Marianne Schultz

the musings of a geeky girl

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Holiday shopping – coupon code & sales, part I

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I haven’t done much Christmas shopping yet myself, though I really should be getting it done now rather than at the last minute as usual. Anyway, I did receive this Seidio coupon code in an email – I doubt it’s a secret code and is probably floating out there on the interwebz in grand fashion now, but in case you haven’t seen it and want to buy some smartphone accessories for yourself or someone on your gift list, enter code AM1130 at check-out for 10% off orders over $50 through November 30 (tomorrow!).


JavoEdge is also having a sale:
I don’t earn anything from these companies for posting this information. I just wanted to point out some sales for any of you who are looking for gadgets and/or accessories for the holiday season. If/when I find any other interesting sales or codes, I’ll post those as well! 🙂

I’m thinking of getting an unlocked Nokia phone (an N-series, preferably) for my husband for Christmas – if anyone comes across any good deals, I’d love to know!

Safari is the bane of my existence

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Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn. Safari is still crashy after the latest iPhone firmware update, despite the “Improved stability and performance of Safari” line in the release notes. I should know better than to expect that this major problem that has plagued my iPhones through every firmware version would be magically fixed in a single update. But I thought that maybe, just maybe, the iPhone software engineers at Apple had figured this one out. Cue wrong answer buzzer sound now.

I think there’s some other sensor in the iPhone that Apple has never disclosed. It senses when you’re looking something up on the internet with desperate urgency and then causes Safari to crash at the penultimate moment before you get to what you need. I should know, because that’s how it always works for me. Bastards.

Waiting, peeling, and disappointment

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I’m still waiting for my Dots Gloves. It’s now been 5 and 1/2 weeks since I placed my order. Guess mine is one of the longer-to-fulfill orders in that month-long average. Dang.

My favorite Incase Slider case for my iPhone is starting to peel. I’ll put up an addendum to my review on it shortly and include some pictures.

I just read this article over on MacRumors. In short, Apple’s latest portables with the mini DisplayPort connector will not put out video over a non-HDCP connection. I’d never heard of HDCP, High Definition Content Protection, before but I will be sincerely irritated if I need to spend more money for a special connector to display iTunes movies I buy or rent through my new MacBook Air. Looking at some posts over on the Apple Support forums, users with the new laptop models can’t even output some iTunes video to Apple-branded displays with Apple-branded display connectors. WTF? Another moment of disappointment in Apple. I hope they address this soon without requiring me to spend more money than the pretty penny I just laid down for my new MacBook Air.

iPhone + NetShare + MacBook Air = Perfection

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You know, I just can’t praise NetShare enough. I’m really not trying to rub in the fact that I have it with the folks who missed the opportunity to buy it from the App Store – I swear. I am just regularly stunned by how useful it is. Yes, I know I could accomplish the same thing with a jailbroken app (I think it’s PDANet?), but I didn’t have a good experience jailbreaking one of my first-generation iPhones to make me hesitant enough to do it to my 3G. Regardless, I’m on the train heading home from work, no WiFi network in sight, and I’m able to browse the internet, check email, and blog on my MacBook Air through my iPhone’s data connection. Freaking brilliant.

There are rumors out there about AT&T officially announcing tethering for the iPhone, with the monthly rate for this feature at $30 at a minimum. And, this won’t be an unlimited plan with a cap of 5GB per month. I’m not the type of girl to steal cable (well, not anymore) and am not opposed to paying for a service I use. But I already get unlimited data with my iPhone’s data plan and pay $30 a month for that. I’ll just keep using NetShare (carefully enough to not set off any alerts at AT&T), thank you very much.

(To be clear, this isn’t my first experiencing with tethering. My first foray was with a Sony Clie NX70V PDA, a Bluetooth Memory Stick Adapter, and a Sony Ericsson T68i. God, that was ages ago!)

My new BFF: MacBook Air

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I did manage to pick up a brand new MacBook Air on Friday evening, and I love it so far! I had been reading that only the SSD models were hitting stores and the hard drive models are delayed until the end of the month, but I wanted the SSD version anyway so I knew it would only be a matter of time before I get my hot little hands on one from an Apple store. I stalked – um, I mean called, my local Apple store and got a hold of someone on Friday afternoon who said they had a few in stock. I left work a little early (thanks, boss!) to catch an earlier train home to get to the store a little sooner. I called the store again to make sure they still had at least one before I left the train station, and talked to a girl who put me on hold for a while and came back to say, and I quote, “Um, like, I don’t think we have any more in stock.” I gritted my teeth and said thank you and hung up. I decided to head to the store anyway figuring she probably had no idea what the hell she was talking about, cued by her uncertainty and the fact that she sounded like she was 12.

The mall was Friday-night busy yet I still managed to walk calmly to the Apple store without yelling incoherently at the obnoxious teenagers who inevitably got in my way repeatedly. When I got to the store, I hunted down the oldest staff person on the floor I could find – I think he was around 19 – and explained what I wanted. He wrote everything down and had someone go find the Air while he went for the SuperDrive. I was half-expecting the stock boy to come back and say there were no more Airs, but he had one in hand and handed it silently to my sales guy. I checked the specs on the box to make sure it was indeed the latest rev and nearly shouted with glee.

I did forget to buy one thing that night – the USB ethernet adapter, which I needed to do the migration from my MacBook to the Air, but I went back and picked one up on Saturday. I ended up not using it, which is another story in and of itself, but I think I’m done with the migration and have been carrying around my splendidly light Air during my commute – it’s nice to shave a couple of pounds off the weight of my backpack!

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