A Better iPhone

I don’t think I’ll be buying a new iPhone in July, largely due to what we know of AT&T’s rate plans (the reasonable monthly fee for the original iPhone factored heavily into my decision to buy one on launch day).

But, I will still have a better iPhone. That’s the cool — and so far as I know, unique* — thing about it. It actually gets better over time, as Apple improves the software.

* I did once have a phone that ran Palm OS; it’s possible that I upgraded that at one point but I can’t recall. Certainly it wasn’t as significant an upgrade as iPhone OS 2.0.

How Can iSuppli Know?

Kind of amazing to see cost estimates for the 3G iPhone when it’s still 2 1/2 weeks away from release… Wouldn’t it make more sense to actually look inside a shipping unit before spouting off about what it’s made from?

View of Delft

We recently visited Den Haag (The Hague) to see Jan Vermeer’s “View of Delft.” Reproductions just don’t do it justice. The actual painting had a big emotional impact. I’m not entirely sure why — it’s just a landscape, a city I’d never been to. Probably some of it’s just the sheer technical brilliance — the colors and texture of the painting were so unexpected based on reproductions I’d seen.

I think this is probably one of my top two favorites by Vermeer (“The Kitchen Maid” is the other; it also sparkles in real life but not in reproductions).

By contrast, “Girl with a Pearl Earring” seems to reproduce pretty well — the reproductions look better than “View of Delft,” but the actual painting doesn’t add as much.

Cable Matters

Earlier I wondered why my G5 wasn’t connecting to my home network at 1000BASE-T speeds. Yesterday I bought some Cat-6 Ethernet cables. I replaced the cable from the computer to the wall (I had cable pulled when I moved into my house, and plugs installed in several rooms), and everything started working!

Which was a good thing, as I did the wiring of my patch panel myself, and I’m a little suspicious of it at times (once in a while a connection goes out and I have to wiggle things a bit).

I replaced another cable, and now I can get gigabit Ethernet speeds to my MacBook Pro as well.

On the other hand, I don’t think any of the short patch cables are Cat-6, and I also have a PowerBook that connects just fine with a Cat-5 cable to the wall.

Apostrophe double header

Here’s an entry that works for Apostrophe Atrophy (the one in the logo should be curved) and also gets “its” wrong (but with a curved apostrophe)! (“It’s” is a contraction for “it is,” not the possessive of “it.”)

By the way, we’re not talking “smart apostrophes,” since “smart quotes” refers to a process, not the result.

Even More Backing Up Metrics

I added another machine to my Time Capsule. It took 14:20 to back up 48.4 GB, ~3.4 GB/hour — and this is the one machine in the house that is connecting at 1000BASE-T. This is the slowest backup yet. Admittedly other machines were backing up during part of this time, but no large amounts.

I think there are occasional performance issues, and have filed bug 5801685 with Apple.

Bank Error In Your Favor

I tend to be paranoid about getting my checking account to balance every month. When it didn’t, I had to go back and make sure each transaction matched (in case I’d written it wrong, which once in a while occurs).

This time, there was a check for $383 that had gone through as $363. Did I write it correctly in my check register? My bank, Washington Mutual, no longer sends back checks. But they do put a scan online. Sure enough, the digitized check clearly read $383. After a slight debate, I clicked on the link next to the check to report an error.

The bank wrote back, saying they would investigate my claim that the check was really for $38.

I replied, reminding them that it should have been $383.

Their reply was that they couldn’t complete the investigation. Huh? All they had to do was click the link that shows a picture of the check.

At this point, I give up. Bank error in my favor, just like in Monopoly.