iPhone,iPod touch,small screens

Thanks to a post on Terry White’s Tech Blog, we have something new here at the Edge: a better view on your handheld device. The WordPress plugin, called WPtouch by the folks at BraveNewCode.com, does all the heavy lifting. Configure the options (and there are lots to play with) and get just the look you want!

Just point your mobile web browser at blog.cawilliams.us and you should see something like this (at least until I fix the colors):

Book mark it on your home page and you’ll see my stylish logo!

Push the down arrow and get access to the home screen and an RSS also get access to the list of categories posts are filed under. Push the search button and find every post with your keyword or phrase. Pretty cool if you ask me and kudos (again) to Mr. White for finding it!

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iphone,ipod,apple,magazines

If you have been a fan hand-held computing for any length of time, then you have probably read one of Hal Goldstein’s (thaddeus.com) magazines. He and his team (most of the content comes from the readers themselves) have published several over the years: The Portable Paper, Pocket PC, and Windows Mobile and Smartphone. There are probably a few I’ve forgotten to mention. They publish a single magazine at any one time and it tracks the leading technology. Now they’ve put Microsoft to bed and brought out something new: iPhone Life (iPhoneLife.com).

Just like their other magazines, there are articles about applications for the iPhone and iPod touch, stories about how people use their devices, how to use your iPhone or touch at work or home or with your kids. When I was into PocketPC and Windows Mobile devices, I had copies of every issue I could find, with articles tagged so I could find them when I needed to look up a tidbit. I shared more than a few of them with my friends to answer their questions.

If you have an iPhone and/or iPod touch (yeah, I have an iPhone 3Gs and a 1G iPod touch), or are thinking about getting one, you need to pick up this magazine. It may not change you’re life but then you never know. The Fall 2009 (Vol 1, No 4) issue is on the newstands now. Cost is $7.99.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve a subscription to order.

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iTunes 9 update,iPhone,iPod,os x,snow leopard

Apple released an update (mainly bug fixes) to iTunes. This one, 9.0.1, doesn’t appear to add any new features, just clean up some odd behaviors.

One issue I am interested in seeing the improvements for is syncing between iTunes, and iPhone and iPod touch. Maybe it’s a perception problem on my part but it always seems to be slow to sync. Of course, it could also be the 2 megabit limit in USB 2. (Apple, why did you leave a better technology like FireWire for something so bandwidth limited like USB 2?)

BTW, the Mac OS X 10.6.1 update came out last week I think. Per the Apple support site…

The 10.6.1 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, including fixes for:

- compatibility with some Sierra Wireless 3G modems
– an issue that might cause DVD playback to stop unexpectedly
– some printer compatibility drivers not appearing properly in the add printer browser
– an issue that might make it difficult to remove an item from the Dock
– instances where automatic account setup in Mail might not work
– an issue where pressing cmd-opt-t in Mail brings up the special characters menu instead of moving a message
– Motion 4 becoming unresponsive

Anyway, it all looks good at this picnic. Grab a plate and enjoy!

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iTunes 9,iPhone,iPod,macs

Much as I love Apple and Steve Jobs (good to have you back, Steve), I must confess that I take what Apple’s Marketing says with a grain of salt. Reality sometimes fails to live up to the hype. I know, some of you are thinking "he speaks heresy!" Think back to the whole MobileMe Push-isn’t-really-Push and you’ll know what I mean.

While I like iTunes, the truth is I use it for a subset of functions (manage iPhones, iPods, and our Apple TV; sometimes play music; buy music; manage podcasts; etc.). I’m not a power user in the least. So when iTunes 9 showed up in the Software Update I yawned and flipped through the new features.

Home Sharing caught my eye. Our primary iTunes library is on the Mac mini. Four of the Mac laptops are "authorized users" under my iTunes ID. Of the laptops, mine is the "backup" machine for music. I buy most of the music for my wife and I so it made sense. She is more of a video buff so most of the movies and TV shows are her choice. I copy the MPEG-4 files to DVDs for backup.

