Over the past month I’ve noticed that Back to my Mac hasn’t been available for me to access my home computer remotely. If I go into Preferences and MobileMe I can see that Back to my Mac has an orange light and complains at something amiss with NAT mappings or uPNP.

I found that if I log-on to my O2 Wireless Box II and toggle uPNP off and on than it gives me a green healthy status a few moments later.

While both the iPhone and Twitter are fantastic in what they do there are things that suffer. Both offer an immediacy in the flow of information that has changed many ways I do and enjoy things. One example is watching event TV while watching Live comments via Twitter. It all makes for a communal viewing event that enhances the experience. I can also take photos and without going through the camera>iPhoto>flickr>blog I can snap and Tweet. An example of this would be the recent #uksnow feed where I could not only Tweet weather conditions but actually show the pics to a live audience. This is where I come back to my opening statement. Sometimes we need to slow down.

One negative aspect of iPhone and Twitter is that I’ve stopped regularly posting to the blog. I’m too busy blurting out things I’m doing or what I’m thinking that there often is nothing left to blog that doesn’t feel like I’m repeating myself. And my photos have gone from me studying fine detail and form in upwards of ten megapixel detail to Polaroidesque snaps. I feel I’ve lost something that needs to be put back. I also feel that I’ve lost a purpose, something to look forward to. Something to provide ‘wantage’ and I think I may have found a solution to my problem.

From where I’m sat I can see a Sony DSC-T9 pocket camera that has served me well. If I was to look down the stairs I could see a Nikon D60 but I have no urge to use either of them, you see the Olympus PEN has worked its spell and got under my skin. I want one but I don’t think I need one, but there’s something about it I can’t quite see. A bit like Jack Skellington trying to work out what Christmas is.. What can it be?! What can it be?! I told Jayne who told me to just go out and buy one but I’m enjoying the mystery of it all at the moment. The feeling in the gut, the want. And why I’m still working out what this PEN is (its not a pocket camera and its not a nice big SLR) I do think that it will give me some enthusiasm to be more creative again. To make me slow down, stop and look at what’s around me.

That can only be a good thing, right?

I thought it best to do a summary of recent events so as not to have such a backlog of things I wanted to mention that it prevented me posting anything at all.

The holiday went well. We’d opted to go to our friends apartment again. Its in a brilliant location in Arenal D’en Castell on the north coast. A very picturesque horseshoe bay that despite being the ‘quiet’ island had something for everyone including a bar that was open till 6am, although the last two hours weren’t entirely legitimate. I’m past that sort of thing now mainly because I’m on my back at 2am but James, with his sipping action, managed a few all night sessions. His mum was less than pleased on each occasion. I’d imagine that’s the last holiday he goes on with us as a family although he does like to stay near my wallet.

I did do some tweeting while on holiday but did a lot less than expected. I had pre-bought 50MB of data but realised as the iPhones stats rolled on that my previous monitoring of the stats had excluded any wifi usage and my actual use was much higher than I thought. So excluding Google Maps, video Tweeting, excessive photo tweeting meant that by the end of the fortnight my total use stood at 48MB.

Nearing the end of the holiday I did have the next adventure at the back of my mind. Before we left I bought a horsebox that had been listed on eBay. Other than a description and a photo it was a blind purchase of £2000 cash. Not only was there the uncertainty of whether I’d bought a dog it was over 300 miles away in St Ives. The plan was to get back to Manchester Airport, hire a car, get a few hours shuteye and head off to pick up the box dropping the hire car off in Penzance. That all went to plan with the added enjoyment of an aborted landing at Manchester (an experience) and we soon found ourselves minus cash and with a 7.5T Mercedes truck to drive home. It was a baptism of fire but I’m relatively happy to drive anything. The problem was that it just didn’t feel ‘right’ or safe. It was 80 miles on when we found out why. We had just crossed Bodmin Moor in thick fog when the dash started to play up, I lost the rev counter, the engine overheated, I was getting random warning lights and was rapidly losing pressure for the air brakes and steering. I just managed to get it off the A30 and into a carpark (a horse and country supplier no less) when I lost the last traces of steering. Fortunately luck had dealt us a good hand as not only did we have breakdown assistance but the local franchise was 2 minutes up the road and they were with us pretty much immediately. It turned out that the belts to the fan, alternator and compressor had failed due to age. After a trip back to the workshop they failed to find a replacement set and wouldn’t be able to get the parts till the next day so they lent us a car and pointed us in the direction of a B&B. By mid afternoon the next day we were back on the road and I got us home by 7pm. A journey that I don’t fancy repeating, ever.

