iPhone: SIM card works in cheap phone

This is a good:

Tada! The 6th Gen contract-free WiFi-enabled iPod - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

Removed activated SIM and placed into a cheap disposable AT&T cell phone. Worked fine. Was able to place calls. Good way to save your iPhone from danger on ski or bike trips.

Or to survive while you're having the iPhone battery replaced by your local back alley battery guy. A cheap backup phone makes lots of sense.

Update 7/3/07: Looking at the iPhones calling plans, and given the lack of any subsidy for the iPhone, it seems like a reasonable strategy is to:

1. Switch to AT&T and get a subsidized cheapo phone.
2. Switch to an iPhone and keep the cheapo phone for backup.

Of course one would want to confirm this with AT&T first, since you'd probably want to switch to Apple's plans.

Update 7/3/07: TidBits explains Apple's alternative to the 2nd phone, an iPhone rental program:

... Most people can't be without a phone for three working days or perhaps five or six over a long weekend. Apple has a deal for you: the Apple Service Phone, a $29 rental that lasts until a few days after your iPhone is repaired.

The rental phone has to be returned 7 days after you receive a repaired phone back by shipping service, 5 days after your phone is ready for pickup at an Apple Store, or 10 days after its sent if you fail to sent your broken iPhone in at all. There's an extra $50 charge if you return it late, and a $600 reserve placed on your credit card that's turned into a charge if you fail to return it within 10 days of the end of the loan.

The SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) that's used to identify your account uniquely can be removed from the iPhone by poking a paperclip tip into a hole at the top of the iPhone. That SIM can be swapped into the rental phone before you send back your own model for repair. If you send the SIM card in when you return a rental phone, you have to contact AT&T to get a new one.

So you drop your phone off at the Apple Store and pick up a rental until it comes back. It's a significant nuisance and cost, but such is the price of a cell phone that doesn't suck.

How to setup an iPhone with a prepaid account

Is this how to activate an iPhone if you don't intend to use it much as a phone?

iPhone: Prepay the right way - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

... Buy the iPhone. Connect it to iTunes. Sign up using 999-99-9999 as your social security number. After failing the credit check, select a GoPhone plan. After signing up for a GoPhone plan and being assigned a number and passcode, connect to the AT&T GoPhone funding page as prompted, enter your credit card or debit card information and you're good to go. DO NOT attempt to fund your iPhone over the phone with AT&T. DO NOT set up your iPhone prepaid account in advance with AT&T...

Update 7/2/07: Apparently the prepaid plan can be cheaper than the cheapest fully paid plan. Estimates are about $50/month. If Apple enables VOIP services in the iPhone the prepaid plan will be very popular.

GrandCentral - now I can start using my GC number

My concerns about GC's longevity have been assuaged: 

Official Google Blog: All aboard

We're pleased to announce that we have acquired GrandCentral Communications, a company that provides services for managing your voice communications. ..

... GrandCentral offers many features that complement the phone services you already use. If you have multiple phone numbers (e.g., home, work, cell), you get one phone number that you can set to ring all, some, or none of your phones, based on who's calling. This way, your phone number is tied to you, and not your location or job. The service also gives you one central voice mailbox. You can listen to your voicemails online or from any phone, forward them to anybody, add the caller to your address book, block a caller as spam, and a lot more. You can even listen in on voicemail messages from your phone while they are being recorded, or switch a call from your cell phone to your desk phone and back again. All in all, you'll have a lot more control over your phones...

As I'd hoped back in March, Google acquired them. So I can start putting my number on my business card, and build GC into my daily routine. There's only one catch ... Which identity do I associate this number with? Currently it's not associated with any of the identities Google has for me, but soon I'll have to choose. This will take some thought.

I'd be even happier if Google would add fax-in services to GrandCentral ...

iPhone developer blog

Joe Hewitt is developing  for the iPhone, and blogging about his experience. It's good reading, though Hewitt's blog mixes in some young-libertarian musings that senile commies like me must simply sigh bye.

It's a good way to read about the inner workings of a device I recently described this way (private correspondence):

The RAZR is an Abomination, the antichrist of phones. The antichrist, of course, must precede the Messiah, which therefore must be ...

... Apple is a cruel mistress. She seduces, then torments, her victims. Apple customers have a lot of piercings. There's a connection. Next February would be a great time to get an iPhone. Don't get a new Sprint contract. If you need a phone 'world of wireless' will find a used phone on spec (from eBay) and do the testing, setup and warrantee. No idea if they're reliable but that's what I'll try if my despised RAZR dies (unfortunately it's pretty tough, probably tougher than an iPhone)...

When geeks like Hewitt write that the iPhone is "the first phone that doesn't suck" you can be reasonably sure they own(ed) a RAZR.

Gordon's Tech: Now serving on tech.kateva.org

The url for this blog is now tech.kateva.org, but you you shouldn't have to do anything. If you're reading this your reader has navigated the 301 redirect. If the url doesn't correct itself automatically you may want to change it manually, but then, of course, you probably can't read this.

Site change pending: the 301 redirect didn't work!

