How to Add Contact Information to iPhone Lock Screen

Some people don't like the idea of their contact information being in the hands of a stranger, but frankly, if my $600 (for replacement without new contract) iPhone is lost, I don't care if a stranger knows my phone number as long as I get my phone back!

Apparently there are apps for the iPhone that allow you to alter the lock screen to add your information, but I found a slick way that doesn't require another app download:

1. The iPhone allows you to choose what photo appears at the lock screen, so all you have to do is alter the photo a bit!  Start by choosing the picture you want on your lock screen.

Silver Strand beach, South jetty: Photo by Jared Skelton of Silverstrand Photography

2. Open the picture file on you computer and use whatever photo editing software you want to add some text.  For this post I will use Microsoft Paint because it's super easy to use and does the job just fine.  Start by using the text tool (highlighted below).

Click on the area you want your text, and type the text you want in the box.  You can change the font color to show up  better on the picture.  Then send this photo to an email account that you get on your phone, and open and save the photo to you iPhone camera roll.

On your phone, go to Settings > Wallpaper

Click on the picture of you lock screen (on the left above)

Select the location of the picture you want to set as your lock screen

Click on Set

Select Set Lock Screen

3. Lock your phone and make sure the photo shows up like you want it, and you're done!

How to Send Personal Documents and PDFs to Kindle Device

When I was playing around with my Kindle app on my iPhone I saw that you can send person documents and PDFs to your Kindle account and have them show up on your Kindle device or in the Kindle app for your iPhone, or iPad.

There are no instructions on how to do this in the app itself except that it gives you an email address to send documents to.  This only frustrated me because I was sending documents and they never showed up in the Kindle app.

So for any of you interested in this feature, here is how to get it set up.  Please note the steps below were completed to get a PDF document onto my Kindle app on my iPhone 4.

Step 1:
Go to your Amazon account to determine what email address you need to send documents to and add emails to the approved senders list.

Once logged in, click on Your Account

Under Your Account, click on Manage Your Kindle

Under Manage Your Account, click on Personal Document Settings on the left side of the page

If you want to edit the email address to which you will send personal documents you can.  Next, add to the approved email address list the email from which you want to send your personal documents.

Step 2:
Open your e-mail program (Hotmail, GMail, Outlook), start a new email and address it to the email designated for your device (see step one above).  Attach whatever document, e.g., PDF, to the email and send!

Step 3:
It takes a few minutes depending on your device connection for the document to appear in your Kindle device or app.  To view on your iPhone or iPad, open the Kindle app and use the category bar at the top to scroll from All Items to Docs

My iPhone starts here

Swipe on the word All Items to get to Docs

Enjoy your document!

Polyalphabetic Substitution Ciphers

One example of a Polyalphabetic Substitution cipher is the famous Vigenere cipher, which was thought to be unbreakable for almost 300 years! The Vigenere cipher uses the power of 26 possible shift ciphers.

How This Cipher Works:

1) Pick a keyword (for our example, the keyword will be "Josh").
2) Write your keyword across the top of the text you want to encipher, repeating it as many times as necessary.
3) For each letter, look at the letter of the keyword above it (if it was 'J', then you would go to the row that starts with a 'J'), and find that row in the Vigenere table pictured here.
4) Then find the column of your plaintext letter (for example, 'I', so the 9th column).

5) Finally, trace down that column until you reach the row you found before and write down the letter in the cell where they intersect (in this case, you find an 'R' there).

Example:

Keyword: j o s h j o s h j o s h j o s h j

Plaintext:   i w a n t t o h a v e d i n n e r

Ciphertext: RKSUCHGOJJWKRBFLA

Thus, the message "I want to have dinner!" comes out:
R K S U C H G O J J W K R B F L A

The Challenge:

Now it's your turn to try it!  Provided below is an encrypted secret message that you need to decipher.  I'm sure you're thinking "But how will I be able to decipher the message if I don't know the key word?"  Just look to The Gospel According to St. John, Chapter 8 verses 31, 32:

31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
32 And ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free.

Short Version:

MYY ZYXRN FFLKYKPXJ IY NHU OGRGFQG AH DUG HKV HHA KVUESR DSLAXICXZ,  ULN ISTZH TUW JCFWEV NKBMYM MOTK QX HKV HHA RVN KLTUS MV VFGIYXYYGK.

