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I am now frantically searching my room for the iPhone warranty. It seems that the problems it has cannot be solved by a simple restore. Of course, what I did manage was to wipe my music and podcasts collections. Fortunately I still have my old iPod, so I just need to charge it again.

After some rigorous testing – involving a lot of restarts, some swearing and googling around – it seems that the problems are not going away without a trip to the phone doctor. But what does it do? Actually it no longer does things. Like connecting to a WiFi network (ant network). Or seeing any Bluetooth devices around. So beside cellular data, I am connectionless.

I noticed this lack of connectivity in Paris, when I wanted to browse the free WiFi. And today it was confirmed that it’s a real problem, and not a bad settings combination (as I hoped).

I’m actually sad. I am looking now at a phone with WinMo and find it so ugly and lacking of any style. But it will have to do for the moment…

And now, back to searching for the *&%^*% warranty.

Oh, and the picture? Just eye candy.

Last weekend I first took my new tent to the seaside, in Vama Veche. I bought it one month ago from Decathlon, and with the first occasion I tried it.

Fortunately for me, yet unfortunately for testing the tent, the weather was pretty good. Two hours of rain do not pose a great challenge to a good tent, so I have no idea how it will behave in a storm or heavy rain. Of course, I would prefer not to have to find out!

The 2 seconds time advertised for setting up is a bit misleading. While the tent does take only 2 seconds to fully pitch, it will probably take close to 5 minutes to take it out of the carrying case and to stake it down. However, it is impressive. I can manage to pitch it in complete darkness and after consuming a few beers (which usually is the case in Vama Veche).

Taking it down though on Sunday proved far trickier. Only the first time it is confusing, as now I can do it very quickly. Or so I hope. I was almost ready to search for someone on the beach with the same kind of tent to help me. But my patience paid off, and after I looked at the schematics in all possible ways I finally managed to do a proper job.

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At this moment I have 2 posts ready to publish. They just await some picture – after all this is mostly a photo blog.

Right now I am in Paris, trying to upload the pictures with Picasa, from the WiFi in the hostel lobby. However, it seems that the hostel employees are trying to ration the bandwidth excesivelly. A lot of services are not working, and the ones that do are sluggsh as hell. It is annoying as hell – first Skype breaks, Picasa, I get timeouts on all the webpages.

SO for the moment I have to find alternate ways to upload the pictures. And beside trying that at 3am, I have no better idea. Hopefully I will find something.

Canon announced their latest incarnation of the Digital Rebel line, now with more bells and whistles. All the juicy specifications, and also a short preview, can be found at dpreview. I find the Canon naming fascinating: Canon EOS 500D, Rebel T1i, Kiss X3…all for the same camera. Even Zoso wrote about the Canon DSLR.

As I am seriously considering an upgrade (I have the older model 400D), I tried to think clearly about the improvements. And I have to say that some of them are really sweet: 15mpixels, 14bit RAW files, ISO 3200 – 12800, larger lcd, seemingly a better viewfinder, and of course movie mode.

However, not everything is peachy…

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And so, the story continues. Some people asked me how I manage with my new shiny toy – the iPhone 3G. Well, after being unconvinced that the iPhone is a good phone for such a long time, I have to finally accept the fact that I’m a convert.

I slowly start to become a fanboy. The fact that I have unlimited data plan sure helps (as I can use any feature and test any application), but the truth is that the ease of use is amazing.

I will try to post a short review with the things I like, focusing on things different from Windows Mobile gadgets I’m used to.

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