iPhone stories

So there's this thing I bought the other week called 'iPhone'. I was anticipating its release for quite some time and made sure to have one in my hands the very first day it was available to the public.

Unlike some others, I didn't have to wait in any lines.

The transaction went like this:
AT&T Sales Fella: Hello, how may we help you today?
Me: I would like an iPhone.
AT&T: Would you like to look at one fir...
Me: No, I know I want one. Can you please just get one outta the stockroom or wherever the hell you keep the blasted things so I can buy it and be on my merry iphone-y way? Thank you. Sheesh!
AT&T: Right away sir!
(Or something like that)

I got it home and hooked up my iTunes account, selected a plan (I already had AT&T service) and moments later I was taking pictures (doin' the finger-thumb-pinch-zoom thing) and taking notes and calling people and on the internet and opening PDF email attachments and planning routes from here to there and whatnot. I was even more amazed with it than I was prepared for. It blew my f'ing mind.

Unlike some of the more vocal minority, I did not have to wait decades for activation.

So that was about a month ago. I still love the thing. It's pretty and functional and all things you'd expect from Apple. Sure, I doesn't do some things that other phones can do, but I never used those features anyway. So I don't miss them. My general consensus is that for every one wrong there are a hundred things right with the iPhone.

A few days ago I noticed the Balda touchscreen on my iPhone stopped responding. It was a small section only a few millimeters long, but running the entire width of the phone about one fingertip's length from the top of the phone...if that doesn't make any sense...just look at the pic.


It's a dead-zone that prevents me from accessing-among other things-the 1st on my list of email accounts (GMAIL...damnit!), the 'To:' line of the SMS application, The top item on any list (contacts, favorites, songs, my most recent Visual Voicemail, my most recent Note), turn bluetooth on, etc. It's downright annoying.


So I begin to get a little concerned. Especially since AT&T just sent me a letter stating that the phone insurance I had with them is not valid with the iPhone and is being canceled. I check the warranty on apple.com and see that I'm covered...mostly. First I tried to return the phone to the AT&T store I got it from knowing full-well that they are 'hands-off' of this thing. Sure enough the sales rep flipped out and explained to me all the training they had to go through to ensure that no one tries to return an iPhone or worse yet *GASP* exchange one. He was avoiding the phone like the plague. He wouldn't even look at the problem. Even my girlfriend chimed in with a piece of her mind, but they wouldn't budge...not even to her superior intellect and reasoning skills.

There is no other choice but to abide by Apple's designated iPhone repair procedure and send the blasted thing back in to get fixed. Since this is my only phone (other than my office desk phone at work) I am forced to choose the option to pay ~$30 for a rental unit to use while the Apple's defective product is being repaired. This is slightly disheartening, due to the fact that if I was not sold a defective product in the first place I would have no reason to need repair and hence no reason to part with my $30 for a rental fee.

I figured what better time to take care of the inevitable support call than while at the grocery store. I absolutely hate grocery stores and figured; if I'm going to be irritated, I might as well be irritated. So I explained the issue and made sure to voice my concerns with the rental fee to the nice girl at the Apple service call center (an American...*sigh of relief*). She seemed to be in a sort of 'training' position and basing all responses on a prescribed flow chart of questions and answers, but understood my argument. She was passing all my info along to what I can only assume was a floor manager or lead. I could hear him in the background from time to time suggesting questions for the nice support tech to relay to me. By the time I got to the pasta and sauce aisle I had my answer: the fee is waived, the temp phone will arrive shortly with a return package and all the necessary instructions. Thank you, Apple.

Currently I have 2 iPhones in front of me. One is my original (defective) and the other is the rental Apple service phone for use while mine is being repaired. I have prepped the shipping package for return to the service location, swapped the SIM card out using the specially designed iPhone-fix-it-all tool...er...I mean PAPER CLIP. That made me laugh. Luckily I already had one of my own /sarcasm. Just in case, one was supplied with the service phone.


Everything's all backed up and I'm all ready to send my busted phone back.

