Now, not all iPad cases are created equal. There are sleeves, socks, murses and manbags, folios and more, each all offering their own pros and cons. I had next to no choice at all from where I procured the iPad, so ended up getting a Gecko Glove silicone case to get me through and protect the ‘Pad until I found something better.  (By the way, the Gecko Glove – okay for a silicone case: Nice and grippy, manly, but pretty heavy! Comes with a crappy screen protector, which I failed to get on correctly, so it went in the bin)

Pretty much all the Australian Apple resellers I’ve had a look at have a pretty lame selection of cases. There was the rare-as-hens-teeth Apple case which fit my requirements except for the sexy factor. There was a nasty Belkin leather folio case I found at Dick Smith. But then I discovered the Macally Bookcase. It was sleek, pretty sexy, similar to the Apple case, reasonably priced and had overall good reviews! So I snapped one up from a seller on eBay and two days ago it arrived in the mail from San Francisco.

It initially lived up to my expectations. It’s made of a suede-like material with microfiber on the inside to completely protect the iPad. The iPad is mounted with a plastic frame with protruding corners that kind of prop the iPad in place. I wouldn’t say it snaps into place, it kind of pushes in, snugly, but doesn’t feel insecure and there’s no way the iPad is going to slip out of its leathery home like what some Incase (and its counterfeit cousins) users are complaining about. It also lets you prop up the iPad for typing or watching videos (very similar to the Apple case) which is very handy. It’s a very slim and contoured case, as you can see by the photos too. No room for a pen or business card holders on this one.

On the downside, however, there were a couple of things I am a bit miffed about. Firstly, the case had a strong glue odour when I took it out of the box. A day later that smell is barely noticable. So that suede-like material is definitly not REAL suede

As soon as I removed the case from its packaging I noticed a small, dried yellow mark on the back of the case (which was there from the factory) and scratched it then attempted to dab it off with some water. Since I didn’t really grow up in the 70s, I don’t know much about suede and it seemed that I’d stained the case by doing that! Therefore I’ve come to the conclusion that suede-like materials only look good when you keep them in a sterile environment. This is pretty poor from a product designed to protect another product from dirt, scrapes and bumps. But I did find a solution – an $11 can of ScotchGuard from the supermarket. (This stuff is great, it keeps anything made of fabric protected from grease, oil, stains and practically everything!)

After having the Bookcase for a couple of days I’ve noticed the front of the case slightly curling upwards. There is a small chance this could have been as a result of the ScotchGuard, but I’ld almost rule that out as impossible to be honest. And last but not least, one last gripe I have is that the case’s edging cheapens it a bit. You have a fine product that looks fantastic, and you finish it by sandwiching together 3 layers of materials with some cheap looking stitching? Great.

End of the day, it’s a nice case that has a good design and appearance, as long as you protect it from the outset with ScotchGuard because otherwise it’s a dirt magnet. It’s sturdy enough to protect the iPad but its finishing has a bit of a cheap look to it on the edges.  It ain’t no Baja case but you get what you pay for, and I’m happy with it!

The missing piece was Bluetooth.  Every so often somebody calls me or I call people pretending that I have friends.  I know, it’s pretty sporadic and doesn’t happen that often, but when it does I get caught unawares and have already been fined for being naughty and talking to someone on my mobile phone while driving.

For less than the price of a repeat offence I thought it was time to install a Bluetooth head unit. I had two options. One, go to Holden and get them to install their solution for about $800. Or two, install my own for a fraction of the price. Being a cheapass, I went for the latter and bought a Nokia CK-7W Bluetooth unit off fleabay and a few parts from the Holden dealer to round out everything I needed.  I was lucky to find the following resources which showed in great detail what to solder where and even the GM part numbers I needed to take to Holden to buy the bits I needed!

