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Apple
Social Networking with Security and Stability
Oct 6th
The quest:
Exploration of the topics below to come up with a good mixture of social networking while maintaining personal safety and professional stability.
Personal Safety
- When is posting status updates to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, personal blogs, too much information?
- Do would-be criminals see this as their chance to take advantage of the situation?
- Are your loved ones safe if you announce that you’re out of town or the country?
- Services like GoWalla and FourSquare are fun, but is it too much information?
Professional Stability
- Furthermore, what does it mean to your business partners if they read social network updates from you while you are visiting them?
- Will the fact that you went out for beers and posted a picture of some crazy beer to Facebook, Twitter or your blog, harm your business relationship?
- Do you exercise the same business etiquette when thinking of posting things online that you would while personally meeting with business partners?
- Does it matter if you do or don’t know them personally?
- What about the people you’re traveling with? Do they know or care if you use their name or activities online?
Exploration:
Personal Safety
Personal safety is of utmost importance, both for yourself and the loved ones you leave at home while traveling. While thinking about these topics I find myself torn between them. I would love to share fun things to my social networks, as they happen, but doing so only cements the knowledge that you are indeed away from your home. Depending on what you say, would-be criminals might know exactly where you are and at what time. They could use that information against you (for example, calling a loved one and faking a kidnapping to extort money). They could use that information to plan a robbery at your house if they know you’re not there (they could possibly know exactly when you’re going to be home as well, depending on how much information you share). Side note: Ever wonder what punishment you’d face if you committed a crime? Now you can find out, using my iPhone app, iCrime.
Services like GoWalla and FourSquare are really fun to use and I enjoy using them, however, they provide a ton of detail about where specifically you are at the given ‘check in’ moment. Do you choose to not share anything in real time, except for private e-mails, phone calls, Skype, with loved ones? Do you wait until you arrive back home to share your experiences of the trip with social networks?
To me, it comes down to a few things…
- If someone Google’s your name, or does a whitepages search for you, is your address listed? Do you have your personal details publicly viewable in Facebook? You might and not even know it. Check Facebook settings and ensure only exactly what you want to show, is shown. Do you have a website listed in your Twitter profile? Is your Twitter profile public or private? Mine is public and I have this website listed when you look at it. A simple WHOIS lookup on your website can display your full address, e-mail and phone number. Most domain registrars charge extra for a “private” listing and most people don’t select it when they purchase their website. Any one of these scenarios can provide anybody with your full address and contact information. Most whitepages sites even give you a handy map to show specifically where your house is.
- How secure is your house/apartment/condo? Do you have a monitored alarm system? If yes, do you arm it regularly? Have you tested it? Do you lock your doors? May sound funny, but a lot of people leave the inside garage door unlocked. Garage doors can be pretty easily opened, so if you leave the inside door unlocked, consider locking it.
- Is there someone that can check on your loved ones regularly and ensure nothing looks suspicious around your house?
- Do you have surveillance cameras around the perimeter of your residence? A surveillance camera package is relatively cheap these days, consider getting one. Be sure to hardware the cameras too. Hacking into the wifi version of cameras is also pretty simple. Google it and you’ll see loads of video tutorials and footage of people who do it. Consider looking for a system that can send you real time updates as things happen, so you’re always in the know.
Given the details above, you may choose to do what you will, however, keep in mind the possible ramifications. If you’re not sure about it, look at your Facebook and/or Twitter pages. Based on what people you’re friends with are posting, can you determine when they aren’t home? Do you see any patterns? I bet you do, it’s common.
Professional Stability
Professional stability is also extremely important, especially for those who travel for and represent their company abroad. Do you want your company or business partners seeing the details of your personal life on the Internet, while traveling on their dime?
