I'm nowhere near this location!

This morning I tried to use my iphone map function to check the distance between 2 points for milage and drive time. Imagine my surprise when my ‘current location’ was shown to be 117 miles from where I actually was!  The ‘wrong’ location was near where I used to live when I purchased both the phone and my original Micro-Cell box. (I’m now on my 2nd, box).

For those who don’t know, the ATT Micro Cell is a device you can purchase that acts like a mini cellular tower in your home. It connects to AT&T’s network via your existing broadband Internet service (such as DSL or cable) and is designed to support up to four simultaneous users. You receive improved cellular signal performance for both voice calls and data. The technology is generally know as Femtocell and several cell phone carriers have deployed it.

A little investigation revealed that the iphone uses a combination of cell phone tower triangulation AND the GPS receiver to lock on to your location, especially if your GPS signal is low because your iPhone can’t “see” the sky. I understand that it is called aGPS or assisted GPS. The only available 3G cell phone signal in my very rural home comes from my Micro-Cell box.

Some quick internet reading suggested that my iphone was relying on the 3G signal from the Micro-Cell to fix its location. To prove the theory I went into Settings on the iphone and turned 3G off. Next I went back to the map, and sure enough, after a minute or so it found my true location once the GPS locked on.

This is how far between the 2 locations

This is my real location

Turn off 3G in settings.

Admittedly this post is a little bit of “stating the obvious”. If you don’t have a good GPS fix then the iPhone uses what it has at its disposal to get as close as it can. However,  and this was the “teachable moment” for me, if a Micro Cell or other Femtocell is in use then , based on my experience, you can probably disregard the ‘current location’ result entirely . I wonder if the Micro Cell was using the known location of the internet server that it is connected to?

Regarding my experience with the Micro Cell, it has been less than pleasant. As discussed in the Wikipedia article, when the Micro Cell uses the existing DSL backhaul connection it must share the home bandwidth with all the other services such as email, web browsing and gaming. This leads to frequent disconnections of the Micro Cell and loss of 3G coverage. The 3G LED will blink while the service is lost. It may recover in minutes, or it can take hours or even an entire day. For me, this happens at least once per day often when nobody is even using the DSL. An outage once per week would be bad enough but daily outages are unacceptable and I am looking for an alternative solution. ATT tech supports best suggestion was to swap the box which didn’t improve the situation.

//Jon

Tags: AT&T, 3G, GPS, Micro Cell, Femtocell

Accessories include a dock which props the unit upright in “picture frame” mode, a real keyboard, and a nice carry case. Also included is a big make over for the iWork suite of applications so they can work on the iPad and take full advantage of the interface.

The standard WiFi version ships in March and the 3G version ships in April.

//Jon

WPtouch automatically transforms any WordPress blog into a better viewing experience for users of iPhone, iPod touch or Android touch mobile device. It detects the mobile device automatically and presents the mobile theme. There is a switch at the bottom of any mobile page that alows the user to turn off the mobile theme and revert to the normal one.

It has all the standard WordPress blog features such as search, login, categories, tags, archives, photos & more. It also has links at the bottom of each article so you can email the article (link), post a link to some twitter clients, and post a link to some social bookmark sites. There is also a button to increase the fint size. The admin panel offers customization of these features and the options to add more.

Using optimized code, the WPtouch theme will also dramatically lower the download time for your blog resulting in a more pleasing viewing experience for mobile users.

Have an iphone? Load up this blog and give it a try.

5 stars!

//Jon

If you load a phone up with the capability to do a lot of cool stuff, it is reasonable to assume that users will want to BE ABLE to actually USE the cool stuff. You can, but only if you do so very sparingly. My Treo could go 2 days without charging; my iphone can barely make it through one day, and that is if I’m in my office working. If I’m on the road and I actually USE the phone for calls, internet, email, etc., then I can expect it to be down to 20% by mid afternoon.

