So I’ve been doing something weird and listening to all of my music in alphabetical order.  For some reason the “I’s” are rife with “Belle and Sebastian”.  They are one of my favorite bands, and someone I have lucky enough to see live a handful of times.  In pursuit of capturing some aural awesomeness, I went to see if they have any tours scheduled.  Unfortunately, none are on deck.

However, it did remind me of the excellent show I saw at my old haunt, the “9:30 Club” in D.C., when “The New Pornographers” opened for them.  Now, dear listeners, this concert was part of NPR’s “Now Hear This” series and should be available for your downloading pleasure.  However, I was having mixed results on my Mac.

Luckily, I have fount a working link, so check this out: The Blathering

1.  Pick out a good protector. This means that it should be thick, and probably not the cheapest.  This becomes especially important with portable video game systems, which are plagued by sub-par peripherals.  I like Boxwave, Invisible Shield, and Power Support.

2. Be careful with the protector as you take it home. One of the main reasons that a protector doesn’t apply well is that it becomes slightly bent, and won’t adhere well.  Be sure to keep it flat until you’re home.

3. Prepare your workspace. The biggest key ingredient here is a flat space with lots of light.  Light is critical so that you can be sure to spot any flecks of dust in advance.  I like to lay down a shami on the table.  Shamis are well suited because they are soft, water-absorbent, and don’t generate lint nor hold much dust.

4. Wash your hands. before you start the process, make sure your hands are clean.

5. Clean the device. I recommend using glasses cleaner and special lens cleaning cloth.  You never want to use a towel during the process, since it will leave little bits of cloth and don’t wipe away evenly.  You should probably go through cleaning the device down twice to be certain everything is clean.  I recommend using a small circular motion with the cloth.

6. Blow away any dust. Use a can of compressed air and blow away any small bits on the surface of the device.  Be sure not to shake or hold the can upside down, as that can shoot the liquid onto the screen.  IF this does happen, just wipe it back down.  Really examine the device under the light from different angles and be absolutely certain there is no dust on the device.

7. Remove the screen protector. This is when you remove the screen protector’s protective film in advance of application.  be careful to not nick the protector with your fingernail when you’re removing the film cover, since this can cause it to not apply evenly.  Once the thin film is removed you should be very careful to not touch the side that will be in contact with your screen, since it will absord and oils or grease on your fingers and ruin the clean application.

8. Spray down the protector and surface of the device. This is perhaps the least well-known step in applying a screen protector.  You should spray both the device and the protector (the side that will be in contact with the device) with the glasses cleaner.  You don’t want to over-douse each piece, but you want a good layer of lubricant on each.  The liquid layer helps with alignments and making sure there aren’t bubbles.

9. Apply the protector. Be careful to line it up well with the device.  When you have it aligned, you should have enough liquid between the two pieces for the protector to float on the device, which should give you the chance to adjust it a bit.  Now you should take a credit card and squeegee away the liquid.  Be careful to hold it in place at the starting point so the squeegeeing doesn’t cause the protector to slide around.  You have to be very thorough at this step to make sure you are getting all of the liquid out.

10. Let it sit. That’s it!  If you worked carefully and took your time you shouldn’t have any bubbles.  However, there might be a bit of liquid left that needs to evaporate, so be sure to let it sit for several hours.  It may take up to a day for it to be completely set.

Good luck!

Now my travels continue as I take an even geekier adventure. As soon as I’m back in LA I hit the road to head down to San Diego for Comic-Con. Last year was a blast, and I’m looking forward to some nerdy decadence. Expect to see my pictures from the field up on Flickr.

Also, this is my first post with the new WordPress iPhone and everything is smooth sailing so far.

So I am now an owner of the new “iPhone 3G”.  I picked up the white version (it matches my Nintendo DS), and am digging the high-speed internet acccess and location-based services.  The main attraction, however, is the application platform.  I love Yelp, Shazam, and a bunch of others that are really making the iPhone more of a tiny computer to me, and less of a phone.

