When I first got the iPhone, one of the first thing I need was to connect it to the car.  My first solution was the iCarPlay from Monster, left over from my iPod.  Of course, they are not compatible.  I then picked up the Griffin RoadTrip.  The first few days was fine.  But over the course of weeks, problems start to arise.

1. The goose neck is only flexible to a certain degree, you can bent it beyond that a bit but it always flex back.
2. The connector has a series of interchangeable housing that was meant to fit snuggly with different Apple products, iPhone 3G S included.  Unfortunately, it assume you are using the devices without a case or a sleeve. (?!)  The bottom line is that none of the housing fit so the phone was not fully supported beyond the electrical connection.
3. On our trip to Maui, we discovered that this device is too short to fit in all vehicles (we were driving a Dodge Caliber).  For those that has a low or down angled 12V connector, this simply won’t work.
4. While the product itself is of good quality, the weakest link of the entire setup is the 12V plug in the car.  Unlike most things inside a car, the 12V plug is meant for a cigarette lighter, not anything that has significant weight. 

No. 4 turns out to be the killer.  With the iPhone, the transmitter, and the goose neck all applying weight at a 90 degree angle to the 12V plug, it was starting to fail.  Not the Griffin part mind you, the receptacle in the car dash was starting to come loose.  In fact, I dare say this is applicable to ALL power adapter and/or FM transmitter that puts weight on the 12V plug.  In any case, it was time to find a new solution.

While there seems to be a million products out there, three good rules will help eliminate the majority.

1. If you use a case, any case, your solution requires an adjustable phone holder.
2. The following 3 things must work together: the phone’s connection at the bottom, the opening at the bottom of your case, and the plug from the adapter (whether it is an FM transmitter or just for power).
3. If the product puts weight on the 12V plug, forget it.

In weeks of searching, I was not able to find a single solution that fits all 3 rules.  The conclusion I’ve come to is that I need to separate the two requirements: a FM transmitter and an adjustable holder.  Once that premise changed, the search became easier.

FM transmitters are aplenty.  I ended up picking up the Satechi FM Transmitter.

I chose it because if need be, I can run it without a cable.  Reviews were all over the place but then, so are everything else.  Of course, I had assumed that the opening in the case was wide enough and of course it wasn’t.  So I ended up having to widen the opening with a Dremel so the phone and the transmitter can connect properly.

The holder was another story.  The biggest issue of all: how would it be attached to the car?  There seems to be 3 types of solutions out there:

1. Suction cup that attached to smooth surfaces, most likely wind shield.  This works if the arm is long enough and attaching things to your wind shield does not violate local regulations.  You can attach it to the driver side window too… if you don’t plan to roll it down…ever.
2. Sticky tape of sort sticking to some place on the window/wind shield/dash.  This is very situational.  If you have some flat surfaces, it could work.  If where you are have strong sun or high temperature, it might not.  The adhesive quality is never certain so it might work for a while and fail later.  At the end of the day, when you have to sell the car, you’d have to deal with the glue.
3. Custom mounts that are designed specifically for the purpose.  Some require drilling and mounting a long pole/goose neck through the car’s undercarriage, some mount on the driver seat rail, some are custom fitted pieces that are make/model/year specific and clip/mount to specific part of the dash/vent/etc.

I didn’t want to damage the dash or deal with any surgery in the car.  Hawaiian sun, moisture, and salt will always kill stickies.  I don’t believe in suction cups or sticking things on the windshield either.  The best looking choice left was from a place called ProClip (http://www.proclipusa.com/).  Unfortunately it was also very costly.  I might revisit them as a last resort.

For now, I settled with a JAVOEdge kit.

As I spend a good Saturday morning messing around and deciding how to mount it.  I finally came up with a solution: zip ties.  I pried open the center dash, slipped in a couple of zip ties, and mounted the adjustable holder to the dash.  It wasn’t elegant, and it did block the AC vent a bit, and it did covered up two of the dash buttons (AC and re-circulate, which are left on all the time anyway).

But it will do for now…

The computer is a modified Dell Mini 9.  It has 2 GB of RAM and a 32GB SSD instead of the stock config.  I had Windows 7 Release Candidate (7RC) on it since 7RC came out.

It was quite a bit of work getting 7RC on the Mini 9.  This time around, things got simpler.  (See this blog for the exact steps: http://liveviews.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!ACAA9A3B4D2792FE!1526.entry)  Basically, pop in a USB or SD card, use the DISCPART tool in Windows to partition and format it so it is bootable, copy the installation disc over.  Done!

