The latest news in the tech world is that Apple have announced a new model of iPhone, the 3G S. The “S” supposedly stands for “Speed”, a moniker which is appropriate due to its faster CPU.

What most people won’t tell you is that this new phone is already outdated before it even hits the shops.

You see, the iPhone has never really been the ground-breaking device that most people see it as. Yes, it did bring the brilliant multi-touch user interface into the world, but not really a lot else. Email, web browsing, WiFi support… all of these were available before the first iPhone was even announced.

Since then, Apple have been making half-hearted attempts to keep up with the rest of the market. The first iPhone 3G added a camera and 3G network (UMTS) support, but very few other hardware changes. The new 3G S has a faster CPU, increases the size of the camera’s sensor and allows video recording, but that’s about as far as the changes go.

Even the iPhone OS is lagging behind. With the new OS 3.0, Apple are finally adding a clipboard so you can cut-and-paste between applications. They’re also adding support for MMS messages, so you can send picture and audio messages. But these features have been found on rival phones for years. My old Nokia N80, several months old when the first iPhone came out, was able to do these with ease.

Apple still haven’t got things right. The iPhone still lacks Flash support, which means that a lot of web content is inaccessible. It also lacks Java support, meaning that you can’t run any of the thousands of Java games and applications that are out there. My old N80 is able to do both of these.

If you want to see what the 3G S should be, take a look a the Samsung i8910 (sometimes called the Omnia HD). Here’s a quick comparison of features:

Aside from the Multi-Touch, the Samsung is clearly a much better phone, with a similar size and price. I know which one I’d rather get!

Well, I’m back up and running on a computer at home. Seeing as how the wife has her nice new shiny laptop, I’ve taken over her old junker. I managed to scavenge the RAM from my old laptop, so it’s now running on 1GB. I also decided that Windows XP needed to go. In it place: the brand spanking new Windows 7 Release Candidate.

For those of you who aren’t quite up with software terminology, a release candidate is a version of the software that’s almost ready to release. Aside from any major issues that might get found, and a couple of minor tweaks, what you see is what will be sold in a few months time.

So anyway, I’m running the new Windows 7. It really is quite nice, much less of an irritation than Vista. For example, the annoying User Account Control prompts have almost completely gone. You no longer need to confirm every little thing that might make a change that affects other users on the computer.

It’s going to be interesting to see how the general public takes Windows 7. It still has a lot of the Vista look-and-feel, which is one of the more controversial changes in Vista. Another thing is that you’re stuck with the new Start menu, you know, the one that came in with Windows XP. It doesn’t sound like much, but I’ve got a workmate who will be complaining bitterly about its loss.

Anywho, it’s time for me to hit the sack. I’ll write up some more when I’ve had my beauty sleep. $DEITY knows I need it!

Well, despite the trouble I had with the ordering process, the laptop came through in just over a week. It was sitting on my desk at work yesterday morning.

I must say that I’m impressed with the laptop. It’s the new Studio 1537 model, which has 4 USB ports instead of the previous model’s 3. The screen is beautiful, and it has an amazing horizontal viewing angle. The screen is nice and bright too, much more so than the old junker we’ve been using.

I’m definitely looking forward to getting mine (a Studio 17, or perhaps a Studio XPS 16) later in the year. Until then, I’m going to wipe the junker clean and install the upcoming Windows 7 RC on it. It will be quite interesting to see how this goes, as I’ve heard good things about Windows 7 running on low-powered computers.

For a long time, the wife and I have had a little bit of trouble with home computers. We never seem to have more than 1 at a time in a decent working state. And with her working on her blog and me wanting to play with code, it's been a bit of a pain.

I bought a refurbished 17" Toshiba laptop a few years ago, and while it worked fairly well, it wasn't without problems. The DVD drive was very fussy about which media you tried to use in it, and more often than not refused to read disks. There was also quite a problem with the screen surround, which ended up causing the screen casing to crack and the video data to lose sync. Not good for something that cost me NZ$3000.

At the moment we're using an Asus laptop I bought off my brother a few years ago. At the time it seemed like a good deal, but now I'm not so sure. I've had to replace the battery, and there appears to be some sort of issue in the socket where the AC adapter plug goes. It's currently secured with a blob of Blu-tak, and you can't move the cable nor the laptop in case you cut the power.

So the plan this year is for both of us to get new laptops. I don't want to go for a Toshiba or Asus again - once bitten, twice shy, as the old saying goes. Some of my workmates have told me very good things about Dell, so I'm going to give them a try. It's just a matter of saving up our pennies so that we can buy what we want, which isn't that easy when my car has decided to eat through a set of tyres and front brake discs. Lovely.

