Archive for the ‘Tech’ Category

iPhone 4 order madness!

I may or may not be receiving an iPhone 4 on the 24th.  I honestly have no idea, and I’m in the same boat with about 3/4 of a million other people.

Here’s how things went down:

June 14th, 10:00pm – Considered staying up till midnight to put in the pre-order, but couldn’t find any confirmation it would even be available that early, and I was on vacation in Florida, so I figured the hell with it, I’d get up early and try the pre-order as soon as possible.

June 15th, 7:30am – Woke up and started my pre-order on AT&T’s website.  Site was responding a little “slow” but seemed to be working “OK”.

June 15th, 7:45am – Got to the final checkout page, had my credit card info in, etc. and hit “Checkout”

June 15th, 7:55am – AFTER A PAINFUL TEN MINUTES, the checkout page fails with a proxy timeout error and a long numerical string.  I check my bank account, and there’s a $1.00 auth from AT&T, so I figured it probably went through and just never spit back a confirmation.  We were on vacation and I had other stuff to do, so I quit worrying about it and went about breakfast and planning the day.

June 15th, 10:00am – After reading reports of widespread complete failures in the ordering process at both AT&T and Apple, I figured I better give customer service a call and see if they have my order.

June 15th, 10:15am – After waiting on hold for 15 minutes, I finally get on with a rep who tells me there’s no order on my account, and the system is completely overwhelmed with orders.  I request she process an order for me, but she states she doesn’t even have the ability to do so.  When I ask what I should do, she states I should “just keep trying”, and suggests I give Apple’s site a try as well.

June 15th, 10:30am – Upon trying to order again at AT&T’s site, it won’t even let me proceed past the upgrade screen.  Immediately kicks back an error page and tells me for non-iPhone upgrades I can contact customer service.   I later learned AT&T had actually started blocking upgrades while they tried to make sense of what was going on, but their reps never stopped telling people to “keep trying”.  Assholes.

June 15th, 10:45am – I try ordering at Apple’s site.  The site is slow as molasses, and fails repeatedly never reaching all the way through to the part where I can actually order.

June 15th, 11:30am – I throw my hands up in the air and give up, frustrated I’d sunk that much time in trying to give a co. money for something that doesn’t even exist yet.  It’s one thing to fight for a credit or a correction in service.  It’s another to have to FIGHT to give a company money.  How dare I.

June 15th, 2:00pm – My wife, bless her soul, decides to give it a try and repeatedly attempts ordering through AT&T website, Apple’s website, and the iPhone Apple Store App after reading reports of occasional “successes” reported on twitter, etc.   I head out to pickup lunch wanting nothing to do with it at this point.

June 15th, 3:00pm – After a FULL HOUR of trying, she succeeds!  AT&T’s site comes through with an order confirmation, which she wisely “saves” since we had no printer available to us on vacation.  At this point I’m cautiously happy, but did breathe a sigh of relief.

June 16th, 1:00pm – I receive an email from AT&T stating my order has been canceled, claiming: “Unfortunately, we were either unable to verify the information you provided or you have exceeded the number of lines of service that we allow customers to purchase online. As a result, your order has been canceled.”  I was so angry, I didn’t even do anything right away.  The reality that I wasn’t likely getting a phone until mid to late July set in, and I gulped it down like a 10lb rock with jagged edges.

June 16th, 5:00pm – Again, my wife saves the day by calling AT&T and finds out there were “multiple orders” and they show that while one was canceled, a second one “appears” to be “in process”.

June 16th, 9:40pm – I get a second email from AT&T claiming that my iPhone 4 pre-order has been received and is being processed in the order it was received.  It includes an order #, and I plug it into AT&T’s site under order status, it simply shows “in-process”, but with an order date of the 16th.

Fast forward to today, my order still shows “in process” with an order date of the 16th, and several calls to AT&T have yielded no answer as to when my phone will ship.  Reports from various sources online state orders received before late afternoon on the 15th SHOULD ship for delivery on the 24th, and my order was definetely placed in that range, but nevertheless the date states the 16th.

I guess at this point, I wait until the 23rd and see if the order shows as “shipped”, and if it doesn’t the most I can do is call AT&T and complain.  Never in my life have I gone through such a bullshit ordeal to buy something, let alone on a pre-order.  From what I understand AT&T and Apple have together accepted over 3/4 million pre-orders with the first 600k occuring on the 15th alone!  While this is a record-setting number, the process was still completely unacceptable and has likely left each and every one of the 600k people that did succeed in getting an order through pissed at AT&T for not stepping up to the plate with a queuing system, or a slimmed down process for completing checkout at any time throughout the day.

So tell me, did you get an order through?  If so, what’s your order date, and have you gotten a delivery estimate from AT&T?

