Archive for December, 2007

iPhone firmware 1.1.3 features video

John / December 31, 2007 / Hacking, Mobile, Video / Comments Off

Gearlive.com as posted a video of the features of the upcoming firmware for the iPhone. Seems pretty legit to me and consistent with the rumored features.

Some of the key features include:

SMS to multiple recipients
Google Maps upgraded to include hybrid view and cell tower triangulation to give you a sort-of GPS as well as the ability to drag a pin around the map if the address doesn’t plot properly
you can now drag the icons around your homescreen to rearrange their order. Currently you have to use Customize to do this but of course, Apple has a cooler way of doing it – the icons wiggle when the mode is enabled and you just drag them where you want them
Wish you could easily make a bookmark icon (or shortcut) on your homescreen to your favorite website? Now you can in Safari – it’ll even make the icon based on the website for you – you can do this with iPhone Apper but it’s a bit more involved

Check out all the details in this video soon though as it could be taken down by Apple legal at anytime.

Keep in mind that when 1.1.3 drops, it will most likely break all third party apps and unlocks. So be careful out there.

Slot machine on your iPhone

John / December 29, 2007 / Mobile, Videogames / 3 Comments

There is an amazing new Slot Machine game called iSlots on Installer right now:

It even maintains your bank between plays and has sound effects of the reels going.

How to load a Holga

John / December 29, 2007 / Photography, Video / Comments Off

I love the track feature of Twitter. Because of it, I found this video of how to load a Holga. I simply sent ‘track holga’ to Twitter and it lets me know when anyone talks about holgas.

Found via @spenceke on Twitter who linked to this page in a tweet. That site also has lots of other great Holga related tips and tricks….and videos.

Good Experience: Crumpler Bags

John / December 27, 2007 / Mobile, Photography / 14 Comments

I think I have a problem.

Is it weird for a guy to like gadget bags? I think I have a bag/pouch/container for just about everything gadget I own. I guess I like to protect my stuff. I especially like Crumpler bags.

The latest one I bought a few months back was the Crumpler Keystone which is a laptop and camera bag. It’s very light, small, heavily padded and perfect for running around taking pictures at geek events.

What else can I say, I love the bags that Crumpler makes and keep getting them anytime I see a new one (or get something that needs a bag). I wish there were more companies that cared this much about their products and had such a unique way of marketing them.

Sometimes they send me stuff too (I highly recommend you sign up for their newsletter):

Totally irreverent marketing (who else takes beer in trade for their products?), completely unusable but fun flash website and awesome containers/protectors for geek tech – what more could you want?

More of them of course!

Another reason to like Apple

John / December 27, 2007 / Uncategorized / 2 Comments

After picking up a new ginormous hard drive on boxing day (think Black Friday in the US, only much lamer), I went about adding it to my Powermac G5 tower (aka my server).

For some reason, Apple always does things different than other computer manufacturers and the process of upgrading the hard drive is no different. Fortunately, they tend to do amazingly beautiful documentation on everything so after opening up the tower, it was pretty easy to get down to business.

Small problem though – since this was an additional hard drive, I needed to use Apple’s little rubber coated screws as guides to hold it in place. Since this PowerMac was given to me by a client after upgrading, I didn’t have the original box or anything that might contain the screws needed to install the hard drive.

Of course, Apple thought about that and actually installed four extra screws inside the chassis (green arrow in the image above which I added), right where you’d see them when upgrading your hard drive.

“it’s the little things…”

First Holga prints

John / December 19, 2007 / Photography / 2 Comments

Just finished scanning the results of the first roll of film I put through the new Holga camera I recently picked up. I was pretty convinced that I had either loaded the film incorrectly or that I didn’t handle it properly and all the shots I took would be exposed. Unlike 35mm film, medium-format film comes on rolls without a shell or cover. This means that the film spools from one spindle inside the camera onto another. You also don’t ‘rewind’ the film like a 35mm camera either.
Fortunately, I managed not to screw it up and got some great first results considering the roll of film that the Holga comes with is 100ASA which means it basically needs a ton of light to be exposed.

I seemed to get the best shots when using the red flash.

Although the clear flash didn’t make Duane’s nachos look any less awesome.

Check out the rest of the shots from the roll on Flickr.

Now to get some higher speed medium-format film and have some more fun with this camera.

eeeXubuntu on the eeePC

John / December 16, 2007 / Photography / 5 Comments

Always curious to try new things, I figured I’d try out Ubuntu (gutsy) on my eeePC. The nice thing about Ubuntu (and many versions of Linux these days) is that they are available in ‘live cd’ versions which means you just boot up the cd image that you burn after downloading and then you can take a test drive of that version without actually committing to it, meanwhile whatever operating system is actually on your machine is left in tact.

Knowing that it only takes a few minutes to wipe the eeePC and restore the default Xandros linux back onto it, I took the plunge and installed Ubuntu to see how it would run – a live cd install is slower than a normal install since it’s all running off of the cd and swapping into your system ram. Turned out there was a fair amount of tweaks that would be needed to get it fully operational on the eeePC so I went back to Xandros the same day.

Then I stumbled upon Xubuntu which has a distribution for the eeePC (surprisingly called eeeXubuntu) which you can read about (and download it) here.

