jofo.com

Ignore this post. Testing Wordpress for iPhone

I discovered (new to me, that is) something recently that will really help me when I get the new iPhone. It also could have helped me over the past year with my current iPod.

Basically, each data type in iTunes can be synced to one computer but it doesn’t need to be synced on the same computer as the other types. This means that I can sync my calendar, contacts and podcasts on one computer (my PowerBook), while syncing Movies, Music and TV shows on another (my mac mini). Now I don’t need to find a syncing solution to keep two computers in sync, and I don’t have to manually manage my iPod just to add something to it from my PowerBook.

For my birfday, i got a HDTV, so I decided to get the HD DVR from Cablevision. I knew it would pale in comparison to my ReplayTV but I wanted to be able to record the HD content in its native format. Also it turns out the DVRs have dual tuners so I can be tuned to two channels while watching a recording.

It’s been a PITA ever since. The box I picked up at a Randolph Cablevision store did not work in Bergen County (well it worked fine for about a minute but then decided I wasn’t authorized). That took until the weekend to get a guy out to bring me a new one which worked, for about a week or so and then said I was unauthorized again and only gave me some basic channels  The problem was resolved by a guy coming out to the property but he didn’t need access to my apt.

Throughout all this, interactive channels (on demand, OPtimum Autos/Homes, iMSG, etc), did not work, so I am now trying to get this resolved.  Also, now that the season has started, I’m recording a lot and the box is rebooting a lot (probably once a day, maybe slightly less).

I’ve tried some things with Cablevision and have an appt set up to replace the box if necessary. Here’s what’s bugging me.  They have two types of DVRs: ones by Sony that have Firewire, and ones that don’t have firewire by Scientific Atlanta.  I have the SA box but want Firewire.  (Incidentally, it’s an FCC reg that they provide customers who ask with a Firewire-enabled box)  These are my options:

1) Have guy visit. get new SA box: Free
2) Have guy visit. get new Sony box:46.95
3) Go to an Optimum Store, get Sony box: free

I dunno, I think it’s reasonable that if:
a) CV offers free swaps to customers,
b) CV carries Sony boxes, and
c) CV is sending a guy over to swap my defective box for free

then I could have a free swap to a Sony. It’s not any more work for them and it’s not an ‘upgrade’ otherwise they’d charge for it.

The whole thing just makes me want to ditch it and get a Tivo HD (fully betraying my ReplayTV and making my journey to the dark site COMPLETE! - sorry for the spit). However I would get the CableCards, which cost $46.95 to install.        

Tags: tv, consumerist, entertainment

At my old job, we used to jokingly make up obvious-sounding solutions for customer issues. for instance, if someone says they couldn’t double-tap a field, we would ask each other if perhaps they had DoubleTapDisableHack installed….or we would say we left CrashWindows set to “true”.

::flashback ends::

Earlier today I had discovered that my profile manager on my 8525 was setting the volume to 100% duringa phone calls. I changed this to “Leave unchanged” so that the volume is not affected when switching to this profile. Shortly after, I remarked to a former co-worker via IM:

2:56:05 PM joshforman: mental to do list: find out why my phone vibrates when a call connects

At dinner I was flipping thru the prefs when I discovered this entry:

Vibrate when outgoing call is connected

I OMGLOLWTF’ed.

So, I decided to get a new phone. After looking at standard flip phones, I decided to finally consolidate (again) my existing Phone and PDAs). settled on a Cingular 8525, running Windows Mobile 5. I figured I had 30 days to figure out if it was going to work well or not. Right now, I’d say I’m at 85% confidence level.

Here’s what I love about it:

1. Internet Explorer does a great job with relatively complex websites. I tried opentable.com (restaurant reservations), and although I didn’t go all the way to booking something, I got much farher than I got on the Palm.
2. Multitasking OS: I can run many apps at once
3. A good built-in keyboard that triggers landscape mode. It’s pretty comfortable to type on.
4. Convenient buttons for IE and Mesaging and 3 more programmable buttons
5. A Comm Manager app for toggling data connections, Wifi Connections, ActiveSync
6. Flight mode quickly disabling all wireless features at once (I guess in lieu of a Power button)

I’m also glad that there’s are apps for PPC that I used on the Palm (Handyshopper, Plucker, Metro) , and that they use the same DBs as the palm version.

What I don’t like about it:

1. Not a lot of built-in memory for installing apps
2. I couldn’t get the push email feature (XpressMail) working right away. It seems to have been a server issue but i went through a few reinstalls and even an upgrade to the company’s beta (which is nicer anyway).
3. It doesn’t have a standard audio output jack,so I can’t plug in my cassette adapter, in the event that I wanted to use it in the car. i guess I could use a headset instead.
4. Networking on windows mobile is sooooo confusing. Certain apps use my data connection, some use wifi. Some need a proxy (I think just the Media net web site). That’s all fine, but the OS should let you define an order to try them in, and seamlessly cycle through them as needed.
5. It frequently gets in a various states of funkitude, usually cured by a soft reset. Minor annoyance.

OK, enough about my ankle.
I bought my first item off Woot the other day: a SanDisk Sansa e140 (refurb) for $30. I had planned to use it with Rhapsody. Shortly after submitting my order, I started to doubt the intelligence of it. I fired up rhapsody to ensure this (most likely old) device would work with the latest Rhapsody; it seemed that it would but I couldn’t add it to the app. That turned out to be insignificant since I could just plug-n-play when I got it.

So I got it, it works fine, but then I realized that I could’ve spent the same amount of money to upgrade PocketTunes and use my Palm instead.

Worst case scenario, I paid $30 for 1GB of removal storage, a pair of headphones, am FM radio….and something that plays Audible and Rhapsody tracks on occasion.

Don’t buy an HDTV without reading this first by ZDNet’s George Ou — Forking out a few thousand dollars or even just a few hundred is a serious investment, and the last thing you want to do is buy an HDTV with lousy color rendition. Navigating the minefield in consumer electronics is a confusing proposition even for the seasoned gadget geeks, so I created this survival guide to help [...]