They talked about the use and reasoning for why Social media works in todays marketing landscape. have a look at the video i took via my iPhone and please feel free to comment!

-Joe

I purchased the iPhone 3G to replace a Treo 750 the weekend that it was released. Since then i have experienced a love/hate relationship with the shiny, thin and ultra sheek iPhone. I really miss the ability to invite an attendee to a meeting using exchange e-mail (And dot even get me started with cut and paste…) however those features while convenient, are not essential to my everyday life. The two un-excusable features that are missing from this ultra modern cutting edge piece of hardware to me are:

A decent Bluetooth Stack.

Tethering.

The first i fear will never see an answer as the pre-installed Bluetooth stack on the iPhone is delibratly crippled as the hardware is completely capable of any bluetooth feature that is currently in use anywhere in the world today, DUN, PAN, Hands free, OBEX, Headset, A2DP etc… all are supported by the hardware however by no mistake they were left out of both the original iPhone and the newer 3G iPhone. This may be for marketing reasons or simply because Apple does not want to allow further access to their extremely closed platform. There are however efforts to improve the Bluetooth stack on the iPhone being undertaken within the communities built around the jailbreaking groups out there which (Thankfully!) allow the installation of apps on the iphone that exceed apple’s restrictive policies. These efforts have not as of yet produced any fruits however it is early and we will keep monitoring them for developments.

The second issue which i understand from a business perspective is really annoying. I do not want to carry around a 3G modem card, usb drive, cord or anything else for that matter. I have a phone, and i have a Netbook. That is what i carry around with me there are no dongles, no cords, or anything else for that matter. Given all of that Why on earth would i not want my iPhone to function (Like every other phone i have owned since 2002) as a bluetooth modem? I can do this with my Nokia 3650 but i cannot with this ultra modern, ultra sleek marvel of technological mastery!?! Seriously Apple and AT&T, you are killing your business customers and pissing them off over petty features that are easily accomplished with devices that for the most part are “Free with 2-year contract!” Once again, were it not for the jailbreaking community, this too would be a reason that any one reading this could buy my iPhone on eBay. Thanks go out to an old but Great developer that has been adding what should be a standard feature to devices for years, Internet sharing! PDAnet, a product of June Fabrics Has been lovingly ported to work on the iPhone! This software is a breath of fresh air for people wanting to add Internet sharing to their iPhone without the annoyance of a messy SOCKS proxy (And for now at least, the cost!) PDAnet is currently FREE! anyone that has had Palm or windows mobile devices, and wanted this functionality in years past knows about PDAnet as it has beet a top selling product from the beginning but at this price grab it now because PDAnet traditionaly is over $30.00USD (and worth it if you ask me!)

Until Apple and AT&T get some religion and move to officially support these most basic of features you can catch me siphoning Internet with PDAnet on my shiny new Acer One on a park bench near you!

-Joe Harper

P.S. If you have a diffrent view let me know in the comments. I would Love to hear what the readers have to say!

**Warning! The following WILL void your warranty. Proceed at your own risk. If you break your laptop it is not my fault. Nuff said…**

So this hack basically involves popping open your laptop, soldering a few wires to a 5V connector and a ground and then hooking into the unused USB leads on either of the internal mini PCIe connectors inside of the laptop to add an internal USB device “of your choosing” inside of the laptop. The USB Bluetooth adapter that I chose was the Kensington Micro USB Bluetooth adapter for a few reasons:

1. It is tiny only taking up a very small amount of space inside of the laptop case allowing for placement anywhere within the laptop.
2. It is Bluetooth 2.0 +EDR which is the fastest and newest version of Bluetooth available
3. it is a class 2 (10meter) device which means it’s power draw will be minimal verses the class 1 (100 meter) devices.
4. This Bluetooth adapter is $23.00 USD at Best Buy and as I am impatient I did not want to have to wait for delivery before I did this mod.

The install I found on Tnkgrl’s site served as the inspiration for my hack which uses the USB leads on the empty unused mini PCIe solder pads the reason I did this is:

1. It is a larger target to hit. I was scared to death to try my luck right up next to the connector for my wireless card which I cannot be without.
2. it puts my connection next to the access panel on the bottom of the Acer One (explained later)

This installation uses the power from a nearby USB port on the far left side of the laptop. This USB lead is +5 and allows me to once again hit a bigger target than the one provided for in the Tnkgrl’s awesome and skillful hack. (To be that steady!) I will try to provide pictures however the ones at tnkgrl’s site show pretty clearly how to best connect to the power on the device.

