I use an old-school tape adapter in my car when I want to listen to my iPhone while I drive.  I live and drive in a heavily populated area, and the FM band is crammed full of stations, so the FM transmitters do not usually work very well for me.  Barring removing my antenna like my husband has done on his car, the only real solution is a tape adapter, since my 2003 model stereo does not feature a direct line-in.

It has always worked great, even back when I was rocking a Discman and oodles of mp3 CDs.  When I moved to the iPod, it continued to work perfectly.  However, since I started using my iPhone as both my phone and main source of music, I have run into a problem.

Every time something is plugged into the headphone jack, my iPod music starts to play.  It doesn’t matter if anything else might be supplying audio to the stereo, such as Pandora or last.fm.  It happens only with things that are non-Apple–I don’t experience it with the stock Apple earbuds at all.

Sometimes it helps if I start the other application (like Pandora), get the music playing, THEN plug in the tape adapter.  Other times nothing seems to help and I give up in frustration.  All I really want is to be able to listen to my awesome Pandora stations on my 30+ minute commute, is that so wrong?

Research I’ve done on the Internet has netted me plenty of gripes from other people with the same problem, but no actual solution.  According to what I’ve read, even Apple doesn’t really have a fix for it.  I don’t know if I should take my iPhone in and complain, or if I will have the same problem with another iPhone.  I suppose I should do it before the end of August, when my 1-year warranty runs out.

Is anyone else having the same problem?  Have you been able to fix it?  Inquiring tech divas want to know.

This weekend, I’m attending my second Dallas WordCamp, a local event that showcases not just the amazing WordPress blogging system, but things you can do to make you a better blogger, designer, and community builder.

I attended my first WordCamp last year and I had an absolute blast.  I felt very at home in an auditorium full of mostly techy geeks–many of them even geekier than me in some ways!  I sat in a sea of mostly MacBooks and MacBook Pros.  I on the other hand was rocking my portable yet underpowered Eee PC, tethered to a precious spot on the power strip.  Though I didn’t want to admit it at the time, the Eee PC was more of a conversation piece than a true mobile workhorse.  I was working with a less that satisfactory Windows Mobile phone that was far outstripped by the iPhones I could see other people using.  Hell, the thing didn’t even want to make calls properly, let alone do anything fancy.  I felt almost lost–I was usually the most “techy” person in a group, but I had clearly met my matches at WordCamp.

WordCamp is a place that showcases technology, not just for what it can do for blogging, but what it can do for attendees.  That was my first chance to see mobile technology in widespread action, not just how I applied it to my day to day or specialized needs.

This year I am rocking much better technology with my Dell Mini 9 Hackintosh and my iPhone 3G.  Unlike last year, I don’t have to stay tethered to a power strip to stay connected (although I did, mostly because it was there).  I have better processing power, better battery power–and that translates into better communication power in a setting like WordCamp.

Because I have mobile technology that actually works as advertised in a mobile setting, I am able to connect that much more with the presenters and my fellow attendees.  I’m able to see a running conversation about the event, and contribute to that conversation as it happens.  I have choices in how the information being given out gets to me, and I have avenues to even more information as it is shared in the group.  Would I be able to do that with my Eee PC and my sadly dumb smartphone?  Yes, I would–but would I be able to do it as easily, or as elegantly?  Probably not.

I think there is something very important in having a setup that works for you; having the perfect gear is not necessarily about having the newest and fastest laptop, or an HD camera in your bag at all times.  It’s about having the kind of equipment that can get you through the day at a place like WordCamp, that can allow you to communicate and create and evolve on the go.

I find it fascinating to watch technology become a part of our lives and the way we work, play, learn and communicate with each other.  WordCamp is an excellent study in that, not just from a macro level but from a microscopic level, watching each individual participate in their own way with their own gear.  I love watching mobile technology in action, used the way it was intended to be used.

I really hope a fix comes out for this soon…I just updated my Apple TV to the new 2.4 update and reinstalled Boxee.  Boxee’s brand new alpha, build 0.9.12.6566, really doesn’t want to play anything from my four seasons of Farscape.  I’ve renamed the offending files, deleted my profile and reinstalled it, and still no love.

I was able to watch an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, I was able to stream an episode of Nurse Jackie, but I absolutely cannot get Farscape to play.  Hulu also does not work as intended, though Hulu on Boxee is always up and down so that doesn’t really surprise me.  Instead of playing the actual video it just goes to the video’s web page.

