Stereo Bluetooth support for the iPhone

In case you have already ventured into getting a Stereo Bluetooth headset for your iPhone or you are considering getting one, here is what you need to know:-

• The original iPhone (1st generation) does not support the Stereo Bluetooth profile (AD2P), even if you upgrade to the latest OS 3.x, which means that only iPhone 3G and 3GS supports the AD2P profile (and the iPod touch 2nd generation)
• You have to upgrade your iPhone to 3.1 firmware to be able to use the Voice Control from your Stereo Bluetooth headset and with that you also get a better WIFI performance on the device while using the Bluetooth headset.
• The AVRCP profile is not 100% supported. The AVRCP provides advanced controls commands directly from the Bluetooth headset including: Pause, Play, Stop, Next, Previous . Currently the Next, and Previous commands are not supported. Which means while you are listening on your Bluetooth headset you will not be able to skip to the next track or move back to the previous track from your headset, you would have to control it directly on your iPhone.

Overall, I have been using the Backbeat 906, and I have been happy with it's audio quality so far on the iPhone 3GS, especially after I updated to 3.1.

If you can tolerate the limitations mentioned above, getting the stereo Bluetooth headset is very much worth it.

Dropped calls and AT&T

It's getting to the point where within the first two minutes of every call I make 3-4 miles from where I live is dropped. It's official now that AT&T 3G infrastructure can not handle the load put out by the data usage of the iPhone. At the same time, we are still being charged for a broken service.

Since all of this is official now, and AT&T already publicized it's problem with it's network on YouTube, why are we still charged 100% for the the broken service. At least AT&T should not charge for any dropped call.

Get Safari 4 Beta if you can't wait for Google Chrome for the Mac

Safari 4 Beta appears to be as fast or even faster than Chrome (on Windows), so if you are tired of waiting for Chrome on the Mac to become available, it will be worth checking out the new Safari 4 Beta.

My Live account was hijacked !

It is very scary what just happened to my Microsoft Live account, but some how my contact list was hijacked and an email message was sent to my entire contact list. This is very scary! The email message was sent in my name, however, it did not include my signature.

The only way this could have happened, is through me using public wifi's at Starbucks. This is only my speculation. Right now, I have set my password to automatically expire every 72 hours until I figure out what's the story

Any other recommendations?

My first Mac

Finally, I broke down and purchased a white MacBook. I made this purchase mainly to do software development on it, and also to use it as a light weight laptop alternative. I have been using a heavy 15.4 inch Dell, which I have been happy with, except for it's size.

My MacBook came with a 2 GB of RAM, 160 GB HD, with a disappointing Intel Graphics Card (Intel GMA X3100). I did not want to get the MBP yet, as this is my first Mac System, so I wanted to ween my self slowly into the world of Apple.

Also, I have installed Vista Ultimate on it using Bootcamp 1.2 and to my surprise, I could not believe how easy the whole process. I am impressed with the performance of Vista running on the MacBook. Right now I am still learning my way around the Mac OS X.

The first applications I have installed so far:
- Office 2008 for Mac
- iPhone SDK
- Firefox
- Live Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger

...and I am still looking to what other applications to install.

Symptoms you are addicted to your iPhone

1. You automatically assume that every screen is a touch screen: Many times I reach to my computer screen to use the same gesture I use on my iPhone to scroll up and down


2. Can't sleep without it


3. Can't stop playing with the iPhone even though you already checked everything on it less than 2 minutes ago


4. You can't stop using the built in stopwatch


5. You don't let your iPhone ever go out of charge no matter what.

Android based phones.

GPhone is a mobile phone running Google's Android operating System, with 50 top applications already been announced. Check it out!


Link

Other Video Link: GPhone early preview protoype

Is Vista a failure?

I am getting sick and tired of reading about how failure Vista is. Vista being late is one thing, but stating that Vista is failure and XP is better, is totally wrong. I have Vista running on four of PCs running in my house and all are running very well. And no I don't have the latest hardware on all four of my PCs

This notion that Microsoft talking about Windows7 indicates Vista failure is also wrong. Microsoft have indicated regardless how success the current OS is that they will have a two year release cycle.

In all these reports that talk about how bad Vista is, never mention any specifics why Vista is a failure. It seems that picking on Vista without providing any details is becoming a popular trend

Multi-touch in Windows 7 demo

Video: Multi-Touch in Windows 7

I love the Mapping Application multi-touch experience, and the piano part is amazing.

I am shopping for a new light weight laptop, any suggestion?

Please post your ideas here :)

iPhone full Arabic support is here

Requirements:
1- Firmware version 1.1.3/1.1.4
2- Arabic Keyboard setup following instructions provided by Tariq @ http://www.iphoneislam.com/

Setup instructions:
1- Add the following Source in your Installer. This can be done by going to the Sources Tab, and selecting the Edit button. Then, type the following URL in the source field: http://repo.aakqtr.com/
2- After the sources are refreshed, navigate to BiOsS Modz category in the Install Tab, and select: iPhone Arabizer 1.0 and choose Install.
3- Reboot the Phone
4- At this point Safari can render the Arabic text to any Arabic website, Email, Contacts, and Calander also support Arabic text at this point
5- Go to Settings > General > International > Language: and choose Arabic (this will change your UI Language)
6- Go to Settings > General > International > Region Format and Select Arabic and the Country.
Now you have Full Arabic support in the iPhone.

iPhone SDK Announcement: SEGA on the iPhone

From what was presented on the special keynote the SDK looks promising. The only bad part the entire toolset are native Mac OS tools, no Windows.

