Anyway… the one thing to manage in these situations is your expectations. I didn’t expect my dream phone to be announced. I expected them to update the iPhone 4. Now what I had HOPED for was completely different. I had HOPED they would give it a larger screen, maybe a little more power, and some OS tweaks that I’d like to see. I got 1 out of 3 (we already knew what iOS5 was going to bring anyway).

I could have put an iPhone 4 photo here and you wouldn't know the difference.

So when they announced the 4S, I got what I expected but not what I hoped for. Leading up to that day I was debating what to do. Would I get a new iPhone? I certainly wanted to. Jen was waiting for an upgrade too. Her 3GS was getting quite… old. I wanted something more though. I didn’t want to feel like I was just buying another iPhone 4 with a faster processor and a “better” camera.

Suddenly, a challenger appeared…

Now there are Apple fanboys and Android fanboys… and most of them are annoying as fuck and talk trash about the other for really no reason other than they’re complete morons. There are some times when I could be classified as an Apple fanboy… but I have always respected Android. Not only for what it has brought to the table in terms of competition – but for actually being a worthy alternative. I’ve said many times that if I had money to throw away (hahaha) I would add another line to my plan and get some sort of Android device so that I could have one of each and learn from both.

GalaxyS2

Well… I didn’t really get to that part of my plan… but let’s just get to the point: iPhone 4 is gone (now Jen’s) and I bought a Samsung Galaxy S II. It’s running Android 2.3.4, is ridiculous thin, crazy light, and has a huge, gorgeous (AMOLED) screen. It’s pretty awesome.

Truth be told, those are basically the (hardware) options I was HOPING for with a new iPhone. Ah well… maybe next time. No, seriously… if they announce a new iPhone next year as usual and it turns out to be brilliant, I’ll probably be getting that and get rid of the GalaxyS2. Nothing against the awesome Samsung… but I’m hoping for something big… again.

So far, so good. I like to think I’m adjusting to my new OS world quite well. I have run into one or two “issues” so far though. Most notably with the bluetooth. My WRX’s OEM radio has built-in BT and has always worked brilliantly with the iPhone. I expected the same for the Galaxy. Apparently not. I am able to pair it without issue – but when I get back in the car with my phone, it does not automatically connect again. Ever. If I want it connected, I have to do it manually. Ever. Time. Not exactly happy about that.

My other problem was today… with my data connection… well, my lack of a data connection I guess. Was running some errands and grabbing lunch downtown and basically had no connection. Maybe once every 15 minutes a notification might pop up – but neither the built-in web browser or Firefox would load. Foursquare would not find any venues and Twitter would not find any tweets. I was not happy. I tried to reboot the phone, twice. I togged airplane mode a couple times. Still nothing. Decided to swing by the AT&T store on the way back to work – his suggestion: pull the battery and the SIM card.

My response? “So… just like I have to do every week with my BlackBerry at work?”

Seriously, that will NOT be acceptable if it were to turn into a regular issue. Time will tell though, I’m only in day 3 of Android life.

Where’s my Goldilocks plan?

It’s a shared data plan. And I want it now.

And now, 4 iPhones, each on the 2gb plan, we’ll be paying $100/mo JUST in data, for an available 8gb of data per month.

In the last 6 months, with 3 iPhones on the plan (paying a total of $75 per month for an available 6gb of data per month), we have used a TOTAL of 5.5gb of data. That’s all three lines. Combined. For 6 months. And in those same 6 months, we’ve used an average of 900mb per month – COMBINED – all while I’ve been paying for 6gb per month. So basically I’m paying $75 a month and using about $11 worth of data.

I have a Family Talk plan. Where’s my Family Data plan? How hard is it to give me 3gb of data per month to share between all of my iPhones… for around $35? Need more? How about a 5gb shared plan for $50 per month?

I can think of no other reason to NOT do this other than pure greed. Why would AT&T want to simplify things and save me money when they can fuck me over every month for $100 worth of data that I’m not using? Sure, an obvious answer might be “so just use more data and get your money’s worth” … OK, but that’s not a solution. I’m not going to try to use data for the sake of using data. That’s just dumb.

So… AT&T… how about you go “above and beyond” for me and give me a reasonable, shared data plan? That is of course, if you actually mean what your website says:

“AT&T goes above and beyond to serve our customers.”

Or is that just a bunch of PR crap?

As with the other one, you can either save the image from here or click on it and save the one that pops up.

As with the other one, if you would like to see either one of these in a specific resolution or for a specific device, feel free to comment and let me know what you want and I’ll see what I can do.