I had absolutely nothing stored on the Mini 9 so no cleaning/backup necessary.  I pop the USB stick in, boot install and everything was done.  It did took a while as the Mini 9 is quite a bit slower.  Again, I went with 32 bit Windows 7 and MS Security Essentials.

That was it, really, it is that simple.

One of my boxes was a recent purchase from Dell outlet.  It was new enough that Dell offered free Windows 7 upgrade.  I bought 2 Win7 Pro so the 3rd PC will have to be from this upgrade.  Went to Dell’s site.  It took a bit of looking but finally found the link in the main support page.

https://win7.dell.com/FAQPage.aspx

Filled in the form.  It asked for the Dell tag for the machine, purchase date, etc.  Looks like this is not really Dell as the normal Dell account login doesn’t work.  I bet this is a fulfillment house of sort.  In any case, it was painless.  Just gotta wait for it to arrive.

The computer is a Dell XPS 630i.  Nothing unusual, no special hardware.  This is my gaming box so it has a Nvidia GTX 285.  I had Windows 7 Release Candidate (7RC) on it since I bought it.

There wasn’t much to prep as I knew this day will come so I didn’t install much on it.  And over the past year or two, I have progressively move the important things (documents, music, family pictures, etc.) to the NAS.  There were a few software installed, nothing I couldn’t re-download so I just made a note.  I did exported the Internet Explorer favorites and cookies.

Opened the Windows 7 Professional (7Pro) box.  My first question was: 32 or 64bit?  I never did tried any of the 64bit Windows primarily because apps and software had been behind for years.  I never thought they’ve caught up yet.  More on that in a bit.  But 64 bit it is!

Pop the disc.  Error!  64bit installation cannot run off of my 32bit 7RC.  Okay.  Reboot from disc.

The installation is actually painless.  It took a little while but it configured everything, drives, network, even screen resolution.  I still can’t get over how long it took Microsoft to get Windows installation routine to self configure screen resolution.  Geesh.

Throughout the Windows 7 beta and RC, one of the sore point for me was antivirus.  Microsoft recently released Security Essentials.  I’ve used it for a few weeks.  Honestly I don’t know how well it worked as there is no track record.  But it is generally well-behaved, doesn’t bother me much.  And it didn’t slow down the machine even when I’m doing mass copy or play games.  So I’m ditching Norton, Trend Micro, etc.

Downloaded and installed MS Security Essentials.  It updated and was ready.  Sweet.

Adobe Reader.  No issue.

DVD43.  Oops.  This puppy does not run in 64 bit.  Web search revealed that this is a known issue and no fix in sight (some say not likely to have one).  Hmmm… Doesn’t Win7 have XP Mode or something?  Went to MS and found it here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

Downloaded and installed XP Mode, then Virtual PC, configured one.  It took quite a while but was interesting enough.  Redownloaded  class=”hiddenSpellError” pre=”Redownloaded “>DVD43, installed.  Pop a DVD in the drive.  Hmmm…. not working.  DVD43 running inside the Virtual PC cannot detect the DVD… at this point, it was 2 hours into the whole thing… bah, I was right, with the stuff I need to run, 64bit is just going to cause more problem.  Back to 32bit!

Pop the disc in, reboot, start from scratch. … some time later … I was back where I was.  This time DVD43 worked fine, as are Handbrake, PDF Creator, etc.  Ran Windows Update, 7 patches down and it is all set.

Aside from the 64 vs 32bit thing, it was relatively painless.

We had a little long weekend and went on a trip to Maui.  Spend a total of 4 nights and get to use the iPhone for all that it can do.  Some experiences were positive, some not so, also recognized some useful accessories.

Day 1

• Got to the airport, got checked in, passed Homeland Security, everything was just normal.
• We had a little over an hour to burn so naturally the iPhone came out.  Power continue to be an issue.  Finding a wall outlet is not as easy in some airports.  In our gate in Honolulu (HNL), there was no wall outlet.  So I had to limit my activities to non-games.
• Got on the plane, went airplane mode, didn’t use the phone.
• Got off, got the rental car.  First thing that was useless: the GriffinRoadTrip FM Transmitter.  The arm was way too short.  We rented a Chrysler PT Cruiser.  With the cigarette lighter low in the center dash, it was useless.
• 
• First thing that was useful: PowerLine DS to AC Inverter with USB.  Immediately plug it in, pulled out the USB cable and hooked up the phone.
• 
• The internal GPS worked very well and I was able to give wifey directions to the Maui Beach Hotel.
• App-wise, Google Map for sure.  Yelp is also helpful in locating places to eat.  More on those two along the way.
• As it turned out, the hotel didn’t have wireless Internet connection.  There was only a CAT5 on the little desk.  What saved the day… a little was the Linksys Travel Router
• 
• I said a little because for some reason, this router will failed periodically and nothing can connect to it.  The only way to fix it is to unplug it from power and disconnect the RJ45, wait a bit and reconnect everything.  It was a hassle but the concept is sound.  Just need to find a different implement.
• Having WiFi allows me to download a few apps to try.