Longer Version (short version plus added message):

MYY ZYXRN FFLKYKPXJ IY NHU OGRGFQG AH DUG HKV HHA KVUESR DSLAXICXZ ULN ISTZH TUW JCFWEV NKBMYM MOTK QX HKV HHA RVN KLTUS MV VFGIYXYYGKMYY MYNKB HM ZFX BZ EVUKUXU FBUX LJHU EZHX HGU JKLVVJM BIFH IYXTYIA YFL MOTK CL OHN CM TNJN UL MYY FFLKYKPXJ UKL LZGISR DSLAXICXZ UVWTBLV QX OTMY GVM PYM SXRLGLW FL FHLKYKLW KBX WKVWXKBEA IYBEWBWEVM GLVVMLHKP NH JHDJKLAVHW AAV HXEM

Good Luck!

The Next Step

If you were able to figure out the anagram from the previous post, you will need the answer to figure out this next step in the puzzle. For those not familiar with book ciphers, a book cipher is a cipher in which the key is some aspect of a book or other piece of text. The book cipher is used to create a message using the letters in words from the book or text such as the "Silent Dogood" Letters in the movie National Treasure.

Here is an example:
Using the following text as the "book cipher" or reference text, create the secret message with the coordinates listed below (line-word-letter).

"That which we persist in doing becomes easy to do; not that the nature of the thing has changed, but that the power to do has increased. Quote by Heber J. Grant”

1-6-5, 1-9-2, 1-10-2, 1-6-1, 3-5-1, 2-10-2, 1-7-1

Answer: Good Job

Now, using the "Official" online version (located on the official website of the publishing organization) of the text that was the solution to the previous post's anagram, and the following indicators (book-chapter-verse-word-letter), decipher the encrypted message by Valentine's Day.  NOTE: the order of the books online isn't indicated, but if you are on the correct website, the books are divided into two columns (left and right) and book 1 starts on top left, book 15 is on the bottom right.  I have made it a little easier on you by correlating separate words with each book, so word one in the message is all found in book one, and so forth.  Good luck!
(Book-Chapter-Verse-Word-Letter)
1-1-1-5-3, 1-2-3-3-4, 1-3-7-16-1, 1-4-13-26-1
2-1-4-3-1, 2-2-1-6-3
3-1-1-19-1, 3-2-4-9-1, 3-3-1-6-5, 3-4-1-2-2
4-1-1-3-1, 4-1-1-1-3
5-1-4-11-1, 5-1-5-2-2, 5-1-6-5-1,5-1-7-18-3
6-1-1-24-7, 6-1-2-4-4
7-1-1-2-2, 7-1-2-1-2, 7-1-3-4-3
8-1-1-3-1, 8-2-6-6-2
9-1-8-2-1, 9-2-4-4-1, 9-3-3-6-3, 9-4-1-1-1, 9-5-4-5-3, 9-6-4-3-4
10-1-1-2-2, 10-2-1-6-2, 10-3-1-4-4
11-1-2-30-1, 11-2-1-3-4, 11-3-1-12-1, 11-4-1-4-2, 11-5-1-4-4, 11-6-6-8-5
12-1-1-1-1, 12-1-2-5-3, 12-1-3-2-2
13-1-1-11-1, 13-2-2-3-4, 13-3-3-1-3
14-1-1-6-1, 14-2-2-2-2, 14-3-1-2-1, 14-4-2-3-5
15-1-3-6-4, 15-2-2-2-2, 15-3-3-3-2, 15-10-3-4-5

Religious Anagram

An anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once; e.g., orchestra = carthorse, A decimal point = I'm a dot in place. Usually an anagram is a play on words of the original word or phrase, but not always.

Today's anagram is religious in nature, yet the anagram phrase doesn't really have anything to do with the original phrase. In order to figure it out, it might help to know that the object of the original phrase (3 words) is affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (see http://www.mormon.org). Good luck.

ANAGRAM = BONE FROM TOM HOOK

Welcome and Enjoy

For a while now, I've been intrigued by the art of cryptology, or hiding information, so I've created this blog as an outlet to explore and create. I'd like to post weekly puzzles, anagrams, codes, etc. for people of a like mind to solve. I hope you enjoy.