One of the reasons I was excited about Home Sharing over the "stream sharing" method we had before is now you can copy the files directly from one iTunes instance to another. Before I would have to mount the iTunes drive and then import the files to get them into the database. Pain in the butt! Add to that the fact that I have been "upgrading" my iTunes library to iTunes+¹ music (ala non-DRM) so we can play it on other devices we have (like the PS3, PSP, "non-authorized" Macs and PCs). Home Sharing makes it easy for me pull the DRM’d stuff out of my iTunes libraries and replace it with the non-DRM’d stuff.

The other thing I love about Home Sharing is now you can compare two iTunes libraries (say a master and a backup) and figure out what’s missing. Do this by selecting the shared library (A), change the Show option from "All Items" to "Items not in my library" (B), and then select and drag a song (C).

Now if we could just get that 5 machines changed to say 8 or 10, that would truly be awesome! Families do have multiple computers, Steve. (We have 8 machines in our house: 5 Mac laptops, 2 PC laptops, and a Mac mini at last count, plus a PS3, a PSP, and some other goodies. Look, some people collect cars, I collect electronics!)

—

1. I’ve been upgrading since they first allowed it so my individual bills each time are fairly small. If I had to do it all at once, ouch! This is one of those things Apple just needs to get over and allow people to upgrade piece-meal. The current "big bang" policy is costing Apple, the labels and the artists revenue.

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iphone,ipod touch,os 3

I was poking at my iPhone with the OS 3 upgrade last night and discovered something new. When listening to a podcast, tap the screen once to show the "scrubber" slider. Underneath the slider Apple has added three icons.

• Envelop – Starts Mail and creates a message that says "Check out this podcast on iTunes" and then give the link to the item in the iTunes store.
• "Back 30 Seconds" – This one allows you to back up 30 seconds in podcast.
• 1x – Changes the playing speed of the podcast. The default is 1x (regular speed); the other values are 2x (twice regular speed), and 1/2x (half regular speed).

By the way, this particular episode was quite good. Find it in the iTunes store here.

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iphone,ipod touch,os 3

It seems the folks at Apple can learn from past mistakes. This week Apple had two big launches: iPhone 3G S, iPhone OS 3.0 and even a few updates to MobileMe. And unlike the debacle they had with the iPhone 3G, iPhone OS 2, and MobileMe last time, Apple handled this launch much better.

Rather than try and release everything on the same day, they released the OS update on Wednesday and the new phones on Friday. In my opinion, it went much better. After work on Wednesday, I went home, dropped my iPhone 3G in its cradle and iTunes started the download. I had a quick errand to run (20 minutes maybe) and by the time I got, the update was done. Even MobileMe, which had a rather disappointing launch last time, had its enhancements up and running.

Scanning a few web sites, it seemed like the launch of the new 3G S went fairly well. Some sites noted problems with activation but it didn’t seem like it was anywhere near the 3G launch fiasco.

I’m not planning to write a review – although I may write a post of likes/dislikes about the new operating system after I play with it for a while. One thing I will mention now: backup is slower than it was under 2.2.1. If you are looking for a review, check out Terry White’s TechBlog. He does a good job of giving you the good and the bad. His review of the new OS 3.0 is here., and he has a video of unpacking his new 32GB iPhone 3G S here.

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iphone,apple

Apple has released an iPhone update – version 2.2.1. This one is a bug fix release. Along with stability improvements for Safari, they have also fixed a problem with images saved from Mail not displaying correctly in the Camera Roll.

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software,mac,parallels,iphone

I have continued to play with Parallels 4.0 and for the most part I’m liking it. I’ve been a Parallels fan since I bought my MacBook Pro a year and a half ago. And in my setup, it’s been "install and forget" simple. My primary use for it has been to run Windows XP Professional and ubuntu Linux 8.x.

In one of my previous posts, I mentioned the fact that the "conversion" of  my 3.5 Windows VMs to 4.0 didn’t work so well. Wondering if it was just a Microsoft thing. I downloaded a couple of Virtual Machines from the Parallels web site and tried to convert them to 4.0. Same results. I don’t know what the issue is but the current build of 4.0 (4.0.3522) just doesn’t want to convert correctly.

On previous versions of Parallels Desktop, you could only run one VM at a time. With version 4.0, you can run multiple VMs concurrently. I run both a Windows XP VM and an ubuntu Linux VM at the same time on an MBP.

