Loic Le Meur Blog

Sprint iPhone 4S loses connection all the time (or gets no data at all) in Europe

 

Got one of the first Sprint iPhone 4S and I had a flight to Europe scheduled just the day after. I was very excited since I have a good worldwide data plan with Sprint and the iPhone is like most people my favorite smartphone.

I spent a few days in France and it behaved really weird:

-every 5-10 mins I got "NO SERVICE" while I was in perfect coverage area with other iPhones around me getting perfect signal

-this resulted in interrupted voice calls or data transfers all the time, really making it difficult to use professionally

-the Sprint iPhone 4S seemed to be searching for network very often, switching from one to another

-the battery time was really low, like half a day, probably somehow related to this permanent network searching

-I tried to manually search for a network and force it on one so it stopped searching and getting no service but Sprint REMOVED the "carrier" button from settings from some reasons: you cannot search manually for networks when you're abroad and force your phone on one. I really wonder why.

Then I travelled to Bucharest, Romania. The iPhone 4s locked on Vodafone RO here but never got data working and I could not switch it to any other network since that option is hidden or removed from the Sprint iPhone 4s.

I spent considerable time on the phone with the (very nice) Sprint tech support and they could not get data working on it so I'm left with an iPhone with a WW data plan but no data where I am... One of the tech support representative even told me it was a problem with Romania which I don't believe is true since everyone around me have great data connections...

I'm flying to London tonight and will test it there

I hope Sprint and Apple resolve those issues soon as it's quite difficult to use it for the time being.

For reference here is how the Carrier button to select networks looks like on an Orange France iPhone, that one is gone on the Sprint iPhone.

Morgan Stanley brokers get OK to tweet, should they?

Morgan Stanley is the first large bank that are allowed its brokers since last week to use LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

Communications by brokers, whether to clients or to the broader public, is closely monitored by regulators guarding against investment scams, false advertising and misleading advice. Old-fashioned media like telephone call recordings and emails are retained, archived and screened.

Morgan Stanley bankers aren't able to do anything, though, for example their tweets will have to be approved in advance by the firm and tweets and posts must be captured and retained for at least three years.

Morgan Stanley's initiative is good but they should go all the way and not approve in advance their brokers and employees status updates on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. They should just remind them the basic guidelines and a mention on their profiles that what they post are personal views and not what Morgan Stanley thinks. Brokers have to take individual responsibility on what they post. I am looking forward to having open and public conversations with them. More public communication means more transparency and therefore trust in financial institutions. I can't wait to interact with them, is anyone reading this @morganstanley?

How Leo Laporte builds a media empire and a tour of his future studio

Leo Laporte invited me for the second time to his show Twit (see or hear the full episode here) and gave me an awesome tour of his next studio where he will host about 20 shows... Have a look at the video below, thanks, Leo!

 

How I sleep: random thoughts after using MyZeo to measure my sleep for a few weeks

I posted a few weeks ago that I started using MyZeo to measure my sleep.

Here are some results and thoughts

I sleep well (I already knew that but interesting to see how)
MyZeo gives me nice history of my sleep giving a score 0 - 100 everynight

 

I sleep a lot, about 7 hours typically (there is a night I had to wake up early for traveling there)

I'm getting about 37 minutes average deep sleep and 2.5 hours of REM sleep, I wake up in average 3x per night

If you want it, you get a LOT of data, you can see I'm going to sleep pretty early, that's a major change in my life since I moved to San Francisco, everything is early, while in Paris I would never go to sleep before midnight to 1am while here it's like 11pm. I was getting clearly less sleep in Paris, different life...

Interesting to see me versus the "typical men" of my age, I'm getting asleep 3x as fast, I sleep a little more and I get more REM sleep but less deep sleep.

Zeo has good resources on why sleep matters and the "sleep stealers" but they aren't personalized.

So the net is that it's pretty interesting but

-I am not sure I really understand that data and know what to do with it. I would need more personalized explanations.

-it seems that my sleep doesn't change that much from one day to another or from one week to another, which might make me stop using MyZeo if it's always the same

-the head sensor makes you look ridiculous but doesn't bother me to sleep at all. You can't take it when you travel as you'd have to take the entire reader with you and it's too big. I travel a lot so it's not very convenient.

-I'd like to see my sleep data integrated with my withings and my runkeeper to see if there is any pattern

Will I continue using it? Likely for now as I'd like to do some experiments, like stopping to drink any alcohol for a week (the french drink some wine at dinners :-) and see if it does anything, same with lots of exercise or no exercise. Effects of stress as I am going through the typical (or non typical) entrepreneur's life which has its ups and downs.

I will report more soon... Thoughts?

Make sure you don't trust what you think works in video

Video is magic.

We did a crappy video with my wife to announce last years theme, no script, no preparation, no assistance, just shoot and post. 10k+ views.

Then we did a 2009 wrap-up video "2010 trailer", made by Whit Scott, 10k views

and we made a 2010 wrap-up video with much more production, budget, and lots of work, made by video agency, barely 3000 views (and video agency has been awesome, it's not my point)

oh and the highest in views, me in angry birds "poulet" costume, 30k+ views

See my point? Don't trust what you think is going to make a good video, it's not work and production budget. What do you think it is?