iPhone

Lysander · Post by **Lysander** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 1:06 am

Define "crash". I torrent like a mad bastard, but my net hasnt' gone down. Do you mean it does a bad job of sourting the incoming data? Or what?

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 10:21 am

Typically it manifests itself by dropping all its connections. If your router has ever locked up and you had to go recycle the power on it to get it working again, it crashed.

The feature I personally like in DDWRT is that it allows you to turn your router into a repeater. When I was shopping around for a repeater, routers were $50 and repeaters were $100. The custom firmware was free, I was able to use my other router as a repeater, and I was able to extend the range of my wireless signal out to my arcade for half the price.

I guess this pertains to pretty much any upgrades, but if you're happy with what you've got then I wouldn't worry about upgrading. I would say 99% of the people who have upgraded their routers either needed the additional functions, or just like tinkering with stuff.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 11:28 am

Flack wrote:Hey Jones, if you want one of those WRT54GL wireless routers and are willing to find a power supply that works with it, I'll send you one for free. I got one from work and already have one and don't need another. I have more routers (wired and wireless) than I could ever use.

Whoa, that is unbelievably generous of you! I'll write you an email! Thanks, man!

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 2:23 pm

Sorry I haven't written back yet; I'm only working half a day tomorrow so I'll get it in the mail and send you a bill for shipping.

Shipping, by the way, will be ONE MILLION DOLLARS.

Jack Straw · Post by **Jack Straw** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 3:36 pm

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 4:23 pm

Can I pay you the million through Paypal? That way, if the router doesn't work, I can't access the Internet and the transaction will be completed or not-completed based on (etc, etc)

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 7:14 am

I will take PayPal but please add 3% for processing fees. And also for all transactions more than $500k I only ship to verified addresses.

Jack Straw · Post by **Jack Straw** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 8:52 am

straw wrote:Going for Monroe County Correctional Officer (CO, har har). Civil service exam is 4/5

Make that 4/4, hah. I did fine. Same exact memory pictures as the state exam in Albany. Same civil service exam format, either you know the answers or you don't. If you take too much time marinating over the answers you WILL get them wrong. I was the first one done, again.

Onward we roll.

CO · Post by CO » Fri Jun 05, 2009 3:09 pm

Ha! Apple's newest iPod shuffle is such a clusterfuck of a device that 3rd parties are coming up with attachments which add nothing but buttons. So idiots are buying an mp3 player with an unworkable design and paying an extra $30 to add a bunch of size and weight just for buttons. Way to go Jobs, you fuckhead.

CO · Post by CO » Fri Jun 05, 2009 3:19 pm

Christ, it didn't even occur to me that this stupid new iPod shuffle can't be operated at all if you're not using the headphones. . . like plugged into your car. Idiots.

cnet wrote:Frankly, $30 seems like a lot of dough to throw at an iPod that costs $80 . . if you need a way to adapt the thing for your car stereo's aux input, the TapStick's relatively large buttons and snap-on design should do the trick.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 3:57 pm

I had a terrible experience with iTunes. I grabbed some music from my phone which was at first cool.

I was out jogging, and a song I cribbed from, ahhh, let's just say the net, was incomplete. So I reduced myself to a brisk walk and wirelessly bought the song from iTunes. It was awesome. Like living a hundred years in the future.

I brought my phone inside and tried to synch it with my home PC. I messed something up, and the song got deleted.

Oh no! Well SURELY iTunes is like Steam, where it knows what you do and don't have access to, right? Fuck no. Apple's policy, if you mess up like this, is to write them and go begging for your songs back.

So I did that, and I did get the song re-authorized. But Jesus Christ! That's bullshit. Do they have any idea how easy it is to steal music? Any idea at all? Look, I want to give money to the acts who make songs that I like. I am highly motivated to do this. But Christ, if I buy a song from iTunes, I ought to be able to download it a million times.

So, I was highly motivated to "jailbreak" my phone.

What finally got me into doing it was this screenshot:

Oh! If I jailbreak my phone, I can make it look like that? Sold! I'm currently in the process of doing it.

(The software that handles this process is amazing, but of course, there's zero documentation packaged with it.)

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Tue Jun 09, 2009 11:48 am

If you need any help, holla. I jailbroke (jailbreaked?) mine before I put a single song on it. I've got programs to sync and update pictures and tags and can pretty much do everything without iTunes.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Jun 09, 2009 11:01 pm

It was seriously easy to jailbreak! I'm quite jail-broken. I uploaded a pic of my phone to Facebook, but I'll try to put one up here when I create Fallout-style icons for Caltrops, MLB Extra Innings, Facebook and TwitterFon.

Here are some jailbreak apps I installed, through the magic of jailbreak. Er, and Cydia:

ClearCam. This is apparently a better camera. It takes, um, six photos of something and lets you select the sharpest? Something like that.

Dtunes. iTunes replacement. Haven't run it yet.

Terminal. I haven't had to use it yet, but it seems to use the "Mysterious Stranger" from Fallout 3 as an icon, har har har.

(Oh, and the "Contacts" Fallout-style icon is the Vaultboy DRILLIN A CHICK)

iBlackList. I was going to do a WEEK OF FURY for the bloggy part of this site, but I never got round to doing it. One of the things that was scheduled to be in the WEEK OF FURY was the never-ending war between me and the University of Phoenix. I called them for info once. Once! And literally seven or eight years later they call every other day. They need to contact me so they can close their file, they say. Which is bullshit, so I intentionally don't pick up. Now I've got the iBlackList set to answer and immediately hang up. ha haha!