My advice. . . (read more)

1. Keep a charger in your car.
2. Get an external battery pack.

There are several external battery packs available. Many of them hang off the bottom of the phone like a dongle, not my idea of a nice functional design. Instead, I chose the Mophie Juice Pack Air which I have blogged about before. It doubles as a no slip protective case and an extra battery. When the iphone battery runs down, you flip a small switch and the Mophie battery recharges the iphone battery. It has a pass through USB connector which can be used to charge and sync the phone so you don’t have to take it out of the case. I won’t bore you with the specs here, you can read them on the Mophie web site.

I scored a good deal today. Periodically I have been checking the camera section at our local Target store and watching the prices on the HD camcorders. Admittedly, these are the low end HD camcorders, along the lines of the FlipCam’s. But they are small enough to fit in your pocket, easy on the battery, and can take up to a 32GB card. In good light they do a reasonable job.

Here are some sample shots. The first one was taken with the Aiptek at the 8 megapixel setting. The second with my old Fuji S5000 at the 6 megapixel setting. Both images are cropped down by this blog to 480×431. The originals are here.

The colors look richer in the Aiptek (left) image however the colors in the Fuji image are more true to the actual object (some of my woodworking handiwork)

And since it is a video camera, here is a link to 1 minute worth of video. It is in Quicktime MOV format and the file size is 35MB. Right click and “save as”. The 35MB original is here.

Notice the sensitivity to camera shake. This shot was hand held with the lens pressed up against the glass window for added stability, hover you can still see movement. Without image stabilization, or post processing to remove the shake, these small cameras really need a tripod.

//Jon

Why? I’m shopping with my dollars, thats why. Comcast was costing me between $75 and $110 per month, the variance attributed to on-demand movie rental. When something went wrong the service was horrible. A cut cable in the neighborhood usually resulted in a temporary cable strung over neighbors laws, or across driveways in the street. This could last for weeks until it was repaired properly. Picture pixelation was a problem, especially during storms. And finally, no al-a-carte choices, you have to take their ‘bundles’ most of which we didn’t watch, just to get that one channel we did want to watch. Enough is enough. Now I’m down to the $12.95/month for the Tivo TV guide service and Netflix which I was already paying for. The savings will pay off the new gear in about 1 year. Payback could be less for you, it depends on how sophisticated your system is, and how much gear (like a used computer) you have available already.

My Setup

I had a Channel Master HDTV Over The Air (OTA) antenna installed on the roof (actually it is in the attic). It pulls in 15 stations in Atlanta, all the networks plus their “sub channels”, PBS, and a few others. There are actually a LOT more channels in Atlanta, but I don’t speak Spanish or Korean, and I don’t watch the Christian channels. Most stations have sub channels. For example, NBC channel 11 has 11.1 (Network programming), 11.2 (weather) and 11.3 (Universal Sports).

The OTA antenna is connected to a new TIVO box. TIVO provides many services including on screen TV Guide services, recording of shows on a schedule (plus it automatically records shows you might be interested in), access to internet content, and access to your Netflix “watch instantly” queue. Internet access can be either via a hardwired ethernet cable, or the TIVO wireless network adaptor.

The TIVO is connected to an older Samsung HDTV through one of the with several component inputs. This TV also has S-video and composite inputs and a DVI input (not the newer HDMI).

For browsing the internet, playing music, and watching content from HULU, I connected a refurbished Mac Mini to the DVI connection on the TV. I was worried about this connection because the manual for the TV clearly stated that the DVI port would not support a PC (but they must have meant Windows-LOL). It worked almost perfectly. Initially the top and bottom of the screen were cut off, making it impossible to get to the Mac menu, however all I had to do was turn off overscan and the problem was solved.

Why the Mac Mini over Apple TV? Simple, Apple TV requires another MAC in the house to act as a host and store the media you want to play on the TV, which it accesses over the network. That wouldn’t work if the host was my laptop, which is often out of the house, and I didn’t want to fill up the other Mac with the content. Further, apple TV does not let you browse the internet and take advantage of Hulu, and whatever other new internet media may come along in the future. The Mac Mini is just more flexible.

