176/365 (June 25, 2010) – Edison was a pretty bright guy!
Sorry, couldn’t help it.
However, contrary to popular opinion, he did not actually invent the first lightbulb. Although he did tweak it into a commercially viable product. So I suppose one could consider him to be the inventor of the lightbulb as we know it.
The title is a tip of the hat to the song, and amazingly, on All Music Guide it lists 453 versions done by everyone imaginable…except the singer I imagined it to be…
160/365 (June 9, 2010) – The rain was back this morning, so no great desire to get out, thus the “toybox” was opened and Wall-E was dragged from his slumber to be put to the test. Last week the weather report said that the sun was to arrive on Saturday and stay for five days. It rained Sunday and poured Monday. Yesterday was acceptable but the clouds crawled in later in the day. It rained again today. Where can I find a job that allows me to be so wrong 80% of the time and still get paid well?
I love my iPhone, except that Telus blocks it so it can’t be used in other countries, can’t just swap the SIM card apparently. That’s annoying. And it doesn’t work outside of their 3G areas…so not in places like Thunder Bay. That was a bit annoying. But I still love it…because Apple makes it…and I’m a card carrying cult member.
This is a video that really does make you reflect a bit on the absurdity of the things that we complain about….
109/365 (April 19, 2010) – I’m frustrated right now. I bought a new GPS specifically to use with my Mac…and guess what, despite all assurances that it would, on arrival…it did not. It happily connects to my old PC via Bluetooth, and my other Bluetooth GPS happily connects to my Mac, but each will not pair with the other. I’ve been fighting with it and the company I bought it from all day.
The GPS doesn’t come with software on a CD, not that it would be useful to me anyway since the software is Windows based, but it is located on the unit itself, which is supposed to be plug and play. However, when I plugged it into the PC running Vista, it said I needed a USB driver…that was located on the GPS. So somehow, I was supposed to install software located on the GPS, but had to install that software before I could mount the GPS? I managed to get around that issue by mounting the GPS as a mass storage Device and dragging the files off. Got the drivers installed, but then when I tried to run the software, the program crashed. I followed the instructions…
- Turn on the WBT-202
- Connect the unit to any USB port of computer via USB cable
- Press the power button longer until the GPS LED and Bluetooth LED go out. It switched to MSD mode now. At this moment, the orange Micro-SD LED will light on
- The inbuilt access tool (WBT_Tool) will be executed automatically and pop up the following dialogue, please choose WBT_Tool and press “OK”
….and when I attempted this, I was given a fancy”Engrish” communications error telling me: “Communication with Host fail! Please Plug out the device and then try again”
On the flip side, the GPS that I thought did not work with the Mac, suddenly does when I made a few system changes. Go figure. But at the end of the day, the Bluetooth system on the Mac does work, but something in that particular GPS unit doesn’t speak to it.
And the retailer was completely useless, sending me tidbits such as telling me to install the drivers on the CD. Um, no CD! And even if there were, it doesn’t address the real issue since it was supposed to work with the Mac and the software is Windows based.
Feeling very cranky at the moment.
No, no, no! Stop thinking that!
I rounded out my happy little Mac family the other week. I started with a desktop, the MacPro. I loved it so much I didn’t want to leave it….so I bought a MacBook. And just the other week I finally broke down and bought an iPhone.
It wasn’t an easy sell mind you. I have had the same cell phone plan for…oh…ten years or so! I had a really good plan, it worked for me, and it was billed by the second, not the minute.
So when Telus announced it was getting the iPhone, I called. And got a dim-bulb who didn’t know anything. So I waited until they actually launched it…and then I called again. And got another dim-bulb.
The dim-bulb told me the phone wouldn’t work without a new plan. “Right, can I have your supervisor please?”
Next in line is always the nasty snot. And I got him. So he basically told me that there was simply no way that they would give me a deal on iPhone even though I had been a client for 15 years. Too bad so sad. he tried the same “It won’t work” tactics, which I shot down. And he knew I was right. so he just switched gears to Mr. Snotty. After about 20 minutes of comments like “Well why would you want it without a data plan anyway!” To which I replied….”Uh, it works with WiFi and WiFi is pretty darned ubiquitous.”
Eventually he stopped arguing with me and just settled into being snotty and confrontational. Finally he asked me the question I was waiting for (I’ve played this game with Telus before, it’s pretty predictable) “Well, you’re not going to get anywhere, but do you want me to escalate this?”
“Yes please!”
Then I settled in and tried to be patient, waiting for the call I knew would eventually come. And it did. One of the big honchos from the “Department of Customer Retention” (Tragic that they need such a department…but understandable when you deal with their customer service department).
After a relatively lengthy and friendly discussion she and I came to an agreement, and the options were laid out on the table.
#1. I could buy the iPhone at a discount and keep my existing plan
#2. I could buy the iPhone at the 3 year contract price if I bought the lowest rate plan and she would kick in a few incentives for me.
The incentives were good and the plan actually will only cost me about $5 a month more. That outweighs the inflated cost of buying the iPhone at the no-contract price.
So, we both got what we wanted. I am still a Telus customer and I got the iPhone for a decent price and managed to swing a reasonably similar contract to what I used to have, but in the end did get a data package too.
So, all is wonderful in the world of Mac…for another three years anyway… because then I will have to play the renegotiation game again.
In the meantime…I’m finding out just how many “Apps” there are!