Update on UK iPhone 3G availability

Posted on By Mark Wilson

iPhone 3G logoAfter Monday’s debacle with the O2 website being unable to respond to the demand for new iPhones, many O2 customers (myself included) received an SMS message this morning which said:

“O2: Unprecedented demand for iPhone 3G

If You tried to order an Apple iPhone 3G last Monday (7 July) and experienced difficulties, we’re really sorry.

To find out the latest details, click on http://shop.o2.co.uk/info/”

I clicked the link and, because I’m sure the notice will not remain on the site indefinitely, here’s a copy of what it says:

“iPhone 3G availability update

Summary
Thank you for your interest in iPhone 3G. We are experiencing unprecedented demand for the device and whilst we are confident that all customers who want iPhone 3G will get one by the end of this summer, initial supply is limited and will be for some weeks. Here is what you need to know:

  • O2 and Carphone Warehouse (CPW) stores will have limited numbers of iPhone 3G this Friday 11 July.
  • On average, we will only have a few dozen iPhone 3Gs per store (some stores more, some stores less, dependant upon store size so we expect to sell out quickly). Sales of iPhone 3G will be limited to one per customer and two for business customers.
  • Some O2 stores will open at 8.02am on Friday, others a bit later. Find out more
  • If you do go into an O2 store you will need 2 forms of identification, a valid credit or debit card and proof of address. If you are new to O2 you will also need to pass a credit check if you sign up for an iPhone 3G contract. The average sales transaction processing time will be 20 minutes.
  • Apple will be selling iPhone 3Gs in their stores, but please note that existing O2 customers can only upgrade in an O2 or CPW store.
  • We are working closely with Apple to get additional iPhone 3Gs. These will be coming in on a weekly basis. We’ll keep you posted on specific details by updating this web page regularly.
  • We are currently out of stock of iPhone 3Gs via our on-line store and customer services, we’ll update through www.o2.co.uk when more information becomes available.
  • If you have an existing iPhone you can still enjoy many of the new features by upgrading your software to version 2.0 from 11 July through iTunes.
  • We are sorry that we can’t meet all demand as quickly as we’d like but we’re sure that when you get your new iPhone 3G you’ll agree it’s been worth the wait.

If you are one of those customers who tried to use our Online shop on Monday, you might like to read on.

I am sorry that you had a frustrating experience in trying to order iPhone 3G. This note summarises why it happened and what happens now.

From the start, we felt it was important that people should be able to register that they were interested and be kept up to date with each part of the launch. As well as giving people the information they needed to get a new iPhone, it would give us an idea of how many iPhones we would need from Apple.

An amazing 200,000 people registered on the site. Apple can only supply us with a small proportion of that number to start with, but with weekly deliveries, we’re confident that everyone who wants an iPhone will be able to get one by the end of the summer. Until then, we realise that some people will be disappointed.

The people who’d registered on our site had the chance to order an iPhone before anyone else. We let them know that they could do this by going online on 7 July and we made it clear that it would be on a first come, first served basis to keep things fair, as stock was limited.

Naturally, we made sure we looked after people already on O2 as well as new customers. And in fact the orders that we received were split 50-50 between new and existing O2 customers.

What went wrong?
Because we were so open about where and when you could pre-order your iPhone, the online shop was always going to be busy. We tried to prepare for this by increasing the online shop’s capacity to 250 times its normal rate and testing it over and over again before the launch.

It wasn’t enough. I’m really sorry if you couldn’t get your order in. We weren’t prepared for the speed and volume of people. I’m not sure any website could have been.

What happens now?
If you ordered online and your order went through, we’ll text you by 6pm tonight, just to confirm. You’ll get your iPhone 3G delivered on Friday 11 July unless you live in one of these remote postcodes. If you haven’t had a text by then, I’m afraid your order wasn’t successful. Your options if you still want an iPhone will be to either go into a O2 store tomorrow and I would recommend you read the key points at the top of this page or alternatively, check the website in the future for stock availability.

Once again, I’m sorry if you had problems with the online shop on Monday. We’re working very closely with Apple to get as much stock as we can for the UK, as quickly as possible.

Thank you

Cheryl Black
Customer Service Director
O2″

Still no news on the white iPhone 3G. That’s the one I’ll be after.

Stop installing unnecessary software on my PCs

Posted on By Mark Wilson

What is it about software companies that they think they can install a load of rubbish on my PCs? This morning, Java was bugging me that it wanted to install an update. That’s fair enough but, as it installed, it asked me if I wanted to install OpenOffice too (I don’t) – I wouldn’t mind this so much if it wasn’t that the default state for the check box was selected.

Apple Software Update pestering for installation of Safari on WindowsNo sooner had Java finished updating itself then the Apple Updater popped up and said “hey, we’d like you to update QuickTime. We can’t be bothered to give you just a patch, so please download 29MB of our bloatware” (I said no because I was using a mobile connection), “and while you’re at it why not install our web browser that seems to have more than its fair share of security issues… that will be another 23MB” (of course, I am paraphrasing here – but you can see the dialog box… complete with checkbox selected by default. Can you imagine the uproar there would be if the Microsoft Office for Mac Updater tried to install another Microsoft product on people’s computers?

It’s not just the update programs either. I seem to recall that one time when I installed Adobe Reader it wanted to put some toolbar in my browser (no thanks). And, whilst they criticise (Windows) PC makers for shipping demo software on new PCs (in the “Stuffed” Get a Mac ad), Apple ships demo software on new Macs (albeit its a demonstration version of Microsoft Office).

Please! Stop installing this crapware. I want a tidy, secure system and the way to do that is to minimise unnecessary installs. Of course, as the software companies all know, 90% of PC users will click any old dialog box and that’s why their PCs run so slowly and fall over so often.

Camera warranty – not worth the paper it’s written on

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Last year, I bought a Canon Digital Ixus 70 to carry with me in my pocket when I don’t want to be lugging a DSLR and a bunch of lenses around. It’s been a great camera but, whilst we were on holiday a few weeks back, it stopped working.

I got in touch with Amazon (who sold it to me) and they said to contact Canon. Canon said to send it to one of their repairers (at my cost) and the repairers have written back and said it will cost £124.55 to fix it (more than it cost to buy in the first place) because it has sand inside.

I checked Canon’s warranty terms and conditions and, sure enough, there it is – the get-out clause is highlighted below (my emphasis):

“[…] 7. Unless agreed in writing, the Warranty will not apply: (a) because you have not used, stored or handled the Product properly; or because you are in breach of the terms of this warranty or the Contract terms, or have not followed Our instructions in the product manual, or those of the manufacturer; or because of damage or defect due to willful neglect or negligence by anyone other than Us; (b) to loss of quality, degradation of performance or actual damage that results from the use of spare parts or other replaceable items (such as consumables) that are neither made nor recommended by Canon; (c) to a loss of quality, degradation of performance or damage that results from the installation of, damage to, or modification to the Product and/or Software by someone else other than Our representatives or because of damage that results from changes required by you or a Third Party; (d) to damage that results from your connection of other fittings or accessories to the Product which We have not approved or your connection of other equipment or software not approved by Us; (e) because of external causes outside Our control which shall include accident, fire disaster or burglary; (f) because of faults caused by shock or fall, sand, dust, dirt, damp or corrosion, leaky batteries, repair or cleaning by unauthorised personnel; (g) because of any mal function or specific requirement of any other item of hardware, or software which you have linked to the Product in respect of items not included in the Contract; (h) to correct errors in any non-Canon proprietary software or other software not provided by Us; (i) because data is lost or damaged; (j) to damage caused by your attachment of the Product to a network not approved by Us or because you have made changes to your Operating or Network system in a manner not approved by Us; (k) because you have not installed any error correction that We issue for the software or have otherwise not followed Our reasonable instructions or advice. […]”

Basically, the warranty is useless. Dust will get into anything. Sand only got in because some blew onto the lens mechanism and was pulled back into the camera as the lens retracted. It’s not like I buried it on the beach and then expected it to work.

I’m sure that other camera manufacturer’s warranties are equally useless, but when I do get the camera back, I’ll be trying to fix it myself. The parts are only £39+VAT – its the £60+VAT labour that’s stinging me. And then they want £8.23 to send the camera back when it only cost me £5.05 to send it to them, using the same Royal Mail Special Delivery service… hmm…

In the meantime, does anyone know where I can buy spare parts for Canon cameras?

