I Phony

So I've gotten my iPhony. Nice looking phone actually. For the record it is the CECT P168 iFONE Tri-Band PDA Phone. Yes the interface is cheesy as hell. Fonts bitmapped like hell. If anything it would make you appreciate what apple did when it did the interface on the iPhone. This phone here has a better video camera than my N800.

One serious word of warning though. DO NOT EVER connect this phone to a Mac via USB. I did so to transfer some images to try out for a wallpaper and had the Finder go crazy after copying all of 3 files. After two reboots I decided that Bluetooth will be the way I'll be transferring things to this phone. Then on reboot it asked me to install the sim card. Excuse me? This went on a couple of times before I figured out that I can access some of the menus and get the phone to "switch" sim cards. After doing this twice, the phone finally booted properly. HOWEVER the touch screen orientation was backwards. After rebooting again I figured out that by recalibrating the touch screen I could get the screen to act right.

Crazy.

Now when I got the package it was interesting what they put on the package as a description of content: LED Flashlight.

NBC's Universal's Thought Process

Ever since Microsoft agreed to pay some company a 1 buck or so "royalty" for every Zune sold, these greedy media people have had hard ons for getting a piece of Apple's hardware business.

Recently Jeff Zucker said that Apple is “destroyed the music business in terms of pricing” and will invariably do the same to the online video business."

Well first think wrong with this idea is that there was no money in the online "music biz" until Apple got in the "music business" And similarly there was really not an online video biz until the iPod Video came around. Yes there were PMP's before the iPod video of which I own a few, but very few of them were actually hosting paid for content. So basically Apple monetized for both itself and its media suppliers the portable music and video online business. But really that's not what they are thinking about. No, they, like the Mob, want their hands in the end to end part of the business. First we dick the artists, then we dick the consumer. If we can dick the hardware companies too, all the better!

OK They didn't say it like that, rather they said:

“Apple sold millions of dollars worth of hardware off the back of our content and made a lot of money,” Zucker said. “They did not want to share in what they were making off the hardware or allow us to adjust pricing.”

Zune-itis. See that's the real dig here. Oddly enough I don't see where Samsung pays each and every media outlet for the movies and other programming seen on it's screens. Nope. Sony.. well they are in the end-to-end business and their pricing shows it. But understand this, These people are mad because Apple didn't roll over and die in the 90's and they are mad 'cause Apple made the better Walkman. They are also completely blind to the fact that they, the media companies are producing crap and the audience knows it. They will no longer spend their money on CD's with filler songs just to get the one, two or three tracks they want. The record companies killed off the singles market because they wanted to boost album sales. Never mind that oft times those singles were ridiculously priced to begin with. But at least in the pre-iPod days you could argue that one had to produce artwork and produce and actual material product, but with the digital revolution, there is one file. That's it. There is no cost incurred by the media companies to distribute the digital product it is a product with the bare minimal overhead for the media companies. Apple is the one paying for that bandwidth and storage and talent. The media companies get to sit back and say: "Pay me."

It's a Mob mentality. There is no shame.

iPod Touch

I was in B&H Photo is NYC today purchasing a wide angle lens for my camera and while I was waiting for help I saw the new iPods on display. My 20GB iPod is pretty old and will be due for a replacement but I was really unawares of how the iPod ecosystem had changed since that iPod.

The Touch is small.

I knew that the iPods had gone thin but I was really surprised at just how small the touch is. It would have been informative to see the screen on to get a feel for the relative screen size but it makes my N800 seem gargantuan in comparison. Yes the N800 has a larger screen, bluetooth and a SD slot, but seriously it is huge compared to the touch, which functionally does what the N800 does for most people.

New Mac OS X Names

Well there are still a few big name Cats to go before Apple runs out of feline names for their OS's. So I suggest that Apple start a contest for the public to have a chance at naming a future OS release based on their cat's name. I can see it now. Mac OS X Fluffy. Mac OS X Sox.
and of course my own Cat's name, Mac OS X Yemi. Do you have a cat? Put your OS name in the comments.

Technorati Tags: Mac OS X Leapard

IT OS2008 for N800

Will apparently be released alongside the N810.

The N810 sales will start on mid November and simultaneously the OS2008 will be available for download for N800 users.

Leopard on Friday. ITOS 2008 in November. I'm a happy camper.

Technorati Tags: N800

RIP Lucky Dube

Victim of Black on Black crime. I just read this. I am NOT happy.

The staff of Gallo Record Company are devastated by the news of the tragic passing of reggae legend Lucky Dube. Lucky was slain in an attempted hijacking in Rosettenville in Johannesburg last night, at approximately 8pm, whilst dropping off his children at a family members house.

www.luckydubemusic.com

Toyata: We Knew About That Faulty Transmission...

“We knew in the very beginning we had a transmission issue with that vehicle,” he said. The problem caused the transmission to get stuck in second gear or pass through second gear roughly."

Left Lane News

Umm I think I smell lawyers coming.

