Pauls Rants and Revelations

So what did you do for a New Years Resolution…?

…

I thought as much. I didn’t think of anything either. It seems that, the older I get, the more pessimistic I get about making them. The last few I have made seemed to fail within a month, so I guess I just stopped making them.

Perhaps, in the grand scope of things, these silly attempts to better ourselves through a significant, annual event are supposed to fail. I mean, if we were really meaning to stop doing this or start doing that, wouldn’t we be motivated enough, if the cause was important enough, to just start doing it as soon as possible?

I personally, do not need an event like that to start or stop something if its important. But in the spirit of things, my New Years resolution will be to post more entries on my blog. What’s yours gong to be? Go on a diet to fit in that bikini (dudes need not respond if this is your goal)?

Will my resolution actually happen? Maybe. Possibly. Stay tuned to see if it does.

Cheers

That was my first question after I searched for the cause of my troubles today. You see, this morning my keyboard and trackpad on my Macbook Pro started to respond strangely. Keys wouldn’t work and the trackpad was malfunctioning. Also, the button was strangley bowed up.

I hoped on my wifes computer (it being right next to me) and a quick Google search later, found the cause of it. Apparently, after a time, the batteries on MBP’s can swell. I though this was a joke. I mean swelling batteries?

Although I wasn’t laughing when i flipped over my laptop and took out the battery (which, after 2 years I have never done). The casing around it was peeling away, and the side that touches the keyboard connector was horribly bowed. I set it aside, plugged into the wall and restarted and now, thankfully, my system works normally.

However, one thing disturbs me. Firstly, the techs who replaced the screen a few weeks ago didn’t notice this. Not a huge deal, surely. But what I didnt know at the time is that when a battery swells like that, its nearing the end of its life and can, and there are many articles that document this, explode.

I asked the Apple support people this and they confirmed that, yes, a certain amount of time after the swelling starts, the battery can explode.

Um, what?

So here I am, with what amounts to a ticking timebomb sitting on my lap, wondering how the techs who worked on my system missed this. One of the guys said specifically that they inspected the entire system and it was fine. Obviously, this doesnt include a physical examination.

I will, however, be pointing this out to the tech when I go back in there tonight to get a new battery. Hopefully they will, in the future, look out for such things as I would think that replacing a few batteries is preferable to having a few dozen lawsuits against you from people with scorched laps and lost computers.

We’ll see. In the mean time, check your batteries people.

Cheers

UPDATE: I took it in to the Apple store this evening and, not only did they get to me a half hour sooner than I thought, but they replaced the battery without question. He said that the old one was part of a bad batch that the manufacturer put out (metal shavings in the lith-ion cells). This is the third time that someone has told me that something on my laptop, my very expensive laptop, was part of a “bad batch”. If this happens again, I’m demanding that they give me a new MBP instead of constantly replacing dodgy hardware. Maybe it’ll work. - Thanks

UPDATE 2: My coworker (boss, really) just sent me a picture of this MBP. He started noticing funny things happening and took a look at the underside. His battery was swollen also (the plot thickens). The only difference was that his is REALLY swollen (like, its almost a sphere). It cant be part of the same “bad batch” as mine since he got his MBP almost a year before me, so something is definately fishy with Apple batteries.

Now my only concern is what happens if this battery issue arises in the new MBP’s? The ones without the removeable battery? Scary stuff, probably. - Cheers

So it turns out that, after having my screen replaced in my Mac Book Pro once already, I have to get it replaced again. I am, to say the least, a little cheesed at Apple support at the moment.

The back story: I was using my MBP, working away, and all the sudden my screen gets covered in vertical pink bars. Like every other pixel column was pink and the rest were normal. I took it to the store and they said they needed to replace the screen (clamshell replacement they called it). They had my computer for 5 days. It was really annoying having to go back to my PC that had none of my files on it.

Anyways, I suffer through it and get my MBP back with a shiny new top on it (they couldn’t save my stickers, oh well). Everything is fine for a couple weeks and then the vertical lines come back. But inlike last time, it was only for a few moments. OK, I thought to myself, a slight hiccup.

Only it happened again. And stayed for a few minutes. And again, for a few hours. And finally, it spat out blue vertical lines at me so I took it back to the apple store.

The tech (the same one who worked on it before) said that sometimes new and old hardware can cause degradation, and that I needed to replace the clamshell again.

Fine, I said. But this time I keep my laptop. He said they would order the part and let me know when they had it. Super, I thought to myself.

