iPad, iPhone4 and MiFi Router

If you were lucky enough to have been given some spending money at Christmas, then it might be burning a hole in your pocket leaving you desperate to dash out and buy the latest gadget

But beware – starting in less than a week is CES – the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas!

This is a huge annual event where all the major electronics manufacturers get together and release their latest products.

So gadget lovers this is good news and bad!

If you’re the kind of person who can’t wait for the latest model, then you best hold your horses until January 13th when CES closes and all the latest gadgets will have been launched.

If however, you’re a bargain hunter, then you should find that the previous generation of gadgets are starting to drop in price now and will continue to drop as the new ones are launched starting on January 10th.

You can expect to see a variety of “Smart” TVs launched from various manufacturers over the three day event, also likely to include some partnerships with big companies like Google, offering a new breed of Internet connected Televisions with additional video services being provided online

Apple fans should note that whilst nobody knows when or if Apple will release new products, the iPad 3 is rumoured not to be released until later this year (March perhaps!) although CES is expected to bring a large number of tablet devices from other Manufacturers that will push Apple to launch something special to stay ahead of the game.

Stay tuned to Urban Haze via Twitter and Facebook to keep up to date with Gadget News

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The update offers a few features, but the major one is that it fixes what has been a major problem for the iPhone 4S in that the battery drained way to fast.

How to Install?

If you want to add the 5.0.1 update to your iPhone without using your computer you’ll need to have iOS 5 installed on it already.  If you do, then here’s what to do:

 Go into the settings

Then choose General

Then choose Software Update
If you don’t see this then you probably don’t have iOS5 installed yet – In which case, plug your iPhone into your computer, load up iTunes and follow the same procedure you’ve done before to get the latest update

If you’ve made it to Software Update, then click the “Download and Install” button

Then you’ll have to agree to the Terms and Conditions – have a good read of the legalese here (you probably won’t, but we have to tell you to!) then that’ll start the download.

It warns you to connect your machine to power to save battery – but with more than 50% battery life, I decided to ignore this!

The download itself came down in just a couple of minutes, and even that seemed to eat through the battery

Once downloaded it starts “preparing” the update which takes another couple of minutes

Then it verifies the update

Then finally you get a 10 second warning the your iPhone will restart

By this time the battery power had dropped to 49% on the iPhone 4S

This was the only stage that was a little shaky in the installation – you get a few black screens, pinwheels, Apple logos and a progress bar which moves along until it completes then you finally you get a black screen.

This leaves you wondering “is it finished?”

To answer the question yes, it was finished, but there’s nothing to tell you that, and actually the update says it’s going to “restart” your iPhone when actually it doesn’t

You have to then hold down the top button for a couple of seconds and your machine comes back to life

It doesn’t quite seem to have a normal start here either – which again is slightly worrying, it takes a minute or so, with a black screen, an Apple logo and another progress bar – but don’t Panic!
…just let it do its thing and eventually you’ll get back to the normal lock screen.

For me there was another little problem here in that it made some complaint about the “Apple Find Friends” app that I’d installed not being logged in, but entering the password solved that problem.

Is it worth it?

Right now it’s too soon to say if this has actually improved battery performance although I have read some good (if not amazing) reviews on the Internet from people who’ve been Beta testing this update.

If you’ve got an Australian accent, then this update is also supposed to help Siri better recognise what you’re saying (no mention on if there’s improvements for people with Scottish accents) and it’s also supposed to add some security updates, so since it doesn’t do any harm, then yes, I think it’s worth it!

Having said all that, the installation for the iPad2 went completely smoothly, and it did reboot itself and there were no complaints about the Find Friend App.  So I could have just been unlucky.
Then again, there could be a few little bugs with the iPhone 4S – I’d be interested to hear what other people think, please use the comments below to share your own experiences with this update.

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What an amazing place – a huge estate of land with pieces of artwork dotted around the landscape.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park also welcomes Dogs (on leads) so Rufus and Sox were able to join in and have a great day out too.

Here’s some of my favourite photos taken on the day:

We can offer 3D canvas prints of these images:

• 40cm x 30cm from £75
• 110cmx47cm from £150

Urban Haze offers a wide range of digital photography services – for more information, please contact us

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This is a long overdue review of that rather funky piece of machinery.