One of the bonuses to get people to upgrade is the Parallels Mobile app for the iPhone. It finally made it through the Apple gates and appeared on the iTunes App Store today. The app lets you control your VMs from your iPhone (start, stop, pause, reset, etc). A couple of thoughts.

The setup process on the iPhone, in a word, sucks. Huge. Press the "+" key to add a machine and you see four fields: host, user name, password, and a save password toggle. It doesn’t tell you that you have to enter the IP address of you Mac, not your VMs. It doesn’t tell you that you need to enter the short name of your user name on your Mac not your user ID on your VM. The only way I learned these two nuggets of gold was to use the Parallels Help and searched for iPhone. They could have fixed this with a couple of sentences on the setup screen.

I don’t know about you but I don’t think of machines by IP address, I think of them by names. (I use names of mountains for my network.) The app lists your hosts by IP address. I have only a single machine that runs Parallels but if you were an IT guy and you had five or ten servers do you think your going to recognize ‘em by IP address? Not likely! And what if you use DHCP to assign IP addresses? Today a machine might be a.b.c.23 and tomorrow it might be a.b.c.192. The Parallels folks seem to be assuming you assign static IP addresses.

The last nit is a security/privacy thing. When you select a VM to control one of the cool things the app does is show you a current snapshot of the VMs screen on your iPhone. Neat. There is a downside to it. If someone else gets your iPhone, then they can see what your doing too. Not a big deal if it’s your home machine but it could be a big deal if it’s a corporate machine. To be sure, the image is small and you can’t use guestures to zoom in but still.

Overall, it’s a cool app and I hope the developer will do more with it.

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iPhone 2.2 update,iPod touch 2.2 update

Apple released the iPhone/iPod touch 2.2 update today. I’ve been expecting this for about a week now. Not sure why, just have. After all, Steve Jobs doesn’t ask my opinion or anything.

This update is focused more on stability issues (Mail, Safari, call setup). There’s some new features in Maps, “improved sound quality of Visual Voicemail messages” (which has been sorely needed!), and pressing the Home button when you are viewing one of your Home screens takes you back to the first Home screen. I guess if you have 12 Home screens, that last one will matter to you!

On the iTunes store front, podcasts can now be downloaded via Wi-Fi or the cellular network. This is a nice addition although I don’t know if they limited it to just audio podcasts or if they allow video podcasts as well.

One complaint I’ve seen in several forums is the inability to turn off the auto correct feature when using the Keyboard. Now you can do that via the Keyboad Settings preference. Not a big thing for me as it’s usually correct but I know for some people it’s a big thing.

Apple also released an update to the iTunes software (8.0.2) and QuickTime (7.5.5 I think). This iTunes software is a bug fix/stability release. The QT update fixes some compatibility issues with iChat.

The iPhone/iPod touch update is available via iTunes. Size is about 245MB so you have time to get a cup of coffee while the update runs. The iTunes/QT update is around 65MB so you can start sipping your coffee while it runs.

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iphone,applications,hp 41C,calculators

Let’s face it: the calculator bundled with most cell phones and smart devices is lame. It does the basics and that’s about it. That was certainly the case with the Calculator application on the iPhone and iPod touch 1.x and the one in the 2.x release isn’t much better.

I’m an engineer by trade and I’ve relied on calculators to do much of the work. My preference has always be for hp. I’ve owned several over the years: 41C, 48SX, 49g+ and 50g. Most emulations of these that I’ve found have been either limited to PC or Macs (not very portable), or they’ve been crippled in some way.

Not any more. AL Software is offering an hp 41C emulation called i41CXp. It’s a full implementation of the 41CX with a virtual printer. And it supports the four module "ports" just like the 41-series! Most of the ROM images from the modules developed by hp and others are available from hp41.org. i41CXp knows how to find them and can download them over the wireless network.

(Image from AL Software’s web site.)

So far, I’m quite impressed. The layout on the iPhone is just like the original device. The emulation is fully programmable and it supports User mode so you can assign functions (built in, from the ROMs, or your own programs) to keys. And the price is right too: just $6.99 $14.99 through the iTunes App Store.

(Ed. The post originally said $6.99. This was an error. It should have said $7.99 which is the price I paid. A recent check of iTunes shows two version of the program: i41CX (no printing) for $7.99 and i41CXp (with printing) for $14.99. My apologies for the mistake.)

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