appletalker forum [apple mac discussion and troubleshooting] News

iphone annoyance

no_email@example.com (madra) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:05:05 GMT

well, you all knew the honeymoon wouldnae last forever!

but i've found a real annoyance with my iphone. basically it's that, eveey time the phone goes out of signal range, it pops up an alert saying network lost - like we wouldnae have been able to tell that by looking at the status bar!

what makes it so annoying is that when you're in an area with poor signal, dropping in and out of range all the time, this alert pops up every couple of minutes. it's popped up about four or five times while i've been typing this post, because our new campus is just such a signal blackspot.

you'll also be glad to hear that this isnae another one of those 'madra only' problems. it's pissing off a lot of other folks too. a case of apple trying to be too clever by far, methinks, and not thinking things through!

OSX and android

no_email@example.com (madra) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 10:53:25 GMT

is anyone using an android phone with OSX, or knows anyone who is? if so, how to they integrate? i know it willnae be as seamless as iOS/OSX integration, but is it 'good enough'?

the reason i ask is that i'm trying to persuade the missus to sell her palm pre on ebay and get something a bit more future-proof and OSX-friendly. in spite of the fact that webOS is not a bad operating system and HP are now bankrolling palm, there are still barely any apps available and what ones do exist are almost universally fugly POSs. so i think the she should get rid of the pre, while it's still worth a few bob.

why not get another iphone for her, with the proceeds from sellong the pre?... well, for one thing the cost difference which will need making up. and for another, i've already got two iOS devices in the house and my inner geek likes the idea of having a linux based phone to tinker woth too.

Selling Orion Pro

no_email@example.com (Gamoe) — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 22:16:42 GMT

My 15" MacBook Pro just sits there on the desk. Granted, I've got it crunching numbers for various distributed computing projects like Einstein, folding and SETI@home. But I'm hesitant to pick it up without a power cable. It sucks up so much power, even with the brightness low, the dedicated graphics off and the distributed computing paused. It's too big to comfortably handle on the rinky-dinky desks the university provides us. The dedicated graphics are not really something I ever use, and when I do are not really that much of an advantage for me. I would gladly give up the ExpressSlot for more RAM capacity in the future.

The video issue kind of put me off, though when it was finally resolved, now I've got this strange trackpad issue, which I'm sure is nothing, but I just don't want to deal with it anymore. Overall, I just feel rather disconnected from it. My netbook seems to get more use from me this days.

So I'm thinking of selling it. And I'm thinking of getting myself a 13" MacBook Pro instead. It has better battery life and would be more portable for me. I also like that I can put in more RAM in there at some point, instead of being limited to 4 GB. They seem to run about $1280 with tax here and all kinds of Apple bonuses. On Amazon they run even cheaper (albeit without all the Apple extras- Printer, iPod Touch offers, etc.) What do you guys think? Would selling my 15" even cover the cost of a new 13"?

Portable Gaming

no_email@example.com (Gamoe) — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 11:17:30 GMT

I have a PlayStation 2. But even that I don't play much. I've come to the conclusion that I need something more portable for gaming. Because: Sometimes my gf prefer to sit back on the couch/bed and don't feel like sitting down just to play a game, and I also prefer shorter games I can just pick up, play for a bit and leave. So, I've been wondering what I should get and weighing my options. This is purely hypothetical at this point, but I wanted to get a feel for the pros and cons of each device. I've been considering:

iPod Touch: She now has one, so maybe this would be a good opportunity to play games together. Game Center sounds like Apple is making an effort. On the other hand, I don't know how many 2-player Touch games there are, nor am I convinced with a system that utilizes no physical buttons for gameplay.

Sony PSP: Great hardware. Infamously (for Sony) hackable. Some good games. Really does seem like a portable playstation (which is a good thing for me). Powerful hardware.

Nintendo 3DS: Nintendo's upcoming portable console. Very excited about the no-glasses 3D screen. Nintendo has great games, though I hate their pricing and how it never goes down. The DS has always been less graphically powerful than the PSP, but the 3DS will supposedly change this. If not, the regular DS Lite will be coming down to $150 soon.

