I guess it is a sort of milestone this week with the eXtensions podcast reaching 200. That means I have been doing this for almost 4 years. Is it time to stop? The main item this week is the second of those I am doing on the 3G iPhone.

Uses of an iPhone (2): Home and Abroad

I think one of the main problems for me in using the iPhone has been the hidden cost due to my own misunderstanding. I found last week that my DTAC number had been cut owing to excess use and going over the credit limit, so I called in on Thursday to find out why. Part of the reason was the amount of time the number was used to make calls while I was in the UK. As the SIM card wasn't even in the iPhone then, that is just simple overuse.

The other major part of the fees was indeed data and when I checked with the helpful DTAC lady, she got a print-out for me of the calls and we looked at the way the account was run. Of course, I had had the number for over 10 years and when I got it no one gave a thought to data use: at least not the amount we can use now. I ended up by adding 99 baht to the current monthly charges which allows me much more data access and hence lower charges overall.

A note ON the visit to DTAC. When I can I go to their fairly large establishment at Central Pinklao, rather than Central World or Siam Paragon, for the simple reasons that the ladies there are always polite to me and I always come away happy. Once or twice in other branches that has not been the case.

I can't say I was too happy with the Register last week. Not a couple of hours after I posted the podcast that included a reference to Apple's KB article on static, which clearly stated that this was a problem with all such devices, I was annoyed enough to send out a feed item when the Register seems to have deliberately missed the "other devices" reference and made this an Apple-only problem.

The next morning, there was an article on the expected degradation of GPS satellites as they are getting old and the USAF has no plans for proper replacement as yet. Bearing the number of devices and systems that have to use GPS to work properly, or sometimes at all, how the Register managed to turn this into another jibe at Apple was a mite beyond me and the paragraph introducing unnamed cameras and unnamed car navigation systems, was also just flat wrong on the iPhone which uses 3G and Skyhook as well as GPS for locations. So if GPS goes, there is still a spare string to that bow for iPhone users.

And then on Friday, they built up a story concerning Apple summer sessions for schoolkids aged 8 - 12 into a sort of indoctrination camp, even though the parents have to be present.

One of their more sensible writers is Rik Myslewski and he redeemed the Register on Monday with a couple of lists: the top ten best and the top ten worst iPhone apps. Then they add another ten of each. My link is to the print version which gives the whole list rather than clicking through all of the pages. The number one of the goodies is a beaut of an app, called LogMeIn Ignition, that allows remote login to a Mac or a PC so that the iPhone user can help with troubleshooting. The only problem is its $29.99 price: one to save for, methinks.

We mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the iPhone imaging software was being improved and that users of the beta already have better images. We hear now that there are new cameras in the offing. These won't go in the current iPhones of course, but there is likely to be an iPhone update, and T-Mobile in Austria accidentally confirmed a 32G version on its site. They may also go into other devices. What they are, is as yet unknown, but there has been talk of a better iPod touch and even an iPod nano with a camera.

I have a slight problem with an iTunes gift card a friend in the UK bought for me while I was there. To cut down the chances of it not working, I am using the UK store, but the moment I start looking, I look some more, then flit from artist to artist, album to album and end up with nothing. For someone who has not had access to this before, there is too much to see. I am sure I will get over it.

Thus far, having now made a couple of decisions, the moment I put in my account details to redeem the card, I was blocked. You belong in the Thai shop and no music for you, even if it was bought and paid for already. So I created another account, using my UK address and offering no payment method and that was accepted. The latest Bob Dylan album and a version of the Mozart Requiem are now on my iPod.

I just found another change that occurred in the 10.5.7 update. If you have a notebook computer and the battery icon is shown in the menubar, there are now several more settings that can be accessed using that icon. Apparently as a result of popular demand.

A couple of weeks ago we called into a London gallery hoping to see some iPhone Hockneys, or is that Hockney iPhones? This week we hear that the cover of the wonderful New Yorker magazine was painted with an iPhone, partly because of the dreamy quality of the images that can be created.

It is unusual for the cover to become a story in itself, but not unprecedented as during the US presidential election a satirical cover of the Obamas caused quite a stir. The New Yorker does have the story outline and a Flash video of the process that Jorge Colombo used with the app called Brushes.

It took me 24 hours before my resolve collapsed and I purchased this and my own first daub is no danger to the likes of David Hockney. I remember Hockney saying that one of the keys was lightness of touch. I did a Google search for Hockney and iPhone art but all of those articles mentioned that there were examples of the iPhone productions on display when, as I found, they were not. None of the articles mention which app he used and only a couple have a picture. I will leave the link to the Daily Mail, as that has Hockney and a fairly good example.