Price

First of all, this Sony Machine does not come cheap, retailing at £119.99, although shop around, you may find one for less than £90.  Having said that, the cost is pretty justifiable, as not only is this an alarm clock and iPhone charger, it also has a 7 inch display

Compatibility

Although the display was originally designed to work with iPods although I’m pleased to announce it works with the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S on iOS5 (although this does require a firmware upgrade – see below) and this is where this machine begins to live up to it’s “Dream Machine” name.

There’s a hidden dock that pops out of the right hand side of this machine.   Once extended, you’ve got a choice of dock “templates” – although if you remove all the templates, you’ll find that an iPhone 4 or 4S will connect properly and stand up nicely even with a case on it like the Griffin Reveal Etch, although the iPhone doesn’t actually rest on the plastic of the dock, it does need the connector itself to stand upright – but after using this for a year I’ve found it’s solid enough

The 7″ Screen

One of the great features of this alarm clock is its 7″ screen – this displays the time in nice big numbers, useful if you’re going a bit short sighted!

It’ll also display a slideshow of your favourite pictures, copied from either USB or memory card.  But this screen really comes into its own when it’s used in conjunction with the iPhone.  Just to be clear up front, it doesn’t display everything – although the list of what does work is quite impressive:

• YouTube videos
• iPhone Movies / TV shows
• Video Streaming from Web Browsers

What this means is that if you subscribe to the free TV Catchup service and can access WiFi from your bedside, then you can actually watch about 50 TV channels on the 7″ screen.

Having said that, I think our friends from Sony may have missed an obvious flaw in their cunning plan – in that one of the main feature of this device is that it’s designed to be a bedside alarm clock, and the nature of being by the side of a bed usually implies that the viewer is lying down in bed, and looking to the bed-side at the device.

Quite simply, this means in practical terms is that you’re looking at the screen either sideways or at an angle – which takes a bit of getting used to!!

Speakers and Sound

One of the other great features is the sound quality – this is something Sony have plenty of experience of, and I’m pleasantly surprised that for such a little machine the sound is clean, clear, covers a wide range of tones, has nice bass quality and not at all tinny – much better than the speaker on the iPhone, so this makes listening to music in sleep mode before you doze off a pleasant experience.

Firmware 1.10

In order to use an iPhone 4S, you’re going to need to follow the instructions provided by Sony to upgrade the firmware on this machine to the latest version (1.10 at the time of writing)  If you use an earlier version of Firmware, the iPhone 4S will still charge, but the ICF-CL75iP won’t recognise it to play its music or videos.

When you do upgrade the Firmware, make sure you follow the instructions carefully – I made the mistake of using a small SD card and kept getting the following error: “There is no system.img AND resource.img file in memroy card, update can’t continue…” (yes “memroy”, not memory!)

But when I put a larger card it, the upgrade went very smoothly and I was pleased to find that it had still remembered all my images for the slide show – so no need to reload those.

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This alert happens when Windows detects new software that it doesn’t recognise running on the system that is trying to access the Internet.

Having looking into this, it seems that netsession_win.exe looks like it’s part of a piece of safe software from a well known and trusted company called Akamai.  You might not have heard of Akamai, but the chances are that you’ll be using their services every day as they provide Internet acceleration services to many well known brands.

So the question arises why did Windows try to block netsession_win.exe if it’s safe?

Truth be known, your Windows computer runs lots of stuff in the background that you hardly ever see, and if it’s working properly, then you never really should see it or have to care about it, so at this stage it looks like it’s a mistake – which is why you’re seeing this message.

Whilst we can’t say definitely one way or another because it’s still too early to tell, we’ve decided that Akamai is a reputable brand, so we’re going to allow this, and so far there’s been no problems

(Urban Haze accepts no responsibility for changes you make to your computer as a result of reading this article or any other information on this web site!!)

If you see a similar message but it has a different path or name, then be warned – this is something different from Akami’s netsession_win.exe
- so leave it blocked and seek technical help from your nearest friendly computer geek!!
Please follow us on Twitter to get updates on this, as well as Internet, IT and digital photography related information

If you’d like to share any other useful information about this, please feel free to comment below

By the way, just a little shameless self promotion before you go:

Most likely you found this page because you searched for something in Google and this page came up top of the list.  The reason you found this article above others is because this page has been search engine optimised by Urban Haze.  Search Engine Optimisation is a technique to help ensure your web site is found above others, and its success is demonstrated by the simple fact that you’ve arrived here and are reading this right now!

