MacNoob

I’m PISSED! I schlepped around for over 8 months with a squeaky-clean 3G iPhone, playing by all the Apple rules. The App Store kept me entertained with a constant stream of new games, utilities, various and sundry time-wasters and productivity tools. I was quite content for the most part (especially after the 2.1 firmware release made the device usable). What a dope I was.  Since jailbreaking, I feel like I own a brand-new phone.  Similar to the original Apple product I gave $299 for, but now with the capability to do so much more. I can now use my 3G iPhone as a router, take videos (and stream them live to Qik), display alerts, the weather and new e-mail on my lock screen, toggle nearly all the phone’s functions (3G, bluetooth, Wi-Fi, etc.) with a single touch and tailor the GUI to look almost any way I want. And the list of coolness just keeps getting longer.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “This tastes so good I could slap my momma!”? The inference being that momma raised me without teaching me about how good something could be. Transfer that sentiment to the iPhone and Mr. Jobs has a bitch-slap coming his way. Everything he did with the iPhone was right. He just stopped short of the mark.

I’m sure there are good business reasons (three in fact, A, T, and T) for not letting me share the iPhone’s 3G data connection with my Mac. I’m also sure that, for reasons of stability, Apple doesn’t want users tinkering with the device’s lower-level hardware functions. After all, they have to guarantee the thing works as advertised. On the other hand, I can’t think of one good reason why I can’t select the wallpaper of my choosing, CUT-AND-PASTE or use a different system font with an out-of-the-box iPhone. The general consensus is, “Steve doesn’t want you to and HE knows best!”. I’m reminded of the original Macintosh ad with the hammer flying through the screen, waking up the hypnotized PC drones. For a company founded on principles of individuality and creativity, Apple doesn’t seem to apply that credo to the iPhone.

Thank God for the dev-team!  Thanks to their tools, virtually anyone can jailbreak an iPhone in less than ten minutes.  I won’t go into the particulars here, there are plenty of sites for that.  I would emphasize, however, the importance of using ONLY the real iphone-dev.org blog for instructions and to NEVER, EVER, PAY FOR A JAILBREAK APP!  Anyone asking for money is a phony.  The dev-team members are the real authorities on the subject of jailbreaking and they won’t even accept donations.  Again, God bless them.

I understand how many of you might have reservations about monkeying around with your iPhone’s operating system.  I must admit to a little apprehension before I jailbroke my phone the first time.  After all, if Apple finds out you can kiss your warranty good-bye.  But jailbreaking doesn’t do anything to the iPhone that can’t be undone with a simple iTunes restore.  I guess it all comes down to a “risk vs. reward” decision on your part.  I can’t help you there.  I can tell you that Apple is going to have to come up with something extremely cool to persuade me to undo my jailbreak.

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Before I begin, let me apologize for my long absence. The past two weeks have been quite busy for everyone in the MacNoob household. Between hurricane repair, Mrs. MacNoob business traveling twelve days and my day job, time to update the blog has been virtually non-existent. I promise to do better. (Yeah, right!)
The folks at BriteMac have made what has become an indispensable iPhone app for anyone who travels on an expense account.   JetSet has become the application worthy of elevation to my first home screen, right next to my calendar. I’ve been a business traveler for 25 years and tracking expenses has always been a challenge. My record-keeping (or lack thereof) has undoubtedly cost me hundreds of dollars over the years in lost reimbursements. Lost and/or forgotten receipts and other records have forced me to spend untold hours searching through luggage, calling hotels and writing creative, apologetic notes to accountants. All to often I wound up spending my own money on something my company should have paid for.
As of two months ago (when I purchased JetSet), my expense records are impeccable. I’ve taken three business trips in that time and [thanks to JetSet] each trip’s expense report was a simple 15-minute non-event. The only reason the reports take that long is because of my company’s nightmarish expense reporting form.  It is the result of some accountant acting out self-delusions of being a programmer while using Excel.  But that’s a subject for another day.
It is quite obvious someone at BriteMac has done as much business traveling as I have. JetSet couldn’t possibly be so complete otherwise. It is a well thought out, easy-to-use “Swiss army knife” for business travel. First, if you need to book your own trip, JetSet’s opening screen provides buttons for airlines, hotels and car rental contact information (both phone and web links).  I haven’t used this since my travel is almost always booked for me, but it is nice to know Avis’s phone number is just a couple of touches away.  There’s also a “+” button for creating a new expense report.  This is a bit of a misnomer because JetSet is really an expense tracking application.  Reporting consists only of a simple CSV file output, but I’ll get to that later.  Once you create a “report” JetSet begins to show its real strength, adding individual expenses.  Clicking the “+” while within a given expense report reveals a screen full of icons for 14 common expenses plus the ever-popular “Misc.” category.  Touching one of these takes you to a data entry screen where you can name and annotate an expense item and the really cool part, presents you with a camera icon for photographing a receipt.  This seemed a bit gimmicky at first, but when I started using JetSet I found it to be its strongest feature.  The reality of business travel doesn’t usually provide time for detailed record keeping of each expense at the time it is incurred.  The camera feature enables you to simply snap a photo of a receipt and postpone the detail data entry for later.  I found this particularly handy in restaurants, but it works well for hotel bills and cab receipts as well.  Basically, any time you’re in a hurry or don’t want to be bothered, just snap a photo and you’ve got a permanent record of your expense.  My accounting department even accepted a reprint of one of these photos on my last report.  Losing receipts is an all-to-common malady I suffer from, but it happens to even the most meticulous record-keepers now and then.