Anyway, we finally managed to get enough money together to sort out a computer for my wife. She doesn't need anything spectacular, just a run-of-the-mill 15" laptop. This is where the Dell fun begins. When we first started getting prices in Feb, it looked like the corporate Vostro line would be the most cost-effective (i.e. cheapest) option. Get into March, and you could get something from the Inspiron range for NZ$949, in one of a range of colours. In April it changed yet again, and the choice came between the Inspiron and a Studio 15, both for NZ$1199. Not only that, but the Inspiron's colour choice dropped to blue or pink. Not exactly the nicest selections.

So we ended up ordering the base level Studio 15. My wife really wanted red, but the only free colour choice was black. There were some other basic colour options (about NZ$65 each) or some premium options (about NZ$125 each), but it'll take some convincing to make me fork out money for that, especially when the basic options were zero-cost only a month earlier. Oh well, not much that can be done about that, so I place the order on Wed after lunch.

Friday rolls around and I'm still waiting for Dell to confirm payment. I paid via credit card, which means it should only take a few seconds for them to take my money. I don't like it when companies take my money then give me the silent treatment, so I send a follow-up email. By end of business I've still heard nothing. Odd. Finally, some time around 7 when I'm at Manukau shopping mall, my cell rings. It's Dell, and they don't have the black colour option available any more. It's their basic, free option and they're out of it. Great. At least we get upgraded to another colour option (marbled grey with red sides) for free.

As I write this, the laptop is supposedly sitting in customs in some country in Asia (probably Malaysia), waiting to be sent to NZ. I've read some awful thing about Dell's shipping, so it'll be interesting to see what happens.

I've just come across this link from one of the various blogs I read. It's definitely for the geeks out there, as it will seriously test your knowledge of the Star Trek universe.

Star Trek Character or Erectile Dysfunction Pill?

I managed to score 60%, although that was by luck more than anything. I only knew 2 of the answers, the rest were all guesses.

Update

One of my workmates sent this one through: Christian Metal Band or Star Trek Episode?

Finally, we some good news on the Section 92A copyright saga. Following much debate over whether S92A could be made into something that actually works, the government has finally realised that all efforts will be effectively futile. S92A is to be removed from the law.

This is definitely good news for all New Zealanders with an internet connection. We can no longer be disconnected because of accusations of breaking copyright laws. Yes, this will mean that P2P sharing of "illegal" material will continue, but this is a small price to pay in order to keep due process. Besides, there's already some concern among copyright academics as to whether the copyright laws in place over the world actually help to encourage the creation of artistic works, or whether they actually make it harder for artists by setting up artificial roadblocks to the creative process.Anyway, that's a discussion for another day.

So for now at least, us Kiwis are safe. However, it sounds like the government is still looking at ways to rewrite S92A, to make something that can be used effectively. Expect this argument to rear it's ugly head in the near future.

Links:

• National Business Review (NBR) NZ

In the current financial market, retailers are doing everything they can to get customers through the doors. One thing we've seen a lot of lately are sales, especially nfor higher-priced items such as furniture and electrical goods. Here in NZ, Harvey Norman sell both, and they have been advertising their sales a lot, both in the papers and on TV.

I'm looking at upgrading my espresso machine from a cheaper (around NZ$300) unit to a more expensive, more professional machine. The one that I really want retails for NZ$800 in Briscoes, so I was looking for any way to get it sooner. Harvey Norman had interest free finance offers, and were supposedly having a sale on home electical goods, so I went to my local store to have a look.

Once I was in the store it took a whole 2 minutes to find the right model, but what I saw left me with my mouth open. Harvey Norman had the right model, but were charging a stupid $NZ1000 for it. That's 25% more expensive than the retail price at Briscoes, the store right next door. If they can blatantly inflate the price by 25% for an espresso machine, I hate to think what they're doing on other items.

One thing I do know is that you do not buy audio/video cables from them. When I bought my TV from them a couple of years ago (the reason being 3 years interest-free), they also sold me a HDMI cable. The cable was made by Pudney and cost NZ$99, and it was rubbish. I doubt it cost them more than $NZ10, and because I was a captive audience buying expensive equipment, I fell for the trap of buying an overpriced cable.

Because of all this, Harvey Norman have gone well down in my books. I may still turn to them if I need an interest-free finance deal, but only after checking out other stores and finding the best price first. If they want my business, I'm not going to pay for their bloated profit margins.

I've just finished a week long holiday, and how great it was! I feel so relaxed now, and am ready to go back to work on Monday.

