While reading TUAW I saw that iTunes 9.0.3 was out so like everyone else I tried to update. Strange thing is that while iTunes says its out, Software Update says I have nothing to update. Funny.

I have never really had a problem with AT&T as far as service go’s. Never had a drop call and the data speed has been good. So when I got a email and a text that said I had no data plan with my iPhone, needless to say I was somewhat confused. I have only had my iPhone 3G for over a year now and had the first gen iPhone before that and as most of you know, you can not walk out of the AT&T store with a iPhone that doesn’t have a data plan.

So here is the story. I called to see what was going on and was told what the email already said. My iPhone had no data plan and that it would now be added at $10 more a month. I asked how is it that I have been getting email and using apps for the past year and have no data plan? Seems it came down to when I got the 3G at the store. The guy that was setting everything up somehow didn’t put in my account that I was upgrading my phone. What I was told is that with the first gen iPhone the data plan was $20 a month and unlimited text was another $20. With the 3G data is $30 a month. I checked my last statement and it showed I was paying the $20/$20.

There are two problems with AT&T not knowing what phone I was on when they should. The first is the lady I talk to today said that it could of been when I got the 3G that the sim card was used from first gen and that is why I was still only paying $20 for data. This is not true because at the store, when the guy was setting up my phone, I ask if I could use the same sim card and he said I couldn’t and I watched him take the sim out of the 3G and enter something into his computer. The second is that for as long as I can remember when I log into AT&T’s site to pay my bill it shows a picture of the 3G and says I have a 3G. So one way or another they should know what phone I am using.

What I was told was that they just did some sort of audit and that is how this got started so I am sure I am not the only person getting the “You don’t have a data plan and we need more money” email. I did ask if I could end my contact without paying the early termination fee since they were changing the price. Didn’t work.

I love the iPhone and use it every day. But I am over it. For the past few years there was nothing that was anywhere near as good but lately that’s starting to change. I love Apple products and most of my data is with Google. So now I am being torn in two. And as much as I love Apple, I hate the box your in when you get anything they make. So the Nexus One is looking very good to me. Just have to wait and see if Verizon messes it up when they get it. Lets hope not.

UPDATE (1-14-2010) – I got a email from AT&T that linked me to a PDF file outlining the changes in my account. The funny thing was the name of the PDF file. In case you don’t remember, Cingular got the iPhone. AT&T got it after they took over Cingular. Seems everyone forgets that. Something tells me that Apple would of been better with Cingular.

As the world knows by now, Google had a PR event to show off its new browser operating system Chrome. As it turns out there is not much to jump around about. What you get with Chrome OS is just the Chrome web browser because everything runs on the web. There really is no way to install Firefox or anything else. So why would Google release a OS that is just a web browser? Good question.

What I think is that by having there own OS, Google can get a lot of info on how people use there systems. The better reason is that every app that Google has runs on the web. There are desktop versions of some of them like Earth and Picasa but it is pretty much web based. If you also remember from a few years ago Google paid for a ton of the dark fiber around the country. My guess would be that they might have there own open or low priced WiFi.

Over all I fell that not many people are going to be using Chrome OS for the simple reason that we like having our files, be it music, apps, or pictures on our systems. We like having it with us and doing what we want with it without needing to be on the web. I know I do. But I just can’t get my head around why Google would make a OS that does less then what I can do right now. Over the next year maybe I will understand but right now I just don’t get it because there is nothing that Chrome OS does that I can’t do right now.

If you would like to try out Google Chrome OS you can get a VMDK image over at GDGT.com. You are going to need VMWare or VirtualBox. But if you just want some pictures of it running I uploaded just about everything you can see to Flickr and Emberapp.com.

If you have a better idea why Google Chrome OS is so light weight please post a comment. I would love to hear what other people think.

Posted via web from mikevail’s posterous

For some time now I have been looking at wordpress themes to use here. I started with the free themes at Wordpress.org but didn’t find anything that really stood out. Then a blogger I follow, Matt Brett, released some themes on Themeforest so I paid for one. I liked it a lot but it still was not what I fully wanted. So for the past two weeks I have been checking out so called premium themes.

The style that I like the most is clean and smooth with and nice layout. Something that makes it easy to read and keeps you on the content and not on everything else that going on. So after thinking about it for a few days I paid for Thesis and so far it is everything that I have been looking for. It is very clean and easy on the eyes and the best part is that it is very easy to tweak.

Now the reason that I have been looking for a new theme is that I have a itch to start posting again. Not that I think what I have to say will change the world but from what I have been reading about, tech stuff and gaming, my view on a lot of it is very different then most. Maybe some of you out there will look at things differently and what is the harm it that?

