22. June 2010 by admin.

It’s no secret that I’m not a blind follower of Steve Jobs and all things Apple. But the more I use Apple products, the more I find about them to like.  Not love, but like.

I seriously enjoy my iPhone, and my macbook and I get along remarkably well. I also enjoy my Windows and Linux machines, and I have several other non-Apple branded devices that are great. I don’t own any singular stock in any technology companies, so I don’t have any interest in how well any company does in sales, beyond the fact that a healthy company will be able to service its products in the future. I can be completely honest in my impressions of the latest operating system installed on my iPhone, and I will.

The first thing I noticed was that my wallpaper is showing behind my icons–an immediate plus for me, because my wallpaper is a picture of my Savior, it’s a picture I really like, and even though the icons obscure parts of the picture, I can still see it, and it still serves the purpose of reminding me to keep my eyes on Him.

Creating folders for my icons was very easy–just dragging one icon on top of another. Fortunately I did think to choose two in the same general category, and I ended up with a same-sized icon-looking thing that said Productivity with two mini-icons in it, one for Evernote and one for DropBox.  I followed the same procedure for six other folders and got five pages of icons down to two. Not sure yet how I’m going to like that ultimately, but right now it’s pretty cool.

Email has some cool changes. I can see the contents of all my inboxes in one list, each inbox separately, and each account with its own other folders separately. Additionally, this update corrected a condition that I alone may have experienced. We use a system called JIRA for our project management activities. When a change is made or ticket is created, an email is sent to each of the relevant parties. Previous to this update, I could see, in the email, only the header information for the ticket, and I would have to go to the JIRA program to see the ticket itself. Now the email itself is bringing in all of the information. My boss said his has always done this, and I didn’t know that, and I hadn’t thought anything about it, because there were several issues I had with stuff "working" on the iPhone,  like any Java-based websites.

The camera zooms now! It’s not a huge distance that it zooms, and it’s not a physical zoom. It’s a decent zoom for a phone camera, though, more than it had before. Let’s face it, it’s still a phone camera. If I need a high-quality shot, I need to use a real camera.

Now for the hot topic: Multi-Tasking! I saved this for last because it was the thing I was most looking forward to, and if anything spells anticlimactic in this update, Multitasking is it. I’m lukewarm toward it because the performance of the concept is lukewarm. The applications seem to be put into a state of suspension, not much more "live" than they are when you close them out. Bring an inactive app back to the front still requires it to come up out of that state of suspension. I haven’t noticed any real difference in opening the app from scratch and bringing it back up from a different app. I’m also so used to having to open it fresh that I’m not pulling it up out of the "tray," but I suppose if this were my first iPhone, I would go to the "tray" first for my open apps, sort of like doing the "alt+tab" or "command+tab" to cycle through the open apps on your computer. It remains to be seen if keeping apps "open" in the "tray" will suck up performance or battery life.

Overall, I like this update. Previous updates have messed with the order the podcasts were listed in, and since I listen chronologically to them and do so as I drive, having them listed chronologically is something I appreciate. A couple of times I nearly put my podcast listening on hold while I waited for Apple to fix it. But given the amount of stuff that gets tweaked and played around with in an update or upgrade, once they fix it I’m a happy camper.

If you’re on the fence about this upgrade, find someone who’s got it and play around with it. I think you’ll find enough to like in it to justify going for it.

Powered by Qumana

Posted in Technology | No Comments »

9. June 2010 by admin.

I just downloaded Qumana. I think it has a learning curve. It doesn’t seem to have "installed," and it takes FOREVER to load. That may not be its fault, I’ll restart and see what happens.

edit:  Okay, got it. 

The reason for wanting this piece of software was that I almost never get to play on a windows machine at my house, until my new laptop gets here, in maybe a couple of weeks.

Powered by Qumana

Posted in Technology | No Comments »

26. May 2010 by admin.

I just found Windows Live Writer on my computer.  Okay, I don’t spend a lot of time on my computer for a self-proclaimed techie/geek.  So this is really just a test to see how well it works. 

I entered the url of my blog and my credentials. Live Writer downloaded the theme and the blog. I’m going to see how it handles the upload in just a minute.

What makes this so much more useable for me is that I can write a blog whether or not I’m connected to the internet. See, I don’t always have “the cloud” available to me. My host is 1&1, and the blog was really easy to set up there. The price was right for my first blogging attempt, and their services are non-invasive, which is important to me.  But since I never got serious about the effort, I never learned Word Press or any other blogging tools, so I’ve always just stuck with writing online. I like this. I really like this.

