I had a list of the things that I wanted on the new iPhone 5. Yes, I said iPhone 5, this is the 5th iPhone no matter what you want to call it. I take a lot of photos and it’s not so important that I use my phone, but the phone is the best way to be able to upload them on the go. If the phone would use the USB/SD reader that the iPad uses (used?) I’d probably rely on the phone camera less. So I had a list of what I wanted and some things that would be a bonus for me, most of them revolving around photos or video. Everything else is great on the iPhone it just needed to be be faster and have more storage.

I Needed:

• More megapixels with a better lens.
• Image stabilization.
• More storage space.
• Faster (of course).
• Faster downloads and uploads (of course).

Would like:

• Better front facing camera
• Light for the front facing camera
• Significantly better rear camera. Make the camera thicker to accommodate better lens with real zoom.
• SD slot or USB adaptor

But I saw none of these possibly happening except maybe a slightly better front facing camera.

They actually met everything in my “needed to buy” list, it’d have been a dilemma if they’d only met a few. I was not expecting the faster downloads but that’ll be on my want list every model. The camera went from 5 MP to 8MP, from a 4 to 5 lens optics system. They also added image stabilization for the video (I’m not sure if that helps the stills too?). Yes, I really like that this phone is meeting exceeding my basic photography needs.

They increased the speed (they say doubled, but the on-line speed tests say about 70% faster) and increased the graphics speed by seven times. How many years go by before you see that much improvement in a new computer? That’s why this is the iPhone 5!

They also add the Siri personal assistant for doing tasks verbally and taking dictation. This was not a selling point to me, it was a fun bonus.

There are a bunch of other perceived features on the iPhone 4s but many of those are iOS 5 upgrades and most run on the previous version or two of the phone already.

Another huge rea$on to upgrade now: Gazelle.com offered me $340 for my phone (assuming they evaluate it the same way I did), that price has already dropped about $120 since I got my quote from them (which was Sept. 14th and I had 30 days to ship it back) they just got it yesterday but they haven’t evaluated it yet. But imagine when the iPhone 6 comes out how much more that price will have dropped.

Yes, I do realize this process rationalizes me upgrading every year. But I like this phone, I think I use it more than I watch television (and sometimes I use it to do that!).

I wish they’d put something extra in the $299 model, like a better front facing camera with a flash or more RAM. It kills me to pay an extra $100 for the first 16 GB upgrade and then the extra $100 for the next 32GB; I wish there was some extra minor difference that would be a bonus for paying that “Apple Tax”…

Quick mini-review:
It certainly feels faster, I wish they’d upgraded the RAM too (still at 512 MB), I’d think that would help with multiple applications open and bouncing between them. Occasionally, I see the faster download/upload speeds but nothing stellar so far.

I quite often would throw my tiny Canon sd780 in my pocket when I’d go out, just in case. That will now happen less, since I’ll already have something with me. If it’s an event or party, I’ll grab a camera to keep in hand, but if I don’t know for sure I’ll be taking pictures, I won’t grab one of my Canons (either pocket, digital SLR or video). I can see the image stabilization when recording video. Plus, they made the video be 1080p too; although I almost wish I could turn 1080p off, it’s eating up the space and it’s really not that necessary (at least that’s how I feel at this point).

And Siri is amazing. You just have to try her it out. I actually use my portable keyboard less since the dictation is so good.

UPDATE: So when I took my phone out of the case while the phone looked great, there were a lot of scratches along the metal edges of the housing and a few on the back, I thought the front looked great (they also mentioned a few minor on the front) but I do trust these guys, there are too many good reviews and I’ve used them before too. So they only offered me $260 (or they’ll mail it back for free). As I said above prices drop, so taking it somewhere else at this makes no sense and I’d have done it for that price anyways (I think).

It’s really more of a history of entertainment and communications technology and how it grew (or shrunk) into the iPhone. The iPhone part is pretty small overall (it’s not just an Apple video).

I thought it was a good introduction to technology video and pretty easy to follow. Lots of text and it moves pretty quick, you’ll want to make it full screen to read the details (pay attention to the prices!).

So I ordered a MacBook Air 11 inch, that’s a whole different post, but I got the sleeve that I ordered from eBay and it only took eight(?) days to get here (they’ve got more, but no promises for how long this link lasts). I’m sure it’s non-authorized but it was only $7.13 shipped(!) and I needed something cheap until I found something I really like, but here’s the thing, I really like this one! And I can turn it inside out and it’s all red (they offer the same one with no logo for 56 cents less).

Hopefully this will be my most boring post of the how 31 photo challenge. Why I didn’t think to take any photos when I stopped at the junkyard, I have no idea; there was all sorts of cool stuff: things getting smashed, piled high, old cars, people getting the parts they needed. I needed a plastic up thingy for the door handle, it cost me a dollar!

This is from Day 2 of 31 photos in 31 days.

According to CNN, Apple now has more cash on hand than the United State government. Wow!!!

“the government had an operating cash balance Wednesday of $73.8 billion.

Tech juggernaut Apple had a whopping $76.2 billion in cash…”

The thing to keep in mind is: isn’t most of the ca$h the government has already allocated for something? This money that Apple has isn’t even allocated to do anything (to our knowledge). Their stock has hit it’s highest numbers ever and they’re likely to release a new iPhone in a month or two when they usually release new iPods and new iPod touches.

The was a rumor the other day they might buy Barnes and Nobel for $1.5 billion, that’s pocket change when they’ve got $75 billion(!) in the bank. Imagine how cheap they could have got Borders if they had wanted it.

I saw the Hasbro my3D at the store yesterday and just had to have it. It makes for an interesting interactive 3D experience. You need an iPhone or iPod Touch to use it and I think it works better with the newer ones that have the gyroscope built-in. But there are a half-dozen my3D apps you can get from the Apple App store for free and a few you can pay for; as of today five my3D apps are free and one is 99 cents and another is $4.99 (both have free “lite” versions). A few months ago, they were giving all the games away for free, so I grabbed them while they were free(!)