Thoughts?

otterbox defender case for iphone

no_email@example.com (madra) — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 10:18:36 GMT

well, over a week after i ordered it, my otterbox defender case for my new toy came today. [bloody amazon marketplace and their crappy delivery times! ]. thank god i've managed to fly in the face of recent history and actually manage NOT to break my iphone, while waiting for the case to arrive.

it does seem a bit silly, taking a lovely slick design like the iphone and encasing it in some [relatively] cheapo plastic and rubber box. but i really cannae afford to bust this phone, so i need to either mollycoddle it obsessively - which is not in my nature, or give it some 'armour-plating'.

when you take the case out of the box, your heart sinks, as it feels so light and plasticky and nasty. but once it's got the solid bulk of the iphone wedged inside it, it feels a lot better and more solid and [dare i say] 'expensive'.

i was pleased to note that complaints i'd read on the intarwebs about not being able to use any third party charging leads or accessories with the otterbox defender were unfounded - at least in my case, with the replacement belkin charger lead i bought to replace my old ipod touch lead, when it finally wore out.

the belkin lead is a lot thicker and has fatter plugs on the ends than the apple one. but it fits fine into the charging port on the otterbox defender. maybe otterbox listened to the complaints and changed the design to make the port bigger and accommodate more third party accessories?

well, given that no case at all was not really an option, i actually quite like the look of my 'otterboxed' iphone now i've got used to it. i'm glad i went for the yellow/black case as opposed to a plain black one, as i think it makes the phone look like some kind of proprietory rugged PDA, rather than an iphone trapped in a fugly cover. the missus reckons it looks like one of those miniature submersibles they go down to explore shipwrecks and the like in

well - whaddya think?

[sorry about the shitty pics, but it was a bit too dull indoors to get a decent shutter speed for hand-holding and i couldnae be arsed going outside.]

New iPods (September 2010)

no_email@example.com (Gamoe) — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 09:17:29 GMT

I gotta say I'm glad the "old" Shuffle design is back (though it is even smaller), and I still dig the orange and green ones. I just really wish Apple would put an FM receiver in there if they're not going to bother with the USB plug. It would make it a "done deal" for me at the gym, etc. The new nano is great, but at $150 it makes me look elsewhere, especially when audio recording seems to be gone, a feature which would be great for me as a student.

Again, the I find the new nano great, but there are some feature removals there that are a bit hard to swallow at that price. At least Apple is still selling the Classics, but it looks like its the end of the line for them soon. The touch gets some really nice features over from the iPhone (retina display, gyroscope) but is very sadly and inexcusably missing the still photo capabilities of the iPhone 4. The Touch is so crippled in this regard that it won't even do higher than VGA quality for stills, yet somehow managed to do 720p video. What is wrong here, Apple??! And of course my personal wish for the Touch, a GPS chip (that will let maps work without Wi-Fi) is still not there.

iphone - today we have naming of ports

no_email@example.com (madra) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:10:52 GMT

OK. on seeing that my iphone had two tiny 'grilled' ports on the bottom and one on the front, at the top, i naturally assumed that the two bottom ones were stereo mics and the top one on the front was an earpiece [ie. speaker].

subsequent playing around has shown me that the two on the bottom are a single speaker and a mic. so what is the one on the front of the phone for then?

redmond. start your phone-o-copiers!

no_email@example.com (madra) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 22:57:04 GMT

with all the excitement around iphone 4 and all apple's new media gadgets, as announced today, i found myself wondering what microsoft were up to on this front. it's been a while since i last heard anything about zune-phone, the iphone killer

anyway, i found this preview of windoze phone 7 on engadget. even their relentless winblows fanboi-ism couldnae paper over all the cracks; it sounds -as with all micro$oft junk- like a pisspoor copy of where apple [with iOS] and google [with android] were, about three years ago. i could almost feel sorry for them

would you [ie. anyone] buy a 2nd-hand ipod touch that was already engraved?

no_email@example.com (madra) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:07:45 GMT

as mentioned in my 'woot! - i've got an iphone!' thread, i'm hoping to recoup some of the outlay on the iphone by selling off the gadgets it replaces. i've already listed my JCB toughphone on ebay and am wondering whether to stick the ipod on there too.

the major problem, to quote from the other thread and avoid repeating myself here:

Quote by wee me:
...it's engraved ... i availed of a special offer for free engraving when i got it and it's got my name and email on the back...

...the back is very scratched: i've had a screen protector on the ipod from day one, so the screen is pretty immaculate, but i've never bothered with looking after the back at all ... as a result the back is almost entirely covered with scratches...

here's a couple of piccies of the back of the ipod:

~~scratches~~ brushed metal finish:

engraving - gradually being obliterated by the ~~scratches~~ brushed metal finish

whaddya think folks? - if you were in the market for a 2nd hand ipod, how much would that put you off?

it's really difficult to find any concrete evidence. i did a search of ended auctions on ebay and found plenty of 64GB ipods with pretty scratched backs, which had sold for betwee £170 - £220. there was even a broken one for 'spares or repair', which fetched £175, but none of the search results turned up a pre-engraved one. i'm wondering if this is because there are less of them about - or engraving devalues them so much that no-one with an engraved one even bothers trying to sell it.

