Techno Thoughts!

We are in the local newspaper tonight!-  http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/lifestyle/parenting-advice/2009/03/23/sleep-eazzzy-84229-23201018/

Got into a bit of a mess installing the beta of the new 3.0 firmware on my iPod Touch. I’d already done it on 2 iPhones but they had their UUID registered with the developer account. I then installed it on my iPod Touch, which didn’t. It all installed fine but when I tried to sync with iTunes it wouldn’t let me…..but it also wouldn’t let me see the UUID to register… oh dear!

I then tried to Restore to 2.2.1 so I could see it (but it also didn’t give me the Restore button so I had to put the iPod Touch into recovery mode) but that just came up with an unknown error so I got stuck in recovery mode until I found a way to get it out of recovery mode.

Luckly, I then found a way of finding the UUID without iTunes so I could then get it registered and sync again.

Phew - what a saga!!

First impressions and a review with screenshots of 3.0 will follow!

If you want to find the device ID / UUID of your iPhone / iPod Touch, you can either see it in iTunes, or you can download an app called Ad Hoc Helper from the iTunes App Store, which will e-mail it to you - neat

(You need the UUID to add your device to an Apple iPhone Developer account.)

ok, so I managed to get my iPod Touch stuck in recovery mode - it wouldn’t restore for some reason (I got an error) and you can’t get it back out of recovery mode.

…Oh but you can!

After some searching around, I found that all you have to do is download something called QuickPWN, run it, turn the iPhone / iPod Touch off by holding down both the power button (on the top) and the home button (on the front, under the screen) until it turns off, plug it in and turn it on.

QuickPWN gets the device out of restore mode and reboots it!

(if you do want to know how to get it into recovery mode, see here: http://www.ichilton.co.uk/blog/iphone/getting-the-iphone-ipod-touch-into-recovery-mode-48.html)

If  your iPhone or iPod Touch is messed up some how (like it wont boot up) and all else fails, you can put your iPhone into something called ‘Recovery Mode’. This allows you to use iTunes to restore it.

To put the iPhone / iPod Touch into recovery mode:

- Turn it off (hold the power button on the top down for a few seconds then slide the red slider across from left to right).

- Press and hold the home button (the button on the front, under the screen)

- While still holding the home button, plug it in to the computer

The screen should show something like this:

iPhone / iPod Touch Recovery Mode

You should now be able to use iTunes to restore the iPhone / iPod Touch by clicking the Restore button.

(If you want to get out of recovery mode without restoring, see here: http://www.ichilton.co.uk/blog/iphone/getting-the-iphone-ipod-touch-out-of-recovery-mode-52.html)

Virgin Media are making some changes:

- A few price increases

- Free online storage/backup and digital prints - called “V Stuff” (coming soon)

- 50mb broadband

- They will be upgrading 2mb users to 10mb

I’ll certainly be checking out the “V Stuff” when it comes as i’m currently paying $5/month for online backup so i’ll post a review here when i’ve tried it.

There are loads of snippets on the web about how to add your facebook status to your wordpress blog by using an RSS feed.

However, it looks like Facebook have made a load of changes to the interface and I can’t find the mini-feed page anywhere, which has the link on.

Luckily, this blog post gave the link for it.

So, to get an RSS feed of your Facebook status, you just log into Facebook, go to this link:

http://www.new.facebook.com/minifeed.php?filter=11

and click on the “My Status” link on the right hand side.

You can then add that RSS feed to the right hand side of your Wordpress blog, if required!

Another item on my iPhone wishlist was that other UK carriers would get the phone instead of O2 having an exclusive on it.

Well, there is a vague rumour of that here - http://www.t3.com/news/o2-to-slash-3g-iphone-price?=38369&cid=OTC-RSS&attr=T3-News-RSS

This would give competition to O2 and encourage better deals, as well as potential different products & services (like Orange do free home broadband with their mobile tarrifs but I wonder if they would do the free wifi access like O2 do for iPhone users?). It would also give a bit of choice as to network coverage etc. If for example 3UK were to offer the iPhone then I would probably stay with them as I know the coverage is good where I use it and they generally do good deals.

The rumour also adds to the existing rumours of a new iPhone in the summer, which would justify me waiting a bit longer before getting one

The 2009 world championship will be won by the driver who scores the most wins after the FIA unexpectedly decided to adopt Bernie Ecclestone’s favoured scheme rather than the points revisions suggested by the teams.

http://www.itv-f1.com/News_Article.aspx?id=45278

[EDIT: This was later revoked and changed back to the old points system!]

Apple today announced the upcoming 3.0 firmware upgrade for the iPhone and Ipod Touch.

I’m really pleased to see that some of the software things on my iPhone wishlist have been added and some of the early disadvantages of the iPhone have been addressed.

They have apparently added 100 new features - here are the highlights though:

- 1,000 new API calls - this will allow third party apps to be even more useful.

- MMS / Picture Messaging

- Cut, Copy and Paste

- In-App Purchasing - this gives the ability to sell additional content from within applications.

- Peer-to-Peer Connectivity - Connect to other devices over bluetooth.

- Third-Party Accessory Apps - allow hardware manufacturers to develop software to access their accessories through the dock connector

- Push Notifications - the ability to push notifications from a remote server to the iPhone

- Landscape keyboard

- Voice Memos

- Ability to search the data on the iPhone

- A2DP Bluetooth (bluetooth audio)

Apple has a page about the update which contains a video of the event. The update will be available this summer and will be available free to existing iPhone users and at a cost of $9.99 for iPod Touch users.

Now I just need an announcement of a new iPhone device so my decision to wait until the summer to get an iPhone will be justified….