Earlier this week saw the launch of a new mobile virtual network operator, Black + White. This is a virtual network running on the Vodafone network. The market this operator is going after are prepaid customers, and getting them on a monthly bill. One thing that makes them different from the other players, one one of the good things they have to offer to the table is no contracts. You can cancel at anytime, and if you notify them 30 days in advance there is no disconnection fee.

As a prepaid user myself, like many of my friends are, for us this is in no way appealings. Some of the reasons we are on prepaid are because we can only spend what we have so there is no debt. We only pay for what we use so we are no wasting money on minutes that would go wasted. It’s really cheap and convenient and we are not tied down to a contract of any sort. We are the low users, don’t really call much and don’t text much either, or if we only text, for $10, we get a considerable amount of texts that usually last.

The base plan on B+W is $30, and for that you get $0.60/m calls and 600 texts per month. That’s $30 and your calling on top of that. If you compare that to prepaid on Telecom or Vodafone, you would have to make 70 minutes worth of voice calls for to costs to be equal. And on that point, if a prepaid customer really does that many minutes on calling per month, they should probably be on a plan of some description. In comparison, for $30 on Vodafone, you get 600 texts, 30 minutes and 1 BestMate. You are stuck on a 12 month contract, but the disconnection fee is very little on this plan that you might as well pay for it than extra for the minutes on B+W.

The other plans are more on par with the current offerings of Vodafone. The only real difference in that you are not tied down to a 12 or 24 month contract. I wouldn’t know how many prepaid customers pay over $60 a month on there phone, but if they do, they should probably be on a plan that offers them a better deal. The only reason I can see that a person doing this wouldn’t get onto a plan is the contract period, but even then the savings would probably be able to pay for any disconnection fee or plan changing fee if one occurred. If ones phone usage fluctuates a bit through the year, then I could see them jumping onto this.

And seeing as the Vodafone plans and B+W plans are quite comparable, I don’t see anyone jumping ship. If you are already locked into a Vodafone plan, playing the disconnection fee and going onto B+W isn’t going to gain you anything, just maybe make you look a bit silly. If you are already out of your contract period, then there is really no reason to switch because if something better came along, you can already easily jump ship.

I don’t know much about this but from what I see, I don’t see this really taking off. Its a nice alternative to what is now on offer but the only thing they really bring to the table is no contract terms. As for marketing towards prepaid customers, I don’t know how many users would actually benefit from going onto a plan with them. I was thinking about switching to them before I knew the plans because I thought they might have something that could appeal to me. All I spend is $10 a month on Vodafone for 2000 texts to other Vodafone mobiles (Peppery in other words.) I would like a plan that can give me at least 500 to any mobile in New Zealand for around the same price I pay currently. Unfortunately only Telecom offer this on prepaid, but I can’t use my iPhone with them (yet.)

About a month ago, I noticed that when I moved my laptop from my desk over to my bed, the screen would flash and the light around the power plug on my laptop would flash as well. This means that to power was getting disconnected while I was moving my machine. I initially thought this was just the plug coming loose on my laptop, but once when I was watching to make sure it didn’t come out, the power still cut off. I wiggled the cord a bit and that caused it to flash. Something here was not right.

After a bit of investigation the next morning, I figured that the little cord going into the adapter for my laptop was breaking the circuit if you moved it. The wire or something was loose and it was causing my computer screen to flash everytime the power got disconnected. I needed to do something to stop this from happening so I got some tape to try and stop it. I also started treating the adapter very fragile. This was a temporary fix and I was hoping it would last till I got a new laptop (MacBook please ) next year. Here is a picture of the first fix.

It lasted close to a week before it started happening again. This time it was worse. It was harder to stop it from disconnecting. I tried to tape it back up again but after half a dozen attempts as that, the tape couldn’t keep the circuit closed. After a lot of thinking, a somehow managed to get it to work using 2 clips. That worked well enough to work although it seemed like it was a very very temporary solution. Here is a picture of the second fix.

Today I went into town to find a replacement adapter. I ended up going to Dick Smith Electronics and getting a random third party notebook adapter. This was a well overpriced $149. I didn’t particularly want to spend any money on fixing this machine because it would cost a good $1000 to fix everything up so it is at a usable standard for next year, but at that price, I’d be better off getting a whole new laptop. Anyway, I didn’t use my money to get this so I didn’t mind that much.