!Update! After reading the comment from tnkgrl i have changed my plans and re routed the power connections to the locations that she describes in her hack. please read her comment below for the reasons for the change.

As you can see i have attached the Power and ground to the same locations used in tnkgrl’s mod.

This is a close up of the solder points i used for the power connections.

I then routed the wires to the other side of the mother board for attachment to the female USB connector.

The jewel of this install is in the use of an old USB extension cable to create an internal port which makes it a bit more future proof I can upgrade the module at any point by simply connecting a new device also the placement on the bottom side allows me to position the female USB connector directly under the access panel for easy access without dis-assembly of the laptop. I cut away all of the plastic from the USB cable and stripped off the outer wire casing. It was necessary for it to fit in the cramped area below the door the only suggestion that I would add is that you add some epoxy on the motherboard where you make the connection so as to keep the wires in place after you get done soldering.

You can see that the tiny Bluetooth adapter easily fits inside the compartment on the bottom of the Acer One.

You can see here in the blown up image that the entire assembly fits well also if you look directly below the USB dongle you can see the solder locations for the USB+ and USB- located on the unused mini PCIe solder pads. the solder points you want are #36 and #38

That is pretty much it.

TIP! While you have the device apart you might as well go ahead and install some extra memory the max this thing can handle is 1.5 GB of DDR2 PC5300 533 MHz RAM if you are willing to integrate a Bluetooth module into this thing you will probably want to spend the $15.00 USD it costs to purchase the extra ram and there is not going to be a better time than right now to install it!        (What the heck! You have already voided your warranty anyway!)

Well that’s it enjoy your mouse and keyboard with no dongles and tether away!

Happy Hacking!

-Joe

Below is a sign I found hanging on a soda fountain at a 5 Guys burgers and fries in Atlanta, GA. Even though they only sell hamburgers and french-fries we can all learn a lot from their business model.

All of us should aspire to the ideals shown by this burger joint!

“You, the customer, are the most important visitor on our premises, You are not dependent on us, we are dependent on you. You are not an outsider in our business - you are part of it. We are not doing you a favor by serving you . . . you are doing us a favor by giving us the opportunity to do so. Thank you, Five Guys”

When was the last time you encountered customer centric service at any business? If you have I bet you remember it and make buying decisions based on that quality of service. Let’s try to be as customer oriented as this fast-food chain and I am sure that success will follow

P.S. While my wife and I were at the restaurant we were treated in a manor that showed that for 5 Guys, the sign is not just a lofty goal but a practiced methodology. The pride in what they do is apparent the second you walk through the door.

Visit their website:

http://www.fiveguys.com

-Joe

I see Twitter as just that, an exchange of ideas mixed with a few “Dude I just ate a slice of pizza, it was AMAZING!” comments. But the overwhelming current of Twitter seems to be the dissemination of information between like minded people in an open and convenient format. The only problem is that I don’t have any followers, which makes it more like a painfully long phone based seminar and my line is muted. Even if you agree with the host you cannot say anything back and I find it odd that I keep replying to people that never hear my replies… any way, I digress.

So I found a few resources that claimed methods of building readership and increasing the number of followers on Twitter.  This article on doshdosh.com happened to be the most realistic and helpful for me. I am going to be trying my best to create quality content and all the while linking it to my Twitter feed.

The method of following 10,000 people and hoping that they follow me in return seems a bit tacky, and is a good way to get a black mark in a community that is as connected as Twitter. So for me it will be content, conversation and posting as the answer to my twitter goals.

So help me out and follow me. I promise that I will keep the tweets coming and keep my content relevant. If you promise to do the same perhaps I will follow you so we can keep the information flowing. And as far as the hour of work is concerned… let’s just call it research.

Well, it has been 3 weeks now since i got my hands on the iPhone 3G and I have to say I am still enamored with the quality of the interface. The device feels solid, works well and has few bugs (At least for me it has had few bugs. others have had nothing but issues from the get-go.) The 3G internet speed is zippy (solid 1.4-1.6Mbps when in 3G coverage areas) and quite responsive, certainly enough for surfing the web and for use with my Exchange account for e-mail. The problem now is that I have had enough time away from my Treo 750 Windows Mobile device to start missing some of the common sense type features that for some reason the iPhone lacks even in its 2nd generation.

not to be annoying as I have seen many blogs rant about these issues already but I would like to share my issues with the readership so that they can avoid potentially game ending problems with the iPhone and purchase the device fully informed and ready to embrace the finger dance that is iPhone ownership.

