I’ll forgo the typical “make good and regular work habits” and “integrate technology into my learning experience” spiel, instead I’m almost more interested in the low-tech solutions.  For starters, coil-bound notebooks are becoming more and more interesting.  Coil-bound notebooks are inexpensive, have many hundred pages, are slightly smaller than standard US letter size (which could make indexing easier), and are chronological.  That last fact alone is invaluable.  School is taught in a chronological manor — a topic is introduced, built upon, review, built higher, then tested on; only ever in that order.  Looseleaf in a standard binder is subject to rearrangement, loss, or other inconveniences that impact negatively on school life.  This year I will be integrating coil-bound notebooks deeply into my note organization.

Minimalism.  I’ve been steadily awakening to the beauty of minimalism in life.  This year my backpack (ordered from Dell, arrived today) is much smaller than any other backpack I’ve had since I was 12, only able to hold a 15″ laptop (*cough* or iPad *cough*) and a 2″ binder (or 2 2″ binders).  There are few extra pouches which I would normally preach as ways to hold your Purell or 3M lint roller, but those will have to find another home.  The backpack as a whole looks prim and tidy.  Additionally as opposed to my previous organization scheme which involved a separate pencil case, I’ll be solely using a binder-insert (2 ring, fabric, has zippers and pouches for pens) for all my writing instrument storage.  2x minimalism.

The last and possibly most exam-beneficial technique I’ll be using this year is a (MediaWiki) Wiki.  Last year I dabbled with a Wiki for storing biology notes, but couldn’t find a solid use-case for it in other courses (as it started too late to get the meat of my general science course).  For clarification, I did use it in Art to archive links to famous art pieces and tidbits for the final project; and I used it in English to carry written assignments back and forth between school and home.  As this wiki will be accessible by everyone, this is also a benefit.  Just before first semester exams last year I had some fifteen people add value to the Wiki — whether by adding notes, links, annotations, or editing text.  The Wiki itself was accessed more than 450 times before the first semester exams, and then another approximately 450 people before the second semester exams.  Given there were only about 200 people in Biology 11 during the whole year, I call that a success.

The house has been underway for the past 4.5 months and the contractors and crew have been awesome to work with and haven’t made any major mistakes, and they’re eager to correct the mistakes that have been made.  It has been an interesting experience — having to decide where a door should be, what height a window should be, where light switches should be, all without living in the home.  This is an awesome lesson in good user interface design (you think it sucks when an app’s UI sucks, imagine the UI you live in everyday sucking.) There were some goals that I’ve set aside, as I manage the connectivity in the house (that would be five computers, a handful — two at the moment — laptops, media playback devices — XBox, etc — with higher-bandwidth requirements, and an array of routers and switches to provide some segmentation).  My 5 goals for this project were:

1. Wire everything that isn’t mostly mobile.
2. Gigabit is a plus.
3. Central location for all network equipment that isn’t in a living space.
4. DIY — the electricians made it very clear they have nothing to do with data networking. Also DIY is more cost effective.
5. Unobtrusive & durable.  Outlets are better looking and more reliable long-term than simply run wire.

I think those goals were met.  On July 20 I ran tests and labeled each of the outlets in the utility closet with the room they run to, and confirmed each run (Cat5e, as that’s all electricians would allow me to use, because of building code) is working.

1. There are 7 runs (outside of the closet): one in each bedroom; one in the media room, den, great room, and kitchen.  Works great for all of the wired components of the network.
2. Gigabit is possible with Cat5e and the outlets I used.  The to-be-implemented network equipment will dictate this.  Currently I’m using my legacy dual Linksys WRT54G routers; one running Tomato router, the other running stock firmware to provide most compatible wireless – Tomato has given me trouble with wireless before; the second router is connect to the first using a standard ethernet cable from a LAN port to a LAN port.
3. All of the networking equipment will sit on a shelf in the utility closet.
4. The electricians ran the wire from the closet to each room in a specified location.  I terminated the ethernet myself.  I spent ~<$400 @ Home Depot for the tools and materials (1 impact punch down tool for $69, 1 termination coaster @ $2, 14 Cat5e modules @ $5.33 each, 3 single module face plates @ $3 each, 4 dual-module face plates @ $3.50 each, 1 three-module face plate @ $3.50, 4 dual keystone port wall mounts @ $4.95, 100ft of bulk Cat5e cable @ $25, Cat5e crimping tool & terminatoins @ $32.95, 50 Cat5e terminations @ $12.95).  This is a fraction of the cost this would have cost in 1995!  **fwiw — when wiring the ethernet terminations, I used the ‘B’ wiring guides.  In my research I concluded this is a more modern wiring standard, however both should work with modern hardware.
5. The faceplates look nice and clean.  Unlike phone jacks, ethernet has to be wired (at least in residential settings) using a module and faceplate.  The modules snap into holes in the faceplates to allow a myriad of combinations of connections including phone, coax, ethernet, RCA audio, HDMI, and more.  The module size is standardized.

