So,… what’s new?

At the beginning of the event Steve Jobs introduced the upcoming firmware of the iOS 4.1 which features the game center and HDR camera feature for the iPhone. I think the HDR technology is pretty awesome for a smartphone and this would definitely enhance the quality of photos taken in certain situations. This feature will add more definition to your photos and make them look super great!

We were also given the sneak preview of the iOS 4.2 which will come out in November (it’s the month when I’ll be watching Harry Potter movie). iOS 4.2 will finally support the iPad users; so they can enjoy multi-tasking on their over-rated tablets.

Another pretty awesome thing is the new iTunes version 10 which will be available today. You can download it here for both Mac and PC. Apple introduces Ping Social Network for Music Service (It is pretty much like Apple version of Facebook and Twitter) To be honest, I wasn’t really impressed by it due to the fact that I do not believe that people would need all these many social network accounts Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and now Ping! I don’t see anything that is really fun, new or innovative with Apple Ping. However, I bet that this thing will be a hit since Apple it is integrated with iTunes and I’m sure there are millions of iTunes account holders would be interested in Ping services.

New iPod Touch, Nano and Shuffle

New iPod Line Up 2010-2011

Steve Jobs introduced the new Apple iPod Shuffle, a touch screen iPod Nano, and an even slimmer iPod Touch with front and back cameras that support Face Time.

The new iPod Touch will be an amazing hit, including Facetime on an iPod will be just totally amazing! I’m sure there will be tons of Nokia users out there who don’t want to spend that much money on an iPhone 4 would grab an iPod and communicating with Facetime all the time.

One More Thing

Just like the rumors, Apple TV gets a whole new update. For just $99, it is now many times smaller than the previous one. It is pretty promising for developed countries with fast internet connection because what it mainly does is basically stream content through the server. It is also capable of streaming YouTube, Netflix and content from your Mac.

Those who have just bought the Apple TV yesterday for $299 are officially screwed!

The event is wrapped up by a special guest star; the lead singer from Coldplay (I forgot his name, but he sings really good). He sings a song that I do not know of, Viva La Vida, and a likely new hit from the Coldplay’s upcoming album.

This Changes Everything - All Over Again

The death grip, Antenna Issues -- The iPhone 4

Does it matter? Of course not! It’s the iPhone we’re talking about. Even if it doesn’t make calls it will still be cool!

If you don’t have a clue about the Death Grip: See This Video

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B2ngRRhqcE

Let’s be serious about the antenna issue first of all; as reported it is indeed an Apple Engineering failure. It does matter for some people but for most people; I don’t think they will have problems with the antenna issue.

One thing that Apple products have had for years are “cool cases”. Whether it is a Macbook or an iPod, there are cool accessories for your Apple devices. Most iPhone users will use cases or bumpers on their iPhone and that will fix the antenna issue altogether. Even if you don’t prefer to use an iPhone case, the signal problem won’t likely happen unless if you recreate what is happening the the YouTube video.

Overall, the signal problem of the iPhone 4 should not be a big issue. Apple has stated that if you are not happy with your iPhone purchase you can always return it back to the store and ask for a refund.

What I really like about the new iPhone 4

There are tons of new features on the iPhone 4 such as video conferencing and high definition video recording. However when I first got my hands on the iPhone 4; one thing that really does stand out is the display. It is certainly the best display you could ever get on a phone. It is obvious, you can clearly see the huge difference between the previous iPhone display and the retina display on the iPhone 4.

This display is even crispier than the iPad; which according to the rumors; the new second generation iPad will come with Retina Display as well. I think we can agree that when it comes to “features”; iPad and iPod Touch fall a little behind the iPhone.

That’s the killer feature of the iPhone 4: “The Retina Display”. You can’t see it much on YouTube; I say get your hands on the iPhone 4 and see it for yourself!

“Yes, my iPhone is Jailbroken”

…and nope, I’m not doing it for personal use! Let me be clear that this is for experimental testing only. I wanted to test out all the fantastic apps, tweaks and apps that you could download to a jailbroken iPhone. One of the apps that I was really excited about was the MiWi.

I know the photo is lousy - I was in the dark - Quit Complaining!

What’s MiWi?

MiWi is an app that’s capable of turning your iPhone 3G connection to a Wifi network. It will make your iPhone work as if it was a portable wifi modem. When it is turned on, you could actually see the Wifi Connection from the AirPort or Wireless Network.

Basically, it works like 3G tethering but it turns that 3G connection into Wifi sorta connection.

Awesome! Should I jailbreak my iPhone now!?

