My first few weeks with iPhone OS 3.0 on my iPod touch

iPhone OS 3.0 preview ad on the Apple Website

On Sunday, the day before I went to Captiva Island in Florida, I  found the 3.0 software. Yes, before release. I’m gonna make a few review-ish comments about some features.

First big 3.0 thing I noticed was when I was in the Fort Meyers airport. I connected to the network, and a Log In screen came down from nowhere, and gave me a small survey. I pretty much forgot to take a screenshot, which I find silly that I wouldn’t screenshot that.

Second big thing was that when there were no headphones connected, my iPod said “Dock Connector” over every volume controller. Note that I have a 1st generation iPod touch so it does not have a speaker built in. I couldn’t change the volume, though, without headphones plugged in. It’s not really a feature, more a ease-of-use thing.

Radio in QuickTime

My next noticeable change was the horizontal ability of Notes, Mail, and such apps. It’s much easier to type in these apps now, even though I already type pretty fast on my iPod already. This is probably my least used feature of 3.0, as I can make do with the regular keyboard on the iPod, as well as iPhone.

The following has to be my favorite feature: radio in QuickTime. I can now click on any audio stream in Safari and have it play back. The reason why this feature is the best is because you can close Safari and the radio will continue to play! Now you can use other applications while listening to your favorite internet radio station. This probably will be the most under appreciated feature because most people think apps quit when you press the Home button. Not Safari.

The only drawbacks I suffered were caused by an app and it’s incompatibility with the 3.0 software. In Rooms, an iPhone IRC client, I usually use the channel switcher (double tap on the screen or select “Channel switcher” from the menu) to switch between channels. This was where things went wrong. My screen, in every single app, got all funky. Here are two screenshots of what it looked like:

Pretty weird, hmm? I got over it by sliding my finger across channels.

Now, lets get back to positives. The spotlight search is a good feature. In fact, it’s great. If you can’t find something, you can search for it. Thankfully, this includes apps, contacts, emails, and even music. It’s really neat when you don’t know where your stuff is.

When Tap Tap was the only push notification app...

My second to last feature: the new YouTube stuff. Now you can view your YouTube accounts subscriptions, favorites, and videos right on the spot instead of browsing the YouTube Mobile site. This is a great feature that has made everyone happy!

Of course, we couldn’t forget, I had push notifications the whole time. Yes, it was only one app, but it eventually went to two (Tap Tap Revenge and AP News). It didn’t really do much, those notifications, because I was disconnected from WiFi most of the time, sadly. But, in later weeks, I have like seeing these push notifications, letting me know stuff was happening.

Well, now that I can’t think of anything else, I’m just gonna put down a gallery for you to see some pics of these features in action. Happy 3.0-ing!

Subscriptions in the new YouTube app

Landscape Mail application

When Tap Tap was the only push notification app…

Spotlight function on the Home Screen

Rooms bugging up my iPod (2)

Rooms bugging up my iPod (1)

Radio in QuickTime

“Dock Connector” replacing the volume control on the iPod controls

My thoughts on the new iPhone 3GS

Today was the WWDC keynote as most people know. I watched it on Ustream with crappy video and audio, and I missed the section about iPhone Os 3.0 and all the app demos. I did see, however, the last 10-15 minutes about the iPhone 3GS. In my opinion, it is truly awesome.

iPhone 3GS on the Apple website

After the keynote, I caught up on the Apple website (picture is linked to the iPhone page) and found that I didn’t miss much. Unlike many rumors, the iPhone’s visual apperance wasn’t changed at all, like a front facing camera and a moved earpiece. I think it’s good to keep the good ol’ iPhone and not mess it up with a front facing camera and an akwardly moved earpiece.

Secondly, apparently, the iPhone 3GS is faster than the iPhone 3G. This will call for a faster processor, but,  thankfully, the battery was upgraded. That is mostly people’s pet peeve about the iPhone: you can’t change the battery.