Tests

As I’ve never terminated Ethernet before (without a professional near-by), it was certainly a gamble that any of this would work.  At the risk of shorting a Dell laptop and a WRT54G router, I used these for testing.  Unlike a $110+ professional test kit, this would provide real-world results in that not only are the pairs tested for electrical connectivity, but also the two terminations as a whole working (interference).  Every termination works, as do all of the ethernet cables I’ve crimped/made so far.  I’ve performed gigabit tests by linking two computers directly (by using a crossover cable between their ports in the utility closet) and it works (I didn’t see any reason why it wouldn’t, but testing is better than not testing.)

Right now I’m writing/finalizing these blog posts using my wired ethernet to access the internet.  There is some pride knowing that I made this, and it works.  As we’re all moved in I have a lot more to write about, including my new office space, the time of day electrical power meter (coming soon, not yet installed), and the global connectivity issue.

My iPhone, although the screen was smashed, continued to work (power on, make calls, etc…) and would be a good backup phone to have for the future.  So I should replace the screen; there were two options — do it myself (iFixit kit for $65) or have Apple do it.  Given that I was in Maine, just minutes from an Apple Store, tt seems logical that should the screen be replaced by an Apple Genius.  I went online and booked a 4:10PM appointment with a Genius.

At the store I checked in with an Apple employee and my name appeared on the Genius bar screen as #3 in line. At exactly 4:10 an employee led me to the bar and I explained my problem to the genius and he asked to look at the phone — he said he wanted to look at my SIM card, and I (embarrassed) said that I had, since the iPhone broke, bought a Nexus One and the SIM wasn’t in the iPhone.  He popped the iPhone SIM card tray open and did a serial model lookup and said my phone warranty expired “yesterday” so… happy 1 year, iPhone … and although the warranty wouldn’t have mattered, it would be $199 to replace the screen and would take 5 minutes.  That’s a bit steep.

He further examined the phone and found a crack in the case that I had lived with and ignored for the better part of the year I owned the phone, and said that the device could be replaced for free under an Apple recall issued for the 3G and 3GS with a cracked back panel.  He explained that Apple has recognized they were using a defective plastic for the backing of the phone and would replace any phone that developed any cracking.  Stellar.  I got a replacement phone, fresh, new, sweet.  I punched in my old password and deleted the contents of the phone, and it was placed in a box under the counter and out came a fresh iPhone.  He took my Rogers SIM card and popped it in the iPhone to which it wouldn’t activate.  Fail.  I figured this would be an issues as iPhones are locked to their home carrier (AT&T in the US, Rogers, Telus, or Bell in Canada, etc…) He suggested it would activate when I got to a Canadian IP address.

Good news: I got back to the hotel, and even under the bad (filtered) WiFi at a Hilton, was able to activate (plug phone in, iTunes opens, phone says “iPhone Activated”) and successfully connected to the AT&T network (did not connect to a data network as data roaming was disabled) — even as far as showing “AT&T” next to the bars, instead of the “ROGERS” I’m used to seeing.  I hoped this phone works when I get home (fwiw — in the Settings > About page, “Rogers 5.0″ is displayed as the carrier, and my phone number is displayed as “My number”).  This is a great experience.  I powered the phone on at the boarder and it automatically connected to AT&T, however I was able to select “ROGERS” from the carriers list in the Settings.app.  The phone now works perfectly, although I’m faced with the tough decision to chose between the Nexus One and the iPhone.

bradarsenault

(Brad Arsenault)

Something terrible happened at 3:22 PM on May 25. Something that I had feared more than anything for ten months. My iPhone broke. I was walking in the hall way and got bumped and my phone flew out of my hand, hit the ground face down, and the screen was shattered (see pic below, may disturb some people). My heart was shattered. Thus I began the journey of selecting the next best suitor as I knew the next iPhone was coming (everyone knows there’s an iPhone hardware refresh in June).

