As gorgeous and slick as the iPhone looks it can very easily have it’s looks tarnished by scratches and marks. That’s why one of the best selling accessories for the iPhone is the screen protector. The thin sheet of plastic protexts the screen from scratches but what about the rear of the phone. Often the phone is lying on it’s back on a desk getting scuffed while the protected screen is face up and unharmed.

I have tried several leather cases but always end up discarding them and going back to an unprotected phone. This is because one of the main attractions of the iPhone is it’s compactness and sleek curves which are lost when a chunky cases is added. No one likes the unsightly bulge in a suit pocket from a chunky phone or wallet.

So when GelaSkins contacted me about their protective skins for iPhone I was very interested to see if this could be a good solution. I must admit that when I first saw the skins they appeared to simply be colourful stickers, I was a little sceptical as to their value. However, after using it I would definitely recommend them.

Firstly the initial attaching of the protective sticker couldn’t be easier. I am not the most skilled at applying stickers correctly as I ruined several screen protectors in the past trying to get it to line up with the iPhone screen without bubbles, so was surprised with how easy it was to apply. The GelaSkins uses 3Ms special adhesive that allows you to remove and re-stick the skin without leaving a residue or losing stickiness. It also doesn’t bubble and I got it in just the right spot first time. My Brother-in-law had less success as he claimed there was some bubbling for him but when he tried to show me the bumps had worked themselves out so he had a perfect finish to.

GelaSkins offer a range of designs from over 50 artists. They really do look eye catching on the phone and make your phone stand out from other plain iPhones. You can also download a matching graphic from the GelaSkins website to use as your phone background image. Then the design appears on both sides of the phone. As several of my friends have the iPhone it’s great to be able to pick mine out from the bunch when they are all lying on the coffee table.

The skin is thicker than a screen protector and has a nice feel to it. It definitely feels touch and despite my best efforts I was unable to scratch it, let alone the iphone underneath. The skins add very little thickness to the iPhone, infact I was still able to use the same leather cases with the skin on.

I was a little worried that the skin would cause the iPhone to overheat as it already gets very hot when using wifi/edge for extended periods. While the iPhone got very warm no more so than usual.

Although the skin is great for protecting the iPhone from scratches they do little to protect the phone from being dropped. If you are looking for protection from dropping the phone then I recommend getting a padded case and phone insurance.

One downside with the skin is that it covers over the most expesive component on the iPhone - the Apple logo. For me this is not a problem - for hard-core Apple fans that might be put off by this they’ll be pleased to know that it is easy enough to remove the skin and show off that Apple logo again without leaving a nasty stick residue.

Gelaskins also make skins for the Sony Playstation Portable (PSP), Nintendo DS, iPods and laptops. The 15inch laptop skins look fantastic.

Posts have been few and far between recently but don’t worry I haven’t been sitting on my hands and have plenty to report. Just in the process of moving to a new server at the moment so want to complete that before making much new content.

Coming up:

Reviews:

• Gelaskins for iPhone and PSP - http://www.gelaskins.com
• Best Apps for jailbroken iPhones and which are likely to make it as an official app in future
• Best web hosts for developers/design studios with multiple clients

Features:

• Best new site or redesigns of 2008
• My recent projects including
  • why http://www.k9ulf.com ate up over 10gigs of bandwidth in it’s first month and looks to be increasing
  • On location photoshoots with clients at http://www.beecleanlondon.co.uk
  • How a re-design can help increase traffic, improve customer support (plus breaking out from frames) - http://www.woodside-security.co.uk
  • How a rush job doesn’t have to look ordinary - http://www.littledesignplanet.co.uk

Expect transfers and fixing links etc will take another few days and then I’m back in business. I will eventually be intergrating the blog into little design planet when that gets re-built this summer.

My 16 month year old is turning out to be quiet the technology wizz. Changing TV channels was one thing but taking photos on my wife’s phone and sending them as a picture message to me was quiet another. Today she showed me that she is perfectly capable of unlocking and using my iPhone. Apparently she has been doing this for months but this time it was caught on film. Can’t wait to see what she does when I get her an Eee PC next year.

Those of you trying out the Firefox 3 beta or considering it may want access to firefox 2. This is particularly true for developers as you will want to test in both version of the browser and the much loved Firebug plugin is not supported in Firefox 3 yet.