Day 2

• We went to Tasty Crust for breakfast.  Again, the driving direction from Google Maps was spot on.
• We spent most of the day in the Whalers Village in Kaanapali and Lahaina.
• Useful app: Twitpic.  A lot of family and friends get to see our trip very quickly.
• Again, Yelp is helpful in finding restaurants but not particularly useful in identifying good ones.  As we have learned, take the ratings with a grain of salt.  Especially in touristy locations, the food taste and preferences of the reviewers (who are mostly tourists for those locations) varies too much to make the average rating useful.
• Safari did its share of work by allowing me to check prices when we shopped around.
• One thing I do miss having is camera flash.  That being said, nothing small and portable (like the iPhone), even a dedicated point-n-shoot (like the Canon SD40 which I did carried with me) will have strong enough flash to do justice in some of the  darker situations.  We’ll just leave it at that.

Day 3

• We went up to Haleakala to watch the sunrise.  Too bad it was bad weather and we didn’t even see the sun until 10am-ish.  But that’s another story.
• This is the first time Google Map failed.  I’ve went to Haleakala many times before and I know there is no road in the route it pointed us to.  So human 1: Google Map 0.  The lessons was: Don’t follow GPS blindly.
• 
• Oh, and while there were good signal along the way, neither of the carriers we use (AT&T and Verizon) reached the top of Haleakala (10,000 ft+).
• We spent a few hours in Makawao after, not much use for the phone there, except to write a review for a restaurant.
• The Yelp app didn’t work so good in this regard.  It only allows you to write a draft.  To actually publish it, you need to get to the real website… I considered this a fail.
• We also spent a few hours in a friend’s house.  The iPhone made normal picture snapping easy.
• A great app was Snapture which made it possible to snap 3 shots quickly in succession, I can then choose which ones to save.  It worked very well when taking shots of lil girl running around with the dog.
• After dinner, we wanted to get dessert.  Founded some place that looked like a possibility on Yelp and the web, got the address and went.  Unfortunately, either the address was wrong or Google Map is wrong (I think it was the latter), we were in the middle of nowhere.  At the end, we couldn’t find the place.  Somewhat disappointed.

Day 4

• We slept in and spent the late morning early afternoon in Iao Valley and Maui Ocean Center.  Driving direction worked, picture snapping worked, picture twitting worked.
• Outdoor pictures under bright sunlight came out really well.  Overcast and dark indoor shots were really grainy.  This is definitely a short fall with the iPhone camera.
• To my surprise, I was able to get some decent shots of sea creatures (turtles, sharks, manta rays, etc.) in the tanks by parking the camera len against the glass. 
• Close moving subjects continue to be a problem for the camera… which is not surprising.
• That night, we ended up just getting fast food.  The Jack In The Box was filthy so I took some shots and linked them to JIB corporate.  Another perfect setup to use the iPhone. (BTW, they contacted me today for the details and informed me that they will deal with it. Surprising)

Day 5

• The usual ensued, packed, left, waited at the airport.
• This time I decided to use the Dell Mini 9 as charger (since there was no power outlet at the gate again).  It worked for a little and stopped.  As it turned out, the power options in Windows 7 (I was running the release candidate) needed some serious tweaking to allow the screen to sleep but not the machine AND not the USB ports.  Any way, it was a good excuse to mess around with the Mini.

Oh, forgot one thing.  The USB cable that came with the phone was way too short.  I couldn’t use the phone in bed with it plugged into the AC-USB plug to the wall in the hotel room.

Anyway that was the trip and the iPhone hardware, software, accessories experience.  Definitely more toys to buy… for the next trip, of course.

I’ve had the Tilt (HTC Kaiser) for a year and a half and I’ve had a lot of trouble with it in recent months.  Long story short, I’ve decided to go with an iPhone.  Here’s a play-by-play.

I checked with 3 AT&T stores in the past 3 days and they were all out of the 32GB model.  As we strolled the mall yesterday, we passed by an Apple store.  *lightbulb* And they of course have it.  To be honest, my shopping experience in the Apple store was surprisingly good.  I was never left to fend for myself after I walked in.  The person that greeted me at the door was working with me the entire time until I left.  2 thumbs up.  Now I’m beginning to understand the Apple store experience people talk about.  In any case, the purchase was uneventful and the phone was all setup when I walked out the store.

