhone or restore from backup. These backups aren't searchable, so you can't easily view them on your computer. If you use secure backups, which you should to protect your personal information, the iPhone backup is also encrypted. Thankfully, you can backup your phone for recovery purposes and use a second software app to copy all those SMS text messages from iMessage on your iPhone and transfer them to your computer where you can search and archive the messages however you see fit.

According to Guinness World Records, the HP Officejet Pro X576dw All-in-One printer had the fastest time to print 500 sheets by a color desktop printer. The fast time was just under 7 minutes 20 seconds. In addition to being fast, this printer also offers a number of enhancements for small business. Black ink cartridges print over 9200 pages of standard office printing, which is dramatically different than what we've typically expected from inkjet printers. The fixed print head, which is designed to print across an entire 8.5-inch wide sheet of paper, allows for 70 pages per minute without the "printer dance" that can cause the entire body of an inkjet printer to move.

See more about the HP Officejet Pro X576dw in this video.

I'm doing most of my genealogy research on Ancestry.com, because I love their database of information, but I want to be able to create a GEDCOM file from that data so I can use it with the Gramps genealogy program. I can easily figure out how to import GEDCOM into Ancestry using the Upload a GEDCOM button, but I cannot find the place to export the data.

Ancestry.com, like most companies, wants to focus on you using their product as much as possible, so it only makes sense that importing GEDCOM data should be easy. Once you know where to look, exporting a GEDCOM file from Ancestry is fairly easy too. The trick is knowing where to look (which is the part Ancestory could make easier).

Despite the fact that I have newer camera bodies with better specs, there are many times when I have one of my older Canon DSLR bodies around for taking pictures. While my newer cameras use SD cards, the older bodies are still using Compact Flash, which means I can't quickly transfer the files off to my Windows 7 computer without a card reader.

Or at least I thought that was the case. Canon's EOS utility, which comes in the camera box, will also work for connecting the camera, but if you're like me, you have no idea where that disk is. While Canon offers no easy compatibility for the Canon 20D and Canon 5D, as well as a few other models, there is a quick and easy workaround.

Older versions of Apple's iMovie provided a highly versatile solution for adding subtitles. This functionality has since been greatly limited in iMovie 9 and newer, in part because the Title feature in iMovie has changed dramatically over time. You are currently limited to choosing either the Lower Third or simply Lower title options. In both cases, videos with extended dialog will need to be carved up into many small clips in order to get all the text on the screen.

Creating Subtitles in iMovie
To access the Title options, be sure to click the Titles button in your iMovie workspace, which is the T located to the right of the digital camera icon.

Once you have the list of available titles visible, drag either the Lower Third or Lower title option to your movie clip. You are then able to edit the text of the lower third in the video preview window adding text to either of two lines. You can see the two options in the screenshot below.

In addition to changing the text for your subtitles, you can also configure the text size, the text color, and adjust the positioning on screen. iMovie (and most video editing apps) defaults to using white for text, which is nearly impossible to read on light colored backgrounds. I recommend changing it to an off-white or slightly yellow text color for easier reading.

If you have a movie without dialogue or if portions of the audio are hard to understand, using subtitles can be an effective way to communicate your story. The Windows XP version of Windows Movie Maker includes a subtitle feature as part of the built-in title tool. While adding subtitles in Windows Movie Maker is extremely easy, the software does have a few limitations.

The biggest disadvantage of the title feature in Windows Movie Maker is the software only allows you to add one title per clip. If you have a dialogue-heavy movie, you are required to break long segments into numerous small clips in order to get subtitles matched up with every verbal exchange. A second disadvantage is lack of control over where the subtitles appear on screen. The only place Windows Movie Maker supports subtitles is at the bottom of the screen with either one or two lines of text.

Dave writes, "I have an old PowerBook G4 laptop with a broken monitor (it just displays vertical lines). I connected it to my HDTV using an HDMI cable and a DVI to HDMI adapter and all I got on my TV was a blue screen. I had the TV set to the right input. Any ideas?"

Connecting an external display to a MacBook or PowerBook, as you did when you connected your HDTV, typically causes the Mac to extend the desktop to the external display. Sometimes this doesn't happen automatically, which means you need to make manual changes. In your case, the Mac shouldn't try to use the built-in laptop screen because it's broken, but the Mac probably can't detect that. Fortunately there's a relatively simply solution to the external display problem you are having.

This American Life is my favorite radio program. It finds real people doing interesting things and tells their story in a compelling way within the confines of a one hour weekly broadcast. The producers build the story against a compelling infusion of music always perfectly suited for the events unfolding throughout the course of the hour and there's always a sense of identity that makes you care about the story being told, even if the point of view isn't something you identify with.

Or in the words of the show's creators, "It's a weekly show. It's an hour. Its mission is to document everyday life in this country. We sometimes think of it as a documentary show for people who normally hate documentaries. A public radio show for people who don't necessarily care for public radio."

I almost never remember to tune in when the show airs, because the timing doesn't fit my schedule. Having the option to subscribe is perfect, because it supports the show and I get it on demand.

Shaky camera angles are occasionally used for cinematic effect, as seen in upping the fear factor of movies like Cloverfied and Blair Witch Project. These artistic decisions are the exception, not the norm. For most of us, a shaky camera is something we'd like to avoid, because most of our video is a reminder of special moments in our lives, not some freakish fictional adventure.

I can't count the number of times I've wished for family members to use a tripod or invest in a camcorder with image stabilization. When they don't you end up with something that can be nausea inducing. Smartphone cameras are even worse, because they don't have room for the optical image stabilization that camcorders support. Thankfully, you can find a software solution to many of these shaky camera problems.

With every new iPhone model, I find myself saying that the camera is the best smartphone camera I've ever used. The iPhone 4S camera is so great it outperforms many low end point-and-shoot digital cameras. What Apple still needs is better software controls natively available in iOS. Thankfully there's an app for that.

I was recently asked by Wondershare, makers of many great desktop video apps, to take their iPhone app, PowerCam, for a test drive. PowerCam successfully combines some important basic enhancements to your iPhone camera with some amazing special effects.