Fortunately there is an excellent guide on getting both Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 running at the same time thanks to Hikikomori’s blog redemption in a blog

The problem I encountered is Windows Media Player video embedded in a page will not play. I tried re-installing the plugin but while this works for firefox 2 it does not for firefox 3.

I then recalled I encountered this same problem when first upgrading to Vista. A fix is to copy the needed dll files into the firefox 3 plugin folder. You can just copy the files over from firefox 2 plugins folder or download only the required ones from dll dump.

Quote from last blog post on this topic:

You can find the missing files on dlldump.com

• npdsplay.dll
• npwmsdrm.dll
• npdrmv2.dll

If this doesn’t solve the problem get more indepth help here: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=206213

There has been a lot of mixed feedback on Vista’s ReadyBoost feature. Some say they have noticed significant performance boosts, some no seeing any real difference and others finding a drop in performance.

The problem appeared to be with (1) Their system setup (2) The tasks they were performing and (3) the quality of the memory stick/card being used.

Out of these I’ve found the most significant factor to be the memory stick. I tested 6 different memory sticks/cards on my laptop and the difference in how effective ReadyBoost is huge.

Starting with the bottom of the scale I had an old 2GB SD memory card. I inserted this into the built-in memory card reader and found a major reduction in system performance. Opening Apps or even switching between Apps would often cause lock-ups and pauses. At the time I had no idea what was causing the problem and began to think my system was under performing. I remove the memory card and things return to normal. The speed of the memory card was far too slow for ReadyBoost causing delays while data was read/writing.

I next used a 512mb SD card with “x66″ boldly displayed across the front. This didn’t have the major performance dips caused by the first memory card but I also couldn’t say I noticed a performance boost. After doing a little research I found that memory cards are designed for sequential writes like storing photos as they are taken on a digital camera. Hard disk drives sequential read and write speed is significantly faster than anything you will get on a memory card and so using a memory card provides no real benefit.

ReadyBoost relies on memory sticks faster random access speed. The hard disk has to physically move parts to access data across different parts of the harddrive. The Solid State memory on a memory stick has a faster response time, doesn’t have to spin up from idle and accesses random data significantly faster. So would the memory sticks fair better.

This time I got 2 ReadyBoost logo’d memory sticks for about £17-20 each. The first was a 2GB one from Argos from a brand I hadn’t heard of or remember. The performance increase was noticeable especially in memory hogging programs like Photoshop and games. The 2nd stick was a 4GB Sandisk cruzer u3. There was no notable performance improvement. What was the difference?

I looked up what was the requirements for a device to be classed as ReadyBoost capable. It was a read speed of 5mb/s and a write speed of just 3mb/s. The sandisk must have been pretty close to the bottom end as every now and then when I’d insert it I wouldn’t get the option to use it “to speed up my system” (not you have to diable ReadyBoost or delete the ReadyBoost file and reinsert the stick for the option to show up otherwise it will automatically use the stick for ReadyBoost). When you compare this to some of the better memory sticks like Corsair’s GT range that read at 34mb/s and write at 28mb/s you can begin to see why there is such a difference in how effective ReadyBoost is. I lost the former 2 memory sticks and so I’m now on to a Corsair Flash Voyager. Not the super-fast GT version but still a lot faster than the average memory stick. It isn’t even ReadyBoost logo’d but according to the specs it should be a lot better than the sandisk cruzer I was using. If you live in the US Kingston do a memory stick called HyperX that is exclusive to Amazon.com and is super-fast and good value.

The good news is that the speeds and capacities of these memory sticks is improving all the time so ReadyBoost will continue to be more and more effective.

The bad news is that 1) the ReadyBoost logo is given out too easy and consumers could end up with inferior memory sticks that don’t help them 2) with Solid State Hard drives getting closer to usable capacities will we even need ReadyBoost?

For now check out some of the fastest USB flash drives here:
everythingusb.com

With many holding out on buying Vista until the first Service Pack it’s really important to Microsoft to get it right with this release. I can’t wait for the final buid so I’ve taken the gamble of installing the Service Pack 1 RC1 update although it is about 3 months from being finished. Flying in the face of the forum posts about BSOD when browsing the web since installing SP1 and other complaints I ventured out and installed it on my shiny new Dell XPS m1530.

The Install.

Downloading the “Windows update experience” file for SP1 was quick enough - only a few KB. It contained a registry tweak and instructions in 2 Microsoft Propriety formats - Word doc and XPS (viewable using IE7).

