Mel and I got a “prize” in one of our latest Moo orders: a voucher for 15% off on 1 pack of Moo Greeting Cards (that is £11.05 instead of £12.99). We don’t need any, so we decided to put the code up for others. I think it is only valid for one order, so go nuts.

The code is: egg74J7Y

I used to have this crystal clear case for my iPhone, which protected all but the screen and looked incredibly bulky. Still, I thought it necessary as I didn’t want scratches on my precious iPhone. The problem with almost all enclosures though, is that they result to the iPhone not fitting into any accessories (e.g. the dock). As I got tired of removing the case every time I wanted to put my iPhone in any dock, I decided to get something a bit less visible. In comes the Invisible Shield.

The Invisible Shield is pretty cheap ($24.95 and free shipping worldwide), covers the entire phone, takes a moment to apply, and seriously rocks. I can now use my iPhone as if it was a bare naked iPhone, without being afraid of damaging it with my keys or other sharp objects. Below are the photos.

Obviously I didn’t get a contract with my brand new iPhone, simply because I don’t have the budget to spend £35 a month on a contract. Maybe in the future I will buy a contract anyway, but for now I am basically stuck with my expensive Dutch contract. In other words: I had to hack my iPhone. With doing this I ran into some issues, which I will try to highlight in the following article, giving some reference for all you other people that are thinking of buying a UK iPhone.

Defining “UK iPhone”

Let’s start by quickly explaining what I mean with the “UK iPhone”. This is kind of important as there are different iPhones out there. With the UK iPhone I mean the iPhone that is currently (January 1st, 2008) sold in the UK that ships with the 1.1.2 firmware (see here to learn how to check firmware you have). iPhones shipped with this firmware Out Of the Box (commonly called OOB or OTB) ship with a new bootloader/baseband. This new bootloader has some repercussions that I will get to later.

Everything I will tell in this article might also hold for the US, German, or French 1.1.2 OOB phones, but I don’t know for sure because I don’t have these phones.

(more…)

I know, I know, you all told me so: Even though I told everyone I wouldn’t get an Apple iPhone this year, I still did. I got some money as a tax return and was thinking of buying an iPod Touch 8GB. The iPod Touch is such a wonderful media device, and I thought it wasn’t hard to justify buying it. But then I noticed that the iPod Touch 16GB is only £70/€94 less affordable, which was actually still within my “budget”.

But if I could get an iPod Touch 16GB, then why would I not get an iPhone for that same price and hack it? Yes it has only 8GB of storage, but you do get a phone in return. I wouldn’t need 16GB right?

And this is how I justified my iPhone…. Still happy with it though!

So there are some “ramifications” and “perks” that you get with an iPhone. Most of which I will get into later. For now I must say that yes, 8GB is really enough for me. And I am very happy to also get a phone integrated with the iPod, even though it was a lot of work to get the phone part to properly work with a prepaid sim. The best feature though that sets the iPod-on-iPhone experience apart from that on the iPod Touch is the ability to skip songs by “double clicking” the microphone in the headset. On the iPod Touch you can’t skip songs without the touchscreen.

Well, more later. I will especially explain some curiosities about the UK iPhone that ships wit Firmware 1.1.2 and the new bootloader at the moment.

I had a few offers for my Macbook, but never enough money to pay the price difference between what I would get for my old Macbook and what I would have to pay for a new one. With a recent project I finally managed to get that difference covered so I sold my 1st generation Macbook (including the stickers), and bought a basic model 4th generation. I switched my custom bought 160GB Western Digital before I handed my old Macbook to my friend Amir.

My old Macbook was a 1.83Ghz CoreDuo with 2GB of Ram, a 160GB harddrive and a ComboDrive. I bought a new Macbook for £699(€980) and spend €80(£57) on upgrading the memory to 4GB. Al of this gave me the following upgrades:

- Wireless N (not that I have a router that supports that, but maybe in the future)
- 4GB of ram (+2 on the old 2GB)
- 1 year of full warranty (seriously worth a lot of money)
- 144MB Graphics card (vs 64MB)

Don’t have my 4GB or ram yet which makes it very slow at the moment using the standard 1GB. Macbooks really need at least 2GB of Ram. The 4GB will arrive at my parents’ place Wednesday, but I won’t be there before Thursday.