GigaMegaBlog

This book is a top notch implementation of a questionable concept.  Like a shiny new sports car on a dealer’s lot, it looks and performs great right now, but its value will fall as time goes by.

The problem is that a book of iPhone app recommendations is similar to the “best of the Internet” books that appeared in the 90s – they were out-of-date within a year of their publication.

This book was published just last month (July 2009), but there are many excellent apps that were released after the book was written: Camera Zoom, Ragdoll Blaster, Comixology’s Comics.

Also, the book was written just before the release of the iPhone’s OS 3.0.  The new operating system made some entirely new types of app models possible, such as in-app purchases (the aforementioned Comics app) and augmented reality (Nearest Tube), while rendering some of the book’s picks inoperable (Darkroom) or considerably less valuable (Quickoffice – the first, and last, app to offer custom copy-and-paste support).

Having said all that, anyone wading into the iPhone App Store badly needs a guide of some sort, since the App Store is notoriously difficult to navigate when you are looking for the best rated apps of a specific type.

At present, you have two options: sort through the multitude of web sites that contain app reviews, or read a book like this.  For the time being, the only book like this is this (though I’m sure that will soon change too).

I found this book’s recommendations and reviews of apps I’m familiar with to be fair and accurate. In many cases I had already come across the same apps through other sources, but there were several instances where I switched app loyalties based on the book’s recommendation. The book really shines in the breadth of categories that it covers.  I discovered many apps, and quite a few categories, that I had no idea existed but now use regularly, such as Instapaper and Last.fm.

In addition to soon becoming out-of-date, the book has a couple of other drawbacks that are admittedly unavoidable for this type of publication. At least half of the app categories were ones that I have no interest in and skipped right past, making this a very short read. Also, a lot of the apps are either unavailable in Canada or of no use to people outside the US, but the book’s reviews clearly identify most of these instances.

I should mention that O’Reilly has also established a companion “Best iPhone Apps” web site.  Currently, the site only contains some abbreviated reviews of the same apps covered by the book, but hopefully they will cover new apps in the future.  At this point, the site isn’t an alternative to the book, or even a better alternative to the many other sites that publish iPhone app reviews.

The bottom line: although only a fraction of the apps covered in this book were of interest to me, I ended up using about 10 of those apps, all of them new discoveries for me. I didn’t find any of the book’s recommendations to be outright clunkers. This made the book a worthwhile investment to me. Those who are completely new to iPhone apps, or who love trying new things, will find this book to be particularly valuable.

Together with David Pogue’s iPhone: The Missing Manual, The Best iPhone Apps could be considered “iPhone 101″.  (Grad students can advance to yet another O’Reilly publication, iPhone Hacks, a book which truly lives up to the promise of “Hacks”).

I saw a rumour (not rumor!) over at iPhoneInCanada.ca.  They say that us Canadians can get our filthy mitts on those delectable Amazon Kindle books by doing the following:

1. 

   Mmmm, forbidden fruit

   Get an iPhone or iPod Touch.  (I suppose you could also try to get an actual Kindle, but that’s a different rumour).   If you’re on a budget then a 1st generation iPod Touch is the least expensive option, and you should be able to find one for about $150 on eBay.   Apple.ca occasionally sells refurbished 1st gens for about $180, and they currently have refurbished 2nd generation iPod Touches for $200.

2. Download and install iTunes as usual.  Sign up using your true Canadian address and credit card – you’ll need to do so to get your iPhone/iPod up and running.
3. Purchase a Mastercard gift card.  These are sold at Shopper’s Drug Mart and, perhaps, other retailers.  The key is that it must be a “Vanilla” brand Mastercard, which apparently does not appear to be a Canadian credit card to iTunes.  Accept no substitutes – the Visa gift card, for example, does not do the trick.
4. Follow the steps on iTunesInCanada to add a 2nd user-ID to iTunes, this time an American one. (Hint – don’t use a Canadian domain like sympatico.ca – Apple probably isn’t that stupid).   It appears that the billing address doesn’t matter, so long as it’s somewhere in America.
5. Log into the iTunes App Store using your new American user-ID.  Take a look around – there’s a lot more than Kindle to be found.  For example, they have a Last.FM client for streaming audio – banned in the Canadian App Store for no apparent reason.  They also have its main competitor, Pandora.  They have all 6 seasons of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, which is 6 more than us poor Canadians are offered!  With all of these new entertainment options available, do you still have time to read books?  If not, you can stop here.
6. 

   Mmmmm, forbidden fast food

   Download and install the Kindle app from iTunes.  Surprisingly, considering how difficult Apple makes it to sync your iPhone/iPod to another computer, syncing  to another account is seamless – you won’t lose any of the apps or media currently on your device.

7. Run the Kindle app and use it to create a new Amazon user-ID.  (Note that this is Amazon.com, not .ca, so your Amazon.ca login won’t work).  Again, use a new e-mail address that doesn’t have a Canadian domain, like Gmail or Hotmail.
8. Now here’s the tricky part — things appear to have changed since the iPhonesInCanada article was written.   The Vanilla Mastercard trick no longer works at Amazon – hopefully Apple won’t catch on too!   However, since you won’t get very far without a billing address, go ahead and add your Vanilla Mastercard.  To do so, click on the Your Account link, then “Add A Credit Card”.  Be sure to enter an American billing address – the same one as you’re using on iTunes should work.
9. Logout of Amazon.com.  Then, log back in to Amazon.com using a Canadian user-ID.  If you’ve already bought from Amazon.com in the past, use that user-ID.  Otherwise, you’ll have to create yet another new user-ID, and add your Canadian credit card (not the Vanilla Mastercard) to this one, with your correct Canadian billing address.
10. 

    Loonie Launderer

    While logged in with you Canadian user-ID, buy a Gift Card.  Select the “E-mail a Gift Card” option, and enter the e-mail address of your American Amazon user-ID.

11. You should find that your American e-mail account receives the gift card within minutes.  Log into Amazon.com with your American user-ID, then go to the “Your Account” page. Delete the Vanilla Mastercard from your account (click on “Manage Payment Options”, then the delete button).  Then, from the “My Account” page, click on “Apply a Gift Certificate/Card to Your Account” and enter the code that you received in the e-mail.
12. And you’re done!  Go to any Kindle book’s page (best to experiment with a free one first) and click the “Buy Now with Click Once” link.  It should work, and the next time you run the Kindle app it will automatically download the book to your iPhone/iPod.
13. As you purchase Kindle books you will, of course, need to replenish your Amazon account from time to time, using additional gift certificates.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting you go and do all this.   There are many good reasons why you shouldn’t.

Apple is becoming increasingly aggressive about enforcing the rules of the App Store, so they might close this loophole at any time.  Amazon has been known to make their Kindle books magically disappear when a publisher raises a licensing issue. Perhaps the best reason is that you don’t have to: there are plenty of other e-book retailers, including a home-grown one, who are quite happy to do business with us.

And, after all, it’s just a rumour!

Shipping included.  Seriously!

I bought one of these to protect my multi-thousand dollar (including data plan) iPhone 3Gs.  The photo pretty accurately reflects the styling (meh), but it doesn’t do justice to the fit.

The phone sits snugly in the case, which sits nicely in my shirt pocket.  The front flap has a hard (presumably plastic) insert that does a decent job of protecting the iPhone’s screen, and there is a hidden magnetic clasp that causes the flap to close tightly with a satisfying thwack.

Yeah, I know, I sound like the ghost of Billy Mays.  But wait, there’s more!  The case has holes for the camera, headphone jack and USB cable.  The flap does a reasonable job of holding the screen upright for watching videos.  Cell phone usage is fine when the iPhone’s sitting in the case – I can hear and be heard without any problems.

Things are little tight when trying to poke at the left and rightmost parts of the virtual keyboard, but otherwise I haven’t been tempted to remove the iPhone from the case.

Eventually I’ll probably give in to my iPhone’s whining about wanting to look cooooool, and buy it one of these sexy Proporta outfits — almost 10 times the price, shipping not included, but they do throw in a teabag.  (Seriously!).  I once stepped on my iPod Touch while it was protected by a similar Proporta case, and it survived without so much as a screen smudge.  But a lesser klutz could probably get by with the $4.38 knockoff.

While you’re at DealExtreme (the geek’s dollar store), you might want to fish out some change to buy their no-name versions of  the iPhone USB charger ($3.04) and cable ($1.77).  I own both and they’re surprisingly well made.  Together, with the case it will be the best ten bucks you ever spent.

A couple of months ago, my iPod Touch began to intermittently drop its connection to my PC during synchronization.  The iTunes synchronization progress bar would stop moving and, after a minute or so, iTunes would report that the device was disconnected.  Usually, the iPod would be unable connect again until after I rebooted the PC.

The elusive iPhone connection screen

Since the iPod would sync without problems to my notebook, and since the PC was running the Windows 7 64-bit RC, I figured the problem was just a bug in the pre-release software and would be fixed in time by a new driver or the final version of Windows 7.

When I added a new iPhone 3GS to the family, I wasn’t surprised to see the same problem occurring with it.  It was definitely being caused by something at the PC end.

However, a couple of weeks ago things got much worse.  After a dropped connection during synchronization one morning, and the customary PC reboot, neither my iPhone or iPod would connect at all.  After plugging the USB cable in, the iPhone or iPod would continually flash the synchronization screen on and off, with the plaintively making the “USB connection” beep until I took pity and pulled the USB plug.

I figured that the device driver had somehow been corrupted and, since it is difficult to uninstall a USB driver when the device isn’t connected, I tried plugging the iPhone into a USB port on the back of the PC.  That connection lasted about 30 seconds before dropping again, and would thereafter result in the same connect/disconnect cycle as the front USB port.

Though I didn’t realize it at the time, the fact that the behaviour was somewhat different on a 2nd USB port was a clue to what was wrong.

I tried the usual common sense approaches to resolving an iPhone or iPod synchronization problem:

1. Uninstalled the iPhone and iPod drivers from the Device Manager.  (For instructions on how to do this for a USB device you can no longer connect, see this article on the excellent How-To Geek site).
2. Uninstalled iTunes.  (In all versions of Windows you can get to the uninstall program by running a Control Panel applet.  On Windows XP it’s “Add or Remove Programs” — in Windows 7, the applet is named just “Programs”.)
3. Uninstalled “Apple Mobile Device Support”, from the same Control Panel applet.
4. At this point I tried connecting the iPhone.  This should have caused the driver to be  automatically reinstalled and, hopefully, would fix the problem.  The PC tried to reinstall the driver, but since the USB connection immediately dropped, all I got was an “Device driver not successfully installed error” for the “MTP USB Device”.  Yikes, not a good sign.
   

   Uh oh, that can't be good!
5. I reinstalled iTunes which, given the result of the previous step, predictably didn’t solve anything.
6. I tried updating the PC BIOS, in case a chipset bug was at fault.  A longshot, and that it didn’t solve anything.

Googling the above “MTP USB Device” didn’t uncover any iPhone-specific issues (it turns out that this “Mobile Transport Protocol” driver is used for almost any multimedia device).

Googling the broader problem of dropped iPhone connections uncovered a lot of people who had this problem with using a USB hub.  Plugging their iPhone directly into a USB port on the PC fixed the problem for them, since the hub wasn’t able to provide the 5 volts of charge required by the iPhone (the iPod Touch has a similar power requirement).

In my case, I already was plugging the devices directly into the PC.  But what if the PC’s USB port was not providing the 5V that it should?

I happened to have a powered USB hub – that is, a hub with a power cable.  These are intended for use when connecting multiple power-hungry USB devices at the same time.

Sure enough, when connected to the same PC through a powered USB hub, both the iPhone and iPod Touch  synchronized successfully.  That was a week ago, and everything has been rock solid since then.

Powered hub (be sure to plug in the power cord!)

The USB hub that I’m using is an inexpensive 4-port hub from a company named Tripp-Lite — I’m pretty sure that any powered USB hub would have worked just as well.  To be clear, though, the trick is to use a USB hub that has its own power cord — the more common (and less expensive) hubs are powered through the PC’s USB port, and those don’t generally work well with the  iPhone and iPod Touch.

Of course, this doesn’t solve the underlying problem — why are this PC’s USB ports supplying less than 5V?  The ports are provided some power — enough to satisfy a memory stick or mouse.  A quick scan of the motherboard and power supply didn’t uncover any obvious problems, so I’ll have to leave that mystery to another day.  Since the case (Antec 300), motherboard (Gigabyte GF8200A) and power supply (an ePower 550W unit) are all quite new and of reasonable quality, I’m guessing that I’m not the only one who might have this problem.

If you’re having problems with dropped iPhone or iPod Touch connections, give a powered USB hub a try.

Continuing with my Kill-A-Watt experimentation, I decided to look at the power consumption of my PCs.  Specifically, I wanted to check a few things that I had assumed to be true, but never actually verified:

1. Putting a computer in sleep (aka standby) mode saves a lot of electricity over leaving it running.
2. Turning off a computer saves a lot of electricity over putting it in standby mode
3. Notebook computers use a lot less electricity than desktops

Here are the numbers for my oldest PC, a circa 2005 HP Pavilion a747c with a Pentium 4 CPU, running Windows XP:

HP Pavilion and Windows XP

Flea power?

Power usage while it is powered on and doing nothing isn’t great, more than a 90W lightbulb.   In contrast, power usage while in standby mode is barely more than a nightlight.  When turned off completely energy consumption  is not quite zero — this is true of most (maybe all?) computers with a wired network connection.  This Microsoft article calls this phenomenon “flea power”, a term that I’d never come across before today.

Here are the numbers for a new desktop PC, which I assembled earlier this year.  The key hardware components when it comes to power usage are the power supply unit, which is an inexpensive 550W unit from ePower, and the CPU, which is an already obsolete AMD Athlon X2.  I would expect most new desktop computers to get similar or better power usage numbers.

Homebrew desktop and Windows 7

The most striking thing here is how much less this PC uses than the older HP above, especially considering how much more powerful it is.  Credit for this likely goes to the new PSU and chip technologies — manufacturers have really focused on driving down power consumption since the HP was made a few years ago.    The other surprising number is that this PC uses significantly more power than the older PC when turned off — some of this would be going to the network connection, but I’m not sure if that accounts for all of it.

Next up is a low budget notebook computer, a Dell Vostro 1000 from late 2007:

Vostro 1000 notebook and Vista

As expected, even a cheap notebook outpaces a brand new desktop when it comes to power consumption.  Manufacturers have been paying attention to notebook power consumption all along, in order to make the battery last longer when unplugged.  Much of this low energy technology also benefits power consumption when plugged in.  The difference between the notebook and desktop numbers is even more stark when you consider that the notebook is powering the LCD screen too — I didn’t include screen power consumption in the desktop numbers.

Incidentally, the Vostro used absolutely zero power when not turned on because it uses a wireless network connection.

The Hummer of notebooks, a Dell XPS M1730 is last and, surprisingly, least:

Dell XPS notebook and XP

Big, but not bad

Considering that this beast dwarfs the Vostro in terms of screen size and CPU speed, the low power consumption was a pleasant surprise.  Perhaps you really do get what you pay for sometimes, or perhaps energy efficiency simply has advanced that quickly in the 18 months between when my 2 notebooks were built.

Incidentally, the XPS comes with some purely gratuitous bling – LEDs on the cover, keyboard and speakers which blink, pulsate, or do whatever else floats your boat.  I was slightly surprised to see absolutely no measurable difference when I turned on the full complement of lights — LEDs are definitely the light source (and bling source) of the future.

So, it would seem that only 2 of my initial 3 beliefs hold true, for my pack of PCs anyway.  I’ll definitely be making sure that I put unused PCs to sleep before walking away, but powering them off entirely simply isn’t worth the hassle.