Been busy, here's an update

I was playing with OS X, as you all know. My laptop didn't like it because I installed it on an extended partition (I wasn't sure what would happen but I gave it a try). I was able to boot and run OS X 10.5.6 but had no internet. 10.5.7 would go straight into a reboot loop and on top of that it messed with my boot partition which meant that turning on the laptop now did nothing. I had to use the OS X disc to boot into OS X and couldn't get into my windows partition at all.

It gets better. I came home from a weekend at my friend's lake house and fired up my desktop. I'm watching Kings (AMAZING SHOW!! More on that later) on hulu because he told me to watch it, only 14 episodes so far. I had just finished watching episode 12 when my computer froze. I thought nothing of it and rebooted. It failed to do anything but turn on the fans...crap. Maybe it overheated...I opened the sides and let it be for a bit. Turn it on again later and it gives me a memory error. Try again and it freezes in the bios. Try again and it boots but then gives me a Blue Screen of Death. Fuck. Long story short the motherboard is fried, specifically the memory controller. I need to get a new one but they don't make my motherboard anymore so I'll have to get a newer one which doesn't support my CPU anymore so I need to get a new CPU when I get the new motherboard...shit on me.

I figured, I want to learn Objective-C so I can code for the iPhone and if I spend the money on the desktop it won't get me any closer to learning it so why don't I buy a MacBook? Found a MacBook refurb form last year for $845 on the apple site. I was seconds away from buying it when I started thinking about how I'd run windows apps without a desktop. I figured I'd go with a virtual machine but that requires a beefy system to virtualize the other operating system. The MacBook wasn't going to cut it. I looked around and saw the MacBook Pro 13" with 2GB of DDR3 1066, almost enough but not quite. Luckily a memory upgrade to 4GB was only $90. I bought it and I've been using it since Saturday and writing a few useless apps so far while I learn the language.

Let's backtrack to last Tuesday. I had an interview!! I was told I did very well and they'd give me a call back but not to expect it too soon since they still have more interviewing to do and they're also hiring for multiple positions. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and even though it's not close (it's an hour away) I'm sure this job sounds like a great fit. We'll see what happens!

Now to talk about Kings. It's a great show with an amazing cast. It has many parallels and allusions to the Old Testament but in a modern day society. It tells the story of a hero destined to become king. Unfortunately NBC cancelled it but they may pick it up again for another season if enough people do their part. Go watch it on Hulu, then when you see how awesome it is write to NBC and tell them you want more! The whole first season is available to watch on Hulu. Go now. Do it.

Addiction and all that

Sooo...I'm addicted to my iPhone. I'm seriously considering becoming an iPhone developer, maybe release an app or two on the AppStore. We'll see how all that goes. I'm downloading iPC, it's OSX for a PC, for my desktop. Hopefully it'll be done in an hour or so and I'll get on installing that tonight and be well on my way to playing with stuff this week.

I'm thinking of flying to Florida for a week or so to visit my brother since he's been bugging me to go visit him. He moved from NJ to FL a while back and he's wanted me to visit, on top of that my dad flew in from Colombia and is staying with him. I honestly don't want to see my dad, I'm doing it because my brother asked me to visit and I never had the time. He also asked me to visit my dad so I figure I'll do that and get it over with. Oddly enough I respect my brother more than my dad even though I saw him less than I did my dad. My brother is about 20 years older than me (more, I think) but we became pretty close over the past few years.

It seems a lot of us second generation "kids" have a resentment towards the first generation. I'm not saying they were bad people, a lot of them just suck as human beings. My dad had 3 chances to get parenting right. I can honestly say he got it wrong all 3 times. Hell, my brother and sister (both 20 years or so older than me) don't refer to him as "dad", they call him by his nickname; they may as well call him by his name. I'm not saying all my uncles are failures. There are stories of great loyalty among my uncles just like there are a few crazy (no, seriously) ones and some we don't speak of. It's interesting if you're an observer on the outside. I try not to be judgmental, though, except in the cases I know of first hand.

Interesting how I just went from iPhone to daddy issues, and no, not that kind.

-Crash

iSkin Fuze

I ordered the Fuze late last week and was eagerly awaiting my new toy. What I got, though, was a box full of disappointment. Here is my email to customer service:

I have to say that I'm not satisfied with the iSkin Fuze for many reasons. Whether I want to return it or not will be dictated by what I think over the next few days of use but as of right now I can tell you I feel the item was misrepresented.

Having owned the iSkin Revo and iSkin Revo2 and having been satisfied with both purchases I chose to buy the iSkin Fuze. To my understanding it was supposed to be a soft interior (I thought it would be like the Revo2 only thinner) and a hard exterior. To my surprise, all I got was a hard shell with a soft plastic flap to cover the docking port.

The Fuze was said to have a screen cover to protect the screen but also be usable, a "touch friendly screen guard". This is most certainly not the case. The screen guard hampers use of the iPhone and any press on the screen must be very deliberate or it will not register. Forget typing quickly as you will miss roughly 50% of your keys. I took that off quite quickly, actually it began to come off on its own when I was putting the case on. Luckily it was held on by nearly no adhesive.

The buttons on my phone are now hard to press and have no feedback due to the case's hard plastic covers for them. Unlike the Revo and Revo2, the Fuze's hard plastic button covers have you guessing as to whether the button even got pressed when only the slightest pressure would've otherwise sufficed.

