On The Hunt For A New Phone
Evidently my two year old cell phone has decided to take its toys and go home. It would appear that the mic is dead, because whether I make or receive a call, I can hear the person on the other end just fine, but they evidently can’t hear me.
Based on my post about the iPhone I won’t be looking at that, but I’m kind of limited in my options because I use Fido’s prepaid service, which means I don’t get any of the benefits of subsidization.
I don’t live on my phone like some do, and I haven’t had to spend more than $20 per month in probably the last 6 years or so, and I’ve been happy. If I don’t need the phone for awhile, I just don’t pick up a new card for a month or two and everything’s fine. No fees if I don’t use the phone.
But now it’s time to look at a new phone, I guess. Any recommendations for GSM phones that work on the Fido network? Anyone got a phone they’d like me to review for them here on RTdN?
Rogers Does It To Canadians Again With the iPhone
When it was announced earlier this month that the iPhone would finally be coming to Canada on July 11th, there was no shortage of discussion as to just how bad the pricing was going to be for the data plans.
For those outside of Canada who might not know, there are three (major) mobile carriers - Rogers, Bell, and Telus. Only Rogers uses GSM, so it was a given that they (along with subsidiary Fido) were going to be carrying the iPhone exclusively in Canada.
The big question came down to data. Many don’t realize, but there’s really no such thing as unlimited data plans in the Great White North, and to match a U.S. unlimited data plan, Canadians would need to shell out somewhere in the neighbourhood of $1200 PER MONTH.
So when Engadget Mobile dropped a rumour about a $30 consumer plan and a $45 enterprise plan, it was quite the surprise. Today though, comes the hard slap of reality.
While requiring a 3-year contract, you’ll get exactly 400MB of data along with 150 minutes for $60 per month. If you’re a hardcore user, the most you’re going to get is 2GB of data + 800 minutes for a whopping $115 per month.
Oh, and if you want caller ID with that, it’s available in a couple of extra packages, for either $15 or $20 per month. Otherwise, you don’t even get caller ID with a phone that you’re going to pay a premium for.
And if you’re a prepaid customer, I’m willing to bet that you’re looking at close to $1000 to buy the phone, and then no data plan.
But what else can you do? No competition means they can charge what they want.
Don’t Blame Your Customer If You Sold Them Faulty Equipment
Last night I got a call from someone I occasionally do computer work for, and he provided me with a story that I felt I needed to blog about. I’m not giving any names, and it might become obvious why a little later.
He had just purchased a new 12 megapixel Canon camera, along with a card reader so that he wouldn’t have to drain batteries when pulling photos off of the camera. He had about 30 pictures on the card in JPEG format, about 4MB apiece, so about 120MB give or take.
While he was copying the images off the card on to his machine, he noticed that it was taking a LONG time to pull each image off. About two minutes per image. So he called up the camera shop where he bought both the camera and the reader, and spoke to their "computer guy", who asked about his PC. He told them that it was a four year old Dell, running XP SP3 with 1GB of memory, and lots of free space on the disk.
"Oh, no," he was told. "That machine is too old for something as intensive as that. It should be upgraded or replaced. It can’t handle something like what you’re trying to do." He asked if the card reader could be bad, but was told that, no, it was the PC.
Excuse me?? I’m not trying to paint all camera dealers with the same brush here, but this is why you don’t go to a camera shop to ask about problems with your PC, even if the problem is related to your camera. To prove this to myself, I fired up my Olympus E-10 and shot 30 RAW images (11MB each) and put the card in my generic $19 card reader plugged into my four year old whitebox machine running XP SP3 with 756MB of RAM. Took about 3-4 minutes to copy all 300+ MB.
So, he pulled the card out of the reader, put it back in the camera, and plugged that into his "decrepit" PC. It took less than a minute to copy all of the photos off.
It was a bad card reader.
So, please, if you don’t want to admit that you sold a piece of broken gear, don’t try and shift the blame to the user’s existing gear, or put the blame on them. Because it’ll really come back to bite you someday if someone finds out about it (and blogs about it, too).