JetSet date stamps each expense record for you, but you can edit any portion of the expense at any time, including its date.  Can you say “creative accounting”?  Not that I encourage that sort of thing, but more to emphasize the fact that changes to records are not only possible, but easy.  An integrated calculator pops up whenever you need to enter expense amounts and it includes a button to store your resulting numbers.  This is a very nice feature, especially when you need to calculate some portion of a receipt that may include non-expense items, like hotel bills.  I usually have to subtract charges for movie rentals and the like.

Finally, JetSet includes the ability to transmit any expense report to a GoogleDocs spreadsheet in CSV format.  It’s not perfect, but clearly the lowest common denominator to work with virtually any reporting system.  Personally, I use Google for cutting and pasting expenses into my company’s report format and I retain the file with Google for archiving.

Clearly, it would be impossible to create an expense report application flexible enough to accommodate any company’s reporting structure without winding up with some unusable Rube-Goldberg P.O.S.  On the other hand, JetSet manages to incorporate every feature you need to easily track expenses when they occur and summarize them when its time to report.  This app is “three for three” in my experience and has become part of my normal workflow on every business trip.  I’m certain, given my past, that I’ve saved the $9.99 price of JetSet many times over by virtue of more accurate expense reporting.  Well worth the toll, and fun too!

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After suffering through several freezes, application crashes and restores, I’ve managed to string together two full weeks of stable iPhone operation.  After searching and researching multiple blogs (and a lot of trial and error) I’ve come up with what I think is a recipe for operational success.  It’s not that 14 contiguous days without a phone crash is anything to brag about [especially to Blackberry owners], but it’s the longest “winning string” I’ve experienced so far.  Here’s how I did it:

#1.  Completely wipe & reload the phone.
To be succinct, start over.  I don’t know if some remnants of firmware version 2.0.0, 2.0.1 or some early application contaminated my phone, but nothing I tried prior to this action cured my iPhone’s ills.

#2.  Load the latest firmware but DONT restore from a backup.
This is a painful step.  Doing this will trash your camera roll, SMS history, Safari history and application configurations, just to name a few.  Believe me, I tried restoring from several different backups without success before finally succumbing to this drastic measure.

#3.  Disable automatic syncing.
On three separate occasions my iPhone froze during a sync with iTunes and never rebooted again until I restored it.  I’m not certain what happened but I read several theories about the phone having problems syncing while some other process had it busy doing other things.  The only implication of this action is you’ll have to manually click the sync button in iTunes when you’re reasonably sure the phone isn’t busy fetching e-mail, updating your location or something else that might interfere with the sync process.  Since there’s no Activity Monitor to actually see what your phone is doing, you’ll have to use your best judgement.  To disable automatic syncing, in iTunes click “iTunes”, “Preferences” and select the “Sync” section.  Click this checkbox near the bottom of the window.

#4.  Forget the iPhone’s “App Store” icon.
Two of my “restore sessions” were triggered when I attempted to update or install applications over the air.  Once I tried to update three applications and once I did some shopping and bought iRetroPhone.  Do you remember the old joke about the man who goes to the doctor complaining “It hurts when I do this.” while wiggling his arm and the doctor says, “Well, don’t do that!”?  Same principle.  I only use iTunes on my laptop to download and install apps.

#5.  Be judicious with applications.
Like lots of iPhone owners, I was very excited when the App Store finally launched.  So much so that I probably wasn’t careful enough about what I installed.  I think I downloaded over twenty on the first day.  Judging by the number of updates that followed, at least some of them were obviously not quite finished.  Now, I don’t download version 1.0 of anything.  Instead, I give applications some time to “season”, read some reviews and generally practice “due diligence” before putting someone’s code on my phone.

#6.  Uninstall flaky apps.
Even the most well-written application can crash from time to time.  On one occasion, one of my apps crashed and threw my phone back to the home screen three times in as many hours.  It had worked fine for a couple of days before that so I figured it was an anomaly.  The next time it aborted it bricked my phone.  Four hours later, after restoring my phone, I made sure that application didn’t go back on.  I also wished I’d uninstalled it before it rendered my phone useless.