After the registry tweak running windows update reveals all the hotfixes and updates required before you can install SP1. Depending on how up to date you keep your system this maybe 1 install or several. After the installs and inevitable restarts you can download the SP1 installer. This also requires a restart and then a 10-15min wait while it finishes setting up. After this you will be able to use windows update to download SP1. The file size quoted is between 67 and 640mb I guess this depends on the version of vista and your hardware. In my case it was an 80.1mb download (Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit). This took quite long not sure if this was due to the internet connection I was using or the volume of people downloading the update.

Once downloaded and I agreed to the terms SP1 installed itself. And then restarted to configure updates in 3 stages. Stage 1 and 2 complete before a restart for stage 3. During this time you cannot use your computer and are warned against turning it off. This took my system about 20-30mins to complete.

Needless to say I don’t recommend starting this process on battery power of if pressed for time. You’ll need a good couple of hours and a constant power supply and internet connection.

Overall the install went smoothly and exactly as described in the instructions - with one exception. Somehow Windows Live Onecare didn’t start right away and so I was warned about my lack of firewall but after a few minutes Onecare came back to life.

What’s new?

This update rather than adding new features is designed to address performance issues rather than anything else. Vista has been slammed by business users and gamers alike for bringing their systems to their knees or at least noticeably reducing speed with some apps and games compared to XP.

I was not expecting incredible performance leaps with SP1 - or even to match XP with SP2. What I was hoping for was improved file transfer speed, a slight increase in graphical performance and faster wifi/network connections. Having used Vista since release day and using this particular laptop for the last couple of weeks fairly intensively I’ve a fairly good idea of what sort of speed various tasks take so couldn’t wait to see if SP1 made any difference.

I also wanted to see if stability was improved. I rarely saw vista crash completely but it wasn’t uncommon for a particular app to lock up and have to be closed down. Again I’ve never had problems with Vista uptime either but will test if this is an issue under normal use after SP1.

Most of the complaints I’ve read about on the SP1 forums are from users that were having issues with Vista before SP1 anyway so as my Vista was running flawlessly prior to the update I am expecting nothing less.

One thing you will notice is that it now says Windows Vista “Evaluation copy” Build 6001 in the bottom right hadn corner of the screen. This is not to say your version of windows is not genuine but the SP1 is not final so you have the evaluation stamp until you uninstall it.

Test 1: File Transfer speed

I had grumbled at the slow speed in which my laptop would transfer files from one system to another - typically between 1 and 6mb/s even with a cabled connection via my gigaport. There had even been reported problems transfering large files from one folder to another taking a unusually long amount of time.

I didn’t do a test case to compare an exact match to, but I do have a good idea of how long it usually took. In comparison SP1 did make a difference. Previously there was a delay of several seconds before a transfer would begin while windows calculated transfer time and speed etc. Now transfer begins immediately. Transfering to USB stick was about 5mb/s which was about the same as before - this is likely due to the limitations of the memory stick. Transfering from folder to folder on the same hard drive showed significant improvement - Transfers again started immediately and were between 22 and 32mb/s compared to 10-15mb/s previously. Obviously on different hard drives the speed will vary greatly (tested on 250gb 5400rpm SATA). Emptying the recyle bin was most dramatically effected. At times it would take a while to delete a large amount from there. Now the transfer/deleting was instant. Several gigabytes disappeared in seconds with no pausing (I managed to just about see 430mb/s) in the transfer window before it closed). Transfering from a sever on the network to the laptop was 11-12mb/s this was about the same probably due to the speed of the network but again the transfer initiated faster. Final test was transfer from one computer to another via ethernet cable.

File Transfer Improvement: Significant as long as it was Vista that was the bottle neck and not the device/network you were transferring over.

Test 2: Networking/connectivity

I found it incredibly annoying at how long it took to connect to wifi once I started up - especially if coming back from standby. Nothing I could do would would speed it up. Searching for networks and then manually picking and connecting rarely worked out any faster than waiting for the connection to be found by itself. Also my office network would never be identified. It would say identifying indefinitely - although it would work fine for network and web access I couldn’t change it from a public network to work network because the network was unknown - since installing SP1 it now correctly identifies the network. Wifi also connects much faster - within seconds of me turning on the wifi switch I was connected and ready to browse the web.

