Hijinks Inc.

Category: Apple

  • 90+ Days Without Voice Service

    It’s been well over 90 days since I last paid AT&T for voice service on my cell phone and started using an iPad SIM and a SIP solution to make calls from my iPhone. Things have been good, great in fact., that is until I recently ran into a major issue with my setup. A brief recap, I use Google Voice for my phone number, I then have a SIP number setup with IPKall which is connected to my pbxes.com account, which in turn is setup with Acrobits Softphone on my iPhone.

    Last week, for whatever reason, IPKall let someone else register the same number as me. So randomly my phone wouldn’t ring through, or if I didn’t pick up when someone called, the caller would ring through to this other guy. Kind of a major issue.

    After some back and forth with IPKall, I got a notification from Google Voice that someone using the same number as me had successfully added it  to their Google Voice account. Great.

    At this point instead of trying to resolve things with the folks at IPKall who were being less than helpful, I called up the guy who had registered my number and explained the situation.  Oddly enough he used my own tutorial to setup his account, in the end he was very understanding and we eventually got the number transfered back to me. I should note that the number I registered in the tutorial is not actually the number I’ve been using from IPKall, so this guy had no way of purposely registering the same number as me.

    Now I’m looking for a more reliable SIP number provider, even if I have to pay a few bucks a month I think it’d be worth it to ensure that my number doesn’t randomly get handed out to someone else. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know in the comments.

  • Tablets Are the New Netbook

    Remember when the iPad was announced and people said “meh…”? And now, less than a year later, it’s a huge bread winner for Apple. Everyone else appears to be noticing as well, in the past few weeks more and more tablet rumors have popped up with the vast majority of big name players in the industry on board.

    Don’t believe me? Let’s review…

    • The long rumored Notion Ink Adam has pricing, and is expected to launch between November 2010 and January 2011.
    • HP confirmed internally a webOS tablet, then confirmed publicly both a Windows and webOS based tablets for 2011.
    • Bloomberg reported recently that RIM is working on a poorly named tablet, dubbed “BlackPad”, which is supposedly going to launch in November.
    • ASUS was quick to announce the Eee Pad, but it likely won’t ship until March of 2011.
    • LG has confirmed their own tablets are in the works, including a Windows 7 based model and Optimus, an Android tablet. Promised ship date is Q4 2010.
    • Kmart is selling a cheapo Android tablet and even though it has terrible specs they seem to be selling like hotcakes, with Kmart barely able to keep them in stock.
    • Acer teased an Android tablet back in May, but apparently put it on hold until it can ship with Android 3.0 Gingerbread.
    • Toshiba just shipped, and promptly sold out of, a limited run of its dual-screen Libretto tablet.
    • Also from Toshiba is a rumored Android tablet, hitting the streets in September or October.
    • And of course Google and Verizon are supposedly prepping a Chrome OS tablet of their for launch next yet.

    While I did go outside the scope of the past few weeks, you get the idea. I’m also probably leaving out a ton of other tablets, like the failed JooJoo tablet for example.

    This whole jumping on the tablet bandwagon seems to me to closely resemble when ASUS first launched the Eee PC and the netbook revolution took off, people were a little skeptical at first and then realized it was a great idea. Now I’m not saying tablets will kill off netbooks, but they seem to be the flavor of the month for the foreseeable future. And reportedly the iPad by itself has caused a decline in netbook sales for ASUS.

    Bottom line, I love the iPad, but I really am excited to see cheaper (and hopefully better) tablet solutions from companies besides Apple.

  • Portal 2: Release date announced

    We won’t have to wait too much longer, as Valve announced Wed morning Portal 2’s release date to be February 9th of next year.  Being a huge fan of the original, I’ll definitely be putting this one on my list.  Inherently, I’ll be opting for the PC or Mac version, as a game like Portal, in my humble opinion, is best played with a mouse.  They’re also releasing for PS3 and Xbox 360.

    There’s some awesome new elements they’re rolling out with this one, including Wheatley, a friendly British robot that will accompany you, voiced by Stephen Merchant (writer for both versions of The Office, and also starred in a few episodes of the US version).

    They’ve also added features, among others, like Repulsion and Propulsion Gel, an Excursion Funnel, the Pneumatic Diversity Vent, the Aerial Faith Plate, and a Thermal Discouragement Beam.  For trailers showcasing these features and more, check out Portal’s official teaser site here.

    For the latest news, keep an eye on gameinformer.

  • Replacing a laptop with an iPad

    Replacing a laptop with an iPad

    Depending on who you talk to they say it’s entirely reasonable to replace a laptop with an iPad. But is that really the case?

    Last week I went out of town for seven days and made the decision not to bring my MacBook Pro, perfect opportunity to put my iPad to the test.

    First, I loaded up some additional software for my trip, since most of what I’d need access to would be work related things. The extra few apps I installed were:

    (more…)

  • Jailbreak 101: Installing Flash on your iPhone/iPad

    Jailbreak 101: Installing Flash on your iPhone/iPad

    Despite Steve’s best efforts to murder Flash it still lives on, and maybe you’re one of those people who really wants Flash on your iDevice. Well, you’re in luck! Hacker extraordinaire, comex, has some up with a little something called Frash, which promises to bring Flash playback to your iDevice.

    Previously you had to install Frash by compiling the .deb file yourself, but someone made a.deb and has added it to a Cydia Repo.

    Note: This version of Frash will not work on the iPhone 3G. It should work fine for iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPad.

    Warning: This is an alpha piece of software which is being updated with bug fixes regularly, installing from this repo does not guarentee you’ll recieve updated versions of Frash. To follow the development of Frash and compile the latest and greatest version yourself, check out comex’s GitHub page for it.

    Here’s how to install Frash on your device:
    (more…)