I think I've earned some time off. For the month or so prior to my holiday, I've been working some very long days (for a software developer). I'm talking 9+ hours a day (not including breaks or lunch), 5 and a half days a week. That may not seem like much to you non-programmer types, but imagine spending all those hours working on crossword or logic puzzles. You end up mentally exhausted and physically drained.

Luckily for me, I booked some leave back in October. I'd chosen this week to have off because it contains both my wedding anniversary (Wednesday) and my birthday (today). I figured there was no better time to spend with the wife.

Even though we've not actually gone away for the week, we've certainly been away from home a lot. My wife loves looking at used clothing, so we've spent a large part of the week visiting various thrift stores around Auckland. She's managed to find a few stores that carry designer labels, so we can look very posh at a fracton of the cost. For example, I managed to pick up a practically-new Burberry short-sleeved shirt for only NZ$54. I don't know what it would have originally cost, but it was probably several times what I paid for it.

We also went to Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World on Friday. I hadn't been for years (early 90s) and my wife had never been, so we decided to head along. I'm still of two minds as to whether it was worth the money. It was great to see all the fish and the penguins, but NZ$30 per adult is a bit steep when you can take your time and still be through there in no more than 2 hours.

The only real downside of the week was that it had to end. On Monday I'll be back to work, although hopefully I've got the worst of the long hours over and done with. Oh well, I've gotta make a living somehow.

For a while I've been having problems accessing certain Microsoft sites using Firefox. Whenever I attempt to get to one of these sites, Firefox would show the following error:

Secure Connection Failed
An error occurred during a connection to connect.microsoft.com.
New CRL has an invalid format.
(Error code: sec_error_crl_invalid)

I logged a Bugzilla ticket for this issue, and with the help of Nelson Bolyard I very quickly managed to fix the problem.

For some reason, I had managed to import a certificate revocation list (CRL) from Microsoft. There's something in that CRL that Firefox was having problems with, so every time you visit a Microsoft site it causes Firefox to go crazy.

To fix the problem:

1. In the Firefox menus select Tools > Options...
2. Go to the Advanced section, and within that go to the Encryption section.
3. Click the Revocation Lists button to bring up the currently-stored CRLs.
4. Delete any CRLs where the Organization and Organization Unit columns are empty.
5. Close the Revocation Lists dialog and click OK on the Options dialog.

This should remove the CRL that's causing the issue, and you can now browse without a problem. If you still have issues, you may need to remove all of the CRLs in the list and see if that helps.

Depending on where you live, you may or may not have heard about the copyright law changes going down in New Zealand at the moment. For those of you that don't know, part of this new law is aimed at file sharers on the internet. This part of the law, Section 92 (or S92 for short) revolves around one simple rule: if you're accused of repeated copyright infringements, you'll lose your internet connection.

Section 92 is causing quite a stir, for several reasons. The first and foremost of these reasons is that you do not have to be convicted of actual copyright infringement for S92 to kick in. No, you only need to be accused of infringing copyright. That's right, accused. In essence, it's taking the whole judicial concept of "innocent until proven guilty" and turning it on its head. What's more, there are no penalties for filing a false statement, so there's nothing to stop false accusations from being made.

Another large part of the problem is that is shifts the burden of copyright enforcement from the copyright holder to the internet provider. In order for this law to be effective, internet providers will need to keep logs of which account was assigned which internet (IP) address, possibly for several years at a time. They need to create systems for querying this data so that they can send an accusation to the correct account-holder. They dedicated staff to process accusation notices and ensure that each one meets the (fairly low) standard required under the law. All this because the various content publishing organisations (read: music and film producers) are too lazy to perform the necessary legwork to send each case through the legal system.

Our own government wasn't even sure that this section of the new Act was needed. Although present in initial drafts of the law, it was removed by a Select Committee because it was deemed unworkable. However, thanks to stupid and gullible politicians, the section was re-added.

So what does this mean for New Zealand? Anybody with an unsecured wireless router could get permanent disconnection from the internet for something they haven't done. Schools, libraries and companies could get kicked off the internet because of fraudulent accusations. Do our musicians and filmmakers benefit? Hardly likely, seeing as how the production and distribution companies receive the lion's share of any profits made from CD/DVD sales. No, all we're seeing is ordinary people being punished because a group of companies have failed to embrace the internet.

There's only one small piece of silver lining around this dark cloud. Although the new Copyright Act came into force as of February 28, our new prime minister has postponed the start of S92 until near the end of March. During this time, the internet providers and content producers are supposed to talk and come up with some sort of "code of compliance" that can be used to make this law work. If nothing can be worked out, S92 may be removed from the law entirely.

Let's all hope that no agreement can be made, or else we're in for some very interesting times in the years ahead.