1. The lack of tethering
2. The inability to schedule appointments FROM the device
3. Copy & Paste. (Come on Apple, seriously.)
4. No support for Video.
5. Bluetooth support for stereo headsets and syncing
6. Adobe Flash support for Safari.

No Tethering Tango

With all that 3G goodness how can I be expected to not occasionally tether my laptop to my iPhone for the benefit of using the iPhone as a modem. I have been doing this through Bluetooth and USB for years with smartphones (and even not so smart phones.) this feature that has been around for a decade is strangely absent from this state-of-the-art gadget.

Scheduling Conflicts

My issue with Scheduling is probably my biggest pet peeve of the new iPhone. I work at a company that utilizes a Microsoft Exchange Server this was what stopped me from purchasing the original iPhone (That and it’s lack of 3G.) When I heard that Apple was adding support for exchange in the 3G device I was elated and promptly stood in line with the great and humble masses on release weekend to get one. The realization came on Monday of the following week that I could accept invitations to meeting but could not send one out. I wonder how Apple missed such an important feature. That is the equivalent to making a phone that can accept a call but cannot make them. “Boo Apple!”

Copy and Paste

Really? “Who would ever need that?” I heard something on Buzz Out Loud today driving to work about how Copy and Paste was on Apple’s to-do list for the 3G but that it was not high enough to make it in the first release of the 3G. Here is hoping that it shows up in 2.1 of the firmware. I am so tired of typing things into the Google search bar that I had in my e-mail already.

Lights, Camera, Action!

Well, some how once again the iPhone is missing a feature that is standard on almost all high (and low) end phones. How can Apple leave video off of the iPhone? And include such a subpar camera. I read somewhere that they even used a chip in the iPhone 3G that supports up to a 5MP camera. So it is not a limitation of the chipset. Again a very sad wannabe fanboy must say “Boo Apple!”

Bluetooth 2.what does it matter?

With the iPhone being a high quality music and video player that includes Bluetooth surely it is the realization of a dream for people that want to finally “Cut the cord” completely and use wireless Bluetooth headsets. Right? Wrong. The new iPhone comes with Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR all that that means to you is that it will play nice with the majority of wireless headsets and probably your car if you have one of those “fancy built in Bluetooth car phone systems” (jaded). However that truly is it. there is no data, stereo audio, file sharing, photo sending or any other kind of data allowed or supported via Bluetooth on the iPhone. Why?

Apple and Adobe, when parents fight the kids lose…

I know Apple and Adobe don’t always see eye to eye on many things but I really hope that they can get together on this one. Unfortunately we will never see an Opera browser for iPhone due to the limits of the SDK Apple released for the iPhone so it is truly on Apple to deliver the goods on support for Adobe Flash. I cannot conceive of why support has not made it to the top of the list for a product that was sold on the quality of its web experience.

Now I know that that seems like a huge list of reasons to NOT get the new iPhone 3G. And if any of those reasons are deal breakers for you then I wouldn’t blame you for letting it ride for a few more generations. However, I decided to keep mine for 2 reasons

1. The interface is sweet. And when I say sweet I mean Game changingly sweet. This device is the beginning of the end for clumsy interface design. At the entry-level price of $199.00 the iPhone 3G feels like holding a Vertu in your hand for the cost of a pay-as-you-go trackfone. This device is extremely easy to use and with the safari web browser it offers the usability that I always wanted Windows Mobile’s Pocket Internet Explorer browser to have.
2. The iPhone 3G has all of the hardware I could ever want in a phone. The Devices specs read like a wish list in a modern device (save the fact that it only has a 2MP camera.) The iPhone boasts a HSDPA chip capable of 7.2 Mbps downstream speed, 802.11B/G Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 and a 835 MHz processor. That being said I realize that none of these specs matter unless the software supports them. That also being said, as the hardware capabilities are there already software can be improved. So, Apple, please help make the decision to keep the iPhone a good one by fixing the issues that limit your wonderful piece of hardware.

I run several technology oriented websites that are designed to help people do more with their technology. I am also an amature photographer you will find my pictures here on this site. if you are looking for Tech news, just flip through this and my other websites to find out more about the various sites I maintain and the reviews I have done. Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions.

Thanks,

Joe Harper