Skip to today, the Apple store calls and says they have the part. I call back and ask how long it would take to swap it out (last time the tech said it was simple, once they get the part). The man on the other end said that, if I drop it off Saturday, I may have it back by middle of next week. If I drop it off today, Thursday, I may have it by Monday.

Fuck. That. Noise.

Why, if this is a repeat repair, was this not given a little higher priority? Also, since they have the part, it shouldn’t take that long (according to the first tech I spoke too), so why the long wait?

Other people ahead of me, the man said. Somehow, this did not make me more understanding. I can not afford to have my system down for 5 days again, and this plea fell on deaf ears. Erg.

So what am I to do?

Well, the vertical line thing isnt happening at the moment. Im taking that as a sign that my system doesn’t want to go back again, since its behaving properly now (much like my kids do after I threaten them with chores and/or face washing). So I think, for the next day or so, I will keep working. I have five days (the length of time they keep the part in-store) to drop of my system so I will probably leave it over the weekend and, hopefully, be able to pick it up Monday morning.

I just really expected the Apple Store to be a little more sensitive to my situation, much like their adverts claim they are. Oh well, it would be the first time an ad was misleading. It just sucks it cost me 5 unproductuve days to find this out.

-Cheers

You know, I always find it weird when a family member contacts me via MySpace, Facebook or Twitter asking to friend them. I mean, I seemed to be the technically inclined one in the family; messing with computers, taking apart toasters, etc., so its a surprise to see, say, my 10 year younger cousin on Facebook (who I rocked to sleep a few times, which is also weird to a 10 year old).

It is a bit nice to connect with my sisters and my mom though (if she did the whole social thing), but for the rest of the extended family… I would have to say that its weird.

Perhaps I should have talked to them more than once a decade. Oh well.

Cheers

Here is a happy story about the customer service folks. They get a lot of bad press, but these folks are really quite amazing.

I know that a lot of people like Popcap games. They are fun. Ridiculously fun. One of their more fun games is called Peggle. My whole family played it and they loved it.

A few days ago I noticed that they had a version of Peggle for iPhone. I though ‘finally, my 3 hand-writen letters a day produced something’. I checked the requirements and from what it said I could play it on the iPhone. I quicky clicked the Buy link in iTunes and plugged in my phone to sync.

Now, I was checking the apps and noticed something not sweet. The version was for the iPod (video and nano-video) but not for the iPhone or Touch. Go back to the app store page and in small print it said “Not compatible with iPhone/Touch”.

Begin short-lived temper tantrum.

I immediatley contacted Apple who in turn said “we do not offer charge reversals for mis-bought products”. So I contacted Popcap to inform them of the problem I now had. The requirements for their software were pretty clear in saying that it would run on the iPhone. Going back to the site I realized that it was a blanked statement for all of their mobile software.

So I sent their CSR gurus an email explaining the whole deal and asked them to please update their requirements boxes as I cant be the only person to make this mistake.

The got back to me the next day (surprisingly) and said they were sorry for Apples response, and offered me a coupon for their games. They also asked for my mailing address which was kinda weird.

I sent them my address and thanked them for the coupon and told them that I appreciate them changing their website. All is now right in the world.

Skip to the following Saturday. I return home to find a UPS note on my door. I go get my package and was again surprised as it was from Popcap. A smallish box with something soft inside is what I guessed from the vigorous shaking I did.

I open it up and was delighted by what was inside.

Lots of fun stuff

Inside was 5 cute Chuzzles, a stuffed Splork (a character from Peggle), bookmarks for their Bookworm Adventure game, some pens, a branded cap, and a set of Peggle character card.

Now, most would say that this wasn’t a great lot of stuff. But I say this is fucking fantastic! Not only are they neat little things (my kids loved the Chuzzles), but I was greatly heartened by the fact that someone cared about their customers to this extent that they put together a “customer love” box. I was seriously pondering graciously returning it with an appreciative note (the original charge was only $4.99 after all), but these things are neat (plus the cat already chewed on a chuzzle).

In short, a great deal of thanks to the customer service department (Dana in particular who wrote me the follow up) of Popcap Games. This is one of the few companies that really try to make its customers happy as best they can. I would say they soundly succeeded in this instance.

- Cheers

Update: Here are some images of my kids playing with the stuff. Not really relevant, but damn cute.

So my friend pointed out a website called Gender Analyzer (http://www.genderanalyzer.com/). Not sure how he found it but its pretty interesting nontheless.

If you plug in my blog (linky) it says its 71% sure that its written by a man. It also worked when looking at Twitter feeds (check it). However, it can be wrong. I pluggin in Mikipedia (linky) and it said that it was a man (91%) that writes it when in fact its a chick (a hot roller derby chick at that). Strange how a chick can score higher than a dude when analyzed solely their their writing.