Perhaps this exists, but one app I would love to see is one that turns my phone into a wireless modem.  Back when I was in college I had a Sony-Ericsson T610 that I could tether to my Mac and use to connect my laptop to the internet while I was taking the train to and from school.  With the iPhone, my understanding is that it doesn’t support OBEX, which is a bluetooth protocol necessary for dial-up networking.  However, the iPhone does have wifi, and I have seen apps using Apple’s Bonjour zero-config networking protocol.  It seems possible to create an app that would share my iPhone’s 3G data plan with my laptop via wifi.  I haven’t dug through my terms-of-use with AT&T, so perhaps this isn’t possible, but it would be incredibly useful.

In honor of the occasion, here are David Pogue’s thoughts on the new offering:

For the other faithful looking to purchase the 3G iPhone next Friday, or for those curious as to what sort of financial ruin these service plans can start steering you towards, please check out the following link: 

http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/specials/iphone-info.jsp

I personally am not going to be waiting in line.  My hope is that one of my local Apple stores (either The Grove or 3rd Street Promenade) will still have inventory when I get off of work.  I made the mistake of queueing for hours last year only to find I could have walked right in, and I’m not keen on repeating that mistake.

Next week is a big week for me.  Finally, after a year of waiting, I get the iPhone with the featureset I’ve been wanting since day one.  The GPS and high-speed data are reasons enough to upgrade, but Apple’s real treat is the new 2nd-gen software shipping with the unit.  The availability of the SDK opens up a world of opportunity to developers, and I am looking forward to hopefully getting some amazing 3rd-party applications.

With the floodgates set to open, I have musing about what I want to be able to do.  It occurred to me that their may be a whole class of applications that could make use of TV-out.  I am not sure if this is permitted with the SDK, so if anyone knows, please throw it in the comments.  However, imagine how great it would be to be able to use the iPhone as a gaming control that plugs into a TV, or being able to use a remote desktop application that showed your desktop on the television, or having the ability to show presentations and use the iPhone as a control.  There would be an avalanche of applications that could leverage this feature to help take the iPhone to the big screen.  Even if this isn’t in 2.0, there is always 2.1…

Today at Apple’s WWDC developer event they announced “MobileMe”, a replacement for the “.Mac” suite of services. “MobileMe” will enable a user to keep their contacts, calendars, e-mail, synchronized across all devices via push. It also offers enhanced photo sharing capabilities that will be integrated into the iPhone and new website, as well as better data synchronization courtesy of iDisk. All of these new web applications and services can leverage “MobileMe’s” new 20GB of storage space.

So, the question inevitably becomes, “is it worth $99?”. For me, the answer is a resounding, “no”. There are a couple of major snags in the offering. First of all, my e-mail is associated with this domain, and so I have no interest in getting a “me.com” e-mail address. I have scoured the new documentation, but it doesn’t mention allowing you to do an MX forward so that you could associate a personal domain with these services. Major bummer.

Second, the services don’t match the price. $99 is a hefty sum for synchronization services. I use a Zimbra mail host for my personal data management, and it provides roughly the same functionality (disclosure: I work for Yahoo, which owns Zimbra, but this has nothing to do with why I use it).  The Zimbra hosting allows me to keep my personal domain, and offers an iSync conduit that keeps my address book and calendar in sync across all of my devices and has a web interface for accessing my e-mail, calendar, and contact list.  iTunes also supports syncing iPhone contacts with Gmail and Yahoo!, and I imagine that both of these companies will offer native apps for the iPhone to help keep everything up-to-date.

If you combine one of these PIM solutions with a free file storage solution like the most excellent Dropbox you can replicate these services for a much cheaper cost.  I pay around $6 a month for Zimbra hosting from 01.com and Dropbox is currently free.  Sure, you may not get everything managed in a single place with the extreme elegance and simplicity of an Apple product, but you do get a more flexible solution.  Is “MobileMe” for me?  Certainly not.  Is it a great service that would be perfect for my mom?  Definitely.