Exxodium

Reshuffle

By Chris on January 29, 2010 1:45 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

I think I'm going to reshuffle my computers so that I can fit the iBook G4 somewhere.

Outer Heaven (the MBP) will be my do-all machine, with Windows7/OS X Snow Leopard. Anything demanding? This one will take it.

Yggdrasil (iBook) will take over for the netbook for things like note taking in classes. I tried using my huge MBP for note taking in class today, and it was not the best experience.

The Eee PC (which doesn't have a name yet) will probably be a small, linux-based server. Or an IceChat Bot server. Whatever I feel like.

Whereas, my phone (Which I've named Harvestar) will be doing data duties on college campus, since their network is so overloaded it's impossible to use. (The multimedia lab is the only exception.)

The iPad

By Chris on January 28, 2010 12:27 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

I obviously don't have one, and I've never used one, and I wasn't at Apple's event today. But I do have a few thoughts about the device.

For one: If it could do text messaging, this would be my device. I'd be all over it. You know why? Because that's all I did with my iPhone and all I do with my Tilt2. Text messaging and internet. I'm not a phone person, so that $40 on a voice plan is wasted money for me. But it doesn't. So there's one reason why I wouldn't get it.

Two: It fills a niche that not many people have. I could see it standing in for a massive laptop like a MacBook Pro on college trips and such, but some people (me included) have smaller computers up to the task. I have an iBook G4 (12 inch for the win) and an ASUS Eee PC.

Why do I compare small laptops to the iPad? Because it looks like you have to rest the iPad against something to even consider using it's onscreen keyboard. Like maybe a table, or your leg.

If you're going to have to rest this thing on something, why not make it a laptop instead of a touchscreen slate of glass? (And yes, I do know there exists a physical keyboard attachment. But for the sake of portability, I'm going to guess you wouldn't carry it with you.)

It boggles my mind.

But I think these questions will be answered once iPads start trickling into users' hands.

What I use

By Chris on January 23, 2010 4:29 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

I was reading some of The Setup, and I figure I'd add my own in. (I know I'm not really "leet" enough to get my own page there. But it's still fun to go over what I own and use to get through the day.)

So here it is: What I use to get through the day.

What hardware do you use? Currently, I use as my main machine a 2.4GHz 15'' MacBook Pro. It's got 2GB of RAM and a 500GB Hitachi drive spinning at 5400RPM. I've also got a 500GB OWC Mercury Elite Aluminum external HDD for my backups. When I'm at my desk, I use an Apple keyboard (full sized, aluminum) and a Logitech wireless mouse. (unsure of what model.)

Also, when I need to pack lightly and I don't have much room in my bag, I'll take along my Asus Eee PC 1005HAB. It has a 160GB HDD and 2GB of RAM. It's a capable machine for web tasks and light gaming. (Starcraft, etc.)

And when I'm too lazy to reboot into Windows 7 on my MacBook Pro, I've got an old HP laptop that I occasionally use to do something that requires Windows.

As for phones: I had an iPhone 3GS 32GB that met an untimely fate. I now use a Touch Pro2 (AT&T) and a Droid (Verizon).

For all the other misc. hardware I use, I have a Canon PowerShot G11 for use as my primary camera, and a PowerShot SD1100 for use as my backup camera or when I need to pack light.

And lastly, a 2G iPod touch (16GB) for music.

What software do you use?

I use Aperture for everything having to do with photos, and maybe Photoshop CS3 for the tasks that Aperture cannot do.

For web browsing, I use Safari, sometimes Firefox. Safari is just blistering fast and renders everything smoothly. Firefox, not so much.

For chat and stuff, I use iChat for AIM, and Colloquy for IRC.

For basic text editing, I use TextEdit. For anything more advanced, I prefer TextWrangler.

For syncing some music with my phone, I use DoubleTwist. For just listening to music, iTunes does fine for me.

I also use FileZilla for any FTP stuff.

The Nexus One

By Chris on January 5, 2010 8:26 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

These are my preliminary thoughts. I obviously was not at the press event today, and I don't have a Nexus One. (But I did load Android 2.1 onto my Droid for a little bit.)

