Banal Leakage » iphone

iPhone 4S

martymankins — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 05:39:40 +0000

finally, the iPhone has become my full time phone

Last Friday, I finally pulled the trigger and have as my main phone, an iPhone 4S on Sprint. My previous phone was a Palm Pre, which had it’s share of issues over the almost two years I carried it, even though I’m a fan of the webOS experience.

If you remember previous posts, I had an iPhone before, but it was not my main phone, used mostly on wifi.

So far, I’m quite impressed with this marvel. I’ve yet to scratch the surface on new features like Siri, but once I do, I’ll be sure to talk about my experience here.

So now, I have officially joined the ranks as a full time iPhone user.

Music Monday: Digital Players

martymankins — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 05:22:49 +0000

My 30gb iPod with video

Today’s Music Monday is coming to you a bit late. And it’s a bit lazy, too. Forgive me. I’ll be back next week with a post of more substance.

The Rio PM300

Anyway, since the early 2000′s, I’ve had many MP3 players, starting with the Rio PMP300 [mine was actually in clear teal] and had 32mb of space. That held maybe five songs. Primitive much?

Rio PMP300 Clear Teal

Today, I have several iPods, and iPhone and an iPad. My main iPod is still my 30gb, but it’s been recently plugged into my iPod adapter and mostly stays in the car, soon to be replaced by an iPhone 4S with 32gb of space. It’s evolved into quite a collection, which get upgraded every so often [mostly to increase space or reduce size].

So with that, the question begs: How many iPods or digital MP3 players do you own? Phones that play digital audio count, too.

HP Kills webOS

martymankins — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:09:25 +0000

So new, yet now discontinued

As a long time fan of all things Palm, this may be the final nail in the coffin. The end of the road. I’ve had a Palm device of some type since 1996. My main phone has been a Palm device since 2006. But now, I may have to start thinking about deciding to finally jump ship.

Yesterdays news from HP about them reducing their webOS focus may be the end of Palm as we know it. Yes, the devices will still work, but without continued support and obviously fewer apps and no OS updates, it’s time to start thinking about migrating to an Android or iOS device.

I already use an iPhone and an iPad and love both. So this migration has already started in some way. But as a less than two week owner of an HP TouchPad [got $200 off two weeks ago], it’s a bit disheartening to learn that this new device is already end of life.

Guess we shall see where things go from here and if someone picks up where HP failed.

Music Monday: Google Music

martymankins — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 04:00:35 +0000

Music found on Google

Google Music is a cloud based music player, where you store all of your music online and play it over your internet connection. It’s currently in beta and I received an invite some three weeks ago.

The first thing you do once you get all signed up is upload music. For the Mac, the installer for Google Music puts a Music Manager into your Preferences and Settings panel. This allows you to pick from your iTunes library or a set of folders where you can add individual locations where your music is stored.

I have well over 100,000 digital songs on my laptop, external hard drives and burned DVDs. There’s no way I wanted to put everything out there. So I picked two folders local to my MacBook Pro. One is called MP3, where all of my miscellaneous songs that I’ve collected over the years reside. Things like B-sides, albums that I’ve had before iTunes existed… stuff like that. Most have album artwork as I’ve been able to locate high-quality versions. The other folder is called ripped, and here are all of the album collections I have downloaded from various sources. Some are full albums, others are compilations that were shared with me. Some of these are waiting to be put into iTunes and converted to M4A files.

I ended up with just under 1500 songs. The time to upload these songs from my laptop to the cloud, from the first click until the last song showed up on Google Music? 13 hours. And that’s just a fraction of all my music. Smart of me to start out with a smaller selection.

There is an Android app available, but no official iPhone app (as of yet). I would imagine that when this goes live, there may be an iOS app for both iPhone and iPad. I’ve not used the Android app, as I don’t have an Android phone (my wife does, but she’s not interested in Google Music clogging up her phone).

Yes, I am fan of Oingo Boingo

So now with all of the music there, I can start listening. It’s easy to play a song. Just find the one you want and double click it. There’s also a shuffle option that will pick and choose random songs. Play quality over a Comcast cable modem connection is nice. Anything slow like a shady wifi connection and you start to get buffering issues that start and stop the song several times a minute. Annoying, but you are playing this online and not locally.

