[UPDATED] Spoke Too Soon

So after my glowing review of the genius that is Apple and their 2.1 firmware for the iPhone, I had a catastrophic error this morning.  I fully charged my phone, like every other night, and this morning woke up to a full battery bar.  Nothing was amiss, right?  By the time I arrived at work, after using the phone’s iPod function for about 15 minutes, my battery was at 60%.  This was shocking and I wrote it off to a faulty charge connector last night.  As the day went on and my phone sat idle on my desk, the battery continued to drain and by the time noon rolled around, I’m at 20% battery life!  My usage meter says that I had 4H25M of usage and 5H15M of standby since last full charge.  What in the hell is 4H25M of usage from??  I didn’t even use the internet or RSS or email functions in all that time!  From checking around the interwebs, it looks like there are numerous others experiencing a dramatic drop in battery life after 2.1.  But so far not many that had great battery life and then just died like mine.  There are a few fixes that I can do to try and aleavate this, one of which is a complete reinstall of the firmware again (this will be my 4^th restore).  I’m hoping that will be the last thing I do and that I can fix it by turning off push.  The only thing I can think of that has changed since my battery started to act funny was that I loaded the app “Feeds” and “Galcon Full” (upgraded from Lite) and that perhaps Feeds uses the push functionality and that maybe where the data usage was coming from.  I have since turned off push so we’ll have to see if my usage is nuts still.  I’ll update this tonight and see if anything has changed.

Update Sept 23: I unfortunately had to clean install 2.1 on my iphone, wiping all my settings and stored information.  Luckily my contacts, email, and calendar were synced to Outlook and I was able to recover that stuff.  So far this morning it's been acting normal.  It's been reporting the correct amount of active VS. standby time.  I'll have to see if it holds out until the end of the day.  I turned off Push and dialed back the sync times to 30m for mail and 1H for Feeds.  I also stoped the syncing from my company email system (which is not exchange, just IMAP) so that may have helped.  Price of being an early adopter I guess.

Episode 6: The Birthday Episode

Episode 6: On my Birthday SOAPBOX: Apple Innovation

• Still innovative?
• Compared to RIM certainly but needs to step up
• Lots of tech that still needs reimagining
• Star Trek Apple Data Pad anyone??

DRM Gone Wild

• iTunes and Nike+ Patent
• Spore limits accounts to one per CD KEY
• EA and Red Alert 3 - I'm not buying

AROUND THE NET: Wireless Communication in Football Helmet (EDIT: Winnipeg, not Edmonton)

• Minor League Football coach caught communicating with player through BT headset
• Unfair Advantage?
• Beijing Olympics as an example - if you got the tech, use it

Queens University in Belfast offering Jedi courses

• Feel the Force: How to Train in the Jedi Way
• Do you want your doctor to have on his resume that he's a certified Jedi Knight?
• Pop Culture collision
• The full sci-fi story isn't even complete or agreed upon and you teach it??
• University of Calgary offering Virus writting class - same thing?

New Microsoft Ads

• Seinfeld ads made no sense but at least got the conversation going
• New "I'm A PC" ads are directly targeted, at least that's something
• Could learn a bit from beer commercials - public responds to humor - WOW! That's new!

Ensemble Studios Closing

• Confirmed closing after Halo Wars
• Age of Empires was one of my favorite RTS games, better than Starcraft in the Fun Factor
• Console RTS can't succeed unless keyboard and mouse support are implemented - if they do, I can almost guarantee that I will be a couch jockey for life!
• Endwar will be a testament for alternative control schemes and if they are viable

IMPRESSIONISTIC: Blackberry 8220 Released:

• WiFi and GPS
• Bigger but nicer to type on
• Suretype is back and better than 2G pearl
• Competition not against Apple but for the young teens who wants fast texting

iPhone 2.1 Firmware

• This really should have been the one that it shipped with
• 3G performance is MUCH better
• switches to EDGE if low signal without losing your call
• backups are fast, 15 minutes down to 3 minutes
• SMS Keyboard lag slightly improved - I didn't have that problem much to begin with
• Battery life is improved - 50% left after a day of normal 3G use compared to 20% before
• Genius feature is fun and easy - except on any Alicia Keys songs

Episode 4: The one where I wish I was still using a Mac

Episode 4 Show Notes: SOAPBOX

• Career is going back to the future - I'll be starting my old job again in a few weeks. Unemployment was fun but Money talks.
• Internet Journalism: IGN is slowly following the path of Gamespot and others that are more opinion sites than objective reviews. Check out Gametrailers for a more refreshing take on reviews.
• Mac Switch: Sold my Hackintosh and my Thinkpad and have ordered a new T400 Thinkpad. If Steve Jobs decided to grant my wish of an updated MacBook with dedicated graphics, I'm cancelling the Thinkpad and getting a mac instead. Not an Apple fanboy but I still want one if only it's comparable in specs and price to the Thinkpad. For a review of the T400 that's coming soon, check out notebookreview.