The most impressive thing is the SEGA game that was developed in two week period using the SDK, and the comment about the quality of the game is console quality not cell phone quality.

Scripting with C# Script

I have been playing cscript recently and I have found it a better alternative to Jscript. With C# Script you have the power of C# Language with the scripting capability. Hence, you don't have to compile your code when making modification to it.

You also have the option to create an executable out of the script.

Here is an example of accessing COM from C# Script. Notice the include tag on the first line

//css_prescript com(SYSINFO.SysInfo.1, SisInfoLib);
using System;
using SisInfoLib;
class Script
{
[STAThread]
static public void Main(string[] args)
{
SysInfoClass sysInfo = new SysInfoClass();
switch (sysInfo.ACStatus)
{
case 0:
Console.WriteLine("Not using AC power");
break;
case 1:
Console.WriteLine("Using AC power");
break;
default:
Console.WriteLine("Unknown AC power status");
break;
}
if (sysInfo.BatteryLifePercent != 255)
Console.WriteLine("Battery life " + sysInfo.BatteryLifePercent + "%");
else
Console.WriteLine("Battery charge status not known");
}
}

Native iPhone Applications: the first Quran App

Developed by Zoosware. But first you have to install either AppTap, or AppSnapp.

Reviews to be followed soon. Stay tuned

Why you should buy the XBOX 360

After having my XBOX 360 for over a year, guess what happened to it last week? In the middle of an intense game play the system crashed and we got the Red Ring Of Death. So I called the XBOX support 1800-4MyXBOX and they were very helpful. I had to go through first this automated voice system name Max. To get through directly just say :"Supervisor". When I finally got through, the customer support rep informed me that my warranty has expired and I have to pay $138 to fix and it will automatically give me 2 years of extended warranty. I told him how wrong this is especially even though we have had the system for over a year, we only used it for the last three months and how our PS2 that we have had over 4 years is still running nicely.

After speaking to the supervisor I was granted a one time deal free repair, with an optional $50 2 year extended warranty, which I will get for sure.

Therefore, I highly recommend anyone to buy the XBOX360

Jeff Hawkins (of Palm) idea behind Foleo sounds convincing

http://news.com.com/The+best+idea+Jeff+Hawkins+ever+had/2008-1041_3-6188188.html

iPhone will be released June 29th

Checkout the new iPhone Ads

Scratch the Surface and iPhone

Amazing new technological announcements were made this week. Most interesting the Microsoft Surface. This technology opens the door for endless opportunities in the future, and Microsoft has been working on Surface for over 6 years. Imagine this will be your experience when you get a phone from T-Mobile (watch this)



Scratch is another amazing announcement this week. Its a programming language teaching tool for 8 year old and above.

And last, my name is on the waiting list for the iPhone. BTW, I need to sell my Cingular 8525 and 30 GB iPOD video Gen.5.5, anyone interested let me know! :)

Advance Query Sytnax - AQS Part 2

This is a follow up to the first post Advance Query Sytnax - AQS Part 1

To search for file based on it's kind, you use the kind property. For example:

• 
  kind:Music ... you can also use song, songs
  Kind:email ... you can also use mail, message, messages, emails
  Kind:document ... you can also use documents, doc, docs
  Kind:Meeting ... you can also use calendar, appointment
  Kind:Picture ... you can also use Pic, Pics, Photo, image, images.

The terms can be combined using the OR operator
Kind:Music OR Pic will return all your music and pic files

You can also combine other conditions:
Kind:Music AND Artist:Prince
or
Kind:Music Artist:Prince since AND is implicit

Enabling NQS (Natural Query Syntax) will simplify the syntax

• 
  Music artist Prince
  Music by prince
  Pics taken last month
  email received last week from John about presentation

You can search on all the properties any kind of file can have. For example. you can search for photos based on the Taken property. You can search for document based on it's author. For eample:

Kind:Document Author:David Johnson

or you do an exact match

Kind:Document Author:"David Johnson"

or you can take it further

kind:Document Author:="David Johnson"

The difference here: the first one is searching for author that contains "David Johnson". The second using the equal sign is searching for author with exact match.

I will be covering the Advance Query Sytnax - AQS Part 3 soon

The Wii Experience

I want to share with you my experience with the "Wii".

I played on the Wii with my nephews and I have to admit, I am impressed. The game play experience is amazing. The bowling is out of this world. I even had a strike on the first shot, can you believe it? Playing these games with my three nephews was an outstanding experience, it was a perfect opportunity to spend time with my nephews and all of us enjoy one common activity. We all had good time

I am going to be hunting one down from this point :)