It’s Just Justin

iPhone 2.0.1 on 1G iPhone

Tried to update my first generation iPhone to the new firmware 2.0.1. Didn’t work out so well…

Anyone know what an error (-19) is? Frustrating indeed.

UPDATE:
Seems to be that restoring the iPhone to 2.0 and then doing the 2.0.1 update works.  A step you should not have to take but a solution none-the-less.  Now to make this one a pay-as-you-go phone…  Should I pwnage jailbreak it and put it on t-mobile?  Do they have better no-contract plans?

UPDATE:
Can’t seem to get it to jailbreak.  Ideas?  I was using PwnageTool 2.0.2, said it failed.  I guess I need to know where the iPhone 2.0.1 firmware is on my computer and I need the bootloader files… which I don’t have and can’t find.  Hmmm, is T-Mobile’s network even worth the work or should I just GoPhone it?

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Front Row to Play Second Fiddle

Apple’s answer to Microsoft’s Media Center came with the release of OSX Tiger in 2004.  Using your Apple Remote, users could control anything in their iTunes Music Library.  The core animations built into OSX created a beautiful, smooth and friendly interface.  Unlike Media Center, Front Row would only show media it could play.  The caveat being it could only play a small number of media formats and no web media.

Front Row 2.0 added some GUI improvements and YouTube integration but little else, though it was already a polished product no one really knew something was missing.

Now we have example of what Front Row show be and they come in the form of Center State and Boxee.  These programs run on Apple computers running Leopard and Boxee also runs on Linux, sorry Microsoft.  You have plenty of other viable options however.

Both of these programs take over for front row and both have incredible features that neither Front Row nor Media Center can claim.

Center Stage is available for download on their site.  It sports a slick interface with stunning transitions as you move through the levels of your media.

CenterStage UI Demo from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

You really must go to their main page and watch the demo videos to experience how beautiful the system is.

I’m a Boxee alpha user and got a chance to try out their software today. Installation was a breeze, took just a few minutes and 75mb of space.

I logged in with my Boxee username and was in with no delay.  Typing was a little confusing, you had to select the box you wanted and then press enter, then type your username and then press enter again.  Seems like selecting the box would be enough.

Boxee didn’t pick up any videos it could read off my Macbook Pro.  Not surprised as it cannot read DRM’d media from iTunes.  Unfortunately for me, nearly all of my media, at least 90% of my video, comes from the iTunes Music Store so, unless it’s a DRM free video from ITMS, it doesn’t show up.  Damn the DRM.  Once Apple finally releases their ITMS of music/video DRM, I wonder if these old files will be unlocked as well.  Doubt it.

Anyways, my music did show up, and I got to playing around.  Logged into my Last.fm account and started scrobbling.  Great, seamless integration.  Unfortunately your password is not character protected.  As you type it in, the letters pop up on the screen.  So instead of ******** you see password.  This does not happen when you log into your Boxee account on the login screen.

There are lots of settings to play around with though most don’t make too much of a difference; it comes out quite nicely straight from the box.  Navigation with a keyboard is difficult and confusing.  It is often hard to tell where you are and how to get out.  I was playing a Will Young CD, recommended it to two people on Boxee and then tried to get back to the main menu.

It took probably ten tries on the keyboard.  Then, duh, pulled out the Apple Remote, worked like a charm.

As it stands right now, both of these programs whip Front Row’s ass.  They offer a unique set of features such as auto IMDB lookup, a social network where you can recommend media to friends and a wide array of supported media formats.

I love the social networking aspect of Boxee and the fun experience it has plus the slick interface but navigation and some security holes need to be checked out before it’s a solid product.  Of course, this is alpha, not even beta so I say, good job Boxee.

Center Stage wins with the interface, beautiful albeit, a little slow compared to Boxee and not as inviting; the Now Playing in Center Stage fabulous.  No social networking hurts it’s adoption.

Bottom line, check out both of these projects.  I look forward to seeing them come to fruition.  Competition builds improvement!

Tags: Apple, Apple Remote, Cover Flow, DRM, Home Theater, iTunes Music Store, ITunes Store, Just My Nerdiness, Macbook Pro, Media, Microsoft, Video

Tethering iPhone with Netshare

If you were one of the lucky ones, you picked up a copy of Netshare while it was in the iTunes store.  Its status with the iTunes App Store has been under scrutiny what with it coming and going willy nilly.  Thanks to Nick Starr I caught it on one of its short lived moments in the App Store.