AROUND THE NET

• $1000 iPhone app: Here's a douchbag pretending to have bought the app but gives you a good idea of what I'm complaining about:

• iPhone Mania: iPhone Girl as reported by USAToday. How sad is it that iPhone mania has made a forgotten erase procedure into worldwide headline news!
• BlackBerry Bold: Best multimedia blackberry ever made, but still not an iPhone. For the converted iPhone-nites (yours truly included) it's hard to consider going back but if the bold is an indication of things to come, RIM isn't going to go quietly. Check out a fairly indepth review from APC of the BB Bold.
• Apple Announcement: Rumored by Kevin Rose of Digg.com, before the end of September, shooting for September 9th to be the magic date, there is going to be some pretty big chages to the Apple product line. I'm personally hoping for a Macbook refresh but that may not happen. Check out Kevin's blog to see what he thinks will be announced.
• Stargate Closed: Stargate Atlantis was canceled by Sci-Fi this past week. Boo! I love that show and don't know what will be there to fill the void.

IMPRESSIONISTIC

• Soul Calibur 4: Worth a rental or a purchase at a discounted price (read: 50% off). Fun for the SC lovers and man-parties. But nothing too new here to warrant a full price purchase except for the diehard fans.
• Too Human: Not Human Enough. It's fun for the first few hours and then the story drags on and loses focus. Clearly this is meant for a sequel but it still feels like a game that was either rushed (which can't be if it's been in development for 10 years!) or that the developers just were good enough. It's a worthy rental since it's about 8 hours long the first time through but there's nothing really there to keep you coming back.
• Burn Notice: This is the perfect reimagining of 80's detective shows. Think of it as a Macguyver, Remington Steele, Magnum P.I., and a bit of Quantum Leap all mixed into a 21st century bowl. YUM!
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: This is a brainless romp through a post 90210 neighbourhood. It's still an entertaining show, lets just hope season 2 picks up right where they left off and gets the juices flowing again.
• iPod Shuffle: Piece of gimped iPod poo! The only thing good about it is the integrated clip and form factor. Can't even sync properly, can only auto fill. Bah! Spend the money and get a good armband for your iPhone instead.

Remember to shoot me off a review if you get the podcast on iTunes, and send your questions and comments to ikeagamer(AT)gmail.com.

Episode 3: Unemployment

The Official Ikeagamer Podcast Episode 3 should be up this afternoon on iTunes and on gcast so feel free to stream or download. It's currently being down sampled so may take a little bit of time to show up on the site. Here are the show notes for your reading pleasure while you wait for the show to upload. New website URL: www.ikeagamer.com If you guys found me through blogger, it should now redirect you to the new address. Both will continue to work since I'm still hosting it with blogger (I can't afford my own server :P) iPhone 3G quick impressions: Pros: Cost is low if you sign a contract, function and form meshes very well, well thought out design and interface, official apps support through iTunes, location service integration Cons: Battery life (oh god is it bad!), 3G spotty network reception, apps are only 1/2 ready (more like beta), mobile calendar doesn't allow for invites or acceptance unless with exchange, no cut and paste, no good RSS reader with offline mode Job Update: I started my new job, which was a step up from my last one, 2.5 weeks ago and this past Monday, I find out that I was completely lied to about it and in fact it really wasn't a step up at all. The pay was better but it certainly wasn't worth the sacrifice of giving up my tenure and hard work I put into my career since they really wanted me to take a backseat to someone that wasn't even formally educated or trained. Long story so feel free to listen but to sum it up, I'm unemployed and not sure if I want to go back to my old position or move on to something else. Ethics on the Internet: Denis Dyack did a really awesome lecture on the 1Up Yours July 3, 2008 podcast. I urge you all to give it a download and listen to some of the points this guy brings up. It's certainly brain stimulating that's for sure. He touches on some very real points of how the "net" has the false feeling of anonymity to it, leading its patrons into a series of consequence free actions. Give it a listen and make sure you click the links at the bottom of the page to see some of the books he mentioned. I've already ordered a few of them and am quite excited to start reading (I don't get any sponsorship from Amazon so this is purely my own bias) Listener Mail: New segment I'm creatively calling listener mail! The blog has been up for a few months now and the podcast is into its 3 episode. I'm quite excited that there are actually people that listen to me ramble and visit this blog and on top of that, they write in! Totally geeking out here! So a popular question that I'm asked is: Why is this called Ikeagamer? A few reasons, and first is because I find Ikea furniture and the company to be one that's to the point, trim the fat, right down to the meat and bones. I identify with that philosophy in my gaming life. I don't have a ton of time to play games but I still really like to, so the time that I do have, I spend only on quality products or products that gets me into the "relaxed" mode quickest. So, in a nutshell, that's the Ikeagamer philosophy. Why do you do a gaming blog when you don't even play much games? This is sort of a loaded question. But if you have been reading my blog for a while, you will know that I don't devote a lot of time to gaming but it doesn't mean that I don't keep up with the news and updates in the industry. It's still something that highly interests me and gets me excited. I do have lots of opinions about the issue and Ikeagamer isn't just about gaming either. This blog is basically about anything that pops into my life/head so all is fair game! Enjoy Episode 3, look for a new cast next week or the following one.

