Daily Archives: Monday, 20th July 2009
iPhone 3GS – One Month On
Well, having had the iPhone out and about with me over a weekend away, it’s time for an update on how I’m getting along with it.
For a lot of the time, I was in areas where data coverage was poor to non-existent, and there was a fair amount of the time when it was struggling to find even a voice signal. It was quite entertaining seeing it show a couple of bars then go over to “no connection”, presumably when someone else connected to the cell in question. But apart from that, it worked quite well. The GPS function worked quite superbly, even if it was reduced to tracking our progress across grey squares when there was no data connection for the maps application to use to download road or satellite images. When we did have a signal, it was pretty well spot on, showing our progress along roads with more than enough accuracy to be useful. Doing this for a few hours did eat into the phone’s battery life, though. By the time we got back to the B&B on Saturday, the poor thing was at 15% of battery life, despite having been fully charged when we set out that morning.
When used as an actual phone, it’s perfectly acceptable – nice clear sound.
As you might expect, I’ve been having a play with some of the offerings in the App Store. As a lot of these are either free or very cheap (79p is common), there’s nothing to be lost in trying a variety of things.
Applications I’ve found useful so far include the iPhone version of my favourite RSS reader, NetNewsWire. Like the full sized version, it’s free, and synchronises with my Newsgator account, so I was able to keep an eye on my usual sites while I was away.
Another little gem is Mobile Fotos (£1.79), which allows easy[1] uploading of pictures from the iPhone to Flickr. As I had no other connection to the net while I was in West Wales, I used this as the last step in a slightly convoluted method of getting some pictures from the Canon 5D on to the net:
- Take picture
- Import into Lightroom over the USB cable
- Process appropriately – crop, tweak, etc
- Export as a JPG to a folder
- Import into iPhoto on the MacBook
- Tell iTunes to synchronise the last imported picture
- Connect iPhone
- Run Mobile Fotos and upload selected image to Flickr
This would have been fiddly enough, but I was struggling with a data signal that varied between absent and basic GSM speed (not even Edge or GPRS, dammit!), which did lead to a couple of multiple uploads. In better signal areas, this would have been a lot less painful, I’m sure.
One more app I’ll mention for now is the official WordPress iPhone application. Set this up with your blog details and you can make posts from anywhere. It will insert images from the iPhone’s library, or even let you take a picture directly and add it to your new post. Works very well, and makes posting while away from your computer (or with your computer but without an internet connection) not only possible, but simple. Very very nice, and as free as you’d expect it to be.
[1] Well, it was a bit painful in that location, but in principle it’s easy
Bristol Zoo
Today’s fun holiday activity involved a trip back across the border into England. I went with my brother[1] and his two daughters[2] to Bristol Zoo. I have memories of going there as a kid quite a few times, but I haven’t been back in what must be over ten years, so it was interesting to see how it had changed. Like a lot of zoos, it’s scaled back on the kind of animals that don’t react well to being in confined locations, so no more polar bears or tigers, but there’s still a lot to see, like this slightly sleepy capybara[3]
And this quite large fur seal
And this almost too cute baby seal
And to cap it all, I managed to get a picture of one of my favourite things – the superb Clifton Suspension Bridge[4]
[1] Hi Geoff! 
[2] Hi girlies!!!!
[3] A giant South American relative of guinea pigs
[4] Taken through the windscreen of a moving car, so not quite as good as I’d have liked
St David’s Cathedral
One of the highlights of our tour of West Wales was a visit to St David’s, which bills itself as the UK’s smallest city. For the most part, it’s a fairly typical small town of the kind you find in rural areas all over Wales (and England for that matter) – narrow streets, small shops, pubs and the rest. But St David’s has something special – this glorious cathedral:
The building was begun in the 12th Century, on the site of the 6th Century monastery founded by the actual Saint David, patron saint of Wales.
It is, I understand, the largest church in Wales, which isn’t hard to believe when seen from above:
Lots of information about it on the official site.
Twittering: 2009-07-20
- I just took "What Planet are you really from?" and got: Pluto.! Try it ➔ http://bit.ly/5KkC6 #
- I just took "Are You a True Friend????" and got: You are a true friend!!!! Try it ➔ http://bit.ly/6w6gU #
- I just took "Which Horror Villian Are You Most Like?" and got: Candyman! Try it ➔ http://bit.ly/aQmHl #
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What the Eleventh Doctor will be wearing…
No doubt more information will be released over the coming months, but this is a good start. We now know what kind of outfit Matt Smith’s Doctor will be wearing when he appears next year:
BBC News – New Doctor Who costume revealed
Looks like he’s keeping the Big Hair, too…..
WordPress 2.8.2 is out
There’s a security update to WordPress out now. It’s available for download, and should be showing up for automatic updating in your admin panels shortly. Full details from the usual place:
