The Blog of Brad
Archive for June, 2009
Adventures in iPhone: Update
Jun 30th
I just thought I should drop a quick line about my iPhone. I had planned to get my iPhone yesterday evening: about 4:45p, and had arrived only to find out there were no iPhones available there! Not a big issue, the sales rep allowed me to leave my name and number for when a White 32GB iPhone, and she had noted that tomorrow (today, as I’m writing this) is their restocking day and an iPhone may be on it. This morning I anxiously awaited a call from them and to my surprise around 10:00a I got a call saying that my phone was in! They had my Nokia [something something] ready for me, Mr. Yang… d’oh! After a second of surprise I said that I wasn’t Mr. Yang; to my further disappointment today’s shipment only included 8GB (previous generation) 3Gs. She then told me that a ‘White 32 GB iPhone’ has been ordered in and will probably be in by next Tuesday (their next stock shipment date).
[DISCLAIMER: THIS NEXT SECTION IS A RANT]
This is aggravating; I am looking at signing away the next three years of my life to Rogers and >$2600. Because of the fact that I have to buy something from them that I could buy from two other companies, I should get a Palm Pre (Bell) or another phone from Telus, both of which have great EVDO coverage in my area, while Rogers only has EDGE. However, I constantly drink the Apple Kool-Aid and therefore will wait and will pay outrageously for possibly the slowest phone in my neck of the woods.
[/END RANT]
I also heard a rumor today that AML, the local Rogers authorized reseller for the Atlantic Canadian region is getting a supply of iPhones to their local branches ‘Thursday or Friday’. However I’m not convinced of my source’s credibility, though. **I do not endorse or except responsibility for this rumor.**
$15 & $30 HP Calculator Emulators
Jun 26th
I just saw Gizmodo’s post on HP having released iPhone/iPod Touch app emulators of their notable calculators.
HP 12C:
This is arguably the most famous HP financial calculator and has sold well for decades. The app that emulates this is $14.99 and 1 MB.
HP 15C:
This is the HP 15C scientific calculator. This app comes in at $29.99 and 1.6MB.
Read Gizmodo’s post about this for more information about these.
[My opinion]
As Gizmodo made clear; the physical calculators that these emulate are significantly more expensive (many times more expensive) and are perfectly emulated by this app. However they don’t mention that most non-free apps in the app store sell for about $1.99 (most sold are probably free!) and that makes the price tags of $15 and $30 irrelevant in most sense of the matter. However, if TI wants to make a graphing calculator app to save high school students (most of which have iPod Touches or iPhones) from having to buy the hardware analogues.
[/MY OPINION]
Links to the app:
This post significantly draws from Gizmodo’s post about these calculators.
Quick Tip: Stream Audio in Background on iPhone/iPod Touch on OS 3.0
Jun 24th
I’m a TWiT aficionado and always use the TWiT.am app from the App Store, however it doesn’t work in the background (a feature I LOVED when I had my iPod jailbroken) however, I got curios and tried this, and so can you!
- Go to http://twit.am/ in Safari
- Click on Listen Live
- [A Player opens – as seen below]
- Click the home/menu button on the front of the device and the audio keeps playing in the background.
Adventures in iPhone: Day -5
Jun 24th
I guess this will do. This is my personal announcement that this Monday, as in 5 days, I will be getting an iPhone. After a trip to the local Rogers store here is what I’ve come up with:
32 GB White iPhone
| $20 MegaValue: 200 min, unl nights/weekends, 1000 sent SMS |
| $30 Data: 6GB (as close as a Canadian can get to unl data) |
| $6.95 SAF *BOGUS* |
| $0.93 NS e911 fee |
|
|
| =65.40 (incl tax) |
| -15% Eastlink bundle Rogers discount |
| =55.59 (final monthly total) |
Currently I’m paying $30 for my current phone; a prepaid Keybo (aka enV2 on Verizon in the US) on Telus which includes a few minutes, text messaging, and ‘wireless web’ (WAP), so for jut $25 more per month I’ll actually get something that I will use and love. Going back to that, I love the Keybo—the simplistic nature of it, the relatively low cost, and the lack of contract: but it isn’t a Smartphone, which is what I now realize is what I need. I do have some revisions to my previous recommendation of the Keybo: This phone is great for a phone, but not as a smartphone.