I’m going to insert a picture that will have zero relevance to anything I write here, just to see how Live Writer handles it.

 This is one of those blog posts that doesn’t mean anything to anyone but me. But now that I can do this anywhere, I intend to.

Is this program included with or available for Windows 7? I sure hope so!

Posted in Technology | No Comments »

22. September 2009 by admin.

There are some people who just excel at giving excellent customer service, and sometimes a good cs rep is hamstrung by policy.  I spoke with two excellent cs reps today from Sony who were trying to help me get replacement earbuds for the two sets that went bad within two months, a month apart.  They did succeed in getting me ONE set of replacement earbuds to replace TWO sets that went bad.  Okay, that’s not the fault of the reps.  That’s SONY policy.Just fyi.I try to be courteous to the cs reps I have to deal with over the phone, because they’re doing their job amid some very badly-behaved customers.  The CS Reps I work with are superlative examples of what CUSTOMER SERVICE means.  (You know who you are)  When a product is produced and doesn’t perform to expectations, the product should be replaced.  The Sony website states that without a receipt, one should expect refurbished goods.  I didn’t buy refurbished goods, and no, I didn’t keep my receipt after I found out that they did work out of the box.  A $30 item shouldn’t require a 7 year statute of limitations on proof of purchase!  I suppose that Sony would want to make sure that I didn’t buy them two years ago.  I understand all of that, and I understand that there are times when policy has to be the driving force.  But how long would you expect to hold onto a receipt for a $30 item, and what should I expect as restitution?

Posted in Technology, Life--mine in particular | No Comments »

4. September 2009 by admin.

The tech support rep from AT&T called again today.  They went and checked and of course, while everything is working nothing is wrong.  I finally got someone to verbalize this concept: If the problem occurs when the tech support center is closed, that is, after 6 pm on Saturday through 9 am Monday morning, there is nothign that can be done. Period.And they feel that they’re fulfilling their end of the contract.

Posted in Technology, Life--mine in particular | No Comments »

26. August 2009 by admin.

I got a call from a rep at AT&T today. He said that the network engineers tested the equipment at the tower and it’s all functioning correctly.  My reaction of course was to ask if they tested it on Saturday when I was having trouble.  Without hesitation, he assured me that they did test on Saturday.  Question from my side was how they knew to test it when it wasn’t even submitted until at least Monday.  Hmmm….good question.  So he said he was going to submit a network ticket to have them test it on Saturday.  This is really dragging out a long time, and I think that the longer it drags out the more certain it becomes that I will be cancelling the service.  Upside of that is that the early termination fee shrinks with each passing month.  Downside of THAT is that it becomes less advantageous to take them to small claims court, because the relationship between what I’d pay and what I’d gain (already a loss but we’re talking about a principle here) widens.

Posted in Technology, Life--mine in particular | No Comments »

24. August 2009 by admin.

My win does not have to equal a loss for AT&T, not that they care.  But our internet bombed on us early enough Saturday that I was able to demonstrate to a technician for AT&T that what I said was happening was in fact happening.  The aircard is not programmed to drop on Saturday, the tower, to her knowledge, is not programmed to “manage” network traffic such that our throughput would drop completely.  Here’s what’s bizarre:  She could see us hitting the tower; I could see that data packets were being sent and received.  The problem is not signal strength, we had a powerful signal.  We made all kinds of adjustments to the aircard control program, to the wireless device configuration, etc., and then I asked her, “Okay, if these work, then we’ll have to see what we need to do to make it happen on the mac.” She kept forgetting that this issue was not isolated to a Windows Vista machine. (I think people have become accustomed to blaming Vista for everything that doesn’t work; the fact that it also doesn’t work on a Mac should cut Vista a bit of slack.) Bottom line Saturday was that it just plain didn’t work; we showed “connected to the internet” for a brief period of time, then “connected to the network local only” for a period of time.No, it’s not solved.  But someone at AT&T finally believes me.Oh, and I am going to get a credit on my bill for every Saturday and Sunday since the time when I can say I noticed a pattern of non-connectivity, which was sometime in May.

