The Droid is actually a really decent phone, I enjoyed using it and I think the Android OS is also very good and well eventually become much more popular. The phone had some great features like a slide out keyboard, which was a nice change since I’ve been using iPhone touch screen to text and email for about 2 years now. The camera 5.0 MP camera was also very good but besides the fact of it having a Flash in dark settings the quality of pictures was not better then iPhone pictures. The touch screen on the Droid is decent but definitely falls short of the iPhone, there’s just something about the iPhone’s screen that makes everything so accurate and sensitive to touch and easy to use, it also supports multi-touch gestures while the Droid does not yet. My favorite feature on the Droid that the iPhone does not offer was the ability to tether via the 3G when my connected to my computer with a USB cable, this is more the network then the device but it was definitely nice to have internet access where ever I was (with no wi-fi). My only real problem with the phone was the overall size of the device. It was quite heavy ad just didn’t feel as nice as an iPhone does in my hand.

One thing I really missed was my Mobile Me service that synchronized all my iCal and Address Book data from my Macbook to my iPhone instantly and wirelessly. Mobile Me also has some other features that I just recently discovered; If you lose your iPhone you can log into your MM account and use the locate my iPhone tools which consist of a pulse that can be used to locate your phone if it’s hidden under your couch, a GPS location feature that brings up your iPhone exact location using Google Maps and also the ability to complete wipe your phone out and send a custom message to it, if it happens to fall into the wrong hands.

In the end I’m glad I was able to test out the Droid and Verizon for a couple weeks risk free but am definitely glad to have a new iPhone 3GS, which is actually an upgrade from my 3G. I can now take video and I notice the speed in UI transitions is a bit faster.

I’ve been staring at my broken console collect dust for the past couple months while I continued to pay monthly for xBox Live, a service which I obviously wasn’t able to use but was too lazy to call Microsoft and cancel my auto-renewal account. With the release of Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, came the urge to jump on the bandwagon and play it, since Call Of Duty was the only game I ever really played on xBox in the past. Needless to say I really wasn’t happy with my xBox and was planning on buying a PS3 with the new COD but I really didn’t want to drop all that money with the holidays coming up so I decided to try my xBox the other night to see if it had any life left. Of course I was able to get through an hour of play with the old Modern Warfare so I figured I’d pick up the new COD for my xBox and hopefully be able to get to play it a bit.

Here I go at the main screen getting ready to jump into some killer action, my xBox is working, everything is cruising along and what happens next…

weeeee!! The infamous 3 RROD and I didn’t even get to play 1 game, shit..

Of course at this point I’m feeling like an idiot for wasting $70 on a game for a system I knew was broken, but for some reason thought it was a good idea. I called up the video game store that I just bought the game from and told him my situation. Told him that I’d come back in right now and buy a PS3 along with COD: MW2 if they gave me the credit back for the 360 game I just bought and opened only an hour ago. Of course they told me no they won’t take back games that have been opened.

So I guess I need to have my 360 fixed again, but in the mean time I still wanting to try out the new game I just bought. So I did the only logical thing to do; disassembled my 360, wet a towel and strategically placed the unit ontop of the wet towel right outside my bedroom door (balcony), stretching the cables into my TV. This method actually worked, I was able to get through a solid 4-5 hours of play without the game locking up on me or the system overheating, which from what I understand is the reason for the 3RROD Error.

Here’s my 360 chilling outside, it’s new home and if it continues to give me trouble will likely be smashed on the near by concrete without any hesitation.

First, I downloaded the iPhone 3.0 restore file (iPhone1,2_3.0_7A238j_Restore.ipsw) via bit torrent and attempted to manually restore my iPhone from iTunes with the 3.0 file which was located on my desktop. Everything was going smoothly, it took a couple of minutes for the update to install on my iPhone then my phone restarts and I see this lovely screen in iTunes.