DVI connections and cables can be quite tricky. I found the cable I needed at Best Buy. (Dynex DVI-I Digital Video Cable #DX-DVI2M, “for connecting a PC or Laptop with a DVI output to an HD monitor/projector with a DVI input.”). I opted for BB instead on buying it online because I could return it quickly if it didn’t work.

Next I turned on MAC Universal Access which is usually reserved for folks with visual or hearing handicaps. If you’ve ever tried to read a web page on a TV screen from a distance, it can be very hard to do, so this seemed like the perfect solution. UA has a zoom feature, just hold the shift key and roll the scroll wheel on your mouse to zoom in on the screen. You can even set it up so the zoomed area follows the mouse cursor. This will make it very easy to navigate the screen until my dream of a 52 inch widescreen TV is realized. and last but not least, I will load our CD collection on the Mini and turn on disk sharing so we have easy access to all our music from any computer in the house.

I control the computer via an Adesso 2.4Ghz Wireless Mini Keyboard with Optical Trackball (as a mouse). The keyboard and trackball allow operation up to 100 feet away from the Mac Mini computer. The optical trackball provides good accuracy with minimal movement due to its 800 dpi resolution. The lightweight keyboard has hotkeys. which give you one-button access to launch programs for common tasks such as e-mail access, volume control, and web browser.

A four out of five star experience. Everything works, but some folks might need help getting it all connected. A company that specializes in home theater could help.

My next project is to figure out how to control it all with one remote.

//Jon

MORE: Since I posted this I have had the opportunity to test this device. It performs well even on areas with marginal 3G coverage. If you want to test one with no committment to a contract you can rent one for days or weeks. I rented one from Rovair.

State of the Art – With a Private MiFi Hot Spot, Be Online Wherever You Like – NYTimes.com

Pogoplug review: ”

When we first caught wind of the Pogoplug — a small box that essentially lets you turn any USB hard drive (and drives only) into a network device — we were pretty darn excited. Having a house full of disparate storage boxes and no easy way to connect to them made the prospect of the ‘plug seem very enticing. Not only does the Pogoplug make your drive accessible via your PC (with accompanying software), but it — we think more importantly — makes the drive accessible via a web front-end and an iPhone app. We finally had a chance to break one of these out and see how it performs, and our findings are below.

Continue reading Pogoplug review

Filed under: Storage, Networking

Pogoplug review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read’|’Permalink‘|’Email this‘|’Comments”

(Via Engadget.)

Cardboard Scandock turns your iPhone into a document scanner: “

High tech meets low tech with this simple corrugated cardboard stand, that makes capturing document images with your iPhone a snap. If you’ve ever attempted to scan a document by just holding up your phone, you’ll know that a blurry image is often the result. This simple stand created by University of Cincinnati DAAP student Kyle A Koch, is an elegant and green solution that holds both the phone and document in the perfect position to get a sharp capture. The stand comes flat packed for just $16 through the Ponoko design store.

Of course if you insist on something a bit more high tech, you could always make a scanner using Lego.

Ponoko, via Red Ferrett

“

(Via DVICE.)

//Jon
Via Macworld

Mophie Juice Pack Air gives iPhone longer run time by Peter Cohen, , Macworld.com mStation|mophie has introduced the Juice Pack Air for the iPhone 3G. It costs $79.95 and it’s coming this Spring. The ultra-thin Brenthaven Metrolite BP The Juice Pack Air is billed as “the world’s thinnest Apple-certified external battery for the iPhone 3G.” Inside is a 1200 mAH lithium polymer battery that can double the amount of time you have to talk, , listen to music or access the Internet.

The Juice Pack Air comes in a form-fitting hardshell case for the iPhone 3G. The case features a a pass-through USB connector that lets you charge and sync with iTunes. The case sports a four LED charge status indicator and an on-off switch; when off, the Juice Pack Air functions just as a case.

Mophie plans to make the Juice Pair Air available in black, white and purple.

link: Mophie Juice Pack Air gives iPhone longer run time | iPhone Central | Macworld