The new Android G1 open source phone

Today saw the launch of the new open source phone, T-Mobile in conjunction with HTC and Google presented the new Android G1 phone in New York.

Having recently bought the new IPhone 3G I must say I've been drooling over the new G1 the interface looks as good as if not better than the IPhone and the best bit of all is that it will be free of the overbearing limitations set by Apple and allow the creation of innovative , and hopefully free, applications, after all the IPhone is still basically crippled as an Internet browser, try watching news clips on the BBC news site ...... IT DON'T WORK ..... %*&£**$!"!%

Due for release in the US in October with a UK release in November it shouldn't be long before the Apple IPhone is really put to the test...........

More portable batteries

Just came across these portable chargers, for charging mobile phones or anything that will charge using a USB charging lead.

They come in two sizes 2200 and 4400 mAH and they both have a USB socket for the charging output.

They are found here www.just-mobileonline.com and they do have UK stockists.


Reading a review on iLounge it appears they will charge the Iphone 3G.

Car Charger Problems

As the new Iphone 3G no longer uses the Firewire pins to charge, my existing in-car charger, I used for the ITouch, doesn't work so I had to buy a replacement.

I looked on ebay first but even though they were cheap I thought I would look for a well known make for a change after all I'd spent a lot of money on the Iphone.

I went into the O2 shop to see what they had and came out with a nice looking xtremeMac car charger for £14.99, it looked good and was nice and slim.


I tried it and it charged my Iphone no problem, job done...... or so I thought!
The next day I was driving along listening to the radio and I was getting quite a lot of interference which was not normal, I soon realised that the interference was only present whilst the Iphone was charging.
On further investigation I proved that the source of the interference was the new charger.

I took back the charger and got a refund and I was going to get a Griffin Powerjolt from Carphonewarehouse but as I passed Halfords I noticed they sold the Griffin Powerjolt and it was only £9.99 instead of the £14.99 Carphonewarehouse wanted.
The Griffin Powerjolt works a treat and no interference and you even get another USB to mini A cable to add to the collection.

Nice little portable charger for Ipod/Iphone

I came across this Ipod/Iphone charger the other day in B&Q and after a search on Ebay I found it for £7.99 including postage, BARGAIN!
It retails for £19.99 and comes with two Energiser Lithium AA batteries.

It uses a fold out connector at the rear that forms the holder for the Ipod.

It also acts a a stand for the Ipod/Iphone whilst charging.

On the bottom it has an adjuster than alters the distance between the connector and the back of the charger so it will fit a nano all the way upto the Iphone 3G and Yes it will charge the 3G Iphone.














All in all a very nifty device that will keep you going when you're no where near a mains socket.

3G Iphone the good, the bad but at least not Ugly

Having owned an Itouch for nearly a year and absolutely loving it, it seemed a natural progression to go for the Iphone that had all the other options I was missing with the Itouch.

So I finally gave in to temptation and bought an Iphone.

After about a week the list of things I didn't like about the Iphone grew longer and longer.

I think if I'd bought the Iphone straight away all the fantastic things about the interface and usability would have offset all the negative things I keep on finding but as I bought the Itouch first I'm already used to the good things the only extra features are to do with the phone and I really can't believe some of the things that Apple have not done!!!

Just to reiterate I really love the ability to browse the web with a good fast browser and I can get my read Ebooks using the large screen, for this alone I wouldn't be without my touch/Phone.

As I get to use the phone side of things I'm very disappointed with the lack of effort Apple seem to have put into the phone software functionality, this may be on purpose so we all buy new ones every 12 months when they add features that are already found on most other phones today.

My findings based on a standard non Jailbroken Iphone running 2.0 and if anyone can tell me how to do some of the the things listed below then please
let me know.

