Thank you Steve

Thank you

Best Way to Watch a Movie on an iPad

I downloaded a movie on my iPad and was looking for the most comfortable way to watch.
I tried sitting down with my iPad flat on the table but my back got bent worse than the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Next I tried sitting on the bed, but again I was crouching forward, and almost fell forward especially during the boring parts of the movie and my arms got tired holding the iPad.

Finally I found the perfect position.

Rest your head on the pillow, your legs bent, iPad resting on your legs and your hands holding it steady. Careful not to doze off.

The Next iPhone

Gizmodo scoops the next iPhone, it comes with a front camera, higher resoltion display, bigger battery and looks better than the older iPhone 3GS.

More information here.

iPad Addons I want to see

The iPad is out. I wont repeat all its lovely features, you can always check them out at the Apple web site. I personally like it, a lot of grumbling is going on about how closed it is. Gadget geeks compare it to a laptop which it isn't and complain about its closedness and no multitasking. These critics are missing the point, the iPad is an appliance, that does all the functions it offers in an intuitive seamless simple way. When you buy a TV, you don't expect to hack it. The same applies to a washing machine, you don't want to tweak its spin cycle. The iPad will apeal to the greater non technical masses and I feel it will be a big success especially at the very reasonable price point of around $500.

There are some add ons that I would love to see on the iPad, among them are powerful but tiny speakers, the sort Bose excels at. The speakers in Apple laptops are ok, but I need a powerful bass and high decibels of sound for my music.

It would be great if my iPad can act as my master remote, I got my TV remote, receiver remote, DVD system remote, satellite receiver remote all lying next to me. I want to get rid of these and just have my iPad be my remote with a simple interface and some TV programs pulled of the web to not only select the channel I want to view but which programs I want to see.

A high powered projector would be awesome too, I can display the movies I play on the wall with the high powered speakers blasting away in 5.1 emulated surround sound.

I want a printer on the iPad. I even figured out a way of putting one on it. You place your specially treated sheet of paper on the screen, and then the screen blasts the paper with laser or ultraviolet and it imprints on the paper. Voila, instant software printer. (If anyone takes this idea and makes it a product, I want my cut)

I want a scanner on my iPad. Again the concept is simple, just place your paper on the screen and the paper is scanned in your iPad. Now how to do it is slightly tricky, but I am sure the geniuses at Apple can figure it out.

Put in a Camera for all the Internet geeks complaining and crying for one. I personally can't see myself or other taking the iPad and pointing it at something or someone to take a picture, it would look very silly, but the masses have spoken so give them a camera.

One thing I do want is the iPad to be waterproof, so I can read it while floating in my swimming pool, or in my bathtub. I also need the iPad to be buoyant, so in case I let go of it, I don't want it to sink to the bottom of the pool and have me diving for it.

My iPod has gone psychic

Something strange happen today. I used to carry a pocket notebook and write down things I need to do or little notes that I need to remember. Now in this day and age, I use my Nokia mobile to update my calendar with todo's and appointments. My mobile is synced with my Exchange Entourage client on the my Mac. This means, whatever I write on my calendar, is updated on my Mac. The exchange calendar is linked to my iCal calendar and the iCal calendar is hooked to my google mail calendar. My iPod touch is synced through my iTunes and includes my music, contacts and calendar.

This means all my life events are fully synced together, from mobile to email to web calendar to ical all the way to my MP3 player.


So today, at work, I wrote a small note reminding me to do something urgent on my mobile. My iPod touch was sitting snugly in its cradle back at home. It was anchored to my house wifi although it was not doing anything. I come back from work, play my music and I get an alert with the reminder I wrote on my mobile appearing on my iPod.

I did not sync my iPod, somehow, from somewhere it got synced!?! or it inherited psychic powers after the most recent firmware upgrade I did a few days ago.

How did that happen? Is it a new firmware feature ? Is it through the Internet it was connected to ? I have no idea, I am completely baffled. It is pretty cool in a spooky way but I have no idea how it happened.

Does anyone know?

Stop the Presses - Steve Jobs Stepping down as Apple CEO

More about it here from Reuters.

How to get a fully loaded new Macbook Pro for less than the Apple web site

Apple advertises its fully loaded Macbook Pro 15":

• 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM
• 320GB Serial ATA @ 5400
• SuperDrive 8x

At $2,499. I got mine for $2,225 and no shipping or cutstoms duties.