i'd be fairly happy if i could get somewhere between £100 - £150 for it. apart from the back it's in perfect nick; front screen has had protectors on from day one and i've still got the box and accessories.

worth selling - or not?

iphone/ipod - how much disc space to keep free

no_email@example.com (madra) — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 11:52:14 GMT

one of the downsides in having recently acquired a 32GB iphone, when i'd been a 64GB ipod user is that, now that i've mirrored all the content i had on the ipod onto the iphone, i've gone from having the ipod only half full to having the iphone left with just over 1GB free.

on my MBP i always like to have at least a couple of GB free space on my hard drive [and preferably 5GB or more] to allow for virtual memory and swap space for apps etc. so i'm feeling a bit uncomfortable with my iphone being quite so near to being full to capacity. however i notice that one of the options in itunes for sync'ing with an ipod/iphone is "automatically fill free space with songs", which would suggest that, as far as apple are concerned, it's OK to 'go down to the wire' on this.

is anyone aware of any problems, slow-downs, whatever, caused by filling an ipod/iphone completely up?

does anyone use "automatically fill free space with songs" and, if so, does it use every last KB of disc space if it can?... or does it leave a 'buffer' and if so, how much of one?

well, i couldnae hold out any longer...

no_email@example.com (madra) — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 11:27:15 GMT

it just seemed like one of those periods of time when fate seems to be conspiring against me [and my wallet!]:

apple introduce the iphone 4 and trigger off my iphone lust again [although i wouldnae consider an iphone 4 until there have been at least two hardware revisions!]

my 'indestructible' JCB phone decided to die on me while i was in ireland [why is the west of ireland turning into a phone graveyard for me?]. on returning to england, it turned out it was merely the battery that had burnt out –i suspect it didnae like my car charger– and, with a new battery the phone is fine again

although i love it, my new mini ixus 100IS turned out to have a niggle that kind of spoils it a bit for me [you can read my review of it on amazon, if you're at all interested]

you'll remember that one of the reasons i'd always given previously, for not wanting to get an iphone, was that i didnae want to swap a rugged phone, decent camera and PDA for an-all-in one which provided a fragile phone, mediocre camera and PDA. my experience with the JCB phone and very slight disillusionment with the ixus 100IS, plus the fact that –every time i leave the house– i have to pack this lot in my pocket, had lately begun to make me think that maybe the all-eggs-in-one-basket approach might have something going for it, after all:

it's a good job i tend to wear combat trousers all the time. i needs lots of pockets!

add to that:

like one of those sitcoms where someone is trying to give up smoking or chocolate or suchlike and , everywhere they look there are people eating chocolate or smoking and every billboard and TV advert seems to be promoting smoking or chocolate –it seemed that everywhere i looked there were bloody iphones; everyone in work was brandishing them, every fecker i passed on the street seemed to have one jammed to their ear... and of course every apple- or gadget-related website i frequented was awash with articles and opinions about the new iphone 4.

i think the final straw came when:

i noticed that one of my most completely luddite mates had posted some drivel on facepuke, which was tagged "posted from iphone"

i received an unexpected windfall of £100 at the beginning of the week [which i instantly mentally deducted from the cost of any iphone i might consider buying]

as ever, the major thing that was stopping me was the cost; no way was i going to pay £500 odd for an unlocked phone, or a couple of hundred plus £30 a month for 12-18months for a contract one. so it was back to my other favourite haunt, ebay. it occurred to me that there might be a chance to pick up a decent bargain on a 3GS, because a lot of people must be coming to the end of their 12 months with one and getting upgraded to the iphone 4. sure enough, there did seem to be a lot of unlocked 3GS's on there.

after a day or two of hunting round and endless feedback analysing, on wednesday evening i bid on and won an apple-unlocked 32GB 3GS for £352. as usual, i paid straight away and the seller emailed me an hour or so later, telling me he'd post it the next day. he emailed me again on thursday evening to tell me it was in the post and should arrive before 1pm on friday.

about noon yesterday, i got a text off the missus, while i was at work, telling me a parcel had arrived, so you can imagine how fidgety i was for the rest of the day and how fast i pedalled all the way home when i finally got out, so i could get my hands on my new toy.

i wasnae disappointed:

the phone was practically immaculate; one or two barely visible scratches on the back, screen absolutely spotless and boxed with all the accessories and paperwork.

the next big 'cross your fingers' moment was switching it on and putting in my simcard. was it really factory-unlocked, or had i scored some stolen or bricked phone, that would turn out to be a very expensive doorstop?