- Seriously? No multi-touch? For a phone whose ONLY input method is the virtual keyboard, this is a make-or-break question! And this would put the Nexus One clearly in the break section. I type so fast on the iPhone that it chokes up. I'd imagine typing at half that speed would break things on the Nexus One.

- For being HTC-built, MicroUSB and 3.5mm headphone jacks are welcome additions.

- The Music app gets a lot less credit than it deserves. Google deep sixed that annoying Music "home" page where you had to tap Songs, Artists, etc. Now you get an artist listing from the outset, with the four primary library buttons AT THE TOP. Kind of like an inverse iPod touch. Sadly, the Now Playing screen got NOTHING at all. What I'd at least like to see is a button that takes you back to Artists, or somesuch. Having to do a Menu > Library gets infuriating.

- Question: Will the unlocked version have CDMA radios? a la BlackBerry Storm? (CDMA + GSM in the same device)

- It does more than an iPhone, and it's thinner. Apple just got told.

- Live wallpapers are just a waste of CPU cycles.

- Flash 10.1? Shoot me. I'd rather not get BLINKING FUCKING ADS while browsing on my phone.

Verizon finally gets it right...Kind of.

By Chris on January 4, 2010 10:03 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

(This will be the last post about the infamous Droid battery door issue. Promise.)

After a successful resolution from the Verizon store in Walnut Creek, I was satisfied with the state of my Droid. The battery door stayed in place, and would hang on for the life of it.

Sadly, that state of euphoria didn't last long at all, as my Droid began having severe network issues, and the door began falling off the back again. This was on Christmas day. I was also at my girlfriend's for Christmas.

I pick up my Droid and dial up Verizon, who amazingly is open for Christmas, and I get a rep who actually seems like he's going to help me out. I describe what I've done to him, including re-actviating my phone, updating my roaming settings, etc.

Having seen all the notes on my account, he just instantly relents and sends me a new phone. I interrupt him and tell him he needs a different address to send it to, since my shipping address is different from my billing address. No problem, it'll all be fine.

That is, until I get two shipping notifications in my inbox. Maybe they're just sending me something to compensate for the problems.

That is, until I realized that they sent me TWO Droids. One to my billing address, and one to my shipping address. How did I know? I went to the FedEx shipping center in Pacheco, CA to grab the one package that I wasn't home for.

Unboxed it in the car, and that was one of the Droids. Then I went to the PO Box where my billing address is to retrieve the package sitting there. Unboxed that, too, and it was another Droid.

I dialed up Verizon to make sure they wern't about to charge me for this extra phone. The guy on the other end took down the MEID HEX of the extra Droid and noted that I was going to return that one.

I let my girlfriend pick the one I should take before that, though, and she ended up siding with a good one. The battery door hangs on for dear life, actually lines up with the casing, and doesn't royally fuck up software-wise like my other Droid did.

Now, to just take both of these FedEx packages back to a FedEx store...

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Endnote: I suppose things like this would be okay if Verizon didn't try to act like the gatekeeper for phone support, or drop the ball so damned frequently.

It really sucks that Verizon doesn't have replacement phone SKUs at the retail stores, because if your phone is seriously hosed and you need a replacement *right now*, you're out of luck. All they have are retail SKUs, which CANNOT be used for replacing phones.

In contrast to Apple Stores (yeah, I'm going to compare the Droid to the iPhone, because Verizon markets the Droid as an iPhone killer), where Apple has loads of bare iPhones for replacement purposes.

Hell, even MetroPCS (a local, regional carrier with GREAT customer service) acts as the gatekeeper for phone support *and* manages to do it right. (They have replacement phone SKUs in store.)

Maybe I'm just being a nitpicky bitch because of the excellent service that Apple showed me while I was using an iPhone 3GS.

It Must be Serious

By Chris on January 2, 2010 8:04 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

At least right now, if you go to Verizon's website and look into the Motorola Droid (not the Droid Eris), you'll find that the battery door for the Droid is being listed for the nice, low price of Free.

I'm not joking.

Now list the Droid as free and I think you'll have a solution, Verizon!

Temporary Defeat (Updated)

By Chris on December 29, 2009 2:21 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

The whole MacBook Pro and the broken audio thing finally just drained me, so I threw in the towel and took it into a Genius Bar to have them take a crack at it.