But if you did get it going, I highly recommend you hit up Apple Insider for a step by step guide to setting up Netshare with your iPhone. This of course allows you to hop on the internet with your just you laptop (ideally) and your iPhone.  To my knowledge, no one knows what AT&T will do about this.  They claim you cannot tether the iPhone and use it’s unlimited data plan at a $30/m savings to their regular data plan.

It gets really complicated as each application has to be reviewed by Apple before they are put into the wild for users to download.  Secondly this app costs $9.99 which means if they disable it, customers would demand a refund… Thirdly, Apple will technically have benefited from this app which AT&T might claim to be illegal under their contract.  Apple just renewed their exclusivity contract with AT&T through 2010.

Basically I’m thinking, use are your own risk!

I was hanging out at Diedrich Coffee today and thought I’d give it a try.

It took quite a few tries to get it going using the Netshare’s built-in instructions but Apple Insider’s tips were great and I had it up and running in no time.  And it works.  The speeds aren’t what I get on my Verizon card but in a pinch, 900kbps isn’t so bad.

Yeah so Netshare works pretty darn good, only one thing.  When I did an IP trace on the address assigned by AT&T, I got some interesting results.

It says the IP is coming from AT&T but it’s coming from the United Kingdom.  Not sure what that’s about but I’d be interested to see what other people are getting for their IP address when tethered to their iPhone.

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iTunes 7.7.1 Destoys Library

Being the Apple fan boy that I am, when iTunes 7.7.1 came out yesterday, I hopped right on it.  Supposedly it fixed some bugs and stability issues.  I installed it through Software Update, went smoothly, usual, blah blah.

Then it started to sync my iPhone 3G.  It reinstalled every application, even those I had requested to not be installed onto the iPhone.

Then it said there were updates for all 24 applications.  I had them download and then install.

First off, let’s complain that iTunes keeps every version of every application, it never just deletes the old buggy ones.  So you end up with 1, 2, 3, 8+ versions of applications.

Oh and it loses them, or at least iTunes 7.7.1 did.  Do you see a problem here?

One hour later, still installing and then it froze.  I restarted the computer, then started the sync again.

Warning, 11 files could not be synced because they could not be found.

Warning, 100 files could not be synced because they could not be found.

Meanwhile, only 600mb+ songs synced out of the previous, um, 12gb of music.

Did a check…  Apparently some 10-90% of my music was moved to my Time Machine, as far as the library was concered.

10-90% because it would only show up if I tried to play or sync them and the vast majority of my synced songs didn’t sync…  So thinking that might extend throughout the Library… yeah…

Not only iTunes 7.7.1 “move” files from my 1tb MyBook external and into my other 1tb MyBook external which is my Time Machine, and not just to there, to inside of email account archives.  WHAT THE F*CK?!

So guess what I get to do?  I get to reload my entire iTunes Library.  Anyone that knows me probably knows that I have quite the iTunes Library of music, movies, television shows, applications, podcasts, games, audiobooks and then some; we are talking over 700gb of data.

Now I have no stats on my music, no play counts, skip counts, ratings…

Now I cannot sync to AppleTV or to my iPods or iPhones because I can’t do smart playlists.  I cannot say pick the newest 5gb, I can’t say choose the Top 1,000 Played, I can’t say pick the Top 5gb Top Rated…

I had stats on over 35,000 songs and over 1,400 television shows and 80 movies…

So now what?  Now I call Apple, first thing in the morning and bitch bitch bitch.

Never have I hated Apple, but this is really getting me close to that point.

Moreover, I have more stuff to bitch about.  iTunes refuses to Sync my Microsoft Exchange accounts from Mail to my iPhone 3G.  It also doesn’t store my iPhone Apps on the proper drive, they go to my Macintosh HD not my iTunes drive.

So much of this could be prevented by iTunes storing song ratings and play counts within the files just as MediaJukebox did.

It’s official, I’m pissed off.

