Two things I wanna know.
1. Why doesn’t the ring volume match the SMS volume? My Glass SMS tone is SOO much louder than my ring tone (Marimba) when its on the quietest setting.
2. Why isn’t there an easier 1.1.2 hack rather than downgrading? I just want iPushr or something to send to flickr, rather than email.
Wish I knew more people with iPhones. I’ve only seen one out on the streets, and only one other person at MMUG has one.
Last year I signed up for courses with the Computer Training College (www.ctcollege.co.uk).
I signed up for the CompTIA A+, N+, Microsoft MCSA and Cisco CCNA. I have reached the stage where I am ready to take my A+ exams and contacted them about booking them. I was then told that the exam fees were not included in the course fees I had paid up front.
Having now done some research online I have found out that the CT College have often been quoted as fleecing students. They charge large fees, provide little support, and misrepresent their services.I am currently speaking to them and will try to cancel my course, and reclaim my course fees. I will be looking to start court action and contact the Trading Standards if I do not get a reasonable response from them.
I’ll keep you updated with my progress, but I would warn anyone considering study with them to reconsider QUICKLY. Having done the study for one qualification, I could do just as good a job with a £30 book from Borders or Amazon.
http://www.certforums.co.uk/forums/thread18129.html
http://www.certforums.co.uk/forums/thread4590.html
Update 1: I received a letter today stating that they stand by their original letter. They have no record of my phone call to them querying the exam fees being included, and believe that it was clearly explained that they were external and excluded. Luckily my girlfriend was in the room with me at the time and can vouch for this. My next action is to get copies of my phone bill showing this phone call to them, and ask them to investigate that. If they cannot prove that they told me otherwise, I will argue some more. As I said, I also have corroboration of this matter.
Update 2: I’ve written back to them for a third time, enclosing proof of a phone call they claim they have no record of where I was told that my exams were included. I now wait for a reply.
Update 3: I have set up a Google Group here where people can share their thoughts a bit better, and hopefully get the word out about these people.
So I’ve been using my iPhone for about a week now. Its lovely. But this is about the cost.I was watching a video on YouTube about the iPhone making a deal about the overall cost. So I wanted to address the issues raised.
Contract Length - O2 require an 18 month contract. OH MY GOD! 18 Months? Now, I remember a few years back 12 month contracts were the main thing. Now, its extremely unlikely that you’ll get a 12 month contract. Go into any shop, or onto any website and the default option now is 18 months. So thats not a big deal. Get over it. (and Orange offer 24 months too)
Contract cost - 35 massive pounds per month. WOAH! Thats loads(!). Now I realise that that may be a lot for some people, but lets look at the other networks. Orange offer 7 contracts under £35 per month, 2 at £35 per month, and 4 over £35. In equivalent tariff would set you back at least £30 a month for the same or more texts and calls.
Data Package - On top of the basic cost you would have to pay data charges. For 200MB of data (the former limit on O2) you would pay an additonal £35! It costs £8 for 3oMB of data. So take into account that O2 is Unlimited and thats an infinite cost (only limited by your use)!
Wifi - The Cloud.net offers unlimited WiFi use for £7.99 per month. Its free for iPhone users
Handset Cost - OK you can get a free handset from most carriers, like the N95 (the most compared handset). Great. It plays music, videos, has GPS, 3G etc. I could get into that discussion but I won’t. iPhone costs you £269. Thats it. Its yours. If you cancel the contract, its yours. If you cancel any other one, you have to pay the rest of the contract. If you cancel within the 14 days you have to return your handset. Not with the iPhone. What about the features.Total
Costs
Non-iPhone handset Free
Contract £30.00 x 18 months
Data Use £35.00 x 18 months
Wifi £7.99 x 18 months
Total = £1313.82
iPhone £269
Contract £35.00
Data use Included
Wifi Included
Total £899
Now excuse my maths, but it would appear that a non-iPhone costs £414 LESS than a comparable option. lets also consider you want a full internet browser, photo browser, music player. You didn’t pay for your phone so you could buy an iPod Touch. Thats another £199 for 8GB. So the total is now £1512.
So there you go. Its not a bad deal. Its a GREAT deal, and you have a fantastic handset with a full internet browser, large screen for viewing photos, videos, maps, stocks, weather, calendar, and more. You get Visual Voicemail. No other network offers this. Random access voicemail is probably a key feature for people who get lots of messages, like sales people. A full web browser with an intuitive interface is fantastic. For that mobile, you might look at a Nokia N800 (£229).
