Update #2: These carrier settings will work with Beta 2 also. Also, Safari likes to attach a .zip extension to the ipcc, so either rename the downloaded file minus the extension or use Firefox/curl something else to download the updated carrier settings.

Update: Updated the MMS proxy settings, the previous version was using an old (dead) proxy. To update just re-download the carrier settings and apply an update once more.

After a little dicking around prompted by some stuff I noticed on twitter, I cobbled together this updated carrier bundle for O2 Ireland to enable USB/Bluetooth tethering for iPhone OS 3.0. This also enables the sending/recieving of MMS messages a new photo button will appear in Messages.app to send pictures as MMS messages.

Grab it here.

To install, option (alt) click update in iTunes, and select this updated IPCC.

If something terrible happens, you can grab a backup of the old one to restore here.

I attended FOWA Dublin Friday last, and had a pretty good time. The speakers were the main reason I attended, with DHH & Simon Willison delivering particularly great talks. There were a couple of things that bugged me about the event setup. Not to be a jerk or anything, but there's a few points I hope the Carsonified guys take a look at and fix in time for next year:

• Poor WiFi - I know the guys have apologised about this already, but it stuck in most people's craw and I guess it bears repeating. With 400 odd people milling about with iPhones and Macs some decent WiFi would've been nice.
• Socialising is kind of hard when you've got absolutely no room to move.
• I don't really care about toilets, but I heard there was only one bathroom for guys and one for girls.
• Lack of freebies. The tickets were pretty pricey (although I'd guess individuals paying for their own tickets were in the minority). Basically the only thing given away was a name-tag & holder. Free coffee for breaks or something would've gone down nicely.
• Mike Butcher

I'm sorry I missed the after party, but traveling really saps my will to go drinking.

A few days ago I discovered a quick & easy way few to use cookies to help your Rails app get a user's timezone, without prompting. It's pretty easy to implement:

First up: set a cookie, any cookie:

  var date = new Date();
  // returns offset from GMT in minutes
  var offset = date.getTimezoneOffset();
  
  // set a cookie however you see fit, I like to use jQuery.cookie
  $.cookie('timezone', offset);

Then, in application.rb or wherever you like:

  def browser_timezone
    return nil if cookies[:timezone].blank?
    @browser_timezone ||= begin
      min = cookies[:timezone].to_i
      TimeZone[(min + (-2 * min)).minutes]
    end
  end

The cookie gives you minutes from GMT, but ActiveSupport::TimeZone expects seconds from GMT.

Anyway, hopefully someone will find my pointing it out useful. It may buckle under pressure (with daylight savings), but guessing and getting it right 50% of the time is better than forcing user interaction. Probably.

We finally saw our first iPhone app land on the appstore a couple of days ago. iPhone app development is pretty wonderful in comparison to some of the other crapheaps out there, but it's also pretty damn nice by itself too. It was a ton of fun to write, and it was nice to do something like it for a local paper, The Munster Express.

Check it out here

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