iPhone repairs

I've a iPhone. It's really cool. It's an iPhone 2G - 8GB model. I bought it from my brother last Christmas. It's been a fun toy.

Since buying the phone, I've Jailbroken it, unlocked it, written a few apps for it, and gotten it wet.

Of all the evil things you can do to an iPhone, getting it wet is about the worst.

For my phone, it turns out the data port (the connector that allows syncing and software updates and charging) is on the way out. When the data port wears out, no more syncing. Also, when the phone gets wet, it's the data port that makes trouble.

So after a bit of searching, I found this video on how to take the phone apart. Very informative.

Then I bought the "Charger data sync port ribbon flex cable for iPhone 2G" on ebay. It took me 2 tries but it did actually work.

A few things to observe.

1. During the 1st try I had "dry assembled" the phone to try it out. The process of dry assembling the phone is enough to make you glue things in and then it's hard to disassemble safely. Your best bet is to just assemble the phone - don't try to test it out partially assembled. I broke the data cable and the battery cables trying to test it out partially assembled.
2. The ribbon flex cable actually requires 3 parts to work: the flex cable, the microphone, and the speaker (aka buzzer). If you decide to tackle this task, be sure to get the part called "Apple iPhone 2G connector flex cable+mic+buzzer speaker" instead. Otherwise you will find yourself soldering very small electronics and perhaps frying the microphone - as I did.

Now the phone is reassembled but the microphone is not working reliable and the data port is not fully functional. So I basically have an iPod touch. When the new data port (with mic and buzzer) arrive, I'll try it all again.

Another thing to note. The iPhone2G has a glass on the front. The glass can break. If the glass breaks, you can fix it. Don't buy the "iPhone glass" though, buy the whole assembly - the work is tricky but the result will surely be better. If you do try to "just replace the glass" you'll be spending lots of time to save about $110.

Read this blog and this posting and this discussion if you want to learn from a few different points of view. Here's another blog with another story. Searching google for "Apple iPhone 2G Glass Adhesive Glue Repair Kit" got lots of good results.

Another Marathon, Another Medal

When I was in High School and younger, I had very little interest in sports. Most of my sports time included getting hit - with the baseball, with the other socker player's foot, with the hockey puck - so sports never kept my interest for long.

Now I run. Why? Well, because I can. It's fun. It's energizing. It's even social - if you count running alongside friends and strangers for 3-4 hours at a go social.

The great news is, I get a medal! That's right, all I need to do is pay the entrance fee, show up, finish the race and I get a medal. For most races, I even get a T-Shirt whether or not I finish. Wow. Think of all those crazy sports I did in High School or earlier with no medal and no T-Shirt.

Now I'm all about the running. This posting describes my adventures at the Bay State Marathon in Lowell MA. I'd tell you the finish time but more importantly is that it really does not matter! I've set a new marathoning goal - pick a pace, stick to it, run the whole way. This, of course, implies I can pick a pace that I can run and one that I'll be OK with sharing later (no, I'm not holding back on the finish time because it's embarrassingly long).

The race went like this.

Drizzly 8am start in Lowell. Traffic was heavy but not crazy getting into the parking area. A nice group of kids grabbed my post-race bag and stowed it in a truck. Alexandar and I walked to the start, visited with some folks waiting there and stood respectfully quiet while a choir (or quartet) sang the Star Spangled Banner. Nice job too.

The gun went off - always an inspriational momement, the crowd started to move, and for the first few minutes, we were just walking along trying not to trip over people. There we about 4000 runners on the course - a 40/60 split between the 1/2 and full marathon.

The first several miles were slow and unsteady. Lots of people to contend with and no sense vying for position yet. We evened out our pace aroud 8:30/mile after mile two.

Drizzle stayed around off-and-on for most of the 1st half then it turned to steady rain with occaisonal downpours. Spectators were steadfast and very supportive. A wave is all it took to engage a "looking great" or "you can do it" cheer. Very nice. Most spectators had raingear. I would have liked some water-proof shoes.

The BayState is two loops. Conceptually, Alex and I broke it into 6 sections: 1) the first 3 where the 1/2 and full runners are together; 2) the next 5 until we cross "big bridge" (I'm sure it has a name like Fred or Steve, or even possibly Joe, but I don't know it); 3) the back loop along the river until "little bridge 1"; 4) the 2nd pass at the 2nd leg; 5) the 2nd pass on leg 3; and 6) the 6 mile leg leading up the the finish line in the baseball stadium after crossing "little bridge 2". Thinking of it like this made it much less daunting. Plus it gave me good landmarks to grab a snack. The key to a good marathon is propper food and water intake. Too much and you cramp up, too little and you run out of energy or dehydrate. Neither of these bad things happened - good fueling!

The most exciting part of this race was leg 6. We were both running out of gas. Not quite hitting the wall but definitely thinking better of pushing too hard.

We cruised down the tail end of leg 5 knowing there was about "5 miles and a 5k to go". Again, breaking it up like this made it so much easier to process than "8.1 miles to go".

We kept pace - better than the previously mentioned 8:30 - and pulled each other along. We also were carful to encourage each other to "take it easy". Too fast, is not a good thing this late in the race. All it really does is leave you sore and make it hard to walk to the post-race party.

One thing I loved about the Bay State is they posted the "1 mile to go" mark. With the race set at 26.2, it's not enough to just track whole miles. It's easy to judge how much energy is available for a whole mile, but who knows how much you need for 1.2 miles? I don't. It would be a guess at best. With the "1 mile to go" marker, it was really easy to say "hit it" or "hold back" or "keep it at 7:50" for the ride in. We targetted the same steady pace and stuck to it.

The last 100 yards includes a jog around LeLacheur park - a baseball field with a big stadium and concrete bleachers. Much like the PawSox stadium. We got to enter the field near 3rd base, run from 3rd to 2nd to 1st and then to the finish between 1st and home. What a thrill. There were folks in the bleachers cheering, the announcer was calling out runner's names, and we were done.

The after party was nice. For me the perfect after party is a hot shower and some simple food. Ideally a 15min leg massage. At the BayState, there were the 1st two and a bonus: a hot sauna. Sadly, no leg massage.

Ahh. Another marathon down.

After my most recent Hartford, I planned for some speed work and improvement to my PR. My suspicion is the rain and cold and wind took 5-15m off my total time today. It's possible I could have run 3:15 if the weather was more favorable but that is not how I started out so it's no surprise I didn't hit the faster pace. Alex and I finished this race in around 3 hours, 33 minutes. The final results have not posted yet, but I'm sure that's close.