No VoIP over 3G, but music streaming is a-OK

Pandora and AOL Music are being trumpeted as if there's no tomorrow, and they are great... great suckers of 3G bandwidth. However, iPhone Apps like Truphone and Fring are not so hot yet. Truphone is 6 cents a minute: not as expensive as AT&T overage fees, but way more expensive than SIP voice carriers, which is the reason to use VoIP. Fring is sitting in the shadows, as their app is for jailbroken iPhones, waiting to see if the iPhone developer program becomes a little less draconian.

So, which way is it going to be, Steve? Are bandwidth sucking apps allowed, or forbidden?

BTW. G729 calls sound great at 8 kbits/s. I can't imagine Pandora and AOL Music are pushing less bits per second.

Don't waste your dollars on commercial office suites

If you haven't tried Open Office and Neo Office for the Mac lately, ... well, you should. As some open source projects do, OO has very active communities and developers (paid by Sun, no less). You might be surprised are how much it has evolved since the time you tried it last. Neo Office is an OO's Cocoa/Aqua port, so you might want to check that out too.

If you don't have time to test the free software, Mr Christopher Dawson has a decent review of the four contenders: OO, N-O, iWork and MS Office. Link

However, if you are still writing your thesis in a commercial word processor, may I suggest you switch to LaTeX already?

Eagle 5.0.0 for OSX. No X11 required!!

O HAPPY DAY! The good guys at CadSoft have heard the clamor of the Mac-using hackers. The new 5.0 version of their excellent Eagle PCB design software not only runs in OSX, but it also runs Aqua style! To check out the droolworthy software, follow the link.

Note: there's an excellent Eagle tutorial in Sparkfun.com. Link.

EVDO+iPod Touch: faster and cheaper than 3G iPhone?

If AT&T is joined by the hip to that somewhat cool piece of aluminum called an iPhone until 2012, do you really need a Blackberry to surf in the most ubiquitous 3G network in the United States? With this combo, you could mobile surf in style with your Touch, a with a cheaper monthly bill, at higher speeds, and in many more places than HSDPA can offer. The clinch is that you'll have to bring more hardware with you, possibly doubling the weight of the iPhone alone. Presiona el link vato.

Behold the Apple Mobile Lab

OMG. Like, er, I have never seen this stuff before. You know, like, have you ever seen those things called Apple Mobile Labs. These products, as they exist only in the shadows of academia, are rarely seen by our consumerist eyes. Fear no more, mon cheri: a guy in the MacNN forums posted a set of photos of the rarely witnessed Apple product. Get your edumacation by clicking the link.