I was a bit hesitant to use this adapter after I got it. I was worried it would ruin my laptop. Thanks to a “friend” on an IRC server I am on, she told me her horror story which made me even more hesitant to use it. I eventually just bit the bullet and switched it on and plugged it in and it worked how it should. No problems or blowing up of my computer (thank god!) I don’t know what I would have done if it ruined my computer, but it would probably be something along the lines of getting a cheap $1500 Windows laptop. It’s a shame that this adapter is so ugly, otherwise I wouldn’t mind using it so much. In saying that, I’d rather be able to use my laptop than be without it so I have to compromise on the aesthetics of the adapter. I can’t wait to get my new MacBook. That time can’t come sooner!

My school is fortunate enough to offer Electronics as a subject in year 12 and 13. I did it last year and continued it this year. It is a really cool subject, especially this year because we get to play with Picaxe microcontrollers and Lego robots. The last standard I completed in Electronics was the programming unit. For the Picaxe, we programmed them in basic.

For this project, we get a Picaxe and we make a circuit that we program with the microcontroller. For the standard, you need at least 2 inputs and 2 outputs of any kind. For this, I decided to do a Pedestrian Light simulation. For this, you push a button and it starts the pedestrian lights and then it simulates the traffic lights to stop the cars and shows the light for the person. All the timings are accurate for this simulation and it worked. You can see a video of this here. (Mute video/speakers before playing.) This is my friend Martin’s version of it, which works exactly the same as mine, the only difference being the code and the type of Picaxe used.

Another interesting Picaxe project that I must talk about is that of my friend Morgan’s. He built a Collision Avoidance Robot which is controlled by the Picaxe microcontroller. His program looks far more complex than the Pedestian Light simulation ones and it probably was. The base of the robot was pre-built from some other kit but he added the breadboard with wiring onto it as well as some bumpers to it. When the bumpers get pressed, it gets the robot to turn away. Although it looks simple enough, I can tell you, the construction of the bumpers was quite hard, for some more than others. (Aaron *cough*) A video of the Collision Avoidance Robot he made can be seen here.

Playing with the Picaxe was really awesome and it was really cool to have done a project like this. It was also really cool to see the robot Morgan had made, it was amazing. For a lot of people, this is going to look like child’s play but how many people can actually do this, not many. For me the programming was the best part, I guess I just enjoy trying to solve problems and make little things like this. Next up, its Robotic Lego time

Early this morning, New Zealand time, Steve Jobs took the stage in a special Apple event where he announced a bunch of notebooks. I got up at 6am to read the up to date news on these new systems. As I said during the last event about the new iPods, I find myself less excited and feeling a little disappointed after the announcement. I feel this is not because the products suck or are just minor updates, but because rumors about these are getting released months, weeks, days and hours before the event, and they turn out to be true. I would enjoy the keynote a lot more if the releases were a complete surprise, something i hadn’t seen before, but that seems to be impossible nowadays, unfortunately.

If you want to know about the new MacBooks, you can go to Engadget, MacRumors, Ars Technica or any other tech site that reports on Apple news. If you want the specs and more detailed information, you can go to the Apple website or store for that. They both looks pretty cool and they both are pretty expensive, which is a shame. I had plans on getting a MacBook before, and I still would like a MacBook now. They also announced a 24 inch Cinema Display. The thing that makes this product so special is that it was made for MacBook, Pro and Air. It has 3 cables on it, MagSafe for power, USB for data and Mini DisplayLink for graphics. I think this is a great solution for connecting your notebook to a monitor. It is similar to some kind of docking solution, except with cables. The monitor has power USB ports for those desk items like keyboard, mouse, external drives etc.

The new MacBook is made out of Aluminium instead of plastic. The case looks really nice, much nicer than the previous one in my opinion. The screen is glass and features a LED backlit monitor. It would have been nice if it was capable of 1440×900 instead of just 1280×800. It also has a backlit keyboard on the high end model which is something that I would love because I do type in the dark and have difficulty seeing the in that setting. They have also ditched the Intel integrated graphics with a nVidia GeForce 9400M which is a much better graphics option. I also noticed that it uses DDR3 RAM instead of the DDR2 that most other notebook computers use.

