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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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?

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

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.

I don’t like to have my bandwidth interrupted. I want the higher speeds. So I went looking for a simultaneous dual-band router. I was advised to get a business-class WAP for stability’s sake and use a wired router (I have one already). Excellent idea, but wireless access points in the business class START at $300 and go up from there. Like everyone else, I too am a victim of recession and spending $300 on this didn’t seem to be a good first resort. So, enter the Linksys WRT610N. It’s a Linksys, which is good, since I’ve had nothing but good luck from them. It’s GigE on ALL the wired ports, including the WAN port. That’s good, since I recently upgraded to RoadRunner Turbo which is >10Mbit. Reviews on NewEgg tended to be in the 4-5 range with the 1s taken up mostly by people who have to use adaptive technology for web surfing since their head seems permanently lodged in their rectum.

In The Box

I ordered the WRT610 from NewEgg for about $150. It arrived quickly, as expected. Inside the package are the router, an ethernet cable, a startup packet, and the power adapter. I must say that I do like this power adapter better than previous wall-wart style models from Linksys. It uses a laptop-brick style adapter that has a standard laptop-style removable cable that plugs into the wall and the power brick. The power brick has an LED that indicates you’re connected to the juice and a fixed cable to the router.

Setup

I connected my wired desktop PC to the router’s port 1 and the WAN port of the router to my cable modem. I reset the cable modem and powered on the Linksys. In case you were wondering, it really was that simple to get internet back on my wired PC.

Linksys may have invested a bunch of money in pretty software to help you configure things and set them up, but if you’ve bothered to get THIS router, chances are you know what you’re doing. The login and password are the standard for Linksys, and the router defaults to 192.168.1.1. I changed that and the admin password immediately. The web interface looks exactly like every other recent model Linksys router, so there are no big surprises. Just click around and set things up to your liking.

Next I set up the wireless. I set up WPA2 passwords on both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands and set up different SSIDs on both. Then I got out my trusty Lenovo X200 and tried to log on.

My laptop would only recognize the 2.4GHz SSID. This was troubling, since a) I had paid for both bands to work at once, and b) I wanted my laptop to be the primary user of the 5GHz band with the 2.4GHz band for everyone else. I did some frantic googling and read some reports of defective 5GHz setups, requiring RMA. Not a good sign, methinks, but let me do some debugging. I completely disabled the 2.4GHz band and turned off security on the 5GHz band. Viola! There it was, with lovely signal strength, showing up in the network list.

When I went to re-add security to the 5GHz band I got an interesting error message. WPA2 passwords must be at least 8 characters. The previous password I had used was 7 characters long, but I got no error.

It looks like there’s a bug in the error reporting on the security web page for WRT610N. If you have both 2.4GHz and 5GHz security enabled, the error reporting for the 2.4GHz band (which occurs further down the page) will overwrite any errors from the 5GHz band’s config. So, if you screw up your 5GHz band but the 2.4GHz stuff is okay, you won’t get an error.

With that discovered, I re-enabled the 2.4GHz band and everything was detected. Booyah.

Wireless Connectivity

I changed my SSIDs with the new router, so I had to go and reconfigure the little ZyXel box. This involved a full configuration reset for it, because once it goes into client mode, it’s impossible to update. Did the reset, added in the new configuration and it came back online immediately.

As for my Thinkpad, everything worked great, once I told it to ignore Wireless Protected Setup and let me enter the password. I was advised to disable WPS completely and just do things manually. I’ve got no problem with that, since entering a password is not really a sufficiently big deal to skip it.

File transfers on the network jumped to over 5MB/sec and I was seeing a consistent 60 – 120Mbit link from my living room to the router in the office. The link seemed stable at 300Mbit when the laptop was in the same room as the router, although I’ve not done a file transfer in that room to check performance.

Other Thoughts

This router vents heat to the bottom, which is a bit bizarre. The only thing I can imagine is that the router is intended to be hung vertically on a wall. I have not done so yet, but I might as electronics performance improves with lower temps.

Firmware updating was easy through the web interface and didn’t wipe configuration settings, at least on the upgrade I did.

This router is listed as a WIP for DD-WRT. I have NOT downloaded or tried the DD-WRT development firmware. For those of you using DD-WRT, would I get performance or range gains over the stock firmware? Or is it just in feature set?

Having a GigE port for WAN is nice, considering that we upgrade things like routers far less frequently than we upgrade our network performance. My old Linksys wired router lasted more than 8 years and started with a 512k/64k DSL line. Now, my performance is more like 18Mbit/1.5Mbit, with speed increases coming on 1-2 year basis. It’s nice to realize that I won’t come close to topping out my router before I’ll need to replace everything else.

The antennas on this router are internal. I don’t personally have a problem with that. If you want high gain antennas, this is probably not the model for you.

This model also takes the new Linksys styling which is black and shiny and has shaped LEDs to indicate function. I kind of like square LEDs with labels and boxy boxes, but I’d like very much to start ignoring my router again so this isn’t really that big a deal. If you have to have your router visible, it’s pretty sleek. Just make sure to wipe up your fingerprints when you’re done caressing it.

Wrap-Up

I have about 2 hours experience with the router so far, however my wife reports that the internets don’t seem any more retarded than usual. Long term performance remains to be evaluated.

Thanks for the guest post, Keith!