If you would like some help to Search Engine Optimise the pages on your own web site, so that you stand out from the crowd and ahead of your competition, then please contact us for further information

No related posts.

We use a variety of different software to suit individual business needs.

But one of the most popular e-commerce tools we use is E-commerce Templates.
This software is cost effective and incredibly adaptable to suit the needs of most businesses.

It does require some technical skill to get it set up, but once up and running, provides a solid platform for businesses to sell their products online.

Urban Haze has plenty of experience of setting up E-commerce Templates sites and can help handle all the technicalities to turn your needs into a high quality online shop, leaving you to concentrate on running your business, whilst your online shop generates an additional revenue stream.

If you’d like further information about us help you set up an online store, please contact us

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Shh, it’s a Secret!

Apple, very cleverly always generates a great deal of hype about their media events by just hinting at what’s going on – which leads to vast amounts of speculation.  Take a  look at the picture they sent on the press invitation (right) it’s icons from the iPhone:

• The Calendar app Icon, showing Tuesday 4th (tomorrow’s date)
• The Clock app Icon, showing 10:00 (the time of the event in the US) – 6pm in the UK!
• Then the maps app icon – a range of speculation over why this is relevant
• The the phone app icon showing one new notification – again a range of speculation over why this is relevant
• The title “Let’s talk iPhone” – hmmn, wonder what that could mean?!

Not an Apple Lover? – this may still be important to you!

There’s lots of speculation over what might be launched tomorrow – including a new iPhone (could be iPhone 5 or an “iPhone 4s or both) but one other thing that’s also possible is that Apple’s mobile operating system iOS5 will come out of testing and be released into the real world tomorrow.

One thing about iOS5 is that it works very closely with Twitter so it’s likely to encourage a surge of iPhone, iPad and iPod users to use Twitter.

If you’re new to Twitter – check out Urban Haze’s free Twitter Guide for beginners and Facebook users

To Tweet or Not To Tweet – That is the Question

To me, today, there seems to be a divide in this world between those people that Tweet and those people that couldn’t care less about Twitter – funnily enough I know quite a lot of people who are in relationships with one partner in each camp #MakeLoveNotWarOverTwitter !

With the launch of iOS5, this balance could well tip 0r the divide could indeed grow – as Twitter becomes more accessible to more people, which could either make it as popular as Facebook, or generate peer pressure that some people will bend to whilst others will fight hard against it.

Not a Friend of Birds or Apples? – this may STILL be important to you!

Even if you’re not into Twitter, and not an Apple Lover, this could still be important as Apple may release some kind of new innovative technology that pushes the market into a new way, after all, Tablet computers were around long before the iPad, but only once the iPad was announced did they start becoming popular.

Some people may argue that Apple products have also been responsible for pushing other innovations such as touch screens, personal music players, portable GPS and suchlike.  And the rumour mill is mumbling about.

My wild guess will be something to do with speech recognition, which, similar to tablets has been around for a long time, but never been hyped about – like countless other companies before them Apple may not have perfected it either, but they’ll have the marketing power to make it popular and push the industry to create the technology that does work and eventually leads to machines like those in Star Trek!

Still Not Interested?

Well, if you’re not a fan of Apple products, and you’re not into Twitter, and you’re not interested in new technology or gadgets, and you’re not interested in wild speculation about what will be announced tomorrow or what it could do for the world – then first of all I’d like to thank you for coming along, reading this blog and getting this far!

But secondly I’d like to say that even if this event is not for you, it’s likely to be exciting for somebody you know (you’re never more than 3 meters from a geek – or is that rats?) – so anyway – let us geeks have our extra Christmas Eve today, it’s present unwrapping time tomorrow!

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iPhone 4

Well my Vodafone Mobile Contract is finally up for renewal.
I’ve written a couple of blogs about Tethering which have proven to be quite popular, so hopefully this article will help advise other Vodafone customers (and those of other networks) about renewing their contract.