Here’s the outlay (approximately)

Nokia CK-7W (used, from eBay) – $71
Mobile phone Harness – $12
Pushbutton with phone icon – $28 (WTF, seriously?)
Bezel for button to install in center console – $7

Once purchased it was a case of following the instructions from the below websites to crack open the dashboard, solder everything in and put it back together.

http://members.cox.net/05gto/html/body_bluetooth_install.htm

http://members.cox.net/05gto/html/body_holden_phone_button_install.htm

So I installed it today. All up it took about 3 hours, including the soldering time, and the time spent drilling out a couple of T-10 screws I stripped trying to un-do them with a T-8 driver. Whoops! Also including all the time spent screwing around in the car re-joining wires per this page. But it worked first time and works exactly how it’s supposed to, so I’m really happy! Heres a clip where I attempt to demonstrate the integration in the car. Which is in the dark.

Click here for a gallery of the disassembly, soldering, assembly and testing process

My phone is of course the iPhone 3GS. My car: A VZ Commodore. Nothing special at all but I like it, it’s cheap to run because I converted it to gas, we got it for a good price and it’ll be reliable for years to come. It looks like this:

Initially I had a thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to replace the stereo with one that had an iPhone dock connector and preferably a level of Bluetooth integration!”. I’ve done jobs like this in the past and they’ve sucked. Messing around with wiring harnesses that don’t have enough wire to solder on to, identifying the wires that go to speakers and stuff.. I’m also not a teenybopper wog who wants to put in a fooly seek sound system with 15″ subs, lower the car or install fluorescent lighting under the car either for that matter. I’m not a hoon, I’m just a nerd whos’ trying to get maximum geek-value out of his car without having to replace the car with a new one

It’s a damn shame that the car came out right before iPod-capable factory head units came on the scene. The head unit that comes standard is a Blaupunkt job with a single-CD player (that I rarely use), FM radio and no external Aux-In let alone a iPod dock connector! It’s made for the car. If you replaced it with another head-unit (double-DIN sized) you’d have to make a bracket for it to make it look “normal”, not to mention you’d had to re-wire the entire harness to connect the new stereo, and another thing is you’d lose the use of the 6 control buttons on the steering wheel, and the status indicators on the LCD panel in the instrument cluster. Not pretty.

And sorry. I’ld rather maintain the original look and feel of the original stereo.

My friend Tim recently got this guy to come over and install an aux-in mod on his identical stereo, which was a pretty damn cool mod. The way he does it is effectively installs a circuit into the Blaupunkt that overrides the CD/Radio mode when a button is pressed with an AUX-IN mode. The input comes from a 3.5mm headphone connector installed in the centre console bin. It’s a nice modification, simple, and does the job, but you don’t get any iPhone integration or a charged iPhone at the end of it. This guy is coming down to Melbourne in a month or so and I was considering having him install a similar mod in my car for $170.

However! I’ve since discovered a bigger geek than I who looks like he is qualified to build space shuttles and such. His name is Vlad Apostolov and his website is here. He’s built, and is selling a kit for the Blaupunkt Commodore stereos that gives you an automatic override to whatever’s playing, charges the iPhone, connects to the iPhone with a freaking Dock Connector, and (get this!!) his circuit even alters the text displayed on the Blaupunkt stereo to “IPOD”, “SHUFFLE” and so on! What’s more you can use the head unit and steering wheel buttons to control the iPod!   Oh and did I mention it also shows status information, song, album, artist and play time on the Blaupunkt screen? OMFG.

Check out this YouTube clip:

This guy is a freaking space cadet. I’ve never, ever seen someone make such a deep modification to an electrical product to make this Blau do what he’s making it do. The kit is a bit expensive – $330 – but I think I’m going to go with it over the other option. It’s just too awesome.  He does installs (for $550 all up) but since I’m comfortable doing Wii/Playstation modchips and have examined the intructions, and can get dangerous doing car audio, I think I’ll be right DIY’ing it.

But why stop there! One thing this interface doesn’t do (since it wasn’t designed for it) is phone integration. That being, if a call comes through, have it played through the stereo and have an external mic pipe the sound in the car back to the phone. Well as luck would have it, the Blaupunkt has a phone input connection point where you can install a mobile hands-free kit. Holden sell a Bluetooth-capable kit for $400 which I think is a bit overpriced..