PdaNet. This apparently allows tethering.

MIM. Lets me set the banner and carrier text.

xGPS. If you've ever wanted turn by turn directions spoken by the most robotic voice in the fuckin' galaxy, well, this is the app for you. I would not be surprised if anyone who hears this thing's fractured text-to-speech turns immediately into a Cylon. (NOTE: I love robots and consider the voice pack a feature.)

MySMS seems to be a program that, er, keeps telling me how much more awesome my life will be if I pay for the retail version of MySMS. It let me erase a couple humiliating texts without clearing an entire conversation that I sent out a couple months ago, so for that I will always be in its debt. Oh! And for not having paid them any money for anything I'll always be in its debt.

CO · Post by CO » Mon Jun 15, 2009 9:58 pm

I got myself a shiny almost new Tmobile G1!

My Treo 650 was fine for a first smartphone but it always seemed like a phone version of my first pc, a 386sx with windows 3.0. Just like that first computer, I have spent loads of time rebooting the Treo and waiting for pages to load.

So I got myself a black G1 from some poor guy in Auburn (like Albion to you Rochester folks or any part of Pennsylvania for worm) who was struggling to make his $695 rent for a "white projects" type of apartment set in the midst of trailer parks. I love that Craigslist allows me to profit or at least get good deals from people who need to hock their shit for rent. I paid $250 which was an would have been just an ok price except it includes 2 sim cards (1gb and 10gb), car and wall chargers, 2 cases, headphones, and 2 batteries.

I could have gotten an iphone but chose not to because the G1 doesn't have to be unlocked for my carrier and also Steve Jobs makes me want to puke.

co · Post by co » Mon Jun 15, 2009 11:05 pm

First impressions with the G1, I love it. Lots of free applications and games easily download from the marketplace. It's great to be done with the Treo's way of downloading apps which included downloading to my desktop computer and then adding to the phone with palm desktop, ugg. The on screen keyboard is not great but the real one is nice and easy to use. Best thing is not having to deal with itunes to add music.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 9:19 am

Excellent - congrats. I'll be more or less away from the Internet until next week, but I am looking forward to seeing how it is for you.

co · Post by co » Tue Jun 16, 2009 3:31 pm

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:I am looking forward to seeing how it is for you.

The great:
- I love this thing, Android is great. Everything works easily enough and the app marketplace is great. I'm sure the iTunes marketplace has like a gazillion more applications but fuck - I don't even have time to get through these. I love how easy it is to "mount" the sd card and it's instantly ready to be managed like any other removable drive on your computer. The OS seems buttoned down enough to work right but still enough of a computer that you can have fun playing around to the point of fucking up and requiring a reset and starting over.
- 3G reception, fuck yeah! I don't know who complains about Tmobile's coverage but they must not live in a major metro center, I'm really happy.

The sad:
- Tmobile apparently sends customer support calls to India a lot in the afternoons pacific time, I've never before talked to people that were less competent at taking numbers from me. I couldn't help being condecending to them.

The ugly:
- Battery life does indeed appear as atrocious as I've read. I can already tell that I'm going to have to be plugging this thing in any chance I get if I'm going to be having the fun I deserve to be having with it. Luckily I have a wall charger, a usb to computer charger, and a car charger so I'm good. I have an extra battery I could swap but I already feel like the back case is going to snap in half next time I take it off (now I understand why so many for sale have "small cracks" in the back case).

CO · Post by CO » Tue Jun 16, 2009 9:32 pm

co wrote: The ugly:
- Battery life

Every day as I leave work at lunchtime or after work there are these street marketers out front from places like Greenpeace or ACLU or feed the children or whatever. I never give anything or sign anything except a petition even though these kids try hard.

If they were instead collecting donations for better battery technology, I'd sign up and donate today. So would you and most people. This really sucks, I can listen to a streamed African hip hop station while riding to work on the bus but a 30 minute ride takes 3/4 of the battery power of my G1. Ok, I had the brightness up and kept fiddling with it but this is awful. I don't know why the G1 uses such a small battery, it's like the size of the one in my old RAZR phone. I'll manage but this does kinda suck.

Post by **joltcountry** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 11:10 am

The iTunes marketplace, when accessed through the actual phone, is a complete piece of shit. Apple's desire to not clog up the screen is killing them here.

What it gives you is the ability to sort as follows:

- New apps, free and pay-for lumped together
- "What's Hot", free and pay-for lumped together
- "Top 25" paid and free, separate
- Then, in categories... top paid, top free, and release date.

Release date can't be separated by paid and free.

It's shit! It's complete shit. You can't just fuckin' browse the thing in a reasonable manner.

The non-iTunes way to get shit onto your phone (Cydia) is worse. It's always, ALWAYS having to download a bunch of shit when I start, and whoever is doing categories there needs to get their head in the game.

Casual Observer · Post by **Casual Observer** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 10:10 am

joltcountry wrote:The iTunes marketplace, when accessed through the actual phone, is a complete piece of shit.

Really? That's awful, and <i>so surprising from Apple</i>.

The G1's marketplace is great. It's just like a folder you go to and you're one click away from descriptions and comments and one more click away from either automatically installling or reading more comments. Crisp and clear and seamless. I haven't paid for anything yet so don't know how easily they take money away from me yet.

iPhone

G1 first day impressions

Re: G1 first day impressions