So the iPhone 3.0 update came out last week and I have been looking forward to it since it was first announced months ago. That was till the WWDC keynote where Apple said MMS was going to work on day one from about every one but AT&T. That put AT&T down there with Sprint in my book but lets look at the other stuff that the 3.0 update brings to the iPhone.

Cut, Copy & Paste – This is by far the most long awaited feature. There is not really much to say other than it does what it says. But I would say that this should of been in from the start or at least in the 2.0 update.

Landscape Keyboard – Again this is something that should of been in phone from the start but since it wasn’t and the iPhone is my first smart phone I had no idea what I was missing. I can say now that I love landscape keyboard and if I every get something other than a iPhone its going to have it.

Spotlight Search – For me, I have no real use for this since I don’t have a lot of notes and I don’t get a ton of email. But for people using the iPhone for work or people that get a lot of email, Spotlight Search must be a god send. Plus being able to search in apps is great.

Voice Memos – Once again something that I have very little or no use for. Its a new app that does just what it says, recored voice memos. You can then send them in a email or MMS (unless your on AT&T of course).

Internet Tethering – This lets you use your iPhone as a modem for your computer. Once again this doesn’t work if your on AT&T but when it does there a strong chance that if you want to use Internet Tethering it going to cost you extra.

Find My iPhone and Remote Wipe – This only works if you have a MobileMe account (I do) but I think this is the best part of the 3.0 update. When you log in to MobileMe you go your account page and you can see on a Google map where your phone is. Then you can send a message to the phone and the phone will display it and make a sound for two minutes straight. If you get no reply to your message you can then wipe the phone clean from MobileMe.

There are a lot of people that don’t like MobileMe for one reason or another. I have had no problems with it and find it very useful for keeping my contacts and calendar synced between my iPhone and my MacBook. I was starting to think about using Google to keep everything synced because its free but with Find My iPhone and Remote Wipe in MobileMe now I am not moving anything.

All the stuff above works on the iPhone 3G. Apple launched a new iPhone called the 3G S (the S means speed). This new phone has a better camera and can record video, the 3G cannot. But not only will the 3G S record video you can also trim your video on the phone. You can then send that video to YouTube, MobileMe, send it a email or send it in a MMS (unless your on AT&T).

The 3G S also has something that should of been in from the start and that is Voice Control. It works just like you think it should but being a Apple product they took it a little further and added Voice Control to the iPod part of the iPhone.

One of the new apps in the 3G S that I would love to have is the built-in digital compass. This would be very handy to have while driving because with the 3G phone the map is pointing north at all times. On the 3G S with the built-in digital compass the map will rotate depending on the direction that you are heading. Very handy.

So I have mix felling about the 3.0 update. Most of it should of been in the phone from the start but at the same time I am glad there here now. Other then the MMS crap AT&T is pulling. Then there is the new 3G S iPhone. There is enough added to the phone that makes me wants to get one plus it faster. But that also means a new 2 year contact and $200 and I am not sure I want to stay with AT&T that long.

So what do you think of the 3.0 update? Did you get the new 3G S iPhone?

Since I have been using my iPhone I have only paid for about 4 apps. I think this has more to do with paying for something with out being able to try it first. Its like buying a house without stepping inside at all. Even with most apps just costing $.99 I still find it hard to just give my money away blindly. But for some reason I did that for the app TimeLapse (iTunes link). It does just what it says and takes pictures so you can make a time lapse movie.

There are all the options you should need to make a time lapse movies. You can pick the number of pictures to take from 1 to 9999. You can have it take the pictures as fast as it can (during my test it was about one every 8 to 10 seconds) and set the size of the photos from large to small.

Once you have your photos you can import them into iPhoto and use iMovie to make your time lapse movie such as the one below. Now this is a pretty simple app but it does just what it says and for $.99 its not bad. But if you are going to use this be sure to turn your sound off or your going to hear the camera sound over and over.

Last week I picked a Playstation 3 because I am getting a new TV soon. I wanted to get a Blue-Ray player but being that I am also a gamer I didn’t just want a stand alone Blue-Ray player so I got a PS3. Of course being the geek that I am I wanted to see what all I could do to the PS3 as far as hacks and such like changing out the hard drive. That’s when I came across some videos on YouTube about using 3 PS3’s to ray trace a model in real time. But first if you don’t know what ray tracing is here is some info.

In computer graphics, ray tracing is a technique for generating an image by tracing the path of light through pixels in an image plane. The technique is capable of producing a very high degree of photorealism; usually higher than that of typical scanline rendering methods, but at a greater computational cost. This makes ray tracing best suited for applications where the image can be rendered slowly ahead of time, such as in still images and film and television special effects, and more poorly suited for real-time applications like computer games where speed is critical. Ray tracing is capable of simulating a wide variety of optical effects, such as reflection and refraction, scattering, and chromatic aberration.