Hold on to that thought. Let me just give you some thoughts on the MiWi app…

I think the app has worked quite wonderfully, however, I could not help but notice there are some issues with the app as well. First of all, the app itself is not gratis. You need to pay for certain amount of money to download the app. It should give you a 10 days trial after downloading it for the first time. Second is, you should expect errors too. It doesn’t run smoothly; sometimes it will crash or refresh itself.

The connection works like WiFi, but I’m afraid it is just not fully WiFi. I tested it on a Mac, the connection shows up in the AirPort network list, however once connected it gives you a weird icon. I’m not sure what it was but it still connects to the Internet so I guess that’s not a big deal.

The big deal is: The connection is just “not WiFi”. It doesn’t feel like WiFi; the connection feels no different than connecting the iPhone via Bluetooth Tethering method.

Thoughts on Jailbroken iPhone
Having your iPhone being Jailbroken is a pretty cool thing. You sure will get tons of features you could not get on a locked-down iPhone. However, I must say that; in my opinion it is just not necessary.

You can even enable Flash on a Jailbroken iPhone, but it did not work as smooth as one would expect.

Most of the features, hacks and tweaks that you could do with a Jailbroken; with no doubts are fun to experiment with. Not necessarily useful for most average front-end users.

First of all, I managed to unify my Video Channel. You can visit my official YouTube Channel directly by going to http://www.technicallynazz.com. If you happen to have a YouTube account, please support me by liking or disliking my videos; and subscribe to my YouTube Channel.

Does this mean that this is the end of Jinxbox Channel? Nope. I’ll be handing it over to someone else; the thing about Jinxbox Channel is that “it is not unified“; I needed a channel that is dedicated to ‘Technology’ alone; which is why I created Technically Nazz.

What have you done in the last two weeks? I’ve made tons of videos (eight to be exact) and it involved quite a bit of work, there’s video capturing, video editing, and uploading. Eight Videos in two weeks is not bad at all… I’ve bought a new Macbook (you can watch the unboxing video in my YouTube channel) I’ve sold my previous PC and made some money from that as well. You’d be happy to know I still have 3 laptops and a desktop and they are all PCs, in another words; I didn’t really switch to Mac, I just happened to got one.

And we have successfully moved all of our websites to a new server. Nadzrul – Tech Blog gets better structure and better way of handling media files so that they will load faster than ever. In short, things are getting better and better.

Expect more new things to come; we are bringing tons of new stuff for you! As for now, enjoy this Alien Picture of me:

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced that they have won the exceptions to the DMCA and this has made ‘Jailbreaking the iPhone or any other smartphone’ officially legal in the United States. So the next time someone sees your jailbroken iPhone, you’d look “cool” rather than looking like someone who has committed an iPhone crime.

Anyway, stuck iPhone could happen for a couple of reasons as well and not just by “Jailbreaking”:. The last time it happened to my cousin was during the backup restoration to the iPhone 3G running iOS4.

What actually happened was; he had restored his iPhone 3G (obviously he backed it up first) and updated to the  iOS4 through ‘restoration’ process instead of updating straight to the iOS4. Once it has restored, he did the ‘backup restoration’ process and this is when things get ugly. His iPhone stuck on the Apple Logo Reboot Loop or whatever you call it. I call it the Apple Fruit Screen of Death (AFSoD).

How did this really happen? I think it was because the backup files from iOS3 is different than the iOS4. This is why if you’re thinking about updating your current iPhone 3.0 to iOS4 you should do the ‘update’ process rather than restoring the iPhone completely. Backup files from iOS3 won’t support your iPhone once it has been updated to the iOS4. (this is another reason why updating process takes a really long time for the iPhone 3G users)

How do you fix it then?!

First you will have put your iPhone in the Recovery Mode.

1) Connect your iPhone to your PC/Mac using the USB cable.

2) While the iPhone is busy looping itself, press the Power and Home buttons at the same time. Once it looks like it is turned of, go ahead and let go of the power button without letting go the Home Button. Keep pressing until iTunes tells you that your iPhone needs restoration.

3.a) If you don’t want the old Backup Files, go ahead and restore your iPhone to the latest iOS4.

3.b) If you still want your the backup files from your iPhone 3.0, you will have to do some hacking techniques in order to get those files back to your iPhone. The problem here is the iPhone with iOS4 installed can not be downgraded back to the 3.0 firmware.

4) Press ‘shift’ on the keyboard and click on ‘restore’, the browser window will open and you will have to locate the iPhone 3.1.3 firmware. The firmware can either be downloaded from here or it is already located in the iTunes AppData folder.

5) Wait for the iPhone to be restored and downgraded to 3.1.3 firmware. You will eventually get an error code from iTunes.

6) Close iTunes program, reboot your computer, put your iPhone to Recovery Mode and repeat step 4 all over again.