I immediately called Rogers and told them my phone was broken and I needed to replace it. I had read before that Rogers, in an attempt to bolster ahead of the other two providers, had launched a device replacement program, called “Rogers handset protection guarantee” which would replace your handset for a subsidized price (using a refurbished unit) so long as you have a minimum of 12 months remaining on your contract (if you have less than 12 months the contract is extended to 12 months). Awesome; had I been with any other carrier I’d be in for a whole lot more money!

So I enquired about getting a replacement and the surprisingly helpful CSR told me that there were three handsets available to me — the iPhone 3G (not 3GS) would be $549 ($50 off retail), a Blackberry Curve 8900 would be $299, a Blackberry Bold 9000 would be $329, and the LG Eve (an Android device) would be $0. Honestly none of those options sounded reasonable;

• the LG Eve is an Android handset but is a previous generation device, running stock 1.5 (with no knowledge of updates to or past 1.6), using a resistive touch screen, has a poor QWERTY keyboard, and is plagued by bugs (according to reviews).
• the Blackberry Curve 8900 seemed at first like a compromise Blackberry, but actually out specs the Bold in a few places, notably the camera and physical size/weight, but would mean bye-bye GMail push, well-made apps, touch keyboard, and dignity (I’ve knocked the Blackberry in a lot of places). Regardless, this was choice number 1.
• The Blackberry Bold 9000 was my first choice but I gave myself a minimum of three days to think it over. The first problem was that it’s a previous generation device with poor battery (according to reviews). I’d also heard that Blackberry OS 6 wasn’t going to the Bold 9000 (only the Bold 2/9700). Also the camera was mediocre, etc…

So with my initial decision made, I decided to call Rogers to order a Blackberry. I was just saying “yes” to completing to order when I brought up that I would need to switch my data plan over to a Blackberry data plan. If I had been any other consumer this wouldn’t be a problem — Rogers charges the same rate for Blackberry data and smartphone data ($25 for 500MB, $30 for 1GB, …) but I got my iPhone in July during a promotion to get a 6GB data plan for $30 which was a battle to get back then. At the same time, Rogers had a promotion for Blackberrys where if you inquired, you could get 6GB of Blackberry data for $30. The switch wouldn’t change any pricing. But Rogers didn’t know of that or wouldn’t allow me to do that.

My next venture was to perform a trick I’d heard of, called APN3CON, where the CSR has to type APN3CON into the SOC section and it makes your data plan function on a regular smartphone/internet stick and on Blackberrys. Awesome. I talked to Rogers and the CSR downright said I was crazy and making up lies. He thought it was a prank and verbally attacked me for it, constantly saying “who told you this?” Further more I emailed Rogers to confirm that APN3CON works. They said it does and gave me strict instructions as to how to get it on my account, but by this time I was fed up and my mind changed — Blackberry may have awesome relevance in business, but the way the interface works, and the age of the platform, and the build quality all told me that this was not the phone for me. I’d moved on to bigger and better things.

Now, almost seven hundred words later I get to my decision, the Nexus One. The Nexus One has been supported by Rogers in Canada — of course it would work with 2G unsupported using the T-Mobile version, but however I don’t have 3G where I live or within 100KM of where I live (screw you Rogers), it would be nice to have it eventually.

I ordered my Nexus One with an inscription on June 2nd at 5PM, costing $556.16 US dollars ($581 Canadian, currency converted through Mastercard at price of purchase). The phone was delivered on June 7, and on delivery from DHL, a fee of $78 local sales tax including a $7 brokerage fee was paid. All said and done, the phone cost ~$660. Not so bad, considering that the iPhone 3GS retails for $699 before taxes.

I’ve now had the Nexus for a full school week, and there have been a lot of good reactions to the phone, a lot asking whether I prefer this to my iPhone. That’s an interesting question, because the 3GS is a different generation of phone — back in the ~500MHz, medium-density screen generation, not the high-resolution, 1GHz, 500MB memory generation of the Nexus One, Evo, and iPhone 4. I’m happy with my decision; I’ve found that my generally poor Rogers reception has been immensely improved with the Nexus, even though both have antennas in the lower quarter of the phone (where one’s hand would more often than not cover it) and the Nexus has a metal case.

