Drew Jones - Freelance Website Designer in Fleet, Hampshire, GU51 » iPhone

A totally free Sunday

andij — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 13:11:57 +0000

This morning entailed lying in bed whilst Ellie dashed about getting ready for her horse riding competition today, whilst stroking Cookie (our cat) it dawned on me that I had nothing to do.

After a cup of tea and some Weetabix I was in a quandary, so I began by tweeting:-
http://twitter.com/andij/status/1008065628

The other night I installed the Ocarina iPhone instrument. It looked like a bit of fun after @ColinMacD sent over this YouTube vid.

This morning I decided to ‘have a go’. Seeing as I have little knowledge of playing an iPhone! I dug out of the back of my mind the easiest tune I can remember playing as a child on my first keyboard.

So, reading the ‘how to play’ and looking at the Ocarina forum I jotted down a rough score and had a practice.

After a little refinement I had a crack at writing the score on the Smule Ocarina Score website, once that was done a quick post to the forum was done so that I could share my simple work.

After that I undertook to record the aforementioned tune. I downloaded Audacity and the Lame MP3 Encoder to enable me to create the necessary recording and give me the ability to edit it too.

I set about using my Skype headset as a microphone and plugging the iPhone into my speakers and sighting the Skype headset nearby to achieve a decent recording level. A bit crude I’d agree but it gave me the desired result. I then began to practice the tune and record at the same time, after a few attempts I ‘nailed it’! Cleaned it up a little using Audacity, saved it as an MP3 entered data into the ID3 tags and WHPAM; a recording of Oh When the Saints go Marching in by Drew Jones.

After a spot of lunch (ham and cheese) I wanted to do something outside, but as I finished the washing up it decided to rain. So that scuppered those plans : (

Stop the annoying 'Camera Connected' dialogue when connecting iPhone to Windows XP

andij — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 09:02:33 +0000

Every time I dock my iPhone on Windows XP I get a popup asking me if I’d like to launch an application. Well you know what? All I wanna do is stand it in it’s dock and allow it to charge.

So, to get round this pain in the arse problem follow these simple steps:-

Ensure that your iPhone is connected
Open ‘My Computer’
Right Click on the ‘Apple iPhone’ icon
Select Properties
Pick the Events tab
Choose ‘Take no action’
Click ‘OK’

Now when you dock your iPhone the popup will not annoy you.

Problem selling iPhone on eBay

andij — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 21:14:06 +0000

So, as many people before me the new 3G iPhone proved to be enough of a temptation to upgrade from the original 1st generation. So after purchasing my upgrade and configuring it to my requirements I decided to sell my original iPhone on eBay. So I collected all the accessories and the box and took a few photos, spent a little time creating my eBay advert and placing it for sale.

I was happy to see that it went just over £215! I received an instant payment through PayPal then a phone call from the winning bidder asking about the condition of it and ensuring that I’d package it safely. The following day I duly wrapped and posted it using Royal Mail Special Delivery.

A few days later to my supprise I received an email from PayPal informing me that the payment was under investigation! Then the following day I received another email stating that the case was closed and the payment has been returned to the account holder. I therefor have no iPhone and no money in my paypal account!

It feels like someone has stolen my iPhone.

I can’t believe this has happened I was under the impression that eBay and PayPal had processes in place to ensure that this sort of thing does not happen.

I now have to go through the pain of complaining to PayPal and eBay. It’s come at a totally inconvinient time as I’m far too busy trying to start my freelace venture and to top it off I could really do with the cash.