Monday Update

I'm going to start a new regular segment on the blog with this post and that's going to be a weekly Monday Update. Since the podcast is somewhat irregular (hold the bran jokes!) the Monday Updates will keep the blog full of fibre goodness! Since my last update, I have gone through another set of electronic-geektoys. I was so enamored by the stupid iPod Touch, I went and upgraded to an iPhone 3G. I'll speak more about it during the podcast this week (look for it tomorrow) but so far, I'm loving it. I had real reservations with it since I've been using a blackberry since University and that is something that's a tough habit to break. But so far, I've gotten really used to the keyboard and hooked up exchange without much problems. A few glaring features that I hope Apple will patch in the near future is cut and paste (WTH, you think this would be standard in a smart phone, I don't know why they would leave it out) and the ability to send invites from your iPhone's calendar. Aside from that, battery life could be better but that's to be expected from a 3G device that isn't the size of a brick. Also having better receiption while in 3G would be appreciated (but that's more Roger's problem than Apple's). I find that I'm keeping the phone in EDGE mode more than 3G just because of the lack of quality receiption in 3G. My calls actually dropped a few times while my EDGE connection was 100%. I ended up selling my Blackberry Pearl for about the same price it cost me to upgrade so no harm there. I did have to switch my number but that's been painless thus far. On the gaming end, I'm now level 31 in World of Warcraft. Ok, that's piddly but that's also a 10 level jump from just a few months ago. Considering how little I actually play, I have to say I'm happy with my progress. Job is a bit weird at the moment but listen to the podcast and you'll get an idea of what I'm talking about. As for the blog, you may have noticed that it's now located at www.ikeagamer.com. The name is sticking and I'm actually getting quite a few readers currently. This is exciting since it's really the only public blog I've ever run so hopefully it will continue to grow. Look for a new format with the podcast as well since there's more content that's being added to it. That's it for now. Thanks for reading and remember to send your questions and comments to the address to the top right of this page! Cheers!

Episode 2: Live from Apple!

Episode 2 is live and up.  Go ahead and download from the right or through iTunes.

iPhone Announced in Canada:

Apple announced that the 3G iPhone will be launched here in Canada on July 11th exclusively to the Rogers network.  Pricing is still TBA but sources have said that the basic prices are going to start at $30 for data + Voice plan and then it will just go up from there.

New Job and the likes:

So I'm starting my new job next Monday, this gives me still 6 days to try and go as high as possible on World of Warcraft.  I'm hoping that this new job will give me some more free time in doing the things that I like.

How to build a Hackintosh:

Here are some links to useful guides on how to build your own OSX86 machine:

Newbie FAQ

Perfect MAC Mini Build for less than $250

Install Guide on Asus Motherboards (and compatible ones)

Install Guide on a full featured Gigabyte board

Best Dual Boot guide (Mac OSX86 cannot boot camp so this is the only way)

This is my parts list for the Mac Pro I built and you can find all these parts one www.ncix.com

 (good for both US and Canadian customers):

• Intel Pentium Dual Core E2160 Dual Core Processor LGA775 1.8GHZ 800FSB 1MB Retail ($70)
• Gigabyte GA-945GCM-S2C mATX LGA775 954GC 1PCI-E16 3PCI SATA2 Video Sound LAN Motherboard ($55)
• Buffalo Select D2U800C-2G/BR 2GB 1X2GB PC2-6400 DDR2-800 CL5 240PIN DIMM Memory ($50)
• Pioneer DVR-215DBK DVD+RW 20X8X16 DVD-RW 20X6X16 DL 10X SATA Black OEM DVD Writer No S/W ($23)
• Antec NSK3480 New Solution mATX Mid Tower Case 2X5.25 1X3.5 380W Black Front USB Sound & Firewire ($90)
• Segate 7200.10 320GB SATA2 HDD ($55)
• Total Cost: $343 + Tax

That's compared to over $2000 for a legit Mac Pro.  Granted if you have lots of your own parts, you can usually get an old PC to work well as an OSX86 machine.  Surf the www.insanelymac.com forums and you will find all the help you need.  That Atom machine that I linked to above is perfect for a kitchen PC or a Mac Mini replacement.  

Again, please subscribe to the podcast through iTunes or through the GCast module to your right.  Thanks for listening!