Switching to Android wasn’t at all difficult — at first I noticed all of the facets of the OS that Apple had gotten right that had yet to be polished, most notable the camera interface doesn’t rotate with the phone (the iPhone will rotate for 3 sides of the phone), the Android browser is far slower than Safari, the home screen icons do nothing to move as you drag other icons, and the phone does require more than one physical button to operate! It took a lot of time to pickup how the other buttons (the resistive buttons for back, context-menu, home, and search) would become useful. Also the trackball. That is a lot of ugly in the world of Apple, but has proven useful sometimes, and I now usually use it as a clicker for long-presses to paste text single-handed. That’s another difference; the iPhone may have been late to copy/paste but has done text selection (placing the cursor in a text field even) really well, with the floating magnifying glass. On the other hand, the N1 requires that you tap-and-guess, and use the trackball for greater accuracy. The Android (as of 2.1) doesn’t allow you to select any non-editable text.

As per apps, there may be a lot fewer Android apps, but they all seems snappy and very competitive with iPhone apps, albeit there are fewer drop dead gorgeous apps. For example Tweetie… or “Twitter for iPhone” is a beautiful app that I loved from day one on my iPhone. Twitter for Android is a powerful, versatile app, which looks good, behaves well, and feels Android-native, but it doesn’t have to fluidity of Tweetie.

I mentioned the Android browser is slower… and I meant it. The iPhone browser isn’t so hot on EDGE compared to Opera Mini (for obvious reasons) and certainly can’t compete with WiFi, but the Android browser is even slower. Even after the page has loaded, the browser keeps loading for many minutes, and the load priority isn’t straightforward — the iPhone always loaded text, layout, then images whereas Android seems to load and render in a top-down fashion. Opera Mini for Android seems promising though, and like on the iPhone, I’ll more than likely use that most of the time.

I was a pretty cocky iPhone user — I always mocked Blackberry for it’s antiquity, Windows Mobile for it’s downright outmoded-ness, and Android for it’s battery life, memory usage, and crashing. In the days I’ve had the N1, I’ve yet to have a system crash, application crash, or even an application go unresponsive. Holding the home button provides a 6-way application switcher for the last used applications, most of which snap back to life just how they were left, whether they stayed running or not. In fact, the Rogers My Account app, which yes, on EDGE takes seemingly forever to load, will even continue to load in the background. There are tons of pleasant surprises like that in this OS, that I never really thought about on the iPhone.

There are some areas where I hope to see some future polish thought, for example, when Twitter times out (I am on a shoddy EDGE connection) I get a message like “Tweet cannot be posted at this time.” followed by a Java-style error message including something along the lines of something.socketConnection.timeOut(). Most users would have no idea what that means, and would probably question someone like me as to whether something was wrong with their phone. A simple “Posting tweet timed out” would be adequate.

Over the coming weeks I’ll have some posts on good Android apps and life with this new fangled thing. For once it will be nice seeing the iPhone from the other side of the court. Here’s to new beginnings to all those who are encouraging Apple to innovate; choose Android.

If you aren’t sure how a bookmark differs from a bookmarklet, take a look at Wikipedia, or read my simple explaination: a bookmarklet is a saved line of Javascript code which provides some functionality and has all of the capabilities of Javascript on the currently displayed page, including navigating to a new page and modifying the page itself. A bookmarklet is activated when you open the bookmark (click it). On the iPhone there’s only one native way to get bookmarklets onto the phone — by bookmarking them on Safari on your computer then syncing them to Safari on the iPhone (done through iPhone). There are some bookmarklet providers which provide helper install pages to get around this limitation.

The iPhone bookmarklet installer bookmarklet: Found at joemaller.com/___
When activated this bookmarklet will add text to the beginning of each link found on the page so that you can bookmark it (see the site for more information).

The 1Password bookmarklets:
If you have an iPhone and the 1Password you can use the “lookup in 1Password” bookmarklet which automatically open 1Password with the current page address and allows you to copy your password. Immediately after copying some text you’re returned to Safari where you can input it. 1Passsword can be synced in app over WiFi to the Mac OS X version of 1Password.
OR
If you don’t have the 1Password iPhone app and have the desktop version you can make a self-contained bookmarklet which does the same thing in browser. New passwords are synced to this by the 1Password app on OS X. (learn more about option # 2 at the 1Password site)

Delicious – (see this page for instructions)
This just navigates you to an iPhone friendly way to bookmark using Delicious, pretty simple, very useful.