As luck would have it, Nokia made a similar device a few years back called the Nokia CK-7W. It’s just a handsfree kit designed to be installed in cars independently of the car stereo that have a Bluetooth interface to Nokia phones. As luck would have it Bluetooth happens to work with practically any phone..including the iPhone (I googled and found the CK-7W works with the iPhone). So! My next stop is eBay. You can buy the CK-7W used for $30-60 there, then tap it into the Blau’s phone interface via the instructions here. Too bloody easy mate!

Will update this with progress as I go forth and conquer but I figure I might as well do it all at the same time..  Will document with photos etc as I go

Apparently because it has Facebook and Twitter integration, and may not have a VPN client built in (but who really knows at this stage Seth?), this new generation Windows Mobile is going to cause IT directors the world over to start losing their hair.

The problems that CIOs are facing today far outweigh the fact that their constituents won’t be able to get into some non-standard .Net application or crappy old Sharepoint site. Windows Mobile use is severely on the downturn in the Enterprise or otherwise because employees are shunning them in favour of Nokia, Blackberry or iPhone mobiles. The IT departments’ choice of desktop or mobile platform that a user is given to access a resource is becoming increasingly irrelevant with Web 2.0 and cloud services.

Seriously Seth, who do you know plucks around on a current gen Windows Mobile device to VPN into their corporate network to access something? They simply don’t. They’ll hold out until they’re back at their laptop to do their work if they have to rely on something as counter-intuitive as Windows Mobile 6.5. I’ve seen colleagues and peers time and time again carry around Windows Mobile 6.5 devices and use them as nothing more than complex, clumsy cellphones. Hell, I’ld rather a $30 Nokia prepay to do that. (Actually, my work gave me an option of a crappy Nokia smartphone or a Nokia 3120 Classic; I chose the classic and bought an iPhone out of my own wallet)

Regardless of whether Windows Phone 7 has a VPN client in it, regardless of whatever SDK Microsoft release to enable application authors to port their specialist software over to Windows Phone 7, Seth, the users are going to vote with their fingers and it isn’t going to matter one iota if the IT department port their apps over or not.

I’m not saying they shouldn’t port their apps over by any means. What I’m saying is that they should be sensible about it. Use a Service Oriented Architecture. Make applications and data available, securely, without the need for VPN connectivity, without specific software running on specific platforms. Any device, anywhere, anytime.  This is the future of networking and the future of smart mobility.

As for the Facebook and Twitter users of the world.. IT departments are starting to realise the power of peer support. My employer has set up a range of internal wikis and forums where people are encouraged to go to ask about their problems, whether they’re alpha/beta release software or an iPhone or Mac user needing assistance. And if it’s written into policy that Facebook and Twitter are not supported and are to be used only in an appropriate manner then it’s up to the users to support each other.

So, you’ve used your Mac in some way in recent times to communicate with someone using one of those VOIP/video apps there are out there, like Skype and iChat..

Not to mention all those cool video apps out there (okay, I’ll give you Skype, and iChat again) that let you use your iSight to be seen by the dude on the other end. Just like the videophone on the spaceship in 2001: A Space Oddysey. That’s great for talking with that dude you met on the Mactalk forums about XCode or (if you’re a pimply teenager) having a 6-way audio conversation where you talk shit for 5 hours straight, but not so useful when you want to call mum and have a chat, or call a client about a proposal you want to put forward, or even call the bank to ask why you can’t log into their damn website.   iChat and Skype make it kinda difficult to call mum on her good ol’ Telstra line in such fashion suggested  by Telstra in their ads. The problem is that your mum doesn’t have a Mac, nor knows or cares to know what Skype is (I know this for a fact because she told me last night) Yes, OK, you can use SkypeOut and get charged 2c/minute, if you’re fine with this then go right ahead buddy.

Oddly enough, even if you haven’t used anything like iChat or Skype, chances are you’ve used VOIP and haven’t even realised you were using it. Many businesses now use IP telephony infrastructure to increase productivity and reduce costs by unifying their PBX infrastructure with their IP networking infrastructure.  And you might have seen the ads on TV for iiNet’s “BoB”, for instance, which uses VOIP technology over Naked DSL (where your dialtone goes bye bye). I want a BoB but iiNet don’t have capacity in my exchange yet. How very dare they!