i stuck in my cheapo ASDA sim card and fired up the phone. my heart leapt into my mouth for a second as a dialogue popped up on screen, which said in big scary type "SIMLOCK" –but, after a chest clutching second or two, i realised it was referring to the fact that my simcard was locked with a pin no. i put that in and a few seconds later, the phone found the ASDA network [although it shows up as "vodafoneUK" in the statusbar] and i was good to go.

front - not a mark on the screen and no dead pixels. any crapness you see is a cheapo screen-protector i stuck on it, until i get a proper case

back - one or two barely noticeable scratches. as immaculate as you could hope a 2nd hand phone to be

obviously being on a non-apple-approved network, i lose some of the fancier features like integrated voicemail and all that. but i never use voicemail anyway. i was able to manually enter ASDAmobile's MMS and SMS settings and they work fine [actually not sure about the MMS yet]. so, for ~~£352~~ £252 [rem the £100 'windfall discount' ] i've got myself a near-as-dammit brand new 32GB 3GS iphone on a PAYG tariff which gives me 4p/min phonecalls and 4p texts.

actually - it gets even better; i get 500 free web texts a month through O2, with my broadband package. they're a ballache to send [even on a fullsize laptop - i wouldnae even attempt it on an ipod/iphone screen]. i'm sure O2 deliberately designed the page to be as user-unfriendly as possible, to discourage folks from availing of it too often. well i've just come across jelly SMS:

this app, isnae without its flaws [review to come at some stage], but is a zillion times better than trying to use O2's crappy SMS page. basically it allows you to send SMSs from your iphone/ipod through various web gateways via an ichat-a-like style interface. so, for my £252, i've actually got unlimited free texts too [i'd need to be texting continually all day, every day, to get through 500 in a month!]

"but whither the ruggedness?" - you cry.
well, i've ordered myself an otterbox defender case off amazon, which is about the most rugged protection you can get for your iphone. i got an otterbox case for my ipod touch when i first got it and wasnae too impressed. it made it feel cheap and crappy and i ended up selling it on and just using the ipod with a screen protector ever since. but, given my track record with destroying expensive mobile phones, i think this time i *will* keep it cased. besides which, the defender case is available in a really garish yellow/black combo, which is the one i ordered. i thought "if you're going to keep it in a case, you might as well make it an obvious one!" besides which, it follows on nicely from my JCB phone, which was also yellow and black.

i'm now hoping i can reduce the effective purchase price of the iphone even more by selling on the gadgets it replaces:

JCB toughphone - this has a brand new battery and i've still got the box and accessories. i've seen them go for about £60 - £70 2nd hand on ebay. i'd be pretty happy to get around £50 for it. £53 would be great and bring the cost of my iphone down to effectively under £200.

ixus 100IS - pretty annoyed about this one. to quote from my amazon review:

Quote by madra on amazon:
...within about two weeks of getting the camera; i was checking out a rattle from the exhaust on my van and lay down on the ground to take a look. as i did so, the ixus slid out of my pocket and wedged up against my pert young buttock. thinking i'd lain down on a stone, i reached down without looking and hauled the offending article out from underneath me, thus dragging it across the tarmac. as a result, the front of the casing now has some nice deep gouges scraped across it...

it's a shame really as the camera still works perfectly, is only a couple of months old and the optics are immaculate [i've had a screen-protector on from day one]. but somehow, i doubt i'd get much for it on ebay, because people will just look at the pics and think it's been badly looked after.

[actually, the missus asked me what i was going to do with it yesterday and, when i said i was planning to sell it, she said "oh!..." in a kind of wistful way and looked poignantly across the room to where her old ixus, which is starting to play up a bit, was sitting on a shelf. so i think i may have lost that one anyway ]

ipod touch 64GB - i reckon, on a good day, i could get £100+ for this but, here again, there are a couple of things which are making me wonder if i should sell it.

1: it's engraved - this is probably the biggest problem. i availed of a special offer for free engraving when i got it and it's got my name and email on the back. that's bound to knock a huge amount of the resale value

2: the back is very scratched: i've had a screen protector on the ipod from day one, so the screen is pretty immaculate, but i've never bothered with looking after the back at all [what's the point? - there's nothing there to worry about and i'm not one of those people who gets really anal about not getting any marks on their gear]. as a result the back is almost entirely covered with scratches. nothing deep or unsightly but [if i was being steve jobs and accentuating the positive] i'd say it looks almost like brushed metal. ironically this actually ameliorates slightly problem one; the engraving is not so noticeable with the ~~badly scratched~~ brushed metal back.

