I could not resist, having video on an iPod the size of the new Nano was just too tempting…so I got one. As soon as I connected it to iTunes, it prompted me to install the software update that was made available a couple of days ago, after that it synced music & videos, and off I went.

Much to my surprise, this afternoon it started behaving erratically – whenever I pressed the fast forward or rewind buttons, the iPod would keep skipping in the same direction until either the end or the start of the song was reached respectively. One annoying thing is that the skip steps are much bigger than on the previous Nano, and so it makes the process less accurate. Combined with this bug, it’s unusable. The only way to stop it is to pause, and resume playback, and since the steps are so large, it’s a hit-and-miss proposition.

Here is a short video showing the behavior – if anyone knows who at Apple this should be reported to, please leave a comment:

It actually indicates GPRS attachment status, the capability (or lack thereof) of sending and receiving data, be it over plain old GPRS, or the faster EDGE. I was going to comment on the original Engadget blog post, but after seeing a few pages of comments already, I doubt they would have noticed it. This is where they get it wrong:

You’ll notice the iTunes WiFi Store icon, and an O2-UK network symbol up top. If you look carefully, you’ll see that the E logo for EDGE is missing: we guess that 30% network coverage on O2 don’t quite stretch inside the Apple Store.

A bit further down, they mention this again:

O2 iPhone on the left, unlocked US iPhone on the right (running on T-Mobile’s UK network). Note that the O2 iPhone doesn’t show the EDGE logo, but the unlocked phone on T-Mobile does. You can probably guess at what we’re getting at here: O2′s EDGE coverage sucks.

In this particular side-by-side photo, T-Mobile’s coverage is marginally lower than O2′s, but they should both be capable of sending GPRS traffic. Another reason they get this wrong is that the waves icon ‘overwrites’ the E symbol while the iPhone is connected to a WiFi network, so you could still have GPRS/EDGE attachment in the background, so-to-speak. In my particular case, the iPhone is happily registered on Vodafone Spain, and is attached to GPRS (no EDGE here at all), showing the E while I’m not in range of WiFi.

The iPhone also does something very clever – when you open an application that requires a data connection, it will start a GPRS attach and session, while it asks you if you want to join any of the nearby WiFi networks (if any). In case you say no, the alternative data connection is already established, cutting down on extra waiting time before you start seeing content on your screen. This may seem stupid to Europeans, by default stuck with hugely expensive pay-as-you-go data (50 Euro cents per 250kB!!), but with the original AT&T voice + data plan, it does not really matter.

For the last week, a chocolate factory on a neighbor town has been burning down to the ground. After the first 24 hours, it seemed like the fire was under control, but nobody mentioned the hundreds of tons of highly caloric substances that were stored in the basement, under the factory floor, which was as large in surface as the factory itself. There was a single access ramp to this basement, which became blocked due to the initial fire’s debris, and so a wall breach was required. When this was done, the gulp of fresh air caused the latent fire below to erupt violently, completely burning the factory to a mass of twisted metal, and by radiation, the office building next to it.

The sad part is that the scene reminisces of ground zero at the World Trace Center after the terrorist attack of 9/11/2001. Here is a picture that shows part of the structure, click here to go to the full set on Flickr.

It took us a week to get the fire under control, which is the state you see in these photos. Fatty products, such as oils and cocoa butter, used in the production of chocolate as we buy it in stores, is not necessarily extremely flammable, but holds a huge amount of calories, which when set off are very difficult to control.

Last April, Laptop Magazine published an article on their website titled ‘Ten tech startups to watch’, in which Whisher was featured, for which we were quite proud and thankful. We posted a reference to this on our blog, including the graphic combination of all logos shown on the original article, which is publicly available and for all to see.

Today, we received this email from Laptop Magazine:

Good Morning,

I am the Licensing Coordinator for LAPTOP Magazine. I am reaching out to you in regards to LAPTOP Magazine content that is currently displayed on your website:

http://blog.whisher.com/category/laptop-magazine/

Licensing of all LAPTOP Magazine content is required prior to use. I would like the opportunity to discuss your licensing options with you at your earliest convenience.

Please call or e-mail me so that this can be taken care of.

Now, it’s fine for Laptop Magazine to protect the content featured on their site, but this email looks borderline to blackmail. “First we’ll include you in one of our articles, then we will charge you for making a reference to a graphic that includes your logo”. I have no problem with them using our logo in a montage with another nine logos for the article, but then it’s not right to ask for licensing fees afterwards! If we were to get as convoluted, we could argue:

• No permission was used to include our logo in their article.
• Our logo was used without adhering to our strict logo and company image guidelines (if we even had them – you should see Cingular’s, it is about 90 pages long!).

But, we got some press from the article, and we linked back to them on our blog – in the end, they are already making revenues from all the advertising that is shown when you visit the article, so trying to milk the companies mentioned in said article seems a bit over the top.

For now we have removed the graphic from the blog post, and we’ll leave it at that. Caveat emptor, as they say.

Today is a sad day for firefighters – six years ago, 343 brave men gave their lives to save thousands of others in the terrorist attack on the World Trace Center in Manhattan, New York. Never forget. Enough said.

Last Saturday, while reading through my feeds, I noticed this post on TechCrunch by Duncan Riley, where he tells the story of an attempt by scammers to get his Skype credentials (and wonders why they’d want to do such a thing), much in the same way we’re accustomed to receive emails from PayPal, eBay, and almost any bank on earth. These emails claim there is a problem with your account, and you should ‘confirm your details’ in order to stop said account from being suspended. This will of course do nothing other than give your credentials to these criminals for unhealthy purposes.

Today, a friend that I had not chatted with in some time comes online, and sends me this:

My first thought has been “Uhm, why would Mike send me something like this?”. He’s not prone to even send smilies, always very short and to the point. I go to ask him about it, but I then notice he is in do-not-disturb mode, so I cannot even warn him about the now-obvious scam! It seems that phishers and other scum are realizing people fall for email traps less and less, and are attacking other more trustworthy systems. In this case, the attacker is sending a screensaver, most likely loaded with a trojan. Beware of -any- communication, even from friends, that is unusual in timing, behavior or content. Also, beware about being asked for your IM details, and use strong passwords.

Shame they’re a bunch of morons – they told me taking pictures of their restaurant from the street was illegal (!?). If someone came and took a picture of an ad I plastered on my wall…I’d be more happy than anything, it would mean people notice it (even if it was a competitor). Anyway, if you come to Barcelona, check out Fresh&Ready, not for the food, but for the free WiFi.