Next step: sync the service phone with iTunes. Seems simple enough, right? Wrong. The instruction booklet states the following:
"To begin using the temporary iPhone, simply sync it with iTunes"
So I connect the temp phone and iTunes automatically goes to the iPhone activation screen. For about the past 4 hours I have been confronted with error message stating that the phone could not be activated at this time. To this effect I performed the following troubleshooting steps:

1. Re-opened the packing and returned the SIM to my (defective) iPhone. Restored all settings and started over from scratch.
2. Restarted the computer. Re-sync'd with the (defective) iPhone.
3. Re-swapped the SIM back to the temp iPhone & attempted to re-sync.
4. Tried steps 1-3 a few more times mildly varying procedure.
5. Ended all unnecessary processes running in the background (WinXP SP2). This included all processes concerning 'Apple Mobile'-anything and 'distnoted.exe'-(some jibber-jabber process that has something to do with iPhone sync).
6. Connected the temp iPhone and left it plugged in (with no Apple Mobile services/processes running, it should not automatically sync with iTunes).
7. Opened iTunes.
8. Went to the Services Snap-in (Control Panel ►Administrative Tools ►Services) and restarted the "Apple Mobile Device" service.

After restarting the service, the temp iPhone was activated, all data was restored from backup and synced. It only took a few moments and my faith in Apple was restored.

I'm not 100% certain that any of the steps had anything to do with the eventual resolution. For all I know Apple's or AT&T's iPhone activation server was just off line for the time-being. I'm just glad to finally have a working temp iPhone and am comforted knowing that my own (defective) iPhone will be back soon and working as good as new...*crosses fingers*

---

31-Jul-07 *UPDATE*
The product that I tried to have replaced by AT&T in the Goddamn first place, but was forced to send in to APPLE for repair, has been REPLACED.

Apple, you so silly, me want smack you now.

*UPDATE*
Oh yeah. I forgot to mention. The "service" phone Apple supplied me with was an 8GB (jigger) model. Mine is a 4 jigger. Why they didn't provide a 4 jigger service phone, I'll never know. If they had, Apple, FedEx, the local MailExpress store and I all would be saved at least 2 trasactions in time and money. It seems like a waste to me when Apple could've just said: 'keep your service phone as the replacement. have a nice day' I would've been fine with that.

Well I really have no room to complain. It's probably the single easiest electronics repair/replacement I've ever been involved in. Apple, I'm sorry for being angry with you. Your support and service, overall, was supurb. Dell could (re)-learn a thing or 2.

Mother F***in' Passwords!!

Everybody's got them...even if you don't know it. Everything you wanna do on the Internet or at most jobs requires you to know a password. Working in the IT dept. requires knowing an almost infinite number of passwords. So, if you think you've got it bad... These are all the unique passwords I needs to remember. Each account may be used for more than one system. This is what happens when a company that acquired multiple other companies w/ their own IT dept. gets taken over by another company with its own multiple IT dept.

...Friggin' Mayhem!!

1. Personal domain login for the company I work for
2. Personal domain login for the company that bought the company I work for
3. Local admin account for my PC
4. Power user account for all PCs on the North American domain
5. Power user account for all PCs on the Corporate domain
6. Power user account login to the Novell Domain.
7. Power user account login to the Windows Domain.
8. Power user account login to each of the other Windows Domains we have for whatever reason.
9. Power user account login to the UNIX Network.
10. Power user account for local workstations imaged prior to 2004 @ the company I work for
11. Power user account for local workstations imaged since 2004 @ the company I work for
12. Power user account for local workstations images at any other site prior to 2004
13. Power user account for local workstations images at any other site since 2004
14. Power user account for local workstations that belong to the company that bought the company I work for
15. Power user account for local workstations that belong to a company that the company I work for bought
16. Power user account for local workstations that belong to another company that the company I work for bought
17. Remedy
18. Internet
19. Intranet for the company I work for
20. Intranet for the company that bought out the company I work for.
21. - 26. All the damn IBM AS400 boxes
27. - 32. All the damn Cullinet boxes
33. & 34. ProE / ProIntralink
35. - 37. Groupwise, Outlook AND Notes
38. -45. All the Oracle Databases
45. - 55. Everything "SAP"
55. - ∞. The entire array of in-house "home-grown" applications designed for the company I work for, the ones designed for the companies the company I work for bought, the ones that were designed for the company that bought the company I work for and the ones that were designed for all the other companies that were bought by the company that bought the company I work for.