Contract Renewal Date – Put it in your Diary!

The first thing of note is that Vodafone, like many other Mobile Phone companies don’t really go out of their way to tell you that your contract is about to expire – sure they’ll tell you when you’re signing up and they’ll tell you if you ring and ask – but don’t expect any kind of pro-active notification, they’ll just let it expire, then roll over to the next month (beware your services and pricing may change once your contract is expired)

So my first tip is to make a note in your diary of the contract expiry date, and also put in another reminder 3-4 weeks before it’s up to give you time to sort things out.

Do Your Homework

First Have a look round on the web and see what the competitors are offering – generally I find that Three, Orange, Tesco and GiffGaff tend to offer good deals that will push Vodafone (don’t forget O2, although I find that they do tend to be quite similar to Vodafone in pricing)

Ask local friends on those other networks what the reception/coverage is like and ask them what kind of deals they get!

Next have a good look at your Vodafone account, recent bills and see what you actually use currently.
Don’t forget, if your contract originally included a handset, then you can always keep using that handset – which will now is paid for as soon as your contract is up, so your monthly cost should come down!

See What They’ll Offer You

3-4 weeks before your contract is up, get in touch with Customer Services (191 on your Vodafone handset)

The automated service will ask you to enter your PIN

Then choose option 3 for “Upgrades or Anything Else”

Then choose option 2 “If you’re thinking about leaving us” (not option 1 for “upgrades”)
I think this is kind of critical – the assumption is that you’re going to leave, not that you want to carry on and upgrade.

The Vodafone Call Centre rep will ask you some more security questions (if you ask me, this is overkill, as even my bank only asks for my card and PIN, Vodafone knows its you from your mobile number already, asks for a PIN and then for some reason asks further security questions!!) then you can actually get down to business…

Negotiate

These Call Centre People are nice enough and will do their best for you, but do push them a bit by using the information you’ve gathered on your homework.

They generally don’t offer much different from the prices displayed on the web site, but they will try for you
Please keep in mind that at this level, these people can only do so much, and they do have a job to do, so don’t be rude to them if you don’t get the deal you want!

NEVER ACCEPT THEIR FIRST OFFER

This is the crux, whatever they offer, tell them that it’s not as good as you’ve got elsewhere (ideally your homework in the previous steps will back this up)
And ask them for your PAC code.

Your PAC code is a unique code that allows you to transfer your number to another network, it’ll take a couple of days for them to generate the code and then the PAC code is valid for 3o days.
Note: If you don’t use your PAC code then nothing will change!!

Then Just Wait (don’t forget you’ve got 3-4 weeks before your contract is up!)

This is the stage I’m at, at the moment, so from here on it’s speculation based on previous experience!…

From previous experience, it seems that requesting a PAC code starts some kind of escalation procedure within Vodafone and before long somebody from Vodafone calls your mobile (I’ve know their number show up in caller line ID as 0808 002 4636 It might be worth putting that 0808 number into your contact list, so if they call you, then you’ll be prepared and know what to expect!) to ask why you’re leaving and to see if they can do a better deal.

At this point put on your very best negotiation skills and squeeze them hard – baby!

I’ve also seen that the same procedure of escalation and calls from a retention department after requesting a PAC works with Three, I’d imagine other networks will be similar.

What to do Next?

So far, every time they’ve called me, they’ve been in a position to offer a better deal than than I could get when calling customer services.

In the past I’ve known the “Retentions Department” Rep offer a better deal and say that this is a one-time deal that you have to take here and now – to me this is a bit like high pressure sales.

Up to now I’ve always given in with Vodafone Rep who’s offered me a better deal, but it’s up to you if you want to take the money and run and try your luck for an even better deal still!
This is where your homework will come in handy again, know what deals you can get from competitors, so that you’ve always got a worst case scenario to fall back on even if you leave your current provider.
The only counter arguments they’ll have to that is that their network offers clearer reception or more coverage – which may be true, but you’ll know this if you’ve asked your friends on those other networks – and don’t forget, you can always counter that argument by telling them that you spend a lot of time in an area where you KNOW that a competitor offers better reception than they do – say at work or something!