Sector 17 is the space game, looks pretty cool and is fun for the bit that I played with it. The image below is the two halves of the image that I was looking at alternating; if you can alternately wink at three-tenths of a second, it probably looks 3D to you.

All the games have no more than two buttons to play (where your thumbs stick into the device), but you do a lot of head tilting and spinning around to make some of the games work. Sector 17 and 360° Sharks really require standing. Sector 17 has a “couch mode” but it’s a lot harder to play; I believe not having a gyroscope model if the iDevice is like playing in “couch mode”. My old first generation iPod Touch (I think it’s 1st gen) works with the few games I tried.

They’ve got a pretty good thing going here, $35 for a hunk of plastic and a few games, plus they’ll charge you for more games in the future. At 99 cents, I’d probably buy most of them to try it out, at $4.99 I’d probably try the lite version until I was bored (for $4.99 the space game does look pretty cool).

There is a Teleport L.A. game (that is more for kids) on a pier in Los Angeles which is all 3D 360° that you can pan around, this would be cooler if it were the Grand Canyon, the Moon or the Pyramids! And there is another more kid-like game called Bubble Bolt that you can roll around in a hamster ball collecting points. The iamge below is how is it looks on your iPhone screen.

A game called ShatterStorm is like the classic Tempest, but I thought it was a little hard to control. Spinning my head around like I did the controller back in the ’80s just doesn’t work for me.

There are separate snap on trays trays for different iDevice models (they could be labeled better) and there is a open cutout for the camera on my iPhone 4, so some interactive 3D VR type games are a possibility!

Pluses:

• I don’t need my (reading) glasses to use it.
• It’s 3D and 3D is cool!

Downsides:

• I have to remove my iPhone from the case to use it.

Lots of game load times, these programs are very large (one was 500 MB!) and they have lots of loading time between levels and menus.

• The default volume for the music in the background is very loud (it drowns out the game sounds), but it’s all adjustable (and so is the sound effects volume).
• The games seem to work better if you have the model with the gyroscope, it’s more intuitive; you just look verses tilting your head. Although some games like the Tempest clone are just tilting your head left or right.

It’s actually cheaper shipped on-line (via Target at Amazon) then at the store (I paid $35), I asked at the counter but they wouldn’t match their own price (“that’s just to compete with other on-line services”), but I guess it didn’t matter, I bought it anyways. The plastic part will come down in price, they actually have a unique code on the viewfinder you need to input (one time) into a game before you play it.

UPDATE: And as of the update a few minutes ago, my3D Sector 17 started working with Apple’s Game Center. Also, this app has shrunk in size (from 434MB to 270MB).

So this kid Trevor plays songs on the computers at Apple stores and records videos of himself dancing to them and posts them to YouTube. They’re entertaining and he’s certainly not shy! I actually heard about him because someone else was complaining about the girls in the background making fun of him in a different video and that they’re the ones that look like idiots…

I’m wondering out if Trevor is really just marketing for “Active”, he sure wears a lot of shirts with their name on it. And as far as I know, the other shirts could be their brand too.

And if that’s not the case, why the heck isn’t someone paying him to wear their shirts?!?

Either way, it looks like he’s having fun and that’s all that matters. I’m not sure how old he is, but he did comments on being 5’1″.

Last month I saw the HP LaserJet Pro CP1525nw Color Laser Printer on sale so I picked one up. Why?

• Because I don’t have a color printer set up (inkjet printers usually dry out before I use them all),
• I wanted a network printer (I gave Mom my networked laser printer so she could keep it in my old bedroom instead of at her desk) and this one also has WiFi,
• I wanted to be able to directly print to the printer via an Apple Macintosh (not routing it through a Windows PC),
• I wanted it to print directly from my iPhone (and my future iPad)
• and it was only $150 plus tax!!!!

The darn thing got to my house in under 48 hours and it didn’t cost anything for shipping.

The one I received needed the firmware updated (maybe that’s part of the cheaper price?) but that only took a few minutes. It works great. It was easy to put together and I can print from my iPhone!

What else can I tell you: It’s also built-in Ethernet, wireless 802.11b/g/n and USB connections. And it’s got some other kind of feature that you can set up so you can e-mail files to it via HP ePrint. It’s got 4.3 stars our of 5 at HP.com and about about the same at Amazon (but it’s $70 more).

The huge benefit is when I’m looking at an e-mail or web page, I don’t need to remember to go back later and print it, it just does it for me then. And my e-mails and web pages look just like I printed them from my computer. The photos print small though (maybe 3″ x 5″?) but they look great. I wish the iPhone would let me print while on the go and then sync up to the printer when I got home (that’s the way it works on the computer); I’m sure that will come in a later version. I’m almost tempted to get a second one because that would get me 4 spare toner cartridges at only $37.50 apiece.

So the color wireless HP LaserJet printer is only $150 until the 15th of April, 2011 so if you’re thinking of a new printer get it. It’s worth it for the cost of toner alone…

If you don’t know by now, I’m a Macintosh fan as in: “Hi! My name is Gary and I’m a Mac User…”. This is from last week’s Friday Question, but I never got around to it.

I was a PC user before I used Mac and when I say PC, I mean DOS user, not Windows. Actually, I used Windows before that, but I wasn’t really a fan at the time, I think the last machine that I had was a laptop with floppy (no hard drive) that I had a crazy way set up to boot it and put some of Microsoft Works in the RAM drive and then I stuck in disc 2 with the dictionary and room for some documents (or something like that).

But where I was doing work they were Macintosh so I was always converting my word processing files back and forth and couldn’t do any of the HyperCard* stuff at home, so I picked up a used MacPlus with an external hard drive and never looked back. That was probably nineteen years ago..?

