Local Money Grabbing Film Industry

Can find someone else to sell their “The Office” DVDs to.  They have taken to selling 1/2 a season only, still at the full price (and then take FOREVER to release the 2nd half of the season).

They’ve only just released Season 4 part 1 here.  I was hoping their splitting of Season 3 was an anomaly, but they’ve done it again to Season 4.

They better not start playing this bullsh*t with “House”

So I’ve decided to sell my Season 3 part 1, and buy Seasons 3, 4 and 5 in their complete forms from OS. Hate that I have to, but hate even more the deliberate ripping off of local consumers.

Click to link to Amazon

Lost in the Snow?

Some interesting feedback coming through about upgrading to Snow Leopard. Along the line of ensuring you have a full backup of your harddrive before attempting the upgrade. Of course that goes without saying for any major software change, especially the operating system itself.

Hmm – do I, don’t I…….. I took 6 months before getting around to upgrading the Leopard, but not through design, just too busy to risk a system operating happily under Tiger (10.4)

The system is working currently under Leopard, so do I risk ending up a lot worse, or potentially a lot better, or just stick with the status quo?

Snow Leopard from Amazon

Click the box to be taken to Amazon

Transitioning to Office 2007

As more and more computers are now having Office 2007 installed the one biggest problem some users are finding is “I used to know where a particular command was in the old Office (Word, Excel etc), but I don’t know where it is found in the new ribbon interface” (or perhaps in language less fitting for this blog). This question followed very quickly by a second – “I was perfectly happy with Office 2003 – why have I had to upgrade?”

The second question can have a very long answer, but it boils down to: because everyone else (locally, nationally, internationally, education and corporate) is adopting it as well, and very quickly.  It will rapidly get to a point that if you don’t upgrade, you won’t be able to read a majority of the documents out there. Some have gone early, some later, but in the end everyone using Office will find themselves needing to transition to 2007.

The first question (finding how to do things in 2007) can be made quite a bit easier with some programs Microsoft have created. You can find them by going into Help, then searching for “2003 to 2007″, and choosing the first link.  The online versions are here, click on the required program then select “Start the Guide”

Word // Excel // Access // PowerPoint // Outlook

You can also download the files to your computer from here for future reference.
In any respect, these programs provide you with a representation of the old Office 2003 interface, and when you navigate via the menus to the command you want and click on it, it then changes to the Office 2007 interface, and shows you how to find that command in the new interface.

Harder to describe than it is to use. Give it a try, and I think you will find it a very useful tool indeed as you transition to Office 2007

Cash for Clunkers

With some clever branding, this looks very much like an Apple site, but it isn’t. In fact, if I had to take a shot in the dark I’d say the whole thing is a joke, although I appreciate the humour!

According to the site, any machine running Windows is a “clunker”, and Windows is partly responsible for global warming because of the number of times you have to reboot your machine.

Check out the original site here, no promises it will still be around though!

Old Software Never Dies

it just becomes incompatible (unpalatable?) with modern operating systems.

So it was with a bit of amusement that I tried, and succeeded to run what would be regarded as a relic by today’s standards. A child’s talking book on CD ROM, that was shipped with my first CD drive.

It was written back before Windows became an operating system (the good old days of DOS 6.22a, and Windows 3.11). And it worked! Ok, I didn’t try it on a Vista machine – instead it was on the now veteran WindowsXP (which is still the operating system of choice on many, many PCs).

The old CD drive the disk came with merits a mention as well – it came with a SoundBlaster Pro, with CD ROM interface (these were the days before CD drives had an IDE interface).  The drive itself was a double speed!  Yes 300 kB/s!!! And the CDs themselves – 650MB of storage – 12 times or more than the size of the average (higher end) harddrive.  Incredible, heady stuff.  Only cost $1000 or so.

What is saddest of all – I bought some new talking books for children recently – two of the Doctor Seuss ones, and they are no better, no more functional, no more entertaining than the old one from 20 years ago.  I didn’t get one of the 3 new ones (Dr Seuss ABC), because the graphics, and performance etc is significantly WORSE than this ancient program.

Who knows where things have gone wrong, but I honestly fear that IT has gone way too far down the wrong path, and from there, there is no recovery.  Once it was important to optimise size, optimise performance and still produce the goods.  These days? I dunno – make as much money as easily as possible? No care for file bloat, or performance, (or usability even if Lotus Notes and the ilk are anything to go by – shockingly bad program – thought torture of staff would be a contravention of the UN Convention against Torture).

The Conspiracy Continues

Just a footnote really – since turning data on a couple of days ago, and despite not using the internet at all (not checking email, not using Maps, visiting the App store), I have now been observing a slow but steady drain on my account balance.

Now that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been internet traffic (although logging into my account shows no data traffic). So…..