Subaru iPhone Wallpaper

In trying to keep my mind off of other things, I thought I’d make a new wallpaper tonight for my phone. I’m sure there are plenty of them out there… but I haven’t seen any specifically like this. So here you go… if you like it, feel free to use it and share. This particular one is 960×480 (optimal for iPhone 4, but should work just fine on other models). I did it that size so that it was very high quality.

If there’s a specific resolution you’d like with this same image on it, just comment and I’d be happy to whip it up and post it for you or email it – whichever…

So to use it, you can either click the image on the right and then save that when it pops up – or just right click the image you see here and save that. They both point to the same thing.

If you want to get it directly on your phone, you can scan this QR code and go directly to the URL of the image to save it there.

The story goes like this: People that have jailbroken their iPhone can use certain apps to enable tethering/hotspot features for free. The very same features that AT&T would like to charge its users for.

Up until now, it didn’t seem like they cared too much about it (publicly at least, internally they probably wanted to smack these people in some way). Well, that smack down appears to have come in the form of text messages and emails stating that these people are using these services without having an appropriate data plan.

It goes on to say that if AT&T does not hear back from you by 3/27, that they will automatically enroll you in one of those appropriate data plans (DataPro + Tethering) for what amounts to an additional $20/month.

From my perspective, there are 2 parts to this…

AT&T wants to be compensated for features that it provides that people are not paying for. This is understandable but there is also the argument that if I’m already paying for my 2GB of data (or whatever) that I should be able to use up that data anyway I want to. If that includes tethering or mobile hotspot or whatever, that should not be AT&T’s concern. I think this is pretty sound logic and comes down to AT&T wanting to nickel and dime everyone to death to save their bottom line.

The other side is that people are purposely using these “unauthorized” methods of tethering and hotspots for the sole reason of avoiding paying those fees. Now if there is a correct service offering for what you’re doing, and you’re not paying the fee for that service, that’s kind of stealing (in a VERY broad sense of the term). So regardless of the correctness of AT&T wanting to nickel and dime people, those people should be paying for the service they’re using – if there is a legitimate offering for it.

I happen to not use this service in any way, authorized or unauthorized… but my first thought is that these people who are using the “free” services that are going to be super pissed at AT&T should actually do something about it. Don’t like their policy? Don’t want to pay the fee they’re about to force you to pay? Drop your service. Leave the carrier. Go get a Verizon iPhone. Do something.

Whining about how much you hate AT&T for doing this will do NOTHING to fix it. Show them that you really don’t like what they’re doing by not giving them anymore of your money. If you continue to go along with something that you don’t like, the ONLY message you’re sending is that it doesn’t bother you enough to actually do something about it – instead just enough for you to be a whiny bitch on the internet about it.

Step one: Acquire iPhone. Go download Echofon for Twitter (available in Free or Pro versions – difference is no ads in Pro). Once you have your account setup in Echofon, do the following:

1. Click Menu in the upper left.
2. Then Account Options at the bottom.
3. Select Mute in the middle.
4. Under the Client section, click New Item.
5. Enter “foursquare” as the new item (no quotes).
6. Follow the upper left breadcrumbs back to your timeline.
7. Done.

That’s all there is to it. Now you can enjoy a check-in free timeline! You can also filter out anything else you want based on it’s application. For example, to filter Gowalla checkins, just enter “gowalla” as the Client – since it is the Gowalla app that sends those tweets.

You can also filter tweets on your desktop using Tweetdeck as well as on twitter.com using Greasemonkey and a simple script!

By the way… if you find yourself swamped with checkins from your friends and do not want to have to filter them all out – you may also consider suggesting to them to not share every checkin to Twitter in the first place.

So what’s a guy to do if he doesn’t want to run out and buy a new printer? Well, when it was announced, I was hoping they’d be nice enough to include support for printers connected via Airport Express. I mean, it’s another Apple product… sharing a printer… wirelessly… I kind of though it made sense.

Apparently the people at Apple did not, as even then, other printers are not supported.

So in come the people at Collobos… they now offer a solution for both Windows and Mac to let you print to your non-AirPrint-compatible printer from your iDevice. Their FingerPrint software does just what it offers… lets you print to your printer from your device.

I installed the trial on my Win 7 machine and was able to successfully print an email attachment from my iPad without issue. It found the printer immediately and printed right out. Also found the printer fine on my iPhone 4 (though I didn’t bother testing the print).

It looks like the trial is for 7 days. That’s not bad and gives you full functionality – which also includes sending a file directly to the computer or via Dropbox. But you have the option of selecting and deselecting specific printers/functions with the software. Thing is, I now have to use these 7 days to decide if I want to buy it.

It’s only $10 for Windows ($8 for the Mac version)… but I’m trying to think of when I’d actually need to print from my iPad or iPhone. I typically use my Win7 system for any documents and editing work – so the printing comes directly from that. So while the price is great, I’m just not sure if I’d really use the software.

