Cocoa Crusty

I stumbled upon this article the other day when I was reading through some of the blogs I monitor in Bloglines. The article is from O’Reilly’s MacDevCenter.com site and is about a patent filed by Apple in August of 1982 and granted in December of 1985 for a flip phone in the shape of an apple with a bite taken out of it. In other words, the phone is in the shape of the Apple logo.

If you review the patent through some nifty patent interface provided by Google, you’ll see 13 drawings (Fig. 1 - Fig. 13) of what the proposed phone would have looked like. This is pretty cool to know that Apple had an idea for a phone over 20 years ago. I am also very glad that this phone didn’t make it to market and that the iPhone will be their first cellular phone offering. If they had released this flip-phone back in the late 80’s or early 90s, they may not be around today to give us phone addicts the iPhone.

Until next time…

I am totally sold on hands-free communication when using a cell phone. I can not stand to hold a phone up to my dome and talk on it. It makes me feel all yucky inside. So, ever since I got my first Bluetooth® enabled phone, the Motorola RAZR V3, I have been sporting a Bluetooth® headset along with it. Before I go on about my latest adventure, let me give you a little history of where I’ve been.

Lately, I have been using a Plantronics Voyager 510 and a Motorola H700. Both of these headsets have their pros and cons, in my opinion. I have written a little bit of what I like and dislike about both of these units below.

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With the ever increasing release of Bluetooth® enabled cell phones and good friends like Troyz R Us, nothing is impossible… Well, almost nothing. Some things are still impossible but you know what I mean.

This morning I called Troy extension-to-extension and asked him if he had any ring tones that I might be interested in. Troy sent me “Throw Some D’s” by Rich Boy through the wall. Troy’s on one side of the wall, I’m on the other in a different office, and we still were able to send files via Bluetooth®.

What a great technology for close range (20-30 feet) networking and file transfers. Bluetooth® can communicate through walls, trees, people, small children, furry woodland creatures, professional recording studios, across buildings, car-to-car, rooftop-to-rooftop, house-to-house, whatever. As long as you’re in range, you’re good to go! Nice!

Until next time…

First of all, let me just ask, is it 11:54PM or 10:54PM… My mind and body can’t tell. The time change last night appears to have taken place already on all of my physical clocks, computers, etc., but my mind hasn’t really caught on yet. Just to be safe I have ironed my clothes for tomorrow and have already shaved my head and face. I don’t expect that my alarm going off at 6:35AM (5:35AM “my time”) tomorrow morning will have a very nice effect on me and I just might get up a little late… We’ll see.

I should also let everyone know (you know who all 3.234 of you are) that I didn’t ever get around to creating my giant poster (or was it a huge poster?) this weekend. I ended up doing some things around the house, working on a couple of projects for FS, and went to work today with Chris.

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I recently posted an entry titled “Using a Nokia E61 for internet Access in OS X” that discussed, you’ll never guess, how I got my Nokia E61 working with my Apple MacBook for Internet access when no WLAN or LAN is available.

I think the combination of the Bluetooth® phone and the MacBook works pretty well. I mean, think about it, this isn’t your primary Internet connection. When you’re out and about and need access to something on the Internet like e-mail, directions to a location, etc., it works great. Of course, with my phone, I can access this type of information directly from the Symbian OS based web browser, but when you want to sit down and use something a little more comfortable and familiar, this setup is more acceptable.

So, I did some preliminary testing of the data speeds using Speakeasy’s Speedtest site to see what kinds of speeds I am getting when using my phone as a modem with my MacBook. I figured this information would come in handy for anyone looking to use their phone in a similar fashion. It will also help you decide if the speeds are enough to warrant the extra money you’ll be forking out each month for an unlimited data plan with your cellular carrier.

Also, keep in mind that these data speeds are based on the cellular service here in the greater Texarkana area. Your performance will vary based on the coverage available in your area and the compression and speed options available through your carrier. Here comes the data:

As you can see, based on the testing that I did today from the house during lunch, I averaged 116.2 kilobytes per second down and 78 kilobytes per second up. That’s not too bad. It’s better than dial-up. It’s pretty close to a bonded ISDN line. However, when I was working at that client site the other night, which is located in the center of Texarkana right off of the Interstate, I had downstream speeds up to 212 kbps and upstream speeds nearing 114 kbps.

I think it is all going to depend on where you are in relation to the cell towers, what type of equipment you have around you that might be interfering with the Bluetooth® connection and the cellular reception, where your phone is located in relation to your laptop, and what type of data quality your carrier provides.

As for me, this will be a great alternative for accessing the Internet when a decent broadband connection is not available. I also look forward to using this type of connection in hotels when traveling. You don’t know how many times I have tried to get a hotel’s “free wireless Internet” service to work and have been unsuccessful, left with no connection to the digital extension of myself that is the Internet. I have to stay connected!

Until next time…