Rev’s Thought Dump

Remember.  Setting variables to null doesn’t necessarily mean null. I had an Enum variable that I would set once.  So I’d declare it:

Values MyValue = null;

Then, in the natural order of things I’d check to see if it was null and assign it the current value if it was.  But, oddly enough it was never null. I forgot in obj-c (or c in general) unless you specifically set a pointer it’s pointing at god knows what.  So I added a None value to my enum and made sure to set it up as such:

Values MyValue = Values.None;

I really haven’t been updating this very often have I? Probably because I spend so much time fighting with IE.

Just a quick heads up. I’ve talked about Mono in the past. Get your C# app on any platform. Now they’ve released MonoTouch.

MonoTouch allows you to develop iphone apps in you favorite .Net/Mono language and compile it down to run on the iPhone. You can use Xcode’s Interface Builder to edit the views and layout.

When complete your app it just like any other and can be submitted to the App Store.

This is a licensed and for pay tool. But you can download MonoTouch to evaluate and it’d fully functional, save the ability to build to your iphone (You can test in the simulator).

Have a look. I’m porting the app I was previously working on to it and we’ll see how it goes.

Just got back from picking up my iPhone Stencil from Design Commission. The stencil looks nice. Look forward to using it as soon as I get a chance to design one of my ideas. Got to email a company and see if they’d have my app pulled if I did it. We’ll see.

Oh, and 3rd and Yesler is a pit! Like one of the lower levels of hades. Uggg.

Okay, I posted earlier about having issues logging into your gmail account on the iPhone or via Pidgin for google chat.  I started running into this problem again only on the iPhone and only when I was on edge/3G. Here’s how I got it working again.

Recently I got my phone replaced and synched with my computer.  For what ever reason the accounts that synched back were faulty.  So what I did was to delete each account from the phone and then recreate it.  But first, for each gmail account I went to this link: https://www.google.com/accounts/UnlockCaptcha and unlocked it.

You might recall in the previous post I had a link to a similar page on google’s site that could prompt with a captcha if locked.  But this takes you right there and get’s the job done.  Again, just search Google’s site for UnlockCaptcha.

After unlocking and recreating the accounts everything seems to be working perfectly again.  Go figure.

I’m getting this occasionally.  Where I can’t log into my gmail in the mail client on the iphone or into google chat with pidgin.  Though, oddly enough I’m still perfectly capable of logging into my gmail account via the browser. I believe it most often occurs when I have something set incorrectly and it repeatedly tries the incorrect password for an account.

In this case I had just restored my iPhone backup to the new phone I got over the weekend ( had dust behind the screen so they gave me a new one). When it restores it doesn’t fill in your passwords for you and apprently this can result in several failed attempts to connect.  I don’t know why it didn’t prompt me for the correct password, even though my Exchange account at work popped up an invalid password notice.

Anywho, like I said I’ve had this happen a few times now and it’s always really annoying and I tend to forget how to clear the issue. But since, like I said, this just happened.  I’m going to go ahead and post the solution here. For you. And for myself.

Simply go to https://www.google.com/accounts and log into your account.  It should prompt you again to login but this time present you with a captcha.  Login one more time, filling in the captcha, and tada!  All done!

In a time of phising attacks and the like, I wouldn’t blame you for not wanting to just follow my link.  So here is the link to the Google knowledge base article.

And if that doesn’t make you feel secure, just google for “How do I unlock my Google Account”

Good, now let’s hope I remember to look here first next time.

So, the first thing it does upon restarting and reactivating is start another terribly long back up.  Didn’t we just back up about 5minutes ago when we started all this?  And.. where’s these supposed to be faster now?  Hrmm we’ll see how it goes.

So, one of the new features on the iPhone is A-GPS. When I heard about everyone and their brothers complaining that the 1st gen iPhone lacked gps I couldn’t see the point of all the fuss. Certainly if you’ve bought such an expensive phone you know where you are at all times. Or are at least within a block of a street sign. Let’s face it, it’s probably not a good idea to drag this thing out into the woods camping either.