3: when i thought about selling my ipod, i actually felt a bit sad about it. i dinnae usually get particularly attached to inanimate objects. but i am the kind of person who does tend to give their vehicles names and talk to them [swearing at them when things break - mouthing words of encouragement, when climbing steep hills etc ] and when i sold GULG before buying herman, i did feel a bit like i was losing an old friend. well, to my surprise, i got that kind of feeling when i thought about selling my ipod. it's been somewhere about my person, or within reach since the day i got it and i cannae think of a gadget i've owned that's given me so much pleasure for such a long time for [relatively] so little outlay.

so call me an oul' softie if you like but, if -as i suspect - the fact of it being engraved and ~~scra...~~ brushed metal on the back might mean it only raised about £50 on ebay then i think i'd rather hold on to it, in spite of it being surplus to requirements - just for old times sake.

[phew - sorry about the epic post! hope you stayed awake 'til the end ]

old mac recycling no.426

no_email@example.com (madra) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 20:09:37 GMT

fitting that, on the day i helped move a mountain of new apple goodies, this should show up on ebay. when you've ended up with more macs than you know what to do with, why not turn some of those old ones into a futuristic hamster cage?

Quote by ebay ad:
...You are looking at a totally unique item, a hamster cage constructed out of vintage Apple Mac computers. To be more precise, there are two enclosures, one made from an old Apple Studio CRT Display, and one made from a G4 Powermac. They can be joined by tubing or separated to make two cages...

languishing at £1 with one bid at the mo'.

a fistful o' macs

no_email@example.com (madra) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 20:03:35 GMT

the department i teach in at college is moving to a brand spanking newly refurbished campus in time for the new academic year

woohoo! - real air-conditioning and facilities that actually work!

between now and then, me and my colleagues are having fun rearranging the furniture in our new rooms and getting to unpack lots of shiny new gadgetry. i just thought i'd share with you lot the job me and a couple of the technicians got charged with today:

we were summonsed to a room on the ground floor piled high with boxes of freshly arrived comps, printers etc. the guy manning the clipboard points to a sea of 3,06GHz core i3 imacs, still boxed and wrapped and says "those are yours".

we then had a fun 20 or 30 mins loading 41 [count 'em!] brand new imacs into the lift and taking them up to our rooms on the second floor. we already brought a load of macs with us from the previous campus, so these are to add to what we've got already. we've got so many now we hardly know what to do with them all!

if only i'd gone to work in herman today, instead of on my bike, i might have been able to sneak a couple out the back way for 'testing at home'. there were so many of the feckers, i dinnae think anyone would have even noticed they were gone!

these are yours!

me - how many imacs can you fit in a lift?

bled - unloading at the other end

sweeney - taking a break after the hard work

now - where the hell do we put 'em all?

Sticky, trigger-happy trackpad

no_email@example.com (Gamoe) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 02:17:12 GMT

It seems the fun never stops. Without apparent reason, my trackpad has transformed into a squishy, noiseless thing from the "crisp" loud clicker it used to be. And not to stop there, it has started clicking, double and triple clicking randomly to the point that it is difficult to type something without having it erased or mangled in the process thanks to some inadvertent highlighting. If I move the mouse pointer to a different part of the screen, then it will steal the focus away from window I am typing on of course.

ipod touch broken screengrab problem fixed

no_email@example.com (madra) — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 17:18:19 GMT

i thought i'd posted about this specifically before, but it seems i only mentioned it in passing in this thread:

Quote by madra on 2010-07-24, 11:19:
[apologies for the generic screengrabs by the way. for some reason my ipod seems to have lost the ability to do screengrabs. i hear the shutter sound but nothing appears in my photo albums ]

basically, after upgrading to iOS 3,1,3 and jailbreaking, i lost the ability to make screengrabs. the problem persisted through updating [and jailbreaking to iOS4]. the screen would flash white, the camera shutter sound would er... sound, but the image would not appear in my photos.

anyway, the good news is that i've solved the problem.

hoking around on the intarwebs i didnae have any luck. it seemed to be another one of those 'only affects madra' bugs. since the screengrab app was obviously doing *something* i suspected that [as with a lot of OSX problems] our oul' friend the permissions problem might be at work again. 'perhaps', i mused, 'the screengrabs were being taken, but the ipod couldnae save them to my photos folder because it didnae have write permissions there'.

so i hunted around on the intarwebs a bit more and found out where the ipod stores user photos, checked that directory and - sure enough - it was owned by root. changing ownership worked a treat and i can now do screengrabs again.

here's the fix. you'll need to have an jailbroken ipod/iphone and to have enabled SSH to carry it out:

SSH into your ipod via a terminal [mobile terminal is broken on iOS4, but i was able to connect using pTerm and connecting to 127.0.0.1]

then:

cd /var/mobile/Media/DCIM ls -al

check ownership of the .MISC and 100APPLE folders. when i checked, both were owned by root.