Please roll out a fix for this soon, Boxee devs!  I am otherwise REALLY happy with the new interface.  It is about a million times snappier, things update from the network source a LOT faster, and I like what you’ve done with the new layout.

So, since Boxee seems to approve of True Blood, I’m going to go watch it.

I have been looking forward to push notifications on the iPhone ever since they were first announced.  I knew that programs like instant messaging on the iPhone would be truly usable then, because you wouldn’t have to “sign out” to do something like check an email or make a call.  It was a long wait, but the app I have been waiting to get push notifications FINALLY got the App Store Update tonight!

IM+ 3.1 is live and it is awesome! IM+ is my instant messenger app of choice on the iPhone, at least so far.  Beejive IM is very buggy and unstable (I get TONS of crashes on it) and I use multiple chat protocols, so AIM is out simply on the basis that it only connects to one service.  IM+ has been the best app for me since it was released.  I had been using the free version, but when the price dropped in anticipation of the 3.1 update, I purchased the full version.

Push notification works FLAWLESSLY with IM+.  I have been signed in all night, and the IM push messages are pretty much instantaneous.  There is no lag at all in chat notifications.  I noticed that there is a slight delay between when I receive a Twitter DM to my email and when I get the notification through IM+, but I have myself signed in to Twitter through IM+ anyway.  I mean, how awesome is it to get @ replies and DMs pushed to your phone without wasting text messages?  I’ve been waiting for that.

Finally, a chat program gets a coveted spot on my front app page.  I am very picky about what goes on that page–it’s where most of the stock iPhone apps go (YouTube, Calculator, Maps, Clock, Settings, Camera, Photos, Messages) and my top used apps (The Weather Channel, Stanza, Tweetie, and Byline).  Before, chatting was sort of inelegant and I rarely used it unless  I was stuck somewhere and totally bored, or at home and away from the laptop.  Now IM+ lives next to Byline so that I can access my chats at the touch of a fingertip.

Thanks for building a great product, Shape Services!  I look forward to enjoying push messaging at last.

After almost two full days with the new iPhone 3.0 software, there are a handful of  things that stand out for me as clearly AWESOME…things I wish had been a part of the iPhone OS since the beginning (or at least the introduction of the iPhone 3G).

1) Copying multiple photos from the Camera Roll to email. This is so freaking handy, especially when I use my iPhone to take snaps of something I am reviewing, or a series of photos of a single subject. It is super easy to just throw them into an email now!

2) Shake to shuffle the iPod. This is just intuitive and should have been part of the OS all along, given the accelerometer.

3) Spotlight search. It is so handy to be able to search instead of flip through pages of apps or cycle through tons of contacts.

4) Snappier performance in the Camera. One thing I hated about the camera was the extreme lag I often experienced when opening it, or trying to go from the Camera to the Camera Roll. The increased performance makes it a lot more usable.

5) Push notifications. Not a lot of apps have this enabled yet, but I can’t wait. IM+ is probably my most anticipated push notification app…it will be awesome to be logged in to IM whenever, wherever.

One of the main reasons I wanted to jailbreak my iPhone was to be able to scrobble the tracks I played on my iPod to my last.fm account.  I really love last.fm, both for the radio features and just to have a history of what I’ve been listening to.  I like to track my habits, “love” certain songs in last.fm to remember them, and discover new music by playing artist stations (in a similar manner to how I use Pandora).  I hate having to remember to sync my iPhone just to scrobble things, so when I found out you could auto-scrobble directly to last.fm AS you used your iPod, well…let’s just say it didn’t take me long to break my iPhone out of the slammer.

Now, with iPhone 3.0, there is an application called iScrobbler that allows you to scrobble directly from your phone.  You add your music (as much or as little as you want) and listen to it from inside the app.  As long as the app is open, your played tracks will be scrobbled.  Not as elegant as a small application running in the background…but it’s a start. According to a post in the last.fm forums about the app, you can also start playing tracks on your iPod, and as long as you start the app before the first song ends, it will scrobble that track and all tracks played until the app is closed.

I have downloaded it, but not used it yet.  My biggest complaints so far are that I really hate the color scheme–it is an inelegant mix of orange and yellow that quite frankly hurts my eyes–and the track information (artist, album, title) is in a very small font.  But, like I said, it’s a start.  I look forward to seeing this app grow and possibly seeing something cooked up that will allow background scrobbling in iPhone 3.0.

If you’ve been getting a sync error (Incorrect URL is what I was experiencing!) when Pocket Informant for iPhone tries to sync up with your Google Calendar, there is a quick and easy fix for it.