UPDATE:

June 19th, 3:30pm – Spoke with another rep from AT&T, and was told that due to the overwhelming response, NO orders are expected to ship for delivery before the 26th (and more likely the 28th).  This was from a single source at AT&T, and I don’t see anyone else reporting it, but she insisted nothing would be shipping for delivery on the 24th.  I guess we’ll see :)

UPDATE:

June 21st, 10:00am – Received a voicemail from AT&T stating my order “should” ship for delivery between the 25th and 28th of June.

iPhone 4: pure, industrial class for your pocket

I followed the Apple WWDC 2010 loosely via a liveblog since I was at work during the event, but since then I’ve been closely following the reviews and reports on the iPhone 4. I’m impressed, REAL impressed.

Specs avail from apple here:

http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html

but, let me break down what matters most to me:

1) Class. The thing is fucking gorgeous. . . . I’m a huge sucker for industrialesque design where form follows function, and the iPhone 4 does this in a way that just shuts the door on other smart phones out there, including their own 3G and 3GS iPhones. The “original iPhone” with it’s metal back, and game-changing all glass front is a close second to this, and I’m SOOOO glad they’ve gone back to this type of design. The metal sides on the iPhone 4 are actually antennas, and the front and rear are a special engineered glass that’s stronger and more durable than anything found on a smartphone before.

2) 720p 30fps HD video. Damn straight, HD video onboard. Quit shopping for a newer video cam to replace your aging Hi8 or miniDV behemoth you currently haul to “events”, because the iPhone 4 just obsoleted them. It’s not that there aren’t dedicated cameras out there that will do a better job than this one, there are. But, this one will do a better job than what 99% of people already own for a video cam, and it’ll always be at the ready, in your pocket. I won’t even talk about the convenience of quick edits and youtube/email straight from the phone. It’s a given.

3) 960×640 display. Apple calls it a “retina display” which I’ve never heard of, so their marketing dept. probably invented it. Regardless, that’s a HUGE amount of pixels for such a tiny screen. Reviewers are saying even at a distance from their eye of only a few inches, they can’t make out the pixels in the image. I’m sold, porn will no doubt look amazing :P

4) Front-facing 2nd camera. To be honest, it’s about time the iPhone gets this. Ever since the original iPhone came out in 2007, people have had half-baked ideas about some crazy mirror to use the rear cam for video calls as the iPhone seems otherwise so well fit for this type of use scenario. Now folks can quit pretending to be inventors, and just go buy the new iPhone. Apple didn’t talk about supporting anything other than “FaceTime”, but Jobs did promise to make it an open standard, and with the app store, I’m sure the front cam will have 5000 uses a week after launch date. Chatroullette anyone?

5) Maximum operating altitude: 10,000 feet. Just kidding, wanted to see if anyone was even still reading :)

Bottom line, it’s available June 15th, and you’ll find me hitting refresh on the order page starting at 11:55pm on the 14th.

Red Hat Summit / JBoss World 2010 – Boston, MA

I’ll be in Boston for JBoss World and the Red Hat Summit from June 23rd to June 25th.

http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/2010/

I’m headed there for work to attend the labs and workshops including everything from hardware to next-gen apps,  security and cloud.  This will be the first time I’ve been to Boston, and the first time I’ve attended a Red Hat Summit :)

I’m open to suggestions for places to eat, and things to see in the evening.

Less than 2 hours until Apple WWDC 2010

Beginning  at 10am pacific (1pm eastern), Steve Jobs is expected to take the stage @ WWDC 2010 for the keynote.

He’s expected to announce the new iPhone 4G, given it’s leak via gizmodo and various Vietnamese sources, but what else?  AT&T has recently bumped up eligibility for nearly all of their current iPhone customers (or at least those currently still holding the original iPhone or a 3G) as referenced here:

http://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/07/atandt-moves-up-iphone-upgrade-eligibility-on-eve-of-wwdc-keynote/

and here:

http://gizmodo.com/5557102/att-makes-almost-everyone-eligible-for-a-new-iphone

My guess is that the AT&T move signals Apple will announce an end date to the exclusivity of their relationship with AT&T for the iPhone.  AT&T will have to start treating their Apple-loving customers a little nicer if it wants to keep them.

Coincidentally, the touchscreen on my wife’s 8GB original iPhone died yesterday, and while the phone still boots and works, it’s impossible to interact with.  She’s already eying my 3GS, and I’m eying the possibility of a 4G :P

How to get rejected from the app store (iPhone OS)

After shedding light on an impending rootkit demo for Android yesterday, seems only fair to share this link today bout Apple’s rejection policies:

http://infoworld.com/d/developer-world/how-get-rejected-the-app-store-854

The article goes on to list 12 well-known sure fire ways to get your app rejected, and admittedly more than half seem to be more rooted in corporate evil than any sort of sense.  I’m still happily clutching my iPhone, but it does leave me wondering how long Apple can hold onto their iPhone/iPad/iPod userbase with innovation and design quality when they’re so busy alienating them with limited choices after the purchase.