BC Place Turns 25
It was 1979, and the Vancouver Whitecaps had just won the NASL Soccer Bowl, defeating the Tampa Bay Rowdies in New York’s Giant’s Stadium.
As the parade made it’s way through the streets of downtown, a chant started to go through the crowd: "We Want A Stadium!" - Old Empire Stadium had been built for the 1954 British Empire Games (now known as the Commonwealth Games). It was a rickety old place that admittedly still had a lot of character, and when it was packed to the rafters with fans watching the ‘Caps play, it was a pretty cool place.
Plans started to slowly come together for a new stadium for the city, one that would be a home for the Whitecaps, the BC Lions, and maybe a Major League Baseball franchise someday.
Photo courtesy of BC Place Archives
The stadium was built with great expectations, and I can remember watching when they inflated the roof, and how it changed the skyline of the city. Today, it’s one of the most recognizable things in any photograph of Vancouver. Although I still think they should have called it Terry Fox Memorial Stadium, but that’s just me.
I was there on the opening day, too. The Whitecaps faced the Seattle Sounders on June 19, 1983. They handed out pins for Soccer Bowl ‘83 which would be played at the new stadium later that summer.
Ironically, Soccer Bowl ‘83 was the last game that the NASL played. Vancouver had built a beautiful 60,000 seat stadium for the Whitecaps and they played all of about 15 games there. Today the Whitecaps are trying to build a new stadium near Gastown.
The old place has stood up pretty well, despite having the roof rip last year. And it’s getting a facelift, too. A retractable roof is going to be put in place, although not in time for the 2010 Olympic Games.
It’s been the site of some good times for me, too. The closing party for the staff at Expo86, a Jeff Healey Concert, a few football and soccer games, etc.
BC Place is part of Vancouver, and here’s to hoping that it’s here for a good many more years as well.
Fixing the “AwesomeBar” in Firefox 3
If you’ve never tried Firefox, it might be a good idea to give it a try now that version 3 has been officially released.
While there are a number of great improvements in this version of the browser (with the memory leaks being fixed one of the most important), there was one feature that I wanted to fix as soon as I downloaded the official version this morning.
The Mozilla folks have ‘improved’ the address bar so that it shows a number of “suggestions” while you’re typing an address into the bar. At first these are based on popular sites, but eventually it’ll start picking up on your browsing history, and making suggestions based on that.
It’s hardly foolproof, though. When I enter “reader.” into the address bar, it should pick up on the fact that (based on my past browsing) I want reader.google.com to come up. But, neither of the two suggestions point to Google Reader. Instead they assume I mean a couple of GR sites on Blogger. And this is with me visiting the GR site on a daily basis.
So I set out to find out how to disable this feature, as it’s not something that I want in my browser. And Firefox is supposed to be the customizable browser, right?
So, with a bit of time on Google, I found the answer. You’ll need to enter ‘about:config‘ (minus the quotes) into the Firefox address bar, and make a change to one setting on the resulting page. In the filter, enter browser.urlbar.maxRichResults and the key should appear. Double click on it, and change the default value from 12 to 0. Once that’s done, the Firefox suggestions should stop.
This makes Firefox back into the browser that I want to keep using. Now if the add-on developers could finish making their add-ons compatible with the new version, it would be better still.
Review: Logiix Optic Alloy Case for 2nd Gen iPod Nano
For the last year and a half or so, I’ve had a black Logiix silicone skin on my 2nd generation iPod Nano, and I’ve been more than impressed with it. iPods have a tendency to scratch fairly easily, although I hadn’t seen much of this with mine, thankfully.
But it was getting to be time for a new skin, as the Nano was starting to slide out the bottom of the skin and I had visions of it bouncing off the floor sometime. Not something that you want to have happen.
So I decided that I’d see what I could do about picking up a new silicone skin, preferably something other than black, as it was time for a change. Headed to the store where I’d purchased my last one, and they didn’t seem to have any for the 2nd generation Nanos. Lots for the 3rd gen, but I didn’t feel like buying a new iPod just to get a skin for it, y’know?