Find in Page – (Javascript to bookmark)
This open a Javascript prompt where you enter a phrase (case-independent) to find in the page; matches are counted and highlighted in yellow and bold.

Open Links in new Window – (Javascript to bookmark)
When activated this changes all links on the current page to spawn a new tab to view them.

Dictionary – (Javascript to bookmark)
This open a prompt to enter a word and redirects you to a definition of the word.

Wikipedia – (Javascript to bookmark)
This opens a prompt where you enter a Wikipedia query.

Mobilize This! – (Javascript to bookmark)
This bookmarklet open the currently open (or loading) page to be opened using the Google mobilizer service (shows only plain text, much quicker to load).

Read It Later – log in to your Read It Later account to find these bookmarklets
This adds the current page (or current loading page) to your Read It Late queue.

For immediate substitutions I’ll be using Hahlo for Twitter, the Facebook web app, and I’ve set textPlus to SMS.

• Boxcar (free for first service; additional services $0.99 or $1.99) – mentioned by @netspencer – Boxcar is a notification platform built on Apple Push Notifications that allows easy Twitter push (mentions, DMs, etc…), push email notifications, remote Growl notification, and soon almost anything as they’ve opened up their APIs.
• WolframAlpha ($1.99) - mentioned on TUAW lately – WolframAlpha is an awesome tool and I use it daily (it’s an awesome aid for math class) but I’ve so far had to use the desktop web version on my iPhone (not exactly thrilling user experience).  In the mean time I’ve used the mobile web version which is an automatic step up!
• Pastebot ($2.99) - mentioned by AppOfTheDay – Pastebot manages clipboards for the iPhone, it allows you to save snippets of text, sync them with your Mac, then save yourself time.
• ReelDirector ($7.99) – mentioned on MBW many times  - does simple video editing on the iPhone with 27 transitions, titles, trimming, and export-to-email functionality.
• Digg (free) – mentioned everywhere on Twitter – provides easy access to Digg content: allows digging/burrying, commenting, submitting, and viewing.

Although I will resume purchasing Apps, it’s been interesting to give them up — every day was a challenge to not buy apps I see people using or talking about.  Just a thought: it would be interesting to give up all apps, using them, buying them, talking about them, etc.. for a month or so.

Initially I was disgusted.  Although understand Facebook’s idea, this seems like regression: I don’t see how progress will come from this.  For clarity, the Facebook notification system provided developers a uniform means of notifying users. There’s a key phrase there, uniform.  Following the thought process to get to a Facebook app, FarmVille for example: Go to Facebook >> click on FarmVille icon >> use FarmVille. FarmVille becomes Facebook, it only makes sense that you hear about your FarmVille->Facebook news though Facebook (whether on the site in the notification panel or in your email from Facebook). After today Facebook developers don’t have access to Facebook’s infrastructure to notify users, instead they may:

• ask for permission (through Facebook Connect) to get the users’ email address
• use a counter (similar idea to the iPhone badges, the little numbers next to app icons)
• use a “news” item (whether public or private)

In other words, the only place you won’t see Facebook app notification is in under the “notifications” panel (iPhone app and on site) or on the notifications page. (Side note: I LOVE the Facebook iPhone app’s notifications pane –very Android-y) My intuition is that most developers would prefer to email you as it’s more of an alert, it’s persistent, and they can deliver tonnes of content in that single email to you (more than any news item or badge can). This makes me think of Merlin Mann, and how this doesn’t flow that well (good-bye inbox zero for me).

Let’s make an analogue to this problem; everyone knows about the iPhone application notification system (actually called the Apple Push Notification Service, or APNS).  Introduced in iPhone OS 3 after much adieu and to the rejoice of developers and customers.  Let’s do to APNS what Facebook did to their notification system.

*This is a thought experiment; what I’m about to say is only for the purpose of demonstration*

Imagine a day when you get notices from your iPhone apps saying “As of [a date] you will no longer receive notifications from [this app]“  after checking this notice out, you see that they allow you sign up with your cell phone number to receive SMS notifications.

