Friday, June 25, 2010

iPhone iOS4 on iPhone 3G Brief Review

This is just a quick review of my experience with the new iPhone operating system, iOS4, released on Monday. I have installed it on my iPhone 3G 16GB.

The update took a long, long, long time. Mainly because of the backup taking hours for some reason. My iPhone was nearly full so that may explain something but, wow it was a long time. The actual update and restore took less time thank goodness though I left it running at 1am on Monday night.

First Impression was ‘uh why is this taking ages to respond to anything I do?’. Yes the new OS running on an iPhone 3G has reduced overall performance significantly. No wonder they stripped out some of the new functions when running on a 3G like multi tasking and wallpapers. All stuff that takes memory which the 3G has so little of remaining once the normal tasks are running. I have had to make sure Safari is always closed properly and not just exited. (Hold standby button down until the Power Off prompt appears, then hold home until the app closes).

Also battery life sucks under the new OS. The drainage time has increased noticeably on a device not great in the first place.

Features I like:

  • IMG_0079Unified Mail Box: This shows all your mail accounts in one unified location, hence the name. It is useful to see all in one go and not have to constantly switch back and forth. also useful when deleting mail.










  • IMG_0076Application Folders: The ability to organise your apps in folders by simply dragging one on top of another is really great. It means you can reduce the number of screens you have to flick through to find apps. As long as you remember which folder the apps is in. Folder naming is important to get right.









  • IMG_0077 iBooks: This is a new, free download from the App store. It enables you to download and read books. This is a nice addition though reading on an iPhone screen can be straining on the eyes. This may be much better on the iPhone 4 with its fancy new screen or on an iPad.









  • IMG_0078 Calendar Control: A small but neat new feature is the ability to just turn off displaying calendars you don’t want to see. This may sound counter intuitive. Surely you want to see your calendars. However I use Google Calendar synced from the internet as well as seeing my Wife's Google Calendar that she syncs from her Blackberry. This new feature means I can just turn off the standard local calendar and not have to switch again.







  • IMG_0080 Open Attachments in Other Apps: Now this is a useful feature and has been long on the desired list. When you receive an email with an attachment like a word doc of PDF the email app will open it in the standard iPhone reader. However you now have a new option of ‘Open In’. If you have other compatible Apps that can read those docs you get the option to open it in them. I use ‘Documents to Go’ and the option to open and then save to my synced store is a welcome feature. Finally we can transfer between apps.





  • Other new features that I haven’t yet worked out the usefulness of yet are the Notes syncing to each email account. I sync my notes to my local Outlook account when I do a sync with iTunes. Syncing to a Notes feature of Google mail is vaguely cool but fairly useless.

    The spell check feature that underlines misspelled words is sort of useful.

Overall I like the new update but the lag on doing anything is starting to get annoying. There is only one thing for it. I will have to get an iPhone 4!

New Foetus Pain Evidence is Irrelevant to Debate

There is much in the news today around ‘evidence’ from the Royal College of Obstetricians. Link on BBC HERE.

Firstly I am not sure I entirely believe the report as there are many research folks who would disagree with this reports findings.

Secondly it states that a foetus does not feel pain before 24 weeks and is naturally sedated in the womb as well. The assumption therefore is that it is ok to abort/kill the foetus/Baby (interchange words depending on what helps you dehumanise the act) before 24 weeks and there is no medical/scientific reason to lower the limit.

However this entirely misses the point of the pro-life debate anyway and all it will do is reinforce the pro-choice lobby’s views getting us no where fast. The logic goes along the lines of ‘it is ok to tear a baby apart in the womb because they won’t feel it’. So if you follow that logic it is ok to kill a dying person as long as they are filled up with pain killers. Or it is ok to kill a person who is paralysed from the neck down and can’t feel their body. Or as long as the death is painless frankly anyone……..

You cannot separate science from ethics and morality, you simply can’t. I understand scientists just stating medical ‘facts’ but that is not the be all and end all of being human.

It is irrelevant if a baby can or can’t actually feel the pain of itself being killed in the womb. It is a human child and deserves every protection that a person who has been born deserves, period!

Friday, June 11, 2010

Jesus Ultrasound Poster and Subliminal Pro-Lifers

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WARNING: This is a very blunt and personal view on the issues discussed and are entirely my own views and not those of any organisation I may be associated with!

Just saw this poster that is going to be used I gather by Churches across the nation in the run up to Christmas 2010. It is an interesting concept and design and I think I get where it is coming from.

A design to show that Jesus started as a real baby and it is an image that everyone, or at least most people, can relate to. The lower caption pointing out that ‘Christmas’ starts with ‘Christ’ etc….

I could take issue with the main caption in pointing out that Christ was born 2000 years ago and therefore has already arrived etc… but that would indeed be petty.

What I found interesting was an article on Christian Today that says secularists have got all hot under the collar about it. This following quote being classic secularist nonsense:

“It gives the impression that it was politically motivated, that they are trying to put across some sort of subliminal message,” said Terry Sanderson, director of the National Secular Society, according to The Guardian.

“The image is too specifically associated with pro-lifers to be seen in a benign context.”

Sanderson added, “They should go back to angels and cribs.”

The last sentence showing his true colours and renders everything he said previously as not worth listening to. So as usual with these types as long as Christians stay silent and not dare speak up we can carry on in our freakish weird world of believing in God. But we must not under any circumstance have our faith say anything to rampant secularism and go poking our noses into society with our ‘moral convictions’ about truth and justice.

Sanderson is of course referring to the Channel 4 Marie Stopes adverts that ‘subliminally’ advertises abortion services.

Well Mr Terry Sanderson how is this for a non subliminal pro-life message: Abortion is the murder of the unborn!

Of course I don’t take lightly the horrendous emotional and psychological issues surrounding abortion and unwanted pregnancy. I have heard all the arguments about what about rape, what about babies with some sort of illness or disability, a woman's right to chose etc…. But the bottom line is that for a large majority of Abortions in this country the reason comes down to inconvenience and selfishness on the part of the couple. They simply don’t want the responsibility of looking after a child at that point. There are possibly some very very few instances where there may be some grey area but rarely. How can inconvenience, timing, cost, even disability or pregnancy due to rape (extremely rare by the way) trump the right of a child to have a chance in life? No one can decide that the child's circumstances once born would be too hard and not be fair to bring them into. Who are you to make that decision?

The issue in part comes down to the devaluing of corporate human life in the western world today. For so many different reasons but two being Darwinian evolutionary thinking and the Western idol of self. Where does an Embryo/Foetus become a human life. In UK law it is at 24 weeks! After that the medical profession and Government has deemed that you are now worthy of some protection in law! Despite much evidence to the contrary and babies being born before that time and surviving.

Again I state that I do not say any of this lightly and fully take into account the awful circumstances people find themselves in and the financial, practical and counselling help that they need and that is often not available to them. Yes it can be heart breaking and painful and mind bogglingly difficult to raise a child under, well any circumstances actually.

But this is a human being we are talking about and once conceived has every right to existence as any other human being. It is made in the image of God, knit together in its mothers womb (Psalm 139). Oh no, there I go with that God talk again.

oasisFor a great organisation called The Oasis Crisis Pregnancy Centre click on the link. They offer support services for women with unplanned pregnancy or women coming to terms with abortion. A Wonderfully caring counselling service they provide.

MUSE - Neutron Star Collision (Love Is Forever) [OFFICIAL VIDEO]

Love Muse and okay I admin it the Twilight films as well!!



and my Favourite track: