The iPhone comes to Canada … well, sorta
Well, I just made my first iPhone call.That’s no biggie to hundreds of thousands of people in the US, of course, but the iPhone has not yet been released in Canada.Mike Skovgaard, a buddy at work, has been buying them in the US and taking them up to Canada to unlock them to work with the Rogers and Fido cell networks. He’s already done it with a few, and showed me his latest. Apparently, Mike was only the third person in Canada to unlock the iPhone.So, review in one paragraph or less? Awesome. Cover flow is great, voice quality is excellent, phone usability is amazing, photos are really cool, Google Maps is incredible, etc. etc. Everything just works, and everything just works the way you think it ought to work.Love it, can’t wait for it to “officially” come to Canada.
Running list: Apple iPhone lawsuits
Apple is getting its ass sued off over the iPhone.I’d like to write a scathing critique of modern idiots who buy things they haven’t researched and then blame others for their idiocy, and an equally damning tirade against companies that produce nothing, add nothing, and do nothing but think up obvious ideas, patent them, and then suck blood out of other companies … but I just can’t sum up the energy.Instead, I’m going to list all the Apple iPhone lawsuits I can think of … and ask you to add any others in the comments.
- Battery lawsuitsApparently, there’s three of them now.
- Roaming feesI agree, roaming fees suck …
- Keyboard patentSome guy dreamed up something, and now he owns it forever? Interesting. Even more interesting, because he’s currently in jail for fraud!
- CiscoOK, this one’s over … but Cisco did file a lawsuit over the iPhone name
- Any more? I’m sure it’s just a matter of time …
Monster security fiasco - literally
Job warehouse Monster has had an ongoing security nightmare, with hackers infiltrating the database and pilfering usernames, passwords, and email addresses with which to launch phishing attacks.The worst part? Monster doesn’t know how bad the problem is! From an email sent to me this morning (note the bolded portion):
As you may be aware, the Monster resume database was recently the target of malicious activity that involved the illegal downloading of information such as names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses for some of our job seekers with resumes posted on Monster sites. Monster responded by conducting a comprehensive review of internal processes and procedures, and notified those job seekers that their contact records had been downloaded illegally.The Company has determined that this was not an isolated incident. Despite ongoing analysis, the scope of this activity is impossible to pinpoint. Monster believes illegally downloaded contact information may be used to lure job seekers into opening a “phishing” email that attempts to acquire sensitive financial information. This has been the case in similar attacks on other websites.
Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.
Pay more, get less
These are the options if you want an Education Week subscription:
As you’ll quickly see, you actually pay more to get the online version than the print+online versions. Probably has a lot to do with advertising revenue and subscription counts.
Major rip-off … and it isn’t doing trees any favors either.
Apple’s Sept. 5 iPod Announcement: iPod, iPhone, iPDA, iComputer, iMobile Computing
Apple’s scheduled a Steptember 5th special event: “the beat goes on.”It’s obviously about iPods. My guess is that Apple’s now ready to take the next step. More to the point, the marketplace is finally ready for Apple to release the next evolution in iPod: mobile computing.You already see it in iPhone. And we know that OS X is underpinning future iPods.iPods have been carrying our calendars and notes for years. But it’s always been the sideshow, the off-off-Broadway down-the-lane-to-the-left non-attraction.I think the new iPods are going to take a huge leap in functionality. iPhone’s seamless reading of PDFs, Microsoft Office documents, and more will be part of the iPod experience.It’ll still be the entertainment hub - music, movies, podcasts - that it is. But it’s going to take the next step to a mobile computing platform that includes some of what we currently think of as “business” functionality and some of what we think of as “consumer” functionality - especially games.It would not shock me if concurrent with this unveiling of the new iPod we have an “iSDK,” a software development kit for iPhone and iPod.You read it hear first.
On vacation …
I’m on vacation for two weeks, so posting has and will continue to be light.Last week the whole extended family was in Osooyoos, BC, for some lake and sun and family time. This week I’m working around the house on a major landscaping project with Allan blocks, and next weekend we have something special planned with some families from church.Adios, and see you soon.
iWork needs Appleworks import
Dan Knight of Low End Mac fame has a well-researched article on the abandoned Apple office suite AppleWorks, which used to be ClarisWorks.Most of it I’m taking with a bit of a grain of salt, since I know Dan is a keep-my-old-computers-til-they-rot kinda guy, but he makes a number of good points, and one very important one:
However, iWork isn’t AppleWorks. It’s not an integrated word processor, database, spreadsheet, paint, and drawing program. It’s much more like Microsoft Office, where Word and Excel are separate programs that can work together.And while iWork can open PowerPoint, Word, and Excel files, for some reason Apple has ignored compatibility with its own AppleWorks program, which is used by millions upon millions of Mac users on both the Classic Mac OS and OS X.I know Steve Jobs has a general disdain for things not created on his watch, and he’s allowed AppleWorks to languish, but if he wants Mac users to migrate to new hardware and iWork, he needs to make it easy to convert .cwk files into iWork documents and spreadsheets
An import function … that would be useful for people who have documents in AppleWorks. I know I have a few on my home computer.
Comfort zone
From Roz Savage, who rowed across the Atlantic ocean and is now attempting the Pacific:
I believe that if you don’t keep pushing the boundaries, keep expanding your comfort zone, your comfort zone actually gets smaller and smaller, until you’re shrink-wrapped in such a tiny comfort zone that you can’t move, you can’t achieve anything, you can’t grow. And so I keep pushing, keep developing, keep evolving. I keep showing what an ordinary person can do when they put their hearts and minds and souls into it.
So I can feel like a winner
The kids all got their medals today from the Fraser Valley Regional Library summer reading club challenge.Aidan, when he came home with his, said now he’s got his first medal “so he can feel like a winner.”
I wanted to do this 7 years ago …
Smart article on changing your browser’s useragent to gain access to pay sites:
Ever wondered why Google returned search results that lead to sites that require a registration? How did Google index the site without a registration? Many sites want their site indexed in Google to receive more hits, so they allow Googlebots in. Because of this reason we can take advantage of this. All we have to do is disguise ourself as a Googlebot and many sites will let us in without registration.
I was planning to do exactly that with an online learning site I built in 2000, but the feature got lost on the cutting room floor …
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About
Sparkplug 9 is John Koetsier's blog on life, the universe, and everything,
but mostly the stuff you see big in the tags to the left.
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