Anyways, check it out for a bit of fun. Or if you want to see if you write like a girl. You little girly writer you.

- Cheers

Don’t ask me what’s with the title, I just thought it sounded neat (plus I always wanted to start with a title like that, so there).

Hopefully this will be my last political rant (yay) if/when the new president does something to really get on my tits.

Its been about a week since President-Elect Obama was named. And its been a somewhat tumultous time in some parts of the country and in some homes. Mostly, I going off of what people I know are saying. And some of what they are saying is downright scary.

One fellow I know and I got into a discussion about what will happen in the coming 4 years under Obama. He had his doubts (as do a lot of people) but what irritated me was that he voiced his opinion in a short sentence:

“Well there goes the country.”, he said.

I promptly flicked him in the nose and asked him to please explain what me meant by that, seeing as he voted for Bush twice and for McCain. He said that with all the threats America is facing, we need to have a strong military and he believes that won’t happen under a Democrat. Earlier in the prez race, he said that he was  quite displeased with what Bush had done to the country and our international standing, and wanted someone strong to lead us. I pointed out to him that McCain voted mostly the same way in regards to past actions the US had taken. He said that was different because he didnt vote that way all the time.

Apparently, 10% difference is enough for him. I promptly flicked him on the nose again.

Its at this point I should mention that my friend was duct-taped to a chair, unable to move (I love college pranks). He also started spouting the standard Republican rhetoric that the GOP was saying all through the race. I was about to flick him again when a friend of mine (his girl friend) did it for me.

The point is this. I don’t mind what people believe in. I don’t mind that my friend voted differently from me. What I do mind, especially in the case of my friend, is that he was just accepting what was handed to him as the absolute truth, never venturing out in the great world of information to find out for himself if it was true or not.

Now, I’m not so different. A lot of information I get are from people I trust, so I often trust that its true. I would say about half the time I dig deeper to find out more information or to see if its accurate. The other half I usually accept until someone else says something differently or I find info that doesn’t jive with it.

What has me worried is that a number of people I know are just accepting what is handed to them as the truth. Case in point, I played a trick on my friend and emailed him a “live” broadcast (god bless Flash players) of a well known news agency saying that the worlds honey bees have all died. He’s smart and saw this as a bad thing. But instead of calling someone to confirm or even checking the link I sent him he (according to his roommate) started inventorying their pantry and told his roommate that they needed to stock up on non-perishable food for at least a year. He was totally convinced and it took me calling and two other friends going over there that this wasnt true. He then sent me an email virus (god also bless Macs immunity to windows viruses) and a short 11 word sentance on where I should put all my risting farm implements.

To make a long story short; check your facts people. Don’t be sheep. If someone says something outrageous, check it out on your own. If someone else says something innacurrate, make sure it is and confront them about it.

And, Dave, if you are reading this, I am really sorry about the duct-tape trick. So, please, give me back my iPod.

- Cheers

I think that has a nice ring to it.

My wife and I were watching on the CNN website as the poll data started coming in. Aside from the slight anxiety we felt over whether or not Obama was going to win, it was pretty exciting to watch. CNN, for their part, did a pretty good job covering the thing with their real-time data and coverage of the speeches made by both candidates.

For me, though, I was a little nervous watching Obama give his speech to the crowd in Chicago. Not because I had doubts about if he would make a good president (I voted for him, so I obviously thought he could do the job, but because I was worried about some moron going and putting a bullet in him. Call it an irrational fear if you want, but I wasn’t the only one fearing this. Hence why he was flanked by 3 inches of bullet proof glass on either side of them.

So when he finished his speech (his best yet in my opinion) with no bullets flying his way, I was pretty relieved.

Still, that nagging fear will be with me probably until he steps down from office, hopefully in 2016.

But for now, I ‘ll just try to think of how I can best help him bring about the change he promised, happy in the knowledge that my vote made a difference and elected a man who, I think, deserves to be my President.

-Cheers

Its election day in the United States. And on this important day, I have only a short message to say.

Dear America, Please don’t screw this up.

- Thank You

Windows to right of them,
Linux to left of them,
Macs behind them
Error’d and Fragment’d;
Storm’d at with line of code,
While firewall and password fell,
They that had coded so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Web
Back from the mouth of the Tubes,
All that was left of them,
Left of six admins.

When can their programming fade?
O the wild policies they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the code they made,
Honor the Admin Brigade,
Noble six admins.

(with apologies to Lord Alfred Tennyson)

- Cheers