change ownership of those folders to the [default] mobile user

chown -R mobile .MISC chown -R mobile 100APPLE
bob's your uncle!

and to prove it works. here's a screengrab taken right after doing it:

iOS4 battery life

no_email@example.com (madra) — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 08:55:05 GMT

has anyone who's upgraded to iOS4 found the battery life to have gone haywire? along with half the intarwebs it would seem. i certainly have. when i woke up my ipod the morning after i first upgraded to iOS4 the battery life had gone down from 100% to 3% overnight! usually it wouldnae even drop by a single % while zzzing.

judging by the amount of snakeoil remedies out there; ranging from turning off wifi, disabling ssh, deleting certain apps, force-quitting multi-tasked apps, allowing the battery to drain completely to recalibrate it, etc. it seems that a load of folks are having battery life problems, but no-one's quite sure why.

one theory i'm leaning towards is that the problem might lie with the battery monitoring software itself [echos of the recent signal strength algorithm excuse there!]. the reason i suspect this is that i've noticed that the battery life indicator can also go up on occasions. for example:

to sleep last night - 56%

wake up this morning - 47%

reboot - 40%

start typing this post - drifts back up to 50%

currently - 45%

[in fact it's just dropped from 45% to 42% in the time i typed that last bullet point... now 37% when i typed that sentence!... back up to 41% while previewing post... back down to 39% while noting that down. this is mental!!! ]

Nook or Kindle?

no_email@example.com (Gamoe) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 01:25:39 GMT

I've been watching eBook Readers take off with interest, hoping to see one with all the features I want one day. (Short list: color, touchscreen e-ink for highlighting, drawing and handwriting recognition, no ability for publisher/company to recall books silently or track you without user approval) Though we're not there yet, it gives me great pleasure to see how far things have advanced in the last few years/months, including very importantly, the prices. Now, I'm not quite ready to commit to any particular eBook reader, but the two that seem to stand out are the Barnes and Noble Nook and the Amazon Kindle. Amazon just announced a new Wi-Fi only Kindle for $140 with a better e-ink screen and Barnes and Noble sells its own Wi-Fi only e-Ink/LCD combo Nook at $150. The color LCD looks nice, but I'm thinking it would drain the batteries a lot faster than the full e-Ink Kindle screen. And there are other differences of course.

So my question: Which one would you get right now, and why?

Why I didn't mention the iPad: In my view, though the iPad overlaps with the eBook reader category, it is in fact, in another category in itself. I might do some (article, etc.) reading on the iPad, but I wouldn't get one for any kind of long-term book reading. Instead, I would get one of these, especially at these price points.

DeskJet 3820

no_email@example.com (Gamoe) — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 03:51:23 GMT

So my mom has an HP Desket 3820. It's plugged into her iMac 500 Mhz. G3 iMac. The other day it stopped working. No visible mechanical issue, software seems fine, the printer light even blinks when its receiving data, the iMac says its printed and no errors are reported-- but nothing actually prints. I even downloaded the latest HP driver, though that is not necessary, considering that the printer can print out of the box from 10.4 on (the iMac is running 10.4.11). Anyone have any clue?

redmond. start your photocopiers!

no_email@example.com (madra) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 11:48:28 GMT

while out on a mission earlier, i cycled past an advert on a bus shelter for sommit that looked like an ipad copy. as it was pissing with rain and i was whizzing past at the time, i didnae get all the details, but my sideways glance recorded the following:

made by HP

think it was called '2-4' or '4-2' or something [anyway those numbers were on the ad]

slogan was 'touch the fun'

there was a windoze 7 logo

it looks like the long promised HP slate, which even PCworld slated [pun intended ] by describing it as underwhelming.

however, my searches for "HP 2-4" and "hp advert touch the fun" dinnae turn anything up. in fact even "hp slate" turns up little apart from rumours and references to the abovementioned [by PCworld] microsoft keynote demo. given that we on this side of the pond tend not to see new gadgets til' they've been out in the sates for a while, i find this strange.

what is this ipad-alike, what is it called and how long has it been on commercial sale?

and speaking of ripping off apple, i read somewhere the other day that the zune [previous AT japery: 1,2,3] - remember, the microsoft 'ipod killer' - has managed to attain a whopping 1% market share in only four years.

ipod backup

no_email@example.com (madra) — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 09:21:51 GMT

OK - yesterday during a periodic update of cydia, my ipod froze up, requiring a firmware restore. i thought 'what the hell. i might as well upgrade to iOS4, while i'm at it'. even tho' i knew this would mean most of my apps and add-ons i've insalled post-jailbreak would be gone - at least until the jailbreak for iOS4 comes out.

anyway, i installed iOS4 then did a 'restore from backup' in itunes and restarted my ipod to find that all my default apps had returned to their original locations on homescreens and, with the exception of mail, address book and calendars, all apps were bereft of any info i had put in them over the past year or two; 2across - no crosswords, stanza - no books in library, twitter - no accounts... etc. etc. apparently 'restore from backup' only restores the apple stuff; mail, address book, calendar and contacts.

perhaps i was being naive here, but i thought that the ipod backup features in itunes were backing up my settings and data for *all* my installed apps. what a collossal pain in the arse! it's going to take me days to set everything up again and i've lost loads of info for ever.