On top of all that, most of these then have a damn Europe, Asia and Middle East iteration.

This does not include the pile of Internet email, store, community, etc. logins and all the pwds for my home network...

To top it all off, most of these passwords are required to be reset or changed every 30-90 days or so. So just as I'm getting used to the passwords, I gotta change them again.

To paraphrase Samuel L. Jackson: "I'm tired of all these MotherF***in' passwords!!!"

I've tried to keep them all the same. I really have, but some have requirements that don't fit the password I'm using. Either mine is too complex, not complex enough, too long, too short. Whatever. It's just impossible.

I've started doing something that I swore I would never do - because I'm paranoid. I've started clicking that "remember me" check box you see on most Internet login pages. I've been using Firefox's password remember tool set w/ a Master password, but that just wasn't enough for me to keep up. I just don't visit most of these pages enough to remember the password myself.

There are just so many. I'm starting to lose control of them. So, I'd like to offer 3 simple hints to help keep your passwords safe, easy and manageable.

1. Keep it simple (but not too simple) - The more complex you make the password the less likely you are to remember it. However, the simpler it is the easier it is for someone else to guess. Find a balance. Your dog's name is not secure enough, but you'll probably never remember something as complex as Pi to the 24th position.

2. Learn Alternate Character Spelling - For instance, the "@" symbol can replace the lowercase letter "a". The number "3" can replace a capital "E". To make it more complicated you can come up with your own personal system, but here are some of the more obvious ones:
3 = E
! = i
@ = a
# = H
$ = S

3. Find a Theme - Most passwords require a certain level of complexity. Usually this means you need a mix of numbers and letters(alphanumeric) and a mix of Upper and lower case (mixed case). Keep this in mind when considering a theme. For instance, if you love Baseball, try keeping all passwords related to one team and that team's stats. If you like a particular band, try using song titles and track lengths. For example: R!pk!N431 (Cal Ripkin / 431 home runs). You get the idea.

Just be sure you know how jealous I am. Make sure you appreciate the fact that you don't work in the IT Dept and only have to know 5 or 6 different passwords.

Lucky.

Keep Your Computer Happy

And why is your computer sad? Because you keep going to unsafe sites and getting garbage installed that slows you down, messes up your dang Internet and just plain makes you hate your PC. It's not your PC's fault. It's yours. You're a dummy. Hey, we're all dummys sometimes when it comes to the Internet. Download Site Advisor from McAfee. It'll help you to become a smarter web surfer. Normally, I don't recommend anything these guys put out. I'm not quite sure why I don't like McAfee, but I'm sure it has something to do with principle and that's good enough for me*.

McAfee's SiteAdvisor does not prevent you from getting spyware. It doesn't remove viruses or restore your browser settings. You should have other products for that. What this thing does is advise (duh, get it?) you about the web sites you visit. Its a simple tool with a simple Sesame Street / Homeland Security-type color scale that will warn you if that gaming site, dating service or naked girly site you are about to sign-up for is less than kosher.

It's a beautiful thing. It will provide information about what kind of malicious things the page is going to do to your browser behind your back. It will tell you how many spammy spam spams you're gonna get if you give that site your email addy (for whatever reason). It will even warn you if any downloads on that site are infested with malware.

I suggest you check it out. It's available for IE & Firefox on most mainstream platforms (Windows and Mac n' shit). Go to siteadvisor.com for more specifics.

*I'm just kidding about the whole principle thing. The reasons for my aversion to McAfee products are vast and deep-seeded and far too complex to get into here...also they would distract from focus of this article.

