12. January 2009 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,
I used my iPhone a few times since I’ve been here.  I used it quite a bit en route, uploading pictures and chatting on Facebook from Italy.  My phone will officially stay in “airplane mode” for the rest of my time here! 
So it’s essentially an iPod touch, still quite useful to me.  I can still access my tunes, my one movie (Star Wars the Clone Wars), and my notes, contact lists and games.  
I just checked my AT&T bill and did the math:  I’ve done 5.07MB (5070KB) of data transmission via the iPhone on this trip, at $0.0195 per KB = $98.87!!!!
I knew this was coming…I received a text message in Germany, Italy and my location here, each from the respective cell phone companies (Vodaphone, Voda-It, the one here) telling me the data transmission charges.  My phone can hop on wireless here when it can find it, but as soon as the wireless drops, the cell phone network picks up the slack and suddenly the charges accrue.
Can’t wait for that first paycheck from this trip to cover those charges!
-Patricia
26. May 2008 · 1 comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,
26. May 2008 · Comments Off on Another emailed beach pic · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,
26. May 2008 · Comments Off on Testing a new capability · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

This is an emailed blog posting from my phone on the beach in Va Beach!

Let’s see if it works!

17. May 2008 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

So one of the things I was looking forward to with my new iPhone was plugging it into our car’s auxiliary port and letting the tunes fly through our car’s stereo speakers.

We had issues with our Motorola Rokrs before because our aux cables were for 3.5 mm jacks, Rokrs needed 2.5 mm jacks. Of course.

I was told iPhones use 3.5mm headphone jacks and there should be no problem plugging it into my vehicle. Yay!

But when I tried to plug in our cable, it turned out the port on the top of the iPhone was “recessed” and the cable wouldn’t plug in all the way.

Isn’t that the way it always goes? You think you’ve got it covered, and then Apple pulls some sort of proprietary trick to make you have to run out and buy a “special” product.

Well I wasn’t going to let Apple get the better of me on this one!

I was at Radio Shack, where I was able to find the iPhone’s iGo tip I needed for my car charger (yay!) and I explained my frustration with the recessed audio-out port. The gentlemen pondered whether I might like to “whittle down” the rubber casing on one end of one of the cables I already have. Heck, what do I have to lose, right?

So last night I gave it a go, and it worked!

Before:

After:

Success!

15. May 2008 · 4 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

I’m sure that’s what Dave’s going to be calling me for the next few days.

First of all, I want to share this hilarious blog entry that Dave showed me. I’ve felt this mother’s pain, hm, EIGHT times and counting! And we’ll be going through it again in June in Strasburg, PA.

Anyway…

I GOT MY iPHONE! I’m SO excited! Our economic stimulus money is scheduled to deposit on the 16th, but I just received a reserve drill weekend paycheck so I figured I’d do some money magic and get the phone a bit ahead of time. Despite reports that Apple is planning a shortage of iPhones this month in anticipation of some new released, our local AT&T Wireless retailer had plenty of both the 8 GB and 16 GB models in stock.

So, as advertised, it was very simple to bring it home, break it out of the package, and plug it into the computer once you have the latest version of iTunes up and running on your desktop/laptop. It’s pretty straight-forward.

I have only two concerns:

1.) Since I don’t use Outlook to manage my contact information, I wasn’t able to smoothly migrate contacts. I had to manually input phone numbers, e-mail addresses and even several physical addresses into the phone.
2.) I bought a super-fancy iGo car phone charger, which allows you to change out tips only for much less than buying a whole new charger. The iPhone tips are pretty hard to find, so I’ll have to find it online.

As Wendy, Julie, Gloria and Rick will all tell you this afternoon at the park, I was glued to the thing all afternoon while the kids played. Mainly I was showing it off to friends, but I was also feverishly transfering the contacts from my old phone to the new phone.

I got that done tonight. Phew!

So this contact list, once transfered, turned out pretty cool! You can put under one name the cell phone, home phone, work phone, home and work e-mail addresses, physical addresses and even homepages! All in one place. Here’s a demo for you, I’ll pay homage to the guy who provided me the money this week to buy my new toy!

Touch the phone number and you place a call:

Touch the e-mail address and start drafting an e-mail:

Touch the homepage address, and the web browser appears with the web site:

And get this:

Touch the address and Google Maps comes up with the location of the address.



How about a satellite shot?

Then, “Would you like directions here from your current location?”

WOULD I???

(For those who don’t know me, I’m such a map geek!).

I was able to upload almost my entire iTunes music library without putting hardly a dent in the phone storage capacity.

Time to reply to some e-mails…not with the iPhone, though. It’s cool, but I still need to practice typing with that little thing.