The iPhone Book , Second Edition

The iPhone and the AppleTV products were introduced to the public at the same time. I was a bit disappointed because I selfishly wanted the attention to be switched. I wanted a jaw dropping feature rich Apple based media entertainment center and a basic phone with some Apple related features. I’m not much of a phone guy.

My Motorola phone was on its last leg about the time the 3G iPhone came out. Actually, it had no legs or arms and reminded me of the scene in Monty Pythons movie The Holy Grail. I kept trying to use it, although the battery would die within 5 minutes of a call. I waited a month after the 3G phone became available. First because I wanted to see what the feedback from new users would turn out to be and because I’m not the kind of guy to stand in line for practically anything.

I went into the Apple store with a 70% chance of purchasing one and forcing down the minimum $70 a month AT&T connection charges. As it turned out, the darn nice and helpful Apple Store employees were way too charming for my reservations to stand. Opening the graceful packaging of my 3G iPhone, I was a bit stunned there wasn’t any real documentation on how to use the product. Online, there is a little bit more but it is scattered pieces of information here and there.

So about the same time I began considering joining the army of iPhone owners, I stumbled upon Terry Whites technical blog. I quickly added it to my google reader and enjoyed both his writing style and choice of content to cover. It was there that I discovered he had produced a 3G iPhone book with coauthor Scott Kelly. I immediately placed an order for it on Amazon.com and have been tip toeing through its content every since. During a recent morning stay at my automobile dealership for an oil change, I finished it and found it a delightful book. Delightful isn’t something you normally associate with a review of a technical resource and that is simply too bad.

The book covers quite a bit of content in a very friendly and open manner. Each topic is covered on a single page and includes a very helpful picture to cover that topic. It is akin to the Visual QuickStart guides of old but much more elegant. Some topics includes a bonus tip at the bottom of the page and some of them are real gems! Now many of the tips are evident with the user friendly interface of the iPhone but I simply missed them. One of these is on page 27, which shows how easy it is to add a dialed number to your contacts module or the bonus tip on page 26 that shows how easy it is to hit redial. Here is a quick listing of my favorites ...

Page 30 - Seeing a persons photo when they call
Page 33 - Assigning a ring tone to a caller
Page 77 - Filing an email into a folder
(and why I cannot with my POP account)
Page 117 - iPhone as an alarm clock
Pages 123 to 129 - all map related
Page 131 - Adding weather for other cities
Page 188 - Syncing your iPhone on another computer
Page 201 - Adding music to your photo slideshow
(although it is bit lame)
Page 206 - Making a photo your wallpaper
Page 201 to 261 - The entire chapter on Killer Tips and Tricks

So the book is about $20.00 and well worth it for the new iPhone user. I can see this be a volume on my shelf for many years for a couple reasons. First will be to quickly look something up or thumb through it from time to time. Second, as an example of how a technical book should be written in regards of tone and content!
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More info about the author and FileMaker in general, contact me at info@dwaynewright.com.

© 2008 - Dwayne Wright - dwaynewright.com

Save Dollhouse Video Campaign

I’m a big fan of Joss Whedon but have to admit that I never watched Firefly until it came out on DVD (and had been canceled months before). I just wasn’t up to being disappointed when Fox canceled the show, which of course they did. Plus, I don’t watch much network television anyway because I like to view the DVDs on my project screen. Any hoo ... I feel Fox is probably going to cancel this one also and I’m not alone. This youtube video shows a campaign to save a show that hasn’t even aired on TV yet ... cause ... well, it is on the Fox network. Pretty funny in a terribly sad geek way ...

Odd December Gaunt Down Centennial Trail

I needed to go downtown to deposit a client check and that was reason enough to take the wonder dog on a quick little gaunt down Centennial Trail. I almost forgot to grab my camera and that would have been a bit of a shame.


Starting off, the peacocks were out. One of the houses at the beginning of the trail has a couple peacocks, or they used to have a couple. Now it looks like the peacocks might have got a little busy and there are more of them than I remembered. Perhaps that is why so many of them were out of their pens and on the trail. Totally weird, but when Bogie was ignoring them, they seemed to be coming over to check him out. As soon as he turned towards them, they would scuttle away. I can only assume they were girl peacocks, probably teenagers.



I noticed shortly after the 2 mile mark, that a couple horses were down close to the fence. Once earlier in the year, we had done this and bogie touched noses with one of the horses. Didn’t have a camera that time around but thought I’d give it a go today.

Almost nose touchage ... and ... I’m pretty happy with this shot today.

NeXT demonstration video

Found this link from Alfred TV for a NeXT demonstration video. I worked for BusinessLand at the time this cube was originally released and we sold them ... well we kinda tried selling them but no one would really buy one.

Thanksgiving 2008: Whiskeytown Friday

On Friday, we had a great breakfast before heading out to Whiskeytown for another quick hike. This time, Rachel and Ben joined us and the weather was absolutely great! Since there were six of us total, the canines got the chance to ride in the bed of the truck! Lucky them!


Both dogs are not complaining a bit.

Here you can see that I got down on the ledge just a great shot of Mike and the family. On a side note, we tried to make sure the dogs didn’t get into the water because we didn’t want to give them a bath back at the house. However, while I was taking the above shots, Bogie took advantage of the opportunity and was not denied.

Bogie takes advantage of situation and takes a Northern California lake swim.





Some shots from down on the lake.

Thanksgiving 2008: Whiskeytown Thursday

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Thanksgiving 2008: Redding CA

Had a great Thanksgiving this year, visiting my cousins in Redding California. Bogie and I headed out about 5:30 AM from Snohomish Washington and arrived about 4PM in Redding (just two tanks of gas)! We visited that night and enjoyed some steaks Mike cooked on the grill. Thanksgiving Mike started the turkey prep and then we hit the Racquetball court about 9AM. First time I’ve played since 2000 and the first time playing cut throat from the mid 1990s! Held my own again Mike and Ben but did bruise my ribs pounding into the floor for a tough shot (made that much tougher because I tripped over myself)!


Mike has a great deck that shows Mount Shasta and the city of Redding!

Later on that day, Mike and I headed out out to Whiskey Town (http://www.nps.gov/whis/) and did a quick hike. Bogie and Mikes dog Beau loved it. I’ll do a separate posting for this, we then enjoyed a great turkey, a little fireworks and a movie.