As I was getting ready to leave, I saw that they were on a different rack, kind of out of the way, so I spun the rack around looking for something that caught my eye. That turned out to be the price. Silicone skins were marked down from $12.99 to just 99 cents. Cool. Sometimes obsolescence can be a good thing. I wound up buying three, a Logiix clear silicone, a black iSeal skin, and a Logixx Optic Alloy case, which was the expensive option ($1.99)
I put the clear Logiix skin on after I bought them and it worked out about as well as its black predecessor had. The one complaint that I have about silicone skins is that you lose a fair bit of sensitivity in the click wheel. The center button will be fine, but dragging my finger on the wheel has been sluggish or even non-responsive at times.
So this morning I opened up the Optic Alloy case to see if it was any different. First thing I noticed was that, being a hard case, the screen protector is built in. I don’t have much in the way of scratching on the display of my Nano, and it’s nice to see that I won’t be getting any more in the foreseeable future.
I slid the Nano into the case, and gave it a spin. The whole thing feels a lot more substantial, and not quite as ‘delicate’ as the Nano felt when it wasn’t encased in the silicone skin. The Nano doesn’t slide around inside the case like it did with the metal one that I bought for my holidays last year. The wheel isn’t covered, so it’s as responsive as I would expect it to be if the device wasn’t encased. The edges are rubber coated as well, so I don’t feel like it’s going to slip out of my hand when I’m trying to find something else to listen to.
Had I known about this case a year and a half ago, I’d have picked one up and used it all along. Of course, then it was probably $39.99, but it would have been worth it.
If you’re not ready to be upgrading your 2nd generation Nano to a 3rd gen, or even a Touch, this would be the case I’d recommend picking up for your device, and quickly if at all possible - I wouldn’t imagine that too many retailers are going to be stocking 2nd gen accessories for too much longer.
I’ve emailed Logiix to ask them if they’ll continue to make the cases available for order online, but the response from them was that the case was no longer available, but new designs were being worked on.
If you’re able to pick up an Optic Alloy case from Logiix for your 2nd gen Nano, I highly recommend doing so. This the only case that I’m going to be keeping on mine until it’s time to upgrade it to something newer.
AVG 8 "Feature" Blocks Windows Live Messenger
Over the course of the last week or so, I’ve noticed that I’ve been having more and more problems logging in to Windows Live Messenger at work. Usually I would have to try a couple of times to get it to login, but otherwise, it would report that it was attempting to sign in, but would just spin for ten minutes or so before I gave up on it.
This morning I decided that I’d use Pidgin instead, and got this interesting error:
Disconnected: Our protocol is not supported by the server.
WTF? Microsoft trying to block other IM applications from accessing its server? No, that wouldn’t make sense, because logging in with WLM should work. Entered the error message into Google, and it appears to be a known issue with the latest version of AVG 8, but there was a fix listed:
- Open AVG
- Click Tools -> Advanced Settings
- Click on the ‘+’ beside Web Shield to expand it
- Select Instant Messaging, and untick the "Enable Instant Messaging Shield"
- After clicking OK you should be able to login to Messenger with no trouble
Note that there are a couple of options for enabling protection on ICQ and MSN. Simply unchecking the box for MSN Protection isn’t enough. You’re required to disable the Instant Messaging Shield.
This will also make AVG complain that you’re not fully protected, and it will report that the Web Shield is only partially functional.
Strange Email Issue
Okay, I need a little help with this one, if anyone has any suggestions.
I’m in the process of moving rodtempleton.net email over to Google Apps. I currently use Google Apps to host the mail for windowsnotes.com as well. Both accounts are hosted in the same location, and in fact, windowsnotes.com sits in a directory off the rodtempleton.net root.
Sending email to any address at windowsnotes.com gets through, but mail sent to rodtempleton.net addresses fail with the following error:
“PERM_FAILURE: Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 553 553 sorry, relaying denied from your location [IP Deleted] (#5.7.1) (state 14).”
Sending to a windowsnotes.com address from the same account gets through fine.