WEB 2.0 - the Revenge of...the Return...Again

Many of you may not have a damn clue what I'm talking about when I refer to Web 2.0. I was in the same position a few months ago. Since then I have found myself delving into multiple different offerings that Web 2.0 has... to... ummm... offer (fuck my grammar). This community (blogger.com) is itself a part of the latest Internet boom. Web 2.0 is touted as the second coming of the Internet bubble that popped in the late 90's leaving many users and investors up a creek. It wasn't all bad, though. Many of the better offerings from the 90's boom are still around. Sites such as Amazon.com and Ebay.com are a great example of the good that can come out of all of this.

There are so many new services and offerings popping up (seemingly) every day. It's starting to make my head spin. Many of them are free. For most people that's enough to get them hooked. I am one of those people. So, there me was, going to town on this new discovery. Finding all kinds of reasons to need whatever service was being offered, simply because it was free. I've gotten to the point where I'm simply unable to keep up with the sheer volume of accounts and sites. After a few months of floating around all these new and wonderful sites and services, I've come to the conclusion that this bubble, although seemingly more contained and with a much thicker skin than what we saw in the 90's, is not going to be with us much longer.

I can look at the image above and list off at least 20 different accounts that I have for one reason or another. Be it storage or collaboration or social networking or email. My warning to all of you reading this is that your data (whatever it is of yours that exists on any of these sites/services) is not secure. By 'not secure' I'm not telling you that it's going to get hacked or stolen. I'm telling you that you may turn around one day and all the videos that you posted to YouTube or all the images you were storing on flickr will be gone. These companies are not guaranteed to go on forever. These startups are basically just a group of people who got together and thought 'gee, wouldn't it be neat if we could do X-Y-Z?!'. Many have to be just hemorrhaging money just to say afloat. Advertising simply cannot be enough to pay the bandwidth.

My recommendation; Until that small Web 2.0 startup has it's IPO on Wall Street, keep all your important data on your home computer. That is all. Don't leave eveything on the Internet. I'm not telling you not to post or upload anything. Just be sure you keep the original. We are not far off from the type of infrastructure that will allow online storage for everyone's data accessible everywhere, but we're not there yet.

I'm certain that these "Internet bubbles" will continue to ebb and flow for however long the Internet as we know it exists. It is a necessary progression and can be evidenced in every part of world around us. The necessity of Web 2.0 (and the others to follow it, ver. 2.5, 3.0, etc.) is the floodgate of innovation. This is what keeps the Internet "product" fresh and useful. It is the prospect of further innovation that keeps me hopeful for the next round. I s'pose I need to wait for this one to end first, though.

XP AutoPlay

Autoplay is different from autorun which is determined by a file on the CD itself. This is a configuration built into the Operating System. As with most options offered in XP, it can be your friend or it can be a giant pain in the ass.


Ever pop a CD into your computer and get a window telling you "Windows can perform the same action each time you insert a disk or connect a device with this kind of file"? Have you ever accidentally clicked the "Always do the selected action" check box and then clicked OK?

If you have, then every time you put a CD in tray you'd see the computer go off and automatically rip or play the CD or whatever. What if you don't want it to do that? Or what if you accidentally told it to do nothing and want it to play or rip or whatever? Maybe you just want that prompt screen to show up again.

Well, here's what you do:
1. Open the 'My Computer' folder.
2. Right-click the CD drive.
3. Select 'Properties' from the context menu.
4. Select the 'AutoPlay' tab.
5. From here you can adjust AutoPlay's behavior to do whatever the heck you want it to do.

Awwww...Her first spam email.

This is a message sent to my department's support email address: (names and addresses and phone numbers and email addresses and domains and some references to religious or other theological deities have been changed or removed to protect the innnocent)

From: Schmenny, PENNY [mailto:PENNY.schmenny@flork.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 8:27 AM
To: ITS
Subject: FW: Pha9Framacy news

Here is a message I received that I don’t know who the person is sending it to me or why it’s being sent to me.
How do I stop this type of e-mail from coming to me?

Penny Schmenny
FLORK/A Schmohnson Schmontrols Schmompany
Phone - 999-999-xxxx
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jaime Cagley [mailto:cagl@avitsdts.com]
Sent: Sunday, March 12, 2006 3:21 PM
To: schmenny, PENNY Subject: Re: Pha9Framacy news

Hi,
Do you want to n O k V o E a R j P b A g Y for your e M i e x d m
i w a x c u t s i l o e n o s?

