Imagine the fun you could have if as if by magic, you could make any text you want, appear on your friends phone!

Well by using a service usually reserved for network operators, now you can!

Flash SMS Messages (also known as Operator/Carrier Messages) are generally used to alert users how much credit they have remaining or occasionally for promotional purposes by a users network but with a little bit of know how, anyone can make use of this.

There are many ways of sending them including an app for Symbian devices and Clickatell’s online SMS gateway but by far the easiest is using a hidden command within the iPhone SMS app.

Simply write *go immediately followed by the message you wish to send, without a space between the command and message.
Such as *goHello World.

All that left for you to do is come up with some witty messages to send to your (now ex) friends.

Pop over to my gallery for some more examples.

(Sidenote: Flash SMS messages can be send to most mobile phones, not just the iPhone, also it may not work in all regions outside Europe)

iPod Earbuds are smaller in Asia than those sold in the Western market
due to the smaller average Ear size in the East.

So for the first in this short series of Apps I couldn’t live without is NewsGator.
So what is NewsGator? Simply said it’s synchronized news feeds, doing for RSS what IMAP did for email.
News posts arrive on the server and are available for viewing via a very nice web based interface accessible from any computer.
Now there are several other services available which do just that, Google’s Reader being one of the most popular but where NewsGator comes into its own is that it has the ability to sync with its own Desktop and Mobile clients, which are available for Mac, Windows, iPhone & Java based handsets. So say for example I wake up in the morning and check my RSS feeds on NewsGators Mac client but only make my way through a few items before I have to head to work. So I get on the train and open up the iPhone client, which after automatically synchronizing displays the news items which I didn’t have time to read at home. By the time the train pulls in Iv read through all the feeds and put the iPhone away. Later on during the day I check online via the web based client at work and it shows me all the new news items since I got off the train.
Without NewsGator I would constantly be swamped with posts Iv already read or be faced with a mountain of new posts every time I get home.
Best of all its all free!

Tom

So out of sheer boredom today I plugged my SlingBox into my Virgin Media coaxial lead and told it to tune in using the onboard analogue cable tuner (Virgin supposedly shut down analogue cable some time ago). Besides the subscription free channels, static and audio I found this!

A Windows PC somewhere on the Virgin Media grid broadcasting various information for what I can only guess is for technicians.

What do you make of it?

So I finally decided to fork it out for one of those shitty mobile broadband dongles from 3, and the result is….
well its hard to tell as I haven’t taken it out and about yet but ill let you know,
but £15 a month for 12 months, 3gb a month @ 3mbps and a free hsdpa modem isnt bad going

Well after 27 months, its finally happened, the launch 360 that really could has finally died
Gave Microsoft a ring and (to there credit) are sending out a UPS van today to pick it up!
Hopefully It will be back with me before long
Thankfully it happened before my warranty run out!

Until then I think I can live with my PS3 and Wii.

Back in 1998 Apple released what at the time was the most controversial computer of the decade.
The iMac did away with Apple’s conventional ports and replaced them with the now de facto USB, which at the time was still an emerging technology.
But even more so was Apple’s brave decision to completely ditch the internal floppy drive, a close to dead storage medium today.
Sound familiar? Well its no shock to see 10 year on Apple have taken the same approach to the MacBook Air as they did with the iMac. Gone is the CD/DVD drive and the same goes for a majority of the I/O. This may seem daring today but Apple are setting the tone for the future, pioneers I dare say.
Physical storage mediums are on the out, every piece of software imaginable can now be downloaded and purchased online and the same goes for Music and now with Apple’s movie rental service, over 1000 movies (which will no doubt grow in a similar fashion to Music on iTunes over the coming years.)
Of course this doesn’t come without a transition period though, External floppy drives where big sellers alongside iMacs for several years and the same will be true for the MacBook Air, Apple are offering an external “Superdrive” and even take advantage of a PC or Mac’s internal Drive over a network as if it was inside the Air.
By the looks of things USB hubs will be popular sellers over the coming years, but by building in the latest generation WIFI and Bluetooth 2.0 its clear that Apple sees the future as a wireless one.
Is it too far ahead of its time or will it cause a stir in the industry? Only time will tell.

After downloading the somewhat anticipated iPhone 1.1.3 update last night and having a day to play with it, after initially low expectations Iv got to say its grown on me. Firstly the Home screen (now screen’s) has been updated to allow users to customize it by rearranging icons and adding bookmark style “webclips” to the Home screen which not only remember what part of the web page to look at when touched but even produce a little image based on the web sites design, very nice! Icons can also be re arranged by holding your finger over an icon and they begin to wobble, indicating they are ready to be rearranged to your hearts content! You can even swap out the icons in the Dock and arrange them onto separate Home screens though the Dock icons remain consistent and feels similar to Spaces (A feature of Apples Desktop Operating System.)

Im a big fan of Maps and id be (literally) lost without it and its received a much deserved pampering in the update. Firstly The “Locate Me” feature pings nearby cell (mobile phone) towers/marsts to triangulate your position. Though I thought this would be a bit gimmicky at first I have found it to be very accurate, even to around 5-10 meters in built up areas though this can grow over 200 meters in rural areas! Especially useful for when you get lost in town though! From here you can get directions to nearby Restaurants, Cinemas ect and pretty much any address with a ZIP/Postal code. The user interface has also had a makeover, the cluttered lower menu has been replaced by an elegant eye style button which peals the map upwards in a flip board like fashion unveiling a drop pin button (which lets you drop and drag a pin to wherever you want for safekeeping), Show Traffic and the different views which now has a much welcome new member, Hybrid, which lets you view an overlay of road names on top of a satellite view, which is useful when looking out for landmarks and road names simultaneously.

The iPod also get a gloss of paint which new chapter support for movies as well as lyrics support, which may be a niche market but Im sure more than enough people are going to love it.

The iPod touch wasn’t left out in the cold though, new iPod Touches will come pre installed with the update while existing owners can upgrade for $20 (which isn’t bad considering it includes 5 new apps (Mail, Maps, Notes, Stocks and Weather) a slightly updated interface to bring it inline with the iPhone.
That pretty much sums up the update, but with the SDK on track for a Late February Launch, more iPhone love should be coming our way soon
keep your eyes pealed!