Simply put, I was defeated before the battle even began.

I got to the Apple Store about 5:30 PM, 45 minutes before my appointment. Since I have the song that the audio issue is most noticeable on uploaded to my webserver, I could just pull it down to any of the store computers and replay it.

I got on one of the 15" MacBook Pro's, pointed it at my webserver, and played the song. I plugged my iPhone earbuds in.

And, holy shit! The computers were defective! The store computers were defective! I tried it with a current-gen MacBook, and an iMac. Both had the same problem! This meant it had to be a 10.6 problem.

At that point, I was due up at the Genius Bar, and I already know this was probably outside their scope of support. I knew defeat when I saw it.

The guy was really kind about things, though. He let me do whatever I needed to reproduce the problem. I plugged in my external drive and booted Snow Leopard. He got out some really high-grade Bose headphones, which worked flawlessly. Even cranking the frequency to 96000 Hz didn't make the problem appear with the Bose 'phones.

So I let him listen to the song with my earbuds. And he noticed right away.

He got me a replacement set of Apple 'buds, then I left.

Sure enough, when I got home, rebooted into Snow Leopard, and tried the audio again, the pulsating started right back up with the Apple earbuds.

I...I don't even know where the problem could lie at this point.

There's three different scenarios that could be at play here:

1. The pulsating issue is still there with the Bose headphones, but the noise canceling tech might be making the pulsating much less noticeable.

2. It's totally a driver issue with 10.6.

3. It could be the hardware. Either in the headphone jack or the 'buds themselves.

To test out #3, I'm going to buy a throwaway pair of earbuds tomorrow to see if the pulsating happens again.

#2 is already proved by rebooting into 10.5.5/Windows 7.

#1 is definitely plausible at this point, but that will be proved by testing #3.

If anyone reading this has anything they can chip in to help, I'd greatly appreciate it. Assuming that the problem lies completely in 10.6, I'll be phoning AppleCare *and* filing a bug report with Apple.

UPDATE:

I got some Panasonic Digital Monitor cans for about $30 from Fry's. These are the kind that seal over your ears so you can't really hear anything other than the music. I tried replicating the problem with these and it didn't seem to reappear. (And these do NOT have noise canceling tech)

But, this issue happened with the HTC earbuds I tried, and my Apple earbuds.

I'm beginning to believe this might just be an issue with earbuds. I'll have to wait until my next paycheck, then I'll buy a cheap pair of earbuds and re-test.

On AT&T's customer service

By Chris on December 25, 2009 12:34 AM | 2 Comments | No TrackBacks

Amid all the criticism for AT&T, I feel I must point out a point of redemption for them. Especially so in the face of the way Verizon has been treating me lately (like shit).

Sometimes, their customer service rocks socks.

In Mid 2008, I suffered a pretty bad break up with my ex girlfriend. One thing I didn't realize was that she decided to get revenge on me by racking up a $500 phone bill because I didn't shut off her phone soon enough.

After trying to get her to pay (and failing), I had to break down and accept the fact that I'd be responsible for paying this massive bill.

By myself.

I call into AT&T's customer service, and I get a girl named Heather. And I tell her the full story; I had a breakup, my ex decided to screw me up by racking up a load of data charges. I asked if there were a way I could do a payment plan for the phone bill.

(Trying to recall this from memory here) "That's awesome. It's not your fault, yet you're ready to take responsibility for someone else's actions on your account." She said. "I've been in your situation before, and I can totally understand how you feel. I'll apply a two-fifty credit to your account. I hope that helps you out."

Me: "Two dollars and fifty cents?"

CSR: "Nope, two-hundred and fifty dollars"

Me: *jaw hitting floor*

I almost couldn't believe this. I mean, she totally didn't have to do what she did. Yet, she went above and beyond to make my shit day even better.

Really, it's things like that that will give you loyal customers, customers who would die for you.

It's just sad AT&T's upper management seems to be staffed by idiots.

The Mystifying MacBook Pro Problem

By Chris on December 24, 2009 11:47 PM | 8 Comments | No TrackBacks

This one's got a long history. Bear with me.