After doing some research I learned that in order to use the 3.0 beta OS you must be apart of the Apple Developers Program which came along with a price of $99/year for the standard package and $299/year for the enterprise. At this point I figured I’d just wait a couple months for the 3.0 OS to be released to the public and decided to restore my iPhone to latest backup which was that day, before I attempted the 3.0 upgrade. Unfortinuately there was no way to restore my iPhone from iTunes, so after a bit more research, I learned that by a specific key stroke I can reboot my iPhone in something called “Restore Mode” which will give me the option to restore my iPhone from iTunes from a file on my computer.

I was able to successfully restore the 2.2.1 OS on my iPhone but after the completion of the software update my phone would reboot as always and iTunes would give me the error below (1013). Apparently the baseband that comes with OS 3.0 won’t downgrade using any method on either the 2st Gen or iPhone 3G. There is no unlock for the new baseband (or the current one for that matter).

When you DFU restore to 2.2.1 iTunes will give you an error at the end (most likely 1015 or 1013) indicating a baseband/firmware mismatch.

So feeling pretty frustrated at this point, I decided I would just put 3.0 back on my iPhone and purchase the Developers Program from Apple. I filled out the application and at the end was notified that the Application has been submitted and I will be contacted by a representative within 5-7 business days. Meanwhile I have no phone, so I figured the best thing to do at this point would be to bring it in to the Apple Store and have them take a shot at recovering it.

Of course the Apple Store in the Fashion Show mall was busy and had no openings to see me until the following day. I was without my phone for over 24hours and it was pretty bad, but when I finally got it into the Apple Store, they attempted the same restore I did, failing as I did and ended up just replacing the device with a new one.

So all is well again and I guess I’ll just have to wait like everyone else for MMS, Landscape texts, Internet Tethering and copy & paste.

One of the first things I did after unpacking the Apple TV was hacked it using the following tutorial: Hack Your Apple TV With Boxee. It was a painless process and only took me 20 minutes to do. Now that I have installed the patch I can now watch any type of DRM free multimedia (e.g., DIVX, AVI, MKV, ISO and BIN) from any computer connected to my network. I can even play multimedia through internet streams (e.g. hulu, YouTube, podcast videos) which consist of a large collection of movies as well as many popular TV series. As long as you have a good internet connection, the video streaming works flawlessly and it’s nice to be able to browser through all the episodes of your favorite TV series and watch the latest episode from the series when you’re ready to watch it.

Even without hacking the Apple TV you can still rent or buy all new DVD titles and TV series for a reasonable price, but with the Boxee Patch you aren’t required to purchase anything, really. Another feature that comes with the Apple TV is the ability to share iTunes libraries on your network. So if you have a desktop computer on your network with all your music and videos, the Apple TV will make all the media available to you, similar to the Remote iPhone application. The Apple TV also makes it easy to stay up to date with your favorite Podcasts, if you enjoy a specific podcast, you can set it in your favorites and watch the latest episode as soon as it comes out.

Now I just need to find a good Home Theatre system and I’ll be set up nicely in my home office.

Anyways I recently found a simple and free solution to Synchronize my Blackberry user data with OS X’s iCal, Address Book and StickiesNotes. It’s called Pocketmac.

A quick tutorial

If you need me to hold your hand through the steps
 

My setup

• Blackberry 8830 Word Edition (Blackberry OS 4.2) running BIS (not Enterprise Server)
• PocketMac 1.0.9
• Mac OS X 10.5.4 Leopard powered MacBook Pro
• iCal, Address Book and StickiesNotes

1. First Download: Pocketmac and install it (you will need to reboot).
2. Open up Pocketmac and attach your Blackberry device via USB to your Mac.
3. Run through each tab representing your Blackberry user data (Contacts, Calender etc.) and check the desired OS X application you wish to sync with.
4. Once you got everything checked, proceed to the giant green “Sync” button to the top right and click.
5. That should do it, give it a few minutes to synchronize everything, and then confirm all of your user data made it from your Blackberry to your designated OS X app.

and heres a little doodle for the lazy, non-readers…

These last couple weeks I’ve heard a lot of hype about the new GTA IV. I remembered the game from PS2, it was pretty cool, but didn’t look like anything being advertised as far as graphics. So I decided I would try it for my self on a new HD gaming console. I was indecisive on weather I wanted a PS3 or an xBox 360. I picked up a PS3 used form Gamestop for $350 with GTA IV, brought it home plugged it in to my HD TV to discover the picture was really dark and very difficult to read small text. This obviously wasn’t acceptable since the PS3 + HDTV cost around $2,000. So I tried the PS3 on another TV, this one wasn’t HD so I used standard A/V hookups and the picture was still dark, this time there was even a horizontal shadow that crawled up my screen. So I decided to bring the PS3 back and get my money back, with intentions on picking up an xBox 360 off the internet for much less than i paid for the PS3 from Game Stop.