- To address the first topic written above, it really depends on your company and/or business partners. If you work for a company that promotes a certain lifestyle, perhaps they’d be a little more leaniant to online postings of nightlife or other social activities. If you don’t, however, work for a company that promote that lifestyle, heed warning that your boss/manager/supervisor/VP/CEO/CIO/CTO, probably doesn’t want the personal details of your nightlife posted to the Internet for all to see. Some could talk about freedom of speech and freedom of this and that, however, if you wouldn’t personally walk up to your boss or business partner and have a conversation about the same topics, it’d be safer to not post it to your social networks, or your blog. If you do indeed have that line of communication open with your management and business partners, still be cautious, a verbal conversation is less incriminating than photos or drunken tweets.
- Respect those that you are traveling with also. If you do choose to share information about the days/nights events online or even verbally, it might be a good idea to ask your colleagues if they are OK with you doing so. Just because you might have a great line of communication open with management or business partners, doesn’t mean your colleagues do. It’s about respect and privacy.
Bottom line
Be careful with what you share and how you share it.
iOS 4.0.2 Still Buggy
Aug 24th
While iOS4 is pretty nice, there are a few somewhat minor/buggy things that bother me.
- Exhibit A: see picture. Listening to music via iPod app, rotate horizontal and back vertical. The top status bar stays as if it was horizontal, while the rest of the app switches back to vertical mode. Sort of random, doesn’t happen all the time.
- The second gripe I have is also with orientation and the accelerometer. While watching a video/podcast in horizontal mode and the video ends, the iPhone doesn’t “know” that the iPhone is horizontal anymore. The video plays as if it was vertical. You have to physically move the iPhone back vertical and back to get the video to recognize it’s proper state.
- The last thing is signal strength indicator. The phone will display a couple bars of 3G, then out of the blue, it will switch to Edge or just say No Service. A quick flip in and out of Airplane mode puts the phone back to 3G again. It’s pretty random, but annoying.
Other than those things, I’m pretty happy with iOS4.0.2.
Exhibit A
HP Mini 110 – Still Waiting For Root Device
Jan 4th
I installed a new 500GB, 7200RPM drive into the HP Mini 110 netbook and proceeded to install Snow Leopard on it.
Upon booting from the USB drive (made with Netbook Installer), I received an error on the apple loading screen (the ‘do not enter / no smoking’ symbol appeared). I restarted the computer and went into the boot options of the USB drive and selected verbose from the menu (use the up/down arrows to see the menu).
Upon booting verbosely, I saw the Still Waiting for Root Device message. After googling that message, it appeared that the error was common in the OSX86 world and was not usually easy to fix. Many different people having many different experiences with it. Some easily fixed, some not fixable.
To fix, I restarted the PC again and went into BIOS setup, changed the boot options to have the USB drive first in the list and the HDD second. It seems that whenever this error came up, switching the boot order resolved it. It didn’t really matter which drive was listed first, as long as you change it and save/exit the BIOS.
After I made that simple change, the Still Waiting for Root Device message went away and installation proceeded as it normally would.
System:
Model: HP Mini 110-1000
RAM: 1GB
HDD: Seagate Momentus 2.5″ SATA 500GB (7200rpm)
OS: Mac OSX (Snow Leopard 10.6.1)
Incase Power Slider – Fail
Oct 11th
Yesterday, I purchased the Incase power slider for my iPhone 3G S. It boasts that it will double your iPhone battery life while protecting it with it’s case. Since battery life is important to me and I find my self constantly running out of battery (usually around 2pm each day), I was excited to get my hands on this. Even posted a tweet about it.
The initial reviews I read indicated that it was worthy of purchase at the right price. Best Buy had it for $47, which I thought was a great deal (since it was originally priced at $99). The packaging indicated iPhone 3G, but not specifically the iPhone 3G S. I asked a worker in the mobile phone department if it would work OK in the 3G S and she indicated “yes, I use it on my iPhone 3G S every day.”. Sold.
The instructions say to fully charge the device before putting your iPhone in it. So, like a good person who just RTFM’d, I plugged it in and let it sit for a couple hours until it was fully charged. What happened next was what surprised me…
I inserted the iPhone into the bottom part of the shell (per instructions), then put the top part of the shell on. The battery on the iPhone did indeed show that it was charging, which is what the user manual said it would do. Then, without warning, my 5 bars of 3G signal, disappeared and went to No Service. I was shocked, so I power cycled the iPhone, just incase it needed to officially recognize the new battery device. Still, No Service.
