Tethering again, and MacBook sleep/wake crash

For me, at least, the creation of the USB ethernet interface OS X sees the USB-tethered iPhone has brought on the crash-on-second-sleep-after-boot bug that's been noted in 10.5.7. I've solved it by removing the interface (and creating an unused new one). Don't know why this works, but it does, and I'm satisfied. I don't have restore CDs (or a backup...) here, so I didn't want to have to reinstall, and getting hardware work done would be much much worse. (I think I may pick up an external for Time Machine here; I'm told they're quite reasonable, and my phone-buying experience introduced me to the haggling that's possible here).

Anyway, now I've resolved to stick to Bluetooth tethering. It takes more phone power, yes -- but it also doesn't suck power out of the computer like USB (or like the USB modem the iPhone's replacing) and the computer's battery is, in many cases, the more precious resource, especially since I have an external battery to juice up the phone in a pinch.

Also, not only do you not have to plug in the phone, you don't have to do anything to it -- it can be in a pocket or bag and you can initiate the tether from the computer end. My new apartment's a little studio, and I'm definitely going to use my AirCurve (a passive, acoustic amplifier for the phone's speaker, that permits a cable to be run through it for power) on my nightstand as a clock-radio and charger, and I'm sure I'll be able to tether anywhere in the apartment with it docked there (even the bathroom -- is Jason reading this?).

So yeah, it's annoying that the USB method brought on this major OS X bug (fixed in 10.5.8 I hope?), but in reality Bluetooth is way more convenient. Nothing to mess with on the phone, no need to remember a cable, less drain on the computer's battery, ability to put the phone where it gets best signal, etc.

I'm sorry for blogging so much about my own tech issues/solutions here, but for one, it's on my mind, and for another, I think it's easy on the one hand to forget about how much more difficult the connectivity etc we take for granted in the States is here, and on the other to assume that nobody has iPhones or internet at all in Africa and think these are total non-issues here (and while I'm exaggerating here, you know what I mean).

Oh, and still working on that (actually maybe interesting) post about my day out yesterday.