myPhone to go

As of yesterday, I'm a happy owner of a black 16GB iPhone 3G with an Orange plan. That's why my "old" one (after all, it's all of three months old) is now up for sale here, and it already finds quite keen interest. Which is unsurprising because I've pwned it (there's a new word for you!) for OS X version 2.0 with the Pwnage tool and paying close attention to this and this indispensable tutorial. The procedure is not as fool proof as Ziphone's (which is not available yet), but that's less a matter of IT knowledge rather than of dexterity in hitting the right buttons at the right time ... good luck!

At this point, an upgrade to 2.0 is not urgent for iPhone classic owners who use a lot of installer apps, because most of them have not been upgraded to the new OS version, yet. But there is one case where it's advisable to upgrade, and that's if you want to sell it. Only version 2.0 has a safe delete feature with which you can remove safely all the information you've put on your phone. If you don't do that, the buyer can get access to all your info quite easily. So, for once, it's seller beware!

Swan Upping

Haven't we talked about Swans before? Here's an interesting video on HM Swans - enjoy!

Subscribe to keep

About a week ago, I subscribed to the download membership that is newly on offer at Magnatune. Magnatune is an extremely fair online music label with a selection & quality of classical music, jazz and world that is very much my cup of tea. With the download membership, it got that much better: for $54, you get three months of free download access to all of their program. Did I mention quality? You can choose between a number of different formats, including AAC and full quality WAV. Unlike with other subscription models, you don't loose your music when your membership expires. Very good value indeed!

Size matters!

This is a technology forecast of sorts. It is the result of using iPhone for the last few months, confirming my suspicion that iPhone indeed is the game changing device that it is heralded to be. Those who say that there's nothing new about it in technology terms are right, of course. But they suffer a very common geek mistake: it's not the feature set that counts, it is the mainstream ease of use of those features. Recently, I've had quite a enlightening insight into how that works when I showed my iPhone to a Lady in her seventies who had never even used a PC. Within minutes or less, she was happily zapping through photos, zooming & rotating, and she looked up stuff on the Maps app. I am pretty sure she is going to have one of her own soon, if they are available at all. I'm expecting my black 16 GB iPhone 3G with an Orange plan on Monday.

But that was no forecast, that's reality. iPhone shines because of its ingenious user interface with multitouch. As with every innovation, multitouch is now being tried on other devices such as laptops or computer screens. And here's my forecast: Those are going to fail utterly. Why? iPhone works because you hold it in your hand, so you can easily wipe its screen on your sleeve to get rid of those fingerprints. I'm doing that Monk-like almost whenever I use it. But try that with a laptop or - worse - a computer screen ... QED.

Email in Schönenbuch

Die Weltwoche ist zwar auch nicht mehr, was sie mal war (daher ist sie jetzt auch abbestellt), aber wenn sie schon die Gastrokritik eines der beiden Restaurants meines Wohnorts bringt, muss sie zitiert werden: "Email hat hier drin noch nichts mit elektronischer Post zu tun, sondern ist ein Schmelzüberzug, mit dem man vor Urzeiten Reklameschilder verzierte". Gute Idee - lies selbst.

Classical music with shining eyes