So I got a 3G iPhone...

I said I wasn't going to do it. I already had a perfectly fine 1st gen 8GB iPhone. The 3G model wasn't worth it.

What changed my mind?

GPS
On a recent trip I heavily used the map application. It was fine for locating everything-- hotels, buildings, Starbucks, etc. -- except ME. Most of the time I got a huge circle, sometimes I got a very precise location that was definitely not where I was standing.

A colleague had the 3G model, which worked just like a real GPS should. It tells you exactly where you are. I was jealous.

Now with a proper GPS in my phone, I'm tempted to offload my Garmin Nuvi. This is a sweet device, but it's one more thing to carry around.

3G
I use my phone more for email and web than I do for calls. So if there's any way to speed that up, I'm all for it. 3G coverage in the States is not great, but it's getting better. Europe and Australia have excellent 3G.

???
I wish I could say there was something else compelling pushed me to upgrade. Unfortunately there isn't. I was sitting on the fence and it just took light breeze to push me over.

I would have grabbed this phone a month ago if it had a better camera, or could do video conferencing, or could be used as a modem. The "breeze" was seeing the GPS in action.

Upgrading cost me $340 plus a slightly higher monthly rate. I just hope they don't come out with a new model any time soon.

Mac Dock not doing the "zoom thing"

Every once in a while I've noticed on our iMac that the dock highlighting stops working. The first icon you mouse over zooms up but it doesn't change if you move over other icons.

I've been Googling for an answer, and it took the right combination of keywords ("imac dock not highlighting") to find this thread on MacRumors.com.

In the first post, a person reports exactly what I'm experiencing. People replied with the usual suggestions: Reboot, Repair Permissions, Reinstall Updates, etc.

On the last post I found this comment:

Hi, I had the same problem but in Leopard. All mouse over effects spontaneously disappeared and stayed off even through reboots.

Once I unplugged and re-plugged my mouse, everything worked fine again.

I suppose if you're on a laptop then plugging in an external mouse might help.

Hope this helps!

I gave it a shot and it worked! I hadn't noticed, but now that I think of it, mouse-over highlighting in general seems to be not right. Hopefully by blogging this, other people will find this solution easier.

How Lame

From tuaw.com:

The Washington Post is reporting that Pandora, the Internet radio station available on Mac, iPhone, and iPod touch, may be shutting down service soon.

The reason is that Sound Exchange, the money-grubbing blackmailers royalties collection arm affiliated with the Recording Industry Association of America, has imposed restrictive administrative fees ($500 per year per channel) and ridiculous royalty fees (2.91 cents per hour per listener) on Internet radio stations. While many companies that provide Internet radio services have been lobbying Congress for relief, there doesn't seem to be much of hope that happening in the near future.