So the type of VOIP I’m talking about today is where you’re interconnecting with the PSTN (or Public Switched Telephone Network).  iiNets’ BoB is a physical cordless phone (amongst other things). There are a lot of IP phones out there on the market from various manufacturers – Cisco, Linksys, Siemens, Belkin, Polycom and Snom just to name a few good ones.

In lieu of buying one of these, because IP phones are still kind of expensive, you can use a softphone.  As it implies, a softphone is a telephone emulator of sorts. And you thought a C=64 emulator was cool! Their advantage is you can get going with null capital investment and they have an added advantage that they’re built into your laptop, so they’re great for road warriors who travel heaps.. You use these in conjunction with a VSP or VOIP Service Provider. Two I recommend that are cheap (since it’s all about lowering costs) and work really well are Pennytel and Maxo.  You will then be able to call Mum with a headset attached to your computer.

By the way: I’m a VOIP snob, and an audio snob, so I’ld thoroughly recommend investing in a half decent headset because you really don’t want to make mother repeat herself, do you?  So go somewhere and buy either a USB headset, or a pair that go into your headphone sockets. Even your iPhone ones are perfect and much, much better than the mic/speakers in your Mac. A massive problem arises when you have low input volume and lots of background noise pushed through a PSTN “narrowband” connection – people on the other end can’t hear you! Also, you could probably try a Bluetooth headset and it’ld probably work but from my experience, pairing it with my Mac just to make a phone call is akin to gouging my eyes out with a steak knife.

Also, I talk about “codecs”  in this review. They’re pretty much the telephony equivalent of MP3 for music CDs. I wrote a page about the differences and pros and cons of each codec as an appendix for this review but deleted it because you probably don’t care. Codecs aren’t too important when you’re using the PSTN. Look them up on Wikipedia and learn about them and their bandwidth usage if you’re interested.

Telephone 0.14.3

Telephone is an obnoxiously easy to use SIP client that is pretty easy to set up too (note to self: Enable “Use DNS SRV Record” in Network preferences) and conveniently, supports Russian and German as well as good old Queens’ English. When you’ve set up your account details (your name, the SIP server, your username and password) it appears as a teeny tiny little window that lets you enter a phone number. It also lets you search your OSX Address Book and dial contacts from there too, as well as SIP URIs, all from the same text field. Each call established appears as a seperate little window which can get annoying if you’re like me and have 80 applications open at once on a 13” Macbook screen.

From within a call you can dial numbers for IVRs by just typing them on the keyboard with the call in progress window in focus, hit H to put them on hold and M for mute. And that’s about it really. It’s pretty simple and there are next to no business-esque features, just hold and mute.  No 3-way, conference, transfer call or anything flash like that.

Telephone works fine in Snow Leopard. Another very cool thing about Telephone is that it supports Growl notifications. I couldn’t get it to display any, though perhaps it can send you a growl notification when your phone rings. It supports the usual group of audio codecs, namely G.711, iLBC, and GSM, but notably G.729 is missing most likely because of licensing restrictions (big royalty money here). It also supports Speex. My favorite codec, ever, in the whole whole world, G.722, is also present, although there is a current bug in the pgsip stack that the author is fixing by adding a workaround in the next release. The bug causes lots of distortion when using G.722, which makes me cry.

Pros: Extra easy to set up and simple to use, wideband support, integration to OSX Address Book

Cons: Darn G.722 bug to be fixed in next release, no transfer/conference features

Blink beta 2

And with the blink of an eye it’s on to Blink.  Blink is a “fully featured and easy to use SIP client.” Unfortunately, the initial feeling I got from Blink is that it attempts to be much more than just a SIP client. The reason appears to be due to its attempt at being much more than a SIP client. It’s got IM and file transfer and desktop share and rich presence (SIMPLE). But I don’t want that, I just want to make phone calls.