Since then, I’ve owned (or work owned) a Mac Classic, IIcx, PowerPC 610, PowerPC 6100, MacBook Duo 280c (with a docking station at home and work) that I eventually converted to a Duo 2300, a monster PowerBook G3 (it was more lugable than a laptop), a tower PowerMac G4 (the first with a DVD burner), iBook 12 inch, PowerBook 12 inch (2 different models), MacBook 13.3 inch and for a few weeks a MacBook Air 10.6 inch (I returned it since it didn’t have enough storage for me (awesome machine though). I could ramble more about models and printers and stuff, but I did this in a Happy Twenty-Fifth Birthday Macintosh! post a few years ago.

Needless to say, I’m a huge fan. I’ve never been one to jump on their new things, but I do grow to love them. I waited until the color iPod before getting one. I waited until the third iPhone (the 3Gs) before getting one (and that was after specifically getting a iPod Touch to try out for a few months first since I didn’t really want to switch to AT&T at the time).

My MacBook is my main computer, my desktop is a little old, I think it’s ten years old and while it’s gotten a few processor upgrades, memory and hard drives, it’s more convenient to have everything on my laptop.

But my MacBook is getting a little old too, it’s just over three years old and I’m looking around. I’ll probably upgrade my MacBook this summer, if they come out with a new one (or else I’ll get the MacBook Pro)_, but I’m hoping they’ll do a new education promo with a free iPod touch again.

*Hypercard was one of the most amazing pieces of development software ever! You could learn how to do some pretty incredible programs without learning too much coding.

So, I was really considering the iPad a year ago. I thought it looked amazing as devices go.

But I decided that “I think I’ll pass this time around” and “it doesn’t have a camera of any sort. Yet…”

Now it’s a year later and I think I’m ready to take the plunge. It’s faster, two times faster and the graphics are nine times faster (does the nine contribute towards the two?). It’s got the front facing camera and the 720p HD video camera.

What doesn’t it have? A lot of things, but I can get past those little things. But there are two things I wish it had: a higher resolution display and a smaller size. A higher resolution would have guaranteed that I’d purchase the top of the line, as it is now, I’m not sure what model to get. I also wish it were smaller, I could work with a 7″ version just fine.

What makes me crazy with Apple on these things is that the 16 GB model is $500, it’s a $100 more for 32 GB model (that’s $100 for 16 GB more) but it’s only another $100 for the 64 GB model, why is that 32 GB half the price? I need something extra for that first extra $100, like a flash or a better rear camera.

So it’s going to cost me at least $500 for the unit (up to $829), probably $100 in accessories (HD out, SD/USB reader and cover) and I’m sure I’ll pick up some applications (another $50) like: The Elements and while Solar Walk is iPad ready, it looks like I’ll have to re-buy Star Walk. I already pre-purchased some iPad apps, like Scrabble (so maybe I’ll get into that again) and SimCity when there were some sales or promotions.

And I’ll need the new iMovie. And Pages, Numbers and Keynote. There goes another $35. And probably Garage Band, even though I’ll never use it other than to show others how cool it is…

And I have to figure out if I want it in black or white. I’ll probably do the homage to the iBook and get it in white, if it’s available…

Skype 3.0 has now been released for the iPhone and it now supports video! Of course it supports the front and rear cameras on the iPhone 4! And it does the calls over 3G too! And it’s free. What are you waiting for? Go get Skype with video right now…

What’s New in Version 3.0
Improvements:

• Make Skype to Skype video calls on WiFi and 3G*

• Call Skype desktop users (Mac OS X or Windows) and other iPhone users.
• Two-way video calls supported on iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch 4th gen.
• Receive only video supported on iPad and iPod touch 3rd gen, with no camera.
• Make video calls in portrait and landscape.
• kype video calling requires iOS 4.0 or above.
  *Additional Data charges may apply

What more can I say other than go try it out?

Actually, I could say “Where was this for the last 10 days when I was in Costa Rica?!?“.

So Verizon will start to carry the WiFi iPad and sell it with a MiFi wireless access point for $130 more. What’s interesting is that they’ll sell it for $20 a month for 1 GB of data (and no contract). This is an interesting pricing plan as AT&T charges $15 for 200MB and $25 for 2GB, so it’s an interesting sweet spot for the data. Verizon’s next jump is $35 for 3GB and $50 for 5GB (see the FAQ). Plus, they’re legitimately buying them from Apple (and they sell them just with WiFi too). So you can use the MiFi with other WiFi devices too, but you’ll obviously use more data (duh!)

I just thought it was some interesting competition for AT&T…

So I checked out the Apple iPad today. It’s very cool. I just have a hard time justifying one when I already have a MacBook and and iPhone. And I wouldn’t want it without the data plan option either (so their’s more money).

It’s a beautiful piece of hardware and simple to use. If you’ve got family members you’ve never been able to get into computing (parents/grandparents), this is the device for them to use…

I did make sure that I did not bring my $100 in Best buy gift cards. It was calling out to me, “Buy me!”, and I’d have been sorely tempted. Everyone who walked by was very interested.

The display of this web site was very good, you can click for (slightly) larger images.

Not much to say other than if you’re interested in the iPad, this is a good five minute review. They pack a lot of info into a few minutes…

If the video doesn’t show up above or if you want to watch it in HD then watch the iPad demo at Vimeo.

I’m not (planning on) getting an iPad. But I think if a store were open right now that had one, I’d be tempted…

This is just a test of MacJournal. I’ve tried it in the past, but I thought I’d give it another try since it just came in a bundle I purchased and they’re coming out with an iPhone app that you can sync your entries with it.

I had a few problems getting it to configure. I ended up manually doing the settings and using the MovableType protocol with a blog ID of “1”. Couldn’t get the atom protocol for posting to work (I’ve never gotten it to work with any blogging client). Actually, it just alerted me to version 5.2 with allowed me to use the WordPress protocol, but I still needed to use a blog ID of “1”. And when it pulls down my old entries, it pulls down my tags, but doesn’t seem to grab my categories.