I took it out and put it back in, probably about a dozen or so times. Each time, the No Service indicator came up about 5 seconds after using the Incase Power Slider.
I googled some more and found other reports of people having the exact same issue. A few people mentioned that Incase retired that model of product because of issues, but I couldn’t find anything to support that claim. Since I really need my phone, I decided to return the Incase Power Slider to Best Buy and find something different.
I ended up with the Invisible Shield. So far so good with the Invisible Shield, but that’s a different post…
Summary: Incase Power Slider = Fail (in my humble opinion)
Firefox Opens Behind Applications in Snow Leopard
Sep 16th
Ever since the upgrade to Snow Leopard, Firefox started to open behind other applications. It launches from the dock normally and is the active application in the top menu bar, it’s just behind everything else. You can click the icon again or command-tab to bring Firefox to the front, but I must say, it is quite an annoyance.
A google search revealed a mozilla support thread reporting the same thing, but at the time of this update, no replies with any details on how to fix it. See this URL.
I’ve switched my default browser back to Safari now, until a time when Firefox opens the way it should.
Coltan Usage
Sep 1st
I was watching a show called Eco Trip on the Sundance Channel tonight. This episode was about cell phones.
Sundance Channel - Eco Trip - Episode 7
Amongst all the details about how bad they are for the environment while they are being made as well as after you dispose of them, one thing caught my attention more than others…
One of the elements needed to make a key element in just about every piece of electronics we use today, is called coltan.
Coltan is the metalic ore from which tantalum is made. Tantalum is what most capacitors are made from.
The show indicated that most of the worlds coltan resides in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). I don’t think I need to explain why reliance on the DRC for such a core element of all electronics is a bad thing. Well, maybe I do, just a little…
An excerpt from Wikipedia on the DRC:
The Second Congo War, beginning in 1998, devastated the country, involved seven foreign armies and is sometimes referred to as the “African World War”.[4] Despite the signing of peace accords in 2003, fighting continues in the east of the country. In eastern Congo, the prevalence of rape and other sexual violence is described as the worst in the world.[5] The war is the world’s deadliest conflict since World War II, killing 5.4 million people.[6][7]
I googled around to see which companies get their coltan from the DRC and which don’t. Most information I found was related to cell phone manufacturers… This website, ethicalconsumer.org, has a buyer’s guide to mobile phones, which talks about the big companies that are ranked by Greenpeace (which should mean, they do everything they can to get their materials in an ethical/green way), it’s a good thing to have a Greenpeace ranking…
- Nokia
- Sony Ericsson
- Samsung
- Motorola
- Apple
The website also indicates that Australia is taking over the market on coltan, which is where the responsible manufacturers should be ensuring their products components are sourced from.
Another point in the episode talked about the e-waste is handled and that the majority of it still ends up in a poverty stricken countries around the world. PBS has a great story about it…
To sum up:
- Be responsible
- Recycle your old cell phones / electronics
- Ask the recycler where the devices end up
- Don’t just throw electronics in the garbage
- Check out Eco Trip, I really enjoyed it
Next time you look at your cell phone or computer, remember that some it probably came from the Congo and might end up Ghana.
UPDATE:
Ran across the makeITfair.org website shortly after posting this… They’ve posted a list of companies that have responded to their list of principles to follow. http://makeitfair.org/companies/company-responses-to-the-makeitfair-list-of
iPhone 3Gs Voice Control Issues
Jul 11th
I’ve really been enjoying the new iPhone 3Gs, a lot.
The voice control functionality is very nice and helps a lot when you want to start playing music or turn on shuffle mode, or make a call. Well, call almost anybody. There is one person voice control refuses to recognize. Who? Mom.
Me: “Call Mom mobile”
iPhone: “no match found”
Me: “Call Mom”
iPhone: “no match found”
Me: “Call Jen Melchi mobile”
iPhone “calling Jen Melchi mobile”
I’ve had others try to “call mom” on my voice control, all to no avail. Voice control recognizes everyone else I want to call, just not “mom”.