The interface is easy to understand and navigate. As I mentioned above, most of the songs have album art. For those that don’t, it just shows a generic icon (which is a pair of gray headphones). Song and album details are culled from the digital file itself [assuming it contains the meta data and ID3 tags], but there were a couple of MP3s that didn’t have any details and Google Music made it’s best guess on the year and album name.

Storage wise, there doesn’t appear to be a limit on how much you can upload. Looking at all of the details on the Google Music About page, and other places on the web. I may end up uploading more music soon, but I seriously doubt I’ll get anywhere near my complete music collection out there.

Licensing wise, the jury is still out on this one. I can be honest and tell you that a good half of these 1500 songs I’ve uploaded to Google Music are ones that I found online or were copied from others sharing their music. The other half I either purchased or ripped from my own CD collection. So don’t be surprised to see RIAA and the other dinosaur legal freaks climbing the walls about music being uploaded somewhere. For now, the sharks are sleeping.

Do You Need Google Music

So why would someone want all of their music online if you already have an iPhone or iPod? To be honest, I’ve not been able to answer that question for myself, let alone for my readers. I almost always have some type of device with me at all times that plays my music locally. No internet connection needed. But say you didn’t have an iPod large enough to hold all of your music and you were at a friend’s house with a nice speedy internet connection. Just log in to your Google Music page and double click.

Which brings me to the internet connection. Most ISPs and mobile broadband providers have caps on how much data you can use per month. Services like Google Music, Pandora and Amazon Cloud Drive all chew up that precious bandwidth allocation.

So how long before your iPod Classic or nano becomes a dinosaur and you need some type of device to play your music online? Who knows, but I personally hope that day never comes when one replaces the other. Both forms of playing music can live nicely together. And once I figure out a true purpose for a service like Google Music, I’ll be sure to post my usage.

Next: Amazon Cloud Player/Drive

Next week, I’ll cover Amazon’s Cloud Player, which like Google Music, plays over the internet and stores your music online, but with some extra twists.

Meme Sheep

martymankins — Wed, 18 May 2011 19:28:17 +0000

Okay, if this meme was good enough for Poppy, Karl and Dave2, it’s good enough for me to take a lazy blog post day [Actually, besides the cut and paste part of it, this post took much longer to put together than I thought it would]. I’ll be back soon with many posts that I’m working on for public consumption.