As I write this, I see a way to set the tags, but I don’t see any way to set my categories. I see it pulled the categories down from the web site but I just don’t see how to choose them. When you submit the post (“Send to Blog”) is when it asks you to pick the category! That was not in the help section at all. Also, it’s kind of inconvenient, if you write an article off-line and wait until you are connected to the internet to post it you can’t just hit send, you need to pick the categories which might not seem like a big deal, but when you’ve got a 1/2 dozen posts you wrote off-line and you’ve only got a few minutes to post (and they might be charging you by the minute) it’d be nice to have done that part in advance.

Hmm… Trying to figure out how to wrap the text around this image. Can’t figure out how to edit the HTML (my preferred choice) to change it. Not so happy with this at this point, but maybe someone will offer some tips.

Later: It also auto capitalized my tags after I specifically typed them in lowercase, not happy with that. I’ve got a few other WordPress things: Not being able to edit custom fields and set the slug for the blog post name, but those are pretty specific things, but I wanted to mention them for those loooking for a client.

I’ll play with it a little more, but I think I’ll be sticking with Ecto which integrates with WordPress quite nicely. I’m not saying it’s bad, but it doesn’t let me do some of the things I want to do. Ecto handles the categories, tags, custom fields and the web URL (slug) for WordPress very well; plus it allows me to create some macros, makes it pretty to create Amazon links, has a nice preview and can switch between WYSIWYG and HTML quite easily.

FYI, this is MacJournal version 5.1.4 5.2 and a self-hosted WordPress 2.9.2 blog.

How could you not want one of these? The ad makes it feels like it’s something out of Star Trek and that’s before they run the Star Trek movie promo clip!!

Direct link to the Apple iPad commercial.

Actually, I think I’ll pass this time around. I’d ditch my iPhone if it were a phone, but really don’t need another device to carry around and I have a laptop. To get the GPS it sounds like you need the 3G card (otherwise it just uses the WiFi for an estimate). And it doesn’t have a camera of any sort. Yet…

I’ve had a few people just happy that the iPhone phone dropped to $99 (for 8GB) and are tempted to get that instead of the $199 model with more features (and 16 GB). They want to know if it’s really worth the $100 more.

Here’s why it’s worth it (and I’m not even going to point out the things that you think I will):
Just a few weeks ago there was $100 difference between the $199 (8 GB) and $299 (16 GB) iPhone 3g models and the only difference was 8GB of storage. Right now the $99 model is 8 GB and $199 is 16 GB so it’s the same $99 for 8 GB. The 8 GB iPod Touch (it’s an iPhone with no phone, no GPS, no camera, no microphone and lots of other stuff too) is $229 and you don’t get much at all! Here’s my countdown list on why to get the 3gs, please note that compass, video and better photos are the last three reasons, not the top three. This list is really for those who are making a purchase that think they don’t want the compass or better camera w/ video; this is not a reason to upgrade from the iPhone 3g, that’s expensive.

Here’s everything between the $99 iPhone 3g and the iPhone $199 3gs:

• 8 GB of storage (flash) memory – twice as much storage memory for apps and videos and music and audiobooks.
• 256 MB of RAM – twice as much memory for applications to run in (more efficiently which makes it seem faster).
• Faster Processor – The main processor is 50% faster and a faster graphics chip, Apple says this gives you up to twice the speed.
• Better battery life – For just about everything but phone calls and 3g network use.
• Faster network – This will utilize AT&T’s faster network (once it gets installed) which should improve battery life according to Apple.
• Oleophobic coating on screen – more fingerprint resistant (geeky oleophobic details from Bill Nye
• Photos – 3.2 MP with tap to focus (instead of 2 MP).
• Video Recording – This is new, not on the other models. You can directly upload to YouTube, MobileMe and (I assume) email to someone.
• Compass – Maps will orient the right way and I think people will come out with some cool applications utilizing this. I think thinking astronomy applications first, point at the sky and it identifies what you are viewing and offers links to more information or you ask it for a star or planet and it points it out for you (I predict this won’t take long at all, scroll down on this page to see this for G1); maybe even point out satellites as they travel across the sky. Then I’m counting on being at a national park or a big city and point my phone at something and it will supply all sorts of information about that landmark. See this page for a sample tourist image or imagine this (see video) but overlaid on top of live images of where you are. Or this interactive view of Wimbeldon.

Did I leave anything out? How far did you have to go down the list before you decided it was worth $99?

The first four are really the biggest value: Twice the storage, twice the memory (this will help), faster processor and better battery life!

Notes: I do understand that Apple is only charging $100 for 16 GB more memory in the $299, but since you don’t want to spend that much, we’re really not going go there.

So as I’ve mentioned before, I’m really counting on a new iPhone announcement next week. Actually, I’m counting on a new release…

Here’s a sign that’s been hung at the WWDC (World-Wide Developer’s Conference) for next week.

Another big bonus would be Steve Jobs showing up at the end of the keynote for “just one more thing”.

I think they’re going to have lots of surprises for us next week. Apple’s good at that.

Banners (WWDC 2009), originally uploaded by adamjackson1984.

And when Apple makes announcements, they usually have time lines and actually come through. Unlike (as I heard the other day) Microsoft who does demo’s of whatever shiny object has their attention at the time (releasing it in a timely manner is a whole different matter).

FYI – Here’s a graphical iPhone image with all the rumors on it that someone put together.

Assuming we get new iPhones at the WWDC in early June, I’ve got a few guesses. June 9th is when it’s assumed Apple will release the new 3.0 Operating System and announce (or release new phones). I think the upgrade is supposed to be free for iPhone users but not for the iPod touch users; I find this completely bizzaro since I think you’ll need it to purchase applications, so Apple is cutting out their market of potential iTunes App sales.

They could just announce new phones, but people’s contracts are running out so I assume they’ll have something to release or announce with product in the next few months (there are July 17 rumors too, but it could just be the same rumor re-tweeted over and over). I’m just talking about features for the physical phone, the software has been out in beta and I don’t think there will be too many surprises there.

