Kaotic, Kreation, Design

You read right. I did it. I bought an 8gig iPhone.I had been searching for the right phone for some time.

The phone I got rid of…

I got really tired of my LG CU500. It had an MP3 player but only held 4 songs. It offers a microSDTM Port but I never bought an expansion card for it.

This forced me to decide between lots of ring tones, or 3 songs. Because this unit didn’t have a headphone jack, I opted for ring tones. On the other hand, the iPhone let’s you listen using…

• the built in speaker
• standard headphones
• the headphones that came with the iPhone and it lets you take phone calls while listening to music

The iPhone headset has a small microphone which also has a button to answer/end phone calls. Here’s where it gets really good. If you happen to be listening to music when a call comes in, the music fades out and the phone starts ringing.

Click the button on the mike once to pick up the call. Once you finish the call, a simple press of the button on the mike causes the music to fade back in, picking up right where it left off.

Gasp! I barely escaped Windows

So the first option I considered in my search for a new phone was actually not the iPhone. Are you ready for this one? a…. Yikes, I can’t believe I actually considered this, and worse yet, that I’m admitting it publicly. As anyone that knows me will attest, I loath Microsoft software products.

I considered the Windows CE based Smart-phone, known as the AT&T 8525 (Formally the Cingular 8525) I know, I know. But it does have loads of nifty features.

The most relevant being the fact that it sports a RDP client. Granted, I was jazzed about this feature back when I actually ran a Server 2003 machine at home. I demoted that machine to a paperweight, soon to be my dedicated firewall. Linux based firewall that is.

Another nifty feature was that you could install a 3rd party application on it giving you the ability to SSH (Secure Shell) into Linux machines. This was the ability I was really stoked over.

Especially considering the reason my Server 2003 machine was demoted when it was replaced by a Ubuntu Server. At that point, I was really liking the idea of being able to SSH into my home server from almost anywhere.

But in the end, I decided I didn’t want this phone. I’m really glad I didn’t buy it. Especially since I no longer use Windows at home. My computers are now limited to ether Mac OSX or Linux based PC’s.

I’m pretty sure a Windows-based hand-held device is not going to like syncing with a Mac.

So now to the iPhone.

Believe it or not I did not start out researching this phone. What actually caught my eye was an add for the iPod Touch showing its features such as the iCal and the Address Book. I’m already familiar with these applications as I use the full blown versions on my iMac and love them.

Now I was not considering getting an iPod Touch. I have a 16Gig music collection and the Touch only comes in 8 and 16Gig versions. Essentially, this means if I add anything to my music collection, it won’t fit.

Besides I already own a 30Gig iPod I received as a graduation gift from my parents (Thanks mom & Perry!) . Everything and then some fits on it, plus it has a calendar application. Granted the iPod calendar only lets me view my calendar. There isn’t any edit capability on the iPod.

So there I am, sitting in the Apple Store playing around with an iPod Touch. That’s when I realized something. The iPhone does everything the Touch does, AND has a phone.

This got me thinking, so I started researching it a bit more. I discovered not only does the iPhone offer you a phone, it also offers email. How many times does someone e-mail you something they needed you to get right away and you didn’t get it until hours later when you finally got home to check your email?

I can’t tell you how many times my step father e-mailed me asking me to call him when I get off work. Only when I get home, I hop straight into World of Warcraft. Next thing I know its 3AM and I’m sure he’s already asleep, far to late to call.

Now I already know what your thinking, “Other Smart phones have e-mail”. Yea you got me there, they do. But what if someone e-mails you a Picture, or a PDF file, or even a Word Document? You get to wait until you get to a PC to view it. The iPhone has readers built in for all these formats.

On the other hand, the iPhone offers a full HTML E-mail client as well. This means you can get e-mails with pictures in them as well as send e-mails.You can even snap a picture using the built-in 2.0 mega-pixel camera and e-mail it right out.

Have you ever received an e-mail from Amazon? Or Borders? They usually send HTML e-mails. Good luck reading that on a Razr.

How about Web use? Most cell phones have a built in browser. But have you ever tried to browse a site using the built-in browser?

They’re next to useless. My past 2 phones, (The Motorola Razr and the LG cu500) did a horrific job rendering a web page. I rarely used this feature of the phones.

In the past 3 years, with the Razr, and then later the LG cu500, I used the web feature less than 5 times.Now I use it daily.

Whether it’s for Google Maps or just checking a blog I like to read. The iPhone uses Safari for its browser. Thats right, the same browser you use on your Mac. (Safari is available for Windows too – check the end of this blog for a link to download it.)

