Flash guide to the federal budget

You can navigate around the graph and then zoom in to actually read it: Death and Taxes: 2008. I couldn't get the shift/ctrl zoom to work, but the rmb brought up the Flash context menu with a zoom in and zoom out.

Pixilu: when you need to look pretty

How to Change the World: Reality Check: Pixilu and Guy 2.0

Photo retouching outsourcing. Worth a try if you want to give someone a gift photo.

Phoneless iPhone

The iPhone is supposed to require an AT&T contract to work. So, in theory, you can't pay $600 and just use it. Unless you cancel your AT&T service within 3 days of signing up - (alexking.org). For now the iPhone keeps working. This will be more interesting if/when Apple adds Skype/VOIP support and allows one to use it as an external drive.

Apple's contract with AT&T may require them to disable this trick, and one assumes they get money from the AT&T monthly fee too. So it wouldn't be surprising if a future update blocks it. If Apple doesn't block it, that would say something about where they want the iPhone to go. (Via Daring Fireball)

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.