How did I pull this off ? Well I was in London Heathrow Airport and bought it off the duty free. It cost me in British Pounds 1,488.47

Converting to dollars, I got a $274 saving. I did my own shipping by carrying it in my hand all the way to Kuwait.

In these hard economic times, every dollar saved, counts.

• 
  

The Stone and the iPhone

iPhone 3G prices all over the world

Stolen Copied from here.

Want an iPhone 3G?

I got 5087 of them and more on the way. Check it out here.

iPod Touch Upgrade - Success and Amazement

I signed up to the iTunes store after it accepted my Kuwait credit card. Only apps are available for Kuwait currently. I managed to download 2 applications; Twitterific that allows you to tweet from your iPhone or iPod Touch, and Apple Remote which I felt was cool but did not really know how good it was.

I synced my iPod touch and then fingered around my iPod and could not find those apps installed there. I read up and found out that I needed to upgrade my iPod touch to version 2.0 of the firmware. I hit the "check for update" a million times and every time it told me the iTunes store was not available. It appears that after Apple introduced the iPhone 3G yesterday, iTunes could not handle all this traffic hitting its web servers, so I just gave up.

This morning I woke up and before anything, I turned on my comp and hit the upgrade button again. Success! This time I downloaded the new 2.0 firmware via iTunes and installed it. The whole process took just a little short of 1 hour on a 1 Mbps connection.

Twitterific was installed, and Apple Remote. I tweeted in twitter, and started Apple remote.

The Apple Remote app is mindblowingly amazing. What it does is it lists out all your iTunes library on your iPod Touch (and iPhone) and you select the song that you want. That song is played on your PC's speakers and you get to hear it. What is amazing is that as long as both your PC and iPod are both connected you can control the music played anywhere you are.

I got a nice set of speakers for my PC, but with this new capability I am going to buy a monster pair of speakers with trunk sized subwoofers so I can listen to my music anywhere in the house.

iTunes Update

After my last post and after downloading iTunes 7.7, I browsed around the iTunes store and I could not find any music or movies to download, just Applications.

iTunes Accepts Kuwaiti Visa Cards

I just read Loco's post about iTunes Speaking Arabic so I started my iTunes and entered my info including my Kuwait Gulf Bank Visa card. It refused it, saying my secuirty code was wrong, I tried again and got refused again. I reviewed my info and it turns out I entered a few numbers wrong. After fixing it, I tried again and I got an iTunes acount now.

Now I am going to max out my account with all the iTunes goodies.

PS

I tried downloading a game for my iPod Touch and it said I need iTunes 7.7, it sent me to the Apple site but the download thingie would not appear, probably because all these iPhone 3G need it and there are too many people downloading. No Worries, I googled "iTunes 7.7" and found a link on download.com here.

To iPhone or not to iPhone

Here is an email converstation I had with my friend MQ who is in Enlgand right now. We where talking about the merits of getting an iPhone or not.

From: MQ
Subject: Question about the iPhone

Hey there,

Before you trash this email, it's me MQ. I have a question about the iPhone. I'm thinking of getting it here in the UK. The problem is that it wouldn't do me any good if I can't use it Kuwait. I know about the jail break thingy, but I was hoping to get the full capabilities via the network.

So what gives?

Thanks.

MQ

From: DV
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone


. If you are in the UK, jump over to France and get it there. French law forbids SIM locked phones. Apple always tries to break unlocked iPhones (done by something like the jailbreak hack) with each firmware upgrade.


From: MQ
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone

Another question, I need your advice. I'm still kind of hesitant about the iPhone. I watched Job's keynote, and you know that it kind of gets you dazed for a couple of days, but when the hangover wears off, and you get back to reality and things start looking different. I was wondering, if you had a chance to check out the keynote on the new iPhone, what your thoughts are on the device. Cause I am torn between the iPhone and the HTC Diamond. What do you think? Do you have a super geeky opinion on the subject, oh king of all things geeky?

Thanks

MQ

From: DV
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone

I would. Go for the iPhone, but one that is not SIM locked from apple. I don't want any jailbreak bullshit hack.

Also, I would wait a few months so that they get a chance to fix all the bugs that are usually found in a new product.

From: MQ
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone

Why did you choose the iPhone over the HTC Touch Diamond? Do you any particular reason for that?

From: DV
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone

I had an older htc mobile and the battery sucked, especially with push email. I have an ipod touch and the interface is much nicer and usable, even without a keyboard. It is also faster for email attacments. My htc got bricked after I tried downloading a large pdf file from an email.