Also, they (finally) added video with the camera. The video is impressive: 640×480 (VGA) at 30fps. Also, the camera itself is now auto focus, auto white balance, and auto exposure. You can even focus on one certain thing (like a person), a feature known as “Tap to Focus.” There is even a macro mode, sequence photos, and good pictures in low light. It’s even at 3-megapixels.

Camera on the iPhone 3GS

And I’m not done. My favorite new feature is voice control, where you can tell your iPhone to call a person, and it will call it, or tell it to play an artist or song and it will. This is truly my favorite feature by far, even though most phones can already do this. My old Motorola RAZR can even do this (except it requires actually learning the names). At least you can tell the iPhone to play songs similar to the one currently playing.

Ooh, Cut, Copy & Paste. Finally. This is what all iPhone and even iPod touch users have been waiting for. It’s shocking it took OS 3.0 to get this in there. But, here it is. Finally, once again.

Another awesome feature is voice memos. A built in application for voice memos is definetly needed. There are already many applications for voice memos on the App Store (as shown below, click opens iTunes search page), but it’s finally here for free with the iPhone.

What happens when you search Voice Memo on iTunes

Another feature is Tethering, which makes your internet on your iPhone available to your computer. Thing is, even though the terms of service of AT&T says I can’t do this, I can do it via Bluetooth and USB with my RAZR, and just Bluetooth on my BlackBerry. Interesting. I also believe I heard that, as with MMS (more on that later), this will be delayed. But, it’s still a good feature.

I’m gonna finish off this post with the improved messaging system. Not only will MMS be added so you can send pictures and videos with your iPhone via text messages. Unfortunately, this will be delayed thanks to AT&T. But, the new text messaging chat will be improved, including a horizontal keyboard.

Messaging on the iPhone 3GS

Well, that’s all I got for you. If you want to check out some of the features, just click the first picture to go to the iPhone page on Apple.com.

Why you might need an external hard drive

This post is to follow up my post about installing OS X on an external hard drive.

Have you pondered a second hard drive, but don’t wanna poke inside your computer to get an internal one? Or, are you just not sure whether you need an external hard drive or not? There are a few reasons why you might want, or even need,  an external hard drive.

Backup. Your data is important. Why not clone it on another hard drive? This is probably the main thing people get external hard drives for.

Store all your media. If you like music, taking photos or movies, or like backing up all your DVDs, but you are running out of hard drive space, you probably want more space. And, you aren’t a computer geek. This is the perfect solution, because most hard drives are plug and play, so right away, you can copy your music, photos, movies, and ISOs to a larger hard drive, opening up space on your main hard drive.

Have a portable operating system. If you are more of a geek, then you probably have installed an operating system on any hard drive. Well, generally, depending on the OS, you are allowed to install it on a USB drive. As you have read below, it’s easy to do with OS X. It’s easiest to have a portable OS with Linux, because there are tons of drivers preinstalled, or available for install.

Just extra space. If you ever get low on space on your main hard drive, you will start freaking out, cause “everything is important and I can’t delete it.” Well, an external hard drive will provide as a bleed-over either just in case, or if you have big files that won’t fit elsewhere.

Extra hard drive. Generally, if you are more of a DIY guy, then you can actually take apart the hard drive, and use it internally. This would require opening the drive, which may cause damage to the drive if you even touch it with your prying tool. Then, you could pop the drive in a computer. Generally, if you get a portable hard drive, the drive inside will default  to  fitting in a laptop. A regular external hard drive will only fit inside a desktop.

Those are probably just a few. Comment here if you have anything else for me.

Mac OS X on an external hard drive

This weekend I got a second external hard drive. Then I wondered what I wanted to do with it. I finally decided that I should put OS X on it!

It was pretty easy, actually. All I had to do is choose my USB drive as the disk to install stuff on. Because I did not have a retail Leopard install disk and only had a drop-in DVD included with my purchased-in-February 2008 Mac mini.

It wasn’t quick. The upgrade from the Tiger install disks I had, to that drop-in disc install. Then I decided to install the iLife ‘09 on the Leopard.