1) I think we’ll get a new phone with a new camera. It’s never had the best camera and rumors say Apple has been buying 3 MP and 5 MP chips. I’d really hope it’s the 5 MP as the main camera, but sadly I’m not sure what else they’d use the 3 MP chips in. I’m assuming this would also allow you to record video. But 3 MP is pretty low when you consider the quality of everything else that goes into the iPhone.
2) I’d love it to have two cameras, one on the back and one of the front for video-conferencing. I don’t think we’ll get that with this refresh (maybe on ‘the iTablet’?), but if they offer it, I definitely pick up that model.
3) I think they’ll start offering an iPhone with more memory, they’ve had more memory in the iPod Touch (up to 32 GB v.s up to 16 GB)for a while so this is a no brainer (IMHO). But will they stop at 32 GB or go all the way to 64 GB?

Other stuff:
Lots of rumors on a faster processor and if Apple wants to make this a gaming machine it needs a little more power. Rumors indicate faster chip purchases, but these could be for ‘the tablet’, but then again maybe they need it for the rumored video recording capabilities.

I feel if Apple starts releasing very different model iPhones, people will start getting confused on which models to get. So far the only difference has been color (do they still make the white?) and storage. If they try keeping a cheaper model with less features, a mid-range with with a better (or two) cameras and another with faster processor will just confuse the masses. Even more confusing if each higher step doesn’t include every feature of the “lower” models. Nothing says “don’t buy” more than confusion between models.

And speaking of the iTablet, which I think will be more of big iPhone/iTouch than a low power tablet or netbook computer, I’m not sure why the iTablet would need a better camera than the iPhone (I’m really hung up on the 3 MP / 5 MP chip rumors). I’d like the tablet to have to ability to be a phone to use my SIM chip from my iPhone for data. They better not release a tablet with a phone from a competing company so I need to buy another plan for wireless data for this other device.

So I’m ready to transition to the iPhone, I’ve been playing with the iTouch (yes, I know it’s an iPod Touch) for a few months and I need the data “on” all the time. As long as they announce a way to tether my laptop to the Internet via the phone, I’m in!

Argh! Haven’t been this frustrated in a very long time…

The last 24 hours:
- I can’t sync my calendar items and address/phone numbers between my computers, MobileMe and iPod Touch.
- My main Windows machine won’t reboot, keeps resetting. Think the hard drive went.
- Accessing/syncing to my AppleTV is goofed up (that’s minor, unrelated and hacked so not an Apple issue)
- My cell phone keeps saying international roaming when I’m at home (it’s Sprint). I’m not that close to the border of Canada/Michigan.

I’ve spend more time with tech support the last 24 hours than the last 24 months. I’ve been escalated multiple times at Apple and not getting any closer. And after all the changes at my end I’m leaning towards it’s going to be a problem at their end so then I’ll have to get everything set back the way I want (a few hours ago, I’d have said 100% sure at their end, but not so sure now). They say this is a new problem and since we’re pushing 4 hours today I’m hoping it’s a unique problem (for their sake).

And I’ve wasted another sunny day

This is a test from my iPod Touch.

The edit screen looks like this:

Doesn’t want actually post the tags that I manually typed for the post (while categories work fine). For some reason it seems to crop a photo to a square and only lets you use one photo. Works off-line okay. It’s pricey at 9.99 but works with multiple blogging systems and multiple blogs.

So I get an e-mail from iTunes today stating that an episode for my new season pass for “Sophie” has arrived. The first thing I thought was that I accidentally clicked “buy season” when I downloaded the free pilot last week. But when I check the receipt I see six other items (in addition to the season pass) totaling $61.93! Not only that, I see another order for $5.97! Not a chance that I placed these orders (FYI, the orders were placed at 1 am and 5 am).

Here’s the really strange part: Almost all of the purchase was videos (tv, movies, movie rentals) and I think those kinds of videos still have DRM in them and no additional computers were authorized. What good are these to anyone if they didn’t authorize a computer? Can they even play them? Wouldn’t it have been easier to have just downloaded torrents of these files? These oddities make me think it’s an accounting error.

So I had to “report a problem” to Apple/iTunes for each of the 10 individual items. The e-mails went something like this:

I did not place this order for any of the 3 items on this order. Nor has my computer downloaded these items. It’s order XXXXXXXX I also have another order from today (ZZZZZZZZ) that I did not place.

I’ve changed my password as a precaution. I also tried to play some older protected/DRM’d music and it still plays (so I’m guessing if someone hijacked something they didn’t deauthorize my computers).

Gary LaPointe (phone ###-###-#####)

PS – These purchases don’t even meet my normal purchasing patterns.

My responses appear to be identical other than contact info (and I only got one response for each of the two orders):

Dear Gary,

My name is Jane Doe with the iTunes Store. I’m so sorry to hear of the unauthorized charges made with your iTunes Store account. I can certainly appreciate your concerns, and will do everything I can to assist in having this resolved.

With regards to financial reimbursement for the charges in question, these would have to be removed by a specialized team, designated to handle requests of this nature. I would urge you to contact your credit card company as soon as possible to inquire about canceling the card and removing the unauthorized transactions. A member of your credit card’s fraud department will contact the iTunes Store directly, and this team will resolve the issue. I apologize that I’m unable to remove the charges myself, but all unauthorized transactions must be handled in this manner.

If you suspect you are the victim of identity theft, please consider following these recommendations:

(they then gave 14 lines of tips that I cut out)

I sincerely hope that you are able to resolve this matter with the help of your credit card company, as soon as possible, Gary. Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

Sincerely,

Jane Doe
iTunes Customer Store Support

Please note that I work, Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 12:30 PM – 9:00 PM this week

The identity theft issues don’t even make sense. Why would someone steal my charge card number and log into my iTunes account? The CC number won’t even get them into my account and if they had a CC number, they could just create their own new account and I wouldn’t have know about it for days. And Apple doesn’t display the account number. I’m thinking, it’s an accounting or some bits on the web got mixed up. And the responses were generic enough where I’m not 100% sure they read the post.

