Librivox is an amazing website that I have been watching for a number of years now, and it helped me out enormously in those awful required Art classes I took while at UBC. Now the site is far more interesting to me as I have some time to read what I wish, and because I find listening to audiobooks, and switching to reading every now and then to be the most efficient way for me to digest a non-technical book.

Librivox is basically just a repository of free audiobooks that were made for free by volunteer netizens like you and I. All you need is a computer with some recording software which is ubiquitous at this point, in fact the iPhone Voice Memo app (which is also available for the iPod Touch) is a great way to do this from the comfort of your favorite chair and couch.

Remember not to be an dick! OK please.

Here are three iPhone issues that I recently submitted to Apple via the iPhone feedback form.

Problem 1

Soon after I updated my iPhone to 3.1 (which was 1-2 weeks ago) and ever since, my iPhone has randomly stops working 3x or more per day.

What I mean by "stops working" is that usually I am watching a video, turn off the screen to stick it in my pocket, at which point the audio stops (which is a huge usability fail in my opinion) so I either have to click the button on my mic to start the audio again if I am using the iPhone headphones, or I have to turn the screen back on and double click the home button to see a popup which can be used to start the audio again (another major usability fail), but since the 3.1 update when I turn off the screen the iPhone often stops working. If I click the button to turn the screen on then nothing happens, if I click the button on my headphones then nothing happens, and if I click the home button then nothing happens.

The only way to get the iPhone to work again is to press and hold the home and screen button down for ~10 secs which forces a restart.

I have to do this about 3x or more per day now on average since installing the 3.1 update.

Problem 2

This has happened twice now in the last 2 days; when I unplug my headphones to use the speakers, I get no audio, and when press the audio up and down buttons, it says 'headphones' above the volume display.. so I am assuming that it does not recognize that the head phones are missing.

Once I plug the headphones back in and remove them it again it finally works.

Problem 3

I recently moved to Victoria, Canada in what appears to be a dead zone for Rogers, so I have disabled 3g (I just use wifi here anyhow), and I have disabled automatic network selection because I'm told by Rogers support that I will be charged for data roaming if I use another network (even though I have a seperate data roaming setting disabled..), and manually selected Rogers as the Network Carrier.

The problem is that I get a 'Network Lost' alert about once every 2-5 minutes, and find watching videos and using an app impossible without clicking 'dismiss' endlessly, this is a massive usability fail in my opinion. I cannot find a way to disable this in the settings and have done some hunting online for a solution, but found nothing of value. I even tried switching the network carrier selection to automatic despite looming charges just to see if it helped, but it doesn't seem to.

The following links lead to detailed instructions on how to add a given bookmarklet to your iPhone or iPod Touch device:

1. DiggBar - Allows you to use DiggBar, even though it sucks to use, especially on your iPhone.
2. Mixx This - Allows you to submit a website to Mixx.
3. Reddit This - Allows you to submit a website to Reddit.
4. Sphinn This - Allows you to submit a website to Sphinn.

It's a bit of a hassle getting a bookmarklet on my iPhone's Safari browser without drag and drop or copy and paste, but I saw how delicious did it, and how iTransmogrify did it, so I thought I would make a few installation guides myself, at least until we have copy and paste. Sphinn is just the first to come.

In order to install the sphinn bookmarklet follow these instructions.