In January 2009, I bought a new MacBook Pro to replace the nearly-one-year-old MacBook I had. The white MacBook I had suffered from a myriad of issues, mostly due to crappy case construction. Having played with the unibody MacBook Pro's at an Apple Store, I decided to get rid of the MacBook.

I needed this computer for college, so I got it dual-booting Mac OS X and Windows Vista. Got everything completely set up and running.

That's when, having everything done and ready to go, I decided to listen to music.

I was listening through my iPhone's earbuds, and my roommate left a few minutes after. At this point, I decided to listen to the totally awesome speakers that come on the MacBook Pro.

Except, when I pulled the plug, there was nothing but silence. And the volume controls didn't work at all. And there was red light coming from the headphone jack. A quick trip to System Preferences revealed that somehow, my computer was stuck on Digital Out.

Now, this was a known issue in the older MacBook Pros, but I had never seen it on the new unibody MBP's. So, I tried every arcane fix that worked for the other MBP's. Nothing worked. Sensing defeat, I finally just packed up the MBP in it's box and exchanged it on the recommendation of AppleCare.

I had to leave town with my (then) girlfriend, so I took it with me, unboxed it at her house, and set to work on it. Once again, I plugged my iPhone earbuds into the computer and listened to music. Once I pulled them out to listen to music through the speakers...

BOOM. Dead. Again. Red light shining bright through the jack, and the computer is jammed into digital out again.

Naturally, I am pissed. I call up AppleCare again, and explain myself. The kind guy on the other end concludes with a "well, I think you pretty much know what you're doing here, so what would you say would be a good solution?"

I just requested to get another exchange, but at a different Apple Store, because the batch at the store I purchased my MBP from might be defective. He added a note, and sent me to the Apple Store San Francisco.

I got there, they tried to revive my computer, and upon failing, swapped it out with another MBP. This time, I plugged and unplugged my iPhone earbuds into the MBP to make sure it didn't break again.

It didn't. And it still hasn't. Sort of.

Fast forward to about a month ago, in which I install 10.6 on my MacBook Pro. From this point on, the sound card seems to be making this weird pulsating noise in the background of every quiet song that I play. Here's the problem in action. And it was tested against multiple devices.

I learned to deal with it for a while, but it's beginning to get on my nerves. So I set out to fix this issue.

Firstly, the diagnosis reveals that this problem only occurs with headphones. I tried to hook the headphone jack to my Eee PC's Line In jack, and while the sound makes it across clearly, the pulsating is not present. Also, bumping the frequency to 90,000KHz in Audio MIDI Setup made the problem way worse. And also very documentable.

As for actually fixing the problem: My first shot was to reboot my MBP in Windows 7 and play the same song. And it played, no pulsating whatsoever. Screwing with every setting I could find didn't make things worse, either.

Okay, so this has to be a driver issue of some sort. Only...you can't install/reinstall drivers in Mac OS X!

Remembering OS X basic troubleshooting steps, I tried playing the same song in a different account. Problem persisted. So obviously, something is screwed up in 10.6.2.

Getting on the extreme side of things, I installed 10.5.5 to my external OWC drive. With a stock 10.5.5 install, I played the file...and, holy shit! No pulsating!

I began moving all my critical stuff from my MBP's drive to the external drive. Once everything was migrated and in place, I used SuperDuper to copy everything back over to the MBP's hard drive. Rebooted it, and everything was still fine.

Pushing my luck a bit, I let my computer update to 10.5.8, but I had it leave QuickTime and iTunes alone.

And, surprise surprise, the audio was once again broken when I tested it under 10.5.8.

I reformatted my MBP's drive and restored everything from the external disk, which still had 10.5.5.

Everything works great.

And I'm not sure I'll ever touch Software Update. At least, not until this issue is fixed.

--------

PS: If anyone wants to have a crack at diagnosing my problem, here's my system info (1MB file). I can grab console logs and reboot into 10.6.0 to get a profile there, too.

Site update: Comments on

By Chris on December 22, 2009 12:26 AM | 1 Comment | No TrackBacks

Having dealt with spam in the past, I decided to leave comments to a registration-only basis. I have now decided to open them up to anyone with an email address.

Also accepted are more OpenID-supported providers, such a Google accounts and Wordpress.com accounts.

Have at it. I'll leave them open for a week and then decide if I want to keep them on or not.