That said, Blink is otherwise pretty similar to Telephone in functionality. It has an iChat-like interface that lets you make phone calls by either entering a number into a text field at the top or by double clicking on entries in a contact list. It also shows items from your address book and it also lets you search both data sources with the text box at the top. Each in-progress call appears in an expanded window list box where you can select between them (and the other call(s) go on hold).  There’s a conference button at the bottom of this expanded view, but I couldn’t for the life of me get it working so for all I know it’s a never-implemented feature.  Apart from that, Blink is another nice contender.

Codec wise, it supports GSM, iLBC, G.711, speex, and G.722, so it’s pretty identical to Telephone.

Pros: Easy to set up, reasonably straightforward to use. Awesome sound effects stolen from a hollywood movie!

Cons: Not the best UI. Tries to be some kind of open source Unified Communications client, and fails.

Zoiper Communicator 1.10.5624

This latecomer to my arsenal of reviewed apps has been around for a while now on Windows but I only realised recently it is available now for OSX.  I downloaded and played with the free version because I’m cheap.

To be honest, there’s no real advantage I can see running Zoiper over the above two apps. Unfortunately it’s got its own skin and look’n’feel, probably to try to remain consistent with the Linux/Windows versions. So it sticks out like a traffic accident in OSX. When you first install, it coaxes you into signing up for a Zoiper account. Why? I don’t know. You can bypass it and set up your VSP provider settings manually, which is what I did.  Also, I noticed that you can’t search for contacts using your Address Book – it has a contact list somehow integrated to your online Zoiper account, but who the hell wants to manage a second contact list?

When I started up a call I saw several buttons for hold, transfer, conference, and recording.   All but the first require the ‘biz’ version of Zoiper, so clicking on them redirects you to their website so you can fork over the cash. I didn’t.

Zoiper Communicator supports GSM, speex, G.711 and iLBC. The speex codec is probably wideband, but maybe not, I can’t tell.

Pros: Umm. Pass. It works?

Cons: No G.722. Dirty un-OSX-like interface that makes Steve Jobs cry. No address book integration.

And the winner (for me at least)… Telephone!

This reviewer felt that for the majority of use at this point in time Telephone was the clear winner because of its clean UI and completeness of features. The only thing letting it down was the G.722 bug which the author advises me will be fixed in the next release.

First impressions

The M5390 is a very elegant headset. It is lightweight and has a feel of a good build quality about it.  It has a combined answer/power/control button and a combo up/down/mute button. It’s a lot longer than your “usual” Bluetooth headset, with the mic extending right down to an inch or so away from your mouth. You would look like a bit of a dick wearing it on the subway but it’s absolutely perfect in the office environment.

It comes with two ways to attach it to your head. You can attach it over your ear, which I’ve done for about 2 hours and found it to be mildly irritating, although this is not unusual for me. The other method is using an over-the-head metal band with ear cushion which is comfortable and probably the method I would use if I were to use the headset all day long.

The M5390 is a  “dual Bluetooth” headset which is capable of connecting via Bluetooth to your mobile and a softphone at the same time. It comes in two flavours, one with a just a travel charger and the A335w USB Bluetooth dongle, or with the dongle plus a base station/charger that plugs into your desk phone and lets you switch between them.

I’m not ungrateful, but they only sent us the USB pack, which means my colleagues and I need to use our softphones in order to take advantage of these headsets. (To not include the desk phone base station is a poor decision in my opinion when you consider I work for Cisco which now holds the lions’ share of the enterprise IP telephony market).

While I can’t fault IP Communicator in particular, it shares a common trait with all softphones including Skype and Microsoft Office Communicator: it runs on Windows, meaning it relies on all the cumbersome idiosyncracies that Windows has to offer and is about 10,000 times more likely than a deskphone to crash as a result (but I digress, softphones have advantages too – lower costs, a travelling phone).

The multi-use version with the base station has been heavily criticized recently because it doesn’t come with a handset lifter for the phone. This means that the answer/hangup button on the headset doesn’t actually perform the task it’s supposed to do when used with the deskphone. My major gripe is that the base station, from reports, doesn’t appear to support wideband. Only the USB dongle, despite many deskphones these days supporting it.