Please, argue these points. Let me know your thoughts. Have I done the maths wrong? Am I overlooking something?
I have a few backup systems in force after a hard drive crash on my last Powerbook. Firstly I backup the main stuff using Mozy.com’s online backup system. I also backup to CD every few months for a local copy. And lastly, I backup to my 80GB iPod which I have plugged in very often during the week.
I got this idea from the In The Trenches podcast and saw the post on George Starcher’s blog about how he set his up, and with some adjustment, I got mine working. Here’s what I do.
First, follow all the instructions on the blog post. I created a 5GB image first, but am now moving that to a 10GB one as I’ve decided to include backup of my Photo Library.
All the rest is the same, with the exception of the Script file. I built into mine some logging (thanks to google searches) which I then pump through and display on my desktop using GeekTool. Just choose a File to be shown, and type in the path to the log file (in my case /Users/username/.rsync.log)
Below is the script I use, which logs to a hidden log file in my home directory.
echo ================================ rsync Backup script ================================= >>~/.rsync.log
date >>~/.rsync.log
echo ==Mounting Backup Disk: >>~/.rsync.log
hdiutil attach /Volumes/Dom\’s\ iPod\ Video/Backup/EncryptedBackup.sparseimage
echo : Backup Disk Mounted >>~/.rsync.log
echo ==start rsync logging== >>~/.rsync.log
rsync -aE –progress –exclude=Library/Fonts/ –exclude=Library/Application\ Support/iDVD –exclude=Library/Application\ Support/iMovie –exclude=Library/Application\ Support/Garageband –exclude=Desktop/BitTorrents –exclude=.cpan/ –exclude=.Trash –exclude=.DS_Store –exclude=Library/Favorites –exclude=Library/Print* –exclude=Library/Icons/ –exclude=Library/Indexes/ –exclude=Library/iMovie/ –exclude=Library/iTunes/ –exclude=Library/Safari/Icons/ –exclude=.Trash/ –exclude=Library/Caches/ –exclude=Movies/ –exclude=Pictures/iPhoto\ Library/iPod\ Photo\ Cache –exclude=Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Music –exclude=*.mp3 –exclude=*.m4p –exclude=*.m4a ~/ /Volumes/EncryptedBackup/>>~/.rsync.log || echo -n
sleep 2m
hdiutil dettach /Volumes/Dom\’s\ iPod\ Video/Backup/EncryptedBackup.sparseimage
echo =====Backup Complete===== >>~/.rsync.log
A few points to note. I have two folders on my desktop, Downloads and Bit Torrents which I don’t want to backup. I also exclude some cache folders in the ~/Library folder, some font folders, Indexes, etc. I also exclude my music files, so I exclude the iTunes Music folder, any MP3 and AAC files, and the iPod cached Photo files (whats the point?)
You’ll see that my disk image is located in /Backup on my iPod and the script is located in /Scripts.
Like George, all this is executed via an Automator action which sits on my Desktop.
The only thing to watch
So thats it. Just plug in your iPod, run the action, and watch it fly by on your desktop.
Ok. Its sunday lunchtime. I’m currently doing a custom install of MYSQL and its time to start my review.I’ve been using my iPhone on and off for about 2 days now. So lets go through things.
Phone
I’ve only had some brief use of the actual phone call aspect, but from that I can say that its really easy getting to a contact to call. It may be more actions than another phone, but it sure doesn’t feel like it. Flicking through your contacts is so much nicer than repeated scrolling through a long list using the down key. Even searching is easy. Use the side bar to jump to a letter if you want.The actual call quality sounded great. The volume is very good, much higher than my N70, the speakerphone is loud enough, even on a mid-level volume. As you will see on the video, the screen dims when you put it to your face to help save battery power, and avoid pressing buttons with your face. When it is away from your face, there are large buttons for muting, speakerphone, ending call, and going to contacts.You can set up a favourites contact list, and select any number from any contact for quick access. Like speed dial really. And if you want the normal keypad you can.