I did notice they they did include their working schedule, which was even evdifferent for the two different people who responded (neither of whom were named “Jane”), it’s a nice touch but they both had the same return address (although the “follow-up” code could possibly redirect it).

I responded with:

Jane,

I will have my charge card company dispute/remove the charges as you said to do below. I have changed my password.

I have four (4) questions below in bold.

Unless I’m mistaken, they only gained access to my iTunes account. They don’t have my charge card number, iTunes doesn’t display the number for them to see, correct? A charge card number will not get them into my iTunes account. If they actually have my charge card number, I’d think they’d charge more than $70 of music/videos and

So this is either someone guessed my password (which was letters, numbers and non-alphanumeric characters) or some data packets got mixed up as someone else was placing their order. Since I have the two authorized computers in my possession and I know no one else was here using them, I’m assuming the latter.

Can someone actually download songs/videos to a non-authorized computer if they guessed my password?
Since videos still have DRM, someone wouldn’t actually be able to play them, correct?

Someone at the iTunes Customer Store Support can’t actually intervene in some way, at least to stop someone from downloading the season pass?
If it’s just an accounting error, it’s still going to download the season pass to my computer the next time I purchase a song.

Without my new password I’m assuming someone cannot download more of the season pass. I don’t even see how they could have in the first place without authorizing a computer.

Thank you,
Gary

And I can’t even dispute these charges yet since they haven’t fully been charge to my credit card company yet.

If anyone from iTunes/Apple is reading this and wants to fix this. You can leave a comment below or contact me directly.

UPDATE:

Wow! Lots of people with similar problems these last few weeks (see comments below), but I’m the only one that didn’t seem to have gift cards purchased on my account.

So it looks like my charge card is refunding the two dollar amounts to my charge card. This is contingent to Apple not disagreeing with my claim. FYI, after I said it was kind of stupid that they weren’t going to cancel the season pass since I was disputing it and they were still delivering the shows, Apple did contact me to say they would refund the rest of the season pass (right around the same time).

PS – It appears the Apple does not allow you to cancel a season pass! This is insane, it’s to their benefit to get you to subscribe, the fact that you can’t cancel is a non-motivator. Obviously if it was a discounted season pass and you canceled it, you’d pay the full price for episodes already received. Just seems like an obvious solution.

I still don’t understand what they are doing with these iTunes protected movies/shows if they can’t play them? Why not just download torrents off the ‘net if they are going to steal?

MY UPDATE: I got Apple to cancel the season pass and I did get my money refunded from my credit card company. It was confusing the way it cam through, I might have actually gotten credited from the rest of the season too (so I might have come out ahead, but after all the e-mails/contacting, I’m sure I ended up way behind).

So I tried out the MacHeist 3 bundle, it’s only $39 and has gobs of software in it; 12 applications (with additional games if you get in early) and even more if you convince a few friends to sign up.

Lot’s of graphics-type software this time around. Painting, snapshots, 3D animation, a cool recipe app (with huge fonts so you can read it from across the room and scroll with your Apple remote)

They say it’s worth $975+, but since you wouldn’t want everything it’s not worth that much. I think all the software are full versions, many will probably offer discounts to get you to upgrade to future versions. One application, BoinxTV, is a Sponsored Edition and “you only need to add a credit somewhere in each show stating that it was created with BoinxTV” (actually they normally sell this for $199, the non-sponsored is $499!)

I wanted the video camera switcher software, BoinxTV, which isn’t unlocked yet, but I jumped on since some networking board games were free for the first 25,000 people (you still have time). They unlock more apps as they make sales, encouraging you to promote it to other people. And if other people follow your suggestion to purchase, they give you a few more free apps.

World of Goo is a cool game for the bit I tried it. A slow puzzle game but the animations make it seem like it’s a faster game.

Lots of info on all the applications at the MacHeist 3 site.

Let’s see, what else? 25% of the sales go to charity (you can pick which one of ten) and they’ve raised $131,000 so far this sale! You can get EventBox for free, it manages your social networks, just go here and scroll down (I don’t think you even have to register).

Amazon released a Kindle for iPhone and iPod Touch application (that link is to the US iTunes store, not sure about international release).

With Kindle for iPhone, you can:
* Buy a Kindle book from your Mac, PC, or iPhone using a Web browser and wirelessly transfer the books to your iPhone.
* Read first chapters of any book for free before you buy.
* Download the Kindle books you already own for free (they are automatically backed up on Amazon.com).
* Adjust the text size, add bookmarks, and view the annotations you created on your Kindle device.

Kindle for iPhone also includes Whispersync, which allows you to seamlessly switch back and forth between your Kindle device and Kindle for iPhone while keeping your bookmarks and reading location synchronized between devices

Wow! Now you don’t even need a Kindle now to read the eBooks. I’m assuming the “digital paper” display is easier to read on the Kindle, but this is very cool. I wonder if the images look better than on the grey-scale Kindle? It looks like it will “show books in color that were developed that way“. I’ve liked the idea of a Kindle but not the cost and I’ve also been afraid of not having it with me everywhere; if I can start syncing to other devices that’d be very useful. Even if you don’t want to read a whole book on your iPhone/Touch, you can read the first chapter of all the Kindle books for free! ANd it doesn’t appear to sync magazines or newspapers, only books.

And did I mention that it’s free at the Apple App store? Of course you have to buy the books.

Update:

Apple’s iPhoto 2009 has two great new features, Faces and Places. One lets you identify people, the other where photos were taken. It appears to merge with FaceBook and Flickr too but I haven’t tried that yet.

Faces: Wow, the face recognition stuff is pretty cool. Add a name to a person and it helps you identify all the photos with that person. It took some time, but it’s really great.

What’s Faces missing? An easy way to show every face that doesn’t have a name attached. Seems simple enough, thought I maybe I could build a rule, but no go. Fix this and I’m happy with this part. I’ve got 4,000 photos in iPhoto and I’m guessing less than 1% are of people I know.

