Monthly Archives: January 2012

Love and an 11-inch MacBook Air

While at CES, I was incredibly lucky and won a new 11-inch MacBook Air at a NetShelter event on my last night there. Upon entering the party, we were asked to throw a business card into a bowl and I happily obliged. And then I immediately forgot about the drawing as soon as I got inside the nightclub and located the open bar where there was a bartender who was willing to give me as many on-the-rocks margaritas as I wanted.

After I had managed to make several of those fantastic margaritas disappear, the party was paused for the drawing I had forgotten all about. The first prize given away was an unlocked Samsung smartphone and the second prize was a Sony Vaio. When my name was called for the MacBook Air, I raised my arms in Rocky-victory style and screamed. And I did a little happy dance, which approximated Kermit the Frog’s frantic arm-waving stage exiting maneuver on the Muppet Show, on my way to pick up my prize. I’m pretty sure I made an ass of myself. I blame the margaritas.

everythingiCafe: the show “Revenie”

Chris Meinck and I recorded episode 48 of the everythingicafe.com podcast earlier this week and it’s now available for download through iTunes. As always, you can also listen to it here using the embedded player above if you’re using a Flash-capable browser.

Chris and I talked about Apple’s Q1 results for fiscal year 2012, which were absolutely phenomenal. We also talked about the jailbreak that just came out for A5 devices running iOS 5, Absinthe. (And I think I’m going to be trying that jailbreak myself this weekend – I do miss me some LockInfo.) Also on our topic list was the report claiming that there have been more than 350,000 downloads of textbooks in the iBookstore and a few other items.

Chris’s Teh Awesome for the week was Thermostapp, a free iPhone app that lets you control a compatible Wi-Fi enabled thermostat. If I had a Wi-Fi-enabled thermostat, I’d totally try this app. Unfortunately, while we have some nice programmable thermostats in our house, they work just fine and don’t need to be replaced and I don’t think I could convince my husband to replace them when it’s not necessary.

My Teh Awesome was the free iPhone game, Tiny Tower. I admitted a little bit of shame in liking this game so much since it’s a little Farmville-like but I’ve been surprised at how much I’ve been playing it, trying to place my little Bitizens in their dream jobs and completing the various missions. It’s completely free to play and I definitely recommend it if you like games where you create and manage your own little virtual world.

In case you’re keeping track, I did not post about the last podcast episode that we recorded last week, #47 – Crappy Earth Science. I’ve been struggling a little getting back into my groove after attending CES but I’m finally getting back on track. You can see more about this episode over at everythingicafe.com here.

To make up for my lack of posting here recently, I have a few codes to get paid apps for free to give away, courtesy of Starbucks and their free Pick of the Week cards. If you want one of the codes, all you need to do is write a comment on this post. Feedback on my site and/or our podcast would be appreciated and be sure to specify which app you want. Make sure your email address is legit – I’ll email you the code using this address (email addresses are not published for the world to see, FYI).

Here’s what I have (these links open iTunes):

• MadPad for iPhone ($.99) – 7 codes expiring February 14, 2012
• Scrabble for iPhone ($1.99) – 3 codes expiring March 20, 2012

One code per person, please. These codes are valid for U.S. iTunes store only and they expire as indicated above. Instructions on how to redeem codes can be found on Apple’s support site here.

Review: Just Mobile AluCube + AluPen

If you couldn’t already tell, I have a bit of a thing for styli. One of the first styli I acquired last year was the Just Mobile AluPen, a chunky stylus reminiscent of the fat Crayola crayons I used as a child. To go along with this stylus, Just Mobile has created a desk stand called the AluCube to store the AluPen in ready position while matching your other Apple products at the same time.

Just Mobile has been lauded for its product designs before and the AluCube + AluPen combination appears to be no exception when it comes to sleek minimalism. Read on my for my review to see if this package is a worthy addition to your desk.

Seth Green at ShowStoppers (CES 2012)

I caught Seth being interviewed at ShowStoppers as I was on my way to the coat check.

He noticed me framing up the picture and took a moment to give me a nice smile. Squee!