So having had a false half mile start I cancelled the workout I was on and started it again with a nominal mile as I was following the treadmills 20 min workout, not the Nike+. I got going again and checked my pace, pressing the home button, to find that while the voice told me I was x miles in the corresponding number on the display matched what she said but was displaying Kilometres. I did a screen shot after the 1 mile was up but after I’d done it it reverted back to miles. The screenshot showed miles too. Must be a glitch in the system.

One disappointing thing that doesn’t seem to be on the iPhone is the celebrity voices acknowledging personal bests, etc. I’ve not heard any yet so I’m assuming they aren’t there. Its either that or they are staying quiet because I must try harder.

I’ve often said that the additions to the iPhone in 3.0 and 3GS are so subtle you often struggle to list the new features when someone asks. It is usually the case that you end up using a new feature and then realise that it wasn’t there before. I think that’s kind of the point. It is organic development in the sense that it feels natural.

One that snuck in under my radar was Nike+ integration. I only spotted it while digging around in the Preferences. I’ve not used my Nike kit for a while having lost my old Nano (which was bought purely for the Nike+) to Emily when she lost her own iPod (again, kids eh).

I have a personal trainer who visits me weekly and has often criticised my old beat up trainers. I guess that this is a good excuse to get some new ones. I feel a trip to Decathlon coming up.

I’ve always had an on off relationship with video. I have a few holiday sequences much of which is from some time back and the edited footage is on VCD with the source long since deleted (I still have all the original footage on tape). One project that I have always been meaning to tackle is getting all my pre-Mini DV footage on to a an editable format, Its currently on VHS-C. I did capture it once on a PC in the early days of home editing but my equipment wasn’t up to the task. It was laborious and I had terrible audio syncing issues. But I digress, this isn’t the reason for this post.

One of the reasons I mentioned the old footage is down to the fact that from 1991 onwards I had a reason to film and much of that early footage is the kids growing up. Of late I’ve not really had anything worthy of recording. In addition the whole process of image capture, transfer, edit, publish hasn’t had the instant appeal that I’ve enjoyed with my photography. With the new iPhone 3GS I’ve been looking for an excuse to use the video and YouTube upload feature. It has also raised the old quandary of YouTube or MobileMe. You’ll note that from my previous sentence I’ve decided to go with YouTube. I put some bits on MobileMe just to try out but on the whole I just find it easier to link site like Flickr and YouTube to other sites such as this blog. The YouTube Channel is in the ‘My Sites’ links to the right. I have no doubt that much of what I upload will be throwaway crap but maybe it will spark me to move on and do some better stuff. If I do it will have to include the purchase of a HD camera. Those who know me will be aware that my current camera has mainly been used for work and promotional footage and my most recent project was blighted by an annoying squeak from the internal mechanism that the mic was picking up.

Spielberg? Maybe not but lets see where it takes up. Now I just need to find something to film.

I have however had had a problem with similar names. No matter how much I tried to pronounce Jayne Smith it always came up with James Smith. It wasn’t until I realised that the leading S of Smith was causing the problem and causing Jayne to sound like James. The solution was very simple. Instead of saying “Dial Jayne Smith Mobile” I just said “Dial Jayne Mobile”. Luckily I don’t have any other Jaynes in my phone, or Janes for that matter but if I did I suspect that at that point I would be told of the multiple matches and I could clarify with a full name in the knowledge that James Smith was no longer in the possible results.

I didn’t find any instructions on voice control in the box but the following is available on the Apple support site.

Call someone in contacts:
Say “call” or “dial,” then say the name of the person. If the person has more than one phone number, you can add “home” or “mobile,” for example.

Dial a number:
Say “call” or “dial,” then say the number.

Make a correction:
Say “wrong,” “not that one,” “not that,” “no,” or “nope.”

Control music playback:
Say “play,” or “play music.” To pause, say “pause,” or “pause music.” You can also say “next song” or “previous song.”