From: MQ
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone

Since the touch interface is the deal breaker, then I should settle for an iPod touch. As far as the email and email attachments go, I don't think I ever seriously used the email program on my imate, and I'm not sure if I will be using this feature on an iPhone much either. I think since you are in a corporate atmosphere, and having to travel a lot means that you rely on your email a great deal.

Any other reasons why I should get an iPhone?

MQ

From: DV
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone

The Safari browser is excellent and supports all that AJAX stuff and browsing
with your fingers is fun.

From: MQ
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone

So why haven't you jail broken an iPhone, and used its other features as opposed to using the iPod Touch? Also, there is still this other question you didn't answer: why should I get the iPhone, when all the features you had mentioned are in the iPod Touch. I mean I could just skip the phone feature of the iPhone, and get all the other touch, feel, coolness, and emotional relief from the iPod "Caress".

You also mentioned the browser. Opera has just "released" its beta version (hackers actually ripped off the unreleased version from the Diamond) of a super duper browser for the Windows Mobile platform. I have it now, and it rocks. Granted they have copied the coolness from the iPhone's "mini" Safari, added all the other AJAX, Flash, and pretty much all the other important regular browser plug-ins, but they have added something absolutely necessary. They made it so that when you double tap the screen, and get zoomed in, the text within the screen wraps around to the size of the screen. With the iPhone/iPod, you would have to scroll sideways if the text didn't fit the screen.

Sorry for the length of the message, your Geekyness.

From: DV
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone

I don't believe in jail breaking products, especially from apple. If apple does not want us to use the phone, then they can keep it. I will only buy it if it does not put on me restrictions. That's why I'd buy the French iPod because its does not have SIM lock. Also, hacked software might be fun, but one small mistake and your phone is a shiny brick. HTC still has a short battery life. Opera is my browser of choice for the desktop, and its features are always excellent. The problem with Opera on the Mac is that it still does not know how to behave with multi touch. I don't know how it will behave on the iPhone platform. Opera on the Nokia would not run youtube flash, on the htc it might be different. Safari ran all the flash stuff as if you where on a regular Mac, which is expected because the iPhone is really running a slimmed down version of OSX, which has roots in Mach Unix.

From: MQ
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone


I was searching for information on buying an iPhone from France, and I got the following response in a forum. It should be clear that buying one from France is not worth it all.

-----


Ok well having just returned from France on Wednesday with an iPhone I can help you out here with some details.

It is certainly possible to purchase an unlocked iPhone in France. In fact as of the other day it is no longer possible to buy an unlocked iPhone in Germany leaving France as the only place in the world where this is possible.

Its a relatively involved process but achievable.

The Prerequisites:
1) Speaking French (Pretty difficult to go through the process without)
2) A French address (a friend living in France is fine)
3) A French credit card (you need this to create a French iTunes account to activate it)
4) Un ordinateur (French for computer :p)
5) Patience :)

The Process:
1) Walk into an Orange store and ask to buy an iPhone with a prepaid sim (mobicarte is their product name). This will cost you 649eur. Provide them with your valid French address (this is important). Oh, and most likely you will need to do this all in French :)
2) Purchase 100eur pre-paid credit for you mobicarte.
3) This brings the purchase price up to 749eur.
4) Wait around 4 hours for the mobicarte to become active on the network.
5) Call the mobicarte recharge number and load the 100eur credit you purchased in the store. (Simply key in the code number on the paper they give you) (Prompts are in French)
6) Fire up iTunes on your computer and create a new iTunes store account using the French address (must match the one you gave Orange when you bought the phone) and your French credit card.
7) Once you have your French iTunes account you can now activate your iPhone (this will make it fully usable as a phone/ipod/device with the Orange prepaid SIM. Just connect the iPhone to your PC via the USB cable supplied and follow the prompts in French to activate it using your iTunes account.
8) Ok so now you have an activated but still locked French iPhone. If your PC was Australian then the iPhone will be in English and it will be using the QWERTY keyboard layout. Otherwise you will need to go into the settings on the iPhone and change this from French and AZERTY (easy process).
9) Now you need to make a couple of phone calls from the iPhone to announce the IMEI (hardware phone serial number) to the Orange phone network.
10) Wait a couple more hours (2?) or the Orange call centre will not see your iPhone on the network yet.
11) Call the Orange support centre and request "desimblockage" (unlocking). This is where the 100eur credit comes into it. They deduct the 100eur unlocking fee from the prepaid phone credit you loaded. Its also worth noting here that when you buy 100eur credit you get a little extra, like 125eur due to a bonus system they have. This is useful because you dont want your test phone calls/data usage to drop the credit below 100eur or they wont unlock it for you - if in doubt or you want to play more, just buy more credit when you get the phone or at the petrol station etc.
12) Now the waiting begins.
13) Orange will send the unlock code to your French address via snail mail.
14) Once you have this code I presume you connect up the iPhone to your PC, visit the iTunes store, click a link and type the code in and voila - desimblockage!!

