The other day I got a dodgy looking email from Paypal, which told me that on {nothing} my bank account {nothing} did {nothing}. Now, I’m fully aware of phishing and all the assorted scams, but this one looked legit. A quick review of the message headers revealed it looked good, and nothing in the email suggested that it was an attempt at scamming me out of my login details. So I figured, what the heck, I’ll report it to Paypal, and see what happens.
Despite its failings as a phone, I really did like bits of the iPhone. The interface is amazing. The apps and app store stuff is brilliant. And whilst I love my Archos, as a Mac & iTunes user, getting music on to it and syncing and all that sort of stuff was just a nightmare I could no longer live with. So the obvious choice was to get an iPod Touch. So I have a 2nd gen 32gb iPod Touch and it really is brilliant. OK, so it’s missing the GPS, but other than that, it has all the benefits of the iPhone, minus the crappy phone bit.
And that, in particular, means apps. Yes, there’s been a hoohar over Apple’s policing of what apps it deems to be acceptable, but that does ultimately mean that the apps available to you are top notch. And one of those is the ITunes Remote*. It’s so simple – it connects to your shared iTunes library over wireless, and turns your iPod Touch or iPhone in to a full featured remote for your iTunes library. Which means, if used in conjunction with say Airport Express to distribute music around your house, you can have a really – erm – awesome home media thing. Your computer with iTunes can be anywhere in your house, you can have speakers wherever you are, and all you need is your Touch to adjust what’s playing. It works brilliantly. And – it’s free!
Thumbs up.
* I don’t know how to link to a iTunes app, but if you access the store, look in the free section and it’ll be there.
And it has nothing to do with Limewire. Or MacTheRipper. I don’t do that. Really.
No, Facebook decided that my little film about a dog, infringed some copyright.
Hi,
We have removed your video entitled “The Seven Stages of Dog” uploaded at 11:16am September 7th, 2008. We did this because we learnt that your video might include copyrighted material owned by a third party, such as a video clip or background audio.
If you are the copyright owner, or have permission from the rights holder to upload and distribute this material on Facebook, you may file a counter notice of alleged infringement by following the link below.
Please note that if you re-upload this video without filing a counter notice, or if you upload another video that infringes on the rights of a third party, our system will again remove the content. This could cause your access to the Facebook Video application to be disabled, or your Facebook account to be disabled.
Presumably, the soundtrack. Fair enough. I did reference the music in the film, but I’m not about to dispute it as I clearly don’t have rights to reuse it.
But the obvious question – how on earth did they find out about this? Judging by the stats, barely even a handful of people had watched the films, yet, and I’m guessing here, someone somewhere did and reported it. Bizarre.
(No-one tell YouTube, OK?)
I have a mobile phone. But I don’t use it so much. So part of the reason for returning my iPhone, I must admit, was that the thought of a £36 a month contract over 18 months suddenly worked out to make bad financial sense. I’ve been on pay as you go for a long while now, and actually, it suits me very well, especially as, for some unknown reason, Cable & Wireless now give their PAYG subscribers free texts. Bizarre, but I’m not complaining.
But that didn’t solve the problem of my existing phone being shagged. I moreorless knew what phone I wanted – the Nokia 6500 Slide – pretty much the N95’s little brother – but at nearly £200 new from the shop, it was more than I wanted to pay. Obvious solution? eBay!
My mistake was that I naively assumed that phones were phones were phones and that a locked (to a network) phone could easily be unlocked. Emphasis on the “naive” and the “assume” though, because when I received the Nokia 6500 Slide I won from eBay, that was tied to 3, unlocking it was not a straightforward task. Unlock codes? No. (Try unlocking it with a cheap code you bought off a dodgy website locks it up even tighter? Check. Don’t whatever you do, think that an unlock code, such as one you might buy from MrUnlock will work. On the Nokia 6500 Slide (and Classic), it won’t. It won’t, it won’t, it won’t, no way no how. Seriously.)
Now, after some research, it seems that certain high end mobile phones are incredibly hard to unlock.
It also seems that phones that are tied to 3 (Hutchison Telecom) are incredibly hard to unlock.
So, combine high end Nokia phone and the 3 network – and you got yourself some issues.
So the only solution? Have it professionally unlocked with a DM3. Does anyone in Guernsey have one of those gizmos? Hahaha. Only solution? Send it away for the princely sum of thirty squids.
Will update when (if?) I get the phone back. Fingers crossed.
On a similar note, whilst trying to figure this all out, I found some very useful software over at B-Phreaks. If you just want to check the status of your phone, or remove certain lock restrictions, then they have the software and service to help. But don’t expect any decent support from them – when the .ask to .rpl service failed for an “unknown reason”, I heard diddly squat from them. Fortunately it was only 2 euro, but one does wonder if it always fails, and they just coin in the 2 euros.
My advice (other than the usual buyer beware pish associated with buying from eBay) – if you’re buying a mobile phone that is not yet unlocked – do some research and make damn sure you can unlock it before you buy.