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iPhone

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iPhoneWe bit the bullet … we got iPhones.   Our Verizon cell phone contract has been up for quite a while and they’ve been bugging us to re-up for a new two year contract … but I haven’t been super happy with the service and phones, so we started thinking about what other provider and phone’s would be a suitable substitute.

My co-worker Jerome has the iPhone and is very happy to show it off.   Even on the first release I have to admit, it was pretty cool.   The interface was nice, the features were nice, and the sound quality wasn’t bad at all.

The only things I really didn’t like at the get go was the fact that you were tied to AT&T and the battery wasn’t replaceable.

After mulling our alternatives, we decided to go for it.   Both Ginny and I got the 8gb   model.   We were originally thinking about the 16gb model, but the Apple store didn’t have any in stock and we figured, since we only used a fraction of our 4gb iPods, it wasn’t that big a deal.

A few observations …

  1. It doesn’t like the fact that I use self signed certs on my mail server.   I’ll probably have to bite the bullet and get a proper cert.
  2. I haven’t found any ability to select which folders I show in my IMAP mail account.   Wish I could, as I really only care about a handful on an ongoing basis.
  3. One feature that’s missing, and was almost a deal breaker, was the lack of voice command dialing.   On my old moto phone I could just tell it “Call James Rich Mobile” and it would call James Rich’s cell phone (in my address book).   Nice for talking while driving.
  4. As one would expect from an Apple product, the user interface is slick.   The screen is a bit over sensitive though.   I suspect it’s just something to get used to.
  5. The pseudo GPS functionality is very cool … I really want to figure out how they do it, because it was able to figure out where was I better than my GPS can.
  6. Porting of both the phone numbers on my Verizon account was smooth and fast.   It only took 30 minutes to complete.   I’m going to verify that Verizon cancels my account just in case.

One annoyance, unrelated to the iPhone itself, was the fact that it seems kind of hard to find accessories at stores that don’t actually sell the iPhone.   Woodfield mall, and the Apple store, were both very crowded … and both Ginny and I were in a hurry to escape (yeah, so we could play with the new toys) … so we skipped getting protective skins for the new phones.   We stopped at Best Buy on the way home, but they only had 2 or 3 skins & cases for the iPhone.   I’ll probably stop at Frys on my way home tomorrow to pick something up.

I’m kind of interested to see what the SDK is all about … I’ve got some ideas for apps that could be   fun.

My Geeky Good Deed

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The Grey Ghost was slightly overdue for it’s 40K mile scheduled maintenance. So I took advantage of the downtime at work (yes, it’s Saturday … but I’m on a high profile, under-resourced, project with a tight deadline.   I’ll be in tomorrow) to take my car in to the Food dealership and get the work done.

All that had to be done was an oil & filter change and tire rotation… so I had an hour to kill.

Obviously I took my laptop so I could kill the time (mostly playing solitaire, but checking some email using my phone’s network access).

There was another guy with a very similar Dell Latitude laptop … I casually asked him if there was any WiFi access. He indicated that he didn’t know … but he couldn’t use it anyways, because his wireless card wasn’t working.

I indicated that I was pretty handy with computers (especially the Dell Latitudes, since it was a similar model to mine) and offered to take a look. Turns out someone had disabled the wireless card in the device manager. I enabled the device and verified it was working by plugging in my portable access point just to see if the card could find a signal. I also showed him how to use the ‘WiFi Catcher‘ switch (when you push the switch, the a light will indicate if there is a Wireless signal in the area, without even having to turn on the computer).

Sadly, there was no WiFi access in the waiting area. I’m going to send an email to the Ford dealership to suggest they provide it. Sure would make waiting for your car a lot less boring.