Before launching the APN service, Apple made sure that it would be used, that it would be API relevant, and that it wouldn’t kill them to operate it, and that users would be able to control which notifications they get. That last part is what Facebook is really missing, that and an easy way to remove apps from your account, but that’s another rant.

</rant>

I will close on a positive note: Facebook is doing what most companies (*ahem* Microsoft *ahem*) would never do, remove API components. This is a change, and change is scary at first (look at every time Facebook changes their interface) but this will ultimately be for the betterment of the platform, which is exciting.

Links:

• Facebook post
• APNS @ Wikipedia
• Merlin Mann
• Android Notifications [IMAGE]

textPlus Canada banner, spotted on Friday

textPlus is FINALLY available in Canada. As of last Friday, textPlus users have been able to send free text messages to Canadian wireless customers, and were notified if they were part of the beta program. Today, textPlus went public with the expanded customer base.  Currently (quoting the textPlus blog post), Rogers, Telus, Bell, Fido, Virgin, Aliant, Northern Tel Mobility, SaskTel, and Telebec Mobilite are supported as of today. textPlus has implemented this switch on their servers, so you won’t have to re-download, re-signup, update, cover your iPhone in maple syrup, or anything else to take advantage of this.

Bonus:  This means that all textPlus users (foreign and domestic) will be able to text Canadian phone numbers for free, and you (as a Canadian) can freely text Americans and other worldwide textPlus users. Awesome travel tip!

Also, up to 20 contacts (made of textPlus addresses and real phone numbers) can group chat.  That means that if one person adds to the conversation then everyone will receive the message.  *Yay* for group chatting!

Also, see the textPlus blog post to enter a contest to win textPlus gloves.

Just a bit of background: textPlus by Gogii is a free service which allows users to send text messages to cell phones, there is an app for iPhone/iPod Touch and Android which makes access to the service easier.  You can sign up in app or by texting !NAME to 60611.

Sending a message from textPlus can take two paths:
1) You have the free app and are signed up; now you just enter a textPlus username, pick a contact’s phone number, or enter a phone number, up to 20 all together, and press compose. Type a message and it will be sent to the recipients for free to you (this uses data, not your text messages); the recipient(s) don’t pay for this if they have a messaging plan which includes received messages.  If there are more than two people involved in the chat, all messages will be forwarded to everyone.  The other people can replying to the message in their inbox. Then you will receive notification of that all in a very short period of time. The syntax is very similar to Twitter via SMS in a way.

If someone wishes to textPlus you they just text !chat to 60611, then you will receive a message asking you to add textPlus usernames and/or other numbers to the new chat session; a conversation will be started.

2) You don’t have the app/can’t get the app (using Blackberry, other phone) [see the textPlus blog 'Pro Tip' about this]
From any cellular phone, text !chat to 60611 and follow the instructions to set up a username and in the future after you’re all setup, invite other numbers to chat. Texting to 60611 and receiving messages from textPlus doesn’t cost any more than texting a domestic number.

Also, see the Revision3 show, App Judgement review textPlus.

*Remember: there isn’t a way to include textPlus in your My5 plan and requires a texting plan, unless you like overage fees.*

These are the top six questions I’ve been asked this week regarding technology.

1. Text, video, and picture messaging doesn’t work: I have WiFi and the internet works, but messaging doesn’t…?

This is usually asked by smartphone owners: however your phone can use WiFi to go on the internet, and it’s the same internet experience, text, video and picture messaging can only be sent or received over the cellular network (unless you’re sending them to an email address, but I’m talking about phone-phone messaging).  There are some emerging technologies where you get a “micro cell”, a device that can be integrated in to a router, or can be plugged into your modem (cable, DSL; doesn’t matter), creates a small personal cellular site.  The most notable implementation of this is by AT&T, the “AT&T microcell.”

2. Why can’t I use my cell phone to connect the iPad to wireless data?

This question has been posed a lot to me in the last week since the iPad announcement, only by poeple who have smartphones (Blackberry, iPhone, or Android): the fact is that all of these phones are capable of sharing their data with other devices, called “tethering,” however:

iPhones will only tether to other computers; Mac and Windows only (sorry, your Ubuntu/other Linux netbook won’t work).  Or you can jailbreak your iPhone and use an (illegal!) app like xx or xx and tether… if the iPad can create (let alone join) a computer-to-computer network (called an “adhoc” network).