Here’s a not-so-brief video (not mine) of the bootup sequence and some basic system usage:

I’ve only had it running on eeeXubuntu for a few days but so far, I’m really impressed. It is much more user friendly and consistent than the default Xandros was. It’s also much easier to add applications, customize settings and generally tweak than the other OS’s I’ve tried on the eeePC so far. Boot up is a little longer than Xandros but the nice thing it seems to remember all the session info correctly so that probably makes up for the extra boot up time. The battery indictor also works much better with a time remaining as well as a percent remaining indicator. With the battery hovering around 4+ hours with wifi on, I’m pretty happy!

I also really like the nicer user interfaces for customizing things – in some ways it feels more like a Mac than I expected it to especially when compared to other flavors of Linux.

The only real issue I’ve encountered so far is the occasional bootup that doesn’t recognize that I’ve got an 8gb SDHC card in the SD slot but that is usually resolved by a simple eject and reinsert.

Now if only Google Reader was more accommodating on the small eeePC screen – even with a compact Firefox theme and the toolbars dialed down, it’s still hard to navigate my feeds. Sure I could use the mobile version but it’s too stripped down for my power-usage.

iPhone 1.1.2 unlock status

John / December 14, 2007 / Hacking, Mobile / 22 Comments

I get asked multiple times a day about getting an iPhone and using it in Canada. It was always fun to help friends unlock their iPhones.

Until now.

Ever since the 1.1.2 firmware made it’s appearance (around build week 45 for those keeping score), there hasn’t been a working software unlock for these phones. You can ‘activate’ the phone which means to enable all the features (aside from the phone) which at least it allows you to use the device as an iPod and all the other good things it can be. The team behind the AnySim project has opensourced their code so it could be expected that more people working on the code should mean that an unlock will appear soon….but nobody knows when.

As Yoda would say (kinda), there is another (way).

A hardware unlock is possible via Turbo SIM (deja vu anyone)? Just like before, they are sold out online and are being held hostage on ebay/craigslist for crazy coin. I then heard about the StealthSIM which is basically a cloned version of the TurboSIM except that it appears to be available in Canada unlike the scarce TurboSIM. It seems to go for about $120cdn (delivered) which is steep but also removes some of the worry of upgrading your firmware. We’ll have to wait and how it works once the next version (1.1.3 due any day now) comes out.

My friend Paul, called me up the other day (from his iPhone, of course) after getting his delivered and installed so it definitely works on a new, OOTB (out of the box) iPhone with 1.1.2 firmware. He did have to fully jailbreak and activate his iPhone before it would work. Congrats Paul!

Bonus round:

All the import shops at the Crystal Mall (one of my favorite places to geek out) in Burnaby (and presumably everywhere in Richmond) now have tons of different iPhone cases, skins, holsters and screen protectors for cheap….makes me wonder just how many iPhones are in use up here.

New Toy: Holga medium format film camera

John / December 9, 2007 / Photography / 4 Comments

You’d think it was Christmas or something. Been treating myself to a few little things lately…the kind of stuff nobody would ever buy for me so it’s all good.

While on another iPhone gathering expedition with a friend in Seattle (which also included picking up a droid and a Rock Band), I stumbled across this beauty at Urban Outfitters:

After getting a Fisheye camera earlier this year (which I must get back from Miss604), I’ve been interested in playing with a Holga camera for awhile now. Both are made by Lomography and I had seen them in Urban Outfitters a few times while down south but it was always the black kit which I waffled on buying more than a few times. When I stumbled across this army green one, it was a done deal – I had to buy it.

The kit came with all kinds of goodies that I’m still going through including the camera itself (which has a wheel for changing the color of the onboard flash), a roll of 100ASA medium format film, a poster, a neck strap, a couple of different manuals, an awesome book of photos taken with the Holga (The World Through a Plastic Lens) and the funniest thing: a roll of black electrical tape! I knew that people had light leak issues with the camera and had seen some taped up but I didn’t realize it was a feature fully acknowledged in the manual.

So I’ve got it loaded up and ready to go – will have to bring it to some holiday parties and see what it can do. More to come once I get the film processed.

New toy: Cherry Master Video Slot Machine

John / December 2, 2007 / Videogames / 3 Comments

I went to an arcade auction this weekend and scored this upright video slot machine for cheap.

I think it’s hilarious that it screams “FOR AMUSEMENT ONLY” on the top of the bezel. After doing some googling, it seems that this unit *could* actually be setup to payout so bring your quarters next time you come over.

It wasn’t powered on during the auction but figured it was a very clean cabinet and the insides looked pristine so it was worth the risk. I figured if there was something wrong, I could easily fix it myself as I’ve done in the past. Many times games at auction need very little work to get running (aside from cosmetic work). Previously I bought a $400 game for $30 and the only thing wrong with it was a disconnected speaker wire so it had no sound. It was an easy fix.

When I got it home (it fit into my car barely – at not quite 5 feet tall, it’s much smaller than a regular videogame cabinet), I plugged it in and was happy to find that it worked perfectly. The only issue was that the screen looked a little blurry…fortunately it wasn’t an issue with the monitor, but actually just a build up of dust inside the cabinet on the plexiglass bezel. After cleaning it, it looks brand new now. It even has a bill acceptor that works although it doesn’t like my Canadian bills. Not sure if that’s broken or it’s expecting US$.

Cherry Master

Not too bad for $25.

Update (June 2011): I’ve removed the crt monitor and put in an LCD and wired it up to play MAME which now also emulates all the video poker/slot games very nicely. The original Cherry Master board, control panel, monitor, etc are all in tact. Contact me if you are interested in buying any of it.