I do love the new MacBook over the old one. The only problem is the increase in price point. The old custom configuration I had would have cost me $2500 with AppleCare and an Educational Discount. My new custom configuration is going to cost me $3000 with AppleCare and Educational Discount. I’m starting to wonder if a $3000 notebook computer is a smart thing to do. Should I just give it a skip and go with a cheaper Windows PC? I really want this MacBook but I’m not sure if I could do it for $3000. Only time will tell if and when I own this beauty…

Sometimes, not even the best apps can stay on my iPhone. This could be for many reason such as I never use the app, maybe because I am not connected 24/7, unlike most iPhones. Here is a list of applications for iPhone and iPhone Touch that I have used, but no longer have on my iPhone. They are great apps and worthy of mention, some free, some paid, some for jailbroken devices. This is the cut list.

Evernote – This app is great for taking notes. It can also take picture note or images from your photo albums are use them too. All of this syncs with the Evernote web service which also syncs to the desktop app. This tool is very powerful for making notes, much more than the default note application. Since your note sync back and forward with the cloud, you will be able to access your note from anywhere.

Instapaper Free – What makes this app really useful is the ability to read webpages offline. What you do is mark a link using the Instapaper bookmarklet either from your computer or iPhone and then you sync the iPhone app with your web account and it downloads the webpage onto your iPhone for reading offline. You can read the page in web format or text format for faster loading an no added rubbish. There is also a Pro version which ads a couple of extra features but nothing you will really miss. Definitely look at this app if you are interested!

NetNewsWire -This is the best RSS reader app in my opinion. It syncs with Newsgator Online which syncs with the the Newsgator desktop clients. This allows you to get the latest news that you haven’t read and read it online or offline and then later sync back up where it marks what you have read. This is a great product as it makes all your feeds synchronised across the board. This app performs great!

Talking German Phrasebook – If you are ever going to go to Germany and don’t really know the language, then this is the app to take on your travels. It has a load of phrases and words a tourist in the country may need to use. It has the English and German for the phrase and even has an audio recording for the spoken phrase. There are even some interesting phrases you can use to pick up some those hot German chicks Its also a great application if you find the German language interesting or would like to pick up some words for your general knowledge. So worth the money, do get this!

Tumble – Want to quickly post something on your Tumblr tumblelog while you are out and about? Well this app makes that easy. Just launch it, select the type of post you want to make and go for it. You can do most of the usual methods. You can even use it to take a picture and upload directly to Tumblr, caption and all. Great app that saves time by not making you log in and use Safari.

WordPress – This app allows you to write full length posts for your WordPress blog, right on your iPhone. You can type away your blog post, save it, and post it online right from the app. It does exactly what you would expect it to do. The unfortunate thing is that typing for an extended period of time on the iPhone virtual keyboard isn’t ideal so I doubt you will be writing massive essay post to your blog, but maybe shorter posts. If you need to blog away from your computer on your iPhone, this is definitely the way to go about it.

Air Sharing ($6.99/$9.99) – I managed to snap up this app while they were giving it away from free. This app allows you to transfer files onto the iPhone using your computer. You attach your iPhone as a networked drive and you can paste files in there. The iPhone can even open and view most well know file formats such as word, excel, pdf, html etcetera. You can also access the contents of the drive via a web browser. I did find the transferring of files and accessing the drive a little bit slow, but that would be anything, not necessarily related to the app. If you need this type of functionality from your device, this has to be the app you go for.

PocketMoney ($9.99/$13.99) – This app give your the ability to manage your money on multiple accounts and cards. You can add different types of accounts and manually manage and keep an eye on money going in and out of the accounts and the spending on your cards. It’s password protected so your financial information is hidden from any suspecting people using your device. I personally use it to keep track of the money I am spending on my credit card so I don’t spend more than I have and know how much more I need to purchase something. It is really good for that.

Spore Origins ($9.99/$13.99) – The objective of this game is to get your unicellular Spore organism through the levels and eat guppy things which increase your DNA bar. The controls are basic, using the accelerometer steer and move forwards and backwards. Most of the levels consist of collecting DNA, except they start including unique creatures for you to attack or defend against to make the game more interesting. There are also special levels where you have to traverse a maze-like setting and your goal here is to get to the end without being killed by other creatures. This is a challenging and fun game to play.

Buzzer (Cydia) – This is a fun game which is similar to Buzz! The Music Quiz on the PlayStation 2. There are multiple rounds of the game where they give you a snippet of one of the songs in your library and you have to guess either on of the following, song title, artist, or association depending on the round. They also show you a zoomed in version of the album art and you have to guess it as it zooms out. Lastly, they have a round where the music is garbled and you have to guess what it is. This game was intended to be for 2 players but it is fun to try it yourself. If only they had a proper 1 player mode and scoreboard.

