Technology

Apple support and verizon fraud

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I am having a bad week dealing with big companies. I ordered a High speed (well sort of) data card for a laptop at work. We got it through verizon wireless. the card is fine, but for some reason I got charged an extra $575 on the same day from verizon. In their defense they cannot find the charge in their system and believe it to be fraud. But it had to be one of their people doing it. I called the order in over the phone. At least my credit card company is taking care of it.

As for apple. Their support is good, when you get them on the phone. But if you don’t have applecare (i don’t) you pay first and then only if your problem requires hardware to be fixed within the first year they wont charge your credit card. First off applecare is expensive. Does other support agreements cost that much? Apple hardware is more money as it is, I don’t want to pay an extra $250 for a support deal on top of my expensive computer.

At least in my case the problem IS hardware related, but I hate giving out my credit card number to people if I am not actually buying something.

Work, ipod’s, and Blog’s

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Work was crazy since I was only in for a half a day due to the eye doctor. We are going to go with the 3 ton HVAC unit. 1.5 tons for our new computer room is not enough, but my inflated estimate came out to requiring a 10 ton unit. Sorry Gus your theory of taking a maximum theoretical number of servers in the room and then increasing the heat load by 50% sort of put us way over the top:) It was sort of funny to hear the construction guy tell me we were way off and wanted to do my math since he thought I was crazy. I sent him my calculations, and they were correct. We just inflated stuff. Oh well.

While I was out this morning I think a demo that someone was supposed to do was not up. I don’t think people were happy since the site was supposed to be ready last week. Keith said their was some yelling going on. It was something my team didn’t screw up and I wasn’t their for the meltdown. I am glad for small favors.

It also looks like we are going to overhaul our Dev & QA hardware. I am waiting to see what the needs are before I make any changes.

Gus and I went to the apple store in SoHo today. He got a new 30gig Ipod. I am jealous. it is great. I can’t goto the apple store. They make it tempting to buy a new computer.

On the blog front another person I know did a blog. Howard Morgan got one going today. I felt really stupid since he asked a bunch of questions about Moveabletype and I didn’t have all the answers. I would consider it an honor to teach howard something new. I bet his blog will be incredible. So far I was the first person to comment on it.

Dam Apple

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I am pissed. I called to get my Powerbook fixed tonight at a reasonable hour of 9:30PM EST, only to find out that apple does not provide consumer hardware support after 9pm. Uh, hello apple. People use their computers 24/7, so you should have 24/7 support. Your windows competition you love to bash has 24/7 support. What is the deal. Your hardware is not that indestructible that you don’t need to provide support. Now I have to call your stupid support people during work tomorrow. I love spending a half an hour on the phone for support people to realize what I knew when I called that my speaker port is blown.

I love this powerbook and it has been working well, but I have had it for less than 4 months and it will be in for servicing twice. That is not good. I have had other computers for years and never needed servicing.

OK, my apple support bashing is over. I actually like this company but I can’t stand when a company falls flat on their face completely on their own. Dumbass stuff like this gets me wondering if I invested in the wrong computer? Granted I still have a ton of intel box’s, but I just want apple to get it right, and then maybe Microsoft will get a clue.

Vonage is out

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OK, so Vonage is everything they say it is, and probibly more. I used the service and the phone calls are nice and clear. The call routing is great. The service is just awesome. Just one little show stopper problem that I have. They won’t let you choose a vanity phone number. I got a really crappie number and would pay anything to get a nice easy to remember number from them. The problem is they automated the system and claim that they cannot in any way let you know the number you are getting before you pay the $10 fee to change it. With Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile I talked nice to the rep and was able to select the number that I want. AT&T even stayed on the phone for like 30 minutes with me till we came up with something good. They rock. Vonage is saying no, sorry. I wanted this service for incoming calls, so a crappy number is no good to me. I would rather change cell numbers and let everyone know about it often than keep a shitty number. I am looking into returning my router and getting a refund.

It is a great idea, but doesn’t seem to fit what I want if they are inflexible. I would still recomend them to others.

New and awesome things I can do with my Mac!!!

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I keep finding new and cool things I can do on my powerbook that I cannot do at all on my windows machine(s) or it takes 10 times longer to do compared to my mac. I recently downloaded iSync 1.1. Now I can sync my cell phone with the mac using a USB cable and almost any mainstream cell phone. Worked great on my old Motorola V60i.

