Just a quick post here. If you have an iPhone, and have updated to the 2.0 software, be sure to checkout the new WordPress application. It’s a lovely little app for blogging on the go.
It supports wordpress.com and self hosted domains and will store your drafts locally if you don’t have time to finish them.
You can easily add multiple blogs so now there is no excuse for me not to post
Wordpress for iPhone is free from the App Store.

Update (9 December 2011)

When I first published this post in 2008 (still popular, 3 years later with 6000+ views to date), it seemed like a unknown trick for a small majority of users, usually in the enterprise.
It was written with iOS (formerly iPhone OS) 2.0 which has since been superseded by a few major updates.

If you are running iOS 4.0 or higher (and you really should be) then installing certificates is so much easier now. All you need to do now is put the certificate in an email to yourself or your users, or stick it on the web somewhere. Then either tap to open the certificate in an email, or click the link to open it in MobileSafari and you should be prompted by the OS to install the certificate.

If you’re looking to do this in an enterprise environment, you may still want to use the iPCU, but you really should take a look at Profile Manager, the Mobile Device Management feature in Lion Server (it costs £35.99 from the App Store)

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So I now work where they employ the use of certificates for wifi security, and I want to use the wifi on my iPhone since the data connection sucks. But how?

Well with iPhone 2.0 software, there is support for certificates. But how do you get it on your phone?

Well…

1. Go to Apple’s Enterprise Support page and download the iPhone Configuration Tool. Install

2. Open up the Config tool from your Utilities folder.

3. Select Configuration Profiles and click New

4. Fill in the details on the General Tab.

5. Click Credentials. and click the plus sign, and navigate to the Certificate file (in my case a .cer file). Click OK.

6. Check the details look correct, and give it a name.

And thats it! Done.

Well not quite. You need to install it on your iphone. You have two/three options but the third involves Mac OS X Server which many personal users won’t have. So your two options are host a file on a website somewhere, or email it to yourself. If you want to host it, click the Export button, save the file to disk, and then upload it somewhere. Then navigate to that file online and it should ask you to install.

The second easier option is to email it to yourself. So click Share, and wait for Mail.app to open a new mail and punch in an email address you can access on your iPhone. Click send. Wait (or go and check your mail).

Then in the email, click the file, and you will be asked to install the file. Do so and bingo. Success. Now go test it and make sure it works!

Update: I have tested this at work, and it worked perfectly. You have to make sure you enter your username as Domain\username and your password as normal or it won’t authenticate. So now I can use the internet connection at work. Only thing is that IMAP and POP3 ports are blocked so can’t use the Mail.app to check them, but everything else works a treat!

If you own and iPhone, or iPod Touch, or just fancy playing with the Develop menu in Safari, then you may notice that DomBarnes.com now looks a bit different on your iPhone. Thanks to the iWPhone plugin from ContentRobot, you can now view this website in a easier version for your device.

Let me know if you like it, or prefer reading the full version.

As you dear readers will know, I had some recent ventures into the world of PVR’s, and specifically, MythTV, and you may have read about the failures I came across.

Well, after a recent visit to the Apple Store in Birmingham, I made a choice, one which cost me £40! I bought an Elgato EyeTV DTT USB Stick. What is it? Its a TV receiver built into a USB stick, about the size of those wireless adapters. Plug it into your laptop or desktop, hook up an antenna, either roof top aerial or the mini-aerial included in the box, and very soon you’ll be watching TV.

The software, EyeTV, which is compatible with many other PVR devices, is simple to install. You’re asked to sign up for tvtv.com which provides TV listings, and during the setup you do the initial tuning. Clicking the Auto-Tune button does a quick scan and picks up any TV and Radio signals in your area (you can also do an exhaustive scan which takes longer but can pick up missing stations).

To record, either press the Record button on the controller while watching any show, or click a programme in the Guide, and click Add Schedule. When you’ve recorded a show, you can play it back on your Mac, or export to iPhone version, AppleTV version or send it to Toast to burn to a DVD. Another nice feature is the Wifi access – you can set programmes to automatically convert to iPhone versions for Wifi viewing, so if you’ve got your mac on all the time, you can watch those shows, streaming over Wifi from your iPhone or iPod Touch, which is done using the built in web server in Mac OS X.

Recordings come in MPEG-2 files, wrapped in an EyeTV wrapper, which includes thumbnails and info on the recordings. You’ll use about 2.2GB for an hour’s recording. Exporting will obviously reduce that file size, so if you are low on space, it might be good to export to AppleTV for storage. 

A exhaustive scan of channels picked up about 64 channels in total (radio and TV), all coming from the Sutton Coldfield transmitter. Comparing that to my Virgin Freeview box, and there are some missing. Specifically, I could not pick up E4+1, Dave or Virgin 1, despite being able to get them on the freeview box. This is probably just differences between the lowest signal strength each device needs to get a signal. 

Not all channels picked up listings from tvtv.com – those listed in blue have no listing, but you can manually select these channels from a search list, and then will be able to get listings. Those that don’t have them at all can be picked up from the signal transmission, and you select DVB for those channels to get the listings. 

For me, the killer features are the Wifi Access, and the smooth integration into Front Row. If you have the EyeTV software running, and grab your Apple Remote, you can switch between Front Row and EyeTV by holding the Play button. From there you have access to almost all features, scrolling through channels, and setting up recordings, using the Menu. Then you can quickly switch back to Front Row for your Podcasts or Movies.

For 95% of my watching and recording TV, this is perfect. If I had a spare Mac MIni, i would turn it into a media centre, and use the EyeTV as my main Freeview box. Having full control over TV, movies, podcasts, and purchased TV from iTunes through one small remote would be lovely, as would the Live TV functions (EyeTV records what you watch as you watch it, allowing you to pause, rewind and replay live tv. You can limit the buffer used for this in the Prefs).

Overall, the EyeTV was a great purchase, Its functional, small enough to throw in my bag when travelling, and I can see it staying in regular use, at least until we move and get Virgin+ or Sky+

Notes: I purchased the Digital only version, there is a Analog+Digital version at a higher price. There are also dual tuners, allowing you to have picture in picture, or record one channel and watch another.