#7.  Reboot often.
Being a Windows system engineer, I know a bit about coddling a machine.  Does the term “Microsoft maneuver” mean anything to you?  Something you learn quickly as an IT person is that a reboot is almost always your first line of defense against wonky computer behavior.  Troubleshooting a Windows computer without rebooting first is like putting on your shoes before your socks.  It’s a shame to have to treat an Apple product this way.  I now reboot my iPhone (by holding down the “Display” and “Home” buttons together for a few seconds, sliding the red “Slide to power off…” slider, waiting a few more seconds and powering the phone back on) at least once per day.  I reboot before every sync and after any application freezes or throws the phone back to the home screen.  Am I being overly cautious?  Maybe.  The fact is, rebooting is relatively painless, taking less than a minute in total.

I’m not certain which of the above practices was the “silver bullet” that killed the restore monster (if it was indeed just one).  Maybe it was some combination of a few of them.  All I know is I used to restore my iPhone every other day or so on average. Now, that has ended.  I’m sure Apple will release a bulletproof firmware version eventually.  Unfortunately, we all need our cool phones in the meantime. Good luck!

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While listening to the Mac Geek Gab podcast a few days ago, Dave mentioned that his friends at iPhone Alley were interested in hiring writers.  Since “The Alley” is one of my favorite sites, I decided to give it a shot.  Here’s why:

#5
Why not?  I’ve been writing MacNoob for several months now and find I enjoy writing as much as anything I’ve ever done [professionally].

#4
It’s time to move on.  I’m one of the fortunate few who have managed to obtain some level of financial security at an early age and I feel I’ve done everything fun there is to do in my current position.

#3
I’ve dreamed of working virtually (remotely) since I got my first internet connection .  You know, from home, Starbucks or any place my Mac’s battery will allow.

#2
Maybe I’m overly confident, but I think I have a ton of expertise and experience to contribute and writing about it comes easy.  (I’ve had my articles published in three nationally-distributed periodicals.  I also used to write and sell term papers in college to supplement my ridiculous income.)

#1
The iPhone and my Macs are my favorite subjects.  I’m living proof of the “halo” effect.  Since I purchased my first iPod two years ago, I’ve bought nothing but Apple products for all my computing needs.  What could be more ideal than working with things I love?

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I’m almost hesitant to write this, but as of now I haven’t experienced a single lockup or crash in the seven days since installing the 2.0.1 update.  I’m a superstitious person and can’t help feeling I might be jinxing myself by reporting this good news.  I hope I don’t wake up tomorrow to find my iPhone smoking and my Macbook on fire.  If I have one character flaw equal to my surreptitiousness, its impatience.  As much as I love my iPhone I have to admit to fleeting thoughts of giving it the “Wild Hogs” heave-ho a few days ago.  As cool as the device is performing the role of pocket internet connection, GPS and application platform it is still first and foremost a mobile phone.  When the damned thing decided to have one of its’ epileptic seizures, cureable only by a three-hour restore, it left me without a phone.  That’s something that never happend to me in all my years (15) of owning cell phones.  I even caught my self being reluctant to suggest someone reach me on my cell.  WTF?

Hopefully, all that’s in the past.  Since the update I have used every feature the iPhone has to offer without problem.  I’ve installed and updated apps from both iTunes and the phone’s app store, used the GPS, played multiple games and the worst I’ve suffered is a low battery.  There must have been some real nuggets in the 2.0.1 release.  I hope to soon return to the normal Apple mindset.  The one where I take for granted that everything just works.  The one where I never have to pray to the phone gods.  Not there yet, but I’m cautiously optimistic.

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Apple released firmware version 2.0.1 for the iPhone & iPod Touch Monday afternoon.  As you know [if you've read any of my recent posts] I’ve had terrible luck with my iPhone 3G and I was very anxious to install the update.  Apple, in its’ usually cryptic manor described the 2.0.1 update as “Bug fixes” but gave no details whatsoever.  I didn’t care.  I would have installed a virtual shrunken head and zen chant if I thought it would correct the crashing issues I’ve experienced with my new phone.  The update was 246 MB so, like usual, it was a complete firmware load.

So far, so good.  Although it’s still early, my iPhone seems to be performing better.  I have especially noticed the “Contacts” app is quite a bit more responsive and I have sucessfully updated applications [using iTunes and over Wi-fi] without incident.  As recently as Monday morning I had to do a complete restore after attempting to update three applications through iTunes.  The “Silver Apple of Death” is all the phone would display no matter how many times I tried to reboot the device.  Also, the iPhone would get very warm on the upper-back side like the CPU [based on my knowledge of the iPhone's main board configuration] was looping out of control.  I haven’t experienced any problems since applying the 2.0.1 update.  I’m a long way from declaring my phone “fixed” but I’m optimistic.

Speaking of updating applications, one thing I’m baffled about is the extremely long time it takes to update these tiny apps.  I don’t know what iTunes is doing to take four or five minutes to update a tiny 57 KB application.  I remember when my iPod Touch was jailbroken I could download and install a 5 MB application in a fraction of the time using “installer.app”.  From what I’ve read elsewhere, my experience is no anomaly.  I’m also a bit put off by the lengthy backups iTunes wants to perform every time I connect my iPhone.  There are a few ways to disable this function, but given my device’s poor track record, a recent backup has been a handy thing to have.

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