7) iTunes will give you the error code again, but this time, hit up Recboot; which can be downloaded from their website.

WARNING – make sure your have libusb installed first. You can download and install it from here. Another WARNING: if you are using Windows Vista or Seven, set the Recboot and Libusb in “Windows XP mode” before installing and running it!

Click on ‘Exit Recovery Mode’ on Recboot, your iPhone will reboot and ready to use. You can even plug it in and restore all the backup from the iPhone 3.0 firmware.

Remember, if you want to update the iPhone to iOS4, click on ‘update’ instead of restore. Note that iPhone 3G users will find that updating to iOS4 could take a really long time, this is normal since the iTunes has to convert your old backup files and make it compatible with iOS4.

I purchased my very first iPod (Apple iPod Video) in the late 2005 with my own pocket money, and I felt proud because that was one of the most expensive items I’ve ever bought in my entire life. What’s really cool about it was: it played Video! Take that iPod Nano! (some of my friends got their iPod Nanos couple of months earlier, and it was a sucker punch when the Video iPod came out)

The iPod Video wasn’t my first MP3 player, it was this weird MP4 player my parents bought from Singapore and the way that it handled music obviously not as impressive as the iPod.

The experience of switching from an MP4 player to an iPod was quite easy for me since I only had about 50 songs in the MP4 player. Organizing them in the iTunes wasn’t a big deal for me; it was pretty easy.

The Big Problem is: what if you have 3,000 songs in your MP3 player and you are switching to an iPod.

Organizing ‘unorganized’ music library could take ages. You should take my word when I say: Once You Have an iPod you will want to make your music library as organized as possible.

Why?

Because that is the point of buying an iPod. Everybody wants Album Artwork, and 100% correct song information once you get the hands on an iPod.

I mean, come on?! No Album Artworks on an iPod? Songs badly organized? … iPod shows Can’t Buy Me Love – by Taylor Swift when it supposed to be sang by The Beatles?

So… What is the easiest way to clean up and organize your music library?

There is a software called ‘TidySongs’ that lets you do this automatically. It is pretty much an addon to help you organize your iTunes Library and it works like magic.

It is a must have software that Remove Duplicate Songs, if you happen to have duplicate songs in your iTunes Library. Another great feature that I really like is it fills in Missing Artist, Title and all that!

You can learn more about TidySongs by visiting their website, it is a paid software but you can try it for free. I will get the commission from the sales; another honorable way for you to support my technology blog. If you have any questions regarding with the product or anything at all – you can always reach me through the contact form.

This varies for every business depending on your web specific needs; you will need to find a web hosting that provides what you really want your website to do. For example, if you will be running a company web profile, the hosting doesn’t really need to have all the fancy features but if you will be running a web store with shopping cart etc. you’ll need to go for a web hosting that support these features.

Here are some tips on choosing Small Business Web Hosting

Technical Support
A good web hosting company will always be there to help you overcome any technical problems. Although it is obvious that all companies do offer such thing as ‘technical support’ some of these companies aren’t very helpful. It will take you forever to set up a simple PHP based website if the technical support won’t answer to your email. Make sure that whatever hosting company you choose provides 24×7 technical support through email, phone, or live chat.

Documents
A lot of web hosting companies promise tons of things but here is another tip: “Do Not Buy Their Words”. Take a look at the ToS (terms of services), Agreements, and any other reliable form of documents before putting your money on the web hosting company.

Flexibility
Go for the web hosting that is flexible in terms of upgradable web hosting package or anything similar. As your business grows you will in time need a larger web space to support all those traffic.

Infrastructure
Make sure that the web hosting company is capable of protecting you from disasters such as DDoS or any Attacks from hackers, technical errors etc. This is another good reason not to buy web hosting from individuals but instead go for reliable web hosting company.

Reputation
Sure enough you won’t make the hosting sales person telling you if the hosting he or she is promoting ‘sucks’. You will need to do some research on forums or read few articles on whatever the web hosting company you’re ready to invest on.

Data Center Location
There is a theory that search engine such as ‘Google’ gives higher importance to websites hosted on local server. If you are from the US, you should go for a local server instead of getting the server located in other countries. This is important for the Search Engine Ranking of your website.

Understanding the Features of the Web Hosting
There are just tons of features being mentioned in each and every hosting package; so make sure you understand what a package features and most importantly do you need that feature? Ask the sales support team to help you in making all the decision.

Tell them what you need your website to do; and this could be anything from PHP support to Cronjob support. If you are a newbie you might find this article a little bit confusing, but to be honest it is not that difficult to choose a reliable web hosting.

As always, if there is anything you need to ask or if you want me to suggest a reliable web hosting for your website feel free to contact me through the contact form, I’d be happy to help!