Ooops, your Android phone got rooted!

“Hoping to understand what a new generation of mobile malware could resemble, security researchers will demonstrate a malicious “rootkit” program they’ve written for Google’s Android phone next month at the Defcon hacking conference in Las Vegas.”

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/060210-android-rootkit-is-just-a.html

This is just another reason I have mixed feelings over how Apple handles apps with the app store.

Yeah, it means I can’t run whatever I want, and have to play by their rules without jailbreaking, but it sure makes rootkits a bit harder to pull off.

iPhone users finally get tethering

AT&T has finally announced a tethering plan for the iPhone as well as new plans for data packages in general (replacing the old ones for NEW customers).  More info here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37467137/ns/technology_and_science-wireless/

What I want to know is this:

Will I be able to tether my iPad to my iPhone?  This seems like a no-brainer and a perfect example of Apple technology working together, but will undoubtedly be blocked by the money-hungry suits at AT&T hoping users pony up for TWO data plans.  I hope I’m wrong.

UPDATE:

AT&T claims you won’t be able to tether the iPad through an iPhone, but that the issue is not contractual.  Instead, it’s a limitation of how Apple has blocked the bluetooth PAN profile on the iPad.

Much like how MyWi continues to be the main reason people are willing to jailbreak their iPhone, I can see this being a damn good reason to jailbreak an iPad since given the choice between the two, I’d rather jailbreak a device that isn’t tied to a contract and that I don’t count on to make calls, etc.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Garmin nuvi 660 Bluetooth Fix

Kind of off the topic here, but I own a Garmin nuvi 660 GPS that I absolutely LOVE, but the bluetooth functionality just quits working all by itself every few months.

There’s an endless amount of horror stories online about this with various suggestions for a fix, but most people just end up living without the bluetooth or sending the unit back to Garmin each time the bluetooth fails until the warranty expires.

Through my own trial and error, I put together what’s needed to fix the problem yourself.

The bluetooth problem usually manifests itself as such that bluetooth becomes disabled on the nuvi, and enabling it causes the GPS to lock up or freeze.  Holding down the power button will reset it, but bluetooth is still disabled and re-enabling just causes it to freeze again.

I’ve put together a fix that contains steps to follow and a file you’ll need to replace on the nuvi 660 while it’s connected to your PC.

I hope this reaches other fellow Garmin owners that just want their bluetooth to work.  And Garmin, if you’re reading this, would you please consider providing a PERMANENT FIX TO THIS ISSUE!!??

Link to download fix:

Garmin_nuvi_660_Bluetooth_Fix.zip

Classmates.com Can Suck My Firewall.

So. . . every couple months I get spammed for days straight from classmates.com because someone has looked at my page, signed the guestbook, or maybe even THOUGHT about looking at something for all I know.

Every couple months I attempt to CANCEL receiving email from them, since I could really care less about it.  I -might- care if you didn’t go there only to find out you can’t see anything without first paying them money.  I’m sure those of you that have been to the site know what I’m talking about.  The best part is, you can’t even cancel or change your email settings without first signing in and walking through 15 ads.

I don’t even KNOW what my damn password is.  I signed up 5+ years ago, and that’s the only time I was ever “logged in”.  So, since I don’t know my password, I can’t even login to unsubscribe.  Imagine a scenario where you have an email address, let’s say spongebob788@happydomain.com and you sign up at classmates.com with it.   2 years tick by and you no longer have that email address, but someone else signs up with happydomain.com, picks the address “spongebob788″, and now they’re getting your classmates.com spam, and they can’t cancel it!

Since I can’t unsubscribe, and they have NO other means to contact them other than through the website once you’ve signed in, I’m left with one choice.

-BLOCK THE BASTARDS-

That’s right, I run my own network and email infrastructure, so I looked up their CIDR range at ARIN, which happens to be:

65.243.133.0/24

Add that to your firewall, block port 25, and you’ll never receive crap from them ever again (unless they change providers, then you’d just have to add their new CIDR)

So, classmates.com – “SUCK MY FIREWALL”

Humans generating energy – BEST IDEA EVER!

http://dvice.com/archives/2008/12/revolving_door.php

Check out this article at DVICE.  Immediately I’m thinking of other ways we can harness energy from human movement.  Think of *ALL* those people at the gym on stairclimbers, friction weight machines, etc.  The friction on all those machines could be created by electricity generating systems.

Imagine a model where your gym membership was free because the gym’s could “sell” the electricy you generated while exercising to the grid.