Visual Voicemail is nice. I’m still waiting for a message but going into it for the first time, you’re asked for a voicemail PIN which you punch in, and you’re then asked to make a custom greeting or use the default. If you choose custom, hit record, speak at the phone (like its in speaker phone mode) and hit done. Then play it back to confirm or save it. Thats it. No dialing up, navigating a menu, waiting for a beep. Its all there on the screen and its really simple.
SMS
I love SMS. I text loads and now that its in the natural way, in a conversation stream, its so much easier to deal with. Sending one is as simple as adding a name or number (start typing a name and your contacts are filtered to narrow the choice then tap to select a name/number) Type your text, and then hit send. A nice little bar shows the sending progress and its gone. A little swoosh sounds and your message appears in the conversation. When you receive a text, your alert sounds (now customisable) and you get an on screen alert. The sender and a preview of the text is shown, and you get the option to view or ignore. If you ignore, a new message count is shown over the SMS icon on the home screen.Downside: So far no multiple recipient support, you can’t even choose a group of contacts from Address Book. Hopefully coming soon.
Calendar
Nice looking calendar view. Not much to say here. No multiple calendar support/multicoloured calendars. Again, hopefully coming soon. Oh, and there is no week view, only day, month, and list (handy to just see your appointments).
Love Mail. Its beautiful. Reading email is clear, you can double tap to zoom or pinch to zoom. Links are automatically make into clickable links, numbers are interpreted as phone numbers (if they are the right length) so tap to call. One thing thats very cool, when you click delete within a message, it is sucked into the trash icon, where the lid opens up to the side, and the message goes in, then it closes. Cool. Who else would put this much though into deleting an email?Multiple account support is great. I have 2 IMAP and 2 POP running and they work fine together. I have it set to check mail every hour so I don’t need to logon to Gmail online any more.
Safari/EDGE/WiFi
There has been a lot of moaning in the British media about the lack of 3G saying browsing outside of a WiFi hotspot will be slow. Let me say this. EDGE IS NOT SLOW! I have used both WiFi and EDGE here in Birmingham, and its been fantastic. It is slower than WiFi but thats to be expected, but is it too slow to deal with? Not at all. It took maybe 30 seconds to load a decent size webpage and is just as quick on smaller pages. I ran a speed test against my Nokia N70 on 3 (3G network connection) and surprisingly, my N70 scored an average of 79kbit/sec and my iPhone on EDGE (supposedly slower) scored 100kbit/sec. I can’t explain it, but browsing the web on my iPhone is infinitely better than the browsing experience on my N70.Seriously.
This is a big selling point. Page loading speeds aside, being able to view full web pages, formatted correctly is invaluable. Trying to get movie times on my N70 is laborious, having to navigate the specially formatted pages to go through city, cinema, film, then times is a pain, and compared to a simple Google Search, there is no contest. I can see all the local cinemas, whats on, every show time, the genre, and even run time in one page.
Wifi is just fantastic too. O2 offer free TheCloud WiFi which is great. That includes BT Openzones and should hopefully also include Starbucks (yet to be confirmed. More reports tomorrow once I try it). Using home Wifi is easy. Turn it on, it will ask you to select a network to join, enter the password if you have one. And thats it. You’re conected. And the iPhone remembers your network settings so will join the network when it sees it. And there is no requirement to verify your WEP/WPA key.
Future Features
There isn’t much I would add at the moment but here’s my list
Luckily, most of this could come with a firmware update, or even via third party applications. Thats it. Not much more to say from me. I’ll probably post some more thoughts as they come to me as I enjoy my iPhone.
So I am home, I’ve got my iPhone and its all working.Setup was simple. Plug in, go through the iTunes registration, select price plan, give your iTunes Account ID, and give any number transfer details. Once that was done, you wait for activation, and for me this took less than a minute.Once thats done, you can go ahead and sync. Like everything else, choose your playlists, your bookmarks, email accounts etc, to sync. and thats it. iPhone sorted.So far I’m just trying to reduce my music so I can get some videos on it. Apart from that its great.I’ll be giving it a true test run this weekend so a more detailed report soon.
I arrived at 10.15, had a drink from Starbucks and went to wait. It wasn’t until about 12pm that the first people started the queue, and then I made my move. I’m now sitting here, in 4th place on a cold hard floor waiting for my iPhone.There’s 7 people so far (12.44pm) and its bound to grow.Check out Flickr for photos during the day!
www.flickr.com
|