[This has been updated from the original. I was optimistic the 301 redirect would mean that feed readers would find the new feed, but neither Bloglines nor Google Reader did.]

I'm going to move this blog to a new google apps domain, but the feed will still be managed by Google/Blogger. You shouldn't won't have to do anything, because:

1. Google will do a URL redirect indefinitely.
2. The specific URL redirect is a "301 redirect", meaning a permanent move. Many feed readers will automatically update their feeds, even though the old feed address will continue to work. The update will take a few minutes to occur.

If, however, you find your feed has gone silent, this post can guide you to the new address (won't work until the move btw).

The main side-effect of the move will be that the last 10 posts will be treated as "new". I've written a bit about how the move is accomplished previously.

The new site, kateva.org, has its own "main page" and will eventually hold two blogs, this tech blog and my "everything else" blog. The urls for the pages will eventually be:

• Gordon's Tech: googlefaughnan.blogspot.com will become tech.kateva.org (today)
  
• Gordon's Notes: jfaughnan.blogspot.com will become notes.kateva.org (in a week or so)
  

My other family, community, and special needs weblogs will stay where they are for now.

I've two reasons to make the move. One is to get away from the whimsical URLs I chose to play with years ago, the other is to move my pseudonymous identify (John Gordon) a few degrees away from my "true name" (John xxxxxxxx).

More after the move ...

Update 7/1/07: After 14 hours neither Google Reader nor Bloglines have updated pre-existing subscriptions. Yech. You should update manually if you can read this. Google Groups Help discussion here.

Update 7/2/07: The Blogger help group samaritans found that Blogger is returning a true 301 redirect, so the fault seems to lie with Bloglines ...

Update 7/3/07: I've not heard anything from Bloglines tech support. One clue might be that the pattern of the Blogger feed has changed:

• old: http://googlefaughnan.blogspot.com/rss/googlefaughnan.xml
  
• new: http://tech.kateva.org/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

This is what the good people on Google Groups help found the 301 message was:

7/2/2007 18:58:21 Trying http://googlefaughnan.blogspot.com
Redirect!
Header:
HTTP/1.0 301 Moved Permanently
Location: http://tech.kateva.org/
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Cache-control: private
Content-Length: 205
Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2007 01:57:37 GMT
Server: GFE/1.3
Connection: Keep-Alive

I'm going to try the redirect using some tools suggested on the Blogger group and see what happens when I try to hit the old url directly.

Update 7/3/07: Bloglines may be absolved! Google uses a different syntax for RSS feeds on custom domain vs. traditional blogger. It appears the 301 redirect only changes the domain, so a subscription that references the RSS feed will break during a transition and cannot be updated.

Repairing and replacing an old iBook keyboard

Our dual USB white G3 iBook, somehow, lives on. The hinge s broken, so we never close it. When we move it, we carry it open. (I try to put it to sleep first, but sometimes the drive is spinning. It survives.) We replaced it with a MacBook last fall, but it lives on as the kitchen web client and family slideshow server. The location, setup, and low care requirement means it's still heavily used.

Recently, the "L" key broke. Happily there are several places to buy keys and attachment mechanisms for prices ranging from $5 (refurb key, probably just fine) to $9 (key and hinge) to $20 (key and hinge, never used, Apple) to varying prices up to $100 + shipping for a new keyboard. I opted for a used keyboard for $26 (incl. shipping) from Mac Recycling (see update)...

I chose the used keyboard option since the old one is a real mess, infested with generations of dog hair and varied unmentionables. I'm sure other keys are going to break. If the replacement kb works I'll have a supply of two of each keys, excepting the "L" key of course. A wonderfully obsessive web page tells us how to disassemble and clean an iBook's keyboard, so I feel reasonably prepared. (A few days later the site disappeared! This alternate guide is excellent.)

The prices per key do explain why even broken iBooks have some value to resellers. It's a real win-win; I'm quite happy to pay $5 for a working refurbished key and that means an old but relatively clean iBook keyboard is worth something. When this machine finally dies, (lord knows when, it seems it might go on for years) I'll cast around to see if anyone wants to pay shipping fees to get the relic and its working Airport card.

Update 7/7/07: The Mac Recycling (macrecycling.com) keyboard arrived with one key off and a kink in one side. I was angry at first, figuring they'd sent me a bum keyboard. On closer inspection though I see that the FedEx shipped box is creased along one edge. I think the keyboard was probably fine when it left Mac Recycling, but they might have done a better job packing it.

Thanks to some manuals I downloaded from the superb PowerBookMedic site I was able to replace the dislodged shift key and install the keyboard; so far it works though one top tab didn't quite fit and I had to press in the side where it had been kinked. In any case it's firmly in place.

Next time though I'll go with either PowerBookMedic or iFixit.com; I owe them for the excellent repair books they provide. I recommend downloading the one that fits your laptop and keeping it at hand.

Update 7/18/07: Mac Recycling (macrecycling.com) did not respond to the message I left on their web site. Email isn't as reliable as it once was, so there's a 10% chance they're not crooks. Unfortunately, there's a 90% chance they are crooks. Don't have anything to do with them.