Of course, most of us that have iPhones are anxiously waiting for Apple’s update on the SDK and what that really means for custom applications on the iPhone.

I’ve read rumors that Apple will make it so they approve new applications and make them available via iTunes. (Ringtones anyone?) If that’s the case, I am sure we will see good applications come out. But how what and how much will we see? I believe this will stiffle the flow of innovative and unique applications that we might otherwise see. Look at what the very cool things the current community has come up with already. If they were given the official SDK and a relatively painless ‘approval’ process to go through, where they could make the applications available at will, then I think we would really see an explosion of great apps to use on this already great piece of hardware.

And don’t get me started on the “gotta have 3G”ers out there. I like my battery life just fine as it is, thank you very much.

SG <out>

Ok, so it’s March already.  I don’t do New Years resolutions, so I’m not going to say that I’m going to post here more often as a resolution.  I’m just going to do it.  Or so I say now at least.

I love a clever game, even if it’s done by a big retailer. I can’t get their link to show my ‘journey’ to work here, so check out the game at https://2day.target.com/

I have Vista loaded on my work computer and it started acting wonky.  I would plug in my generic USB drive or two and Vista would prompt me for drivers.  Drivers?!? for a USB drive?   I scoured the interwebs looking for an answer, hoping that someone else had dealt with this and figured it out.

Well, I found a couple of sites where people had ’solutions, but none worked until I found one that said something that sounded wierd (I’ll try to get the originating website).  The answer: Copy the \Windows\Inf file to another location (outside of \Windows), then reboot.  Next time Windows can’t find a driver, point it over to your copy of \Inf. 

It may not work for you, but it did solve my problem…

##Update: RIP SmartDeck. Looks like Griffin has canceled it… I had to put a different picture below because they pulled the original. (the one below is the original version, where the later one was just a standard dock connector)

My favorite iPod accessory is the SmartDeck by Griffin Technology. It hooks up to your ipod through the dock connector and when you use the play/pause/fast forward/fast rewind commands, it sends signals to the ipod to replicate the function. It’s awesome.

Unfortunately… it doesn’t work 100% with the iPhone. I hooked it up to my iPhone and while it obeys the commands, the audio doesn’t get piped through. Bummer!

I wanted to change my operator logo “AT&T” to AT&T’s logo with lowercase text.

Here it is if you’d like to use it. Check out www.modifymyiphone.com for information on how.

Default_CARRIER_ATT.png:

FSO_CARRIER_ATT.png:

Ok, given my earlier rant about my XP->Vista upgrade woes, I thought I’d follow-up with my thoughts on Vista now that I’ve lived with it for about two weeks. 

Overall, I’d say that I like the upgrade.  The visual effects are pretty and I like the Aero effects, but I really like a lot of the little touches more.  The differences in the way explorer works makes navigation even quicker.  I like how the Start Menu/Programs work.  As I more often use Run than not, being able to quickly type in the app I am after is a blessing. 

Performance seems to be pretty good too.  I do notice a slight dedegration in Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, but it’s barely noticable.  Battlefield:2142 plays nicely and the Lord of the Rings Online beta looked great.

I do have a slight battle between Vista and the nVidia drivers going on.  I think the class action against nVidia is silly, but the driver keeps wanting to switch which of my LCDs is primary, so there certainly is work needed there.  [update: the updated drivers made available work much bette]

Creative Labs finally got off their duffs and published some decent Audigy2 drivers, so I was able to switch back to that vs the on-board sound.

Interesting thing about the new XBOX Elite.  The power brick changed from a three-prong plug to a two-prong plug.  Why would they make such a change?

*** UPDATE *** 

I had to replace my XBOX Premium (I highly recommend SAMS’S Club!), and the new XBOX Premium came with a two-prong power supply also.  Curious….

So does anyone know the best way to cool a 360?  I’ve put mine inside my entertainment center with the power supply outside in the back and usually leave the glass door open while playing.  The 360 still locks up from time to time, and I’m assuming it’s from overheating.  I’ve decided to put a 120mm fan in the back of the entertainment center to pull out the hot air, but i still wonder if it’s going to work.  i guess i should put the 360 on the bottom of the two shelves.  Maybe run a lower fan to pull air in and the upper to expel the hot air?  Not sure if two fans would fight each other.  Another thought I had was to buy one of those laptop coolers to sit the unit on.  Would it be better sitting it vertically?  Let me know if you have any ideas.

In the meantime, here’s a template I drew up in CorelDRAW for the 120mm hole and mounting holes in case you need one. 120mm Fan Hole Template