Unfortunately I no longer own an iPhone, I now use an iPod touch. When that gets misplaced during your first trip to the Groton Public Library your options are considerably more murky.

I was really surprised when I fired up MobileMe in desperation 'Frankenbeaker' (Before my iPhone died it was known as 'Beaker' and I transplanted its brain into an iPod) showed up as a device I could contact using Find My iPhone. There is a smidgen of peace of mind that if the iPod ever gets connected to a located WiFi network it will lock itself and let me know.

Still, that's a lot of me packed into 8GB of space. So far I've changed passwords to my email, Twitter, Facebook, and I'm starting work on my bank accounts. Only email, Twitter, and Facebook automatically log the user in but I'd rather be safe then sorry with the accounts that actually matter. Can anyone think of anything else I can do?

Conclusion: Find My iPhone? Genius. For an iPod touch? Less so. Me? Idiot.

Now if only we had this genius contraption. It's always nice to see college science applied to where the world truly needs it.

{Via: Engadget}

In the past this has led me to search for a solution and I've also given some quasi-flawed advice on the topic. Read on for my update on the problem:

Lithium ion rechargeables are found in gobs of our electronics now, essentially in anything with a bolted in battery or a large detachable battery pack. These guys are fussy animals. They like to have their electric juices kept busy. If they're operating the device on their own, slowly using power, they like that; it's their job. If they're being charged back up from some heavy use, that's great, too. It's good to remind them who they are with a full discharge every once in a while, but like chocolate cake, it's not therapy to be prescribed every day. Finally, they don't like being parked inside a hot computer fully charged and still plugged in. Under these conditions (in addition to regular use) they will slowly die.

I use(d) my laptop like many youths on the educational go do: Parked it at a desk where it's easy to use for weeks at a time, rarely shutting it down and keeping it plugged in. Then when it came time to meet somewhere off the plug, like the library or the coffee shop or the Adirondacks, the battery would only cough up an hour or two hours of use before it was back on the sweet nectar of American AC/DC. 

My work-around, and the advice I've given to many, had been to use the battery only when you need it. Throw it in your desk drawer while your computer is a desktop and throw in the fully charged brick when you needed to go rogue. When you did go untethered knock your screen down to as dim as you can stand. I used to be able to coax six hours of productivity out of that practice.

Well, not so fast.

You can still take screen dimming strategy as gospel truth in the world of laptops, but those batteries I told you to take out? Ya'll better cram them back in. Turns out intel driven notebooks are specifically designed to run slower without a battery inside... in case that YouTube binge you go on momentarily pushes the power draw of your computer past what the wall outlet was providing. Highly unlikely, but without the big battery to fall back on such an outage would attack the other tiny battery in your computer. Oh, what other battery? You know how your computer knows what time it is when you turn it on? Well, that isn't elf magic. Anyone who has an old laptop with a burnt out hardwired battery knows the funny time warp that happens when the dog pulls out the power chord of their battery-less computer.

Going battery commando is an imperfect practice and I hereby un-recommend it. Between having a computer run slow and having a computer that has to stay plugged in I think the smart choice is the better running computer.

So what's my replacement advice? From Apple's battery support page it's clear that there isn't good advice for those of who are cramming both the need of having a computer that's transportable and the need of just simply having a computer at all into one machine. We all use our laptops as our everything and many of us went in to debt just to achieve that much. Sorry Apple, but we can't "[not] plan on using [our] notebook[s] for more than six months." 

There's no real prescribed method here but I would suggest trying as best you can to use your new notebook like you do your cell phone or iPod. They've got the same battery guts inside and the practice of charging it at night while you use most of it's power during the day is serving those devices well. To those of us with dead batteries in our old laptops it's probably time to hang up the cleats and call it a desktop or make an offering to the Apple god's for a new battery. Update: If you do end up springing for a new battery, save it, and only use it when you're traveling. Leave your old battery in there and squeeze every last ounce of life out of it when you're in desktop mode. That way you don't sacrifice performance or battery life.

Or, win a million dollars.

(The Heathernet does not endorse or condone money as the solution to all problems.)

I see... Me

Let me be clear. My iPhone is the greatest computer I have ever owned. I can feel the tears of my iBook gathering on her keys as I openly tik-tak the words of my betrayal. My iBook, God bless her, doesn't fit in my pocket. My iBook, my tireless companion, does not have multi-touch. My iBook...uh, is... is not a woman, jeez, listen to yourself man!

About a half hour ago someone could have tapped me on the shoulder whilst I sat here at my desk and said, "Your obsession is showing."

Having a pretty good knowledge through internet rumors that an update for my phone would be hitting sometime today (that would be Friday, the day I haven't slept to get ready for yet,) I popped the iTunes update checker with a mouse click at precisely midnight central time. I had no planning on the time but it turned out to be a lucky guess because, sure enough, there was that exciting info box that told me it was time to start all those wonderful little swirly bars that come with downloading updates! 

I would say there are two big features to this update. First, podcasts are now downloadable over the 3G network, which really makes a pretty big leap forward in the usefulness of podcasts if you're someone out and about with headphones or a car system at all times. Second, and the feature represented by the iPhone screenshot up top, is the inclusion of Google Street View in the maps feature. To create that shot I simply typed in my address, tapped the Street View icon, and spun the "camera" around to make the image of me-headquarters. I am sitting in that very house, right now! That's my car in the driveway.

Useful? Well, we'll see. I imagine that for someone with my personality it will be. I'm a researcher, which means that before I do anything I like to be 98% to 100% sure that I'm right about my procedure. Now, when I'm cruizin' around, contemplating entering that building that I have the address for but never entered, I can pull the iPhone out and verify one last time that I'm good to go. All this fancy happens provided Streetview has mapped your area, mind you, and in this case Albany has been hyper-beamed to the internet. Huzzah! 

One more feature of the iPhone that will make people shudder when I show it to them while I squeal with glee!