How to cancel a MobileMe trial subscription
July 29th, 2008
Since a few people have asked me, here’s the lowdown on how to cancel a MobileMe subscription within the free 60-days trial period.
Posted in Hints | Comments »
JetLink: Skitch Public beta
July 27th, 2008
A lot has been written about Skitch since it was first released as an invite-only and later as a public beta over a year ago, however I was just using it (like I seem to everyday) and was wondering why Plasq still hasn’t officially released this gem. It boasts an image editor, screenshot tool, free online image hosting, easy uploading to FTP or WebDAV servers and much much more…
So if you haven’t yet checked it out, do yourself a favour and go take a look!
Posted in JetLinks | Comments »
Jetplane Review: Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 8000
July 27th, 2008
I know a lot of Mac users have been looking for a decent bluetooth mouse for some time now and for whatever reason most manufacturers fail to get some essentials right. Most competitors are either designed only for travel use, lack an on/off switch or gobble through batteries like there’s no tomorrow. (Or in the case of the Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse, they have a scroll-ball that gunks up after a few months of use and is impossible to clean!)
For some years now Microsoft has made pretty decent peripherals and surprisingly enough their Mac support is usually not bad either. The Wireless Laser Mouse 8000 is no exception: Aside from rugged good brushed-metal looks that go great with a Mac Pro or Macbook Pro, the mouse can also be customized to your hearts content using the powerful Microsoft Mouse preference pane. But before we get into details, here’s a rundown of the main features that drew me to the Wireless Laser Mouse 8000:
Features:
- Bluetooth, so you can use your Mac’s internal bluetooth device
- Laser sensor
- Rechargeable battery and charging station
- 4-directional scroll wheel
- Additional programmable buttons
Posted in Reviews | Comments »
First look: Wordpress for iPhone
July 22nd, 2008
This is my first post using the new Wordpress application for iPhone.
Overall I must admit I’m quite impressed! The app downloaded all of my existing posts easily and whilst there aren’t any comment, design or page management features, it’s ideal for posting a quick update whilst on the go.
You can easily add images from your photo roll or new pics taken with the
iPhone’s camera to new or existing posts - something which I imagine will appeal to a lot of bloggers. Minor gripe: there doesn’t seem to be a way to specify where the images should appear in the text.
There are also no formatting controls, something obviously made difficult by the lack of drag selection on the iPhone. I could imagine that could overcome by support for markdown-style formatting.
But for a 1.0 product I think Wordpress have done a stellar job.
Posted in Wordpress, iPhone | Comments »
OpenID is a mess
July 22nd, 2008
OpenID seems like a nice idea to simplify logins and profiles on the web. The promise: Create an account with one OpenID-enabled service such as Yahoo, Wordpress or others and then you’ll be able to sign in to other OpenID-enabled services.
The reality? OpenID still has some way to go before really becoming seamless enough for the average user to use it. Most of the issues lie with the sites implementing OpenID, but from what I can see they’re pretty systemic Here’s my OpenID experience:
1st attempt: Using my wordpress account to sign up for Skribit
So I decided to sign up to Skribit. They offer OpenID support, so I decided to try that, rather than create a traditional account. First of all you’re asked for your OpenID url. If you don’t know what that is, tough luck. There’s no link with more information on what your url could look like or how you can get one.
Frustrated, I figure I’ll go to OpenID.org to find out more. OpenID.org looks like a cross between a phishing site and 1996:
Posted in Opinions, The web, UI Design | 2 Comments »
Three secret iPhone 2.0 tips
July 21st, 2008
So besides the more obvious new features, Apple has also added a fair bit of spit & polish in nooks and crannies you might not notice them. Here’s two changes and one “hack” I’ve found so far:
1. Banish Marker Felt from Notes with Chinese
Take care of Marker Felt Olympic style! It seems as though the iPhone automatically substitutes unsupported fonts when typing languages with glyphs. Simply add Chinese as an additional keyboard layout and type a single character to switch the current note’s font to Helvetica (at least I think it’s Helvetica!).
The downside? This trick needs to be done for every new note you create.
2. Improved auto-correction
The auto-correction feature now seems to work a bit better and first letter substitutions in particular seem a lot smoother: When only a single letter of a word is corrected, that change is made seamlessly, without the “drop-in” animation you get with more extensive corrections. It’s a minor detail, but it does make typing feel a lot easier.
