It’s been about a year since I posted my thoughts on the iPod Touch and my answer has since changed from a “maybe” to absolutely, even my v1.0 edition. I use it for everything from:

• emailed versions of my travel itinerary
• podcasts
• multi-day alarm clock, a wake-up call replacement
• ebook reader
• restaurant/coffee shop locator
• status updates to Facebook, Yammer and Twitter
• newspapers
• weather
• maps and even a poor man’s GPS
• flashlight/nightlight
• File sharing device (AirSharing)
• Banking
• And yes, even music though mostly streamed via Pandora

These days I’m traveling a heck-of-a lot more and I’ve found it to be an invaluable travel tool. In fact, the Touch can even function as a poor man’s GPS. To see this working you’ll need to cache some map content while connected to wifi:

1. Before embarking on your trip connect to a wifi network
2. Using the Google Map browse around the area you’ll be driving so the map will be cached. You may want to zoom in so as to capture more detailed content.
3. Start driving to the location where you’re headed while viewing the Google Maps application. If there are sufficient wifi access points in the area the little blue target locator (pictured) will occasionally update and follow you along the map.

To be sure we’re not talking real time but it does actually work. Notice in the picture that the Touch isn’t connected to wifi when it was captured as I sat at a stop light. I stumbled into this feature while on a business trip to Austin TX and while driving around looking for a Starbuck’s I noticed my location on the map changing. The screenshot here displays it working near Wilkes-Barre PA.

My current favorite application is RSS Player which makes listening to podcasts easy and enjoyable, it still needs a few features but it’s seriously a must have if you’re a podcast listener.

Recently, my Internet connection here at the house started dropping roughly every 90 seconds or so, quite annoying as you can imagine. I started trying to debug the problem doing the typical unplug & cabling song and dance but that didn’t work. I have a Motorola SurfBoard 5201 cable modem and the send/receive lights on it were constantly pulsing no, not good. I headed to Best Buy, plopped down $86, picked up a new Motorola SB5101, brought it home, called Comcast and added it to my account and after testing it several but no dice so the rep scheduled a visit the next day. The following day the tech calls to let me know he’s on the way me so I hop in the car, head back to the house and call my wife to let her know. She then informs me she’s been surfing the web and “everything’s fixed”. I pull up to the house and the tech hasn’t found anything wrong with our connection and as my wife indicated everything is fine. Thanks Murphy.

Anyway, back to my point, since Best Buy was convenient I bought a modem there thinking I’d return it if that wasn’t the problem. At this point, it appears that the modem was the problem so I get online and start looking for a better deal. Kind of funny, the Best Buy modem helps me replace itself. :-) I was a bit surprised to that Amazon had the same modem for nearly half the price ($45.93) with free shipping, it arrives in a few days at which point I’ll return the one from “Best Buy”.

I’m running Vista on a MacBook Pro using bootcamp and over the past 7 days Vista’s Sleep functionality has completely failed which isn’t necessarily a new problem. Now, the vast majority of times when the machine enters Sleep mode it eventually results in a system failure and reboot and roughly 30% of the time lost data of one kind or another leaving this message in the Event Viewer:

The previous system shutdown at 11:07:50 PM on 1/26/2009 was unexpected.

I’m open to suggestions as to how to fix this problem. On Jan 9th 2009, I installed AVG Free (which I’ve now uninstalled) but that’s it, no other software has been installed/removed.

Any ideas?

[Update: Feb 5, 2009] Knock on wood but after uninstalling FreeAVG I seem to be in a fairly stable state again WRT Sleep, meaning my machine actually wakes properly at this point. Go figure.

I left my MBP at the Apple store in the Domain Shopping Center in Austin, TX and 12 days later it arrived back at my house. It appears that the motherboard may have been replaced though it’s rather hard to tell since the only information I was given on the repair was that it was not covered as I previously had guessed and the part number given was 605-1793 with the remark PCBA,MLB,2.4GHZ,REV2. Now, I’m not exactly sure where that leaves me with regard to the latest round of NVidia problems that were brought to light last week. I will say it’s not at all satisfying that the only two Macs I’ve had experience with have needed motherboard replacements a mere few months after the one year warrantee expired. I’ll also admit I’m not a big fan of Apple’s lack of details regarding repairs. The status site didn’t provide any insight as to the repair time, it only stated parts had to be ordered, nor did it provide any return shipping information for tracking purposes. Apple doesn’t seem to be big on details with anything like iPod updates, OSX security updates, iTunes updates and on and on. It seems the only thing you’ll get updates about are new products.