Interesting, wonder why Apple doesn’t want me to call mom using my voice.
Anyone else having the same issue?
Goodbye iPhone, hello iPAQ
Jan 4th
About a month ago, the company I work for announced that it was changing remote worker policies and part of the policy changes included standard phone plan, phone hardware enforcements. The policies are strict and if the company was to continue to pay for the device/service, I (along with the rest of the company) had to comply.
If you don’t know already, I work for HP, so it makes sense that they ask that employees use HP hardware as a mobile device. The only viable mobile device available at the time I ordered was the HP iPAQ 910c.
The device itself is pretty nice looking, looks similar to a blackberry or other qwerty keyboard device on the market and with the blue shifted keys on the keyboard, I think it looks nice.
Since I was one of the people who stood in line for 12 hours to get an iPhone when they first came out, you can imagine that I have become very attached and used to it. I held off on the upgrade to the new 3G iPhone (since there isn’t 3G service at my house, hard to justify), so I’d been using the original iPhone since day 1. My iPhone has been good to me, turned me on to the joys of ‘hacking’ it, installing third party apps and using some pretty nice twitter applications, such as Twinkle. I feel it opened me up the community of other iPhone users, and it was a nice community to reside in.
When the iPAQ arrived I popped my iPhone SIM into it and tried it out. Like any device, it will take some getting used to. It does everything it is supposed to do for me. Setting up my Exchange PUSH mail/calendar/contacts was a breeze, setting up all my other little customizations was also easy. The biggest physical change is the stylus. The device has a touch screen, albeit very small compared to the gorgeous iPhone screen. I had gotten used to the finger touchable screen of the iPhone and now, back to using a stylus, felt like a Handspring I had years ago. There are some aspects of the screen that are finger touchable, some parts of the phone app and the home screen. It’s a good thing I don’t have sausage fingers though.
I’m new to the Windows Mobile OS world, so I’m still looking for some great applications to make this device awesome. ceTwit, MS Communicator Mobile, Google Maps, Skyfire and The Weather Channel widget are some applications I’ve installed and used. Looking for a better Twitter app and perhaps a better web browser. I’ve heard Opera for Windows Mobile is the best, so I’ll be checking that out soon.
Without my iPhone, I haven’t been watching video podcasts as much, twittering as much or listening to music as much. Since I spend 90% of my day either in the car or in front of a desk, I came to rely on it as my avenue into the other parts of my life.
Things the iPAQ does that the iPhone did not do for me… Real GPS, not the ‘fake GPS’ on the iPhone. Expandable memory in the form of micro SD. Replaceable battery. Navigation antenna port. Video capturing. 3MP camera with flash. 3G (my original iPhone wasn’t 3G). While in Milwaukee, I get super fast data service.
I’ve been using the iPAQ 910c for about 3 weeks now and it is still holding strong in functionality and usability. It’s name is the Business Communications Messenger and I agree that it does just that. As for the other, media related things I’m into, I might have to keep my iPhone or iPod in my bag.
Links:
http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/hp-ipaq-910c-business/4505-6452_7-33064927.html
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12784_na/12784_na.html
Phantom iPhone SMS Notifications
Sep 24th
UPDATE: Since I’ve posted this message, I have found several forum posts on the apple support forums indicating that the notifications are reminders of unread SMS messages. Must’ve missed that part of the release notes for 2.1 firmware. There doesn’t seem to be any way to turn it off as of the time of this message, hopefully in a future firmware release… thx for reading. /UPDATE
—–
Ever since I upgraded to iPhone firmware 2.1, I have been receiving phantom SMS notifications. I still have the default tritone sound set for SMS messages and it happens several times a day. I’ll get the vibe/tritone notification, look at the iPhone and see nothing new.
One other person has reported the same thing to me. A google search resulted in numerous people seeing similar phantom SMS messages, however, wasn’t able to find any specific to the iPhone.
Odd.
WordPress for iPhone
Jul 22nd
Just got the wordpress app for the iPhone, so far so good. Very easy to use and setup.
Thanks wordpress and apple!