Unfortunately, the official App Store can be restrictive and limited for some developers. With jailbreaking and Installer.app and Cydia, this allows them to create and distribute applications that can do things that the restrictive SDK wouldn’t allow them to, or Apple. I’ve used quite a number of these jailbroken apps on my iPhone and here is a wide selection of ones I have on my iPhone. These are my top Cydia applications for iPhone and iPod Touch.

BossPrefs – This is a very powerful tool and I don’t even know exactly what this app can do. I use this app to turn off data and SSH when I don’t need it. This is so it doesn’t suck up my money, and no one can hack into my device. It is also good for respringing, restarting and shutting down your iPhone, if you needed to do that for some reason. There is plenty this thing can do.

Poof – I also like Poof, which I can access through BossPrefs. It it can be a stand alone application or come with BossPrefs if you would rather it. This allows you to hide icons from the home screen. This is very handy if you want to make those pesky icons you never use or are sick of seeing disappear. You can always easily put them in view again if you need to, its not permanent, it’s just a toggle of a switch.

Cycorder – One thing the iPhone is missing, a video recording application. It can a decent enough camera for taking pictures, so why can’t it be used for video? Well with this app it can. The quality of the video is decent enough, especially for YouTube. It does on the fly compression of video and they can be played back through the app. The annoying thing is that this app doesn’t have built in export tools. You have to get into your iPhones filesystem, navigate through the directories to find all your videos. I’m sure exporting is on the list of things coming soon to the app but it is still worth giving a go.

MxTube – The YouTube app that comes with the device is great, don’t get me wrong, but most of the time I am without an internet connection. This is where MxTube comes to the rescue. It allows you to download videos and save them onto your device for offline viewing later. I use it to save some of my favourite YouTube clips in high quality so I can show people later on, without the need for any connection. It can also save on time and bandwidth too, because you will no longer have to reload that video you’re always watching or showing.

Pushr – If you take pictures regularly with the built in camera on the iPhone and you use Flickr, this is the perfect app for you. When you launch the app, it will show you the pictures you’ve taken since the last push and allow you to name and tag them and upload them to Flickr. It does it easily and the images are full resolution with all their various tags in tacked.

Qik – Use Qik or would like to stream live to the internet? If so then this app is for you. It allows you to stream using the camera on the iPhone and sends it up to Qik for everyone to see, over Wifi and 3G. This allows people to see exactly what you see, live! It is also saved on the site for further viewing after you’ve finished streaming.

WifiToggle – This adds a button on the home screen for fast connecting to Wifi. No longer do you have to go into Setting and navigate through to the Wifi menu just to get connected to the internet. With one push of a button, and a 3 second wait, you will be connected to your Wifi. It’s as simple as that. If only it had a nicer looking icon.

Five Icon Dock – The dock only lets you have 4 icons on it at a time, although there is room to squeeze one more. That is what this app does, it allows you to drag one extra icon onto the dock if you so desire. If you already have 4 apps you want down there, and lets say you just got WifiToggle, it would be handy down in the dock, but you don’t want to give up one of your other apps from down there too. This is the prefect solution to that. It may look a little strange at first, but you will get use to it, fast.

OpenSSH – This app allows you to SSH into your iPhone so you can hack it, transfer files to and from the device, or whatever you desire. If you’re going to modify system files, change the theme, install some apps then this is a must. It is also needed for some apps like Cycorder for getting videos off the device. It can also be used to backup some of the files on your iPhone. There are many reason why you could want to get into your device, and this app is a must for any of those.

Scrobbled – If you use Last.Fm, this is the app you’re looking for. This allows you to scrobble straight from the iPhone or iPod Touch. No longer will you have to sync and hope that the desktop software scrobbles your plays. This app scrobbles to the site live if you’re connected to the internet, but if you’re not don’t worry, it will scrobble all those offline plays the next time you are connected.

Veency – There are many apps, official and unofficial, that allow you to VNC into another system, but this does the opposite. This app lets you VNC into the device. From here you can control your iPhone or iPod Touch right from a computer screen. You could use this to type things on the device with a real keyboard, or to access apps when it’s away from you. This is a fun little tool to play around with.

Note: These apps are for jailbroken iPhone and iPod Touch only. All are available through Cydia.

