Tip: Restart iPhone After Mail Changes July 29, 2008
Posted by Pip in Tips.Tags: accounts, email, push, settings, tip
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If you’re using MobileMe push mail, and you make changes to your mail accounts (any of them, even if you add one), it sometimes goofs up the push. Dunno why; it shouldn’t. But it seems to, and I spent ages trying to diagnose why my MobileMe mail wasn’t pushing properly after I added a Gmail account to the mix.
When I restarted the iPhone, MobileMe push went back to working fine. I then reproduced the error and the fix three times, which is scientifically sufficient for a blog nobody reads anyway.
Recommendation: Buy New Headphones July 29, 2008
Posted by Pip in Recommendations.Tags: headphones, recommendation, rmf
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Let’s face it: the Apple headphones suck. They always have. They don’t fit in your ear right (unless you have giant ears), they hurt, and the sound reproduction is okay at best.
But there’s another reason not to use them: they’re going to get your ass robbed.
Recommendation: MobileMe July 29, 2008
Posted by Pip in Recommendations.Tags: bookmarks, contacts, email, mobileme, photos, recommendation
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If you’ve got an iPhone and aren’t using MobileMe (or, I suppose, Exchange), you’re cheating yourself.
I know, I know. The idea of paying $99 more a year for MobileMe is irritating when you’ve already dropped $199 – $299 on your iPhone. They should at least offer a free year’s subscription with the purchase of an iPhone. But they’re not going to, and there’s no point in being an ass about it, even if it is borderline profiteering.
Tip: Use Firefox on your desktop, Safari on your iPhone July 29, 2008
Posted by Pip in Tips.Tags: bookmarks, browser, firefox, safari, tip
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I was never a huge fan of the Firefox browser for Mac. I wanted to be – it’s open-source, has add-ons, great tabbed browsing, etc. – but it simply wasn’t suited for the Mac. It didn’t look like the other Mac apps, it was a bit heavier than Safari, etc.
Then they released Firefox 3.0, and that all changed. Now it’s prettier than Safari, it’s fast, and I get all the advantages of Firefox‘s add-ons, etc. Now I use it exclusively.
Tip: Del.icio.us on your iPhone July 29, 2008
Posted by Pip in Tips.Tags: bookmarks, del.icio.us, safari, tip
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If you haven’t tried out Del.icio.us, you don’t know what you’re missing, whether your’re on an iPhone or a desktop. Del.icio.us is an online bookmark manager (free) that allows you to post bookmarks to it and tag them. These bookmarks are then available anywhere.
The advantage of this may not be immediately obvious. It’s not a service that (in my opinion) is meant to replace your browser bookmarks. I use my browser bookmarks for sites I visit on a regular basis, such as Gmail, my online banking accounts, Facebook, etc. I use Del.icio.us for pages I wish to remember, and maybe access at some point in the future, but don’t need regularly enough to clutter up my browser with them.
Tip: Use your signature July 29, 2008
Posted by Pip in Tips.Tags: email, signature, tip
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The iPhone offers a custom signature that you can attach to just your iPhone emails. My advice? USE IT. Put something like “sent via iPhone” or “sent via mobile” in your signature.
It’s not about bragging. The email replies you send from your iPhone are bound to be terse and economical. If your contacts don’t know that the reason for this is that you’re typing with your thumbs, these emails might come off as terse or even surly.
Including this information in your signature simultaneously lets your contacts know that you’re being short in reply for a reason and that you’re out of the office. My guess is they’ll be grateful that you’ve taken the time to reply to them in this fashion, rather than being annoyed at how short a response they got.
iPhone: One Week Later July 27, 2008
Posted by Pip in Uncategorized.Tags: conclusions, frustrations, praise
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Okay, I’ve had this thing for about a week now and my first impressions have somewhat changed.
First off, let me say that I am still not convinced the iPhone will ever rival the BlackBerry in terms of sheer productivity. The lack of a physical, wide-layout QWERTY keyboard gives it a natural disadvantage in this department – no matter how clever a touch keyboard is designed, it simply cannot match the tactile response of physical keys.
However, I will say this. On day one I found typing to be a slow and arduous process, preferable only to, say, masturbating with sandpaper. Now, a week later, I’m up to about twenty words a minute. I’m writing this post on the iPhone, and have gotten to the point where I may actually choose it to write short emails with if it’s more convenient to hand than my laptop.
Understanding the iPhone Custom Dictionary July 25, 2008
Posted by Pip in Explanations.Tags: dictionary, frustrations, praise, typing
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In order to make up for the less-than-stellar performance of a touch-screen keyboard, Apple’s done some really really excellent work with auto-correct and predictive type. Whenever you type, the iPhone is constantly second-guessing you, offering you words it thinks you’re trying to type, regardless of how many times you hit x instead of c.
More Light: GPS July 25, 2008
Posted by Pip in Uncategorized.Tags: gps, hope
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Apparently, turn-by-turn GPS is on the way, courtesy of TomTom. At least, this is the buzz in the blogosphere. TomTom announced that it’s navigation software was successfully operational on an iPhone, despite rumora that the iPhone GPS antenna was not powerful enough to support it.
So hopefully we will soon have yet another way to drain this crap battery. w00t!
Day 3: MMS = FAIL July 24, 2008
Posted by Pip in General.Tags: frustrations, mms
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I realized that this thing dildnt send MMS (picture) messages, but what I didn’t realize (and should have) is that it can’t receive them either.
It simply never occurrd to me that a phone this advanced and grounded in consumer-level telefuckery would lack even the basic ability to get a picture message.
Epic lame.
What’s more is, when somebody tries, you get a text directing you to log in with a randomly generated username and password. And since iPhone has no cut and paste, and Safari quits when you switch over to the text message app, you’re stuck having to remember not one but two strings that look something like hg5sd1z.
Which is fine when my buddies are trying to send me pictures of their balls, less so at other times.
