Ricky Says

One of the first things I did after purchasing my iPhone 3GS was to buy a screen protector. In fact, I had the sales tech install it for me in the Apple store to make sure there was no way a scratch could find it's way anywhere near my new device.

I've been careful like that with all my gadgets - all the way back to my Blackberry Curve and even my old Motorola RAZR.

My first iPhone screen protector was brittle though, and didn't stick very well around the edges, as you can see from the photo below. It also didn't protect the sides or the back (I already have a scratch on the silver side trim, and several scratches on the back side even though I've been extremely careful with it).

Today I discovered the Invisible Shield, which is a full body skin that's precision cut for the iPhone (and many other mobile devices).

The shield has a piece that covers the front and another that covers that back and wraps around the sides for full protection. It's contoured so it's able to wrap snuggly around the corners of the iPhone, and comes with a special spray that helps it adhere tightly and without peeling like my old skin (and without leaving residue if I need to remove it later).

The film is very flexible and made of thin polyurethane (.02 milligrams), yet is super tough. It was originally used by the military to protect helicopter blades, and it's able to provide protection without interfering with the look and sleekness of my iPhone.

Installation Tips

I'm enroute to Dallas, TX right now and it's a wifi flight with American Airlines. I'm typing... I mean tapping this post on my iPhone 3GS, after paying a nominal $7.95 fee.

The Internet speed on the in-flight wifi connection is plenty fast to download a music album from iTunes while updating 4 apps, browsing the web and checkng email, without any noticeable slow down.

GPS looks a little confused though - it thinks I'm still at the airport even though we've been traveling for a couple hours, probably because that's where the signal is coming from:

SMS also doesn't work, so don't plan on texting on these flights. You also can't share a connection between a laptop and mobile device - you have to pay an additional connection for a laptop or mobile device (iPhone, Blackberry, etc).

I'd love to see wifi be free on flights, but all things considered, I felt it was still a great value since I was able to get a lot of work done (and play) instead of wasting a few hours in the air.

The Motorola 376g (KRAZR) camera phone from Tracfone comes equipped with Bluetooth support for hands-free headset devices, letting you keep your hands on the steering wheel while you make calls or answer incoming calls.

To use a hands-free device with a Tracfone Motorola W376g, you'll need to connect (pair) your headset with your phone. Once they're paired, then the headset can be used to automatically answer calls.

Setting up the bluetooth headset:

Make sure your headset is fully charged and the boom (the part that goes over your ear) is in the closed position. Shown below is the Motorola H350 bluetooth headset that connects nicely with the Motorola W376g phone and all other Motorola phones as well.

Press the connect button for about 3 seconds to put it in "Find Me" mode. The connect button is the same button you press to answer an incoming call, and is usually located on the front of the headset near the top.

Setting up the Motorola W376g:

Press the main menu button (round button between the up/down/left/right arrows) and then select Settings -- Bluetooth Link, which is on the second screen of the Settings option (ie. you'll have to scroll down a little to see it).

Select Audio Devices and then [Look for Device]

The Motorola 376g will find your bluetooth headset and auto-pair them together. This only needs to be done once, and then it will recognize the headset in the future automatically.

You'll only have about a 30 second time window to pair the phone with the headset, so make sure you time the steps above to happen at about the same time.

Question: I recently purchased a Motorola W376g camera phone from Tracfone, and I'd like to get pictures I took on it over to my computer. Is this possible?

Answer: The Motorola W376g from Tracfone is basically the Motorola KRAZR phone with the same built-in 1.3 megapixel camera. The KRAZR is a Bluetooth-enabled phone that has a USB port for file transfers between the phone and a PC using software like Motorola's PhoneTools or DataPilot.

However, these features are disabled on the Tracfone W376g for data transfer. The USB port is only used for charging the phone and Bluetooth is only enabled for connecting with hands-free devices.

Tracfone offers this phone at only $29.95 with no activation fees, and you purchase minutes for airtime (ie. you prepay for only the minutes you want/need). They've disabled the data transfer features and force you to use airtime instead.

You can still transfer pictures from your Motorola W376g phone to your computer by sending them as an email.

Sending photos from a Motorola W376g to a PC using email:

To do this, open the picture by clicking the main center/menu button on the phone and then selecting Multimedia -- Pictures -- Additional Storage Device. Scroll to find the picture and select Menu -- Send in Message.

You can enter an email address to send it to your computer, and it'll show up as a file attachment in your email inbox. You can also enter a phone number and send it to any other mobile device that supports picture messaging, including other Tracfone W376g phones.

Question: Does the new iphone 3gs take decent videos, and are the pictures that much better too?

Answer: Having just purchased an iPhone 3GS a couple weeks ago, I'll answer this first-hand. The photos are much better with the new 3.0 megapixel auto-focusing iphone camera, and the 30 frame-per-second video recorder is surprisingly good.

I'll start with the video. It's easy to take good video when you have a nice steady tripod and a slow moving area to record. But that'd be way too boring.

Instead, how about a front row ride on the Timber Terror roller coaster at the Silverwood amusement park? I happened to be vacationing there this week with my family, and was able to snag a front row seat on this fast and bumpy thriller. Here's the video I took (picture me holding onto the front rail with my left hand and holding even tighter to my new iPhone with my right hand).

Here's the original 39 MB Quicktime movie file that looks quite a bit better then the one that was uploaded to YouTube: timber-terrror-silverwood.mov

Here's the YouTube version:

That's pretty good video quality in my opinion, and the roller coaster ride was a lot of fun too (except for the 2 girls screaming in my ear right behind me).

Videos are recorded in Quicktime .mov format and can be uploaded directly to YouTube from the iPhone, or sent to your friends via email.