Preparing a 1st generation iPhone for resale

Posted on By Mark Wilson

In some ways, this post is of limited value – as it’s for a first generation iPhone, running on iPhone software v1.1.4 – both of which will become old technology on Friday 11 July 2008. Even so, I expect the market to be flooded with secondhand iPhones over the next few days and contract-free devices will sell for more money than those still locked to O2. In time, the hackers will unlock v2.0 iPhones but, for now, v1.1.4 is the one to get.

I’ve been happily using my iPhone on an O2 contract since last November but, tomorrow, my iPhone auction on eBay will end and I wanted to get it ready for sale.

iPhone working with a Vodafone UK SIMLast week, I unlocked (and “jailbroke”) the iPhone using iLiberty+ v1.5.1 for Mac and tested it with a Vodafone SIM (before listing it for sale) but tonight I followed the instructions to securely wipe the iPhone before I finally send it to the new owner.

When I first jailbroke my iPhone, I found that I’d entered a whole new world of mobile application possibilities. When I first thought about getting an iPhone and using it with my previous (Vodafone) contract, I was concerned about the impact of unlocking and jailbreaking the device but I am amazed to see just how many applications the AppTapp installer provides access to (especially with the Community Sources package installed). I really hope this ecosystem of iPhone underground application development is not killed off as the official Apple App Store route to market takes over but I guess, as long as the device is tied to a particular operator in each market, there will always be people who want to use their iPhone on another network (and I found that jailbreaking takes no more effort than unlocking the device).

So, with my iPhone restored to it’s factory defaults, then jailbroken, installer added to the splashscreen, the handset activated and unlocked, I set to work installing the BSD Subsystem 2.1 and OpenSSH. At first, I was downloading applications over O2’s 2G network, which took a long time (the BSD subsystem is 5.1MB), but then I figured I could share my MacBook’s Internet connection over Wi-Fi and that speeded things up considerably.

Even though I could ping the phone (the IP address is displayed in the Wi-Fi settings), I was having trouble connecting to the phone, with my terminal session reporting:

ssh: connect to host 10.0.2.3 port 22: Connection refused

Googling turned up various posts suggesting using the BossPrefs application to ensure that OpenSSH is running but I couldn’t get BossPrefs to complete its own installation.

Eventually, I figured that I could use iLiberty+ to install OpenSSH, after which I was able to copy a previously-downloaded copy of the umount utility to the iPhone:

scp ~/Desktop/umount root@ipaddress:/sbin/umount

After entering this command, something similar to the following should be displayed:

The authenticity of host ‘ipaddress (ipaddress)’ can’t be established.
RSA key fingerprint is 8d:0c:46:44:6c:ff:25:7c:c3:d6:49:1b:6a:c5:31:8b.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?

To which the, answer is yes. Then you should see:

Warning: Permanently added ‘ipaddress‘ (RSA) to the list of known hosts.

Next up, should be a password prompt:

root@ipaddress‘s password:

The default password (at least for iPhone v1.1.4) is alpine and, once this has been entered, umount should finally be copied to the iPhone:

umount                                        100%   15KB  14.6KB/s   00:00

A few more commands are used to set execute permissions on umount, to do some Unix magic with mountpoints and then to copy lots of nothingness across both the partitions, as Jonathan A. Zdziarski describes:

chmod 755 /sbin/umount
umount -f /private/var
mount -o ro /private/var
mount -o ro /
cat /dev/zero > /dev/rdisk0s2; cat /dev/zero > /dev/rdisk0s1

This will take a while (I think it was about 45 minutes in my case) and when it’s done, you should see a couple of I/O error messages and a return to the shell prompt (#):

cat: stdout: Input/output error
cat: stdout: Input/output error

The iPhone GUI is also likely to be unresponsive (that is expected).

So, with all data removed, I could put the iPhone into recovery mode once more to restore its factory settings and then jailbreak/activate/unlock it for the final time. After a test with the Vodafone SIM inside the iPhone to call my O2 SIM (in another handset) I had confirmed that the handset was successfully unlocked and ready for its new owner.

Setting up printers in Windows Server 2008

Posted on By Mark Wilson

For the last few months, I’ve been running Windows Server 2008 as my desktop operating system. It’s been rock solid, despite not being designed for laptop hardware and even if I can’t hibernate (because I have Hyper-V enabled).