Anyway, I still like the MBP as a laptop though it’s the only one I’ve ever used full time. One last note, the switching of the motherboard has causes a few unusual tweaks in Vista that were unexpected though not terribly annoying to deal with.

Last week I was in Austin, TX at a clients site and my MBP was sitting on a table running Windows Vista when it went to into sleep mode which is very normal. What wasn’t normal was the fact that it never made it out of sleep mode. I hard reset it and tried to boot it again but it never made its normal chime sound and I was unable to get it to boot into either OSX or Vista. I tried a PRAM reset and several other incantations including, among other things, a reset with the battery removed and reseating the RAM all to no avail. That left me with out a machine for three days out of a five day contract and now I’m hoping it will show up by tomorrow.

You may recall I recently blogged about our Mac Mini which died within 18 months of purchase. Now, for me this doesn’t bode well for Apple. I’m basically 0-2 when it comes to Macs lasting more than 18 months which I think is terrible. I’m writing this on a Dell which I’ve never had a problem with that’s 6 years old and I have another Dell that’s pushing 12 years old and still running.

In the case of this MBP, it’s a $300 repair job and I had to give permission for the drive to essentially be erased. I know for a fact that it’s not the drive because I sat in the Austin Apple store for 2 hours pulling files off of it onto my iPod Touch using (the most excellent) AirSharing app. Anyway, at this point while I think the MBP is an excellent laptop otherwise I’m seriously not impressed with Apple’s quality control. Granted the MacBook Pro and Mac Mini are certainly different than your standard Desktop machine with ample cooling but less than 18 months of uptime??

Update I should clarify that I had to sign knowing that I might get the machine back without any of my data, not that it would be intentionally wiped clean. One more thing, if you buy a Mac be sure to buy Apple Care unfortuantely it’s not just a gimmick it’s really needed.

Update #2 According to Apple’s service status web site a replacement part has to be ordered so hoping for the machine to show up tomorrow just went out the window. The genius in the store said "5 days but probably sooner" and that was last Wednesday.

Update #3 Apple has released this note that I’d guess most likely accounts for the problem with my laptop. Found on Gizmodo. Sounds like the repair might actually be free.

Like pretty much everyone it seems I’ve been awaiting the update to v2.0 of the iPhone/iPod software and according to iTunes an update is available as of 7:30pm PST however:

 
I’ve been able to download a number of what appear to be interesting applications so I’m definitely interested in getting my iPod updated. Here’s what I’ve found:

 
Anyone else find something interesting?

Also, anyone know if the new Exchange support works with Intermedia’s hosted Exchange servers?

[Update: July 11, 2008 9:27pm PST] Now downloading...
[Update: July 11, 2008 9:31pm PST] Backing up, preparing for restore...
[Update: July 11, 2008 10:00pm PST] Done installing, exploring the above apps. Google’s app seems very lame as it’s just a bunch of icons to web pages, what am I missing??

The other day I mentioned our Mac Mini had died after just 18 short months of little use. I’d done some digging around on the web and found good reviews of a company called DT&T Computer Services and after describing the problem they quoted me $245 to replace the main logic board and $15 for shipping and handling. I filled out their online form and printed out my RMA information and sent the machine in last Friday. We got it back today and fortunately, it’s working once again. DT&T has a 6 month warranty which is nice although I hope we don’t have to use it.

I’ll add that my experience with DT&T was very good. They answered the phone immediately when I called, no waiting, hold, etc. answered my questions and once the repairs were done they called to complete payment and confirm shipping. It all went off without a hitch.

Now, of course, the thing I’m happiest about is my wife has her own machine back.