One more call to VirginMobile – turn off the data again. I still leave 3G switched on on the phone so it still functions.  It doesn’t mean I completely loose the connectivity benefits of the iPhone, there are WiFi spots everywhere that I can use – home, work, McDonalds, Starbucks, Internet cafes – so many offering free WiFi that the only time I am really missing out on data, is when I am driving. And when I’m driving, I better not be surfing!

Even so, it is sad that it has to come to this.

Pathetic really.

A footnote to the footnote – credit is still draining out of my account, despite there not being any calls made.  Rang Virgin AGAIN, and the last guy didn’t do what he said he was going to do (what I asked him to) – turn off data and WAP.  FFS – employ competent staff

Oh, another typically annoying thing – the previous guy offered to put $5 onto the account because of the problems/sign of goodwill.  Goodwill only works when you actually do it VirginMobile.  I don’t care about the $5. I do care about the principle.

A Conspiracy Theory

As some know, I’ve been having some really weird problems with my iPhone over the couple of months.

Firstly the problem: intermittently (2 calls in 3), a person ringing me would hear nothing at all for a good 20 seconds or so, then go straight to my answer phone.  My phone meantime would be on, displaying 5 bars of signal strength and yet would not show an incoming call at all, let alone ring.  This happened countless times, and it took a while for me to become aware of it – after all, how often do you ring yourself?

I tried all sorts of things to fix the issue – restoring the phone, swapping the SIM card to another phone, and on and on.  The SIM card would work perfectly in another phone, but not the iPhone.  So based on that evidence, it was off to the Apple Store, who agreed with my initial diagnostics, and decided it was a faulty phone circuit in the iPhone, and so swapped the iPhone for a new one.

And still my problem persisted. It became even more curious when I had the same problem when I then tried putting the SIM card into a Nokia 5110.

So then it looked to be a carrier problem – VirginMobile in this case (on the Optus network).  Tried to get VirginMobile (VM) on the case, but after fluffing around (and around and around), I got the TIO involved (Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman).  At least it finally got escalated into VM proper customer service circles (initial call centres are typically less than useful for telecoms)

We tried SIM swaps, and then again with one they had tested the guts out of in their labs.  Still no success.  Even a brand new SIM on a brand new account had the same problem.

Finally, one comment from them triggered me down a new path.  The comment was based on why in the world my account/SIM worked fine in old phones and not new ones.  It made even less sense since I have data (and 3G) turned off on my iPhone (don’t need the extra expense – there is WiFi everywhere!)  So the older phones work, but not modern?

Another web search, and I find a conspiracy theory that happened in the US, where AT&T colluded with Apple to cause owners to turn on data (unnecessarily).

So I tried – switch on 3G, phone works perfectly, switch it off, phone fails.  All since OS3.0 came out.

The point is – if that is the case, who wins?  Apple? Or the carrier who then gets to sell you data?

I took this new info back to the TIO, and they immediately said they were no longer interested in the case. If it is phone provider and not service provider (even if it is both), it wasn’t their problem.

I also took the issue back to Apple (Genius Bar in Chadstone), and not mentioning the 3G / 2G problem to find out what else they had to say. I put a Sony Ericsson, Nokia, HTC and iPhone in front of them.  The SIM works in every phone, except the iPhone, yet they still blamed the carrier.  They even went as far as telling me they see it a lot with Optus (and less so with Vodaphone) (and not with Telstra). Despite telling me just 2 weeks earlier they had never seen the issue. Even though I had the same actual person serving me.  They were happy for me to walk out of their store, despite the fact that 3 non Apple branded phones worked perfectly, and an Apple didn’t and yet were not interested in getting to the bottom of the problem.  A big fail for Apple customer service.

So that’s about as far as I can get.  Apple refusing responsibility, VirginMobile unable to solve the problem through their avenues.

An iPhone that doesn’t work with 3G switched off, and works with it switched on.  I don’t necessarily mind having 3G switched on, but it seems like yet another stuffup with OS3.0 . Remember the phone worked perfectly under OS2.x with 3G switched off.

So, is a conspiracy between Apple and Optus?  Forcing users to turn on data even though they don’t want to?

I hope not. But one way or another, either deliberate or accidental, IMO it is Apple who is responsible, and not prepared to accept responsibility.

Tom Tom on the iPhone

But it sounds like a half-baked attempt to rush an app out that has been in development for most of the year (at least).

The initial reports on the $A100 app are less than complementary, particularly in comparison to their cheaper, more refined, and much earlier released competitors.

I’ve been specifically waiting for Tom Tom’s release since I got the iPhone last year.  I guess waiting a bit longer to see if they can sort out what sounds like some significant complaints wouldn’t be a bad thing.  And if they don’t, well their competition gets good reviews, and is 20% cheaper!

A Potted History of YouTube on The Internet

This timeline is a bit of a weird mashup of history, internet history and publicly regarded classics from YouTube. Click image to go to the actual (scrollable) site.

Internet Meme