Earlier today I needed to set up a network printer but I was getting an access denied message when I tried to create the TCP/IP port using the standard Printers applet in Control Panel (even though my domain account is a member of the local Administrators group). The workaround that I found was to use the Print Management snap-in to add the port and then add the printer. This does require the Print Services role to be enabled (or remote server administration tools to be present) but it also provides a much better interface for the task.

Now you can use a UK-registered iPhone at BT Openzone hotspots for free

Posted on By Mark Wilson

BT Openzone logoEarlier this evening, I was trawling through the fine print on the O2 website (hey, I have to do something whilst I’m eating alone in a hotel restaurant) and I found a reference to free Wi-Fi access from BT Openzone hot spots. Hang on – BT Openzone… that’s new! When did that happen?

Well, according to O2’s Wi-Fi FAQ it hasn’t happened yet but it will soon:

Wireless Hotspots
O2 has partnered with The Cloud to provide you with unlimited access to over 7500 public Wi-Fi hotspots across the UK on your iPhone. Excessive usage policy applies. From 11 July, you will also get access to 2000 Wi-Fi hotspots from BT Openzone.
Find the hotspots closest to you

O2 start page for iPhoneI tried to use the BT Openzone at the Hilton East Midlands hotel last night (7 July) with my iPhone and it worked. Just like at The Cloud, all I had to do was enter my mobile number, wait for the site to recognise my iPhone and then I was redirected to the O2 iPhone start page – which is a pretty good portal for iPhone users and even includes a hotspot finder.

O2 can be pretty shoddy at times but this is A Good Thing.

iPhone 3G sold out in the UK – at least for now

Posted on By Mark Wilson

iPhone 3G logoThis morning, at 8am (although I didn’t get the text message until 8.50), O2 (the sole UK mobile operator able to offer the Apple iPhone to its customers) started selling iPhone 3Gs online to people who had pre-registered their interest.

Given that O2 knew how many people had pre-registered, it’s logical to think that they might have been able to judge the demand – but apparently not.

Image showing the O2 iPhone upgrade website whilst unavailable

Aside from the fact that the upgrade site was unavailable from an iPhone (which is nothing short of bizarre) my reasons for being unable to access the site were entirely outside O2’s control (I was driving when I received the message and then in a client meeting until lunchtime) but one of my friends was experiencing poor website performance before 9 o’clock, then the site went down completely for most of the morning and, at lunchtime, O2 customer service told me that the 16GB models were all sold out (certainly people were complaining on the Apple discussion forums soon after that they could only get an 8GB iPhone 3G… although that thread now seems to have been removed). My friend did at least manage to get conformation that his order had been successful (after 6 hours of trying) but by late afternoon the O2 website was clear that there was no more stock available online and that there would be more information available on 10 July.

Image from the O2 website explaining that there are no more iPhones available online

I can’t help thinking that the whole thing was stage managed – after all what a great headline: iPhone 3G sold out from pre-orders alone. Except it’s not – there is still stock in stores waiting until 11 July – and there will be more online.

Clip from the O2 website explaining that iPhone upgrade deals are only available onlineWith special pricing available to existing customers who want to upgrade to the new handset, the message is far from clear with O2 staff giving conflicting information to customers. I’m now confident that I will not need my old phone at the time of upgrade (and it’s currently listed for sale on eBay) but, twice now, O2’s iPhone “customer service” team has told me that I will be able to upgrade in store, despite the local store telling me that upgrades are only available via customer service and the website clearly stating that:

“Existing iPhone customers upgrade early to the iPhone 3G before 11th October 2008.
Only available online.”

They were similarly uninformed about the availability of the white 16GB model but the O2 website currently states that iPhone 3G is only available in black and there are rumours of an O2 internal memo that suggests the white iPhone 3G it is 3-4 weeks away.

And, even though they have told me that “there is no extra charge for Exchange Active Sync”, I won’t be surprised if I later find that only business customers can access this service.

I might get myself down to an O2 or Apple store on Friday but I’m already starting to question whether I really need (as opposed to want) 3G or GPS…

Having said that, I was equally ambivalent about the original iPhone and now I’m worried about how I will manage for a few weeks without it!