But that’s just me. I’m sure many people have been waiting for this.

There are currently 35 different smartphones available in the US according to Google. And that’s across multiple carries and manufacturers!

You know how many iOS smartphones there have been in total? Just 4. On one carrier.

Why is this even a story? Of course Android is going to top iOS in subscriber base. It has had probably 10x the devices available! Look… I’m not knocking Android. I’d actually love to try it (was telling the g/f the other day if I had the money, I’d add a line and get a 2nd phone just to play around with it). But the problem here are the news outlets reporting this shit.

Not once in that Engadget article does someone mention the number of devices available for each. Why bother? Sensationalist headlines always work better than the real thing (just look at mine!). Of course the story is taking hits in the comments for this reason… but would it kill them to maybe throw in a sentence about it in the main text? Apparently it would.

I love seeing Android do well. I love seeing iOS do well too (who really cares about BlackBerrys anymore though?). But let’s try to report things for what they are.

Next thing you know there will be a story that computers running the Windows OS have a larger user base than those running Mac OS…

I like Apple stuff. Some people might even say I’m a “fanboy” … that’s fine. But at least I’m not a total douche about it and can respect another company’s hard work and effort for what it is. Here, watch how easy this is…

Android is great OS that obviously has a myriad of uses. I have absolutely no problem admitting that it is at the least on par with anything Apple is doing. If I were to take some time to compare the two, I’m sure that I would find specific things that Android has done better with than Apple (and likewise I would be able to find specific things that Apple has done better than Android)… in a totally subjective manner anyway.

Thing is they’re both great. And without one or the other – the remaining may not innovate as much as they do together. Why push for new functions and features if there is no competition? That’s just speculation of course, I’m sure they would innovate in some way – but at this pace?

So please… if you want to show your love for Apple or Android, just be a human being about it. Stop being such a fucking douche on every forum and blog you find. Support your favorite but try to show some respect for its competitor.

Not too long ago I reported about just another sad attempt of someone trying to scam me out of something on Craigslist. It was a quite sad and pathetic attempt (to me) – though I feel like there are many that would likely follow through with it and lose out…

Anyway, I was again the “victim” of another attempt today… but not from Craigslist.

For those of you that don’t know, I currently have my iPhone 3GS on eBay in lieu of receiving my iPhone 4 (later today? please?). One thing you might notice is that these scammers – of any sort – love electronics. They’re big targets for these people. Anyway, like I said, I have my iPhone on eBay…

I got an email about it that looked like this…

From: Flora Cole (flocole01@gmail.com)
To: me (duh)
Subject: Apple iPhone 3GS 16 GB Black iOS 4 – FREE SHIPPING Item number: 180523766658

And yes, that is my actual auction title and listing number… the body of the message was this…

Hello,

Is this Item still available for sale?

Regards..

Uh… why yes, it is. Thank you for asking. There are two VERY red flags about this… First, if it is about an auction on eBay, it was not sent via eBay’s messaging system (can be verified by logging into eBay and checking your My eBay section for waiting messages). Secondly, the body of the message does not mention anything specific about the “item.” This second part is actually something you would also see with the Craigslist scams.

Already knowing what is happening, I decide to get cute… and reply.

Yes it is… which is why the auction is still posted on eBay.

Wait, and ye shall receive.

I’ll be so glad to purchase the item from you asap and payment method is via paypal which i believe is fast and secure.i will pay you $320.00 USD for the item including shipment via USPS.Pls Let me know if we can still complete the deal today…Shipping address is below…

Engr J Anthony
150 Oluyemi Avenue Ajaka Makun
Sagamu
Ogun State
121101
Nigeria

Pls get back to me with the total cost of the item including postage via USPS..also include your PayPal account email address…

O RLY?

Now do I actually have to explain how many levels of wrong this is? And how many flags this should immediately throw up for someone? I really hope not. Nigeria? USPS? Paypal? USD? Grammar? The biggest surprise for me is that the email address was the same this time. When this happened before, the reply email from the scammer was from a separate address (even though the name was the same).

So… did I reply? Of course I did! It uh… wasn’t polite though. You may want to just close the window now if you may be offended by bad things. No, seriously, this is on another level from most of my other stuff (the last part is anyway). Consider yourselves warned.

I fucking knew it…

How about you pay me “fuck off you stupid scammer” … and THEN I’ll
mail it to you.

Do you think people are still this dumb? You email someone with no
actual mention of the item… not using the eBay messaging service…
and just ask if it is available? What’s the matter? Not getting as
many scams from Craigslist anymore and have to use eBay to rip people
off?

Seriously, you people can go fuck yourselves in every hole you have
with a stick of razorblades.

The end!