Connectivity/Networking Improvement:

Improved hotspot detection and connections speeds, resolves some lan detection issues.

Test 3: 3DMark06

Although mainly for testing 3D Gaming graphics the 3DMark also tests CPU and general system performance under extreme conditions. Prior to SP1 I scored 4278, 4180 and 4187.

Firstly I was pleased to see it ran without hiccu
p - some had reported lockups when playing games or using 3D Apps - I guess this was due support for the graphics card or driver they were using not being what it should be. As my system had a mid-range Nvidia graphics card I would expect that support for this would be good.

Results: 4201, 4180

3D Graphic/gaming Improvement: No noteable difference in 3DMark results so Windows XP is still the fastet platform for playing the latest games.

Overall

It felt like there were other performance tweaks to as menu responses and switching windows etc. all seemed zippier. Where formerly there was a few seconds delay between you clicking or performing a keyboard command and it taking place it now seemed instant. This is especially noticeable when opening folders containing many photos. Before it took a while for all the thumbnails to be generated - now it seems almost instant - even on an external device like a camera/iPhone. All my hardware still worked as before or better - even obscure devices like the finger print reader and blu-ray drive seemed to respond quicker due to the OS not being as sluggish. Don’t get me wrong my system ran Vista well before but there is a noticeable improvement to the overall responsiveness and speed of my laptop now.

After a restart I did get a Runtime error with my Blu-Ray/DVD/CD burning software. Also the firewall issue pops up until Onecare eventually starts. Restarting again and these issues cleared - Onecare started first and there were no runtime errors. I guess it takes a few restarts before everything settles down.

IMO if you are having problems with Vista SP1 may not be the quick fix to resolving them. If you are running Vista ok but want to squeeze more performance out of it then this service pack may be what you are looking for. As to improving stability I will report back after more testing but as I had no significant stability issues before I am not expecting to notice any difference. There are a few niggles with starting up windows initially as mentioned but they cleared themselves up and were not a major concern.

Technorati Tags: Vista, Service Pack 1, SP1, RC1, Refresh, performance

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At this year’s dconstruct conference Peter Merholz explained how just packing more features is not a good way of evolving a design and how the iPod and Wii are examples of that. Not the most technically advanced or feature packed compared to rivals but got the user experience part right and is a success as a result. ( here his lecture in the dconstruct podcast here)

The idea of not feature stuffing a phone seemed to be a great idea then. Especially when you consider 80% of people only use 20% of the features of their phones. However, at the price point Apple have launched with you would have to say the that it likely only the 20% elite/pro users that would pony up the record-breakingly expensive fee and contract combination.(see prices here)

Surely early figures will show great sales but hype and a shiny interface will only get you so far. Users that had basic handsets before will love the iPhone as it does the basics incredibly well. But if you have a top-end pocket-PC or symbian phone you’ll be hugely under-whelmed and may see you’re upgrade as a bit of a downgrade.

I’ve been using the iPhone since it launch in the UK a few days ago and the novelty has already begun to where off and I sorely miss my
XDA exec. It’s not just the big features like video calling, 3G Internet, and picture messaging - it’s even little things like being able to select text/numbers on a webpage and paste them into a word doc/email or being able to delete music/video/app without a computer. Also the camera seems to be such an after thought. The quality is so low - not just resolution but sharpness too. There are also no settings to adjust, or support for recording video.

These issues may cause iPhone sales in europe to reach critical mass sooner than Apple may have planned for. Once the mac fans that would buy a brick with the apple logo on and then those that are caught up in the hype/fashion statement of owning one have all purchased the price will have to drop to sub £50 for the real target audience - the 80% that like to use the basics - will start to lap it up. By then I am sure the novelty will have worn off for the serious phone users that like their features and so many will be looking to get out and buy a more feature rich phone. Perhaps by then the Apple iPhone 2 will be out - but will it be too late. Will the pro users be once bitten twice shy? Will Google Andriod be a serious rival by then? Will the next generation of windows mobile have surpassed the iPhone interface?

With all these questions hanging over the iPhone I wouldn’t put money on the long term success of Apple in the mobile market as readily as some who seem to think they will take it by storm like the iPod has with the portable music industry.

The current kings of mobiles remain symbian and windows mobile based smartphones - watch out for the new 8GB Nokia N95 (black) and the XDA Exec if O2 still let you buy them now that they do the iPhone.

