My iPhone dreams are shattered

Are you planning to buy iPhone 3G?

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Just like the majority of students, I'm poor, but I have dreams.

My latest dream was to get an iPhone.

Why I want iPhone? Because it has many features not found in other commonly available/commonly known phones. It's more like a fashion statement than a machine of need. That makes it hot for any student.

The only thing that was preventing me from buying it was a prohibitive price tag of $400. It's now been taken off, and it's down to $200, though it continues to be advertised as $199 by the respective companies in hopes that many will not feel the pinch by seeing the number start with 1 rather than 2.

But I do feel the pinch, and I have decided not to buy an iPhone despite waiting for it for a long time. Here's why:

I worked out the total yearly cost of ownership of iPhone:

Item

One-time cost

1-year cost

iPhone handset	199	199
Tax	16.4175	16.4175
Minimum monthly rental	69.99	839.88
"Activation" fee	36	36
SMS	5	60
Total		1151.2975

Total cost of ownership of an iPhone is $1151.30.

I'd rather invest that money in books, food, rent, and paying other bills.

I'm sorry Apple and AT&T but you have disappointed me by first showing me a glimpse of reduced cost, but eventually not doing it at all.

No iPhone for me.

Edit: I'm deviating from my usual policy of including pictures in posts, because I don't want to see an iPhone pic now.

The longest Firefox 3 error message!

Another site that forces users into Internet Explorer, and how to bypass it

Update: After numerous customer complaints, Airtel's website now works with Safari.

I'm an Indian living in USA, and I use Airtel's calling card service to make phone calls to India. All was well until two weeks back when I ran out of my balance and wanted to fill dollars into my account as usual. I was horrified to see the message "Please use Internet Explorer" when I tried to login to their website using Safari or Firefox 3!

A quick call to their "customer care" tells me the reason:

"Sir we have performed some upgrades to our website and you can use only IE at this time".

I asked:
"There is no IE for Mac users, so does it mean Mac users can't use your service anymore?"

Answer was quick:
"I'm afraid yes sir, you will have to use Internet Explorer from some other computer to recharge your balance".

What a great business idea - the customer wants to give your company his money, but the company has an upgraded website that won't let him login!

Here's how I bypassed the IE enforcement:

1. Launch Safari on your Mac and open its preferences (command and , keys at the same time)
2. Go to the last tab of Preferences and check "Show develop menu in menu bar"
3. Click the Develop menu in the Safari menu bar, and choose Develop -> User Agent -> Internet Explorer 7.0
4. Now you can login to the Airtel website!

Note: If you keep seeing a Verisign image after logging in, check the "remember me" option when logging in, and then go back to their homepage. You'll log right in without any problem!

IE enforcers, I have pwned you!

Getting MacFUSE to work on Leopard: The twists and turns

I finally got MacFUSE working on my Leopard installation. Total time taken = a little more than one hour. I feel like I'm using Windows again :(

I grabbed the dmg of MacFUSE from Amit's page here and installed the kernel extension of MacFUSE. Rebooted.

Installed SSHFS from the same site.

When I ran sshfs.app from Applications folder, it seemed to accept the server address and my username, but whenever I entered my password, it kept asking me to enter password again. I checked using Little Snitch - the app was not trying to make any connection at all to my server!

I spent a good one hour trying to figure out what's wrong and here it is:

First I had to connect to that server using terminal's ssh command. When you do it for the first time, the RSA fingerprint is displayed and you type "yes" to accept it. It is then added to the list of known hosts, which is essential for SSHFS.app to function.

But this was not as simple. Running the ssh command in Terminal gave me a "bus error".

Now go figure!

I spent another 15 minutes trying to find out what's wrong again, and here it is:

Rogue Amoeba's software "Audio Hijack Pro" contains an "extra" called "Instant Hijack". I had earlier enabled this, but this is interfering with ssh. So I disabled the Instant Hijack feature, connected to the server using terminal ssh for the first time, added server RSA fingerprint to the list of known hosts, and finally...

I can now use MacFUSE!

Birth pangs of Firefox 3

The world record that Mozilla foundation is heading towards sounds ambitious, and I am confident they will get it. Firefox is going to become the most popular browser ever, no doubt about it - it's now only a matter of time.

I downloaded Firefox 3 today for Mac, and I'm impressed with many new features. However, after using it for 4 hours, I already see a couple of areas for improvement:

1. Mac specific problems (as always): Websites created with iWeb '08 won't show the photo pages at all! However, websites created with previous versions of iWeb work well. There is a solution from an enthusiastic Apple user, but looks like Mozilla will take some time to listen.

2. 1 Billion people ignored: I'm an Indian, and want to use Firefox in my language. But that's my own selfish demand. Let's say that in another way: "If you make a Hindi language pack for Firefox, you will be able to reach 1 billion people directly". You heard it right, 1 billion - one sixth of world population.

3. Imperfect anti-phishing mechanisms: I also noticed that the anti-phishing system relies on reporting by suspecting users rather than a built-in algorithm. This has two flaws: 1. Not all phishing websites can be reported, 2. Not all can be reported in time - the reporting then just serves as a "damage control" mechanism rather than a method of prevention. I think it'd be great if Firefox can scan a link's text if it's made to look like a link, and alert the user if the link points to some other website. For example:

http://getfirefox.com

But it takes them to www.randomwebsite.com

4. In-browser PDF display: Just like the previous versions, you must download a PDF and open it with a different application - Firefox 3 cannot display PDF files inside the browser. The solution came rather quickly from Google. I haven't tested it, but it's reported to work well.