ONE OF YOUR SCARS, HOW DID YOU GET IT? crashed on my bike, hit my nose and upper lip into gravel
WHAT IS ON THE WALLS IN YOUR BEDROOM? a picture of a giraffe and lion
WHAT DOES YOUR MOBILE PHONE LOOK LIKE? a Palm Pre (i also have an iPhone)
WHAT MUSIC DO YOU LISTEN TO? all kinds, except for country and opera
DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME YOU WERE BORN? 6:10am
WHAT DO YOU WANT MORE THAN ANYTHING RIGHT NOW? to be a successful writing and movie maker
WHO DO YOU MISS? my mom
IS ANYONE IN LOVE WITH YOU OR HAS A CRUSH ON YOU? my wife
WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU KISSED? my wife
WHAT’S YOUR MIDDLE NAME? Lee
THE BEST TV SHOW EVER CREATED? Get Smart
THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO? a co-worker
DO YOU GET SCARED IN THE DARK? sometimes
THE LAST PERSON TO MAKE YOU CRY? myself
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE COLOGNE / PERFUME? Polo Blue, Calvin Klein Euphoria
WHAT KIND OF HAIR/EYE COLOR DO YOU LIKE ON THE OPPOSITE SEX? blonde or brunette, brown, blue
WOULD YOU RATHER BE SMART OR FUNNY? funny
COFFEE OR ENERGY DRINKS? mostly coffee, but energy drinks during the day.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PIZZA TOPPING? sausage
IF YOU CAN EAT ANYTHING RIGHT NOW, WHAT WOULD IT BE? pan-seared scallops
WHO IS THE LAST PERSON WHO MADE YOU MAD? myself
DO YOU SPEAK ANOTHER LANGUAGE? nope
WHAT WAS THE FIRST GIFT SOMEONE EVER GAVE YOU? a train set from my mom for my birthday
DO YOU LIKE SOMEONE? yes, many people
ARE YOU DOUBLE JOINTED? nope
FAVORITE CLOTHING BRAND? Timberland
WHAT’S YOUR DREAM CAR? Mercedes C-280
WHAT COLOR IS IT? dark blue
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE KIND OF EXERCISE? treadmill, swimming
WOULD YOU FALL IN LOVE KNOWING THAT THE PERSON IS LEAVING? maybe
WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO TELL SOMEONE HOW MUCH THEY MEAN TO YOU? being kind to them
WRITE A NUMBER FROM ONE TO A HUNDRED? 29
BLONDES OR BRUNETTES? both
WHAT IS THE ONE NUMBER YOU CALL OFTEN? my daughters
WHAT ANNOYS YOU MOST? being asked questions all the time
HAVE YOU BEEN OUT OF YOUR COUNTRY? WHERE DID YOU GO? WHAT PLACE DID YOU LIKE BEST? Mexico and Canada – Tijuana and Creston
YOUR WEAKNESSES? not being able to say no
FRIES/CHIPS, RICE, OR BEANS? rice… every kind
FIRST JOB? dough roller at Chuck E Cheese
EVER PRANK CALLED SOMEONE? many times
WHAT WERE YOU DOING BEFORE YOU FILLED OUT THIS? updating user accounts at work
IF YOU COULD GET PLASTIC SURGERY WHAT WOULD IT BE? remove extra skin under my chin
WHY DID YOU FILL OUT THIS MEME? because I wanted to be part of the cool kids in my blogging circle
WHAT DO YOU GET COMPLIMENTED ABOUT MOST? how nice I am to others
WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF ALCOHOL BECAME ILLEGAL? make my own moonshine – gin and vodka
WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY? relax alone time with no worries or stress… and a MacBook Air
HOW MANY KIDS DO YOU WANT? i have 1 and am very happy with 1
WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? the movie “Marty” (my mom loved movies and movie stars)
DO YOU WISH ON STARS? not always
WHICH FINGER[S] IS YOUR FAVORITE? index on right hand
WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? Arby’s Beef and Cheddar
DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? for the most part, yes
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? pastrami
ANY BAD HABITS? many
WHAT IS YOUR MOST EMBARRASSING CD ON THE SHELF? used to be Paula Abdul “Forever Your Girl” not sure I have one now.
IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? yes
HAVE YOU EVER TOLD A SECRET YOU SWORE NOT TO TELL? yes
DO LOOKS MATTER? yes
YOU RELEASE YOUR ANGER? yes
WHERE IS YOUR SECOND HOME? Orange County, CA – Newport Beach
DO YOU TRUST OTHERS EASILY? for the most part, yes
WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE TOY AS A CHILD? Vertibird
HOW MANY NUMBERS ARE IN YOUR MOBILE PHONE? over 500
DO YOU USE SARCASM? often
DO YOU KNOW ANYONE FAMOUS? Lenny Dykstra, former NY Met
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN A MOSH PIT? yes – 1999 Rage Against the Machine concert
WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A PLACE TO LIVE? temperature, altitude (I live in the wrong city now)
WHAT ARE YOUR NICKNAMES? Chilly Willy, Martyman, Spewbacca
HOW MANY HATS DO YOU OWN? WHAT’S YOUR HAT SIZE? not sure. maybe a 6
DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? always
WERE YOU UPSET ABOUT STEVE IRWIN DYING? sad, but not upset
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR? pistachio
ARE YOU LAZY? sometimes
WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE SONGS AT THE MOMENT? “Houdini” by Foster The People, “Rope” by Foo Fighters
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE BAND? Depeche Mode
HOW MANY WISDOM TEETH DO YOU HAVE? none
DO YOU WANT TO GO ANYWHERE SPECIAL THIS YEAR? just got back from Myrtle Beach, so another beach to relax on.
WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? Foster The People, the new Cars album “Move Like This”
LAST THING YOU ATE? I already answered this at #51 above
LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? my wife
WHATS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT YOURSELF IN THE MORNING? once I open my eyes, any odd bumps on my skin
FAVORITE THOUGHT PROVOKING SONG? “Still Remains” by Stone Temple Pilots
FAVORITE TWO THINGS TO HATE? drama of any kind and lima beans
FAVORITE DRINK? gin and tonic, Dr Pepper, sweet tea (that’s more than 1)
FAVORITE ZODIAC SIGN? Leo
SPORTS YOU LIKE TO WATCH? NFL
WHAT IS YOUR HAIR COLOR? Brown
EYE COLOR? Brown
DO YOU WEAR GLASSES? No, but I’m sure I will need to soon
SIBLINGS? 1 brother and 1 sister from my mom’s previous marriage
FAVORITE MONTH(s)? August
DO YOU LIKE SUSHI? yes, love it (except for uni – disgusting shit, literally)
LAST THING YOU WATCHED? Daily Show With Jon Stewart
FAVORITE DAY OF THE YEAR? Sunday
ARE YOU TOO SHY TO ASK SOMEONE OUT? no
SUMMER OR WINTER? Summer
KISSES OR HUGS? kisses
RELATIONSHIPS OR ONE-NIGHT STANDS? relationships
WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE CELEBRITY? other than John Cusack, I have several – Cindy Crawford, Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Quentin Tarantino
WHO IS THE LEAST LIKELY TO ASK YOU ON A DATE? someone I’ve never met
BOOKS YOU’D LIKE TO SEE TURNED INTO A FILM? already happened: The Bourne series