Software

At least there’s the PC Suite. The headset comes with a piece of software which, when installed on your Windows machine, lets you manage the headset and determine what softphone the headset buttons control via a DLL hook into that software. The nice thing about this is that you can answer and hang up calls on the softphone with the button on the headset and not have to rely on interacting with the softphone UI itself. PC Suite also lets you toggle streaming of audio from the PC, so you could listen to music in iTunes too for instance (in glorious monaural)

Well, that’s’ the theory and it’s all well and good – once you’ve familiarized yourself with the intricacies of using a Bluetooth headset for your standard desk job that is.  Now, I’m familiar with PABXs, VOIP systems, Bluetooth, softphones and Unified Communications…and I had problems feeling comfortable about using the headset as my primary method of voice communications throughout the day. Trying to memorise the meaning of random sequences of coloured lights, varying behaviour everytime the headset was turned on or the dongle inserted, and the PC Suite software even crashing a couple of times was awkward.  I attempted to download and run the Firmware updater for the A335w on multiple machines and got an “ERROR” everytime I ran the executable. Nice touch, and their support site is pretty non-existant too.

Off on a tangent: It’s a shame, but Windows-based Unified Communications hardware is in its infancy in my opinion, and I can’t see user adoption being an easy process when using Bluetooth and/or the Windows sound device controls as they are today. Lets’ face it, the average layman is used to a normal, everyday phone sitting on their desk and at most a wired headset hanging off the side of it; with travelling notebook users being the prime target of the M5390 (it’s bundled with only a USB travel charger) nobody is going to have it ALWAYS connected, so if their softphone starts on Windows startup they can probably kiss their audio settings goodbye!

Back on track. You’re also SOL if you’re on a Mac.  Thankfully OSX reecognises the USB dongle as an audio device but you’re on your own to select it as an input/output device  in softphones, and there is no OSX software I know of that recognizes the buttons on the headset and lets you take advantage of them.

Sound Quality

So on to the wideband support.  The A335w / M5390 combo is listed as having 6.8Khz of bandwidth which is okay but just a tad under G.722’s 7khz spectrum.  The interesting thing is that the two devices speak Bluetooth to each other, not DECT or some proprietary system. I can’t tell what codec it uses in hardware, but here is a short recording taken from the M5390 and recorded on a Windows machine with Audacity.  It sounds compressed and probably is.

Wideband

The next one is recorded straight over the PSTN, so, G.711.

G.711 PSTN quality

And finally heres what the headset sounds like paired to my iPhone and recorded via the PSTN.

Over the iPhone

Out of interest, I took a cheap Jabra Bluetooth headset that I usually use on my mobile phone and was astonished to find it supported a frequency range far greater than the PSTN – not quite as good as the M5390 but wow!

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a nice wideband headset for some kind of Unified Communications app, or Counterpath Eyebeam, or whatever, you probably can’t go past this baby.  In my opinion it’s pretty limited without the multi-use deskphone adapter, and by its nature it can be complex to use.  However it has great sound quality and is pretty comfortable to wear!

Will I use it? Probably not, since I already have a Plantronics headset for the PSTN, a teeny tiny Bluetooth headset for my mobile phone, and a wired USB headset for VOIP, but it might come in handy time to time!

Here’s a bit of background first  about me, my intended shooting style, and what I’ve already educated myself on, so you can get some context.