The Androids can tether, but going the legit way, you will have to pay [INSERT CARRIER HERE] more money for a separate data plan even though you don’t use near all of your current data plan… yes, I know they’re “buttheads.”  However there are apps you can use, they cost money, and the reliability of them varies.  You’re using the phone that will probably get you closest to a cheap iPad.

The Blackberry can tether, but unless you purchase tetherberry for $58 CAD or pay [INSERT CARRIER HERE] for a separate tethering data plan, you’re SOL.

There’s another problem: as of yet, the WiFi-only iPad can only use WiFi tethering: that means that you will need to tether via WiFi.  This could cause a problem if you’re not using a jailbroken iPhone with an app like xx or an Android phone with xx.

<Update February 20, 2010>

In response to a comment from Billy, I should clarify.  The iPad does indeed do 3G cellular data.  However it requires it’s own cellular account and can’t share your cell phone data (some carriers have plans where a phone and data device such as a laptop card can share a data allotment, but that isn’t what I’m referring to).  I was responding in the context of those who don’t want to pay another (minimum $15/mo) data fee.

</Update>

3. Can you upgrade my iPhone?

Yes: other’s can upgrade your iPhone to the latest version.  This is a common question from my peers who use dial-up (yes, there are still places sans broadband in this day and age).  The typical iPhone update is ~300MB, or about 12+ hours of solid dial-up downloading.  Other iTunes users can update your phone provided that you’ve already sync’d the iPhone (or iPod touch) with your computer.  Also, if you go to restore your phone to factory settings (in iTunes) then you will have to download the firmware or let me do it.  Hint: if you’ve jailbroken your phone, it would make the updaters’ life a lot easier!

4. Why are my iPhone/iPod Touch apps crashing/not opening/running slow/other?

This happens to me all the time! The simple solution: you reboot your phone.  Unlock your device to the home screen, hold the power button (at the top of the device) until you get the “slide to power off” notification, slide it.  Once the screen has gone blank, wait a few seconds, then press and hold the power button for a few seconds until you see the Apple logo.

5. Why are my iPhone/iPod Touch apps wiggling on my home screen?!?!

You pressed and held your finger on an app icon, this puts your phone in a mode which allows you to relocate the icons; when the icons are wiggling you can tap and drag them to any position on the many home screens.  To stop them from wiggling and exit the relocation mode, press the menu/home button (the circular button with a picture of a square on it on the front of the device).

6. Is it possible to download Youtube video to your iPod/iPhone/iPod Touch?

Assuming your iPod has the ability to play videos (the fat-nano or better, the iPod 5th gen or better, and any iPod touch or iPhone) you can.  On Mac OS X you can use a native application such as TubeTV (the best Mac way I’ve found).  In Tube TV you go into the preferences and select the quality you want.  In general, select the name of your device.  If you’re on an iPhone, select the option that is not ‘cellular’.  This will take care of downloading and converting the video for your iPod.  You then just click-and-drag the video files to your iTunes library and make sure that movie syncing is enabled on your iPod (the movies tab when your iPod is plugged in).  There is also Podtube available.  You could also use Tooble, another program I’ve used to download Youtube videos.  Tooble is freemium: you can download videos for free from Youtube, or upgrade to the “Pro” version for more features, check out the site for a full feature list.  All three of these are free.

On Windows there isn’t as much variety as on the Mac; the only program I’ve grown to trust for Youtube on Windows->iPod/iPhone is the Windows version of Tooble.  Same as Mac, it’s free, but you get more features for the ~$20 Pro version.

<Update February 20, 2010>

In response to Billy, I will add the Orbit Video downloader is a viable, and recommended by him and CNet Download.com, option for downloading Youtube videos for your iPhone or iPod.