The app store provides developers with a great marketplace to sell their iPhone and iPod Touch software. Developers put a lot of time into crafting these applications and most of these, especially the expensive ones, are to a very high quality. I have used bought a number of apps and games on my iPhone and here is a wide selection of ones I have on my iPhone. These are my top paid applications and games for iPhone and iPod Touch.

Countdown ($0.99/$1.29) -The title of the app pretty much tells you what it does, it counts down to a certain date and time. You may be thinking that the iPhone already has this functionality built into its clock app, but this has a few more features. You can have multiple countdown clocks, each with its own title and icon which you can get from your photo albums. I used it for counting down to the releases of my favourite TV shows and it worked great. I always knew when Heroes was coming out, down to the second.

Rooms ($2.99/$4.19) – One of the thing previous jailbroken devices could offer was an IRC client. After a long time waiting after the App Store was up, finally a client came. It is called rooms and is a decent IRC client. It allows you to connect to multiple servers and room and acts like a normal client would. It doesn’t look as appealing or work as good as the previous unofficial clients did but it is a start. If you need IRC on your device, unfortunately this is your only choice.

Twitterrific ($9.99/$13.99) – Twitter Addict? This is one option for you to tweet and read other tweets from your iPhone, without using the mobile site in Safari. This app does exactly what you would expect a twitter app to do. It also allows you to post pictures, either from the camera or camera roll. It can also to a couple of other things you may like. There is a free version of this app, the major difference is the advertising. If ads don’t worry you and you’re not willing to pay this premium price, get the free version.

Aqua Forest ($7.99/$10.99) -This is an amazing game! It uses both the touch screen and accelerometer to its advantage in unique and interesting puzzles. Each one is different and requires a different set of skill set. Out of all the games in the App Store, this is definitely the one to buy! It offers so much, and everyone will enjoy it, no matter what!

Battle At Sea ($4.99/$6.49) – I use to enjoy playing Battleships at school, and this app is a digital version of that game. You put your 5 ships down anywhere on the field and then each of your ships get a chance to shoot. Kill a ship, it can no longer be used. This game is quite fun, and if you’re connected to the same network as someone else with this app, you can do a multiplayer battle. The only problem with this game is that after you get the hang of it and get a strategy going, the computer seems a bit dumb and only beats you on a fluke.

Bejeweled 2 ($7.99/$-) -Everyone know what Bejeweled is, and this is the iPhone version of that popular PopCap game. You use you fingers to move the pieces to form a small row and then it disappears and more blocks fall into the level. This keeps on going till you run out of moves. This game feels a bit limited and after playing it for a while, you feel like you haven’t accomplished much. This could be easily fixed with a high scores list of some description so you can keep track of your top games.

Crash Bandicoot Nitro Cart 3D ($5.99/$8.29) – My old favourite PlayStation character is the star of yet another racing game, but this time for the iPhone and iPod Touch. You control the car in this game by using tilting and you can also jump by tapping the screen and get weapons that you can you to your advantage in the race by taping the icon. I did have a problem with the turning controls since they are bit difficult to use and aren’t as good as with a controller with a proper D-Pad or Analogue Stick.

Enigmo ($4.99/$6.49) -This is a really interesting physics game where the objective is to get droplets of water into a bucket thing. To do this, you have to use objects you are provided to direct the water to move or bounce through the level and into the bucket. It is very challenging and offers many hours of playtime. To extend it even further, it even allows you to download user created levels, so there is so many levels to accomplish in this game.

Lumen ($3.99/$5.29) – The objective of this game is to guide a laser beam through all the checkpoints. You do this by using mirrors to direct the way the light turns. Also the checkpoints have different colours so you have to use gems to change the colour of the beam so it can pass through the checkpoint. This is a really cool puzzle game and you should at least check out the free version, Lumen Lite. The main version has many more levels as well as the ability to access the custom user made levels database for even more challenges.

Super Monkey Ball ($9.99/$13.99) -This game was one of the ones demoed at the announcement of the App Store. This game developed by Sega is really well done and shows what these devices are capable of in terms of gaming. The graphics of this game are stunning. In this game, you are in a ball and you roll around the level using the accelerometer. Make sure you don’t roll off the edge or else you die. Unfortunately the controls can be a bit difficult and don’t respond that well which makes it difficult not to go over the edge.

Note: Prices listed are in USD and NZD. Prices of the apps in your store will be different from the ones speficifed in this article.