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I've always found it a pain to test in the various versions of Internet Explorer. In Windows, there's no easy way to install multiple versions, so whether you are working on a physical Windows machine, or a virtual machine via Parallels, VMware or some other virtualization software, proper testing in IE always required at least two or three separate machines.

The other day a co-worker showed me a cool little setup that will allow you to test in IE5, 5.5, 6, and 7 on the same physical Windows XP machine. I suppose this would also work on a virtualized copy of Windows XP on a Mac, but since this solution involves virtualization, you'd be running a virtual machine inside of another virtual machine, which means you'd need a heck of a powerful system.

Assuming you are running Windows XP, you should already have a copy of IE7 installed. One IE down, 3 more to go. So, here's how to get the rest of them:

1. Download VirtualBox and follow the installation instructions.
2. Grab the .iso for your choice of Linux distro (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Fedora, Gentoo, Debian, Suse, Mandriva, or PCLinuxOS should work at the time of this writing) . I used Ubuntu in my setup.
3. Launch VirtualBox and setup a new virtual machine for your Linux distro.
4. Start the virtual machine and follow the prompts in the First Run wizard, making sure to set your media source to the Linux .iso you just downloaded.
5. Click Finish at the end of the wizard and your Linux distro should start the installation process (this process will vary depending on your distro of choice).
6. Visit the IEs4Linux website and follow the instructions to install cabextract, Wine and IEs4Linux.
7. Once you're done with the install, you should have icons on your Linux desktop for each of the IEs that you installed. Just double-click and point them at the URL you want to test!

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Well, I just got done doing the last bit of troubleshooting I can do on my ancient 40-hour TiVo. It's been a reliable unit for the past 3 years or so, but I came home the other night to find it stuck on the "Powering On..." screen.

I checked various online forums and came up with a few things to try, so I cracked open the case and started going through the steps one-by-one: First, I checked that all the connections were solid... nothing was loose. Next, I replaced the IDE cable... no luck. Then, I took the hard-drive out and connected it to my laptop via an external USB drive bay.... powered up and reported all its partitions fine.

The problem could be that all the partitions are intact but the operating system is corrupt, I suppose. The OS X Disk Utility told me that it couldn't read from the drive. I'm not sure if it's because the data is corrupt or it has a different file system. I'm guessing the latter, but I don't know of any way to tell for sure. The only other possible cuprits are parts that I don't have access to replace myself, like the power supply and motherboard.

At this point, I see myself having a few options:

1. Replace the hard-drive and hope for the best. I found a few places online that sell drives you can pop right in and you're good to go (assuming that the hard drive is the point of failure, which I'm still not sure of). But, the preloaded drives are almost as expensive as replacing the whole unit, so I don't really see that as much of an option.
2. Buy a new TiVo. I could replace my current unit with one of the same model for a little over $100, but I've been wanting to increase the capacity for a while, so I'd be back in that boat all over again. I could also spring for one of the new upgraded units, but these cost more than I want to spend for a fancy VCR.
3. Try to convince Apple to make the Apple TV do what it should have been able to do from the start - act as a DVR! I know this isn't really an option, but I've always wondered (now more than ever) why Apple ignored this feature set in a product that seems so well positioned to provide it. There are some technical issues with the current encarnation of Apple TV that would need to be addressed, such as adding a coaxial input and a way to encode/decode the video, but these don't seem like insurmountable tasks. What Apple would end up with would be a unit that provides a lot more value to the consumer, not just another way buy stuff from the iTunes store. I would never buy an Apple TV in its current form, but I probably would if it was a DVR as well! And you know it would have a beautiful interface and be a breeze to use because it's an Apple product!

So, here's to hoping that Apple realizes what Apple TV could be. I'm sure I'll break down and do something before Apple does, but until then, it's back to watching live TV and sitting through commercials for me.

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After expressing my aggravation with not being able to view the source for an iPhone project I've been working on, a co-worker quickly found a cool little bookmarklet that allows you to "View Source" on the iPhone itself.

Of course, you can also get the User Agent Switcher for Firefox and enter the appropriate parameters to fake an iPhone, but in my case, for some reason I thought it was something specific to Safari. Turns out it was not, but nevertheless, the bookmarklet is still very cool for tracking down potential Safari-specific issues!

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For those of you who haven't checked it out yet, the IUI is a great library created by Joe Hewitt (the same guy who brought us Firebug) for creating iPhone-like web applications. Overall, I love how easy it is to create screens, transition between screens, submit forms via AJAX and much more. However, while working on my first iPhone-targeted web project, I came across an issue.