If that wasn’t enough I found a site that showed me how to use the same cable and phone to dial onto the internet using Verizon Wireless’s network. It is circuit switched at 14.4kbs but it works and does not cost extra per month to do, just uses your air time minutes.

And even better than dialing out using a USB cable is the ability to use my T68i as a GPRS modem (aka 56k speeds) with AT&T wireless. The dam software AT&T provides for windows doesn’t even work correctly with bluetooth, but the mac does without any special software! And why don’t more people use the mac again???

And have I mentioned how awsome itunes is? Or iPhoto? Winamp was good. I used it for years, but itunes blows it away!!!

Vonage & Other Tech

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So I got my Vonage phone number and router already. That was very quick. I didn’t expect that stuff till next week. I can’t use the dam thing since I don’t actually have a phone to plug into it yet. I want to get a better phone number than what they gave me, so I am not giving the number out yet. I am willing to pay whatever it costs to get a good number, but I need a nice one.

I need cordless phone for this vonage system. The problem is that I need an older technology 900mhz phone since I don’t want it to interfere with my 802.11b/g wireless network I have at home. Man I will be lucky that I don’t get some sort of brain tumor from all this wireless radiation I got going on around me all the time at home and at work.

As expected my dam AT&T Wireless GSM phone didn’t work all day today while I was in Kingston. Thankfully I had my backup Verizon Wireless phone. It worked like a champ. The blackberry pager works up their most of the places. That is good news for our alert system.

VoIP instead of a home phone

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I have not had a home phone for some time. I really haven’t used one since 1999. I may have had one on and off between now and then, but it wasn’t my main phone. I use my Mobile Phone. Unfortunately I like to switch phones and providers allot. I just find something new and switch. My situation always changes. A phone may not work at the office, or my apartment if I move, I need to travel and it doesn’t work where I am going, etc. So I switch allot. Well the people at Vonage have a home phone solution using Voice Over IP (VOIP). I still don’t want a home phone, but I want a phone number that will stay with me. I also want 1 number that I can route to multiple phone numbers. I had this solution in college. AT&T offered a 500 number service that allowed a follow you number. I guess the service never took off so they canceled it. I have been looking ever since for something that will do the same thing. Vonage looks like it will do that. For a flat rate I can route calls to any US phone number, retrieve voice mail from the computer, take the number anywhere, and other cool features. It works by plugging it into my cable modem.

I have known about Vonage for a while. A guy at work loves it, but I wasn’t sure I wanted it or needed it. I decided to give it a try because I am moving and I want to start having 1 number people call no matter where I am. So if I cancel a cell phone, it doesn’t matter people just have the VOIP number and get routed to whatever number I tell them. I also don’t need to keep my cell phone on all the time when I am at home. Another big plus is that I can finally get rid of my second cell phone. I always had a second one for the past 2 years or so because service was always spotty on one phone or another. So hopefully I can save some $$$.

If all works out, I won’t get people asking me what my phone number is ever 6 months when I change it. My family still tries to call me at numbers I haven’t had or used in over a year.

I should get the new Vonage equipment in about a week or so. I will let you know how it works. I just hope I get a decent phone number. I will call and try to change it if I don’t. I don’t care how much it costs, I need an easy to remember phone number. that is one of the reasons I still have crappie AT&T Wireless Mobile phone, I got a great phone number and I don’t want to loose it.

Small Powerbook defect!

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I figured out while I was on my vacation that my powerbook has a defect. The headphone jack only play’s stuff out of the left headset. I bought a new pair of earphones thinking it was the pair I had. Wasn’t that. Turns out when I got home I couldn’t hear anything out of the right speaker I plug the powerbook into either when I am home. I am debating if I want to send the thing back again for a week of repair for this problem. They take forever to fix these things. I could just get a usb speaker set, but if I ever sell the mac (and you know I will) I may have a problem.

FTP concept finalized

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My selection of vsftpd as our FTP server of choice for our new production system is now complete. We will use it for just passing information onto vendors. We will have another one we use for internal use.

The next step of this project is to configure RSYNC. I am looking into that now. I hope to have some information before I go on vacation, but work is piling up so I am not sure.

I need to coordinate with Keith to verify the configuration for the Local Director’s we will use to load balance the FTP site is almost ready.