This isn’t the first time that some one has done ray tracing in real time in gaming. A few years ago I remember see a video of someone taking Quake 3 and doing real time ray tracing. Of course that video is on YouTube as well. If the video below plays fast just pause it and hit play again. I linked to the high quality version so that might be the reason.

Now what use to take a shit load of PC’s at a college can now be done using just 3 PS3’s in your house. Maybe it’s just me but I think that is awesome.

About a year and a half ago I wrote a post about how much I hated Vista. It seems that alot of people agreed because there is now 55 comments on that post and its the most viewed post on my site. But since then I have been using Vista full time and my option of it has changed somewhat. I still think that it sucks but not as bad as I use to think.

I have Mint installed on this site just to see what everyone is looking at. So here are some stats. Of course the number one most viewed post is Vista = Shit on a Stick followed by a post I made about getting the Red Rings of Death. The top referrers I get are from search engines with the words Vista and Shit in them. And as a side note, the most used browser used is Firefox. But stats aren’t everything.

A few weeks ago I got my first Mac. Its one of the new MacBook’s that Steve Job’s announced during his last keynote. Since I have never really used a Mac as my main system, it takes some getting use to but the learning curve is not that bad. And since I been using my MacBook I haven’t even booted my PC at all. I bring this up because of the 55 comments on the other post. To all the people that didn’t like Vista as much as me I would take a serious look at the new MacBook’s and the iMac’s.

Now I do think that Vista has gotten better snice my other post but not enought for me to keep using it. The biggest reason that I was using windows before was for gaming. But since I got a 360 I haven’t played any games on my PC. So with that reason gone I swiched to a Mac. But one thing that makes me laugh now is Windows 7 coming out next year. Its as if Microsoft themself are saying don’t but Vista because who is going to buy it now when a new version is coming out in a year.

Back in May I took a trip back home to Chicago. We just hung out with family, walked around Navy Pier and had some Chicago deep dish pizza. It was a fun trip but the fun really started when we tried to get back home. First the service that was going to pick us up and drop us off at O’Hare had the wrong day. So now we’re not going to make our flight home and had to pay $400 to get a new seat on a plane. We finally get to O’Hare and wait for our plane to show up. Now this is a small plane with just two seats on the right and just one on the left. We get on and now were on our way home but wait it gets better.

During the week they were storms in Wichita every night. I checked the weather for the time our first flight would be landing and all was good. But now we are going to land at around 9pm. Right when the storms start popping up. So I check the radar on my iPhone as we are getting on the plane and wouldn’t you know it – the storms are going to be right over Wichita right at the time we are going to land. Fucking great.

So were flying along and I am just playing with my iPod when the pilot comes on and say that we are going to be landing soon and that there are storms in the area. I have no control over the plane so I just go back to my iPod while we make are way though the clouds. The plane is just bouncing around and there is lighting everywhere (that was cool). Then as we just get below the clouds the plane drops for about 3 seconds. Some women in the front screams and the two older couple next to me look like they’re about to freak out. My heart picks up for about a minute after that then were back to just bouncing around as we come in for the landing.

I am in the left side of the plane were there is only one seat so I am looking out the window. I know Wichita and can tell that we are coming in from the north. As we get close to the ground the plane start bouncing around more and more but I see that we are really close to landing when the plane takes a sharp turn sideways. I hear the engines pick up power and the pilot pulls up and quits the landing.

Once he got the plane just below the storm clouds again he gets on the mic and tells us that he really didn’t like that landing and that we are just going to fly around for awhile and wait for a gap in the storm. Then he says that we are the last flight into Wichita and that all other flights were diverted to Oklahoma City and if we don’t get a gap in the storm we are going to have to go there because of fuel. Now I am thinking great, all the shit that has happen today and now we’re going to OKC to sit around some more and wait to fly back to Wichita. And I have to go to the bathroom now.

After about 15 minutes of bouncing all over the place the pilot says that we can’t wait anymore and that he’s going to try one more time to land and to turn off all radios and phones. At this point the old couple next to me looks over and sees that I still have my earbuds in and ask me if my radio is turned off. I wanted to tell them that it’s not a radio and that it’s not transmitting anything but they were still about to freak out so I just put it away.

So the pilot brings us back around and starts to bring the plane down and we are still bouncing around as much as the first time. I kept waiting for him to pull out again but then I fell the wheels hit the runway. For about 20 seconds nobody made a sound then everyone started to clap. And to top this wonderful day off then don’t bring the plane up to one of the covered loading docks. They stop the plane at the end of one of the terminals and bring a latter over for us to get off in a downpour.

So ya…that is how I almost died.