Again, I'm not certain as to my case's fate as of yet but the next few days will decide whether I can get used to this or not. Having owned the Revo, Revo2, RevoClip, and Fuze, I have to say I've only really been satisfied with the Revo and Revo2 to date. The RevoClip was terribly bulky and impractical to carry around and the Fuze may not have been a let-down if I hadn't owned the other two cases. It's not, however, worth the $45 I paid.

iPhone and MMS

READ THIS PARAGRAPH FIRST!!!
I posted a tweet about how I got MMS working and it seems a few people got interested. Great! These are the steps I followed in order to get MMS working on my iPhone 3G back in February and how I lost MMS when I upgraded to my 3GS. Last night I got MMS back and I'm thrilled! If you don't have the patience or willingness to hear "no" a lot today, don't do it. It's frustrating or fun depending on how you look at it. Hell, you may get a rep that's very willing and eager to help. I did a few times. YOU WILL LOSE ALL YOUR VOICEMAILS IN THIS PROCESS WHEN THEY REMOVE THE iPHONE DATA PACKAGE
If you get suck at all, refer to the troubleshooting section at the bottom of this post

AND THIS ONE TOO!
You will need a few things in order for this to work:
1) an iPhone (duh!)
2) a non-iPhone (oh crap! I didn't have one so I borrowed my cousin's for 5 minutes)
3) the balls and patience to speak to AT&T all day, different reps, and be told no several times. You'll most likely end up calling multiple times and spending hours on the phone.

Let's get started.

Back in February I called AT&T (don't call 611 from your cell, grab a landline because these steps require things done to your phone that will disconnect you if you're using it). The number is 1-800-331-0500.

First, tell them you're extremely unhappy with viewmymessage.com and want that notification removed from your account and the regular messaging plan added to your account. They'll tell you that you will no longer know when you receive an MMS. Tell them you understand you won't be able to use it but that you would rather not see the alerts than know you have an MMS and be unable to retrieve it. The messaging plans are called Messaging 200, Messaging 1500, and Messaging unlimited, not iPhone messaging 200, iPhone messaging 1500, etc.

Get them to enable WAP Push on your account (this may be one of the hardest things to get them to do). Good luck.

Get them to reset the VLRs and resend the Over-the-Air Activation (OTA). These are merely formalities and may not have anything to do with MMS at all but it doesn't hurt to try.

Get them to put MEdiaNet pay-as-you-go on your account. This is NOT compatible with the iPhone Data package. With my previous experience the rep told me so and then when he added it, the iPhone data package got removed. This time when I called back I was told the system spit out an error message instead and they were unable to add it. You may need to give them the IMEI of the non-iphone at this point and tell them you plan on using that phone from now on and that you don't want the iPhone data plan anymore. Turn off anything on your iphone that uses internet because medianet charges you $0.01/KB and you probably don't want that. I just had my phone off throughout this whole thing. Put your sim into the other phone once you're done with the rep and maake a call or two, text a few friends, or just wait a few minutes. Go to http://mymedianet.wireless.att.com/ and enter your phone number. If it tells you your phone does not support MEdiaNet then you either didn't wait long enough or the rep screwed up. Once you're in, customize your MEdiaNet. Add local weather or something, it really doesn't matter. What MEdiaNet does is control the MMS gateway. If you don't have access to MEdiaNet you won't have access to send MMS.

Try to send an MMS with your non-iphone. If you have trouble, call AT&T and tell them you can't send MMS and make them fix it until you can.

Once you're done, put the SIM back into your iPhone and try to send an MMS, see what happens. Hopefully it'll succeed. Now call back AT&T and tell them to put the iPhone data package back on. You should now have MMS.


TROUBLESHOOTING:
1) I don't have the option to send MMS in my "Messages" app!
Crap...You'll most likely have to go to http://help.benm.at and download the settings file that enables tethering. After that, reboot, and hopefully you'll have MMS enabled in your Messaging app.

2) I don't have a different phone
You're kinda screwed. Find somebody whose phone you can borrow for just 5 minutes, that's all you need. I did this at work and found a few people willing to lend me their phones.

3) I still don't have MMS, even on my non-iPhone
Call AT&T and make them fix it. Tell them you switch back and forth between your phones and you want all the features working all the time. They'll try to tell you that you'll need another sim card because the iPhone does weird stuff that means you can't switch it into another phone. That's a lie.


I hope this helps and if it doesn't, post a comment or send me a tweet @Crashspeeder and I'll try to help you out.

Back to Reality

The vacation is over. It was absolutely beautiful in Cozumel. Quite honestly, though, I'm glad to be back home. I missed my bed and although I love my uncle and like spending time with the family, I'm not good with people for long periods of time. I'm more of the loner type. They started to get on my nerves, especially the last day.

I hate deviating from a plan, especially a plan that I've had in my head. When it was 9:15 and we had yet to leave the hotel room and our flight left at 12:30, I began to get a little ticked. I ended up returning the beach towels myself, throwing the luggage out the hotel room door and loading up the car (with a little help from my little cousin who saw I was pissed and helped out). I can honestly say that I pretty much single-handedly got us out out of the hotel.

I don't like airports. It's not that I don't like flying, I just don't like that some random people with microphones and maybe a badge control my timetable and whether I get on the plane or not. I like to be in control of the situation, I don't like the unknown. For that reason, flying is stressful for me.

In any case, I'm back and I had a package waiting for me. I had ordered my iPhone 3GS before I left. I've been playing with it for the past few days, setting everything up the way I want it. Lukily the iPhone dev team released redsn0w today because purplera1n was getting annoying. I had to restore my phone a few times yesterday due to glitches and stuff.

Sorry I didn't post as soon as I got back. If you want to know what's going on and I haven't posted here just follow me on Twitter. I usually update that every few hours. My username on Twitter is crashspeeder.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to show you guys of Cozumel as I didn't take a camera, however my uncle's wife did so as soon as I get those I'll post some. Later!


-- Crash