Now I have a gps-enabled iPhone in my hand and a host of great apps to try out, I’m very keen to get hold of an application which can post my precise coordinates to a group of authorized friends and family - so the search is now on!

I have not fully considered the privacy implications but for now shall suspend paranoia (that some freak will find and kill me) and perhaps try out anything which posts coordinated to facebook which seems the most useful place for this information. Maybe then, friends can tell when they are close-by and meet up for a coffee.

I shall post my findings shortly…

–update:

I’ve installed a GPS tracking application which allows me to post my location to facebook and to this blog. But there are times where I’d like my position to be shared privately among one or two people. . . and this broadcasting is not appropriate for that purpose. . .

Here’s what I’m doing to get the most juice out the iPhone, let me know if you got any good ideas.

As soon as I know in walking into a wifi zone such as university or home then i make sure wifi turns on. I believe when connected to wi-fi the 3g chip will automatically turn off.

3g is most definitely a huge drain so I’m only using it where speed is beneficial otherwise for basic data sync and mail I don’t mind being drip fed data on edge.

Searching for cell towers is another drain so being out if reception kills the battery faster. If you’re on underground or somewhere where you know there is no reception - immediately switch to ‘airplane mode’ to save unnecessary searching.

I keep the settings tab visible on the front screen to make the changes easy to access. It’s a shame the options  arent all on a single page.  Airplane node is the first thing you see after pressing settings but the 3g switch is another menu level deeper.
Bluetooth should always be off unless you are using the headset which I only use if typing alot, doing something where the cable might get in the way, walking around with shorts which have have no pockets or of course driving

The screen brightness should be set as low as possible obviously. Unless you are hard of sight, the lowest light level is fine for most purposes; I’ve only needed to increase this when showing off the device to others.

And on the odd  occasion you might be using the location aware services that can be turned on manually otherwise keep that GPS chip off!

Apple distribute the iPhone with all these bells and whistles switched on like a show room with all appliances and lights switched on  - but turning them off will increase battery life considerably.

I’m writing this on the train - woo mobile blogging. Except on the iPhone it’s great. I got a qwerty, eugh been hating predictive text for so long now I can type my heart away instead of looking at the scary gypsy lady in font of me.

This is a service which allows you to twitter by calling a local number and remarkably. . . it’s surprisingly accurate.

also

I said what what, in the bath (original)

Supercalafrajalisticexpialadocious

I thought I’d talk about techniques for keeping data safe at home, which comes at a time where most if not all of our new culture is being created and stored in digital. My experience with keeping data safe has been notoriously bad, and so although I’m not a world’s authority on the matter, I hope you’ll all start backing up as precautiously as I am now!

(more…)

Since I’ve accidently been on Mara’s block list for about 2 years, I thought I’d make a summary of the most important developments in that time. Hopefully there will be useful information here so you can get familiar with these services if you haven’t tried them already.

(more…)

Traumatic.

Quicksilver had become an integral part of my ninja-like workflow and apparent speed, I curse myself for becoming so dependant on something in beta.

Now it seems the enterprise has been passed onto the open source community to sort out but who knows how long before they’ll iron out what the author himself describes as a frankensteinein mess which by the sounds of his latest tweet might even be undocumented.

(more…)

This will come as a welcome update to advocates of online privacy. Why didn’t they implement such a simple feature earlier on? Was it not conducive to their model of a mass online network? If anything, the new stance on privacy will attract the more people and improve the trust of their existing user-base (not to mention, stop the millions who are leaving their service for this reason).

There seems to be two crowds on facebook:

(more…)

Duane got a PS3 today, doesn’t seem overly impressed at this stage. it might be interesting to try out the home media serving capabilities.

(more…)

Steve jobs said they left out 3G chips from iphone because currently
the chips are real power hungry.

So I deactivated 3G on the k800i as it was discharged by the end of
every day.

And guess what? I’ve come home and it’s still on FULL. Probably wont’
have to charge it for a few days

So go to settings–>connectivity –> data communication –>GSm/3G
settings and switch to GSM only

(if you’re not using the voicecalls/internet/mms stuff much)

Franz