Posted in Technology, Life--mine in particular | No Comments »

19. August 2009 by admin.

So back in February, we decided to ditch the landline and get an air card for our internet connection.  Dollars are about the same, speed is marginally faster (a snail on steroids is still a snail).  AT&T offers a Sierra Wireless laptop connect, so we signed on.  For the whole first month we played with settings with tech support and finally got the thing where it would work most of the time.  I was still using the XP machine at that time, and the card also worked with the mac.  I didn’t even try using it on a Linux machine, I’ve never been enthusiastic about exercises in futility with predictable outcomes.  We even swapped the device out for a different one, I’m on my second aircard.I don’t know at this point if this was always the case, but at some point I noticed a pattern of accessibility.  Sometime on Saturday afternoon, I lose my connection to the internet.  The laptop shows that it’s connected; I just can’t GO anywhere.  Or sometimes I can’t even connect.  Or sometimes the computer can’t recognize the device.  It’s not a consistent sort of situation, which makes it really difficult to troubleshoot.   Additionally, support for the laptop connect devices goes away Saturday at 6pm and doesn’t reappear till Monday morning sometime.  I rarely spend all day Saturday in my house, and if I AM in my house, I’m probably not spending a lot of time on the web.  But when I want to surf, I want to surf.  Is that too much to ask?Evidently it is.I  have gotten fed up with it.  I called Wild Blue Satellite Internet, and got a quote on service; I’m now signed up for installation with them, but it’s on hold right now, because of what I’m about to tell you.I called AT&T and explained the situation to the customer service rep.   All of the service reps have been very, very nice.  They all “appreciate” my frustration over the situation.  As wonderful as that is, their appreciation of my frustration has not solved the problem.  So I explained that I wanted to terminate my service and I wanted the early termination fee waived and I would like my bill to be adjusted to reflect the time that the service has been unavailable to me.Of course, they don’t want to do that.  See, the service has been used; AT&T makes no guarantee that the service will be available 24/7, so as long as it’s available at some point during the billing cycle, it’s “available.”  The rep wanted to know why I don’t call when I’m having problems–even though there is nobody to call when I’m having problems.So here’s where we are now:  AT&T wants to troubleshoot the device, and after they can determine that the device is functioning properly, somehow they’ll come up with a way for me to contact SOMEONE when it doesn’t work when there’s nobody to contact.The worst part of this from a business point of view is that AT&T feels that they have no obligation to provide consistent service as long as they are providing SOME service.  And I’m not a huge customer. Can we go viral with this?  Let’s make the world aware that AT&T feels no obligation for consistency of service.  They feel that as long as the account has activity, they’re fulfilling the terms of their contract.  What do you think?I think occasional outages are to be expected.  Every Saturday afternoon, all day every Sunday, and even up till every Monday morning sometime after 7 am–THAT’S not “occasional outages.” Something’s happening on a planned, regular, scheduled basis.I will terminate the account after we get through the hoops they want me to jump through.  And if they still make me pay the termination fee, it’ll be worth spending more than that to take them to small claims court. They won’t show up, I’ll win, and we’ll take it viral again.  And when Apple puts the iPhone on Verizon, they’ll lose hundreds of thousands of customers.

Posted in Technology, Life--mine in particular | No Comments »

10. July 2009 by admin.

Have you used a piece of technology and felt it was “not quite ready for prime time?”  It seems like I encounter my fair share of stuff that falls in that category, working as I do in Tech Support.  A lot of people–a LOT–felt that Windows Vista was one of them.  For the most part that’s a fair assessment, but what’s not entirely fair is that a lot of people wrote Vista off completely.  Vista has become remarkably useable, secure, and stable.  No, I’m not a mouthpiece for Microsoft, and no, Windows is not the only machine I’m familiar with.  Vista has become what it should have been from the start.  Who remembers the introduction of Windows XP?  Only geeks like me actually liked it, but it was not what it should have been when it hit the streets.Our Personal Information Manager program (similar to Outlook–uses email, calendar, contacts, tasks) which I won’t mention by name requires a third party program to pull in all the non-email stuff to a PDA–smartphone device, palm device, iPaq, etc. Some functions of this program work flawlessly for most users; for some users, nothing works well, for other users some functions work well but others never work.  The software provider told us repeatedly that it was our server.  We moved all our accounts to be hosted on their servers.  Guess what–now EVERYONE is experiencing some sort of issues.  This software is not new.  The port to iPhone is new, and iPhone users are experiencing an inordinate amount of issues.  But this software for BlackBerry should have been ready for prime time by now.

Posted in Technology | No Comments »