Play an album, artist, or playlist:
Say “play,” then say “album,” “artist,” or “playlist” and the name.

Shuffle the current playlist:
Say “shuffle.”

Find out more about the currently playing song:
Say “what’s playing,” “what song is this,” “who sings this song,” or “who is this song by.”

Use Genius to play similar songs:
Say “Genius,” “play more like this,” or “play more songs like this.”

Cancel Voice Control:
Say “cancel.”

For best results:

• Speak into the iPhone microphone as if you were making a phone call. Or use the microphone in the included headset.
• Speak clearly and naturally.
• Say only iPhone commands and names, and numbers. Pause slightly in between.
• Use full names.

By default, Voice Control expects you to speak voice commands in the language that’s set for iPhone (the General > International > Language setting). The Voice Control settings let you change the language for speaking voice commands. Some languages are available in different dialects or accents.

Change language or country:
In Settings, choose General > International > Voice Control and tap the language or country.

Voice Control for the iPod application is always on, but for security you can prevent voice dialing when iPhone is locked.

Prevent voice dialing when iPhone is locked:
In Settings, choose General > Passcode Lock and turn Voice Dial off. Unlock iPhone to use voice dialing.

For some time now I’ve been without my 60GB iPod. Since it was stolen I never replaced it and I’d got by with a selection of playlists on my 16GB 3G iPhone. Now with a 32GB 3GS getting all my music on there was tantalisingly in range.

I reconfigured my sync settings in iTunes and took a glance at what I needed space wise for the few videos, apps and photos that were already on there. In music I selected to sync my full library and started a sync. I was disappointed that I was told that I still hadn’t enough room. I was sure that I hadn’t got my mental calculation wrong on space requirements and I could see that I only needed to find around 22GB as shown in iTunes at the bottom of my music library. Still I went about making sure and told iTunes to only sync checked songs and videos. I then unchecked all the rubbish that had accumulated in my library over the years that I really didn’t need but had never bothered my in the past with 60GB of room.

Still not enough room.

I reprocessed some Apple Loss-less files down to iTunes Plus and with that I just managed to get the sync going. It was then I found the culprit. As the sync started and I saw what was being transferred I saw a whole raft of audio and video podcasts being transfereed. I have my podcasts set to sync the latest 5 new podcasts and I could see that these were old ones being transferred. Checking my settings I then noticed that I had a number of smart playlists that were picking up on podcasts and now I was syncing all music and playlists it was causing the unwanted podcasts to be transferred.

The solution was easy. Either delete the smart playlist or edit it and add “Podcast” is “Not True”.

This tip applies to iPod Touch also but I know that a number of new 32GB iPhone users will be going through exactly what I did.

Earlier in the week it was my daughters birthday and this was the weekend of the planned party. Following the party from hell that was my sons 17th where the house got trashed by gatecrashers I’d made sure I was on the guest list. The plan was to kind of keep out of the way which I thought would entail staying in the kitchen. It was a nice day so I’d set up a couple of ‘chillout’ tents and filled a paddling pool with cold water for the drinks. Pretty much everything they needed was outside with little need to venture into my kitchen domain.

On the music side I got a little creative and for the first time really took advantage of the iTunes DJ. I’d thoroughly recommend it to anyone with the necessary kit. I had an old set of Yamaha 2.1 computer speakers that have quite a punch with a good sub. I connected these to my Airport Express which then appeared in iTunes as remote speakers. We’d set up a playlist of music for the party and used this as the source for the iTunes DJ. We left the MacBook safely locked away upstairs and connected to iTunes using the remote app on the iPod giving us full control of the playlist. The best bit is that there were other iPods and iPhones who could guest in and see what was playing and request tracks or vote for tracks in the playlist which would move them up the order of play.

I have a mate who develops iPhone apps and I occasionally do some graphic design for him on icons, etc. I suppose because of that you could officially class me as part of his team and a developer also. Anyway this opened the door to the 3.0 beta and I’ve been living with it since March.

There are still a few features that I need third party support or account activation on such as Push notification, peer-to-peer, in app purchases, third party accessories and MMS but I can impart my experience and opinion on what I have seen.

The 3.0 for starters isn’t a groundbreaking update in the way 2.0 was. Its more polish and much has been made of how only Apple could make cut and paste a main feature. However it does fill many holes and improve of a number of features that keeps it ahead of the competition.

