MaFt’s Musings

With the on-going ’saga’ of the iPhone 4’s reception issues (if you’re not aware then, sorry but, where the heck have you been?! Mars?!) Mr Jobs is giving a Press Conference later today about it.

Lots of people are talking about product recalls or free bumpers (cases for the iPhone 4 that, because they stop direct contact between sweaty fingers and the phone’s antennae, stop the ‘reception issue’ from showing as much). However, my theory is quite different:

When you update the firmware on the iPhone you are given a great big End-User License Agreement (EULA) that no one ever reads. Ever. Yesterdays iOS 4.0.1 release will likely have said something along the lines of:

…by installing this iPhone software update you are hereby acknolwedging that there are no issues with the iPhone 4’s antennae and there is no reception issue. Ergo, you cannot sue us or complain any more. Ever. About anything. Love from Mr Jobs.

So, later today, when Mr Jobs stands up in front of the worlds media and blogosphere he will stand there all smug and say “Well, 4 million iPhone 4 users just updated to 4.0.1 and, by doing so and agreeing to my terms, have confirmed there are no issues. Please go home and relax. Good night.”

There you have it, how many times have you been told to read everything before you agree? Now you know why.

I was chatting to a member of staff I know from Mini-MaFt’s school (I know her from outside of school) this morning and what she told me made me chuckle. There were a couple of rabbits running around the staff car park and she pointed them out to me – apparently there are a lot of them around at the moment. She went on to tell me that she was asked, the other day, to go around the playground and sweep up all the rabbit poo. Apparently the kids have been picking them up and eating them at break time!

Regardless of the fact that she wouldn’t have time to carry out such a task, surely it is easier to teach the kids not to eat rabbit poo? However, I do feel that the governments insistence of ‘five-a-day’ of fruit and veg is solely to blame. The kids clearly think they are raisins.

In order to help, I have produced this handy guide:

Shortly after my 3rd birthday something special was released in the UK – ‘Return of The Jedi’. My two oldest brothers, Tim and Nat, got to go see it at the cinema while Andy and myself were left behind. I’m not sure whether our parents felt that the Ewoks would be too frightening for us or whether they simply couldn’t afford to take all four of us! Regardless of the reason, we were consoled with a 99 Flake when the ice cream van came by.

Yesterday something special was released in the UK – Apple’s iPad. I’d love one but I simply can’t afford one. So, in homage to the day I was denied Return of The Jedi, I bought myself a 99 Flake to console myself. Some things just never change!

Going back a couple of years I used a T-Mobile MDA Compact III (HTC Artemis) as my main phone. It ran Windows Mobile and was pretty slow and clunky at times; but it worked. It had mobile internet (although no 3G), it had GPS, a Micro SD slot for expanded memory (although you had to shut it down and remove the battery to access it). I actually liked the phone – it was my first PDA / Smart Phone which brought me out of the world of Samsung who I had sworn by for the years leading up to my switch. One thing I loved about it was it’s customisability (is that a real word?!) – the sheer number of programs (they weren’t called ‘apps’ back then) you could get, the majority of which were free. Great programs that ranged from registry editors and media players through to screen capture and satnav’s. You could just… fiddle with it! Read more �

…before I leave my 20’s!

Wow, this is slightly weird. In 37 minutes I’ll be 30. I’m not one to moan about feeling old or having a crisis about it, it just seems weird to say I’m 30! Three-Oh. Thirty. Twenty-ten. However you say it, it still means I’ve been around for 3 full decades come midnight.

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I’ve been chatting to a mate about Hayley from Paramore’s public apology for the blasphemous lyrics in their song, Misery Business. No sooner had I finally found the post form Hayley the song itself came on Kerrang! Radio on Freeview! How freaky is that?

Anyway, if you’re interested here’s an excerpt:

“but god does it feel so good… to steal it all away from you now. and if you could then you know you would. cause god it just feels so… it just feels so good.”

i’m ashamed to say that, although i’m a believer in Jesus Christ and i claim him as my God, when i wrote those lyrics i wasn’t addressing him. i was using his name casually. in vain, to be blunt. if you know much about the Christian religion (which i’m not too fond of addressing my faith as), you’ll probably know that one of the ten commandments is “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord your God in vain”… it goes on to say, “…for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.” As a believer in Christ, that last part scares the hell out of me. i don’t want to be held accountable for being the cause of so many people using his name in vain. you don’t have to believe in what i believe and no one in Paramore is ever going to go around forcing our faith into people’s lives… but believer or not, i might have led some of ya’ll to believe that i take my saviour lightly. and i don’t.

Read the full post including the background for the song here: http://paramoreband.livejournal.com/31376.html

OK, ok so my article was clearly(?) an April Fool. See the full retraction here: http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=519784#519784

A lot of people ask what exactly I do for PocketGPSWorld.com that takes up so much of my time… Well, I’ve been writing this article for a few weeks in the spare time that I managed to find so head over to PocketGPSWorld.com to go and find out!

I’ve just successfully imported my old blog into this one. With any luck, Facebook Notes won’t suddenly add links on my profile page to the 346 ‘new’ blog posts… Apologies if it does!!!

Today I had a weird instant messenger conversation with my mate, ‘P’. ‘P’ does computer repair down south and often gets frustrated with people who pretend to know ‘computer stuff’ – I do too. It started of fairly normal (although unless you read any of our previous chats the reference to the XP DVD burning update might seem a bit random) but rapidly went a bit weird…: Read more �