Ben Drawbaugh

In honor of iPhone week, here is my 2 cents as we count down to iDay.

I have wanted an iPhone since I first heard the rumor that Apple would make a cell phone and there are a few reasons. I’m one of those people who have never liked their cell phone, each one dissapoints as much as the next, and while I haven’t owned as many phones as most people I know, I have had the first Blackberry phone from Nextel, a Treo 600, Treo 650, VX6700 and finally a Blackberry 8700c. While all of these have worked, none have been plesant to use and I could write a long essay on my annoyances. It isn’t the hardware that I haven’t liked, but the software and ever since the first time I used a iPod I have faith that Apple can really make the first cell phone I will enjoy using. For this level of usability I am willing to deal with EDGE and the lack of wireless sync. The second reason is I do get sick of carrying around both my cell phone and my iPod and finally it will be nice to own a device that will natively sync with my Mac.

My Plan

Like most people I have to work on Friday, and since I live in Tampa — which is a big area, but still only have the size of the greater SF area — I hope that it will be possible for me to just show up after work and get an iPhone. I am going to do what I can to get off early and there are a few outlets for me to try in my area, I just hope this is good enough.

Jeremy from Living Digitally asked me how much I thought iPhones would be going for on eBay at launch. I really didn’t know what to tell him, I am probably being naive, but I really hadn’t considered that scenario. I guess I am hoping that there are enough to go around. The worst part is that in the past, every time I have seen gadgets go for unbelievable prices on eBay I have always persacuted the manufacturer for letting it happen and even pointed to Apple as a great example of how to service your customers while at the same time ensuring some eBayer didn’t get to profit from your product.

This also got me thinking, what would I do for an iPhone; and if I do happened to get one on the first day and can sell it on eBay for double, would I even keep it?

As much as I want an iPhone I am not willing to stay over night to buy one, or to pay a cent more than retail for it. And if the touch screen doesn’t live up to it’s hype, I will promptly return it within the 14 day return policy that most cell phones have.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I can’t wait for the next 14 days to be over so we can finally see if this thing lives up to the hype.

From the very beginning I intended to use my old MBP hard drive as a pocket drive and I finally got around to buying an external case. I really wanted one that was USB powered, but since the drive itself was SATA, I also wanted an eSATA port. This feature came in handy when I wanted to test out enabling the eSATA port on my Series3. The drive does require a lot of power via USB, and interestingly enough only works in the right hand side port on my MBP. This is actually ok, just as long as I don’t have to use the dual USB cable that came with the enclosure.

I picked up an enclosure for $24 from Newegg and despite a few reviews stating the drive rattled, it looked like it hit the spot. It come with a few screws, so of course I used them, and what do you know, my drive isn’t rattling. Anyways, I formated my drive with both a FAT32 and HFS+ partition so I could use it to sneaker-net files between windows computers if needed.

BTW, I took these pictures with my new Nikon D40, I am still learning how to use it so would appreciate any pointers.

I see this report stating that the iTunes video model will soon peak and not be successful, which I find pretty funny. The reason I find it funny is because it seems like a wanna be self fulfilling prophecy by big media, who just doesn’t get Internet media. Sure the instant gratification is great, but most people would rather use the VOD features of their main provider if that is their main goal. The reason why people download content from the iTunes Music store is the same reason they buy DVDs; they want to own the content and they want to watch it when they want, where they want. Saying the iTunes Video model will not survive is like saying DVDs will stop continue to be successful. The other models require that you be at your computer and you can’t fast forward through the advertisements.

When will these analyst learn that it is the freedom to watch what we want, when we want that makes iTunes –and DVD for that matter– popular.

Read

As long as I have had my MacBook Pro I have regretted ordering a 120GB 5400rpm drive. I ordered it when the it was first announced, and in my all my excitement I failed to notice the performance difference between 5400rpm and 7200rpm drives. My good friend Frankie quickly pointed it out; no, I didn’t appreciate it. As much as I wanted to swap the drive, I just couldn’t justify it because of the price and the fact that my drive is always full, until recently 160GB 7200rpm drives weren’t even available. I was very excited when I learned that Seagate was releasing a drive for me, only to be disappointed to have to wait to actually receive it. Well the time has finally arrived and it was worth the wait. Anxious to justify my purchase I rebooted and ran back to back XBench tests to get a baseline before swapping in the new drive (more on that later).

After following the great disassembly instructions at iFixit and only loosing one screw I used my favorite Linux LiveCD Gentoo to dd the original disc which took just over an hour. I used the same technique I did for upgrading my Series3, and lucky for me, 2.5″ SATA drives use the same physical interface as the 3.5″ variety. I put everything back together and what do you know, it booted.

Just before I got started my friend Ryan reminded me that 7200rpm drives will kill my battery faster than 5400rpm does, thanks for hating on my new purchase! So just after I booted with my new drive and ran XBench a few times, I researched the drives specs and more specifically the power requirements. The original Toshiba MK1234GSX drive averaged 2.5 watts when seeking compared to the Seagate which was 2.3 watts, while the Read/write uses 2.0 watts vs 2.1 watts and lastly the idle/standby: 1.0/0.25 vs 0.8/0.25. So not only is the new drive bigger and faster, but it also uses less power!

On to performance.
I ran multiple XBench tests so I took the best from both.

Total Disk test results: 30.41 vs 41.86 or 27% increase.

Sequential test results: 35.76 vs 89.12 or 60% increase.

Random test Results: 26.46 vs 27.35 or 3% increase.

My overall XBench score also went from 83.64 to 97.54, which I think makes it well worth the $199 for the new drive, not to mention the additional 37GB of usable space and now I can turn the old 120GB drive into a pocket drive.

Ever since I started using a Mac I continue to be surprised when things “Just work”, and today I am writing this with my new EVDO 740 Air card from Verizon. I have been wanting one of these ever since I changed jobs and my new employer supplied me with a phone from Cingular instead of Verizon. Cingular’s voice service is good, but the data leaves alot to be desired. Unlike most of my purchases I didn’t research this as much as I usually do. I was in a pinch and needed to get my Internet fix, previously my research had let me to Sprint, but tonight when I tried to go to the Sprint store they were closed at 7pm, and what do you know, Verizon was just across the street and open till 9pm. After waiting a few minutes Carlos was really helping me out and even got me a discount on the device or $100 instead of $179, no rebates!

So I was off, but concerned about activation, as reading that it wasn’t possible to activate on a Mac. Reading the directions on my way home — yes while I was driving — I realized that OS X was supported and when I eventually plugged the ExpressCard in, I was amazed that I was on the internet in less than 2 minutes and all I had to do was insert the card, click ok a few times, followed by my password and finally hit the connect button. All I have to say is WOW! I wish using my XV6700 was that easy.

This is my first Verizon service and I am off to a great start, we’ll see how long that lasts. Ohh did I mention it was fast?