Simply go into Settings > Sync > Google Calendar and do a Reset Sync. I chose Erase Local Data since I had nothing that wasn’t already on the GCal side and it synced up like a charm! No more errors.

A side note–I am loving the shake to sync feature! It’s a cute and quick way to update the calendar. Because it is so handy I turned off Sync at startup on both GCal and Toodledo…that way I can get to my calendars that much faster. Every second counts, after all!

I have to say, up until last night I wasn’t really that excited about the release of iPhone 3.0.  I was happy when they announced it some months back, and I knew I’d be happy when it got here, but I wasn’t so blown away by any of the features that I was jumping out of my seat.

After last week’s announcement at WWDC that AT&T would not support MMS at the release of 3.0 and that tethering would be coming down the line (at a price, to boot), I was honestly pretty miffed.  MMS was one of the things I was really looking forward to having on the iPhone, considering I have had it on every other dumbphone I’ve ever owned.  Tethering is something else that comes in really handy when I’m out and about, and considering how much I pay for data on my iPhone plan already, AT&T is asking at lot to expect me to pay even MORE to tether.  I could deal with $5 or $10 extra on top of my data plan, but the rumor is that AT&T will want somewhere in the vicinity of $60-70 for tethering privileges.

However, like a good Apple fangirl I am waiting impatiently for the update to hit.  I am eager to see how it will change how I use my phone in some ways, and I am really excited to see how the app developers will be using the new features in their programs.  I think the thing that I’m most excited for is Push Notifications at long last!  I am hoping that I’ll be able to see instant messages, @ replies on Twitter, and other info as easily as I can see popups for new text messages.

What are you excited for in the iPhone 3.0 release?

I have been lusting after the Flip camcorder ever since it came out, and really, who could blame me?  I love all things techy and small, and the Flip packs a lot of features into a small package.  However, my Canon SD750 was proven to take video that is just as good, if not a little BETTER, than the original Flip.  So, I held off on getting one because I didn’t think it was a good deal if I already had a device that could do the same thing.

When the Flip Mino HD came out, my intrigue was sparked anew.  I still really love the form factor, and the ability to shoot in decently high quality for a fraction of the price of expensive HD cameras is a definite bonus.  I realize you won’t get the same results as with one of those expensive HD cameras, but for what I want one for I feel that it will be more than sufficient.  I have been contemplating adding one to my Christmas list this year for a few months.

Then, I hear about the introduction of the Flip Ultra HD, which has longer recording time, user removable rechargeable batteries, and an HDMI port.  Now Gizmodo tells me that there is a Kodak equivalent to the Ultra HD coming out on May 15 that has pretty much all of the above, plus support for SDHC cards up to 32GB! I swoon!  It seems to be a better price point as well at $150 versus the $200 for the Mino HD and the reported $200 for the Ultra HD.  I would expect this means the Mino should drop to $150 as well, but for that price the Kodak Zx1 is the clear winner to me–provided the performance is good.

Hopefully someone will do a side-by-side comparison of the two cameras…if the Flip and Kodak people want to grace me with their products, I would be HAPPY to conduct the experiment myself and blog the results.  Call me, guys!

An hour with the WRT610N, or How I Finally Have Decent WiFi
By Keith Shapiro

Back Story

Before the WRT610N, I had spent a grand total of $10 on wireless technology. If the adage is true, you can imagine that with what I’d paid for, I’d not gotten a lot. I did however, have a cheapy ZyXel P-330W wireless-G router ($10) and a D-Link Wireless-G router I got from Freecycle. The D-Link? Like every piece of D-Link equipment I’ve owned, it is a piece of crap. The version of the router I got is apparently plagued by overheating and reboots. When it was up and running, coverage was decent, but I had to pull the case apart and put a fan on it to keep it cool enough just to transfer files between machines on my local network. A fan. On a network router. Give. Me. A. Break.

The sound pollution just wasn’t worth it. We’d moved the (much more fully featured) ZyXel upstairs to act as a wireless client for my daughter’s computer, so to go back to using that as our house router would have required purchasing another wireless adapter. And, I was about to order my wife’s new MacBook. While I could tolerate intermittent dropouts on the network, I wasn’t about to come home every day to complaints about how much the network sucked. So that would be two draft-n clients and a .11g client, with plans to add a HTPC later in the year. Oh, and we occasionally have 15-20 guests descend on our house with laptops.

…..Click here to read more