There a few special hrefs that can be used to launch iPhone functionality such as the Google Maps application (using an href that begins with "http://maps.google.com") or prompting the user with a dialog box that allows them to dial the linked phone number (using an href that begins with "tel:"). Since the IUI intercepts the click event on links and prevents their default behavior, it ends up overriding this functionality.

While I was searching the web for a workaround, I found a few sites that said that the IUI code had to be modified in order to make these special hrefs work, but they didn't say exactly how. So, here's my solution:

For all links that launch iPhone functionality that you don't want the IUI to override, assign them a type of "iphone" like this:

<a href="tel:9043430030" type="iphone">Click to dial the number</a>

Then modify iui.js. I'm showing the whole block of code, so you can see the changes in context, but the only changes necessary are to lines 174 and 175. I'm using version 0.13 in the example below, so your line numbers may be different depending on the IUI version.

addEventListener("click", function(event)
{
    var link = findParent(event.target, "a");
    if (link)
    {
        function unselect() { link.removeAttribute("selected"); }
 
        if (link.href && link.hash && link.hash != "#")
        {
            link.setAttribute("selected", "true");
            iui.showPage($(link.hash.substr(1)));
            setTimeout(unselect, 500);
        }
        else if (link == $("backButton"))
            history.back();
        else if (link.getAttribute("type") == "submit")
            submitForm(findParent(link, "form"));
        else if (link.getAttribute("type") == "cancel")
            cancelDialog(findParent(link, "form"));
	else if (link.getAttribute("type") == "iphone")
	    return;
        else if (link.target == "_replace")
        {
            link.setAttribute("selected", "progress");
            iui.showPageByHref(link.href, null, null, link, unselect);
        }
        else if (!link.target)
        {
            link.setAttribute("selected", "progress");
            iui.showPageByHref(link.href, null, null, null, unselect);
        }
        else
            return;
 
        event.preventDefault();
    }
}, true);

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I learned the hard way that the iPhone's battery won't last long if you are careless with your settings. Use these steps to maximize the time between charges.

1. Setup a Gmail account as a proxy for your other mail accounts so your phone will only have to check one place for all your mail.
2. Set the Mail application to check for mail less often. Do you really need to check your email every 15 minutes?
3. Turn off "Ask to join networks" in your WiFi settings.
4. Set the brightness to a lower level or turn on Auto-Brightness.
5. Turn off Bluetooth when not in use.
6. Set a short auto-lock time.
7. Turn off keyboard sounds.
8. Bonus step - Stop watching so much YouTube!

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Shortly after I got my iPhone, I set it up to retrieve my email via the Mail application that comes with the phone. I have three email addresses for various purposes, so I set each of them to check once every 15 minutes. What I didn't think about was how much battery power all that checking would use. I soon found out that this (in combination with a few other things) was causing my battery to last less than a day. An additional frustration was that I had multiple inboxes on my phone and had to flip between them when I received mail at different addresses.

My solution was two-fold:

1. I set the Mail application to check less often, since, in reality, none of the email I receive is so important that I need to get it within 15 minutes. I set mine for 30 minutes, but you can set yours to whatever is comfortable for you.
2. I setup a Gmail account to act as a proxy (Google calls it Mail Fetcher) for the rest of my accounts.

Gmail will allow you to check up to 5 accounts (via POP), which means that it will fetch mail from your other accounts (and delete it from the other server once it's done if you choose). The result is that you only have one place (Gmail) to check for all your mail.

Here's how you do it:

1. Login to you Gmail account
2. In the upper-right corner, click "Settings".
3. Click the "Accounts" tab.
4. In the "Get mail from other accounts:" section, click "Add another mail account".
5. Enter the email address from which you wish to retrieve mail, then click the "Next step" button.
6. Enter your username, password, and provider's POP settings (Gmail will give you suggestions. Usually, you can accept the defaults. If these don't work, visit your email provider's website for more information.)
7. Make sure to check "Leave a copy of retrieved message on the server." if you don't want your mail deleted from your other mail provider's server. (You'll want to do this if you check your mail from multiple locations.)
8. You will receive a message saying that you are now able to receive mail from the address you entered. It will also ask you if you want to be able to send mail from the address as well. If not, then select "No", click the "Finish" button, then skip to step 12. If so, then select "Yes", click the "Next Step" button, and continue to step 9.
9. Enter the name you want others to see when you send mail from this address, optionally, specify a different reply-to address, then click the "Next Step" button.
10. You will be presented with a screen telling you that you have to verify that you own the email address you are asking Gmail to send from. Click the "Send Verification" button to be sent an email to the address you have specified.
11. Once you receive the email, click the link to verify the address, or enter the code provided in the email.
12. Repeat for each of your accounts.
13. Set up Mail on your phone to access only your Gmail account.
14. You're done! Fewer accounts to check = more battery life and less confusion flipping through folders on your phone!