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Stop the iPhone Backup Madness

Thanks to Gizmodo for this one, here’s how you stop the backup process on your iPhone from ever happening.  Chances are you only will need to back up once-in-a-while.  I didn’t know I needed a backup for my phone in the first place!  Here are the steps to take.

1. - Quit iTunes.
2. - Open Terminal.app
3. - Copy and paste this in, then hit return:
defaults write com.apple.iTunes DeviceBackupsDisabled -bool true
4. - Open iTunes
5. - Plug in your iPhone (2.0 or 3G) and sync.

It will take a few seconds, assuming you don’t have a ton of music or podcasts.

Changing the ‘true’ in step 3 to ‘false’ will re-enable the backup feature.

I’d probably recommend backing up once a week or each night while you sleep. With the new 2.0.1 firmware these problems are supposed to be fixed. Just switch False/True as needed and you can backup on your schedule.

It’s that easy.  Now you can sync and go!  No more watching the entire Dr. Horrible Sing-Along while you wait.

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Microsoft vs. Apple

This just might be the nerdiest, funniest and greatest comparison of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.  It’s a thing of beauty.

Tags: Apple, Bill Gates, Current.tv, Hilarious, Just My Nerdiness, Microsoft, Star Wars, Steve Jobs, Video

iPhone 3G - It’s Mine

After waiting a day to get the iPhone and avoid the massive lines and over night stays required to get one on the first day, Ryan and I packed up early and headed to San Antonio where we waited in a short line (we were number 22) for the new iPhone.

They told us they had 36 on hand in the store, 5 black 16gb, 10 white 16gb, and the rest black 8gb iPhones.  Of course I wanted a 16gb and of course I wanted it in black.

Unfortunately, or so I thought, the last black 16gb iPhone was sold to the guy in front of me.  However, the white one is’nt so bad after all.  In fact, I like the look o the white one more than the black one so I guess in a way, I lucked out.

We got the phone no problem, I got the black inscipio case and the really nice screen protectors and pulled out my laptop to finish the setup.  We figured we might as well get it all activated before leaving the store, should there be any problems.

I used my Verizon Wireless wifi card to get on the Internet and in no time at all my phone was activated and syncing up my music and applications.

I didn’t have any of the troubles other people were having in the day before and the entire deal went over just perfectly, despite was Chris Pirillo has been incessently blogging.  Direct fulfillment was your own mistake Chris…

Anyways, I digress.  The AT&T people did the best they could and everything went so perfectly and smoothly, not a single hiccup.

So far the new iPhone 3G is everything I was promised.  Great service, great speeds, great built quality and the battery life is working out just fine for me.

No complaints from me so far but if I get anything, I’ll be sure to let you know.

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MobileMe - Finally Online

After a day and a half of Apple’s new MobileMe going up… and going down, the site is finally fully up and seemingly stable.  I have backed up my Address Book and started my first syncronization.

It is much faster at syncing compared to when it was .Mac, in fact, the sync only took a few seconds.  That’s pretty impressive.  Now to switch from using Google Calendar and move to iCal with push calendar capabilities.

Wonder if I can get Ryan to make the switch… Hmmmm

Tags: Address Book, Apple, Google Calendar, ICal, iPhone, iPhone 3G, Just My Nerdiness, MobileMe, Ryan, Spanning Sync

The iPhone Apps I Use

So far these are the iPhone Apps that I find either addictive, highly useful or fucking awesome.  Yes.  And I only paid for one… maybe two of them.  I have over 50 apps on my iTunes now but these are the ones, so far, that I would not live without.

Tags: App Store, Apple, iPhone, iPhone 2.0, iPhone 3G, iPhone Apps, iTunes, iTunes 7.7, Just My Nerdiness, Shazam

iPhone 3G this Saturday

So it looks like I will be getting the 3G iPhone this Saturday and I need help choosing a color.  Should I get the 16gb iPhone in Black or White?  I really appreciate your votes on this!

I am leaning towards to the black iPhone, looks sleek and should not show dirt as easily.  The white is luxurious but kinda not my style, I think… Hmmm… Either way they will be in a case.

Last night I had a dream I was getting my iPhone, the AT&T store was guarded by Apple employees with machine guns.  It was scary.

Tags: Apple, AT&T, Buy, Help, iPhone, iPhone 3G, Just My Nerdiness, Money, Poll, Smartphones