I found an xBox 360 Premium console on Craigslist for $300 that was brand new. Apparently the seller had issues with his original unit so Microsoft sent him a new one, which he decided to sell. I also ended up buying Call Of Duty 4 off him and was able to swap my GTA IV for PS3 for the xBox version from Game Stop.

So now I setup on my TV, turn it on and the picture looks amazing! Way better than the PS3 did. Now I’m not trying to dog on the PS3 I’m sure it’s a great console, I may have just gotten a defective one, since I did buy it used, or maybe it didn’t like my older HDTV that does not have an HDMI input.

Anyways both of the games are truly amazing, I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of work put into these games. I like COD4 very much, the missions are so real and I can literally sit there and play it for hours on end without getting bored. GTA IV is needless to say awesome beyond belief. The multi player for GTA IV is great, you can get a group of your friends together and have battles with other gangs, take over territories or just have death matches. I like jumping into a car with like 3 other live players and doing a drive by while your talking to them over a headset. That’s another reason I’m glad I got the xBox 360 over PS3, I know a lot more people with an xBox live account then I do with PS3. Although Live costs like ~$20 every 3 months, it’s pretty cheap and well worth it.

So if you have an xBox Live account, you should add me to your friends list.
Gamer Tag: mikechick

Ever since I setup Leopard I was having problems installing software on my main admin account, mike. So I made an alternate account to install software, I figured this had something to do with permissions, so I decided to try adding a custom permission on the entire Macintosh HD to allow “mike” Read & Write permissions. It took like 20 minutes for the permissions to apply to the enclosed items, after it finished I rebooted, and was never able to recover.

Steps to Recovery
First thing I tried was the obvious, Safe Boot, which is Mac’s equivalent to Microsoft Window’s Safe Mode. To do this as soon as you power on your computer start holding the Shift key down. I had no luck with Safe boot, so I was hoping I could boot to CD still in order to run the Disk Repair utility thats built into the startup disk that came with my Macbook, or at the very least reinstall the operating system.

To boot from CD, the steps are similar to Safe Boot only as soon as you power on your computer start holding down the “C” key, once your CD is in the drive of course. This was successful, So I proceeded to load the startup disk. Without Clicking next on the Setup Wizard I chose Utilities from the Menu at the top of the screen and went into the Disk Utility. From here I was able to run a “Disk Repair” and also a “Permissions Repair” both returned no errors, so I was pretty sure the problem wasn’t fixed.

I eventually came to the conclusion I needed to reinstall OS X. Although I didn’t want to lose all my files and settings only thing I wouldn’t be able to recover was my Thunderbird e-mail and folders. As i started the setup wizard I notice the installation method chosen for me by default was called “Archive and Install” after doing some research I discovered OS X will make a directory of all your user’s files and settings from any previous installations of OS X. This is completely new to me, when reinstalling Windows everything will be erased during the re-installation, unless you chose to do a repair install, which I guess may be similar to the Archive and Install. Anyways the installation took a little over an hour, when I was finally up and running again I opened Macintosh HD to find a directory named “Previous System 1″ that contained all my users’ directories, and application folder. So I was able to drag and drop the contents of my old Libraries folder, Documents and Applications over to my freshly installed OS.

So everything is back and better then it ever was. I can now even install software on my main user account. Only problem I had was with Adobe Photoshop CS3. Apparently if you do an Archive and Install on OS X, then the system doesn’t copy the Adobe Unit Types file to the ScriptingAdditions folder, you can read more details in this Adobe Technote.