About two weeks ago, I’ve got a package from XMI company (the creators of X-Mini) – they sent me two really nice portable speakers. It is unbelievable that about 2 and half years ago, I didn’t even know if Nadzrul.com could go this far, and I am thrill that my blog is gaining the trust and hopefully to become one of the reliable technology blogs in the near future.

Even though most of the articles hasn’t got any feedbacks, and most readers seem to leave the blog without first participating in the ‘comments area’; we’ve got quite a number of returning visitors (I believe most of them are my colleagues)

We’ve got 85% of new visitors coming everyday from Google, and the majority of these new visitors are from the United States (thanks America!) All of these facts give me a solid reason to continue writing, and I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading my articles as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them.

Yesterday, I’ve wrote an article about choosing the best web hosting. Today we’re going to take this topic to a dedicated place – Los Angeles (we’ve got wonderful readers coming from LA)

If you are from LA, or any Internet Marketers looking for a reliable los angeles dedicated server or hosting; look no further. There is a company called Network Rim that I found very reliable since they do quite a number of stuff like colocation and hosting services. The los angeles colocation company provides most of the Internet technology solutions for both business individuals and companies.

It is one of those companies that offer you dedicated customer experience and quality equipment, and of course this is not really a review – You will have to look this up for more information. I’ve been recommended by a reader to give this a shot, and probably I will – but as for now my blog is going to stay in the server where it currently belongs.

Well, first of all you got to understand that there are three types of Multimedia Authoring Software which are being classified into three parts: ‘Beginner, Intermediate, and Professional’.

Beginner being something similar to ‘Turn your photo into a Painting kind of Apps‘, Intermediate would be something like Final Cut Studio or Microsoft Movie Maker, and Adobe Photoshop being professional.

To be honest; I don’t like this idea since I think ‘every software should be easy-to-use‘. However when you think about it, there isn’t really a possible way of including a billion features into a software and making it easy to use; at least not today.

Now to define ‘easy to use’ is really depending on one’s expertise in a certain area. For example if you’re good at editing photos maybe you would find Photoshop ‘easy to use’. For some people, they don’t even know what layers are in Photoshop, and until Adobe hasn’t figured something that can be ‘easier’ then layer management in Photoshop – we won’t have anything to replace ‘layers’ in Photoshop.

How Do You Make Killer Flash Presentation Without Any Knowledge of ActionScript?

The answer is simple; choose an alternative. We all know that Adobe Flash is not an easy software; certainly not for the beginners.

The closest alternative that I’d prefer to use is a software called Swish Max. It has pretty much similar user interface like you could find in Adobe Flash Professional but somehow it is easier to use. You can do all these cool animations with a click of a button. Flash Professional on the other hand would let you open few options and typing up action-scripts in order to create animation (but of course you get more options and flexibility when creating animation)

There are tons of software out there that would let you make flash presentation; look for the ones that are easy to use.

What Happen If You Don’t Have Swish Max or any easier Alternatives?

If you don’t have any other alternatives or you already owned Adobe Flash Professional, another option is to buy or download Flash Templates and work from there. It is much easier than having to develop flash presentation from scratch.

There are tons of web hosts to choose from, and choosing the perfect hosting is getting more complicated since there are so many of them claiming that they’re ‘the best‘. Over the years, the industry has spawned a broad range of niche markets. Ranging from shared hosting to dedicated hosting, each type of web hosting has its pros and cons.

The cheapest web hosting is the ‘shared hosting’ and large majority of websites depends on it. Some of the shared hosting are free, but the better ones are paid either yearly or monthly depending on the server specifications. It is called shared hosting because you are sharing web resources like bandwidth and disk space with other paying customers or clients. It is a cost effective website, and great for starters but once you have thousands of web pages and visitors that are coming to your website, you will eventually have to consider for an upgrade.

Dedicated Hosting is another popular option; instead of sharing resources; the hardware and some of the web resources are dedicated to your website. This gives better speed and in certain condition ‘the ranking’ of your website in search engine results pages (SERPS)

Reseller Hosting, Managed Hosting and VPS are brilliant but sometimes they can be complicated for non-techie people and not to mention that they can be costly. If you’re running a serious business on the Internet and have tons of members on your website; or you simply want super-fast website, then one of these three hosting can make a great choice.

You can view some of the best web hosting reviews like the Bluehost and Immotion web hosting by visiting the UpperHost review website. Check out the site, its pretty helpful, and I repeat ‘be sure to check out the reviews’ or otherwise you’ll ended up with a bad hosting. Avoid buying unreliable web hosting from forums but instead you should go for the trusted web hosting companies.