My replacement iPhone arrived today. I am glad to have the entire situation resolved and without costing me $400 for a new phone. Apple’s customer service was fantastic; I couldn’t have asked for any better service. Apple really isn’t as bad as many people make them out to be

This thing is CRAZY… and very creepy.

Wow… never have I received such quick service on a damaged / broken electronic product!

Thursday, I called Apple to report my dead iPhone. Friday, I received a loaner unit (also an iPhone) and shipped out my broken phone for repairs in their pre-paid shipping box. Saturday (today), they received the package, diagnosed it and determined that it was indeed dead. I now have the tracking number for my replacement iPhone, which will be here Monday. It doesn’t get much better or faster than that!

Less than 24 hours after calling Apple, a brand new iPhone “loaner” unit arrived at my place.

I must say, I am impressed by how quick this arrived. They even included a paper clip to help remove the SIM card tray. I called FedEx to come pick up the return package, which was already labeled for Priority with Saturday Delivery - nice!

Hopefully I should get my iPhone back (I am assuming a new unit) late next week. For now, I am just happy to have a working phone again.

Also, I was unsure if any of my stored data (text messages, saved notes, etc) was saved on the SIM card, but thankfully, it is. I have some important notes I keep in my phone that I wouldn’t want a stranger to intercept.

I plugged my iPhone in to charge yesterday, and when I went to get in bed later that night, I found the phone was SUPER HOTTT, almost too hot to touch without pain!

The case that the phone was in (silicon case) was all greasy as if it were about to melt. I pulled the iPhone from the charger and tried to turn it on, to which I received a white screen. I then turned the iPhone off. I quickly grabbed my IR thermometer to measure just how hot the iPhone was.

It took longer than anticipated for the battery to cool, as I think the battery in the phone was still holding a strong charge.

And now, my iPhone is completely dead. It won’t turn on, recharge or anything. Just my luck.

I talked with Apple earlier today (had to borrow my roommates phone, blah). They are sending me a “service” iPhone to use in the meantime, which should be here tomorrow, as well as a box to ship my broken phone back to Apple. I was told that it isn’t terribly uncommon to have this happen, especially if you are using a case on your iPhone, which I was. I should have some type of fix / replacement in 3-5 business days.

Last July, we did a total revamp of my tech site, OCIA.net… with the exception of the forums. We received a ton of praise about the new design and spent the better half of last year fine-tuning everything.

Now, with the main site set, we focused our attention to the forums. We switched to a new forum software and also totally reworked the layout to better match the main page.

So now, it’s time to celebrate, and what better way to do that than to give away a ton of free stuff to you, our readers?!! We have teamed up with several of our sponsors and put together a prize package worth over $1,300 !!

What are you waiting for - head over and get your entry in today!!

Cooler Master has teamed up with AMD and is running a Free Game of the Week promotion on their website. I just found out about this a few minutes ago, so details are sparse, but I do know that there is no “catch” - you simply go to Cooler Master’s North American website and on the bottom right, you will see a scrolling ad for their CSX cases. Wait a moment for this to pass, then you will see the Free Game ad. Simply click it to start downloading.

These are full version games, not demos, and change on a weekly basis. I’ve never heard of this week’s game, but then again, I’m not a huge gamer either. Either way, it’s free and changes weekly, so be sure to check back often if this is something you might be interested in

Rutledge just wrapped up his world exclusive review of the Lian Li PC-A17 Midtower Chassis. Lian Li is perhaps the top computer case manufacturer in the business. This is one of their new cases that was on display at CES and has been discussed quite a bit in various forums across the net.

Be sure to check it out and don’t forget to Digg It!

I want to take a moment and thank everyone for their participation in my recent Giveaway. Thanks to the giveaway, this blog gained 28 new RSS by E-mail readers - not too bad at all!

So, everyone wants to know… who won?

1st Selection - Alex S. - CoolIT USB Beverage Chiller

2nd Selection - Gary S. - Imation 1 GB Flash Drive

3rd Selection - Tyler Ingram - Cooler Master 512 MB Flash Drive

Thanks again to everyone who entered. I will be starting up a brand new giveaway over in the OCIA.net Forums once the renovations are complete!

Besides computers and technology, one of my other main passions in life is photography. I have always been somewhat interested in taking pictures, but I didn’t really get “serious” about it until January of 2006 when I purchased my first DSLR (Digital Single-Lens Reflex) camera, a Nikon D50. The main reason I bought this camera was for taking pictures of review products, but I soon found myself shooting more for pleasure than work.

The awesome thing about most DSLR cameras is that you don’t have to be a photography whiz to operate it; simply using the Automatic settings can net you some good results. Once you feel comfortable with your camera, you can start experimenting with some of the manual settings. Your camera’s user manual is a great place to start, but you can also find tutorials and guides online to further help you understand some of your camera settings, or even take some photography classes.

Once you have a good collection of photos, it’s time to start marketing them. There are several “stock” photo sites that will host your images and help you sell them. Stock photos are a bit different than most photos you will probably shoot and have several demanding requirements that must be met. These are pictures that can be licensed for specific uses and must be “generic” in form. They cannot contain any business logos or copyrighted material. If you have a person / people in your photo(s) that is recognizable, you must have them sign a model release waiver. Also, if you photos are not absolutely perfect, many of these sites will not accept them. Some of the more popular ones include iStockphoto, Big Stock Photo and fotolia.

If you are not interested in stock photos, you can elect to try and sell photos on your own. There are many ways to market your own photos, many of which are absolutely free!

Social networking sites are a great place to start. Sites like Myspace and Facebook allow users to create free photo albums. You can host your photos here and detail your pricing information in the photo description area and on your main profile page. Both of these sites also have user groups that you can join, where you can meet like-minded people and help share your pictures.

Photo hosting sites like Photobucket, Flickr and Webshots are other options that you can take advantage of when trying to sell your photos. Sites such as these allow you to label your pictures with descriptive “tags”, which will other users locate your images when searching for specific topics. As with the social networking sites, simply list your contact info. and prices in your profile.

Regardless of which method(s) you select, it is imperative that you put some kind of watermark or identifying text on your images. This prevents people from “stealing” your images and also is a great way to advertise your website or blog for free! I use a watermark on all of my online images (Flickr, Myspace, Facebook), either linking to my tech site, OCIA.net (before I started this blog) or directly to my blog.

Have any of you ever sold pictures online? I’d love to hear about what worked best for you…