Morgan’s Brain

I have a feeling there is going to be some quality iPhone competition in the coming years, if the major carriers and handset makers jump on board with Android. AndroidCommunity has a detailed demo with a bunch of visuals, highlighting all the great features coming up and already in place. Also, with it being an open platform, one of my biggest gripes with a non-jailbroken iPhone — easy file transfer — is a non-issue. Currently you have to jailbreak and install OpenSSH your iPhone, then use a SFTP program over WiFi to get any files onto or off of your phone. Bluetooth file transfer was not included by Apple for some insane reason.

If Android pans out and becomes a real product in the next two years, I’ll most likely drop the iPhone and go for it. 

 Yes, another iPhone related post after a month of ignoring my little corner of the web. But, this one is actually useful. I didn’t really like any of the Summerboard themes in the repositories, at least not enough to stare at every time I use my phone. I wanted a simple blue gradient with a soft grey dock. So, I made my own, called Vachon. I haven’t yet tried to add it to the official repositories; I doubt it would be popular as it is very minimalist. It’s just easier on my eyes than the stark black background and carbon-fiber dock of the default theme. Source files in .xcf format available here. For instructions on uploading to your phone, check the Summerboard link above. It also tells you the basics of making your own themes.

I have come to the realization that I am no longer as geeky as I once thought of myself. I have been contemplating replacing my eMac with a custom built (by me, of course) Linux-based PC. This is something that, over the past few years especially, would have been both a great challenge and a wonderful pastime.

The more I think about it though, the more I realize I don’t really want to deal with all the complication anymore. I love the simplicity of my Mac, the way it just plain works and stays out of my way. Sure, it’s getting old and slow, and I’m positive the built-in monitor will end up dying on me within a couple more years. But even if that happens, I can get my geek hacking fix by replacing it with a built-in LCD and get a few more years of life out of it. By then I will be in a position to invest in a new Mac and donate or sell this one. Sure, I do miss Linux sometimes but after all, it’s just another Unix and OS X provides an excellent Unix platform to hack around in. Again, the dead-on simplicity makes even an Ubuntu system look complicated and unnecessary.

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Well it hasn’t even been a week but I’ve already got a good feel for the battery on this thing. One really big issue with battery life is Wifi. If you leave it on and you’re not actually connected to a wireless router, you’ll drain the battery in just a few hours of web browsing. I think it’s because the iPhone prefers Wifi to Edge and it will constantly search for an open hotspot or router if it’s not already connected to one. With the Wifi radio off and just using Edge to connect to the internet, you can get about three times the battery life.  Of course, when you’re at home with a wireless router, the opposite is true; you get much better results with Wifi on and connected to your router. 

…and since I can’t sleep this morning I figured I’d try it on Wordpress. So far, it’s fine apart from having to use the code editor instead of the rich-text box. The latter doesn’t play nice with the iPhone’s keyboard. Speaking of, typing this much text actually isn’t so bad; the auto correction works fairly well, and I’m getting used to it quicker than I thought I would. I seem to be as fast on it as I was on my Treo.

Well here we are; this is my brain. Not really, but you get the idea. I’ll be writing about things that interest me, and as eclectic as I tend to be, this will be all over the place. Stay tuned…