I’m also afraid to tag photos of me as a kid, will it confuse it? I want to mark some people from behind, will that mess up the algorithm?

As an added bonus, if you upload photos to FaceBook and other people tag the it’s supposed to pull them back down to your computer tagged!

Places: A way to tag all your photos with a location. You do have to specify the photos, so it takes some time. It’s not just cities though, you can put in the name of a statium or roller rink and it’ll tag them with that location. It gives you a map with all the pins in place.

What’s Places missing? A lot! But most seems to be easy to remedy. (Or maybe I just don’t know how to do it).

Place needs a way to show all photos without a place attached to it (sound familiar). I sort of cheated with this one and built a rule for places with no spaces and it worked, until I got to “Egypt”, that didn’t have a space in it, if I could identify the cities those would fall out of the to-do list.

When I type a place, the first few choices should be from places I’ve already put it.

Places needs a way to mark a picture as non-location based (so when they fix the above part it’ll stop asking me about those blank ones).

It’s slow when opening the map with the pins, really slow, can’t imagine when I get more in place.

Bonus (needed) feature for Places: Let me plug in my GPS and you can tag my photos based on where I was! How cool would that be (need an option to adjust for time zones)?

Otherwise the feature set appears to be the same, just two new features…

So twenty-five years ago today, Apple released the Macintosh computer. And as far as I’m concerned, they changed the world.

I was never an Apple II person, I was an Atari 800 guy. Then I used PCs for a while (DOS and Windows 3.1). For years I couldn’t understand why I should switch from my cheaper PC-Windows machine so it took me a few years (8) to get one (after using them in my graduate education program at MSU) but I’ve been a convert ever since. That’s not to say I don’t own a Windows machine (or two) but they’re usually doing mundane tasks, which my Macs are for creative tasks and what I want to use for my everyday stuff.

Here’s a YouTube vid of Steve Jobs demoing the Mac back in a 1984 keynote (wearing a bow-tie).

I think my first Mac was a used Macintosh Plus (with an add-on external hard drive), then a classic (same shape way more power), a PowerPC 6100 (pizza box shape), a tower PowerMac G4 (the first one with a DVD burner) and I owned a few used ones that I picked up here and there (a IIci and IIcx and a Quadra 605 that had been upgraded to a PPC). I paid way too much for the two PowerMac desktops, I did a few processor upgrades to get some more life out of them.

But I’ve also had a few Apple laptops: The PowerBook Duo 280c which in my opinion was the best laptop ever; more of a sub-notebook (1.5″ x 10.9″ x 8.5″) and you could get a dock you could stuck it into (like a big floppy) and it would use the monitor(s), keyboard, mouse and anything else plugged into the dock (hard drive, CD, etc.). I eventually upgraded the motherboard in that to turn it into a PowerPC 2300c and used that for a while. After that I had a PowerBook G3 luggable laptop, it was huge but had power, memory, storage and a beautiful 14 inch(?) display; fully loaded I think that was over $5,000 but it was a heavy beast to lug around. Since then I’ve stuck with smaller 12-inch models: an iBook (I got the iBook instead of the PowerBook because I wanted a smaller model), the first 12-inch PowerBook and the last 12-inch PowerBook (the 12-inch PowerBook is probably my second favorite after the Duo). My latest is a white 13.3-inch MacBook (the fastest plastic model from just before the uni-body models) and it seems like a monster compared to the 12-inch model but I love it, I don’t leave home without it.

Since the Macs were more expensive I generally did a few things to save money. I’d upgrade the memory myself from Other World Computing (they’ve always be notoriously expensive for memory upgrades). I usually used some other brand monitors (even though the Macs have traditionally been better). And I usually used non-Apple printers except for the Apple StyleWriter which was an excellent printer; my first was an old NEC 8023 dot matrix that I purchased an adaptor for, also some HP and Epson ink-jets, a used QMS laser, a used HP lasers and a new HP laser (my current).

I’ve also had an Apple Newton (it was way before it’s time) and two iPods. I’m craving an iPhone (or a Touch) and considering the plunge.

So that’s my personal Apple Macintosh computer history. I really didn’t realize I had so many different machines. Out of all of those I had two problem machines: the ultra expensive laptop (2 bad motherboards, but after the second replacement it was perfect) and the iBook (a lemon, multiple problems, eventually the agreed to give me a brand new one). The other laptops have been great and I’ve always beat the hell out of them (scratches, gauges and drops) but they’ve held up quite good.

Lately, I’ve been using the laptops more than the desktops, my last desktop was from 2001 (I’ve boosted memory, hard drives and processor since then) but the last few laptops have been faster than the older desktop so I’ve neglected the desktop. I’d like a new one, I just haven’t been able to justify the dollar$ for a new tower desktop and the MacMini just hasn’t had enough juice (it’s more like a fast laptop) and the Mini really needs a refresh/upgrade from Apple.

So (like the guy in the ad) I can say “I’m a Mac”.

So I’ve never been happy with most digital calendars. I’ve used them for years, but never been completely satisfied with them, they’re just always missing a few things. Usually I use what’s on my Palm Pilot, a slightly modified version of their calendar with a week view. Sadly, this is virtually the same datebook they’ve had for years and never had a decent weekly view (handspring had a version for a while) so you have to add a program on to do this. FYI, if you don’t have a Mac or don’t use a calendar this post might get pretty boring (even if you do it’s probably not the most exciting) but if you are on a Mac and use Google Calendar and/or a Palm it might be useful.

I don’t like more of the desktop software that I’ve tried. If I find something I really like, generally the one thing that puts me off is the view of the days (either one day or a week) they generally show me a 8 or 12 hour block, this is useless to me when I have something outside that block of time, when I glance a the week view, I can’t see appointments that I have in the evening (and those are probably the fun things!). I have so few things on my calendar, I’m not booked for something different every 15 minutes, it’s easy enough to squish things together. It’s computer software, they should be able to do it.

