Mar 04

Keeping your iPhone running after the O2 contract finishes

consumer, hardware, iPhone No Comments »

Just a straightforward tip, this, but in my searches throughout the web I never found anything that brought all this information into one place, so I thought I’d share it here.

I recently discovered I’d finally come to the end of my iPhone 3G contract because the Carphone Warehouse rang me up to offer me a new tariff. I resisted upgrading as I’m waiting for the next iPhone to come out, so they put me on the £15-per-month O2 Simplicity tariff with a £7.50-per-month internet bolt-on, and told me my iPhone would continue functioning exactly as before. They were either lying or uninformed: within 20 seconds of the phone call ending, my tariff switched over and I lost the ability to use visual voicemail or MMS. The data bolt-on wasn’t there either.

Fortunately, it’s all now fixed, and for even less money per month. Here’s what you need to do:

  • Contact O2 by dialling 2302 from your iPhone. It needs to be O2, not a reseller, as only O2 staff have access to the tariff you need.
  • Tell them you’ve reached the end of your contract and you’d like to move onto the iPhone Simplicity tariff. This is not the same as the normal Simplicity tariff, and it’s not advertised on their website. It’s only £20 per month, is on a one-month rolling contract (perfect if you’re holding on for the next update) and allows your iPhone to keep all of its features. You’ll know when it’s changed over – again, mine was instant – because visual voicemail will suddenly be unavailable.
  • Set up your (non-visual) voicemail, and think nostalgically about what it used to be like when voicemail was always like this. Get someone to ring you and leave a message. Then connect to your voicemail and listen to the message as usual. This will trigger the system to set up your visual voicemail, and you’ll magically have it again within a few minutes.
  • Next, send a text message to 1010, containing just the letters MMS. You’ll get a text message back telling you they’re setting up MMS for you. A few minutes later, a shiny bright O2-themed picture message will arrive telling you it’s all set up.

There you go – same functionality as before, but at a substantially lower price and with no contract tie-in. And it feels good.

One small other note – when I did this, I also lost the ability to receive push notifications while I was outside of the house, but it came back again within a day or so. It may have just been coincidence – after all, there was a Boxcar outage that day, and perhaps nobody said anything to me on Facebook – but you never know.

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Feb 04

The iPad and the Casio

hardware, musing No Comments »

I’ve been following the stream of announcements, discussion, reaction, praise, criticism and ramblings, following the announcement of the iPad. A lot of the more positive commentary focuses on the notion of its being “a computer for the rest of us,” suitable for non-technical-Grandma to use. A lot of the criticism is based on its lack of features: no camera, no Adobe Flash, no multitasking, very little wired connectivity, and so on. Some have said it represents computing finally evolved into what it should be; others have said it doesn’t represent computing at all.

I was reminded of this when, the other day, I spent about 20 minutes attempting to set my Casio digital watch. It’s a great watch and I love it, but attempting to work the damned thing pushes me to the brink of insanity. I can design magazines, make websites and wire up a home theatre, but – even with the instructions in front of me – I have met my match in the good folks at Casio. It occurred to me (perhaps because I’d just been reading The Apple Blog) that so-called “normal” people, who’ve never willingly touched a computer, have been managing to operate these confounded wrist-mounted contraptions for decades now. So what’s going on?

I think most commentators are guilty of framing the level of “simplicity” of a device such as the iPad as though it says something about the skills or intelligence of those who are inclined to use it. To my mind, the Casio effect gives the lie to that. People in general – yes, even the proverbial “grandma” – are not on the whole too stupid to interact with technology. It’s a matter of inclination. They’re not unable to do it; there’s just little incentive to force themselves into a mindset in which to learn what’s going on.

A watch is utterly useless unless you’ve forced yourself to set it to the right time. And telling the right time is useful. That’s an incentive. But where’s the incentive, to someone who’s managed so far without it, to learn to use a computer operating system? And having learned, where’s the incentive to actually do so?

That’s the justification for the iPad. It’s for those contexts where you don’t want, for whatever reason, to use a computer. That’s why I can completely imagine using one myself – to show holiday photos to my parents, to find pictures of lemurs on Google Images, to read newspapers, and to find out the answer to the perennial question: “Who’s that bloke, and what have I seen him in before?” I don’t want to boot up a computer when I’m lounging around in the evening. I don’t want my wife to notice that I seem to be starting up the computer yet again. I don’t want to be notified about software updates or asked to restart my machine. During the day at the desk, yes – but not during the evening on the sofa.

Sadly, I have to admit that, for financial reasons, I probably won’t be acquiring one myself. But I can entirely see why somebody would – and it’s nothing to do with their age or technical skill.

Jan 20

The golden rule of fixing things

hardware, musing No Comments »

The wi-fi on my Acer Aspire One had inexplicably stopped working.

I tried flicking the switch a few times, waiting a few seconds between each. I’d rebooted the computer. I’d looked through the Jolicloud settings/admin area to see if there was anything that might be controlling it, or might give me a clue as to what the problem was. Finally, I was at the stage of examining the underneath of the computer, seeing where the screws were and how big they were, reasoning that I could probably get a replacement wi-fi module second-hand from eBay, and planning to dismantle the thing tomorrow to remove the offending item and determine its model number.

My wife then asked whether I’d turned the computer off and on again.

I hadn’t.

It worked.

I really must learn to be less technical sometimes.

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Oct 10

Drobo + Western Digital = the way things should work

reviews No Comments »

Generally speaking, I assume pretty much anything computer-related will go wrong. I won’t list all my backup strategies here – what’s that you’re saying? Is it “pleeeeease”? Well, perhaps another day, if you’re really good – But this assumption is what led me eventually to buy a Drobo. And I’m so glad I did.

Immediately after installing Snow Leopard, but before recovering any of my data or settings, the Drobo started flashing to tell me there was something wrong with my newly-purchased Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB disk. It was all working fine as far as I could see, but Drobo informed me that trouble was a-brewin’. I took it on faith (something I’m not normally inclined to do, but then this kind of warning is sort of the whole point of a Drobo.)

So, I went to the Western Digital website, typed in my disk serial number, and ordered a replacement. I had 30 characters to type in the problem (yes, 30 characters – I ended up settling for “My Drobo says it’s bad”) and lo and behold, a replacement was shipped right to me, without my having to send the faulty one first or even provide any evidence that anything was wrong with it.

New disk arrived, I stuck it in, and used the packaging to return the faulty one. I never had a moment’s down time, never lost a thing, and never even bothered wondering what exactly was wrong with my original disk.

Downsides include the fact that the WD drive broke down in the first place, and the fact that I had to pay the postage to send it to a returns address near Heathrow Airport. But I’d forgive both of those a thousand times over, because the whole thing was sorted out so easily. And I never lost a thing.

I don’t know what WD customer service is like in the rest of the world, but if you’re in the UK I would seriously recommend the Drobo + WD combination.

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