But there has been one use I’ve had in the back of my mind. And now that I’ve got the new phone I’ve decided to give geocaching a try. (www.geocaching.com) What had also seemed silly and pointless at first, kept growing on me and now the two initially pontless things have met and given each other purpose.

I started going after my first “cache” yesterday and took a little stroll down the street from my office. The gps worked pretty well and the cache was simple to find. But it really sparked a fire with the realization that these things are everywhere and only a few of us know about them. I signed the small log included in the cache and then swapped out an item for the next person to find. All the while trying to act subtle and inconspicuous as I retrieved and then returned the cache to it’s hiding place.

I mean, what kid hasn’t wanted to be a spy at one point or another. And now I see the appeal.

So today at lunch I headed off to do a multi-waypoint cache. With a multi-waypoint the first coordinates you get lead you to a clue that you use to figure out the coordinates of the next. You’ll hop from waypoint to waypoint until you find the cache.

On this second trip I learned a few things. First, trust your first gut reaction. I stood next to the first item for a few minutes while I fiddled with the gps and read the clues. I knew it was there but just didn’t look good and hard.

The second was, maybe I need to get a good pair of gloves. I was feeling around under the lid of a light when I felt webs and debris. I pulled my hand out and down came this guy(see photo at bottom). I swear I don’t know how I wasn’t bitten.

In the end my lunch break timed out and I was a little too aprehensive to start combing the place. (You’re supposed to be sly and collected so as not to give the cache away to people who aren’t playing and might walk off with the loot.)

I tried another cache a few hours ago with the kids. I told them we were on treasure hunt and I thought they might really get into it. Boy did they ever. They made a point of trying to ask everyone who walked by if they could help us find the treasure.

In the end I didn’t find the last cache on that one either. Though it’s hard to do some good searching when you’re paranoid and your kids are screaming “Did you find the twessure yet?!” Plus I think I might have had to reach way down into some rocks and I’d learned that lesson earlier in the day.

So anywho. I’ll likely keep looking. The people are friendly (the owner of the cache I found emailed me and was encouraging), it’s fun being a spy with gadgets, and it’s something to get you outdoors and moving around.

There are many more details to the whole thing but I’ve already gone over my usual 140 characters. So hit www.geocaching.com and look into it if you’re intersted.

Hey, look at this. The wordpress guys put out an iPhone app. Pretty damn handy. Now I can fire off a blog post from anywhere. Hopefully this can help my blog compete for my attention against Twitter.

Anywho, hopefully this will breath a little life into the blog though, I have to admit that the lack of cut and past is going to make it a real pain in the ass to do links to articles and other sites. Oh well, we’ll see.

So we’re all trying to take in the full meaning of the impending 3G iPhone release. We’ve sorted out the pricing on Apple’s side of it, $199 for the 8 Gig phone and $299 for the 16 Gig.  Sorted out the AT&T side of it, +$30 to your phone plan vs. the 1st Gen +$20. And now we’re trying to figure out the 1st Gen’s worth.

People initially reported the 1st Gen market as “Sunk”. Everyone who was trying to sell off their first gen phones all supposedly groaned at once at the announcement that the 3G was going to be cheaper than the phones they’re trying to move, to of course make some cash back towards the new phone. But after a few hours of thought I think people are starting to turn that prediction around. When you consider that AT&T and Apple are making a few changes in the way they sell and activate the 3G iPhones the 1st Gen could become very sought after.

3G’s are reportedly NOT going to be available online and I can believe it given that there’s no option to pre-order. Supposedly you’re going to have to go into an Apple or AT&T store to purchase your new phone and have it activated on the spot.  A 10 – 15 minute process – an you thought you waited in line for hours LAST time.

This in store activation is supposedly meant to keep people from buying the phones in bulk to either ship overseas, or to buy with the intention of NEVER signing up for AT&T service.  So basically, like most other plan locked phones, you buy it and activate it right there before you can leave the store. I have to imagine that you’ll be able to reactivate via iTunes after that as restoring is one of the prescribed solutions for issues on the support sign.  So basically it’s to get you to pen that AT&T contract that so many iPhone buyers DIDN’T do. And if you’re looking to use the 3G on another network – or as a cheaper hopped up iTouch – you’re out of luck. (Cute that they’re initially cheaper than the touch)

Another boost for the 1st Gen phones is the difference in plan pricing.  Like I said a full $10 a month for 3G over the Edge plan. What about folks, like my old man, who live in an area that doesn’t get 3G. I don’t know if you checked but Apple and AT&T aren’t selling 1st Gen iPhones anymore, not even refurb or clearance. Is the GPS and extended battery life worth the additional $240+ over the 2 year contract? Yeah so let’s go back and look at some math $199 + $240 = $439 for the 8Gig.  And for the 16Gig $299 + $240 = $539.

Now, I’m not trying to say screw it all, I mean, I expected the 3G to cost more.  Cause it’s full of 3G yum sauce, right? But it’d be nice to not wave the “New Low Price” around like they’re doing some sort of favor. Unless of course it works better for you to amortize it out over time. In that case, WOo HOO!  *shrug*

So, if you can score an 8 Gig for it’s original price or lower you’re still making out cheaper, same with the 16.  And that is of course assuming you don’t want/need/can make use of the 3G and GPS.

That’s the money side of it.  The other thing to note is, as I said earlier, AT&T and Apple are taking steps outside of software to keep the iPhone on the AT&T network. AT&T is aiming to at least get an early termination fee out of you by making you sign on the line when you pick up the phone. If, like me, you’re fine with AT&T the lack of unlocking is probably not such a big deal.  But who knows what changes they’ll have on the software side going forward.

Reports have it that Firmware 2 is already “jailbreakable” via a method that it is improbable that Apple will be able to correct. But what about going forward? Jailbreaking may prove more difficult on the 3G phones. Though, since I’m not intimately familiar with the process – besides clicking the button that says “Jailbreak me” I could be speaking to a moot point.

But firmware does bring up an interesting point about support.  It’s clear that Apple no longer intends on shipping any Edge iPhones. That ship has sailed.  But what is their commitment to keeping the firmware current between the two? I kind of think that 2.0 is going to have everything I’m going to want from Apple and the App Store will likely fill the gaps (And don’t forget 3rd party apps via jailbreaking).

But how long before its “obsoleted”? The turn over rate on iPods is already pretty high. But I’m the weird kind of guy who still has my 4Gig Nano and held onto my first Nokia cellphone for 4 years. I don’t foresee buying another phone unless this one breaks, or Apple release another Rev so feature packed it makes the 3G look like an old brick phone. I just hope it’ll be supported that long.

A bit of info. Even though you can’t find the information anywhere (without digging), AT&T is still activating 1st Gen iPhones with the initial price packages. So if you can find an Edge phone you can save yourself $10 a month.

I think that’s all I meant to say.  I got interrupted part way through writing and kind of lost the train of thought there.  But in summation, the 1st Gen is on the road NOT to being shunned and trashed, but most likely coveted for it’s cheaper data plan, easy jailbreaking and unlocking, and simple nostalgia at being the 1st of the iPhone family. Plus I know people buying them up to ship to poor shunned and 3Gless China.

Grab ‘em while you can.

I’m turning off the iPhone specific theme/plugin for a bit because I noticed, for what ever reason, it causes wp-hashcash to throw out your comment with a nasty message when using the theme.

I don’t know why.  The hooks are there for hashcash.  But it just chucks the comment.  Doesn’t even offer it up to me for review.  So until i can figure it out, and since the iphone browser is “uber” I’ll just leave the theme off.

Let me know if you care.