I had not used my MacBook at home under OS X for a while because it had temporarily became my main computer at work using Windows XP under Boot Camp. A few nights ago I booted it into OS X to do some browsing and the internet was so slow under OS X that I rebooted into Windows XP (Sad, I know ). I had experienced the same type of slow connections before at Starbucks but could never figure out the cause.
Tonight I had the same issue and was determined to figure out what was going on. There were a few suggestions out their about renewing your IP Address and rebooting your system, which I tried to no avail. Others said to reinstall OS X to try to fix it which I thought was going to far. Finally someone suggested changing the channel that your router was broadcasting on to try to fix it. Read more »
So my wish has come true and the ailing Washington Mutual has been scooped up by other bank Chase (or JP Morgan Chase as they like to be called). It seems that the FDIC swooped in and shut them down and Chase bought up what was left (mostly the depositors like me).
With that my wife and I have around 15 accounts with WAMU JP Morgan Chase. Obviously we will hold on to the higher interest savings accounts that we have with WAMU and now I don’t need to open a new business account with Chase as my WAMU biz account will transfer over.
I would say that the only unfortunate things about the transition is that they say that the “systems” should be integrated by the end of next year.
I received a new computer from work that while it is older has a pretty decent video card in it. I broke out the old Command and Conquer Generals and Battlefield 2 to see how they would play on my new laptop.
Command and Conquer played excellent at the highest settings which I was never able to do before. After anialating 3 hard armies I decided to try Battlefield 2. As I was installing the first disk I went to the EA website to download the latest patch which was almost 2 years old. While that was downloading I decided to check out the forum to see if anyone even played it anymore and found people wanted to but that somehow EA was not allowing servers to show up within the game anymore. The whole idea of BF2 is that you play folks online.
The whole reason that I stopped playing BF2 in the first place was EA screwing up the game by releasing terrible patches that would render the game unplayable. I had decided back then that if I was going to purchase any new games they would be Xbox games (I would have to purchase an Xbox as well of course).
EA just reminded me of that previous decision and even though I have a computer that would likely handle current games nicely I won’t be purchasing any from them for my PC. I was interested in Spore but with EA’s patch reputation and the root kit that they install on your machine as a legit customer they are not coming near any of my PC’s from now on.
As I write this my wife is at Chase opening up new checking and savings accounts so that we can move from Washington Mutual. There are a couple reasons for the switch but the biggest reason is that it seems that they are about to be scooped up by some other bank. There is a chance that Chase could buy them but I really do not want to get caught in that transition period when millions of folks are being transitioned at the same time.
The other reasons that Chase is a good switch to us is that we have our mortgage with them and they have a branch that is right down the street from our house. The closet WAMU was quite a distance so going to the bank was always “a trip to the bank”. Having a Chase bank on the corner will add to the convenience factor.
Things that I liked about WAMU were:
They never screwed up my account
They never screwed up my account and then made me convince them that they screwed up my account (unlike another bank that starts with a “B” and ends with an “A”)
They worked with me when I screwed up my account
The gave me free checks for life! (who knew it would be so short ;-( )
I hope that Chase is close to being as good of a bank as WAMU was. Farewell WAMU, you were the best bank I ever had.
Even though I did get the iPhone 3G for me - and my wife - she still had a need to blog outside of the house so she can generate a little extra money. I searched Craigslist for what kind of laptop I could get for around $300-$400 and it did not look too promising. I then looked at picking up a used Macbook but they went for $700 and up.
Previously I wanted to get an MSI Wind but the price on it was up in the Macbook range. The EEEPc felt to cheap and the new Dell mini laptop was a no-go because for the SSD hard drive (small storage and possibly no upgrade path to a larger drive). I did a little more research and landed on the Acer Aspire One mini laptop.
The Aspire One model that I got is the Windows XP Home version with 1GB of memory and a 120GB hard drive with a 8.9" screen.
Out the box the Aspire One has a great feel to it. The keyboard is not too small and has a solid feel to it (not like the EEEPc). It has an open memory slot so you can add another gig of memory and the hard drive is a standard 2.5" SATA drive. It is pretty difficult to crack the One open and runs just fine the way it is so I am not sure if I will every perform the upgrades (on my wife’s machine at least ).
It come installed with McAfee virus software (which is what I would have installed anyway) and a trial of Microsoft Office 2007 Student and Teacher addition.
I have only been messing around with it for a short period today but I have to say that it is a pretty cool machine. It is a whole lot easier to slip it in it’s little case and carry it out with you when you go to lunch then a standard laptop. It is about as thick as my Macbook but is definitely smaller in length and width. I am serious going to miss giving this to my wife as her computer and might need to pick one up for myself. At $350 you can get two Aspire One’s for the price of one used Macbook.
I will post more about my experience with it as time goes on.
Really, this is not an iPhone only blog but I have been consumed with my iPhone 3G like so many others. As you can guess I did update to the latest 2.1 firmware and now my iPhone has the old familiar stability that my 2G iPhone had.
