Omniblog

It’s that time again. Time for a big ass music festival that rocks. And, thank God it’s in October.

It doesn’t look like it’s going to be near 90 the entire weekend. Sweet. Now, I have not been to ACL since 2003 (its second year). I volunteered the first 2 years, but things got in the way and I never really went back.

This should be fun, but that’s not the purpose of this post. This post is meant to show up somewhere in Google for people that have AT&T and a 3G phone (in my case, an iPhone), and they are attending ACL this weekend.

As most of us know, AT&T’s 3G infrastructure in Austin blows donkey wang. I mean, seriously big donkey wang. So, there’s a possible solution that actually never entered my train of thought:

If you are going to ACL, turn off 3G this weekend.

See if it helps. Rumor has it, any major event: UT game, festival, etc, it’s best to turn off 3G if you use AT&T.

Yes, your ACL iPhone App or Facebook or whatever else might run a little slower, but damn you can make calls and send text messages to find your buddies. And in a big ass festival like this, that is quite important.

Happy festivaling! Stay hydrated and cool and I’ll see you around Pearl Jam, Kings of Leon or Dave!

If you own an iPHone or an iPod Touch, and you like doing Sudoku puzzles, then y0u must have:

Sudoku Grab

For only $0.99, you can get the coolest, and best, app I have seen yet.

What does it do? Easy:

1. Find a sudoku puzzle online, in a newspaper, etc.
2. Open Sudoku Grab.
3. Take a picture of the puzzle (Yes! A picture! Even take a picture of a puzzle from a computer screen.)
4. Let the program figure out where the puzzle is located in the picture.
5. Fix the numbers in the puzzle if necessary.
6. Save it.

Voila, instant Sudoku puzzle. The whole process takes maybe a minute. It has a lot of cool features once you get the puzzle into the program and start working on it. I have not yet gotten that far into using these features. One thing is for sure, it will buzz at you when you enter a number in the wrong spot.

Well worth the $0.99.

You can read more about it here: http://sudokugrab.blogspot.com/2009/03/getting-started-with-version-11.html

Now go get it, and happy Sudokuing.

I did it. I reactivated my iPhone because not only am I a gadget geek, but because I’m a technology whore.

I also got a taste of the new apps store stuff thanks to my sister. The Facebook app, MySpace app, a twitter app, and many other things are just plain better than they are on a Blackberry.

Now, before you slap me for the above statement, let me clarify with this:

Blackberry (non-Storm) vs iPhone – is this even an apples to apples comparison? No. Why? iPhone has touch screen, 99.9% of Blackberries don’t. So, yes the apps are going to be better, but they are actually better by a lot.

And, the side bonus, I save $15 a month on my bill. Woot.

The other part that got me to switch back over: About a year ago my World of Warcraft account was hacked. (Thankfully, a friend called me while it was happening, so I interrupted the hacker.) Ever since then, Blizzard has come out with an Authenticator which is a random number generator thingy similar to ones that companies use for VPN access. When you setup your account for it, there’s an extra step to logging in because you must enter the number from the Authenticator. They make a free one for the iPhone. (the other is $6.50) So, download from Apps Store, activate account, and voila, secure.

The other part of this story, I tried to go in and get a 3G iPhone, but because I wasn’t far enough along into my Blackberry Bold contract (Gads, I am a whore, aren’t i?), I would’ve had to pay full price for the 8GB 3G iPhone which is: $600. Jumpin Jesus on a Pogo Stick. So, back to the old one I went.

My name is Michael, and I’m a gadget and technology whore, and I approve this message.

With the things I have heard about the new iPhone software release sometime in June – copy/paste, tilty keyboard when you go landscape! – I’m wondering, dare I try it, again?

It sounds like they will fix my one major annoyance with it: the keyboard will go landscape regardless of when you go landscape. That’s what I’ve heard, I have not confirmed nor denied this portion of the new software. I have confirmed, I think, that there is an app for making the keyboard do this, if they don’t fix it.