Managing the rodtempleton.net domain in Google Apps shows this:
It looks like your domain is configured incorrectly -
For email to be delivered correctly, you’ll need to change the “MX record” in your domain settings. If you skip this step, you’ll still be able to create accounts, but you will not be able to send or receive email.
Now, before someone says, “Hey, dumbass, it’s giving you the answer right there!”, here’s what the MX records look like for both accounts:
Which generally indicates that both accounts use the same values for their MX records, and yet one accepts mail, and the other doesn’t.
So if anyone, particularly Google, could explain what’s wrong here, I’d sure appreciate hearing about it.
The Flip Comes To Canada
Okay, this is something I’ve just got to have a look at. According to Tyler, the Flip Ultra is now available in Canada, initially at Wal-Mart, but eventually at other retailers for about $149.00
According to the press release that they put out, the Flip is the second highest-selling camcorder in the U.S. - only seven months after its release.
I’m currently using a Canon E550 Super-8 camcorder for any video that I need to shoot, but it’s time for something a little more modern. Getting the tape digitized is not always the easiest task, and the USB interface on the Flip would make things so much simpler.
Although shooting video isn’t something that I do a whole lot of, this is most likely due to the fact that using the E550 is cumbersome, and the lack of digital versions makes it a lot tougher to produce DVDs of what I shoot.
So, if anyone’s looking to have a review done on the Flip, and would like to furnish a review unit, I’d be more than happy to write it up and send it back. Otherwise, I’ll eventually pick one up myself.
(Photo courtesy of sizemoresr on Flickr)
Fraser Valley Regional Library: Site Re-Design…PLEASE
Okay, kids, it’s rant time. Last night we decided to go to the library, so I went to have a look at the website to see how late the branch was going to be open. Entered the URL into Firefox - http://www.fvrl.bc.ca -and it reported that it couldn’t be found. Hmm….tried again. Nothing. I knew that that was the right URL, so I went to Google and entered Fraser Valley Regional Library. Google brought up its results, with the first one being, of course, http://www.fvrl.bc.ca. Clicked on it and it brought me right to the site. Uh, okay.
Library was open till 9, so we decided to head down there (it being only 7:30 and all) and while we were there,decided to get some kids books on cats. No problem, says I. I’ll just pull up the information from the catalogue. Entered ‘cats juvenile’ into their search box and it came up with a number of books, none of which appeared to be at the branch we were at. Hmm….okay, there’s got to be a way to sort based just on the branch we’re at. There is, but it’s not easy to find. Under ‘Limit/Sort Search’ there’s a number of drop down boxes, one of which is marked as ‘Where Item is Located’. Sounds about right to me, and it turned out to be what I was looking for.
I selected the branch we were at, and tried again. It seemed to return more results, except for the fact that by the time I got to about the fourth book listed, it wasn’t listed as being in the local branch, but at three different branches out in the valley. How the !@# is this relevant?
Finally I decided to request a couple of books be brought in. I logged in, and got an error message, and to please try again. Repeatedly. I gave up and used my wife’s card. She had never used the card to reserve books, so had never put a PIN number on her account. No problem, said the system. Just enter a PIN and if there’s not one already assigned, it’ll report that as being the case and ask you to confirm the choice of a PIN number.
Wrong. Six times it reported that there was an error of some kind, and to please try again. Using a *third* card, we were finally able to get books reserved. When I went to inquire about the problems we’d been having, the staff flew around their system and were able to do everything I’d been struggling with with no problems. Now, I’ve been using computers since 1982, and websites since about 1995. I’m no clueless luser. But quite clearly, the website that the FVRL uses for its catalogue system is designed for librarians, and not for customers. Which is about the very worst thing possible.
If you think that customers having problems and then coming to library staff is a good thing, then something’s very wrong with you. It’s supposed to be EASY for users to find what they’re looking for, not having to click on a bunch of drop down boxes hoping that they’ve provided the correct parameters for a search.
That’s not the way it’s supposed to be. It’s time to rethink how you provide information to your customers, FVRL.
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