Oliver Siodmak’s Rants & Raves

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Many years ago I was sharing a cab with a friend who had too much to drink. As we were getting out of the cab she stumbled directly in front of an on-coming car. I jumped out of the cab and pushed her out of the car’s path. When I was sure that we were safe I turned around and noticed that the cab we were in had taken off. About a half-hour later I received a call from a man asking if I had “lost anything?”. I responded “no” and the caller proceeded to describe the contents of my attache case. My shock was audible when he mentioned my day timer (life before a PDA) and my plane tickets (life before etickets) for my flight the next day. Fortunately the caller was honest and realized the bag he found in his cab was accidentally left there. Rather than rely on the cab driver to return it to me he left the cab with my bag and called the number on the name tag. I was able to pickup the bag from his doorman the next day on the way to the airport. The good Samaritan refused to accept any sign of my appreciation. I am still very grateful by his act of kindness.

It was this experience that made me pause when I read Tech Crunch’s latest public services announcement reminding everyone to double check for their personal belongings when exiting a cab. According to a Telegraph survey, 10,000 phones are left in the back of a cab every month. From my personal experience I can tell you how easy it is to do. Especially when we are increasingly forced to multitask while traveling.

A colleague I know recently left their laptop in a cab on the way to the airport because he was too focused on his conference call. It wasn’t until he was going through security before he realized his bag with his laptop was missing. Fortunately he had the cab receipt and immediately called the cab company # and reported the item missing. His and my story are some of the few stories I know of where a person’s property were returned to them, laptop included!

Since it is hard to simply “refrain” from focusing on only traveling when traveling, it is important to take a moment when getting out of a cab, limo, bus, plane, rental car, etc. and double check that you have all your belongings with you. As Smokey the Bear always says, “Only you .. can make sure you have all your stuff”.

UK’s The Sun newspaper pokes a few friendly jabs at Apple and other handheld devices as it celebrates it’s 40th year of publishing. In the video The Sun highlights that they have built in games (with “pen” interface), 26″ color display and easily shareable content. The video is very humorous and reminds us all that print isn’t completely dead .. yet.

Interested in getting a MacBook Pro as a first your first laptop or a second machine as a backup? I just posted my MacBook Pro 15.4″ 2.33 GHz for sale on eBay (Auction #250467093464).

This MacBook Pro 15.4″ 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo has been my primary work machine for the past 1.5 years. I have upgraded both the RAM (3 GB) and hard drive (320 GB). Original display and both batteries were replaced 3 months ago under AppleCare warrantee.

The MacBook Pro specifications are a MacBook Pro 15.4″ 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo w/:

• 3 GB RAM
• 320 GB Hard Drive
• Dual Layer Super DVD Drive
• Built-in iSight Camera
• Built-in 802.11n Airport Extreme (WiFi)
• Built-in BlueTooth (v2.1.6g8)

Package also includes:

• 2nd battery w/ black battery carrying case
• Mac OS X Leopard installed (disks not included) and upgraded to 10.5.7
• Original restore DVDs
• Apple iLife ‘09 installed (disks not included) and upgraded with latest updates
• Original Box and documentation
• Applecare TechTools disk
• Remaining AppleCare service (coverage expires on 11/25/09)
• Speck “see-thru” hard shell case (plastic case that protects your Mac)
• Marware leather wrist rest

The machine is in great condition but does show signs of being used; Command, Shift and N keys are slightly worn, exterior case shows some scratches.

AppleCare coverage includes telephone and in-store Apple Genius hardware and software support.

Reason for selling: Recently upgraded to 17″ MacBook Pro

Check out the auction on eBay (Auction #250467093464)

This trick has been out there a while but I only recently rediscovered that you can actually send an SMS message to an AT&T cell phone using @txt.att.net as the email address.

So if your friend’s phone number is (917) 555-1212 and they are on the AT&T network, address the email to “9175551212@txt.att.net”. Then simply type the message in the subject field. Since phone companies used to limit the message limit to 160 characters (20 longer then a Twitter message), it is best to keep your messages brief and to the point. Also the entire email (body content including signature) is sent in the text message, you may want to delete any body content before hitting the send key.

Example:mach zehnder modulator

TO: 9175551212@txt.att.net
SUBJECT: Hey .. Have a Great Day!

Then hit the SEND key .. it’s that simple.

For a full listing of cell phone SMS addresses, check out SMS411’s site.

Happy texting!

Unlike the iPhone upgrades experienced by 2G and 3G users over the past 2 years, my upgrade to the new 3G S was simple and quick. After sync’g my 2G iPhone to iTunes (creating a fresh backing up) I was able to connect my new 3G S iPhone to iTunes, select the phone number to move to the phone, activate it and restore all my apps, music, video and data. The restore (about 7.5GB) took about 20 minutes.

The conversion

After the restore was complete I was able to send and receive calls from the new phone! That is a huge improvement over last year. (Your mileage may vary). Another HUGE benefit to me is that I am still able to use all of my 2G iPhone’s features except to make phone calls. Using WiFi I can send and receive calls via Skype, take and upload pictures and of course play music and videos. Rather than sell my 2G iPhone I plan to use it as a spare entertainment device for my son.

When you restore data to the iPhone 3G S there are a few things you need to do update on the device. They include:

• Set email account passwords
• Set Voicemail password
• Reconfigure over WiFi “pairing” for apps that sync wirelessly

Almost everything else worked immediately without any configuration changes. To update over WiFi application pairing check the preferences panel in each application and follow their pairing instructions. For THINGS, which I use daily on the Mac, I was able to simply “un-pair” the old iPhone and configure pairing with the new device.

Should I upgrade?

The challenge of explaining the benefits of the 3G S to an interested listener is that the phone consists of two upgrades; OS and hardware. On the OS side, v3.0 of the iPhone OS provides a number of benefits including support for Cut & Paste and Spotlight search as well as a ton of minor upgrades to bundled iPhone apps (i.e., Camera, Mail, etc.). Application developers also have an amazing number of new features accessible to include in their applications via the iPhone v3.0 SDK. I have been beta testing V3.0 on my 2G iPhone for 2 weeks and the improved OS is a wonderful upgrade (free to iPhone owners) and well worth installing and testing before you decide to replace your 2G or 3G device.

One really nice feature of the v3.0 OS is “Find iPHone”. This is the ability to locate your phone via Apple’s Mobile Me service. If you have an active Mobile Me account, you can not only locate your phone on a Google Map, you can also send your phone a message. The phone will play a tone for up to two minutes with the message displayed as an alert on the screen. You can also remotely erase your phone if it truly is lost. I was able to test the map location feature on the 3G S and the alert message on the 2G (see picture above).

The hardware benefits of the new phone are nothing to scoff at either. The 3G S sports a faster processor and double the RAM. You can also select storage sizes of 16GB or 32GB. Most of the apps I tested load and run much faster than they did on the 2G. The higher resolution camera with “touch to focus” provide better, sharper pictures and the compass is an excellent addition if you use Google Maps frequently. I also noticed a huge improvement in cell coverage on the 3G S. Phone calls that would drop or not connect from within my apartment worked very well on the new phone.

Conclusion

In summary, if you have a 2G phone and you want both the hardware benefits I have outlined above upgrade to the new 3G S. If all you really want are the software benefits, upgrade to the v3.0 firmware and try it out for a week or two. That will be more than enough time to decide if you need the speed the 3G S provides.