I received the cheekiest spam comment on my blog today.
hello , my name is Richard and I know you get a lot of spammy comments ,
I can help you with this problem . I know a lot of spammers and I will ask them not to post on your site. It will reduce the volume of spam by 30-50% .In return Id like to ask you to put a link to my site on the index page of your site. The link will be small and your visitors will hardly notice it , its just done for higher rankings in search engines. Contact me icq 454528835 or write me tedirectory(at)yahoo.com , i will give you my site url and you will give me yours if you are interested. thank you

This is equivalent to <strong>Mafia asking for protection money</strong> when they are likely the ones you need protecting from.

My blog gets a lot of traffic and so I get about 1000 spam comments a week. My spam filter catches about 80% of them and as I don’t allow comments to be visible until I’ve read them personally the other 20% don’t make it either. So I see a lot of spam but that has to be the cheekiest.
1) He has no power over the spam comments on my site so has nothing to offer
2) He is a spammer himself
3) He is trying to con google into boosting his site’s ranking at the same time as trying to con blog owners

I hope no one falls for this and uses a free spam filter such as Akismet.

I am very tempted to use <a href=”http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39289916,00.htm”>the YouTube loophole</a> to spam his email address.

Technorati Tags: spam, spammers, mafia, google juice

With uptake of the latest Internet Explorer browser being slow compared to that of main rival Firefox, Microsoft have started a big push to encourage more users to make the change.

The first big advantage Microsoft had was having it pre-installed on it’s latest OS - Vista and not allowing the obsolete Internet Explorer 6 to be installed (which would undermine vista security anyway). However, with Vista uptake being slow and with the tech savvy already using firefox, opera or other browsers IE7 is struggling to make much ground.

Latest figures I have from various sites I run/developed show that on sites for web developers or tech savvy users Firefox now has the majority over both all other browsers combined.

On consumer sites it is about 30% IE7, 28% IE6, 40% Firefox and the remaining 2% using other browsers. So although overall Internet explorer has the majority users still, IE7 alone has not caught up with firefox.

On business sites the weighting is slightly more in favour for Internet explorer but then the figure is increased for IE6 rather than IE7.

In a bid to convert more users to IE7 this week we’ve seen them <a href=”http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39289859,00.htm”>remove the validation requirement</a> to download it.

Now they have sent out a newsletter promoting Internet Explorer 7. It seems to be targetted at IE6 users as it focuses on the improved security in IE7 and the fact that it doesn’t render correctly in Firefox:

<em>”The Internet is a vast place–and not every site is friendly. How do you help protect yourself online? With Windows Internet Explorer 7. Already, the Internet Explorer 7 Phishing Filter prevents nearly one million visits per week to known dangerous websites. In just a few clicks, see how the latest version of the world’s most popular web browser can help you be safer online.”</em>

The latest version of <strong>the world’s most popular web browser</strong> may not be a statement the internet explorer team can use for much longer…

As a developer I am happy with this push to IE7 - the sooner we get rid of IE6 the sooner I will stop having to support it. It is currently holding designers/developers back in what can be done as we have to ensure whatever we do is supported it. Binning IE6 will mean - less hacks, more advancement, less development time - resulting in savings for everyone.

HTML Newsletter Developers have been complaining about Outlook 2007 since it’s release as it uses word to render emails rather than a web browser. Some have described it as taking email design back 5 years. Microsoft defended their decision for various reasons - mainly for more consistent results for users of Outlook looking to forward/create html emails of their own.

Now it appears even Microsoft are struggling to develop HTML emails that will render correctly in Outlook 2007. The first line of the latest xbox live newsletter reads “Read this issue online if you can’t see the images or are using Outlook 2007“. If even Microsoft can’t develop a newsletter that shows up consistently on it’s webmail (Live mail/hotmail) and Outlook 2007 client how are us as designers/developers supposed to manage. Clearly this should show it’s time to correct the mistake of using word rendering in Outlook 2007 or for designers to follow Microsoft’s example and simply ignore the latest Outlook and simply offer the users links to a page they can view in a web browser.

I don’t know how my employer would feel about me choosing to ignore Outlook 2007 when building the next newsletter but it will certainly be my recommendation. Our overseas offices seem to have ignored the client as I cannot read the emails that I get from them for the services I subscribe to if I use Outlook 07. If enough companies do this maybe this will prompt some action from Microsoft when there users complain.