TrumpetBoy
Trumpets, Music, Gadgets, Web Dev. and any other nonsense I feel like mentioning…
Archive for April, 2008
RIP Humph
Apr 26th
This evening, I was saddened to learn of the death of Humphrey Lyttleton; Trumpeter, Broadcaster, Raconteur. He was 86.
I enjoyed his Trumpet playing but my favourite of his many roles was as Chairman of the long-running Radio 4 show “I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue”. With his passing, the world is now a somewhat less amusing place!
RIP Humph.
Favourite Jazz Trumpet Solos.
Apr 7th
I was over on Facebook this evening and ran across the following question from my old NYJO chum Mark Armstrong:
To all jazz musicians, especially jazz trumpet players: can you list your five favourite improvised jazz trumpet solos of all time? Can you list what you think are the five most important jazz trumpet solos of all time as well…?
I gave it a little thought and came up with a couple of lists. I’m sure I’ll read this back later and disagree with myself, but I thought it worth posting; if only to add some info about the albums the solos are from which I didn’t have space for on the Facebook answer.
Most Important
- Louis Armstrong – “West End Blues”
- Bobby Hackett – “String of Pearls”
- Dizzy Gillespie – “Hot House”
- Clifford Brown – “Cherokee”
- Maynard Ferguson – “All The Things You Are” (w. Charlie Barnet as banned by Jerome Kern!!)
Favourites
- Clifford Brown – “Cherokee” (from “Study In Brown” w. Max Roach Quintet – Emarcy)
- Jon Faddis – “Here’s That Rainy Day” (from “Dizzy Gillespie Jam – Montreux ‘77″ – Pablo)
- Wynton Marsalis – “After You’ve Gone” (from “Standard Time Vol. 5″ – Columbia)
- Eddie Henderson – “Surrey With A Fringe on Top” (from “Inspiration”)
- Brian Lynch – “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You” (from “Keep Your Circle Small” – Sharp Nine)
Useful Tips For The Unlocked iPhone
Apr 1st
I posted a few days ago about my recent good fortune in winning an iPhone. I had already unlocked it and had it working in the USA with my US T-Mobile account without problem. However, I ran into a few issues getting my UK T-Mobile to work as easily. Here are a few tips for anybody having similar problems.
SMS Settings
My main problem was that I couldn’t get SMS (text) messages to send from my iPhone on T-Mobile UK. I had figured out that this was down to an incorrect Message Service Centre number on the phone and I was basically correct. There are a series of codes you can dial on the phone keypad to query and change various settings on the phone. The SMS related settings are as follows:
- Check Service Centre number (SMSC) – dial *#5005*7672# and press call. This will display the current Service centre number. If this doesn’t work you have a different problem; see below.
- Delete Service Centre number (SMSC) – dial ##5005*7672# and press call.
- Set new Service Center number (SMSC) – dial **5005*7672*+nnnnnnnnn# and press Call. N.B. +nnnnnnn is the number of the SMS service centre number that you need to find out from your cell phone provider. It’s in international format and therefore starts with a + sign before the country code.
If option 1 doesn’t work for you, as it didn’t for me, then you have an outdated SIM card. Mine was my original One2One SIM from the days before T-Mobile in the UK and was about 9 years old. I went to my local T-Mobile shop and they replaced it with a new one for a £10(GBP) fee – I then called T-Mobile and they agreed to credit that amount to my bill since I was replacing it for “wearing out” due to old age. Since I switched SIM cards, everything has been hunky-dory with the SMS service.
EDGE/GPRS Internet
The iPhone doesn’t (yet) support 3G internet service but does work over what used to be called WAP – this runs, these days, in some territories over the EDGE network (as in the US) and in others over GPRS (most parts of the UK). I believe that EDGE is currently only available on O2 in the UK. You may need to manually configure the settings for this to work and you will need a Data plan/bundle from your cell phone provider – otherwise it can be ludicrously expensive. Typical prices in the UK run to £7.50/MB transferred – thats about $15 (USD)!! I pay £7.50/month to T-Mobile for a Web’n'Walk plan that gives me unlimited data transfer.
I had some problems tracking down the correct settings to use. T-Mobile UK doesn’t officially support the iPhone and their settings are only available on their website via a service that downloads the settings directly to your phone – and if it’s not supported it doesn’t work! I called T-Mobile Customer Services and the chap who ‘helped’ me tried to put my phone details into the same web-service rather than having any actual information! I did a thorough search online and eventually came up with the correct settings (after many attempts with incorrect ones) at the Carphone Warehouse website. They are:
- APN: general.t-mobile.uk
- Username: user
- Password: wap
Please note the lack of “.co” in the APN – I didn’t spot that straight away and had more problems. If you are on a different UK mobile network, you can find the settings here. To find your way to the right iPhone menu for these settings click: “Settings->General->Network->EDGE”.
iPhone “Unlocking Services”
In the midst of my confusion over the SMS issue I tried a few different packages for unlocking my iPhone. The simplest and best seems to be ZiPhone. I foolishly bought into a package called UnlockiPhoneUK since they promised to unlock all features and provide future-proof support against new iPhone software released by Apple. I paid £29.99 (GBP) for what proved to be a rebranded version of the ZiPhone software (which is free!) and a mediocre help section on their website. I implore you to not repeat my mistake. I will be emailing their “Customer Service” and requesting a refund when I have a moment.
I hope that this information proves useful to anybody trying to get their unlocked iPhone up and running. I have been helped enormously by many sources all over the internet to collect the information above and I thank those who posted it. This is all regurgitated information and none of it is my own work. I just hope that having it in one spot makes it easier to find. I’ll post anything else useful I come across as I go along…