MacBook Pricing

no_email@example.com (Gamoe) — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 08:24:05 GMT

My girlfriend is looking for a laptop now. I really want her to get a Mac of course, but I am really frustrated by Apple's lack of options for anything less than a grand. Her budget is $700 max. I'm trying to find a used white MacBook for her, but I really wish Apple offered a laptop for $800 or below. If I can't find any Mac in her budget, she'll have to go PC.

iPhone 4 signal reception problems

no_email@example.com (Navegador) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 00:31:58 GMT

As an Apple user currently considering an iPhone, I guess I might as well take my old Nokia 5110's out of the drawer if I actually need to make phone calls: early iPhone 4 adopters have been reporting that signal strength and connection speeds quickly deteriorate when you HOLD THE DEVICE WITH YOUR HAND.

German users might have to abandon the faux-English term "handy" when referring to Apple's new... um... I was going to say *hand*set but I reckon it's best to refer to it as a 'device'.

The story is everywhere but I recommend The Register's and the BBC's takes on it. Elsewhere there are debates on whether the problems only occur when you hold the thing in your left hand, plus some amusing fixes for the problem that may include nail polish.

New Mac mini (6/2010)

no_email@example.com (Gamoe) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 23:52:04 GMT

It seems a new Mac mini has covertly slipped in to replace the old.
Looks pretty nifty. Some highlights:

Unibody Aluminum

Built-in Power Supply

Easy RAM replacement (No more putty knife)

HDMI output (along with mini DisplayPort)

NVIDIA GeForce 320M GPU

Supports up to 8GB DDR3 RAM

And while I'm not particularly concerned with the thin-ness of a desktop computer, it's pretty amazing that this thing is even thinner than the old mini, even with the built-in power supply. If I didn't have a wonderful, now glitch-free, MacBook Pro, I'd be tempted to have this + netbook as my setup.

Unfortunately, I don't agree with the entry price. $700 is just too much for a low-end desktop these days, no matter the thickness. $500 should be entry, preferably $400. I'm disappointed Apple didn't take the opportunity to competitively price the mini, even if they would have had to make it a little thicker. Maybe I'll grab a second-hand one some day.

iPhone 4

no_email@example.com (Gamoe) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 04:58:10 GMT

iPhone 4: Not available outside AT&T in the U.S. and then only with a costly data plan. Yet another iPhone I won't be getting.

Nonetheless, I think it looks like another winner. Some nice new features. What do you guys think?

Highlights:

*960 x 640 "Retina" display
*"FaceTime" video chat ala iChat (but Wi-Fi only for the time being)
*HD video recording, two cameras
*iMovie video editing (!)
*Multitasking

Interestingly, the new iPhone OS (excuse me, iOS) introduces folders to organize apps. Man, it's looking more and more like a full-fledged "desktop" OS. The "folders" actually remind me of the old Winblows 3.1 ones.

tempting offer

no_email@example.com (madra) — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 07:40:56 GMT

i dinnae usually pay attention to special offers from shops, preferring to do my bargain hunting on fleabay, but i must admit i'm sorely tempted by this one from currys, which i just happened to catch a TV ad for, while over at my sister's at the weekend. although it disnae say so on the website, i'm almost certain the TV ad said these 'bank holiday weekend offers' end today [wednesday], so it's snap decision time!

now, if i hadnae already got my canon G10, i'd not even think twice about it; the ixuses are great wee cameras. and a 12mp one for £129 is a steal. plus, the ixus 100 is really tiny - supposedly about the size of a creditcard. so it would be a great choice for the kind of tiny camera you could always have on you, wherever you went; i find that the G10 is just a bit too bulky to carry everywhere. however, having spent over £300 on the G10 not that long ago and [as the withering on the vine of the appletalker photographic society competitions shows], not having exactly been using it as much as i might have done, i'm asking myself do i really need or deserve a second camera?

add to that the fact that i just had to put a new set of tyres on herman last week @ £61 each AND the fact i've had to buy a new mig welder to fix some holes in his floor, coz my old welder's decided to die on me - and i think i've already gone well over my new toys budget for this month.

still... £129 for a canon 12mp camera. it'd be stupid not too, wouldn't it?

decisions! decisions!