Conclusion
After this experience I will no longer procrastinate setting up Time Machine to get a backup of my system as frequently as possible. I also know that if all else fails, the Archive and Install method works great and makes it simple to recover files and settings from a previous installation of OS X.

After doing some research, apparently to complete a software upgrade on most iPods you have to plug your iPod into the wall charger. This is so the iPod doesn’t die mid-firmware flash, in result turning your iPod into nothing but an expensive paperweight. Probably a good call on Apple’s part, but what if you don’t have a wall charger handy? In most cases you would be out of luck.

Besides the obvious (borrowing a wall adapter) there is a surprisingly simple solution. If you’ve ever looked closely at a FireWire or USB cable you’ll notice that two of the pins stick out a little farther than the rest. Those are the pins that carry the electricity to charge the iPods while the other prongs are used for data transfer (right?).

The Fix:
Trick is if you plug in the USB or FirmWire (while the other end is connected to the iPod) into the computer just a little bit so only the two charging pins touch the accompanying pins on the computer, you should be able to fool the iPod into thinking it’s a wall charger. The firmware will update, and you’ll have a working iPod again.

I instructed her to remove the battery asap, and use a blow dryer on both the device and battery until they were dry. After doing this for a few minutes, she put the battery back in her phone, tried to power it on and nothing happened, still dead. So at this point I told her to either leave it out in the sun in attempt to remove all the moisture form inside the battery/device, try a replacement battery and hope the actually Blackberry is not damaged or there was one last thing she could try that I recently just learned. Apparently leaving a soaking wet cell phone in a bowl of uncooked rice over night would suck out all the moisture and bring life back to the once lifeless cell phone.

Since there wasn’t any sun light available, she proceeded with the bowl of uncooked rice trick. The next morning her phone powered on and everything appeared as it was prior to the dip into the bath tub. She was thrilled and thanked me a million times.

Obviously if you are bringing your cellphone anywhere where you could potentially drop it into water, just be extra careful. In the unlikely event you do happen to submerge your cell phone into water and it no longer works, I would try the following steps before spending the money on a replacement.

• Remove the back of the phone and battery right away.
• Try to get both the device and battery dry as possible with a cloth.
• Use a blow dryer to remove the moisture that may have gotten inside.
• Leave your cellphone in a bowl of uncooked rice overnight.
• Leave the battery and the device with the back off out in sun light for an extended period of time.
• Try a replacement battery before replacing the device. Hopefully you have a friend with the same phone or maybe your provider has a shop nearby that would let you use a battery while in the store.

I recently purchased a new MacBook Pro and have been researching the best ways to prolong my battery life and the most efficient way to use my Magsafe power adapter. Here’s what I was able to gather up.

You should disconnect the power adapter once your laptop is fully charged and wait until your system gives you warning as “Now your running in reserved batter power” or “Low Battery” use that as a notice to connect your power adapter. Running a charge through your battery that is already fully charged not only wastes electricity but runs unnecessary energy through your battery which can eventually cause damage.

Best method to prolong your battery life is to calibrate you batter every 2 months to increase the capacity and life, if you use your laptop Daily, Follow as below.

Calibrating a MacBook or MacBook Pro battery
Calibrate the battery in your MacBook every month or two to keep your battery functioning at its fullest capacity.

To calibrate the battery:

1. Plug in the MagSafe power adapter and fully charge the MacBook or MacBook Pro battery until the light on the MagSafe connector changes to green and the Battery icon in the menu bar indicates that the battery is fully charged.
2. Allow the battery to rest in the fully charged state for two hours or longer. You may use your computer during this time as long as the power adapter is plugged in.
3. Disconnect the power adapter with the computer on and start using it with battery power. When the battery’s charge gets low, you’ll see the low battery warning dialog on the screen. Continue to keep your computer turned on, save your work and close all applications when the battery’s charge gets too low the computer goes to sleep.
   Turn off the computer or allow it to sleep for five hours or longer.
4. Reconnect the power adapter and leave it connected until the battery is fully charged. You may use your computer during this time.