Got home, got everything out of the box, put the protective film on and snapped on the case.  Hooked it up to my notebook and iTunes came up.  I set it up to sync with Outlook Contact, Calendar, and email.  It did its thing and everything looked okay.

Actually what I really need is work’s contact and calendar.  So once it was done, I set it up to connect back to work’s Exchange server.  Of course, it couldn’t find the server name.  A reboot from my old phone got me the info and it was working.  But to sync contact and calendar with work, it said it will wiped the current contact and calendar.  Oh well, I knew it would happen.  It was the same problem with ActiveSync on Windows Mobile.

Next was Gmail, simple enough.  Next was browser favorites. 

Safari on the iPhone was fairly robust.  As I go through my bookmarks on the notebook, I noticed that there are a fair number of them that I won’t be using.  Instead of using a browser to goto gmail, the mail app itself will serve that purpose.  Interestingly this felt like going backward.  Think about it, when software reconverge to use a common desktop platform like a browser, the iPhone reverted back to each app using a separate “client”.  Yes, they all run off of the same platform call iPhone OS 3.x… but the irony is very apparent.

** I’ll make a prediction.  If Apple wants to, it can release the iPhone OS as a platform to run on top of other OSes.  All of the sudden any apps written for it will be usable by any computer, netbook, phone, etc. that can run the iPhone OS… and Apple will take over the world.**

Anyway, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, RSS, etc. all have apps so I won’t be reaching to them through any browser.  In the end, I ended up with just a handful of links for Safari.

It was then that I noticed the battery gauge was at 50%.  I’m going to have watch it carefully.  While my other phones can go at least a couple of days on 1 charge, doesn’t look like this iPhone will.

Now apps.  This Facebook app is a lot better than the one on WM.  A high resoluti0n screen helps a lot, so does a sensitive touch screen.  Typing takes a bit getting used to.  I was dreading not having a physical keyboard but as I was told by others at work, it really wasn’t bad at all. 

Twitter… this is where the app store overload begun.  There are a great many Twitter apps and having no frame of reference, my only source is the web.  20 minutes of reading later, TwiiterFon was it.  The download wasn’t too slow but it was going through 3G…

A few more poking around, I found the Wi-Fi setting and got the phone on the home network.  Downloading worked much faster after that.  Going to have to get it on RoadRunner at work too.

At this point, the screen was getting a bit cluttered.  A search or two and some more readings showed how to arrange the icons… but not deleting the Apple ones.  It would seem that is a jailbroken only capability.  I don’t think I’m ready for that yet.

Google Mobile offers some interesting capability.  Voice search sounds useful.  So far “What is Labor Day?” and “Symptoms of hand, foot, and mouth” worked flawlessly. 

Finding a decent (and free) RSS reader was much harder.  I’m still searching.  At the mean time,  Google Reader will be it.

As I disassemble the old phone (pulling out the battery and SIM card), the charger, etc. to make room for the iPhone, the length of the iPhone cord is definately an issue.  Charging by USB is a nice idea but 2 feet is just too short.

Next up is the blue tooth headset.  Again, a search on the net revealed where the setting is.  Turn it on and turned on the headset… uh oh… something was evidently going on as the headset didn’t exit pairing mode.  But the phone never completed the setup.  A couple more failed attempts and another 10 minutes of reading on the web confirmed: this Plantronics headset does not work with the iPhone.  *sigh*

Now ringtones.  And of course, it won’t let me use MP3s.  More searches and more reading later (with this C|Net video being the best: http://www.labnol.org/software/make-iphone-ringtons-with-free-itunes/4738/) … iTunes can convert MP3s into ringtones in some convoluted ways.  It is not hard, just humbug.  Of course, there has to be more problems.  My iTunes library is on a NAS and as with many Apple software, some iTunes operations doesn’t work on network devices.  The unknown error -39 is a fairly well known issue.  I ended up installing iTunes on my netbook and using it to convert the MP3s to AACs (M4Bs) and renamed them to M4Rs, copied them back and import them into iTunes.  Another sync later and I have my ringtones.  … now the notification sounds…. hmmm, doesn’t look like ringtones are used for those… *sigh* oh well, I’ll live.

Now the phone is pretty much set.  Just a matter of getting some Apps.  There are top 10, top 25, top this top that list all over the web.  Jolene (thanks dear) also pointed me to AppSniper which is an awesome thing for cheapo like me.