A defective iPhone 4S and a trip to the Genius Bar

I got a warranty replacement for my iPhone 4S on New Year’s Eve. My original iPhone 4S had been acting wonkier and wonkier over time, rebooting itself occasionally for no apparent reason, freezing during phone calls, emitting a buzzing/rattling noise in the earpiece speaker during calls and other nefarious actions. The straw that broke the camel’s back was a volume problem that started a few weeks ago. I noticed that the volume would change by itself when I wasn’t even touching the phone (and there was no case on it to put pressure on the buttons) and I could watch the on-screen volume indicator dwindle down to zero or up to the maximum level without any input from me.

The first time this happened, I shrugged it off since I was holding the phone and figured I might have bumped the volume button or something. But then it happened more and more often. I concluded that my iPhone was either possessed or broken. Or it was trying in a very roundabout way to say that I talked to myself too much and silence was really the way to go, you crazy lady, you.

Regardless of my thoughts about the cause of the problem, I had a little WTFBBQ moment, punctuated by several, if not all, of the words on George Carlin’s list, each time it happened. This had to stop.

Investigating a little further, I realized that I could reproduce the problem myself simply by wiggling the volume buttons a little. Even though I never fully pressed them, the volume indicator would appear on the screen and keep adjusting long after I stopped touching the buttons. This made me believe that it was a hardware issue and so I made a genius bar appointment late last week. I was starting to miss alerts since my iPhone made itself silent regularly without my knowledge.

(A little googling revealed this thread in the Apple Support forum but there were no panic.plst entries in my iPhone’s diagnostic logs.)

The Apple store was absolutely crazy when I went in and the Genius Bar was running a little behind. When a genius finally appeared to help me out, I described my problem and wiggled the volume buttons  for him (why does that sound so wrong?) to reproduce at least one aspect of the problem. He took my iPhone from me and said he needed to take it into the back to “open it up” and see if he could fix it.

What? Open it up and fix it? Huh. I didn’t know they were doing repairs like this in the store but I shrugged and let him take it to the back room and troubleshoot away. I instantly felt naked without my iPhone as soon as he was out of sight.

I actually think he whisked it away more to inspect my iPhone to verify it hadn’t been dropped, abused, or doused in water before moving forward to find a resolution. He was gone for about 5 minutes before making his way through the crowded store back to me. He said he didn’t think he could fix it and was going to try to authorize a replacement for me. He asked me if I’d tried restoring it and I told a lie here – I said that I had but it hadn’t worked. He said that sometimes a DFU restore could help but since I was pretty sure this was a hardware problem, I didn’t want to drag out the troubleshooting procedure unnecessarily by endorsing that troubleshooting step. Plus, restoring an iPhone as a new device and getting it set up the way I need it, apps and all, is a bitch.

He left me again and went behind the genius bar to document my case and, I assume, to get authorization for the exchange. He came back a few minutes later and handed me a shiny new (most likely refurbished, of course) iPhone 4S. I was a little worried that he might not have given me a 64GB model and I wanted to double-check before I left the store. So, I started it up and went through the iCloud screens to restore from a back-up I’d made just before I’d left for the mall. That took a few minutes and I was finally able to go to the home screen to get to the Settings app to check the phone’s capacity. It was indeed a 64GB model. Phew. Paranoia effectively banished.

I have noticed that this iPhone feels a little tighter in that the buttons have less play than the first one. Also, that buzz/rattle noise during phone calls is gone, thank goodness and this one isn’t haunted or trying to send me not-so-subtle messages about my mental stability or lack thereof.

Of course, I realized after I left the store that I hadn’t prompted the genius to delete everything off my original iPhone 4S right then and there. It was passcode locked and I hadn’t told him what it was so I wasn’t too worried but I later went online to iCloud and used the Find My iPhone feature to prompt a remote wipe of it. Dang, that’s one handy service. Thanks, Apple!

I installed the second set of my SGP Steinheil EX Ultra Fine protector set earlier this week and my new iPhone is now just like my old one. Except not wonky and broken. Super sweet.