Did I burst my macbook's speakers?

no_email@example.com (Navegador) — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:30:47 GMT

So today I was watching a couple of Community episodes with sound at full volume and I noticed that the macbook's speakers were emitting the sort of rasping sound that's common in burst or badly-fixed speakers. Which got me thinking - are they? Or is it just that they were overloaded?

android outselling iphone

no_email@example.com (madra) — Mon, 10 May 2010 18:08:33 GMT

according to a report by NPD [who?.. they?], in the first quarter of 2010 android smartphone sales have outstripped those of iphones, for the first time.

Quote by NPD:
The Android operating system (OS) continued to shake up the U.S. mobile phone market in the first quarter (Q1) of 2010, moving past Apple to take the number-two position among smartphone operating systems

strange. i knew that android had done OK, since its advent, but i had no idea android phones were becoming so popular. i must know at least half a dozen people with iphones, but i dinnae think i've seen anyone using an android based phone yet.

maybe they're bigger in the US than over here.

i wonder how bothered apple will be about this?...

bothered enough to get the much-rumoured new iphone 4G out the door sooner, rather than later?

bothered enough to free up the iphone from these ridiculous tied contracts?

[OK - that second one was wishful thinking!]

New MacBook Pro is here!

no_email@example.com (Navegador) — Wed, 05 May 2010 02:50:29 GMT

My new MacBook Pro was delivered today!

So far I've only installed some apps and updates and the like. Here are my first impressions:

- It doesn't feel any faster than my february 2007 macbook. Then again I haven't put it through its paces yet. This is more of compliment to Apple and the way MacOS X runs on older machines than a criticism of the new one.

- It looks bigger than the macbook I used to have even though it's actually slightly smaller. Blame it on the lighter colour (the old one was black). Mind you, now I realize why people say we light-coloured floors and white walls help convey a feeling of space.

- The big trackpad is fab. And so are the backlit keys.

- Battery life is soooo much better. I can't comment on that 10 hour claim yet, but my Mac came with an 80% charge and after about four hours of downloads and installs it still claims 2h12min worth of juice in that battery.

- LED-lit screen is so-so. Very bright. Viewing angles still crap.

- Best new feature by far: the SD card reader.

For the consumerist voyeurs amongst you, here are the unboxing pictures (BTW: I was buzzed when I took these. Blame it on Tuesday happy hour ):

Shipping box. I got home and it was there.

There it is!

Out of the box.

Oh, the small details. Like this one, printed on the manuals/CDs envelope.

Finally, portuguese-language documentation...

...and a plug that actually fits Brazilian outlets! (that's some small compensation for the outrageous prices)

There you go.

4th-gen iPhone drama

no_email@example.com (Navegador) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 22:47:25 GMT

This board really is slower in 2010, but surely you guys have been following the iPhone 4G imbroglio on Gizmodo?

High drama: far-fetched stories and excuses, more than a hint of controlled leak and a few pints of home-made German gourmet beer. Plus an iPhone that looks like something from Sony Ericsson (NOT a compliment). My opinion: it's all so absurd it couldn't possibly be a *controlled* leak. But it isn't over yet...

New Macbook Pro Range

no_email@example.com (shmooler) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:23:44 GMT

Every year I like to treat myself to one nice thing and this year after having my 24"imac since 2006, I thought it was time for an upgrade. I was thinking about another imac, but thought it's time to go the Macbook Pro way, just the fact they can do pretty well everything the imac can do but you can take it anywhere.

Funnily enough I nearly bought one last weekend and it was only because of a huge storm I cancelled. How fortunate cos yesterday apple announced the new range, and by god they look awesome. I can't imagine how gutted I would have been with a brand new Macbook Pro that was out of date by only a few days phewwwwwwwww

Cos I live in jakarta I won't be able to buy one here cos they don't arrive here til Mid May, so will have to wait til I arrive home in UK in a few weeks. The only thing is I'll have to pay around £150 more than what I'd pay here in Jakarta due to VAT etc.

I'm a big gamer and the NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M looks like it will be able to handle most games, and run Aperture 3 in 64 bit mode. It runs like a right piece of shite on my Imac, I've had to run it in 32 bit mode, but it still is really slow, I think I'd rather watch paint dry, especially with RAW photos at full resolution.

Also there is automatic graphics switching on the fly to save energy, and claims of over 8 hours battery life.

I'm just wondering what others here think of their existing Macbook Pros? what's cool about them and what the annoyances are?