Having said that I’ve given up at that second step with Vodafone, I’ve had the same thing with Three, but at that stage I declined their “Retentions Department” one-time-offer
And I can tell you that it was followed up a few days later by another call (let’s call them the “Super-Retentions Department”) who offered an even better deal still.
To be fair to Three, that deal was pretty amazing, and the poor chap tried so hard- and I would have taken his offer had Three’s reception not been so poor in the area at the time!

Summary (So Far)

Well, I’m in the middle of this experience, so it’s not over yet, and I’ll be posting updates as things progress.

What I can say is that I’m a little disappointed with both Vodafone and Three – the fact that they have “Retentions Departments” and the fact that you have to go through this process means that most of the time, unless you follow these steps, you’re not getting the best deal from them that you could – which means that you’re being ripped off and they know it!
As a loyal Vodafone Customer for over a decade now I’m a little annoyed by this, but I’ll play the game one more time – maybe this year it’s time for a change!

One more point of note – it’s rumoured that a new iPhonewill be announced next week (whether this is true or not, and whether it’ll be the iPhone 4s or iPhone 5 remains to be seen). If it is announced, then no doubt it’ll be a while before it reaches the UK – but this may will come into my negotiations

Keep Tuned for updates which will be posted below

Update 1: the following morning (Thursday)
Shock, horror, just missed a call from that same 0808 number. They didn’t leave a message!

Update 2: Thursday afternoon:
Another call from the 0808 number – asked why I was leaving and sure enough said they would check with their manager then came back with a much better deal than Customer Services could do.  As I explained, unfortunately I wasn’t able to take that offer at the time as I didn’t have my notes with the deal from Three, so wasn’t sure if it was better or not.  Sure enough true to form, the nice lady couldn’t keep the deal and explained that she couldn’t ring me back because apparently their calling system was automated, and if they had to call back every customer they’d only get through half as many – a nice honest touch I think!

So this is a soft kind of  high pressure sales.  Sadly I had to decline the offer, and “hoped” they would find a chance to call me back.  So, I might have blown it here, but let’s just see if Vodafone is as persistent as Three were!

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Update: Some Saddleworth Cabinets are enabled now some are delayed

So this has kicked off my investigations into the best deal for me personally.

I’ve tweeted Zen, ADSL24 and BT about the previous post – no response from any of them yet.

At the moment, BT Infinity Unlimited still seems to suit me best.
I decided to ring BT for more details.

They did confirm that it was an 18 month contract, and there seemed to be no room for negotiation on that.

And clarified that it’s not actually a better deal for new customers than existing ones, it’s the same deal – one is with line rental, so that explains that!

BT also advised that it is possible to have a static IP address for an extra £5 a month, but only if you take business broadband rather than residential.

The business services are the same as the residential services as far as upload and download speeds go, but the business ones are a bit more expensive, so I asked what’s the difference?

The nice salesperson explained that business services are generally on 24 month contracts, and they get priority on fault repairs.

After the call I realised that business isn’t really such a good deal compared to residential.
Basically the only benefit I can see is that it allows me to add additional service of a fixed IP at an extra premium.
Having said that you can always use Dynamic DNS to achieve almost the same thing.

One the downside, business broadband means signing up for an additional 6 months contract, and does cost a bit more each month.
For that, you get priority on fault repairs.  But think about that for a moment – who is responsible for the “faults”?

In essence aren’t you paying more & tied in for a longer period of time just to pay BT to fix stuff that *THEY* break faster?!

One useful thing that BT told me is that’s worth keeping in mind, if you are changing Broadband Suppliers, you’re going to need something called a MAC code.  This is a unique code that allows your line and broadband service to be identified and transferred from one supplier to another.

By law your current supplier must supply you with a MAC code within 5 days of you asking for it – requesting the code does NOT terminate your contract, it only provides the facility to change.

More really great information about Broadband MAC codes can be found by clicking this this link

Orange did duly provide a MAC code 2 days after I requested it, although they also got somebody to call me to ask why I was leaving Orange.  I simply told him the service had got slower and slower – he made no attempt to try and improve things, and just politely thanked me!

Do also remember that if you’ve signed up for broadband contract with your current provider, you’ll either have to wait for the terms of that contract to be up before changing, or pay to get out of it (hence my slight concern over BT’s lengthier contract terms)

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