This time it's the AOC Rivio 22in TFT 2230Fm monitor.

Bright and shiny, the AOC Rivio 2230Fm LCD backs up its elegant appearance with great performance.

You can read all the details at APC's web site.

One day soon, I'll blog about something other than a review or story I've posted elsewhere!

 AOC • Monitors • Review

Over at Hydrapinion, I punched out a short story on some iPhone hits and misses.

Stop by for a read.

 iPhone

Tomorrow night (6 Aug 2008) I'll be giving a presentation on the basics of Podcasting for the Melbourne PC User Group.

Here's the skinny on what I'll be saying and doing:

Podcasting - how do you get it, and how to you make one?
We've all heard of podcasting and have maybe downloaded the occasional radio talk. But how do you get it to simply download TV shows and how do you create a podcast of your own? Some of our members are experts, and some are trying to catch up. Well here's a very well-received talk by one of our own experts, Anthony Caruana. We guarantee you'll learn something you didn't know!

It should be lots of fun. I've not been to many Melb PC meetings but I have been to a few. The audiences are very switched on and ask good questions.

If you can make it, it's be good to see you! The details are:

Melbourne PC User Group Monthly Meeting
Deakin University
Lecture Theatre 1, Building I. Deakin University
221 Burwood Highway, Burwood.
7:00 pm Sharp.

If you plan to come, the actual venue is deep within the university grounds so allow a few extra minutes to find it as it can be quite tricky.

 Melbourne PC User Group • Podcasting • Presentations

I've just popped this news story up at Australian Macworld. Australia's largest telco, Telstra, has boosted their anaemic iPhone plans to offer decent amounts of data by local standards.

Telstra has finally relented and is now offering greatly improved, although in no way market leading, data plans for all its NextG customers including iPhone users.

 iPhone • Telstra

I've started writing for The Age - one of Melbourne's daily newspapers. My story on NAS units and backing up data is in the Green Guide lift-out and online as well.

 Backup • NAS • Storage

Over at Australian Macworld, editor Matthew JC Powell says the following in a recent story:

Imagine, for a moment, an e-mail program that doesn't allow you to search for past messages you've received except by flicking through the list and hoping you don't miss one. Imagine not having the facility to mark messages as read so they don't irritate you with notifications, except by reading them. Imagine not having the ability to have all your messages in one unified inbox except by forwarding mail from your other accounts to that one — meaning that if you also want to have mail going where it's meant to go you have to receive everything twice

After over a week of using my iPhone I have to agree - there are many things that Apple's iPhone does really well but email isn't one of them. I'd go a couple of steps further. Apple has bragged about the iPhone running OS X. Not some half-arsed stripped back mobile OS but a proper desktop OS that's been scaled to run on smaller screens with different input. However, they've left out some things that users expect from any operating system.

1 - Selecting text: Why can't I drag my finger over some text to highlight so I can delete it or copy/paste? And that brings me to Issue Number 2.

2 - Cut, copy and paste: Why can't I take some text I wrote in one place and copy or move it to another? That's plain dumb.

3 - An accessible file system: Why can't I store a few documents in a folder? At the moment, the only way I can do this is to email documents to myself. There's a proper OS under there - why can't I use it?

Here's the thing - it's really frustrating to use something that is clearly very well made and delivers on so many fronts but misses on a really fundamental feature. With the Microsoft Exchange support it's clear that Apple is aiming its sights on the lucrative corporate market. However, they'll not usurp RIM and Microsoft from the pockets of mobile execs until they get these basics right.

Over at hydrapinion, I've punched out a story on my iPhone observations.

Stop by for a read.

Here's another little iPhone story I've penned over at Australian Macworld. This one's about Apple's little "secret" - many iPod accessories won't work with the iPhone 3G.

Now that I have my iPhone 3G I'm somewhat stunned at the fact that many of my iPod accessories are now either nobbled in some way or completely useless.

 iPhone 3G

It took me an extra week to track one down but I finally have an iPhone of my own. I had held out mainly because the extra cost over my current handset wasn't justified but having sold a couple of iPhone stories to some local magazines and selling my Nokia N95 handset has turned the benefit case around so that I've effectively achieved payback on the cost difference from my old deal.

I've gone for a white 16GB unit as I don't think the white will show fingerprints up as much as the black. I've got a 16GB iPod touch and find that less storage would not be a good thing for me. The games and apps I downloaded or purchased for the iPod touch synced across painlessly so it didn't take long for the iPhone to be fully functional for me.

I was porting my number from another carrier. I should make it clear that I've been really happy with Three. However, not being an iPhone carrier and their roaming arrangements for data (if you fall out of Three's 3G area you roam on Telstra's GPRS which as well as being slower costs a king's ransom to use) have tipped me over. Furthermore, Three (or Telstra or Vodafone) don't have network coverage at my home. Optus has coverage at my home.

Activation was quite fast an painless. Stan at MyMac Australia had set up my account and ported my number in less that 20 minutes. If you're planning to port a number from another carrier when you get you iPhone I suggest that you make sure you bring an old phone bill with the account number as that makes the transition process much faster.

I've not yet made or received a call but I have received SMS and it seems that the email features are working as advertised despite the many teething issues MobileMe is facing. A MobileMe update was released by Apple and appeared on one of my Macs via Software Update. I can't spot it on Apple's support pages and it's not appearing in Software update on my MacBook Pro so I'm not too sure what's happening there.

In any case, iPhone Mojo now has its own official iPhone and is battling Super Monkeyball addiction.

 iPhone

While I've not been blogging I have been penning stories for a number of magazines and online publications over the last few days.

Over at Australian Macworld, I've penned this story on how the iPhone has shaken the mobile market.

More interesting, in our view, is the number of downloads from the App Store — ten million on the opening weekend. Now that's a market change worth looking at.

APC has popped a few more of my reviews up covering three different product categories; routers, NAS and mobile Internet.

Billion BiPAC 7300N: a good all-round modem: Billion's BiPAC 7300N is packed with enough features to support the needs of almost every home or small office user.

Three Internet Key: hassle free mobile internet: Three's Internet Key is dead easy to set up and delivers great performance.

SMC Wireless Barricade N Gigabit Router: fit the internet in your pocket: How does SMC try to stand out from the crowded router marketplace? With a great all-round router that includes scanner sharing.

LaCie 2big network 2-bay NAS: 2TB of 'safe' storage: LaCie's 2big network ticks the right boxes for perfomance, looks and ease of use.

Thecus N3200 Home NAS: securely store and deliver data: Made with the home user in mind, the Thecus N3200 NAS ticks all the boxes.

Linksys WRT310N Wireless-N Broadband Router: now with added gigabit: The Linksys WRT310N builds on the success of the WRT160N.

Happy reading.

 3G • HSDPA • Internet • iPhone • NAS • Router