Honestly, it isn’t hard but it certainly wasn’t simple.  To successfully move to an iPhone, you need to be a fairly savvy.  You need to know something about networks, application configurations, web research, being able to read technical article is certanily necessary, etc.

The phone is by far not perfect but its execution is many steps ahead of WM and certainly miles ahead of Symbian and any other lesser OSes.  I can understand why it is popular and I too am sold on it.

… brain fried from the App store… there’s got to be a better way…

Anyway, total damage:

$299 for the phone, $35 for the case, $15 for the film, $50 for a new headset = $400.  O_O

Well 14 days x 2 later, we are back again.  Norton Internet Security 2010 beta expired once after 14 days.  I was able to renew it.  Another 14 days later, I was not.  Once again I called support and got the same answer:

Sorry, we can’t help you with beta software.

As in, “Hi you bleeding edge bozo.  We can’t help you.  Even if you are testing the bleeding edge software for us.  Yeah, we are that stupid and insensitive.  We don’t really care if you have a current subscription.  We don’t really care if you are a paying customer.  You are so screwed.  Bye Bye.”

*sigh*  I’m getting much better service from Trend Micro.

I like to think of myself as a 3rd generation nightmarish consumer to brick and mortar store.  In my classification, the 1st gen are the ones that actually do research on consumer products before purchases.  Back then, it would be magazines, newspaper, etc.  Consumer Reports came into existenece and flourish in this era.  The 2nd gen does the same thing except for 2 differences: 1) the medium is the web which means information distribution is lightning fast, adn 2) the source material include regular consumers’ reviews.  The 3rd gen is now just starting to become wide-spread.  These are people like me who bring their smart phone and do research in the store, matching exact models, price compare, etc.  Yes, we are nightmares to brick and mortar stores who have always relied on a certain level of consumer ignorance.  Well, no more.

Anyway, a couple nights ago my cheapy Toshiba DVD player went kaput, almost ate (as in chewed, digested, and excremented) the Netflix disc in the process.  I saved the disc but I don’t stick anything else in that box again.  So the question becomes: To Blu-ray or not to Blu-ray. 

We went to Costco to pick up some fruits and vegetables… well, it was more like we rather spend a couple of hours in AC… and there are the Blu-ray players.  There were on 3 or 4 choices.  So wifey and lil girl went on while I stood at the electronics section and do my research.  The Samsung BD-P1590 came out decent, not top of the line but not expensive either.  So I gave it a go.

Connected everything, turned it on.  The first thing it does is wanting to upgrade the firmware… oookay… I could have sworn I bought a Blu-ray player, not a computer.  It took a while but I was impressed that the default network settings picked up enough to gain access to the web, grab the firmware update, and installed it.

The setup was fairly straight forward, language, date, time, timezone, all sorts of preferences.  Well… straight forward is actually relative…  It is straight forward for people in tune with technology.  For those that had a tough time with the binking 12:00 on the VCR, this is probably several magnitude harder… not easier. 

Now… all I need is some Blu-ray disc to really test it out…

Just a short update.

Norton Internet Security 2010 is now available for beta.  Get it here: http://www.symantec.com/norton/beta/overview.jsp?pvid=nis2010

It is the same term though.  Looks like a 14 days trial and possibly (I hope) renewable for another 14.  And then you are on your own again without a product to try/buy since the real release won’t be out.

After giving up on Norton’s NIS, I was protectionless for a few days.  It was nervewrecking enough that I just can’t do it any more.  So I resumed my search for the next temporary solution.  Here’s a brief summary:

Norton 360 is out.  Even the most current version is incompatible with Windows 7 and it doesn’t seem to have a beta or pre-release version available. (At least I can’t find one.)  Wasted 2 hours on it.  Save yourself some time.

Norton Internet Security 2010’s webpages are up but the beta/pre-release wasn’t available yet.  No go there.

McAfee has a beta version but repeated attempt to access it failed.  I’m not entirely certain what’s going on.  It could be that the site really is broken.  Or it could be that it detected Windows 7 RC (as oppose to Windows 7 Beta) and decided it wasn’t going to let me in.  Garbage.

4th try is Trend Micro Internet Security.  Took a good 30 minutes to get it downloaded and installed.  You can just tell this is not a polished product.  It talks the talk but if you are not verse in computer, you are going to need help.  The install-from-the-web process didn’t work.  I have to download the package, unpack it myself, and run the installer manually.  Even that it failed the first time.  Not to fault them or anything, they were freeware for quite a few years before turning commercial.  After a couple of attempts, it is working.  According to their webpage, it should work for at least a month.  We shall see.

…this is painful…