What I’m currently doing is syncing iCal with Google Calendar. It’s pretty quick and has worked well with all the testing I’ve done today (I’ll tell you how at the end).

Google’s calendar shows me about 12 hours so I have to scroll to see if I have anything going on. iCal for the Macintosh gives me a nice 24 hour view, but they could easily compress the 1 am-6am section to something even smaller to give the rest more space (I’ve got nothing going on all week at those times) and even the on-line version does shows you all 24 hours. Another minus is that iCal doesn’t have a way to set a default calendar, I want it to chose the one I’m syncing with Google, I can sort of cheat for that but I see that not sticking all the time, but a option to set a default seems simple enough.

iCal and Google lets you subscribe to other calendars; kind of like a live feed that it’s updating to your calendar. When on-line it generally seems easier to add other items to my Google calendar (like when a site lists their upcoming events). While iCal doesn’t make it easy to copy from one category to another (it’s main category to my Google category specifically).

My end result is getting the Google Calendar synced with iCal and then syncing iCal with my Palm, thus having my appointments everywhere (preferably on the Palm and on the Laptop). And then I can use the desktop application for entering info.

If I just sync in iCal I guess they’d be on the web (in MobileMe), but I’d rather have them in Google Calendar. I can do more with Google while I’m on-line and easily add others events to it and subscribe to other calendars but with iCal I can’t see my subscribed calendars in the MobileMe web interface. I could just always use Google Calendar all the time, but not if I’m off-line, I guess that’s why I need iCal. If I got an iPhone this would be less of an issue, I’d just sync iCal with an iPhone and be done with it. Hmm…

FYI to get Google Calendars to talk to iCal I used Calabortion (from Google). I don’t know if you actually need it (I think you can type everything in by hand) but it’s a tiny application that makes configuring a breeze (just need your Google address and password). It’ll even add your subscriptions (go to preferences) but since it’s read-only it’ll yell at you when you sync.

I try not to speculate to much about gossip and things about people but Apple did release a press release on Steve Jobs health today. It was actually a letter from Steve to the staff with phrases like:

“In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.”

“I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.”

I hope everything turns out okay; he can’t be too happy that he’s needed to do this, doesn’t seem like that kind of guy (and I’m thinking he can’t be well if he’s doing this). Two, not having him in charge of Apple will shake things up a bit in the world (rumors do that enough as it is) for at least a few days.

Found at MacRumors.

Semi-Sidebar: I was going to make a comment like “and their stock didn’t do to good today, I wonder what time this was made public” but they did a heck of a lot better than Dell or Palm. It doesn’t look like the market as a whole did too good and Apple’s not that far off the curve.

Friday update – There is a nice “Get Well Steve Jobs” cartoon on Joy of Tech.

Friday update 2 – The Telegraph.co.uk has a health timeline for Steve Jobs, just click and take a peek at the pictures (the 6 mugshots at the top).

So it looks like some nice stuff:

• iPhoto and iMovie with some nice updates.
• The geo-tagging in iPhoto looks cool. Will someone please figure out a way to sync my GPS with my photos for the location they were taken!!!!
• iWork on-line looks great and that it’ll give GoogleDocs a run for their money.
• And a way cool app to use your iPhone or Touch as a preview remote for slideshows!
• The 17-inch MacBook Pro looks great, but 17-inches is just too much of a hassle to haul around. I still think my 13.3 inch MacBook is huge compared to my 12-inch PowerBook.
• Non-Removable battery for the MacBook 17-inch MacBook Pro. But it lasts 8 hours and 1,000 recharge cycles (triple the standard). It’ll be interesting to see how this works out…
• The new MacBook has a matte option on the display (that’s for me!) and up to 8GB of RAM!
• Looks like all music with be DRM free by the end of the year at the iTunes store (I’m not sure if by default it’ll be DRM or if you still have to buy the ‘iTunes Plus’ version or if everything is ‘plus’). And pricing will change older stuff is cheaper and some newer stuff will be more.
• But they will still have the iTunes plus at a higher bit-rate for more money (I think). Isn’t that how you got the DRM-free before, was with the iTunes Plus?

Check out the MacWorld Keynote Coverage from Engadget, start at the bottom and scroll up.

No new Mini’s, iPhone Nanos or anything that I need.

I was hoping for tethering for the iPhone (connecting the computer to the iPhone to use it’s 3G internet) and a model with more memory…

A free update, weighing in at 190 MB!!! OS 7 was probably only about 8 MB total and I think a few floppies of that was fonts! (Or am I thinking 6.0.5?)

I’m hoping for better Airport connectivity and some more reliability with Mail and faster sync with MobileMe. Better security and a Trackpad System Preference Panel for the MacBooks too. More info here.

A reboot before installing might be a good idea… Backing up too, but that’s not likely to happen…

So it looks as if I use Ecto 3, with WordPress it’ll automatically convert my posts Technorati Tags to WordPress Tags jsut by reposting them to the blog. Very cool.

On Ecto 3, I really liked Ecto 2 and was avoiding version 3 due to some key-press changes and some other visual changes. I might remember more later, but I just wasn’t liking the feel before, but with it handling WordPress tags properly, it’s now a no-brainer.

Another big bonus – It’ll actually let you edit the “Pages” in WP (like the “About” page) and it treats them differently than the posts! (But it seems to have some problems retrieving pages/posts once your site gets more full).

BTW, I had to set it to access the XML-RPC, I couldn’t get it to use Atom for the posting, I’m not sure if this really matters.

I really like the way Apple did this iPod Touch ad.

I couldn’t see it when I went to http://games.yahoo.com/, I assume I need to be running Windows? I tried Safari and Firefox.

Here’s the direct link. I found this at MacRumors.

I thought this was funny that someone stuck this sticker on their motorcycle.

So if you buy one of these at the airport is there any music on it? Is it even fully charged?

They should come with a sampler? or an audiobook! That’d make for a good impulse buy…

‘iPod vending machine…‘ uploaded by garylapointe