As an added bonus, Gmail has great spam filtering, so hopefully, you'll have less spam to sift through as well!

Related post: 7 Simple Steps to Conserve iPhone Battery Power

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With so many negative customer service experiences to be had these days, I thought I'd share a positive one...

I bought a MacBook Pro last February and have been absolutely thrilled with it, but noticed that a small issue was developing with the power adapter. The rubber covering on the cord had started to pull back from the power supply part. (See image left - taken with my iPhone while standing in line at the Apple store.)

So, with adapter in hand, I headed into the Apple store expecting to be told that I'd have to send it back and pay for shipping, or worse yet, have to raise hell to get them to replace it at all. However, this was entirely not the case.

I walked up to the first associate I saw and explained the issue. He told me to stand in line and they would get me a new one. Sure enough, about three minutes later, I got the front of the line and they had a brand new one in the box waiting for me behind the counter. No hassle, no arguing, nothing. They sent the receipt to me via email and off I went with my new adapter.

There was also a bonus to the adapter breaking. The new power supply units are smaller by about 25% or so, so now I have a less bulky unit to try to fit into my laptop bag!

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I've had my iPhone for about 2 weeks and I have to say that I absolutely love it! However, as capable as the iPhone is, there are a few areas where I feel Apple dropped the ball. More specifically, features that other cheaper, less technologically advanced phones provide, but are lacking on the iPhone.

MMS

When you receive what should be an MMS (picture or video) message on the iPhone, instead, you receive a text message asking you to go to viewmymessage.com and type in an alpha-numeric message ID and password. This means that you have to leave the SMS application to launch Safari and type in the address (or use a previously saved bookmark) to get to the site. Then you'd better have a really good memory or you'll have to flip back and forth between the SMS application and Safari to type in the message ID and password (it's different every time). Finally, after submitting your login credentials, you're brought to a page that shows your message.

I really like the way the iPhone shows text messages in a chat format, but Apple should have figured out a better way to handle picture and video messages.

Copy, cut, or paste

The iPhone is missing these functions all together. This makes the MMS situation especially painful when you have to type in the message ID and password. If copy and paste were available, entering a random ID and password might be a little more bearable.

Ringtones

Apparently, Apple decided that they needed to squeeze another $0.99 out of their customers to create their own "custom" ringtones. Basically, you have to pay $0.99 to download a song from the iTunes Music Store, then another $0.99 to convert it to a ringtone. The interface that Apple provides to do this has been described as "Garage Band-like".

Hey Apple, here's an idea: How about you let people use their own mp3 files that they've ripped from CDs they've already purchased, and if they need to edit them, they can use Garage Band?! I mean, come on, I could do this with my Motorola RAZR with no problem. Isn't the iPhone supposed to be far more advanced?

Tether using Bluetooth

Or should I say tether using any means! Again, I could do this very easily with my RAZR. The iPhone is a completely data and Internet-centric device. Why can't I do this?

Send text messages to multiple recipients

When selecting recipients in the SMS application, the iPhone only allows you to choose one contact for each new message. I did find a pseudo-solution at iphonefaq.org, which allows you to send a message to multiple recipients and gets around the fact that you can't send MMS message from the iPhone, but it is far from ideal. Ironically enough, this solution doesn't work as well for iPhone users as it does others. Recipients using iPhones will still be directed to viewmymessage.com.

Multiple pictures via email

The only way to send a picture in an email is to go to the photo in your photo library, tap on the icon in the lower left corner, and select "Email Photo". This will bring up a new email with the photo already embeded in the body. From within the mail application, there is no way to add another photo. If you return to your photo library and try to repeat the process, as soon as you select an album, it returns you to your mail message.

Third-party applications

I have to admit that I haven't really found any applications that I can't live without that aren't available via Safari as a web application. However, I think that this is something that Apple should allow. There are some applications that just don't work as well on the web as they do as a client-installed application. Hundreds of applications were created with the idea that they could be run on the iPhone, only to be broken by update 1.1.1. Once again, my RAZR would run third-party Java applications just fine.

P.S. If anyone has a solution for any of these problems that works on an unhacked iPhone, please leave me a comment.

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