Posts tagged with 'apple'

Tether to iPhone with Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala


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I just did a fresh Ubuntu Karmic reinstall after an ill-conceived upgrade to a Lucid Alpha, so I had to try and retrace my fairly muddled steps in configuring iPhone tethering.

Because I had a fair idea what I was doing this time it was pretty easy, so I figured I'd best document the steps for the next unfortunate soul trying to do the same. I'd also be interested to hear if the same steps apply to Lucid once it's out of Beta.

iPhone tethering

The first thing to do is get tethering enabled by your operator. For some reason O2 can only enable it overnight so make sure you get it well before you'll need it. Once it's enabled, you'll find your phone has a new option under Settings->General->Network->Internet Tethering. Make sure you turn it on in here and then forget about it - it's only enabled for devices that are paired over Bluetooth or USB so there's not much of a security worry.

The next step is to get the Ubuntu side sorted. The best bet is to install the Bluetooth Manager widget Blueman, which will replace your existing Bluetooth widget. Blueman is much better than the default simple widget, but unfortunately either the way the iPhone exposes its network access point is non-standard or it's a bit advanced because the older version of Blueman in the Ubuntu Karmic sources is not capable of connecting - you'll need to install a newer version from Blueman directly.

The best way of doing this is to add the Blueman PPA and install it from them via apt:


$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:blueman/ppa
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
$ sudo apt-get install blueman

I found after doing this the old bluetooth widget was hanging around, but restarting X fixed that.

Sharing music between a Mac and Xbox with Connect360

Being a geek, I play Xbox games a lot. Being a music lover, I often want to listen to my own music while playing. Being the right sort of geek, my music is all lovingly arranged in iTunes on my Mac.

Windows people have it easy with Xbox. They install the Windows Media Sharing service, make sure WMP knows about where their music's kept and it just becomes available to play on the Xbox. I had assumed that us Mac users were excluded from such fun, but then I came across Connect360.

Connect360 in action

Connect360 is a simple enough application to use. It installs into your system preferences and lets you share music from iTunes, photos from iPhoto and movies from disk. The configuration is simple - you can allow/disallow different Xboxes and it will sort out your Firewall settings for you on the fly. The first time I tried to play an AAC file the Xbox had to go to MS to get an updated codec, but aside from that no additional setup was needed on the Xbox - the mac appeared as just another source.

Optimising a site for iPhone

Screengrab of my site on iPhone

The unmodified site

The first thing I should probably mention is that yes, despite saying I wouldn't, I got an iPhone 3G relatively soon after release. I'll skip the reasons why for now, that's for a future posting. Naturally the first thing I did upon getting my iPhone was to plug in my own site's URL into the browser and see how it did - you can see the result in the screengrab.

You know what - it's not bad. The site looks roughly as it should, and with a bit of zooming and panning around all the content is accessible. However, on first load the text isn't really legible and it's not making the best usage of the limited screen space on the iPhone. Also, the large header graphic makes loading a bit strenuous over an EDGE connection when I'm not in 3G coverage.

Simon has been blogging recently (here and here), about 'mobilising' websites (and has written a good article on the subject for php|architect) so it's something I've been thinking about lately and I decided to see what it would take to improve the way the page was rendered on iPhone.

The iPhone 3G vs the Nokia N95

A few days ago, Apple launched their much-anticipated second revision of the iPhone. Key amongst its new features are 3G (HSPDA) connectivity and a GPS unit.

Steve Jobs announcing the 3G iPhone

Steve Jobs announcing the 3G iPhone

As a loyal Nokia user as well as a Mac enthusiast, my loyalty was therefore pretty divided. I was saved from flocking towards the first generation iPhone's hype machine by a reflex reaction of 'if it's not got 3G it can't be any good' and a recent iPod purchase to be bitter about.

I've been happy enough with my iPod and N95 sitting next to each other in my pocket, but the question I've been mulling over the last few days is, would I be happier with one iPhone instead?