1. No ability to connect my bluetooth headphones, sorry! you can pair them and they are usable for the phone audio but they will not play the music from the ipod, this is absolutely non-sensical. Having browsed the Apple forums this is by design!!!
2. There is basically no easy way to change most of the sounds used for events such as recieving emails - Ringtones require renaming an mp3 file to an mpr and then putting them into the ringtone section of Itunes.
3. SMS tones can not be changed, other than those default ones, unless the Iphone is jailbroken and other SW used.
4. You can not do a lot with bluetooth, like receiving contact information or files from another phone via bluetooth.
5. You can not use the IPhone as a bluetooth Modem, as many if not all other bluetooth modern phones. (You can get around this with a jailbroken Iphone and some jiggery pokery).
6. There are no profiles for the settings of ringtones etc. I use this feature with my Nokia E50 and some 3rd party SW to automatically switch to meeting profile during a calendered meeting.

There are plenty of good things (well some...) about the Iphone that I love: -

1. The large very readable screen.
2. The very well thought out browser interface and touch screen concept although I miss being able to make a drawing on the screen with the accuracy I had on My HPHx4700 PDA and a stylus.
3. It's really good a playing music.
4. You can access Iplayer, Video only though.

Some of the things that aren't so wonderful: -

1. You can't listen to radio 1, 2, 4 etc on the web or Iplayer because the Ipod only supports Quicktime.
2. In a similar vein to 1. you can't watch any of the BBC news videos, this is a pain because if you had a PPC phone you'd be able to see them.
3. For the 3G Iphone Apple removed the ability to charge from the firewire pins on the plug, this means that many of the speaker docks and chargers you've used for the 1st Gen Iphone no longer work ???? My USB charger for the car will not charge the 3G Iphone but the same cable in the Apple charger works fine.

I think the problem is that the USB data lines are open circuit on third party chargers and need to be pulled to the 5V supply through some resistors, I'm working on modifying my chargers to work and hopefully I can get my Intempo speaker dock to work with the 3G Iphone.

There are probably a few more things that are not as good as they could be, I'll find them sooner or later, I just hope that Apple sort out many of these issues with SW updates sooner rather than later but I won't be holding my breath.......

Xbox USB port Details

After dismantling your Xbox and removing the hard drive assy. you should be able to see two of the controller port, 3 and 4, remove the two screws holding it in place, disconnect the connecter from the motherboard and pull out the whole assy.

Once the Assy has been removed you can prise off the metal covering from one of the ports, this will allow access to the wiring.

At this point you can solder the USB connector on to the existing wires if you want only have the USB connector temporarily or use a long cable and feed it out the back.

I decided to permenantley replace the port with a USB interface as I planned to use XBMC and I would like to play stuff from a USB stick.

I cut away the port 4 connector and used a hot melt glue gun to fix the new USB connector in its place.


Once completed you just reassemble the XBOX and then you can softmod the unit using your USB memory stick to load the gamesaves.

Recycling an old Xbox

Over Christmas I bought an original Xbox from a friend for a tenner, I'd heard you could use some software called XBMC to convert it into a media streamer for under the TV and I thought I'd give it a go........ Well it wasn't going to be as easy as I thought as getting hold of a mod chip was a non starter because of the age of the xbox no one sold them anymore. So it was the "soft mod" route then....
Apparantely there are three games out there for the Xbox that will allow a software exploit on the Xbox to unlock it; the games are: -

• Splinter cell
• Mechassault
• 007 - Agent Under Fire

How it's done
After tracking down one of the above games on Ebay you need to get two files on to the hard disk of the xbox, this is usually done using the "Action Replay" unit, which allows game saves to be saved and read from a memory card, these can be transferred from the PC to the xbox.

The Action Replay units were about £20 but I came across another way to do it without buying the Action Replay kit.

The game ports on the Xbox are apparantley USB ports with one extra cable, for a light pen, so it's possible to attach a USB socket to the Xbox, plug in a USB memorystick and use this to transfer the files from the PC to the Xbox.

Once the files are on the Xbox you just use the game to load the gamesave and this will run the exploit to unlock the Xbox, then you can connect the Xbox to your PC via the ethernet connection and ftp the files for XBMC to the Xbox and Bob just might be your uncle!

My Bit
Most of the information is in tutorials already done and I will put the links on the blog for these as I don't really want to write them again, my contribution is how to set up your Xbox with a USB port.
More Later .......