I’ve been waiting for this moment, ever since I heard of the normies using SMS to send text over the antiquated wireless networks.
Someone else agrees with me, this plus FaceTime? Only piece missing is the Apple network.
Category Archives: Apple
Google Music Beta
What a weird day for me to get my invite, right?
This, plus Amazon’s MP3 Service… so much backup coverage.
Lack of Last.fm bothers me a bit, but I’m sure it’s coming someday somehow.
Edge Case: 3G iPad 1st Gen vs iPad 2nd Gen Data Activation
After an hour long conversation with AT&T and Apple, as well as an hour at the AT&T store (first of which, wasn’t the right store because they just sold phones), I am finally ready for the 3G on the iPad. I picked up a refurb 1st gen for $350 a couple days ago. (Super cheap, some crazy fire… sale at AT&T’s site.)
When I got it, I couldn’t access the Cellular Data tab in Settings to see if I could sign up for it. Kept giving me an error: “Your account type does not support the view account feature (H5006).”
So here’s the interesting info. The 1st generation iPads would come with completely blank micro SIM cards. The 2nd generations, however, come with a phone number already attached to it. Someone shipped my iPad with a micro SIM card with a phone number on it, and so the 1st gen couldn’t start the sign up process because there was already a number assigned to it.
You can’t just ask for a new SIM card if you have this error: You have to ask for a completely blank one.
Conspiracy Theory
Okay, so here comes my hatred/fear of the telecoms: When I signed up through the less-than-perfect AT&T site, I had to pick a data plan. Now, as you may know, I love love love the fact that on the 3G iPads, I don’t have to muck around with the pipe provider. You sign up for 30 days of X amount of data, and you’re done. No contract. No calling in to customer support, hammering at the 0, saying no to every single question. No bullcrap. But when I bought this iPad, I felt like I was entering into a contract with AT&T, telling them that I’d be giving them money regardless of if I used the 3G feature (which I normally wouldn’t).
Does the fact that the 3G iPad 2 comes with the phone number already attached to it say anything about the vendor/telecom relationship between Apple and AT&T/Verizon? Will there be a subsidized iPad in the future? Don’t know, but don’t sign me up on it.
Now to enjoy yet another addition to my ever-revolving set of gadget loadouts. Hooray.
Edge Case: iTunes/Windows Doesn’t Recognize iPad
Not 100% sure what the actual problem was, but I’m pretty sure it had something to do with Air Video.
I had Air Video installed for the third iPad I had, but when I got this “new” one, iTunes couldn’t detect it. The last.fm scrobbler saw it, so did Windows 7.
So I went to uninstall everything Apple installs through iTunes (six things listed here), but realized that Air Video requires Bonjour to work, which I found out as I was coming back from a reboot after the uninstall of said six things.
Now it’s all good in the hood. Hopefully this helps someone else.
// BTW: On a Mac? What ‘Control Panel’? What ‘System’? What ‘right click, update, go through directory structure to find a driver folder’? Ahem.
Reformatting The Time Machine Drive
The backup drive that stored all of my Time Machine backups is going away today, with a little help from HFSExplorer. It’s taken me far too long to finalize my move away from a single platform, but instead to become one with the general concept of Personal Computing.
Of course, now I come back to try and figure out the One True Filesystem… but I think I’m going to just fall back on NTFS for now, seeing how there are hacks to read and write onto this thing, more so than ext3/4. (Wikipedia comparision)
It’s a good thing I kept notes back a couple months ago when I was desperately looking to getting a NAS. There are plenty of ideas cooking in the back of my mind for what I want, but then again, I’m just going to make do with Dropbox and other off-the-shelf programs.
I guess periodic cloning is all I need these days, especially with my media. All other important things should be backed up off site and all over the place. Thank goodness for all these lovely services offering 2GB of free space!
Linux on Laptops: Yeap…
It’s interesting to always see a post on a particular subject you’ve been meaning to write on (but only for the past day), especially the state of Linux on laptops… in my case, a netbook.
I never thought I’d be in this position, actually owning a crapbook, but for less than $400, the ability to do everything I can on a normal computer, albeit slower but with battery life, was quite interesting to me.
