Artur Hefczyc

I had initially a problem with setting IMAP account up on the phone. In case if anybody has a similar problem I put here a description.

The problem with IMAP on iPhone is that it tries to establish secure connection (which is good) and it firstly tries to connect to SSL port - 993, (which is not so good). If it detected unknown certificate then it asks whether you want to proceed. You say yes of course and then the iPhone tries to connect to a standard IMAP port - 143 and establish TLS connection. And again, usually it finds the same certificate used for TLS and asks again whether you want to proceed. You say yes and now the IMAP account is set up and functional.

In my case I had IMAP available only on SSL port - 993. So after the first yes it tried to connect to the standard IMAP port and it couldn't. So the configuration for the IMAP account was failing. The solution was to enable IMAP access on standard IMAP port 143 with TLS turned on.

Below statement is no longer true after upgrading software on the iphone to version 1.1.3. Now any modifications in your e-mail box are updated on the server, regardless you are connected to IMAP or GMail account.

Please remember in same cases iPhone is not very consistent with what it does. If you are connected to IMAP account and you delete message from your INBOX it is also deleted on the server. If you use GMAIL account and you delete the message from your INBOX it is deleted only localy on you iPhone. Just in case there is a Trash on iPhone to recover deleted messages....

The more I use the more I like it. I was a bit hesitant initially as a price is quite high but now I think it was a good choice.

What I like in it especially in random order:

1. Ability to connect to a local WiFi network - this is really great. Not only saves you money (my mobile plan includes unlimited internet access anyway) but also speeds things up incredibly and allows you to test services on your phone in save environment.
2. Great alarm clock. Feature I have been especially missing for years - ability to set alarm clock for selected days of the week. I had had it once in very old phone 7 years ago but then I couldn't find it in any other mobile after that.
3. Charging the mobile batery from USB port. Really nice, less cables on the desk.
4. 8GB - it is quite a lot, for now.
5. Builtin camera, 2MPix, suprisingly good and sharp images even in poor light. I mean good and sharp comparing it to other handhelds with builtin 2M camera.

What I dislike in the device:

1. The most annoying thing is that I can not connect from my laptop to the internet using the moible as a modem. I guess that was forced by the mobile provider signing contract with Apple.
2. Lack of any games on the device.
3. Unability to upload own applications on to iPhone.

I guess that's enough for a day of use.

Hm, iPhone is an interesting device. It works quite well and this blog entry is entered from the iPhone. Entering text isn't very fast but much faster than from other similar devices. Not to mention I have it from a few hours.

More comments about this soon.

It might be nothing new for SQL experts but I am mainly Java developer and I have just discovered a way to sort SQL results according to the specified order rather than natural order. Whether it does make sense or not depends on a particular case, usually it doesn't but in very special use cases it might be very helpful.

I am probably old fashioned developer and a kind of dinosaur between all other developers so my tools might not be the programs used by the most of people writing code.

The tools I use on daily basis at my work are Emacs, Konsole with Bash, Firefox and YourKit Java Profiler.