I will also leave the link to the Cult of Mac site as they were in receipt of a lawyer's letter following their inclusion of a number of examples. If you remember, I asked when I went to the gallery and saw the computer produced prints, but followed the request not to photograph if they were not strictly for private use. Coward that I am, I honoured that.

There was some speculation in January by the Asian journalists attending the last Macworld Apple will participate in, concerning what might happen for the future. Well, we know that part of it lies in the Developers' Conference; but a lot of the guys wondered about CES in Las Vegas and a lot of them covered both.

We hear from CNET that there is to be a largish section set aside for Apple exhibitors. The iLounge Pavilion will be an exhibition area for products related to the Mac, iPod, and iPhone. As yet, there is no information as to whether Apple will take part officially.

The Post Business Section had an item on Monday concerning Cartier suing Apple for trademark infringement when an app was displaying one of their hi-so watch faces. Unfortunately, Apple and Cartier had resolved the problem 3 days earlier, on Friday, when Apple took the app off sale. On Tuesday evening The Register also caught on but still managed to slant it by bringing in that crying baby app. Again. Must have had a long weekend in the UK IT world.

Things were certainly slow in the US this week around computers and the like as it was the Memorial Day weekend. Brits hold theirs on a Sunday.

There was an interesting solution to a problem that afflicts iPhone users with Windows. Windows itself causes the problem by recognising the iPhone as a camera and installing a driver file in the wrong place. The file is one named USBAAPL.SYS and it needs some work to track it down.

Fortunately, a user with the quaint name of Lady Cadaver has written out the process in a forum entry and I hope, for the sake of those unlucky Windows users (unlucky because the process went wrong) that Apple moderators lock this one. That keeps it for all to read with no further postings to confuse us.

The University of Virginia has a survey of computer use of its first year students and some of the graphs they have online are revealing over the 11 years shown. Like where I am, computer ownership has increased. When I first started asking a rough survey showed 100% without computers. These days it is a rare case (usually financial) that does not show 100% ownership. Also, like Virginia, many of our students are more likely to use laptops than desktops: simple mobility and convenience figures there; and this is what I find too.

The operating system use is a bit different as while Virginia has a marked increase in OS X use, and a clear drop in Windows, there are smaller figures for my faculty. However, while 4 years ago there were no Macs in use, nowadays you can see a few often with students sharing them. A survey my students did for one of my classes, showed that while many students wanted Macs, the cost was the biggest barrier along with the widespread use of Windows.

An interesting story appeared last week which is sure to bring on the pain to some folks who cannot see the wood for the trees. Apple is relocating a server farm that is on the east coast right now to North Carolina, an area that does not have full employment and is perhaps in line to get a tax break of about $46 million as part of an incentive package.

It is also interesting in another way as Google have already relocated such a facility to North Carolina. Is there going to be a larger tie in than anyone is even thinking about right now? A good look at the basic idea behind the alleged move is in an article by MERY P. DALESIO on the AP pages.

But what is it? TUAW has a look at some of the possibilities, but didn't we hear recently that there was another Apple project on the go and Cupertino was recruiting?

Talking of Associated Press, I read last week somewhere that they are trying to get some of their long-time staff to take early retirement. Good, eh? Cut costs by cutting your experienced news staff.

I heard a rumour this week -- as if there aren't enough -- that the 3.0 upgrade for the iPhone was perhaps any day and Apple was not going to wait for the WWDC. I don't see that myself, but what do I know?

Apple did release an update to the iPod shuffle VoiceOver kit which is now at version 1.1 according to Software Update. There is:

•  Added support for Cantonese Chinese, Danish, Finnish, Korean, Norwegian, and Russian;
• Minor bug fixes for English, French, Japanese, Mandarin, Polish, and Spanish voices.

It is a 23MB download and the Software Update panel warned that it might take some time to install. It is not shown in the downloads pages and as I do not have the latest shuffle I cannot see if it appears in iTunes.

Talking of iTunes which is currently at version 8.1.1, we heard that the next release, 8.2 may have support for Blu-ray video.

I mentioned earlier a Register story suggesting Apple might be catching them young. Actually, if the Register thought about it, Apple always has, and way back in the 80s, as well as more recently, the education market has always been important.

A few days after returning from the UK, I was checking my flight times to San Francisco and I found that some of the calendars on the iPhone were showing the wrong time. I had switched the time and date facility back to non-Automatic as the DTAC SIM did not change the time, but if I changed iCal the iPhone calendar was an hour wrong and when I changed the time on iCal, it showed the correct time but the calendar panel was an hour wrong. And then I looked in the calendar settings on the iPhone. While all the other times were set right, this one was set for Hong Kong. I switched to Bangkok and all returned to normal. A couple of hours after I wrote that, I found an item on Mac In Touch that also gives advice on dealing with time zones.

Enter your search terms Submit search form