Calendar No Longer Me

martymankins — Wed, 04 May 2011 17:25:12 +0000

Not using the MobileMe calendar …. for now

Back a month ago, I mentioned my calendar syncing changes I needed to make due to the MobileMe calendar moving to a CalDAV format, which would break my syncing with all of my devices.

With so many changes I needed to make in order to keep all of my calendar and todo list data in sync, I decided to simply do the MobileMe calendar upgrade, but remove it from syncing with any of my devices – including my iPhone and iPad.

While it’s nice to see Apple adopt standards like CalDAV, it doesn’t mix well with my mixed set of devices. My Palm Pre requires syncing from local iCal calendars. Plus, each time I sync my iPhone and iPad, they can sync from those same local iCal calendars. So not all is lost, except one of the services I’m not using from my paid MobileMe subscription. All that’s left that I continue to use is email, Address Book syncing and iDisk for other backups I do.

Which means, come October 2011, I may be making even more decisions on whether to renew. Stay tuned.

MobileMe Syncing

martymankins — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:41:54 +0000

Changes are coming, just not consistent ones.

For the last 3 years, I’ve been a MobileMe subscriber. During that time, it’s changed here and there, but I’ve rolled with the changes the best that I can and without too much of a headache.

My biggest use of the service is to have my Calendar and Contacts synced to the cloud, stored locally under iCal and Address Book – so all of my Macs, iDevices and my Palm Pre – can all have the same calendar entries and contact listings. And up until now, it’s worked flawlessly. On each Mac [I use three at home], I have my MobileMe account setup to automatically sync my iCal and Address Book data to the cloud. For my Palm Pre, I use the application The Missing Sync to sync my Calendar, Tasks and Address Book data to that phone (via WiFi), adding a non-Apple device into the perfect mix of synced data on every device and Mac.

But Apple has changed the format of it’s MobileMe Calendar to use CalDAV, which is an industry standard way of hosting a calendar in a central location, adding their own twist to that: syncing from local calendars is not supported. This is largely due to Apple discontinuing their use of Sync Services and moving to only CalDAV, where the calendars are hosted in the cloud on the MobileMe service. The local calendars in iCal are then replaced by synced online calendars. This is a problem if your non-Apple devices are needing local calendars to sync from. And while I’m sure some of the third-party utilities like The Missing Sync, BusySync or Spanning Sync will have an update to support local to online calendar syncing, it’s not clear if they will be ready by the May 5, 2011 deadline to cut over to the new calendar format.

So that leaves us users that rely on Sync Services in a lurch. And yes, most of this is tied to my use of a non-Apple device, but some of it is also related to my recent explorations of the Google Calendar.

Google Calendar

Supported by all of my devices, Google Calendar is becoming a viable option for keeping everything in sync. And using a program like Spanning Sync, it will keep my local iCal calendar in sync for my Palm Pre. In my tests with a trial version of this great little utility, my calendar data has been kept in sync with all of my appointments and events.

No Tasks

But one critical piece missing that doesn’t sync to Google are tasks. They remain local to iCal, or if you are using the new MobileMe calendar format, they will sync to that and be stored in the cloud. But Google doesn’t have a Tasks API yet, which leaves tasks on their own.

Exploring Options

Other users are also lamenting the change as it affects their overall work flow. I completely agree as I’ve had to spend time considering changing my options to make it all work better. I’ve not made any decisions on what I plan to do here, as I still have over a month to see how to keep my calendar and tasks in sync, including MobileMe in the mix. For now, I have turned off calendar syncing to my other two Macs, leaving only the syncing of Contacts between all my systems and devices. I will have another post as it gets closer to the May cutoff date on what the final array of configuration will look like. Stay tuned.

Links to articles on MobileMe Calendar change:
MobileMe: Frequently Asked Questions about the new MobileMe Calendar
The New MobileMe Calendar: Should You Upgrade?
MobileMe: Setting up iCal for the new MobileMe Calendar
MobileMe: Troubleshooting upgrading to the new MobileMe Calendar
Upgrade to MobileMe Calendar by 5 May 2011
Spanning Sync and the New MobileMe Calendars
Howto: Your Data, Everywhere, In Sync

Retro: Past PDAs

martymankins — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 04:48:52 +0000

I’ve been a long time user of all types of PDAs – personal digital assistants [well, personal displays of affection, too, just not in public]. Starting with the Atari Portfolio back in 1989.

Atari Portfolio

Atari Portfolio – which I don’t own anymore
Original image found on pugo.org

I used that Portfolio a lot. It was pretty revolutionary for it’s time. It ran DOS 2.11 and could work with all sorts of programs, kept my address book updated and I was able to keep tons of notes.

HP Palmtops

HP 95LX – which I also no longer have
Original image found on teclas.org

After a few years, I decided to migrate to a newer, smaller PDA. The HP 95LX also ran DOS and was able to help me stay just as organized, only with more tools and options. I used it for quite a while, even upgrading to the 100LX, the faster model that was just as good at keeping all of my information accessible.

Windows CE

Windows CE device in monochrome – before the color models

Sticking with the keyboard model, I moved up to a Windows CE device, which ran a lighter version of Windows. You could load programs onto it [today known more commonly as apps], the calendar was pretty easy to view events and note taking was a lot easier than previous PDAs. I used different models for a while before I switched again.

Palm OS

I still own this model, even though it wasn’t my first Palm

Most people remember the Palm. It was the touch screen model that changed the face of any PDA and future smart phones. My first was the Palm Professional. I think I paid a good $300 for it back in 1997 and used it for a long time before graduating up the Palm IIIx, which I still have. I also used a Palm m505 with a color screen, which was much thinner than the older Palm PDAs.

How we used to get online before WiFi – dial-up modem

And the Palm could even go online, albeit dial-up through a phone line using the attached modem at 33.6kbs. No speed demon, but it worked. And thanks to MSN, I was able to get email and browse the web.

My previous phone – the Treo 755p

It took me a while to make the jump to using a phone/PDA combination device, which is essentially a smart phone. I used the Treo 650 for a good year before upgrading to the Treo 755p. It was the one phone that really sold me on having a device that could do it all. Wireless broadband 3G speeds kept me up to date with email and the web.

I now use a Palm Pre, which is not bad, but as I’ve blogged about before, the iPhone is where I’d like to be, using a single PDA-like device.

History

So there you have it. A history of my PDA use. Who else has lived with these devices for years? More than 10? More than 20? Comment away.

Out With The Old

martymankins — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:27:03 +0000

1Password Pro for iPhone version 3.1.1

the Mac version of 1Password

After a month of iOS4 devices being available, we are seeing more evidence that older iPhone and iPod touch models are being treated as antiquated. 1Password, a very popular app that’s used to store user name and password information, has issued their new version 3.5 as supporting “only iOS 3.2 and above”, which works on pretty much any iPhone 3G/3GS and all iPhone 4 devices, iPod touch 2nd-generation and above and any iPad model. Any other device that isn’t running iOS 4 or iOS 3.2 can’t install the upgrade.

The previous version of 1Password Pro was version 3.1.1, which runs just fine on any device running iOS 3.1.x or above. This new version does add support for syncing with Dropbox and other functionality, which are nice updates. But if you are using an original iPhone or a 1st-generation iPod touch, you are out of luck.

I discovered this when recently running my App Store updates and trying to sync my iPhone 2G, which gave the error that the version of 1Password was not compatible with this device. Fortunately, it didn’t delete the app from my iPhone, which kept all of my data intact. The newer version installed just fine on my iPad.

Functionality wise, I’m still in business here. But it did raise some concerns over how much the older iPhones, iPod touch models and previous versions of iOS are at risk here of being antiquated rather quickly. Yes, I understand the original iPhone and 1st-gen iPod touch are three years old now and support cannot continue forever. But iOS 3 was current just one month ago. And already we have a major developer that is pushing forward with eliminating support in previous versions.

This is not new, since at the first announcement of the iPhone 4 and iOS 4, it was known that the original iPhone would not be getting an OS upgrade option. And neither would the 1st-gen iPod touch. And with that, I can understand why. Older devices running new version of an OS can be problematic. But it was announced months before and users of these devices had a heads-up. Not so with Agile Web Solutions, who simply pushed out a new version without notifying it’s customers of what they were planning on doing. Yes, in the small print on the App Store for 1Password, it does say that “iOS 3.2 or above” is required. But to a lot of people that don’t do the OS math, they may not have clued in what that meant exactly. There should have been a more detailed announcement on their web site, in their support forum, an email sent to all registered users – something – to give users who store critical and important data, a warning of what’s coming up with some solutions for keeping their older app.

So for now, I am extra careful to ensure I have backup copies of both the previous version and my data. But if this is happening now, I can imagine more developers jumping on board and orphaning previous users, all with an eye to supporting the latest and greatest. I’m sure supporting multiple iOS versions is not the easiest thing in the world and I can understand wanting to move forward, but people still use and love their older Apple products. Kicking them to the curb too soon could leave a bad taste in users’ mouths when it comes time to upgrade. By then, they may have moved on to a competitor’s product.

And that’s not a win for anyone.

A Quick One While I’m Away

martymankins — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:11:23 +0000

I’m in Orlando, FL this week.

Getting here wasn’t bad. A four hour flight from Salt Lake City.

online from the iPhone while in flight.

I will continue to rave on and on about how cool it was to Twitter and be online during the flight. I got a free pass for the GoGo Wireless service. And not just from the MacBook Pro, but from my iPhone, too. AT THE SAME TIME! Amazing how such a simple thing as getting online made me so happy – at 40,000 feet in the air, no less.

But tonight is the night for Avitaween.

Excited. Ready to get my drink on. Meet some bloggers I’ve not met before.

A full report with photos will be posted.

Now off to enjoy the day.

iPhone Monopoly

martymankins — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:08:28 +0000

Or how I used a “Get Out Of Jail Free” option to become an iPhone owner.

Yep, that’s my iPhone

Yep. I’m now an iPhone owner, but it’s not my main phone. There’s a story to this. Read on.

Back in 2005, I entered a contest on Engadget where I won a Nokia N-Gage QD phone. The phone came with a pre-paid Cingular SIM card. I went and changed the number, got a new SIM card and have used the pre-paid phone on and off, mostly when my main Sprint phone isn’t getting the best of service.

I sold the N-Gage on eBay and bought a used Motorola SLVR-L7 (also from eBay), which was smaller and easier to carry and had longer battery life.

Then a couple of months ago, a friend at work was having some troubles with her Powerbook G4. I used my Mac prowess to get the data off of it and in return, she promised me I could have her iPhone – 1st Gen. Last month she bought a new iPhone 3GS and the next day at work, she brought me her old iPhone.

a bit used with some nicks and dings, but it works and it’s my first iPhone

Pre-Paid

So I took the SIM card from my Motorola SLVR-L7 and put it into the iPhone, hoping to instantly switch phones without any issues. Nope. Nothing.

Support From AT&T?

Turns out, that AT&T has all but dropped support for using any iPhone as a pre-paid phone. There is some minor support for iPhone 1st-Gen owners, but you would have had to enable the unlimited data plan before June 17, 2009. I didn’t get my iPhone until the first week of September. At this point, it became evident that I would need to both jailbreak and unlock my iPhone.

Jailbreak

There is no shortage of web sites that walk you through the process of jailbreaking and unlocking your iPhone. I found this site to be the best tutorial, with a step by step detail on what to do.

Almost There

After about 20 minutes of running the jailbreak and unlock, my iPhone was ready to go. I made a test call and sent a text message. All good so far. But then as soon as I opened Safari, it was a “No Go” again. Back out to Google, it turns out there was a fix for this, too. This site deserves kudos for making not only great instructions, but providing an iPhone app to change your carrier file to enable prepaid data access [it's $.01 per kilobyte, but it's available] for those times when I need to check Twitter or my email.

Wrong? Illegal?

I’ve shared this story with a few people that have asked how I was able to get an iPhone without having to sign a two-year contract and pay almost $80 a month for 450 minutes. Some have said this is illegal. The chat rooms are crying foul on those of us that have “skirted around” the system. But how can it be illegal or wrong when those of us that are prepaid users are paying for service still. AT&T still gets money from us. They are not losing anything on us users, unless you consider we are not under contract just because we have an iPhone.

For my particular phone, it was not subsidized by AT&T for me to have it. The person who owned it before did their two-year contract and she, being the rightful owner of the physical phone, gave it to another person to use. I see this as a way to have an iPhone while still remaining a prepaid customer that pays for each minute, text and kilobyte of data I use.

If someday I decide to make the switch from my main phone on Sprint to having an iPhone on AT&T, so be it. Then at that time, I’ll sign the contract and upgrade to the latest and greatest. For now, I’m happily content to be a part-time iPhone user and hang with all of the other cool kids in the mobile phone world.

Random Leakage #1

martymankins — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:33:26 +0000

Welcome to a new post category. Random Leakage.

Every so often, there’s a lot of stuff that doesn’t always fit into a Scooter Sunday post that I just want to talk about. Random subjects that I don’t want to do a separate post on, but better fitted into a single post. And as the name implies, the post itself will be random… no set day of the week… whenever I feel like posting one.

Banal Leakage errata

I’ve added a few changes out here that I hope will improve the usability of the site.

Mobile – This site is mobile-enabled. And it’s been available since day one. I just haven’t blogged about it yet. Most browsers on phones should work. I’ve tested it on a few phones. Access via the iPhone shows the actual mobile site, not the full site. I am working to see if I can make changes so Mobile Safari on the iPhone and iPod touch will show the full site. If you have web access (and unlimited at that), give it a try and let me know if you liked it or not.
Comment features – I’ve added a couple of plugins for comments. The first is a comment preview, so now you have a chance to preview what you wrote before you post it. And a comment subscribe button. I have it off by default, so you have to remember to check it before clicking post if you want email notification of additional comments being left on a post.
Logos, graphics, icons – I am in the process of working on some icons and graphics for the site, like the main logo, Scooter Sunday, Random Leakage and other stuff. It’s a work in progress and may not show up until sometime later in the summer, but I want to try and fix this place up a bit, giving it a few frills.

I’ve also learned that WordPress really likes Safari instead of Firefox. Not sure why that is, but all of the admin functions work a lot better in Safari. No complaints here.

Not everything can be an improvement. Those of you using Internet Explorer 6 to access this blog have most likely noticed that it’s a bit broken. The whole right side of the blog gets pushed down to the end. I am trying to locate what part of the code is causing this, but it’s a work-in-progress. So it may be some time before I get it fixed. If you have access to Firefox or Safari on the Windows side of things, use them to access this blog for now. Or if you can, do the upgrade to Internet Explorer 7, which does work well.

I Love You This Much

Back a few weeks ago, Kevin from kapgar gave several of us bloggers an award. It’s not an Emmy, Oscar or Webby, but it’s cool that someone shared the blog love. Thanks, Kevin. And I guess you are supposed to share the love with other bloggers, but all of the ones I know already have this award. I’ll just wait for a Webby and thank everyone in my acceptance speech.

Marvel Superhero

So Winter had this over on her latest blog post and I thought I would try it out.

Find out Which Marvel Superhero Are You at LiquidGeneration.com!

Iceman? I was hoping for someone more bad ass, but that’s the breaks, kid.

I will be back with another post later this week before heading out to Tahoe.