• I’m interested in photography as a hobby at this stage plus family portraiture and that kind of thing. I’m also interested in taking “artistic” style shots, including night shots, motion shots at night, macro photos with crazy aperture (for lots of blurry background). That kind of thing.
• I’m getting married in October and we’re going to the US for our honeymoon.  This gives me the option of puchasing some/all of my kit abroad to save bucks.  And the Australian dollar bought USD0.81 yesterday which is great news – I’m pretty sure it’ll keep rising too.
• Also aware that kit bought here in Australia can be taken with us on honeymoon, shown on the way out and be refunded 10% (for GST).  Plus, if I buy a D90 there is a $200 rebate from Nikon Australia til the end of September, so if I buy it then it’ll still be eligible (30 days) before departure.
• Concerned that if I buy a body overseas or a parellel imported body I will have warranty issues, plus in the case of a D90 a parallel imported model is probably not eligible for the $200 rebate above.
• Did I mention I *NEVER* pay full retail on these kinds of things? You’d be stupid to.
• I’m stuck in the Nikon vs Canon war.  The cameras I have my eyes on are the 500D/T1i and the D90.  Both seem really good cameras and have a loyal fan base and raving reviews.  I’m only partially aware of their incompatibilities, ie lens for one camera only fit another, that kind of thing.  It feels a bit like peripherals for the old IBM mainframes in the 1960s.
• I’m also interested in experimenting with older lens designed for film cameras picked up second hand. Does the Nikon or the Canon suit better for this?
• I’m also aware that the kit lenses that come bundled with the cameras tend to be on the, well, crap side. So I’m prepared to buy the kit and a lens or two seperately, as long as it doesn’t really blow my budget. Which at this stage, is approximately AUD1500 give or take.   If I bought lenses seperately, should I buy Canon/Nikkor or are there just-as-good drop in replacements eg Tamron?
• Since I’m a newbie I’ve been told to invest in a 50mm f/1.8 fixed lens which sounds pretty reasonable to build skills framing and preparing a photo before I snap it.
• I’m not interested in video. OK, so 720p might come in handy for spontaneous video recording bu that’s about it.

So that’s about all.  Would love to hear your thoughts/comments! Especially from those who have experience first hand with the 500D and the D90, or even better with other types of cameras they think would suit better! (please?) TY!

New features:

• Access online information via your handset (go to menu “Info Center”*) such as:
  - News: Stay informed with current RSS news feeds.
  - Weather: Find out the weather in up to 250,000 locations around the globe.
  - My eBay: Monitor the items of your personal eBay account.
  - Encyclopedia: Get quick access to Wikipedia.
  - Translator: Look up instant translations.
  - Unit Converter: Convert a required amount.
  - Horoscope: Access your zodiac sign report.
  - Biorhythm: Monitor the state of your biological cycles.
  - My Applications: Add info services you developed yourself.
• The phone’s connection assistant first asks for an auto-configuration code. If your IP provider supports “automatic configuration”, you will receive the auto-configuration code from your provider. This code enables the automatic configuration of your VoIP account.

Improvements:

• Web Configurator: Support of Internet Explorer 8.0 und Firefox improved.
• Infoscreensaver: German umlauts are now displayed correctly.
• DNS Name for AVM SIP registrar (“fritz.box”) will be resolved from now on.
• The preconfigured area code is no longer dialled for VoIP network mailbox and fixed line calls.
• Incoming VoIP calls stored in the AM list are no longer stored in the missed calls list.

• The hole for the headphone socket on the outer shell doesn’t provide enough clearance for the plug footprint of my headphones..  This can be easily remedied with a Dremel and a 953 Aluminium Oxide grinding stone on a low speed so it wouldn’t melt the plastic.
• The inner shell has a deformity right underneath the docking connector (green arrow in photo) so it kinda lifts up a little around that point letting dust in. Sigh.  Since I’ve lost the receipt, and everytime I’ve been in Optus they only have gay colours in stock to replace it with, well I just gotta live with it – life’s too short I guess

Finally…

• The bridge of the inner connector (red arrow) that sits above the dock connector has started scratching the metal band on the iPhone. I’m not sure why but I presume dust gets in and rubs against the metal – scratching up the iPhone which is why I bought the case in the case in the first place!

The way I fixed it was…PVA glue.  PVA is safe, dries translucent, and is easy to remove (you just rub it off with your finger) and is pretty easy to apply.  In the garage, from other projects, I had a bottle of PVA from Bunnings and the smallest paintbrush I could find (1/8″) which is about the same width as a nailpolish brush. Just brush a layer or two of that shit onto the metal band of your iPhone – you could go the whole way around, or do what I did and just do the bottom side since it was the only part being scratched up.   Be careful not to get PVA into the seam between the band and the glass, I think it will be hard to remove.

Give it 10 minutes to dry, touch test it and whack that case back on!  Job done, back to drinking beer.