3. Add / Edit contacts whilst on a call
You may be wondering why Apple has added a “dedicated” Contacts app, especially it offers the exact same functionality as the contacts list within the phone application. Well now you can easily lookup, add or edit contact information whilst on a call!
Posted in Hints, Opinions, iPhone | Comments »
Apple accidently charges users for MobileMe trial
July 16th, 2008
And this is why forcing users to enter credit card details to test a free trial of your somewhat troubled online service is a bad idea - here’s one users experience after signing up for a trial:
“I have just checked my card account online and apple have put a £121 pending transaction on the card! that’s not even 1 years subscription.”
Link to the relevant Apple Support Discussion thread.
Posted in Opinions, The web | Comments »
That took a while… Apple finally getting around to suing Pystar
July 15th, 2008
So it looks that whilst it took them a while to get around to it (hey - releasing highly anticipated CE devices can keep you occupied!) Apple is now finally suing Pystar.
Some have been expecting this move for a while. Whilst Apple doens’t seem to be coming down to harshly on the homebrew Hackintosh community, people selling them commercially is obviously something that hurts Apple’s business and this suit was to be expected.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the other company planning to offer a commercial hackintosh product, EFix (who have announced a USB dongle solution) is reconsidering their launch on hearing today’s news.
Posted in Opinions | Comments »
MobileMe trial now requires Credit Card & Opt-Out
July 12th, 2008
In what I believe is a change from the previous .mac trial model, Apple is now requiring potential customers to enter credit card details in order to test mobileme for 60 days. That in itself isn’t too bad, but the trial membership will now also automatically be upgraded to a full membership unless you cancel the subscription during the trial. I think requiring users to opt-out these types of trials always seems a bit dubious and isn’t the most user-friendly approach to take.
I suppose it helps to prevent people from “freeloading” by using multiple email addresses to use the service for multiple trial periods, but I find it hard to imagine anyone actually bothering to do that (especially considering some of mobileme’s features have excellent free alternatives). But I’m sure some people who have a more casual interest in the new services and want to ‘try before they buy‘ may be inclined to not bother signing up for a trial because of this.
Ideally I see a trial model where users are encouraged to enter Credit Card details, but are presented with a simple dialog window at the end of the trial period that offers a single-click option to automatically upgrade to a full membership. Sure, Apple would miss out on a few customers that simply forget to cancel the subscription, but I think the customers retained anyway would appreciate the entire experience all the more due to the “pro-customer” approach.
Posted in Mac, Opinions | 2 Comments »
First iPhone Cisco VPN client impressions
July 8th, 2008
I recently had the chance to play with an iPhone running the developer preview version of the iPhone 2.0 firmware. Aside from the AppStore, the feature I was most excited to try out was the built-in Cisco VPN client (my university’s Wifi access is restricted to clients connected to a Cisco VPN network).
Impressions and Issues
The first issue that caught my attention was the difficulty of entering your connection details manually: Don’t get me wrong: I have very few issues with the iPhone’s keyboard when entering normal words. But entering the 30 digit pre-shared key took me the best part of 10 minutes.
Luckily, according to this deployment scenario document (warning PDF link) the final release will be able to import a pre-defined, password protected connection file - just like VPN connection files can be deployed en-masse to Cisco desktop clients, so most users will probably never have to manually edit their connection details.
Once I had everything set up and running, the connection seemed to work just fine and browsing speeds seemed to be just as fast over VPN as they were on a regular Wifi connection.
Summary
Everything basically worked as advertised and I look forward to finally being able to really put my iPhone to use at University without having to rely on a slow GPRS/EDGE connection.
P.S. Conspiracy alert! Does anyone else remember that “iPhone” trademark spiff Apple and Cisco had last year? I wonder if that’s why Cisco is the only IPSec VPN gateway manufacturer to be supported on the device. At least the last sentence of the press release seems to imply some sort of closed-door deal:
In addition, Cisco and Apple will explore opportunities for interoperability in the areas of security, and consumer and enterprise communications. Other terms of the agreement are confidential.
Posted in Reviews, iPhone | 3 Comments »
Backup strategies compared
July 2nd, 2008
OS X 10.5.4 has just been released, so this seems like a good opportunity to talk backups. Even though I expect this update to go as smoothly as the others of recent memory, it’s never a bad idea to use OS updates to make sure your backup system is in good shape. I used to run a backup immediately prior to each 10.4.x update, just in case any weirdness occurred.
Here’s a few setups I’ve tried over the years that helped me stop worrying about backing up by automating the entire process.
Posted in Hints, Opinions | 1 Comment »
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