So, I am lame. I am writing about replacing an obsolete device with an obsolete device, but I did a pretty extensive search–no luck. Anyway, there seem to be plenty of 3G owners out there that did not recycle their originals. If you are like me and you don’t want to ‘spring for the goods’ until you are sure that a newer, shinier, cleaner iPhone is coming down the pike, substituting another Original may be a good short term solution.

1. Make sure to get a really good backup of your current iPhone by syncing with iTunes.

2. On the replacement phone follow these steps: Settings > General > Reset > Erase all Content and Settings on your original iPhone. FYI-this takes a stupid amount of time. When the iPhone says 1 hour to erase it means 1 hour. Watching the progress bar move is akin to watching a seed germinate.

3. After the erase completes, eject the SIM card out of your original iPhone.

4. Insert SIM card into the replacement iPhone.

5. Plug the replacement iPhone into the computer that contains your last good backup of your original iPhone.

6. Follow the prompts as if you are setting up a new iPhone. Most of the pertinent prompts should be populated from the SIM card. You will be prompted to enter your zip code, last four of social, and iTunes credentials.

7. Finally, you will be presented with an activation screen. At first, I backed away from this because it looks like you are creating a new account, but click submit.

8. After the phone is activated, you will be prompted to either setup a new iPhone or restore from a previous backup. Restore from the last good backup that you made in step 1.

Cheers to being cheap! Now, watch Apple is going to annouce this tomorrow.

Okay, I have to start this post by giving credit to an unnamed origami-ist that sat several rows in front of me on a flight from San Diego several weeks ago. Whoever you are, nice work.

In the eternal quest of being lazy innovative, we Americans are always spending more energy to do less work seeking ways to improve our exerted effort. But, seriously, holding an iPhone for a feature length presentation is just ridiculous (pinkies cramping, carpal tunnel, you get the picture). This little hack is an easy way to create an iPhone holder on the airplane with products available in the seat in front of you.

First, reach in the pocket of the seat in front of you and pick your favorite publication to deface (SkyMall, US Airways, etc., try not to use the emergency information card that might be equivalent to saying the b word on the plane).

Tear off the front or rear cover of the publication being careful to tear neatly and cleanly. Try to pick the best picture of the four sides (front cover, front inside cover, rear cover, rear inside cover) as you will see this periphery of this page is visible during your feature.

Place the chosen side on the tray table and fold lengthwise.

Lay your iPhone in the “pocket” with the screen on, so that you can see which section of the cover needs to be removed. You can mark on the paper or just use landmarks on the page to determine the “window” for your movie. Fold the cover to mark the perimeter of the “window.”

Folding the page in half, tear out the window along folded lines.

Now insert the iPhone into the folded sleeve.

Finally, attach the assembled holder to the seat in front of you by turning the tray table lock down to hold the folded paper.

Voila you have a perfectly respectable handsfree iPhone movie viewer that didn’t cost a dime (unless you checked a bag).

Gizmodo reports that the iPhone commercial forced Pacific Catch to add calamari to their menu. That damn iPhone and all of its demands. I wish I could go back to the days when I didn’t have to update my lustometer on a daily basis.

Word from the inside says that if you go to a Cingular or apple store today and they do not have an iPhone that they will mail you one. May not help with the iWood tonight but will keep your iAss out of the iSun.

Happiness, for me, on January 9th was not anxiously awaiting Steve Jobs announcement; it was instead watching the Doctor’s announcement of the latest Floyd line, baby boy Floyd. However, once the kid popped, I was glad to dive into news of the new iPhone and appletv. In a post delivery daze, I fumbled through pages of phone porn for hours pondering all the while creative tactics to avoid Verizon’s early termination penalties. Big Score Cingular.

I finally turned my attention to appletv (“ATV”) to see the great apple offering. Although a PC user, I’ve got love for Apple, and I really thought that ATV was going to whip the competition. 40 GB hard drive, HDMI out, composite out, the specs on this little appliance seemed appealing, but then there was the glaring omission: where was the TV tuner card?

About a year and a half ago, I built an HTPC and heavily researched all of the options out there: MythTV, MCE 2005, Sage TV, Beyond TV. I had a certain feature set in mind: (1) high quality signal reception for the DVR, (2) easy to navigate television guide, (3) integration with music library, (4) photo slideshow/album, (5) GREAT DVR, (6) DVD player, (7) seamless 10 foot navigation, and lastly but most importantly (8) passes the wife factor. I installed each of the aforementioned applications, and namely because of the eighth factor, I chose to install MCE 2005, which has been my MOST positive Microsoft experience.

ATV offers a few interesting features but there is no DVR built in to the appliance. There is a glaring assumption that people will be persuaded as easily into on demand pay television as they have been for music, but these markets are so markedly different that this, in my opinion, is a step in the wrong direction. Music entertainment has had fuel from commercial laden radio, album sales, and live ticket sales. Low quality AM then FM signals made for a disappointing and cumbersome pirate experience–hence the tenuous analogy during the early MP3 revolution. Patrons were incentivised to buy the album for the quality of the experience–both visually and aurally. Most importantly, the market had been set generations before the advent of Napster.

Television, on the other hand, has traditionally been exclusively a broadcast media funded through paid advertisement.  Generally, the market for purchased television material has been limited.  Of course, DVDs of complete seasons are in the marketplace, but the paradigm is still traditionally commercial advertisement sponsored broadcast media.  With TiVO and the recent surge of PVR/DVRs, we have become accustomed to on demand/time shifting television.  With slingbox we can even place shift and be masters of our viewing for the cost of some hardware and possibly a small monthly fee.

Personally, I view television as a disposable experience.  While I may occasionally watch a syndicated program, I have no desire to pay for the program or own the program.  My DVR regularly auto-deletes the old programs without incident.  In other words, I use the television portion of my HTPC to time shift my programming to my life, and my investment extends only into the hardware needed.

Apple has released a product that is essentially no more than an Airport Extreme + video.  Of course, there is a litany of counter arguments about how you can make ATV work including another machine with a tuner card, but that is not what I expect from Apple–I do expect a convaluded solution from Microsoft.  Apple’s elegance comes from Sir William of Ockham:  they employ the most simple solution to cover all of the bases.  For example, the iPhone contemplates a variety of uses and provides a complete solution.  ATV does not.  When you name a product blank “Television,” you expect a remotely familiar television to be tucked in there somewhere.  Maybe this is purely semantics and apple extreme + video would have me satisfied, but I, for one, am sorely disappointed.

If I could time-shift my life, I would rewind, and pick another solution for this otherwise stylish entertainment solution.