Nothing like you need it, g S f a w v j e over b 5 n 0 f % with
http://ceho43.ansapace.com

I understand that not everyone is as familiar with PC use as some others, but SPAM? It's been a staple annoyance of almost everyone with an email addresses since 1995 (even earlier). Even if she doesn't have a computer, I'm sure she's had a job that involved email in some capacity within the past 10 years. How can she not know what spam is? I think somewhere deep inside I revere this lady. I'm jealous of the fact that, somehow, she has managed to remain oblivoius to one of the most ubiquitous players of this computer age.

I tried explaining to her that there are a number of reasons she has recieved this email. Most likely a virus that has spread across the nation has picked up her email address from the contacts list of both the sender and her (the recipient). In order to avoid detection the virus source (probably an automated system...robot) has replicated a DNS name of another domain it has previously infested. Then an email is sent from the false address. The fake avitsdts.com domain only needs to exist for a split-second. Just long enough for the email to be sent. It is then recognized by the top level DNS and is given a swift kick in the nuts, but the message made it out "under the wire". The real avitsdts.com domain remains intact and the administrators are probably none the wiser. At least thats one option.

She didn't really care what caused it. She just wanted it to stop. I explained to her that that was a tall order given the nature of this particular situation. Our system is capable of blocking all email sent from the avisdts.com domain, but other spam will be sent from other domains, we can block them also. The spam blocking can go on until every public domain on the Internet is banned from sending anything to our company. Then what do we have? Fortress FLORK.COM. That just ain't good for business. I gave her a few pointers to help avoid spam, but since this is her work email address we're talking about, I gave her the option of getting a new address or deal with the small amount of spam she is recieving. She's still mulling it over.
Here are some tips to help avoid spam and keep your computer safe:

1. Practice safe Internet. For instance, if a pop-up window or banner ad is blinking "CLICK HERE", or is telling you you've won something, ignore it and move on to whatever it was you were doing in the first place.
2. Become familiar with your Operating System. No, you don't need to take night classes. However, before clicking "ok" to every error or notification window, stop to read it. Become familiar with the appearance and verbage. This will help you differentiate between the real pop-ups from your OS and the fake internet pop-ups designed to look like error messages from your OS. The more you know about your own computer the less likely you are to unwittingly download a virus.
3. Have a junk email address. Much of the spam you recieve is due to giving out your email address when you purchase something or sign up for a service on the Internet. That information is sold to 3rd party advertising companies. It's not necessarily a bad thing...the revenue from that sale of your email address helps keep the service free or lowers the cost of the item you are purchasing online. You just need to be able to work the system. Open a new email account. Keep this new one as your personal email address (friends and family) and your current one can become your junk email address. There are so many free email services (google, yahoo, netscape, hotmail, mail.com, etc.). Signup is free and easy. Use your current (already infested) email address during the signup process. Once your new email address is setup...DON'T give it to any online services. Keep it only for freinds and family. This will not eliminate SPAM, but will greatly reduce it.
4. Keep security software installed and up-to-date. Many PCs come with trial version security software that never gets activated either because the owners don't care or are not aware that it exists. Activate it! Most anti-virus software can scan your email for junk and malicious code (malicious = something you don't want). Use up the trial version. Then, if you like it and it ain't too expensive, buy the full version. If you find something cheaper, install that (uninstall the trial software first, though). Any security software is better than nothing. Most of this software only requires a few minutes to setup. After that, if everything is setup correctly, it will stay in the background until something "blows up" (i.e. you downloaded a virus or your son/husband/you have been looking at dirty, dirty, filthy porn again).

I hope this helps. Please keep in mind that the Internet is a very dangerous place. There is no way to completely eliminate threats against spam, viruses, ID theft and all that other shit you hear about on the news. But, a little heads-up info can go a long way. Keep alert and you won't get fucked. Creators of these viruses and the cheap, second-rate advertising groups that send this SPAM are are the loest of the low on the scale of internet filth. They should be brought out back and shot.