The cut and paste does actually work really well and I have used it a number of times. It is easy to take for granted after having it for a while. I’ve used it mostly where I want to chuck web page text back into a google search. Funnily enough i only found the shake to undo the other day by accident when I dropped my phone

The landscape keyboard has increased my texting speed on SMS and its nice to have that option consistent across more apps.

I’ve only used the spotlight search once to try it out. I tend to forget its there. You can browse to the left of the home screen with a swipe or from the home screen, press the home button which will take you to the search. I think its the nature of the phone in that the stuff I would search for is either notes or contacts so in each case I would tend to go direct. Its not like a computer where I have a load of documents to search.

Having just mentioned the notes, this is one of the biggest features for me. Note synching. I have loads of notes mainly because my memory is shit and to finally have them sync is a godsend. Its the little things with 3.0 that make the difference and its also nice to see public calendars sync also. However I would have liked tasks. As it is I’ve resorted to the Things App both on the iPhone and desktop. It was nice to see Things winning an Apple design award the other day as it is a great app.

What else deserves a mention? I turned shake to shuffle off as it shuffled my music once purely by putting the iPhone in my pocket a little more forcefully than usual. I don’t use the voice recorder much although I have tried it and its nice to see the voice notes sync with iTunes.

A final thing on 3.0 is the find my phone feature. YOu have to have a MobileMe sub for it to work and you then can enable it on your phone. It went live the other day so I tried it last night. I logged onto MobileMe on the web and withing a few moments it told me exactly where my phone was, on the desk next to me. I had the option to make my phone bleep (even if set to silent) and to send a message. I typed in “Give me my phone back, you bastard” and within a few minutes it was displayed on the phone with a beeping noise. What was also nice is that having confirmed that it had been displayed I then got an email.

“Dear MobileMe member,

The message sent at 6:02 PM on June 10, 2009 has been displayed on Martin’s iPhone at 6:06 PM on June 10, 2009:

Give me my phone back, you bastard”

That’s pretty much it. If you have any questions I’d be happy to answer them but you’ll know yourself by next Wednesday. Just in time for the next podcast no doubt.

It was interesting to see people agonising over the options. What they often fail to say is that most 3G owners who upgraded from the original iPhone are in an 18 month contract. I know that mine expires in Feb 2010 and I have seen that £35 customers only get the option for a 1 month early upgrade. Jan… f*cking fantastic.

The suggested option is to get a PAYG, but at that price?! I do have a further option as my wife uses a PAYG sim in my original iPhone and she is spending upto and in excess of £35 on credit so I plan to sign her up for a contract, put her sim in my 3G and have the 3GS for myself (its only fair.. I will have paid £270 odd).

I do however keep stepping out of the Apple “must have” hypnosis. What will the 3GS really give me?

Video. Nice but I rarely used video on my phone pre-iPhone

Compass. It may make Tom Tom more accurate, but isn’t Tom Tom still going to be available on 3G (even if slightly less accurate – my Go700 doesn’t have a compass does it?)

Battery life. Mines ok as it is. Its regularly on a cradle and having turned off pull mail every 15 mins my battery capacity has increased ten fold. Those who want me NOW! send mail to my MobileMe push account or SMS me.

Faster processor. Mines fast enough and I can’t think of a 3G app that suffers from speed to any great degree.

Better camera and auto focus. Happy with the one it has now. If I want a better shot I’ll break out the Nikon.

Tethering. On O2′s prices? Don’t take the piss!

I think I’ve just talked myself into keeping my money in my pocket. What else am I going to spend it on now?

Oh, and don’t forget to sign the Twitter petition

Twitter Blog

I was one of the many disappointed when Twitter pulled the UK SMS plug. At the time it was early days on my first generation iPhone and I was on a trip to Menorca with no data service of Wifi to be seen the only way I could get my regular fix of information was getting and sending SMS via Twitter. To sweeten the deal, all the SMS messages I got were at no cost to me. A definite bonus when faced with roaming charges.

While this announcement doesn’t effect me I do hope that it pushes O2 to make a similar agreement. I’ve mailed their customer services and had a reply but while they can make no comment I hope its now on their radar.