The only bad thing about booting off of a USB drive is that it is legacy, also known as “unsupported by Apple,” which means, if things break when you boot from a USB drive, it will not be covered by your warranty. That’s all I got for you, so good luck.

Full Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit soundtrack coming soon

I recently stumbled upon Game Music Player in hopes to extract entire songs from Need For Speed III. I figured out that I needed to scan the files, and so I converted them and all. I’m in the process of sleep, school, and homework, so I will get these to you shortly.

Progress updates: See my twitter for updates!

Jailbreaking my iPod touch

So tonight I decided to attempt to jailbreak my iPod touch. I sent the restore file to my laptop, loaded QuickPwn from there, and did the instructions. Right as it was instructing me about putting my iPod into DFU mode, “QuickPwn…encountered a problem and need[ed] to be closed.” Problem is, the app was working just fine. So I continued to use it. Bad idea.

I let the QuickPwn software and Installer.app and stuff to load. Once it was done, it booted. Or at least it was supposed to. My iPod was pretty much bricked, until I found a fix.

Now, QuickPwn asks you to do a few things to get to DFU mode. It involves pressing a lot of buttons. Well, from searching the internet, I found a blog post saying how to get your iPod into recovery mode:

1. Press and hold Home button and Sleep/Wake button (this forces down the iPod).
2. Continue to hold the buttons.
3. Release the Sleep/Wake button when the Apple logo appears.
4. Let go of both buttons when the Recovery Mode screen shows.

Sound familiar? This process is very similar to the one QuickPwn tells you to do. After that process, I was able to restore my “bricked” iPod. Right now it’s syncing all the stuff to it. I did have a 48 minute video of it. I trashed it because it was so uneventful and boring, and it took more that 1GB of disk space.

Digsby is adware???

Today I came across something that kinda shocked me. So, today I attempted to download Digsby, a multi-protocol IM client. I am on OpenDNS and all I have blocked is pretty much adware. Now when I clicked on the Download Now button, instead of a download page, I got this:

Yup, that is in fact the URL of the Digsby download site. What this brought to mind was that Digsby is technically adware. If the download site is filed as such, then Digsby is ought to be infected with it. I know a few people who use Digsby, but they also use AVG. There is their problem (hehe). If you don’t believe me, try it yourself! Or I’ll make a video.

Update: A Digsby official has noted me (in the comments) that they are aware that it gets blocked, but has provided a download link which is probably somewhere where I haven’t looked. If you are looking to download Disgby, here it is.

The 49.7-Day Bug in Windows 98

Apparently, in Windows 95 and 98, there is a bug where the system will hang after the 49.7 day point passes in uptime. Not only does the uptime timer “reset,” the entire system goes low on resources and hangs.

I happen to have a Windows 98 computer, and even with this bug, it ran for 8 weeks until it finally decided to crash entirely. I could only run one program at a time, and my WiFi PC Card went out as well (as the software and drivers did). I’m very glad I took a video right before it decided to go kaput. However, there is a fix on the official Knowledge Base article for this bug. It is installed on that Windows 98 computer now, so it will start to kick some uptime ass very soon.

My problem with the new Facebook ToS

I have read a lot of stuff on the new Facebook Terms of Service, or ToS. It annoys me. I have read the ToS, and, most notably, the Ownership portion. The first four words are “Except for User Content…” Which means everything below those words do not apply to uploaded content.

The Ownership section is the only section I looked at thoroughly, and I am accepting corrections, lots of ‘em. However, if you read what I think I’m talking about (I am seeing all of this on my iPod touch), then you would think that the Ownership section will override the area saying “Facebook owns everything I upload.” As I do.

Once again, I haven’t read the section everyone is talking about. I am talking about what I saw. But, what I saw was on the Facebook ToS. >.<

Cyberbullying: My experience

It’s all coming to a close. I’ve been cyberbullied on numerous occasions. On YouTube, most of the comments against me have been deleted. However, people have my AIM (to the right) and IM me. Here is the video: