Airport Express Working

Since my 802.11g Airport Extreme stalled I have had in place running instead my spare Airport Express.

It’s been working fine and internal file transfers have been very fast (for 802.11g) and I have had no problems.

Hopefully it will stay that way.

It’s alive!

My Nokia N73 usually behaves itself.

It rings when someone calls.

It uploads photographs to Flickr when asked.

It will even let itself be used as a 3G modem.

It’s a good little phone.

But!

And there is always a but, sometimes it decides that it’s going to do what it wants and have some fun.

Today was one of those days.

I received a text, it appeared that my phone had taken one of the photographs I had taken, created a MMS and sent it to a recipient in my address book.

Later in the day it decided to upgrade my Jaiku presence without me asking, fair enough.

I tried to play a video clip with it, it told me it didn’t have enough memory.

Okay, so I exited the video application and left the phone alone.

Ten minutes later (obviously bored) my phone  decided it wanted to watch the video and started playing it!

I wouldn’t be surprised if it phoned and ordered pizza for itself.

Nokia N73

Which 3G modem for the MacBook Air?

So you have finally decided (after much thought) to get yourself a MacBook Air, well its really nice, thin and though it might break it is really nice.

Now you know it doesn’t come with integrated 3G, but that doesn’t matter as you’ve got a 3G USB modem.

Ah.

Well.

There’s a slight hitch, you see there’s a good chance that your USB modem won’t fit.

More on Engadget.

Maps on the iPod touch

Since upgrading my iPod touch with the new applications, I have been wondering how effective the Maps application would be in finding my location.

Get directions and check traffic with Google Maps. Even find yourself, wherever you are. Using some local Wi-Fi networks (if Wi-Fi is turned on), iPod touch finds your approximate location and gives directions from there. Mark specific locations, find the best route between them and search for points of interest along the way. With a hybrid map and satellite view, you can see major street names on top of satellite images.

I had tried to find myself a few times already including on my home network, with no luck. Today I was in the centre of Birmingham and it worked, it found where I was.

Now I am not sure how useful that is, as I already knew where I was!

Of course there is more to the Maps application then locating myself, I do find it useful for checking locations and it’s always fun to look at the satellite images.

802.11g Airport Extreme stalled and possibly dead

Well my (old) UFO shaped 802.11g Airport Extreme seems to be not working despite the three lights on the front flickering and flashing away.

Despite power cycling the base station, it would not broadcast a wireless signal and even when connected by ethernet it only appeared sometimes in the Airport Utility.

I may do a full reset, but in the meantime I have replaced it with my spare Airport Express which I usually take away with me when staying in hotels or need to use at conferences.

ADSL Fast!

I often post about how slow my ADSL connection is, however today after power cycling my router, I saw a nearly 100% increase in the download speed going from 1700Kbps to in excess of 3100Kbps (according to my router).

I am certainly noticing the difference when browsing and downloading files.

Fast!

Download MacWorld 2008 Expo Keynote

Steve Jobs MacWorld 2008 Keynote

Sometimes depsite all your planning, it all falls apart.

Not living in San Francisco, actually I don’t even live in the US, I knew it was going to be impossible to attend the MacWorld 2008 Keynote in person. Though I didn’t realise until listening to MacBreak Weekly that it’s like an iPhone launch if you want to actually get in there in person, it starts at 9am, but you really need to start queuing at 4am – now that’s dedication.

So I couldn’t be there in person, like I was ever going to get there!

I didn’t really want to “view” the keynote by watching the Macrumors’ feed, or refreshing Engadget on a regular basis, or watching multiple tweets on Twitter (which I believe went down during the Keynote). I do like watching the stream (as though it was “live”. I subscribed the Macrumors spoiler free link. However fifteen hours after the Keynote, no e-mail giving me the link, I thought to myself, either there is no stream (there had to be, it said it was going to be made available on the Apple website) or (more likely) the Macrumors e-mail service had failed! It hadn’t completely failed, the e-mail telling me about the steam eventually arrived eighteen hours after the start of the Keynote!

So I went to the Apple website, obviously saw the MacBook Air on the front page and thought ah well, and clicked the link for the Keynote stream.

Now maybe it was my connection or my computer, but could I get the Keynote to stream? No.

I tried on two different connections with no luck. I tried on about four computers with no luck.

Probably too many people trying to access the stream.

I am not a great fan of streaming, as too often (with long videos) I want to pause the video as real life gets in the way, you know phone calls, coffee, e-mails, etc… I have found with some streaming, if I pause the stream it never restarts, so I need to start the whole stream from the beginning.

I even tried to find online a place to download the Keynote with no luck.

I was resigned to the fact that I was not going to be able to watch the Keynote this year. Ah well I had found out what was released and I had seen the sixty second version.

So imagine my surprise when looking at the top podcasts in the (UK) iTunes Store when there was the MacWorld 2008 Expo Keynote.

Well I am downloading all 900MB of that then!

I am surprised that not only was it available, but that Apple hadn’t really mentioned it on their main website.

Still downloading, and you know about everything that was mentioned, so leave me to enjoy that distortion field which is Steve Jobs.

One more thing…

Which 3G USB Modem?

I have been thinking for a while about getting a 3G USB Modem.

My preference is to use a Bluetooth connection to my phone and use that as a modem, however this is very heavy on battery life for both the phone and the laptop and I am thinking that a USB modem will have less impact on the laptop and (obviously) no impact on the phone’s battery life.

I don’t want a card solution as I use different computers, some have CF slots, come have PC Card slots and another uses ExpressCard, so a card solution will be too limiting.

I am not overly happy with having a dongle hanging off my computer, but it is better than no internet connection.

So which one do I go for?

My initial choice was “3” which has the cheapest solution at £10 per month, however they do have a 1GB limit and will charge if you go over that limit.  £15 gives you a 3GB allowance.

Speeds are suppose to be in the 2.8Mbps range, but that’s not the case across the whole country.

Having used Vodafone before and get very annoyed with their content control and the complexity of having to pay to turn it off, I am not keen on using Vodafone. Also at £25+VAT per month they are the most expensive. However at 7.2Mbps they are the fastest. Though that speed is not available around me, so is less inticing.

I am coming around to T-Mobile which is around £20 per month now. However it does appear to be the slowest of the lot. It has one advantage that the service also includes free access to T-Mobile wifi hotspots.

Still thinking.

What no 3G?

What no 3G?

Though you may think I am talking about the lack of a second generation iPhone with 3G, no I am talking about the lack of 3G on the MacBook Air.

Yes it has 802.11n, but how many 802.11n wifi hotspots have you seen on your travels? Also from an internet perspective, 802.11n is a bit of overkill for a typical internet connection. Not everywhere has wifi hotspots, they never seem to be available when I am out and about or they fall over a lot from too many clients.

So there you are with this beautifully thin MacBook Air and either you need to use a Bluetooth to a 3G phone, which kills the battery both on the MacBook Air and the phone, and a lot of mobile phone providers in the UK now no longer allow you to use your 3G phone as a modem (or they charge you a fortune) they all now seem to want you to use a USB dongle.

Now an USB  dongle though has less of an impact on battery life on your laptop (and no impact on your phone’s battery life) is a dongle and it dangles from the beautifully styled and thin laptop you just bought!

All of this could have been avoided if Apple had provided 3G functionality with their beautifully thin MacBook Air.

I’m not the only one thinking like this, as you can see here and here.

I think Apple missed the boat on this one, though maybe they didn’t want to get into bed with another phone provider!

EyeTV 3

Despite my previous post only one feature (the Coverflow enhancement)  for the new EyeTV 3 would require Leopard.

All the other new features will work on 10.4.11 according to Elgato.

After a period of reflection, I quite like the idea of the enhanced editing, the current tools are the best I have worked with on any TV recording system, so have them even better will be great.

Wi-Fi Access is one of my favourite features of the current version of EyeTV, the enhanced version with version 3 sounds useful if you have a new wifi phone.

Overall there are some really good features in version 3, however with the way I use EyeTV on my iMac I can’t see myself upgrading, if I upgrade the Mac mini under my television then I will get the new version.