After hours upon hours trying to figure out why my wireless didn’t work (BCM4313, I hope to never ever have to type those characters again), scouring the Ubuntu forums and wikis, I’ve come to realize that maybe the drivers are just not existing in a current form that works easily.
I could, of course, learn the ins and outs of the ndiswrapper, or try to compile from source with the right flags… but really?
System76 is definitely an option, though. Their Starling NetBook seems inexpensive enough… but the included battery life is atrocious…
At this point, why not just get a MacBook Air? Yes, I ask myself this question, too… Definitely more expensive, but definitely will hold its value over time (since I’ll probably be switching again in six months or so). But the thing is, this machine would only be used for when I’m away from my awesome desktop, running an Ubuntu VM on top of Windows 7.
Which brings me to another point: Virtualization is the hotness. Just buy more RAM. I’m looking forward to upgrading to a 16GB in the future if I keep this up.
// Definitely need to clean up this WordPress installation to bring things back to a tip top shape.
Can’t Wait For This To Become Public
So I guess Chrome made it onto the iPad.
Good thing, too, cuz I just bought it again yesterday.
Magic Trackpad: Quick Review
Took Apple long enough to freaking ship it, but it got here today, after having ordered it the second I found out about it Tuesday morning. A couple of points.
This thing is useless without the update. Extremely insensitive until you install it, so just do it. Just do it now.
Also, be sure to use BetterTouchTool. I had it for my MacBook Pro, and I intend to do some serious multitouch gesture programming.
Click, being the lower two feet on the bottom of the pad, is not so good. Feels a bit dull for my taste. Will be doing a lot more tapping, except for when I do a click and drag.
Wouldn’t the three finger dragging be much much more useful if you could grab the window anywhere, instead of just the top bar? Yet again, Zooom wins.
I haven’t had a MacBook Pro with the Inertial scrolling update, so I never got to test this extensively, but I love this thing. It’s like having an iOS device again, but without the nice screen underneath. Hmm… I’m sure someone’s gonna hack this one together…
And it sits almost flush with the Apple Wireless Keyboard. The Magic Trackpad is just a hair bit taller so it sticks out on the bottom a bit more.
I can finally ditch the trackball, at least for a while. Using the trackball so much had started to cramp up my thumb in a different angle, so this is a welcomed change.
$75 well spent.
Now if I can somehow reduce the angle on these things… I like the Wired keyboard more for this same reason. Time to drill a hole in the desk?
If iPhone FaceTime Doesn’t Count…
From Business Insider (Stop adding crap to my clipboard, you douchebags.)
“The voice call ends as soon as the FaceTime call connects,” Apple tells us. “The FaceTime call is over Wi-Fi so does not use carrier minutes.”
If this is the case, what’s stopping an intrepid hacker to initiate the call using AT&T’s craptastic network, then use his or her home Wifi to never ever rack up minutes?
Someone do this. I will laugh at the people who were silly enough to buy MicroCells… paying AT&T more for providing coverage, eating away at data and minutes even though you’re at home. Wait, 97% you say?
Maybe my house is in that 3%.
Keep Failing, AT&T
One of the few really “magical” things about the iPad for me was the amazing pricing of the unlimited 3G connectivity. There were tests providing that it really was unlimited.
But then today happened. And some more stuff happened.
From Dustin Curtis:
“Unlimited data” isn’t about data, or price, or value. It’s about not having to worry — or to even think about — how much you use your phone. If I’m on a 2GB plan, even though I use less than 2GB per month on average, I’ll start thinking about rationing my usage every single time I use my phone. That fundamentally changes the experience of having the internet in my pocket.
200MB for $15/month. Fine. But go over? $15 per 200 MB. Why not just push me into the 2GB plan and prorate it? Go with 2GB for $25/month, and if you go over, it’s only $10 per GB.
This is the same reason why micropayments will not work. I shouldn’t have to worry about if checking my email is going to push me over the limit.
Tethering? Why the frick does this cost anything if this plan goes into affect? Maybe if unlimited was still in the picture it makes some sense…
It’s not just AT&T that sucks, though. I have a problem with cell phone companies in general. But that is another post for another day.
Quite glad I got off the iPhone bandwagon a while ago. And I am also iPad-free. I’m almost certain nothing Apple does will make me want to get the iPhone “4G”.
If they do something with the iPod Touch? I’ll be in touch. More on this, also, at another time.