Useful Hyper-V links

Posted on By Mark Wilson

In the week or so since Hyper-V RTMed there has been a huge amount of coverage on various websites. Here’s a roundup of some of the more useful articles that I’ve come across recently:

I have a new printer to install – but where has the OS X Printer Setup Utility gone?

Posted on By Mark Wilson

After many years of faithful service, my HP LaserJet 2200dn has started printing black lines and ghosting all over the page. Because most of my printing is for work, I asked the company to finance the repairs (or to provide a replacement) and, because they are so serious about green IT (erhum…), rather than use their engineering resource to work out what was wrong and buy the appropriate consumables, they have given me a new printer (an HP Officejet 6310 All-in-One, which seems to be a nice device but it is an inkjet – so expensive to run – and an unnecessary waste of resources as the old printer could have been fixed).

Predictably, I’m having problems installing the software on 64-bit Windows Server 2008 but I’m sure I’ll get there if I do some research (which I won’t at 10pm on a Sunday), but the XP installation on another PC was straightforward (if bloated and time consuming) and the Mac installation seems to have gone reasonably well too (using Bonjour to track down the device on the network). The only catch on the Mac seems to be that the software is written for Mac OS X up to 10.4 and I’m running 10.5.3. This means that some of the hooks in the installer didn’t work – like when it was looking for the printer setup utility and it seems that utility does not exist in Leopard. Luckily, the Leopard’s lost features blog pointed me in the right direction:

“Tiger’s ‘Printer Setup Utility’ has been removed, and all printer configuration is now done and managed exclusively through the Print & Fax system preference pane.”

I hate blog spam…

Posted on By Mark Wilson

As I write this, Akismet is telling me that it has trapped 1988 spam comments in the last 7 days and Bad Behavior has blocked a further 5437 access attempts from known “bad” IP addresses over the same period. That’s pretty alarming – given that this is a pretty small blog run by one bloke in his spare time (albeit one with quite a lot of posts)… thank goodness I have these tools to help me out (I’ve long since given up checking for false positives).

I do moderate comments on the blog and some of the spammers are pretty blatant – stuff with suspect links like the spam e-mails we all get in our Inbox – but, as far as I know, none of those are live on the site. There are others that are more devious and, despite my rules for comments being pretty clear that I don’t welcome blog spam, if their product links are relevant to the discussion, then I’ll generally turn a blind eye (although one guy did repeatedly spam me to promote his product and then had the nerve to e-mail and request a direct link – as you can imagine, my answer was not a positive one).

Then, this afternoon, I noticed a very sly spammer. Some time back, I wrote a post that commented on how, after Nationwide Building Society suffered the theft of a notebook PC with several million customer records, they wrote to my two-year-old son and asked him to show the letter to his parent or guardian! I (somewhat provocatively) titled the post “a lack of business intelligence” and this seems to have grabbed the attention of a blog spammer…

You see, when someone leaves a comment on this blog, WordPress tells me their IP address (as detailed in the privacy policy and data protection notice for this site). I’ve removed the commenter’s personal details but do you notice anything strange about the following comment?

Author : [name removed] (IP: [IP address removed] , inetgw04.unx.sas.com)
E-mail : [e-mail address removed]
URL :
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=[IP address removed]
Comment:
I have just taken a job as a CIO at midsize corporation and have been tasked with implementing BI within the organiztion. This is new territory for me as I was working at a smaller company basically insuring that the essential computing infrasture was in place to insure day to day operations. One book I was going to mention that has been helpful to me is Business Intelligence Books – Successful Business Intelligence: Secrets to Making BI a Killer App [link removed]. I would be intersted to hear what others are reading out there.

It’s the reverse lookup on the IP address that gives it away. So you are a CIO at a midsize corporation are you? Well your e-mail seems to have coming from a pretty large business intelligence company (although it’s not clear what they have to do with the book that is being promoted).

It’s not the first time that a large company has spammed this blog. After I criticised Dell for their customer service (and to be fair they worked hard to rectify the situation – for which I gave them credit at the time), someone called “Anonymous” left a comment which linked to a forum post showing HP in a negative light. I smelt a rat and checked their IP address – sure enough it was registered to Dell Computer Corporation.

I really do hate blog spam…