Photo Finish

July 2, 2007 on 10:33 am | In Funnyish, Musings, Promotions, Tech News by Josh Jones |

I’ve decided.

We got a lot of reallllly bad entries to our iPhone contest, but we also got a fair number of not completely horrible ones, so I’ve decided to make a 2nd and 3rd place prize as well.

First place is still a Josh’s-forehead-greased-up 8GB iPhone, but 2nd place (and there’s an 8-way tie!) is either a $120 DH account credit or an iPod shuffle of your choice (I’ll be emailing the winners to ask their preference), and lowly 3rd place (a 7-way tie!) is still a not-entirely-shabby $50 DreamHost credit!

3rd Place

2nd Place

And now.. the winnnnnnner:

Why them?

1. They followed the instructions.
2. They did a pretty good photoshopping job.
3. They tied in the whole iPhone thing.
4. They made a PUN.
5. They used an old-school DreamHost logo.
6. They even included a flattering picture of the judge!

Congratulations, them!

Before we wrap things up, let me go ahead and give you my unsolicited impressions of the iPhone.

First off, it makes a great forehead de-greaser. The glass screen is very clear and cool to the touch, and good at sucking up grease when applied to a human forehead. Other than that, I didn’t really get to do too much to it; it’s basically a $599 skipping stone until you activate it with AT&T.

It is definitely very cool in actual person… smaller than you probably imagined and with a super bright, crisp, colorful, high-res screen. I spent several hours just sliding to unlock and then calling 911 (”Hi, just playing with my new iPhone before it’s activated! Bye!” “Me again!” “Ack, I’m being stabbed! ” “Just kidding, it was me again!” “I’d like to order 911 pizzas, please!” and so on).

Before it came out I didn’t really want one, since it doesn’t have 3G, forces you onto AT&T, and I’m happy with my indestructible phone. But, when you actually get one in your hands, all logic starts to drift to the wayside, and you get very strong urges to just RUB IT ON YOUR FOREHEAD NOW!

(An aside. I’ve always had a thing for rubbing my forehead grease on large, pristine glass surfaces. It just feels like I’m getting a good deep pore clean when I look back at the mirror, window, or whatever, and see a long streak of my oily face mess. In fact, in my last job ever before starting DreamHost (over the summer after my freshman year in college), I worked at a very small pre-press place. Every time I would go to the bathroom, I’d rub my face on the mirror while washing my hands. And, pretty much every day when I came back, the mirror would be clean again! It was great.

Then, one day, I was talking with the one other guy who worked in the shop with me and he was like “The other day, the building janitor asked me if I knew if you’d been rubbing your face on the mirror in the bathroom.” (!!!!!!!!!!!)

And I was like, “Huuuuuuuh? What are you talking about?”

“You know, haven’t you ever seen those streaks on the mirror in the bathroom? He’s been cleaning them every night, and they’re pretty high up so he figured it must have been somebody tall. And there aren’t really that many people who work on our floor. And it only started happening this summer.”

Sweat beading up on my brow, I finished the lie: “Nope, no idea.. I never noticed that! How strange.”

And we left it at that.

Fortunately, this was all on my last week of work that summer, so I was able to hold out and not do any more greasing for the rest of my tenure. However, on the very last day of work, I was seriously conflicted about whether or not to leave one, final, good-bye streak. It’s a good thing I ultimately decided against it… because as I came out of the bathroom, who just so happened to be walking by, right then? The janitor!

As soon as he saw me, his eyes lit up, and he immediately bolted into the bathroom! Oh man, the look on his face.. he was so excited to finally catch his alleged mirror-greaser in the act.

Mwahh ha ha ha ha haaaa!!

NOT TODAY, MR. JANITOR MAN, NOT TODAY!

)

As I was saying, the iPhone is pretty lust-inducing. Fortunately, in the name of the contest, I was just barely able to resist! But, my cell-phone-fever was not to be denied. Because the very next day I went and bought two of the only phone you need from T-Mobile! I thought I’d never retire my old Nokia 6010.. but this new Nokia 6086 has something going for it no other phone in America, not even the iPhone, has:

Seamless transitions between VOIP and Cellular wireless calls (via UMA)!

It’s actually pretty freaking amazing. When I’m by any free wifi, or any T-Mobile hotspot (at Starbucks, airports, and Starbucks in airports), the phone automatically switches over to making VOIP calls.. which are unlimited for free (incoming and outgoing!) .. then, when you leave the wifi range, it seamlessly switches back to the T-Mobile cellular network, even while on a call!

And it really works!

It is soooooo good.. I probably use 90% of my minutes at work or at home already (since I stopped having a land line about 8 years ago), and it means if I’m overseas, I get free unlimited calling to (and from) the US on my regular number anywhere I can find a 802.11b/g signal! It even beats Skype because it’s a regular old telephone number on a full-featured cell phone!

And you know what ELSE? I just remembered I can actually turn my laptop INTO a wifi hub, which then uses its Verizon EVDO Rev. A PCMCIA card to access the internets… so I could theoretically have free calls anywhere there’s EVDO coverage too!

I’m expecting my usage to drop to about 100 minutes a month.. and all this for only $9.95/mo extra and a $49.95 phone! However, if you hurry and go to one of these t-mobile stores at 8am tomorrow wearing a bathrobe they’ll give you the phone and a year of service ($170 value!) FREE! This thing was only launched last Wednesday!

So, what am I, some kind of T-Mobile shill? And what, now I can’t afford those expensive regular cell phone plan? Well, no, but I feel like in 4-5 years everybody’s going to be using wifi to make cell phone calls, and for like $40/month you’ll have unlimited calls to any number in the world, from anywhere in the world… and I’ll be able to say:

“I resisted wiping my forehead grease on an iPhone to be down from day one.”