So when you’re using Safari on your Mac and you bookmark a page, guess what? That same bookmark appears on your iPhone in Safari as well. No more “What was that page I bookmarked last night?”Although the iPhone only has a 3.5 inch screen you have the ability to double tap image or columns of text on the page, the iPhone will then zoom in on only that picture or column of text making it much easier to read.

Or you can pinch to zoom. Simply grab 2 sections of the page with 2 fingers and drag your fingers apart from each other to zoom in. (The touchscreen on the iPhone rocks.)

So now lets get into why I decided on the phone.

Several reasons.

The top most being Google maps. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to call for directions. I’m really bad about finding new places.

However, I have yet to make a single call for directions since I have purchased my iPhone. I can look up the directions on my phone before I leave, and then get turn by turn directions by simply clicking next, each time I get to a step in the directions.

The map automatically re-centers on the next turn. This makes getting to places I’ve never been super easy.

Next reason. Its an iPod. Granted my iPod is usually in my backpack because my music collection is twice the size of the 8gigs of storage on the phone.

But I don’t always have my backpack with me. For the times I don’t have my iPod the iPhone takes over.

I always have my phone with me, so by integrating the iPod into the phone, I always have my favorite music with me.

I have a few smart playlists on my iTunes library that automatically update based on my listening habits so whatever I happen to be listening to at home always ends up on my iPhone.

I’ll be making a short blog entry shortly after this one describing how to accomplish this for yourself.

I just highlighted a few of my favorite iPhone features. It does loads more.

I’ve listed a few more of its features below.

If you have any other questions regarding this phone, please feel free to comment below.

I’ll be happy to provide a follow up post highlighting any specific details.

• Phone
• iPod
• Wireless Internet
• Google Maps
• Stocks
• Weather
• 2MP Camera
• iCal
• Photos
• Calculator
• Notes

Links:http://www.apple.com/iphone/http://www.apple.com/safari/

written by Brandon Leon \\ tags: Apple, iPhone, New, PDA, Phone, Technology

Quicksilver is a must have for any Mac user. If you’re like me, you enjoy a clean looking desktop and dock. My dock has only the applications I use on a day to day basis and my Desktop has my Hard disk and iDisk, nothing more. My screen now looks great. However, I’m stuck having to launch the Finder and navigate to the Applications directory every time I need to launch an application I use less often.

Quicksilver races in to the rescue. It looks great and is very useful too. When you aren’t using it, Quicksilver stays hidden. When you need it, hit Control + Space. (This is Configurable.) Up pops the nifty little Quicksilver display.Now you have the ability to type in the first few letters of the Application you would like to launch. It also remembers the last application you launched. As you can see here, the last application I launched with Quicksilver was iTunes.

One of the amazing things about this little program is you don’t need to type the entire application name, only enough letters to make that application unique. Using Itunes as an example, just type “itu” and then hit enter. Because I don’t have any other applications with “itu” in the first three letter, Quicksilver knows to launch iTunes.

Not only does Quicksilver launch applications, it can manage applications without ever having to bring them to the front of the screen. Rather than hitting the return key to launch the application wait a second or so to bring up additional options about the application, for example after selecting iTunes you are presented with many options.The most relevant being…

• Browse Genres
• Browse Artist
• Browse Albums

Now you can use the arrow keys to navigate around. After selecting browse artist, you’re able to type an artist name. Once the artist pops up, hit the right arrow key to move on to the albums by this artist. You can drill all the way down to a single song or you can continue to your play options at the album or artist level.

Once you find your selection, hit tab to select what you want to do. You can then choose to ether play the song (or album) immediately, or choose to play this song next in your party shuffle play list. I like this option because it marks your song to play next, without interrupting your current song.

Even if you don’t use all the features built into this application, you’ll love the ability to launch any application on your Mac with a few quick keystrokes. I don’t know what I would have done without it, other than clutter up my desktop.

As you can see from my first screen shot my desktop is very clean. It makes my iMac look that much more appealing. I love the clean look while maintaining the usability and functionality.

Note: When you install Quicksilver, remember to install all the plug ins for the applications you want to be able to select like I described in iTunes. Here’s a link so you can download Quicksilver and give it a shot. Keep in mind I only scratched the surface of what this application is capable of. I encourage you to explore this application further. You’ll be amazed at this application’s abilities.

• http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/ – Additional information.

written by Brandon Leon \\ tags: Apple, OSX, Quicksilver