Archive for category Apple
iPhone coming soon to the U.S., but how can we use it for Bible study and ebook reading?
Posted by palmsolo in Apple, Gadgets, Smartphone on June 27, 2007
Well, we all know about the Apple iPhone coming out on Friday and the news, reviews, and Apple videos are pouring out all over the place. I have to admit that it does indeed look slick and the rate plans are actually reasonable, which makes sense since the iPhone is running the slower EDGE connection rather than AT&T’s 3G network.
I use my mobile devices for a lot of things and one reason I keep going back to using a Windows Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition type device is because of the excellent Laridian PocketBible application. It looks like the only way you will be able to access and read the Bible on the iPhone is through a Bible web site, which requires that you have a data connection and doesn’t allow for any note taking.
I also enjoy reading Mobipocket e-books and there is not going to be 3rd party application support like this on the iPhone. The iPhone has a very cool UI, but lacks a lot of other features found on existing Windows Mobile and S60 devices.
My MacBook Pro is rocking now
I finally resolved my issue with Seagate and was able to install the new 160GB hard drive into my MacBook Pro. I now need to find a serial ATA enclosure to use the 80GB drive as an external storage drive. At first I was going to put Vista into a Boot Camp partition, but then decided to just use Parallels and install Vista and XP there to see how that would work. The new Coherence mode in Parallels Desktop is awesome and so far things are going very well.
We also picked up a new desk at Costco so I could have a “real” place to work at home and I uncovered all my devices. I found the Fossil Wrist PDA that is Palm Powered and decided to charge that up and give it a go as my Palm device of choice to test out and play with.
Saga of the Seagate hard drive continues
Wow, this is getting ridiculous. I ordered a 160 GB replacement hard drive for my MacBook Pro back in November and was sent one with an Ultra ATA connector when it turns out I needed one with a Serial ATA connector. Buy.com told me to contact Seagate directly and I did so immediately. I was told to ship the drive back and the correct one would be sent out. Then for 2 months I was told they were out of stock. The drives apparently came back into stock (Buy.com had them a month or so ago in stock) and I just received the drive. Unfortunately, the idiots at Seagate sent me a refurb Ultra ATA drive. Now why would I send them a brand new, unused Ultra ATA drive for a refurb drive?
So again I am trying to get them to send me the write drive or at least just issue me a credit so I can get the right one from Buy.com. The reason I even went with Buy.com is because they have a great return policy, but make sure you read the fine print on some items like hard drives.
My MacBook Pro sits with about 5GB of free drive space and I really need this new drive to run applications I am trying to test out and am very disappointed in Seagate’s handling of this issue.
UPDATE: I called customer service and explained in detail what is going on and was given another RMA and told they will send out the drive I need. They said they don’t usually swap out drives for different models, but were going to allow this one time exception. I explained the situation way back in December and was told that I could exchange the drive so I don’t know if that is their policy or not. I would have just taken the new drive I received first and sold it on ebay if I would have known how much trouble this was going to be. Hopefully, I’ll get my issue resolved soon since I have a ton of things I want to load on the MacBook Pro.
What is up with my Apple luck?
I just took my MacBook Pro on my most recent trip to Florida for a stability test and noticed that the MagSafe ac adapter end is coming apart and now I see exposed wires. I have to wiggle it around to charge up my MacBook Pro and read online where lots of people are having issues with this. I called Apple and was told to go to an Apple store to see if they can replace it under warranty. I plan to visit the store tonight or tomorrow and hope they do replace it because I really don’t want to have to shell out $99 for Apple’s poor quality products. Anyone who has ever bought or seen my devices knows that I take pristine care of all of them and I never pulled my cable out by the end or anything so this cable failure is not very encouraging to me and I hope it is replaced with one that is a bit stronger.
I am also still waiting for Seagate to ship out my replacement 160GB hard drive I bought from Buy.com over a month ago. I somehow confused the attachment (ATA vs Serial ATA) and ordered the wrong model. I couldn’t return it to Buy.com and had to go through Seagate who says they do not have any of this model in stock. It is amazing that it has been a month without them stocking this drive and I am getting very disappointed and upset since I only have less than 2GB left on my current drive to work with. I can’t install Vista or the new Parallels Desktop and have to really watch what I do on the MacBook as I wait for this larger drive. I have been thinking about selling my MacBook Pro and getting a better Tablet PC, but really do enjoy the Mac OS X operating system. I guess this is just my frustration talking right now.
I think I bought my last iPod, two iPods down with little use
I can’t believe my luck with Apple iPod devices. I bought my oldest daughter an iPod mini a couple years ago and she used it for about 20 hours and then put it away for about 6 months or so. When she got back into using the iPod again, we discovered that the motherboard failed and I had to pay $100 to get it fixed. Then after another month or so, the hard drive died and when I tried to replace it myself I messed up and a small piece fell off that ended up causing the device to stay in hold.
I am on a business trip and wanted to go running so I brought my 1st generation iPod Shuffle along to use. The stupid thing now flashes green and orange and even after following every step I could think of after reading this very popular thread it looks like the Shuffle is dead. I won’t buy another iPod, no matter how cool they might be since this failure rate is ridiculous. I only listened to something like 100 hours of music on my Shuffle so this is just unacceptable.
Apple won’t be getting my money for another iPod again until they produce more reliable units and I am very disappointed in their quality control since I have been happy with my MacBook Pro.
Going to CES instead of MacWorld
I received my MacWorld press registration confirmation, but they didn’t give me a keynote pass which is one of the only reasons to go to MacWorld. That limited pass and the fact that CES has a TON more people I want to meet with and products I want to see forced me to switch my flight and hotel reservations for Las Vegas instead. So I’ll be flying in on the evening of Jan 6 and flying home on the evening of the 10th. If anyone else is going to CES, feel free to drop me a note at palmsoloATgmailDOTcom. I think Kevin Tofel from jkOnTheRun and the MobileTechRoundup podcast is going too.
Writing for Geek.com Mac and also covering MacWorld in January
I have been slowing phasing out of the PDA Geek section so it wouldn’t conflict with my ZDNet gig, which is going very well BTW, and came up with a proposal to write more for the Mac section. I am a big Apple fan from 1989 so now I am writing daily for Geek.com’s Mac section. I will also be covering MacWorld in San Francisco in January and have my flight and hotel all setup. Let me know if you are in the area and will be at MacWorld. I chose this over CES since I have been to CES before and am expecting a new iPod or maybe iPhone, I really want to see an iTablet, to be announced.
Sync your Windows Mobile 5.0 device via USB on your Mac
Posted by palmsolo in Apple, Pocket PC, Smartphone, Windows Mobile on May 4, 2006
As I have discussed here on my blog, I am really enjoying Parallels WorkStation on my MacBook Pro and one of the only reasons I wasn’t completely able to remove the Apple Boot Camp partition was USB support to allow me to sync my mobile devices. While testing the alpha of The Missing Sync for Intel Macs and Windows Mobile 5.0 devices I found a utility loaded on my i-mate SP5m called USBSwitch. This utility allows you to switch the way the USB connection is made from the default RNDIS mode to Serial mode. Once I made the switch then I was able to sync perfectly using The Missing Sync in Mac OS X. I then thought this may work in Parallels WorkStation since the problem there now with Windows Mobile 5.0 devices is that a network connection is trying to be made and multiple network connections don’t seem to be supported. I then switched modes on my i-mate SP5m, started up Parallels Workstation and then connected my USB cable. Voila! I was syncing my device via ActiveSync 4.1 to the virtual Windows XP environment and am now a happy camper. I then did some digging around and found the .cab file for USBSwitch over at the XDA Developers site and installed it on my i-mate JasJar (most Windows Mobile devices don’t have it preinstalled) and now I can sync that device as well.
I am posting USBSwitch here for anyone else who wants to give it a try. I don’t offer any guarantees it will work or any warranties if something happens to your device and am just passing along a useful tool I found and want to share.
Hosted Exchange keeps my MacBook and WM Smartphone synced
Posted by palmsolo in Apple, Smartphone, Windows Mobile on April 21, 2006
I have been trying to get the alpha version of The Missing Sync to work with my MacBook Pro and i-mate SP5m and things actually looked promising once when the sync started up before hanging and requiring a forced quit. The Missing Sync and PocketMac are still under development for the Intel-based Macs and Windows Mobile 5.0 so there is no working sync solution for users like me… or so I thought.
Jason Dunn has been a big supporter of 4Smartphone.net and their hosted Exchange solution. I didn’t really feel I needed this type of service for another $3 to $7 per month and it just went in one ear and out the other. After a recent discussion though I found out that I could add my MacBook with Entourage to the mix and get lots of things synced to one central server. A couple days ago I began my trial of 4Smartphone’s Pro account and have to say that I will definitely be paying for my subscription before the trial expires.
Setting things up was quick and easy and I now have my i-mate SP5m, Treo 650, desktop PC, and MacBook all synced together via this hosted Exchange server. I plan to add the Nokia N90 and N70 soon too. Another very cool feature of this for Windows Mobile 5.0 owners with certain devices is that we get real PUSH email functionality. I actually turned my settings down to 30 minutes to help conserve battery life, but it was very cool running it at real time for a day too.
So I now can sync my Calendar, Contacts, and Email between my devices and my Mac. Tasks are also synced to the server, but it doesn’t appear that this piece works in Entourage. I’ll do some hunting online to see if there is some utility that can add this functionality, though. While this is a cleaner and more efficient way, not to mention now backed up better than what I did, to sync my PIM data I still cannot sync files I have stored on my devices and I cannot install using .exe files from my Mac to the SP5m. There are generally .cab files available for applications so you can install by placing the .cab on a storage card. I also will backup my files and folders to external storage cards to keep my data safe.
I’ll still try the other Mac/Windows Mobile syncing solutions when they finish development, but I am very pleased with the hosted Exchange solution and recommend you give it a try yourself.
Parallels released Workstation Beta 4
These guys at Parallels are working like crazy and I just received an email that Beta 4 is now available. Improvements in Beta 4 include:
- Introduced full screen mode
- Introduced dual-monitor support
- Improved real CD/DVD support
- Improved, easier to use interface
- Better sound support, including a fix for Windows 2000 guest OS
- Networking kernel panics resolved
- Bridged networking issues fixed
- WiFi networking issues fixed
Wow, these guys are impressive! I already rarely boot into Windows using Boot Camp (sync my Windows Mobile devices) and once USB support is added to Parallels Workstation I will most likely remove the Windows partition created by Boot Camp. The prospect of dual monitor support is very cool since you could run Windows on one display and Mac OS X on another, how cool is that?