Google Grand Central Requires Flash

Has unfortunately decided that one must have Adobe Flash to log in thereby making it all but useless to manage from my N800. Of course the ITOS2008 is supposed to have a new Flash plugin. I can only hope that GC will work in the browser with it.
And of course should I receive a voicemail from Grand Central in my in box, the linked file doesn't work in the N800 mail program and therefore I cannot get the voicemail because, well, the site needs flash. Anyone at Google think this is a bad idea?

[update]

I have to rescind this post because I discovered that flash had been inadvertently disabled on my N800. Once I got it back on, Grand Central worked as expected.

Technorati Tags: Google Grand Central, N800

Nokia Intenet Tablet 810 photos released

First the Linky
I have the current N800 which I have grown to enjoy even though I have some quibbles with it. About the only thing I want from it is to make regular cellular phone calls from it. They've added a hardware slide out keyboard apparently a response to people who dislike the onscreen one.I don't mind the on screen one and have finally gotten used to using it to type out messages, however when on websites it can be annoying to deal with the tiny KB, which I suppose is why a relatively larger "real' keyboard has been added.

I am definitely feeling the new hardware design though. I prefered the black of the previous gen 770 so this graphite look works for me. Also it appears that the OS has been given some polish, which is good. Hopefully the bug where the vertical scrollbar is not flush against the side of the screen has been dealt with.
And oh look!!! the IT now supports a wide variety of video codecs without needing mPlayer and supports desktop Adobe Flash 9.

And oh look!! The IT now comes with a car mount. I suppose that is to correspond with the mapping software and built in GPS on this tablet.

Apple iTunes Plus Price Drop

Back in my post regarding the new Amazon music store I asked:

From what Steve Jobs has said, the Apple Store uses DRM because they are under contractual obligation to record companies to do so. If that is the case why are the record companies allowing Amazon to sell the same tracks sans DRM? It would seem to me that is an unfair business practice. I would also point out the price difference but it is entirely possible that Amazon is taking a hit on their end rather than the record companies taking it on theirs.

I'm not sure whether I was right or not, but it seeing the actual announcement about the price drop, we still do not see any major label other than EMI, but we do see a whole bunch of smaller independent labels. I am going to go out on a limb and suppose that EMI agreed to the price drop and the independent labels came for the ride. The other labels are still, in my opinion, illegally colluding to "punish" Apple Inc. Seeing as how various top name artists are re-evaluating their attachment to the major record companies, I can only think that this is going to be a lose-lose for those record labels who do not get with the program.

Bank Of America Mobile Banking

First, I'd like to thank Apple for hosting a directory of iPhone optimized websites that I can use on my N800. Thanks.
I'd next like to say No Thanks to Bank Of America for disallowing my device to be used with mobile banking. So instead I'll use the regular BOA page that fits quite well on my N800's screen (what with all those extra pixels and all). I cannot fathom why mobile banking is disallowed but not the full site.

Anyway, I refuse to do banking over the air anyway (unless i'm on my home network which is locked down tight). Anyway, good luck keeping that banking stuff secure with that TIFF vulnerability giving root access to the iPhone and iTouch.

Neo Office 2.2.2 out

Go get it here

Hopefully that bug where the office 2007 Excel files take years to open has been fixed.

Daft iPhone Owner

Taken directly from a letter sent to Macintouch:

"...Yet, at the same time, I cannot understand why Apple would refuse such a repair for a charge. The shear inconvenience of a dead phone, having to locate and travel to an Apple Store, and the paying of a fee should be enough to discourage future alterations to the phone. I can certainly say I have lost all interest in "hacks".

Why yes, there is a pay for means to have your iphone put into ship shape:

iPhone
8GB

Ships: Within 24 hours
Free Shipping

$399.00

Who knew?

Shifting Habits

Ny times auto blog about manual transmissions:

At first everyone in the conference thought he was joking. He wasn’t. His magazine isn’t a car magazine, so there’s no professional reason for him to know how to drive a stick. But I’d always thought it was a basic life skill, like rock, paper, scissors, and shuffling cards. I’d always taken it for granted.

Seriously though, Most automatic tranny drivers I know are lazy and have really bad driving habits. They ride their brakes... Oh yeah, you got to do that to keep the car from moving while in drive...right. Look, I want the car to move when I want it to move. I want to brake when I choose. I want to hold the engine at whatever RPM I choose. I want to disconnect the engine from the tranny when I want to. Get it? When. I. Want. To.

I don't care about how fast the computer can shift. I like the hand, foot, eye coordination.

New N800 Kernel

While a lot of N800 and 770 owners have been sniggering at iPhone owners who had their phones "reset" by the latest Apple update, Nokia has released a kernel patch to fix a glaring problem in it's kernel that has "bricked" many peoples SDHC cards. Of course we'll have to re-install everything we have in order to get this fix. Me. I'm waiting for a more significant update cause I'm about tired of reloading apps.

Marion Jones: Cheater

Took Steriods for two years. Lied repeatedly about it. For shame.