How to enjoy media files on iPhone without using iTunes (and using Dropbox instead)

I have to assume this works for most smartphones and tablets.

You will need

• a free Dropbox account* 
• an iPhone or similar
• the Dropbox iPhone app installed on your iPhone
• wifi connectivity

*or you can use my referrer link and give me extra space which is always nice
https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTQwMDAxMDQ5?src=global9 - note that this shares your email address with me, so think about your own privacy too, possibly it shares my email address with you as well!

Instructions

• Save the media file into your Dropbox folder on your computer
• open up the Dropbox app on your iPhone, navigate to the file and play it
  (you'll need the wifi to synchronise with the Dropbox server and to maintain playback - however if you favourite the file you can probably listen to it offline).

I've been listening to mp3s on my iPhone via Dropbox since November 2010 as I find it easier to handle files via Dropbox than iTunes. I just save them in Dropbox and when I open the iPhone app there they are and they play fine.

Yesterday I was rather pleased to discover that it also works for video files and I managed to play a 700mb .avi file as well as a 176mb .wmv file (it's the same programme but the larger one is nearer to broadcast quality).

Not surprisingly the first time I tried to play the larger file it kept cutting out every 10 seconds and seemed to be not working very well at all but a bit of patience was all that was needed. The iPhone did something to it to 'optimise it for mobile playback' no idea what but about 10 minutes later it played all the way through.

Dropbox's own help pages have a list of files that will play including music and video:
https://www.dropbox.com/help/80/en and they also have a more advanced page for trickier filetypes and how to convert them https://www.dropbox.com/help/83/en (they suggest Handbrake - I've only used Zamzar and Real Player).

Media filetypes that I've successfully played on my iPhone via Dropbox

• .avi
• .flv
• .m4a (these are meant for iTunes, but work fine)
• .mp3
• .wmv 

Music files listed on Dropbox help files that should work: .mp3, .aiff, .m4a, .wav
Video files listed on their help files that should work: .mov, .mp4, .m4v

Filetypes that I've not had much luck with

• .m4r - ring tones, but these can be converted to .mp3 files via http://www.zamzar.com (I've just tried it, works fine)

Some thoughts on literacy and health literacy

Disclaimer: All views are my own and not necessarily shared by my employers.

Following this tweet
@mjrobbins RT @fivethirtyeight Words like 'earthquake' and 'challenge' elitist as have 7+ letters - CNN "expert". http://bit.ly/cUfOZg

there's been a bit of discussion on Twitter about reading ability and literacy. I posted that I believed something like a fifth of adults had literacy problems but Ed Yong challenged that 'problem' isn't necessarily an appropriate category description and that it's more reasonable to view it as a young reading age and difficulty with certain technical words. Certainly I'd agree that I don't want to apply pejorative categories to people but I think there are people who have more serious difficulties with reading and comprehension, more serious than those with a low reading age.

In fact there are lots of categories of people who'll struggle to read practical information and advice about diabetes, or any health condition, including people who've not learned to read, people with dyslexia, people whose first language isn't English, people with learning difficulties etc. Even people with good reading skills may well struggle to read something if it's not written clearly.

A large proportion of our constituency are people from backgrounds who may not be equipped to access information easily - for this reason we have information in web and print formats, and in a variety of languages and alternative formats (eg audio for those with visual problems). Diabetes is more common among South Asian people where English may not be the first language so info is available in a variety of Asian languages, it's also more common among people with learning difficulties and so we have pictorial information available.

In 2004 an article on the BBC's news website reported that "Diabetes websites (are) too complicated". The analysis of several diabetes health websites included ours, although they called us the British Diabetic Association, and found that you'd need a reading age of about 15 to comprehend our site despite the fact that the average reading age was apparently nine years old.

Martin Robbins wondered if there comes a point where people communicating information can't really take responsibility for a lack in anyone's education - true enough we can't, but in our case we are 'the charity for people with diabetes' and have set ourselves the goal of getting our information to as many people with diabetes as possible.

There are plenty of people who have poor literacy though. According to the National Literacy Trust (2010) 'One in six people in the UK struggle with literacy. This means their literacy is below the level expected of an eleven year old' - that data comes from the 2003 DfES 'Skills for Life' report. The NLT also notes that 'the Leitch Review, found that more than five million adults lack functional literacy, the level needed to get by in life and at work.'

The National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) has produced a number of booklets highlighting how the design of a variety of medical devices (including labelling) can affect how easy it is to follow instructions or understand what needs to be done http://www.nrls.npsa.nhs.uk/resources/collections/design-for-patient-safety/ - scroll down to see their suggestions for medicine labels (PDF).

Jama D and Dugdale G (2010) Literacy: State of the Nation: a picture of literacy in the UK today. National Literacy Trust.
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/assets/0000/3816/FINAL_Literacy_State_of_the_Nation_-_30_March_2010.pdf

This may also be of interest:
Paasche-Orlow MK, Parker Rm, Gazmarian JA et al (2005) The prevalence of limited health literacy. Journal of General Internal Medicine 19: 1228-1239.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1490053/pdf/jgi_40245.pdf

See also

• National Forum on Information Literacy (US) http://www.infolit.org/index.html
• Patient Information Literacy (UK) http://www.informationliteracy.org.uk/Resources_By_Theme/Patient_il.aspx
• CILIP CSG Information Literacy Group (UK) http://www.informationliteracy.org.uk/CILIP_CSG_IL.aspx - I don't think it's restricted to health
• Patient Information Forum (PIF) on health literacy http://www.pifonline.org.uk/themes/health-literacy/ (health literacy isn't the same as general literacy but it's often related).

Post for @garwboy

This post is non-canonical and is logically equivalent to Twitlonger except I decided to put it here :)

Some suggestions
ABSW has a Christmas party and might like to hear your amusing and entertaining stories, mind you if it's vastly critical of the media probably it won't go down awfully well given that it's the Association of British Science Writers (of which I'm a member).

The British Science Association (nee The BA) has an annual Science Communication Conference coming up in May - I don't know how much of the programme is in place but they do often end with a bit of entertainment after the final plenary. You could be that entertainment...

The Science Media Centre, based at the RI, hosts half-day sessions for scientists to hear more about working with the media. The purpose of these is to encourage scientists to get involved, and early on in their careers, and communicate their work via the media. If your stories include things about what not do to, that might work. I believe Wellcome may also host something similar, and possibly the Royal Society - but I might be wrong.

Cancer Research UK do their own in-house training for their own scientists in talking about the research that the scientists do and which Cancer Research UK fund - they may not need any further input but you can but ask.

You could ignore the media-mediator concept entirely and just go to the science departments in universities or to the professional societies and give them a presentation discouraging them from talking to the media - however I wouldn't seriously suggest this as being a good idea, and would actively discourage you from doing this myself, somewhat ironically.

I don't know of any publications that would be particularly interested in this, with the emphasis being 'I don't know' rather than implications that they wouldn't be interested. I'm guessing they wouldn't rush to publish stuff that might be a bit 'insulting' to them but depends how you're pitching your material.

That's all I can think of at this precise moment...