I say presume with step 14 because this is as far as I am up to in this process as I only bought mine last Sunday (2nd of December) and got back to Australia on Tuesday. My buddy in France emailed me today to say he called the Orange support line today and they said they mailed out the code yesterday. Unfortunately for me hes out of France for a week so I have to wait another week before my iPhone is unlocked :(

Another worthwhile tip is if you wont be in France the whole time required (7 days is the end-to-end process i believe) then call the Orange service line and ask to turn on International/Global roaming on your mobicarte so that the SIM still works in Aus, just roams as if you were visiting here from France. Not sure if this is technically necessary but it costs nothing and I wanted to guard against activation SMS's or similar that would have required the iPhone to still remain in France.

Anyways, that's enough of a post. My apologies if it is somewhat unclear but im tired :)

If you have any questions or require clarification on anything just ask.

Alex.
----

This is the website

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/873516.html

From: DV
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone

Vive La France


I thought it would be easier, if you are willing to wait, then the French iPhones will be gradually getting in the grey market through eBay. I hate hacking an iPhone, then having Apple zapping all my fixes/hacks through a firmware upgrade.

From: MQ
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone

Now I'm thinking of getting an iPod touch. It seems more logical since I can upgrade the software to 2.0 in July, and get all the software features of the iPhone. Of course, with exception to those features that uses hardware available only to the iPhone.

It seems that getting an iPhone to work as it should either requires that I go through the hassle of jail breaking it, or get setup properly through UK's O2 carrier and have an iPhone that functions as an iPod in Kuwait.

I'm definitely not liking this situation.

MQ

From: DV
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone

That's business, that's why I got an iPod touch with 32 GB, I get all the connectivity I need through wifi, and for a Mobile I got a blackberry, which is not the best mobile, but good for doing work. I hate the blackberry but I can't live without it. :-(

My Macbook Air is here

I just received my Macbook air. Here are a few pics, now I got to go play work on my new Macbook.

Please choose your country - ?!?!

Link to Apple Store International.

What Music to Choose?

I am going out in 10 minutes, and I played the CDs in my car so much, even the car CD player is sick of them. Time for new music, but what music can I choose. I want music that I like but not something that I am sick of hearing over and over again. I could sit down for a few hours and make a perfect compilation CD but I cannot spare the time, instead I put together a smart playlist on my iTunes. The result was a perfect selection. Here is the Smart Playlist I created:





I got over 8000 songs on my iTunes, I did not hear all of them, I just dump any music in there.

To select my songs for my quick CD, I had the smart playlist choose the songs that I heard over 3 times, that I rated 5 stars and never skipped over. I ended up with 3 audio CDs after I burnt it. Now for some happy musical driving.

Craving an iPhone?

Have you been caught in this iPhone hype and would love to get your hands on an iPhone but you are not in the US right now?

Well the waiting is over, eBay is full of iPhones that people want to sell. 8926 iphones listed so far.

You can get the full list here.

Remember, if you buy an iPhone, it will only work in an AT&T mobile network, unless you have some mobile hacking skills and can unlock the SIM and put in your own Mobile Network's SIM.

Preview shot of new iPod

LOL, looks like it is a prototype.

Mac gets owned - by The Guardian

Here are some choice quotes from the article:

PCs are a bit rubbish yet ultimately lovable, whereas Macs are just smug, preening tossers.
---
I hate Macs. I have always hated Macs. I hate people who use Macs. I even hate people who don't use Macs but sometimes wish they did. Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults; computers for scaredy cats too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui.
---
Ultimately the campaign's biggest flaw is that it perpetuates the notion that consumers somehow "define themselves" with the technology they choose. If you truly believe you need to pick a mobile phone that "says something" about your personality, don't bother. You don't have a personality.
---

Full article here.

Disclaimer

I am technology agnostic, I don't care what I use as long as it does the job.