I’ve grown tired of the less-than-fluid interface and usability of the Keybo and although the iPhone is significantly more expensive and it’s like comparing a $25 pair Wal-Mart jeans with a $150 Abercrombie & Fitch pair—with the Wal-Mart pair not fitting just right so the pockets don’t really feel comfortable.. But I digress.
Suffice to say that I’m excited about iPhone. I’ve been in anxious preparation for a few days now, but have been ready for this for my whole life. It’s true love.
However, the whole iPhone experience isn’t new to me, I’ve had an iPod touch for more than a year now and have continued to upgrade it at the not-free-cost of $9.95 twice (for the 2.0 and 3.0) and so have been able to discover great apps like Tweetie, Tap Tap, Jelly Car, Crayon Physics, Touch Physics, Last.fm, CalcRPN, RSSPlayer, and Evernote. But on an iPhone with a persistent data connection, location aware-ness, and a camera will make some apps so much better, such as:
- Tweetie will be (4.0924 x 10^129) times better because it will give me Twitter when I’m board, not just when I’m home.
- Evernote is enhanced with both the data and camera in the sense that I will be able to make notes AND make picture notes everywhere | Last.fm is music—and I have music stored on the iPod-so if I have data everywhere then it could potentially replace my need to carry music entirely (for a small fee, that is)
- RSSPlayer—the built-in podcast client doesn’t allow podcasts over 10MB to be downloaded—however because I’m paying $30/mo for data, I’m gonna use it for what I want-and RSSPlayer allows you to download podcasts of any file size to your iPhone anywhere—and you can get them much before Apple has refreshed their podcast feeds.
One final reason that the iPhone is awesome: it gives me the reason to subscribe to (and pay for) Geoff Smith’s Ringtone Feeder.
I’m sorry for the length of this post, but I’m just so excited! :^)
Book: Daemon by Daniel Suarez
Jun 24th
As of now I’m not quite done this book, but it is one of the few fictional stories that I’ve ever gotten into. (Without revealing secrets) This book opens with the announced death of a software giant/genius dyeing after a long battle with brain cancer and seemingly unrelated events and people converge on what could be considered a turning point in history: when it is possible to murder someone from beyond the grave (as quoted from the book) "When you’re safely dead".
On Audible this book is in a half-dramatized, half-narrated story with different characters voice by different actors or actresses, which conveys nicely because this book can be downloaded using Audible’s new ‘E’ format (which bring the file size for this book to about 500MB). This is one of the best applications of the audiobook medium yet; the high quality, great narrators, and a great story. Keep in mind that this book is a significant investment of time, at 15 hours and 57 minutes.
If you like this book, it’s author has a sequel premiering in 2010, Freedom. You can take a look at free chapters on the authors site, here.
Get this book for $31.47 or 1 credit on Audible.
Or get this book in dead-tree format for $16.98 from Amazon.
**PS With credits this book can cost as low as $7.49, or using a sponsored trial (such as from TWiT) you can get it free (with new signup)**
(Publisher’s Summery)
Technology controls almost everything in our modern-day world, from remote entry on our cars to access to our homes, from the flight controls of our airplanes to the movements of the entire world economy. Thousands of autonomous computer programs, or daemons, make our networked world possible, running constantly in the background of our lives, trafficking e-mail, transferring money, and monitoring power grids. For the most part, daemons are benign, but the same can’t always be said for the people who design them.
Matthew Sobol was a legendary computer game designer – the architect behind half-a-dozen popular online games. His premature death depressed both gamers and his company’s stock price. But Sobol’s fans aren’t the only ones to note his passing. When his obituary is posted online, a previously dormant daemon activates, initiating a chain of events intended to unravel the fabric of our hyper-efficient, interconnected world. With Sobol’s secrets buried along with him, and as new layers of his daemon are unleashed at every turn, it’s up to an unlikely alliance to decipher his intricate plans and wrest the world from the grasp of a nameless, faceless enemy – or learn to live in a society in which we are no longer in control. . . .
Computer technology expert Daniel Suarez blends haunting high-tech realism with gripping suspense in an authentic, complex thriller in the tradition of Michael Crichton, Neal Stephenson, and William Gibson.
©2009 Daniel Suarez; (P)2009 Penguin Audio
