Holy Shit Square Has Launched!

Hell yeah, Square launched for iPhone (Android should be pretty close too Actually it is here too). In a nutshell, the service gives you a damn easy way to take payments from credit cards, which is just really useful.

Fees:

With Credit Card present: 2.75% + 15cents

No Credit Card Present: 3.5% + 15cents

Paypal fees:

30cents plus 1.9-2.9% per transaction

They do have limits by payment and weekly based on your credit. This is pretty exciting, and so damn useful. It one ups Paypal in 2 ways:

1. Anyone can accept credit card payments from non-members (only business and premiere can on paypal)

2. It is def SO MUCH EASIER than paypal is to understand, setup and use. Paypal’s website is honestly really bad (iPhone app pretty good) and hard to navigate. It took ME 5-7 minutes to find their fees this morning.

And a recap of how Square works:

 

Why I Love Nashville

Not to jump on the nashville bandwagon too much, but things like this are why this city kicks ass:

Www. Section303. Com/we-are-nashville-4366

If you live in nashville, please conserve water right now. If not, please consider donating to hon. Org

 

This is Still a Game Changer

Great thoughts here about the upcoming ability of people to be able to take credit card payments via their smartphones (and nytimes source here).

Pretty much the last statement, “we needed this yesterday,” sums it up.

 

AT&T At Least is Keeping a Standard.

Apple has seemed under the table hell bent on killing the GSM SIM Card standard by using micro-SIM card slots in all new products (both iPad and iPhone 4G prototype use micro-SIM). Unless one would be really good witha knife, as micro-SIM gains popularity, the entire “buy a phone, put YOUR SIM card in it” would be made much more difficult.

AT&T has responded, and yes any SIM card from AT&T has clear markings for turning it into either a SIM or micro-SIM (thank God). Lets hope TMobile follows suit on this unfortunate stupidity.

 

Get HTC Sense UI Keypad on Any Android Phone

Exactly what the post says. Download here (low res unless you havea  droid or nexus 1), toss on your SD Card, and just open and install it. Wham.

Tip: You can switch easily between keypads by long pressing a text screen and selecting text input.

 

iPhone Multi-Tasking Summary…Does It Matter?

This is a great article on what multi-tasking 3rd party apps actually means for  iPhone 4.0. In a nutshell, there is not much real multi-tasking except for specific types of apps (music streaming, navigation, etc), and the rest are given a more robust way of saving their status, and the user an easier way to navigate back.  iPhone OS will kill any apps once they save and are exited.

Does it matter? For the iphone, no. iPhone 4.0 is adequate for a mobile device. Def it is simple and clean for the user (pretty much assumed for Apple). Does it do everything Android does or as well? Def not everything. Is it suitable enough to make operating a Mobile Device easier? It appears so overall.

The kicker is that the exact opposite is my opinion of this on the iPad. IE this will be extremely ugly and not sufficient for a device of that size and power. Not giving a device of that size real multi-tasking is just retarded.

 

Android 2.1 Leaked for the Samsung Moment. Here is How to Get It and All Features.

WooHoo.

The short version is a leaked version of Android 2.1 leaked for the Samsung Moment. It is really easy, straight forward and safe to install. All you need is the official Samsung/Sprint Moment Software Installer, and replace the current CL14 file with the 2.1 file.

Remove your memory card!

Step 1. Download the Istaller: Links found here.

Step 2. Download the 2.1 file. There are actually 2, DD03 is the most recent.

Step 3. Place the file in the following directory: C:\Program Files\Samsung Electronics\SWUpgrade\Models\Binary

Step 4. Plug in your phone, run the installer and follow the steps. This is Sprint’s official step by step guide.

Remember, this will wipe your phone. Anything backed up on gmail, or apps bought, can be redownloaded.

Step 5. You should now be on Android 2.1.

There are a few features missing that you can patch up, and there is a fixable bug with live music streaming!

To fix check out the steps here.

As for streaming applications like Pandora and TuneWiki you’ll have to disable Multimedia gateway (new feature in 2.1 rom) .It works fine after that:

phone > Dialer > ##3282# > Multimedia > Enter “MSL” > You will see RTST Proxy, HTTPPD Proxy > modify every list > set Address with “0.0.0.0″, port with ’0′.

to get your MSL – go into connectbot and type “getprop” and in that mass of information, there should be a 6-digit number after [ril.MSL]

To get Live Wallpapers check out the link here.

To get Swype go here.

To get the 2.1 Gallery go here.

I highly recommend checking out the  Home++ app for Android 2.1, it just greatly enhances your home page. And its free.

 

Gmail Sneak Peek

Just fyi, this frakkin’ owns. Enable Google Sneak Peek in your gmail labs, and you just have to right click on the message and you can see a pop up of it without having to click.

The good: You can click arrows to tab through the conversation (i like this a lot). Also, archive, mark as read, right there.

The bad: No scrolling. I know its “sneak peek,” but scrolling would make it reallllly time saving and useful.

 

Will the Real Music Streaming Service Please Stand Up?

If there is one thing I have been desperately wanting for a long time, it is the LaLa music streaming service (or something equivalent) to have an app for Android and iPhone (and Blackberry would be nice) where I can stream my music to my phone without having to leave my computer on (I only have a laptop and am not looking to keep it on 24/7). My iPod only holds 32GB, and i have long since run out of room (plus having space for video would be nice).

LaLa does this GREAT with streaming in the browser on any computer, PLUS as a bonus it reads my catalog of music and registers my entire library. The downside? LaLa has been bought by Apple and there has been no word of Apple expanding its services yet. It is possible, but also likely that they would not create an app for Android, which puts me Shit out of Luck.

I looked into Rhapsody, and with its new $9.99 monthly unlimited streaming, it is tempting. However, there are more restrictions than LaLa. You can only use Rhapsody on 1 computers and 1 Mobile Device with the $9.99 plan. Even with the $14.99 plan (which is too much), you are limited to 3 devices. 3 is doable, but I want Rhapsody at work, I want it on all my devices and i don’t want to hassle with restrictions. So screw that.

Napster is kind of dumb and still doesn’t do streaming. My problem is space, so why would i pay for something i already have? It does stream via the web, but i see no Android apps, so its pointless.

Dropbox: As i have noted previously, Dropbox may be what I need. 50 GBs of online storage for $9.99 a month, and I can stream files (including video and music) right to my Android phone. My main question is whether it is smart enough to switch from one song to the next (we will see). Either way dropbox for Android will be fantastic.

Spotify would be my potential savior, of course, but is still not here

 

iTunes Update Blocks Jailbroken iPhones From Syncing

Exactly what it says. If you are operating a jailbroken device, do not upgrade to 9.1. Frakkin’ Apple.

Thankfully i don’t usually update iTunes (still on 8.0), so i am fine.