</Update>

• Lala (international copyright issues) -> See Video <- (not available ANYWHERE as of May 31)
• Pandora (international copyright issues) -> See Picture <-
• Hulu (international copyright issues; this includes embeds for any associated companies including the Comedy Channel for example) -> See Picture <-
• Google Voice (won’t forward to Canadian numbers; suspicion is that it’s CRTC regulations on E911 services) -> See Picture <-
• Amazon MP3 -> See Picture <-
• Amazon Prime
• Amazon streaming TV and movies
• Netflix Streaming (Netflix physical media rentals are provided by Zip.ca)
• textPlus (won’t accept Canadian phone numbers; although, GOGII is conducting a beta regarding that, see here.)[UPDATE! textPlus is now available in Canada as of February 16, 2010]
• Motorola Droid (or GSM/UMTS version called the “Milestone”) – no carriers yet – available in Canada on Telus as of February 2010
• Nexus One (won’t ship to Canada; Nexus One uses irregular UMTS bands that none of the major 3 Canadian carriers use; AWS is going to be provided by WIND mobile — currently in Toronto only) – available as of March 2010 on Rogers, Telus, and Bell. Orders as AT&T compatible, ships to Canada. Paid apps are supported.
• FitBit – won’t ship to Canada; hasn’t been approved for sale in Canada.

1. In shorten.pl – I’ve fixed the API key verification for now, added rudimentary invalid URL detection.
2. In list.pl – I’ve used threads, as mentioned in a tweet,
   

   bradarsenault

   (Brad Arsenault)

   YES! #Perl | With threads I was able to cut total execution time from 0.121s to 0.78s (both averages)! Perl==WIN!

   On 30-1-2010 01:27:26 from Seesmic

   , and now save about 64% of the time in listing all of the URLs in the database. (that’s using 2 threads; I’ve found that 8 is optimal in general on this server)
3. In stats.pl – I now order the URLs by id (in other words, the one with the latest created short code first).
4. In subs.pl – I rewrote some of the randomPassword subroutine. It should be more efficient in the future, however I will need to write one from scratch to make it work; I keep getting long short codes, I specify a 2-character sc and get a 4 (always 4) character password/sc in return. Help?

I’ve posted the updates to this code on the usual Code >> Perl URL Shortener page.

You can also see it in action at Brad-Zone.com … for now.

So here are my 15 things I want from it:

1. iPhone tethering. The tablet could command it’s own 3G connection subscriptions, however, like many iPhone users, at which this tablet is directed, I’m paying $70+/mo for a data connection. I don’t want to pay more. As the iPhone already tethers (in Canada at least), it doesn’t seem unreasonable that this wouldn’t be an option.
2. An iPhone-like OS. The iPhone works so well because it has a Unix/Darwin/BSD-based operating system. It doesn’t do background applications because it isn’t intuitive to have an application without a physical presence (like a window), like Windows (for the most part) does, even though the Mac OSes have never done it like this. The tablet should do background applications, but there are many other places that Apple could find similar simplification.
3. Front-facing camera. I wish the iPhone had this, too! I want the tablet to have a front-facing (and rear-facing, too!) camera. This camera could do (if it’s cellular connected, video calling on Rogers and other carriers), Skype/iChat, or just video capture (for video blogging). But it also needs to edit videos, kind of like iMovie Lite®.
4. Microphone and speaker. The possibilities are endless!
5. App Store…. but that’s a given.
6. Best in industry HTML5 support.
7. Dock connector. The tablet is going to be a secondary platform for computing, similar to the iPhone, and there has to be a way to get more information onto the device, manage it, restore/reset it, update it, and provide media to it.
8. High-pixel density screen. I know that ‘OLED’ is a buzzword at the moment, however if it inhibits cost, a TFT (hopefully LED backlight though) screen (of higher pixel density than the iPhone) would be excellent.
9. iTunes managed. iTunes is a ubiquitous platform (Windows, Mac) which people already have and know.
10. If the tablet is cellular (and/or can tether to iPhone) text messaging.
11. Bluetooth/wireless keyboard connectivity. This is the iPhone biggest short fall (aside from the monthly cost!); this will then be the ultimate tool for a student.
12. An Android-like notification system. The iPhone has popups, but doesn’t have a way to go back to notifications.
13. A new UI.
14. STEVE JOBS! I want to see the beloved SJ again, even if this may be his last ever presentation or Apple project.
15. A better way to input text than a pen, current style of virtual keyboard, or slide-out keyboard (although I’d be skeptical of that last one).

However, I’ve made predictions using the Prediction Score Card by David Weiss.  You should too!  (Will tweet my score card soonl I’m on Twitter as @bradarsenault )

Here’s a quick Youtube Video I shot as soon as I could.

Links:
My favorite:
Daniel Suarez’s site: