Posted on July 11th, 2008 by geofas
Hi folks,
I took a few pictures over the course of this morning, and during unboxing, which can be viewed here:http://gallery.mac.com/geofas#100079…lack&view=grid
I had a great time with the guys at the head of the queue. When I started the queue at 5.13am I was only on my own for 22 minutes. #3 arrived @ 5.39am, #4&5 @ 5.51am, #6 @ 6.06am, #7 @ 6.08am, #8 @ 6.15am, #9 @ 6.17am and #10 at 6.20am. All guys so far, #11 was a female. Then the line started to grow slowly up until 7am (mostly males) when it grew exponentially up until opening time and kept growing. Once I was done and left the store, the line had grown all alongside the building and around the corner, I’m guessing about 50 people.
O2’s online systems for registration collapsed and they had to switch to paper form registrations. Those don’t necessarily take longer but you won’t get your SIM card activated right away. Their estimates were, ‘probably not today’. I’m using mine with my O2 work SIM atm.
Update: I read a lot about the activation issues. I hate to rub your nose in it, but I didn’t have any. Used another O2 SIM with my iPhone 3G, plugged it in, fired up iTunes, registered it using my Apple ID and it got activated right away. Now mind you, this was in the UK at 9am local time, quite early in the time-less world-wide event of the 11 July iPhone 3G launch.
Otherwise it was a great experience! Well organized and they even popped out at 7.50am to offer us tea and it looks like they keep offering hot drinks and water to people.
Enjoy your iPhone 3G! 
(Update: … as soon as you get them and can activate them. 
)
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Posted on July 10th, 2008 by geofas
Please check this link for an image of what would happen to your unlocked iPhone if you tried to upgrade to the 2.0 firmware: http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2204
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Filed under: iPhone
Posted on June 6th, 2008 by geofas
Here’s my view on what I assume to hear about during Steve’s keynote speech on Monday:
- of course the 3G iPhone with GPS, probably in 2 options, either 8GB & 16GB or even 16GB & 32GB; the iPhone will be available for the old price tags but the carriers will be able to offer subsidised end-user prices. However, I doubt that they will be in store before 2-6 weeks after 9 June.
- announcement of .Me as the .Mac successor service with everything that is currently missing from the iPhone, like OTA (over-the-air) synching of calendars, contacts, and more. About time imho!
- and last but not least something purely speculative and more of a wish than an assumption: announcement of a Tablet Mac or touch-screen Mac getting closer to my Mac vision of a notebook/laptop computer with two to three touch screens. Imagine a MacBook, instead of the keyboard you have a touch-screen that either functions as an actual display with on-screen keyboard and touchpad or goes into navigation mode with full keyboard and multi-touch navigation, the current regular display part is a multi-touch screen and the top side (where the illuminated Apple logo is) is another multitouch screen that activates when the computer is closed. The alternative would be to only have the first two and for the top to remain a case with Apple logo for the protection of the computer and instead having a twisty hinge that allows you to turn the top element and transform the computer into a tablet Mac.
The basis for the first two bullet points is observance of happenings in the chip industries (processors as well as radios for 3G and GPS, NAND storage, etc.), Apple’s usual attitude regardsing products and pricing, knowledge of mobile telecoms industry from working in it for a decade, patent applications, etc.
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Posted on June 6th, 2008 by geofas
People who know me better know that I often speak harshly about Microsoft and some might even see me as a Mac fanboy. However, most of the time I exaggerate in a humoristic notion. The reality is not as harsh.
To come clean, it is not that I actually hate Microsoft, I just dislike them because they have too much power over the computer world, the software is not the most user-friendly, they take too long to bring out their software, and last but not least, most of their ‘innovative’ features are copies from other platforms like Mac OS X. But they are not all bad. Afterall Microsoft managed to bring computers into most homes in developed countries and are making a solid effort bringing computers into the homes in developing, or how I rather label them, booming countries.
I for one still prefer Mac OS X a lot more for a few very good reasons: everything just works, I don’t have to figure out work-arounds in order to get something done, the system is more stable, more intuitive and a lot prettier (although Vista was able to catch up in the aestetic aspect a lot).
So what is the point of this post? The point is a very simple question.
Who would you rather buy anything from?
These folks?
Or this chap?
I rest my case.
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Posted on May 20th, 2008 by geofas
Completely forgot to post about this but I successfully finished a weekend project recently, believe it was earlier this month.
The objective was to get a triple boot system going on my MacBook so I could use my two favourite OS, the of course being Mac OS X and Linux, plus the necessary evil Microsoft Windows (XP or Vista).
My first approach was much too complicated. I attempted to use Boot Camp to partition my disk then via the Terminal partition the second partition made by Boot Camp into two partitions, one for Linux and the final one for Windows (Windows must be on the final partition no matter how one tries to partition the disk). This proved to be very challenging since the boot loaders all have to get along etc etc.
Cut a long story short, the solution was actually a lot simpler:
- What one needs in any case is a little tool called rEFIt which takes over the boot loading for us. Download, install, restart to test.
- Starting with one full partition for Mac OS X as a fresh starting point, I used Boot Camp to carve out a partition of 20GB for Windows.
- Then I used the Mac OS X Disk Utility, clicked on the Mac partition. Since Leopard there is a little Plus sign by the partition that allows to split this partition into two. For the Linux partition I only used 8GB. Now to make the following step easier I suggest to use the Startup Disk tool in the System Preferences to select the Windows disk as the disk to start up from.
- Now we get to the interesting part. Put the Windows installation disk in the drive, restart, rEFIt will show your Mac partition and the Windows installation disk. Select the disk and go through the installation procedure. When the system needs to restart, which it will a few times at least being Windows and all, and you followed the suggestion above you won’t have to select the Windows partition manually but can let it run unattended.
- With Windows running there is one partition left to fill with one OS left to go. Put the Linux installation disk in the drive (I prefer Ubuntu Linux) and restart, in rEFIt select the Linux installation disc for booting. The linux disc loads and you can enter the Installation. Enter a few details and when you get to the partition screen, select the manual option. Then choose the middle partition (it would most likely be SDA03) and select an EXT3 partition formatting and select “/” as the mounting point which stand for the partition root. On the last screen (this part is important and will differ if you are not using Ubuntu) you see an “Advanced…” button. Click on this Advanced button and make sure to install GRUB on the same partition (it will most likely be SDA03) rather than anything else. This loads the Ubuntu boot loader GRUB onto this partition and provides the vital piece that makes the whole proposition of having three OS on one machine work. At the end of the Ubuntu installation the disc will be ejected and you can hit enter to restart.
- After the last restart you will be presented with the rEFIt menu, showing you a selection of the three OS installed on your machine: Mac OS X, Ubuntu Linux and Windows XP/Vista.
Enjoy!
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Posted on May 20th, 2008 by geofas
Last Friday I finished a week long deliberation and decided in favour of buying a Wii. After playing it for a couple of days I can say that I definitely do not regret it at all.
Using the Wii Remote to control games is sure a lot easier for me than normal controllers. Where I run into problems is surely using two controllers at the same time, I’m referring to the duo of the Wii Remote and the Nunchuck. It probably is a matter of practice but the first hour sure was not so easy. The full strength of the Wii Remote, or better put the use of its strength, is obviously down to the individual game and its support. Obviously Nintendo’s games use the hardware to its full potential and I wish other games would do so too but I understand the costs involved of porting a game that was originally coded for one platform is enough and publisher don’t necessarily fund attitional development for a port to take advantage of specific controller or hardware features but still, it would be nice. Anyway, the Wii Remote is quite kewl and the console itself very nicely designed. It is about a quarter (!) the size of the XBOX360.
Especially good are the online features of the Wii, like the News, the Weather and the Internet channel. All these are missing on the XBOX360. The online features there are very very basic and constricted to media downloads and game demos. The latter is the only positive aspect and not currently available on the Wii.
The big big minus of the Wii is the lacking DVD playback support. Nintendo surely wanted to save a few dollars per unit but having a console with a DVD drive in it that does not allow you to play any DVDs is just backwards.
All in all I very very happy with the console and looking forward to further innovative additions and upgrades, such as the Wii Fit that I’ve pre-ordered (GAME will sell it for £70 but they are out of stock, Amazon offer it for almost £35 more which they can afford since they seem to have stock).
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Posted on May 9th, 2008 by geofas
Posted on April 30th, 2008 by geofas
The folks over at engadget have a post with this tile that reads as follows:
“Cops doing computer forensic work already have a ton of tools to choose from, but Microsoft is doing its part to help out as well — the company just revealed that it’s been distributing a special thumb drive to cops in 15 countries to help them identify and extract information from suspects’ computers. The drive, called COFEE for Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor, is in use by more than 2,000 officers, including some in the States, and Microsoft is giving it away for free, saying that its doing it not for profit but to “help make ensure the Internet stays safe.” COFEE contains more than 150 commands that can be used to collect information, decrypt passwords, and poke through network activity, which helps alleviate the problem of having to remove and transport a suspect’s computer for evidence purposes — officers can just plug in the drive. There’s no word on when Microsoft will start widely distributing the drives, but we’d assume it’ll be soon.”
I can only hope that by “widely distribute” they mean to other law enforcement groups across the globe for if the distribution would go to consumers everywhere, no one would be safe anymore and I will surely crank up my safety levels on my machines. Imagine (William Gibson novel style) Microsoft was to actually distributes these thumb drive via their sales network and everyone could get one, people could just go to someone computer and access all data. It would be much more William Gibson novel-style if they kept it to law enforcement and these thumb drive where getting hot items to be traded on the black markets of this world. ICE-breaker anyone?
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Filed under: GADGETS
Posted on April 29th, 2008 by geofas
For anyone curious about what awaits us in iPhone firmware version 2.0 beta, here’s a great post from engadget with descriptions and even videos. June is drawing nigh and I am very much looking forward to the new firmware. Unfortunately I haven’t really had time to play much with the SDK which the 2.0 firmware is technically part of (or was that just in the version released to the priviledged circle of registered and fully included iPhone developers?).
What did they miss? From what I noticed the new Safari feature for instance. More to come as I discover more.
>> Link to the post.
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Filed under: APPLE, GADGETS, iPhone
Posted on April 29th, 2008 by geofas
I found this article with an interview with Australian inventor Archer Quinn. Archer said he would unveil is Perpetual Motion Machine on 20 June 2008. A simple machine that can be built by any handyman. It will produce energy based on using gravity. He has not registered his inventions with a patent filing and has not accepted any funding or sponsoring in an attempt to ensure that his invention remains free to be used by anyone and does not get sucked up by corporations or governments and hidden from the world.
We can only hope that his invention actually delivers what he promises. Also we can only hope that no one gets to him and he does not suddenly vanish or have an encounter with some unfortunate accident and ends up dead. I would imagine that, if what he promises holds truth, there is a very very big price tag dangling above his head right now.
>> His website.
>> The interview.
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