I have seen a drastic increase in 3G availability and signal strength since the update. At my house I would usually have only one bar for 3G or full bars for Edge. Now I have four solid bars of 3G everywhere in my house.
The other significant differences that I have seen are that my contacts, SMS, and camera all load up a whole lot quicker (the camera could still be quicker though in my opinion).
My wife had been having trouble with her 3G in that it would not want to check here Gmail account. She would sometimes have to reboot it to get it to work. I updated her phone this morning and she has not had the problem since.
I think Apple may have gotten the 3G to the point of stability that my 2G phone was when I first got it (I got it about 2 1/2 months after they came out). When I got it the updates that Apple pushed out were feature updates as opposed to bug fixes.
Back when I had my 2G iPhone I would regularly jailbreak it to take advantage of the various 3rd party apps that were available via installer.app. The most useful of these apps was the iPhone Video Recorder which does exactly as it says - it allows you to record video on your iPhone. Having a video camera in your pocket proves to be useful when you have kids and want to capture those memorable moments that often happen when you DON’T have a video camera around. I like the application so much that I actually bought a license for the full unlocked version.
Anyway, the guys that developed the iPhone video recorded recently updated it to run on the 2.0+ firmware so I took the plunge and used QuickPWN to jailbreak my 3G iPhone. It was pretty simple to do and I was able to find the video camera app on Cydia and install it. The only hitch I encountered was that my unlock code that I had purchased does not work on this latest version of the video camera app. I have a support email into them for a new code so I can take video past their 30 second trial block.
One of the feature of the video camera app is the ability to upload your videos directly to YouTube from your iPhone. I shot the below video on my 2G iPhone a while back:
While it’s not the best resolution and is only recorded at 15fps it is still pretty cool. Also YouTube does it’s un-magic my re-encoding it to the Flash format which is not all that great. When I download the original mp4 files down to my computer and view them there they actually look pretty good. I really hope that either the iPhone Video Recorder team or Apple come out with a video app that can do at least 24fps as that would really be nice.
I first became aware of the 2.0.2 firmware update last night via Gizmodo and practically tripped over my daughter as I rushed to my computer to update my phone.
I, as so many others, have had some pretty major issues with reception my iPhone. This became so much more evident while I was in the Bay area last week. I already new that 3G coverage in and around the San Mateo area was not good but my experience at SFO was terrible.
At SFO I was grabbing a bite to eat while waiting for my flight and had placed my phone on the table. I sat there and watched it for about 2-3 minutes as it continuously looped from Edge to 3G to data roaming to No Service. All of this with me touching it only to revive the screen from sleeping. Seeing this caused me to understand why people are so frustrated. The words “Class Action Lawsuit” quickly sprang to my mind in thinkng about how widespread this issue may be. Read more »
So I am currently on a layover in Chicago on my way to Washington DC and during my flight I could not get one third party app to work.
Now these are sanctioned apps downloaded from the app store that I I am talking about (not jailbroken apps, my phone is not jailbroken). Evey app would take me back to the screen. At first I thought that it might be because I was playing my iPod while trying to run apps but after I got it fixed I can listen to music and blog at the same time.
The way that I was able to fix it (for some of the apps) was that I deleted my WordPress app and then reinstalled it. That caused the majority but not all of the apps to start working again. Evernote is still crashing to the desktop.
I think the possible cause could be the fact that before I got on the plane I synced my phone and the shut my MacBook down with my iPhone still plugged in. It is pretty lame if that is the cause but that is the only thing out of the ordinary that I have done.
Well I am off to DC. Hopefully I can play a game or two on the way there.
I thought I would post really quick about the 3G reception that I am getting with my iPhone 3G in the Austin & Round Rock areas here in Texas. Obviously I have only had the phone for about a week so I have been limited as to my use around both of these cities so please don’t take this as a comprehensive review. .
At the time of writing this I am at the Starbucks in Round Rock at HWY 79 and Red Bud which is near Old Settlers Park. 3G here is a single bar but if I go outside I get full bars (the cell site is down the street). I work near the Arboretum (Braker and 183) and I get 3-4 bars inside of our office building. Traveling between these two locations on Mopac and I35 has the reception vary from 1-2 bars to full bars. I have not seen any dead spots that cause my phone to revert to Edge.
In mentioning I35 I wanted to note that while driving through San Antonio and up to Austin on I35 I had 3G coverage all the way. I listened to Pandora uninterupted the entire time (which was awesome). I have not been down to south Austin so I cannot atest to how coverage is “down there” .
In comparison coverage is much better in the Austin area then it was in the Milbrae/San Mateo area in California. I was really surprised at the fact that I rarely had full bars and that my phone would switch to Edge regularly.
I hope my little rundown of coverage is helpful to anyone that is considering a 3G iPhone in the Austin area.
This is the personal website of Dan Masters of Round Rock, Texas. He is a husband to one wife, father to three kids, a Product Manager by day, and a blogger , handyman, techie, and web designer by night.
). I had experienced the same type of slow connections before at Starbucks but could never figure out the cause.
mini laptop.
).
.
