Saturday, June 13, 2009

Thoughts on AT&T

In reference to the iPhone annoncement, ATT is like this:
It's like your in school and the teacher assigned a group and you have a project due in 6 months. Everyone wants to work together but one kid thinks you all should work solo. No one wants to be mean so all decide to work solo and put the pieces together later. When you reconvene, you realize he's the only one who didn't do his part. Thanks ATT, your that kid. Luckily everyone else did well enough that the overall score is a B.
I would start shopping for a new group member.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

WWDC 2009 Live Blogging












Live event coverage. Tomorrow at 10 AM PST, Apple is going to unveil some pretty neat stuff. I think you know what I'm talking about. My recommendation as to where to get your live blog info?

Best all around:
- MacRumors (unless they get hacked!)

For different perspectives:

A new one I've never tried and will be trying (thanks for the tip Just Another iPhone Blog):

Watching these live blogs is the next best thing to being there. Both update very timely and auto refresh and MacRumors Twitter is especially good if you are away from your computer. I highly recommend you follow them if you are on Twitter.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Watch Now! (almost)













It's about time!  Netflix will finally be streaming to my Mac!  I've had to use Parallels to get by in the mean time but this is a huge step.

I think this is really going to add a lot more people to the Netflix community.  I have a few friends that would totally use Netflix but since they can't take part in one of the biggest and coolest features, they decided against it.

Read more:

Thursday, August 28, 2008

iPod Touch Tips

I made this info for my friend but I thought I'd post it here as well.

iPod Touch Info


Must Have

- Google

- Pandora (streaming music)

- 1337pwn (xbox live friends status, send messages through too)

- Facebook

- MySpace

- AIM

- Banner Free (scrolling ticker displays what you want)

- Remote (control your iTunes)

- Freebird (a lighter for concerts)

- Cannon Game (Cool NLOS tank game)

- myLite (flashlight with cool presets)


Optional

- Evernote (best used on iPhone)

- Ping.fm (streaming music)

- Where (find stuff near you, restaurants, zipcars, starbucks...)

- NBC Traffic Camera (best in bigger cities)

- Twitterific (twitter app)

- Pownce (pownce app)

- Simplify (stream your music from iTunes to your iPod, works best on iPhone)

- Kaleidoscope

- Audi A4 (driving game)

- Subway Lite (puzzle game)

- Last.fm (streaming music)



Misc.


How to take a picture of your screen (screen capture)

- Hold the Home button and press the Hold button once. The screen will flash white and the picture will be saved in your Photos. You can email them to get them off.


To move icons to different screens, press and hold on any icon. They will all start to wiggle, now you can drag them and rearrange them.


To add bookmarks to your home page, when you are surfing and you want to bookmark a page, click the "+" icon and instead of just clicking Add Bookmark, click Add to Home Screen. Rearrange as needed.


Check iTunes daily under the All Free Apps as they are updated frequently.


Great links for more info:

- http://www.ilounge.com/

- http://www.iphonenoob.blogspot.com/

- http://fingergaming.com/

- http://www.appleiphoneschool.com/

- http://gizmodo.com/5023924/iphone-app-review-marathon-liveblog


Tips:

- Bring charger to work (its just a USB cable)

- Set brightness to halfway (it's pretty bright already)

- At night... either charge it, turn it off, or turn off wifi, sometimes it can get quite dead.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

MobileME



Well after staying up until 1am last night chatting in Apple discussions, I decided a post on Macnoob was a necessity. Yes, I am a new editor on macnoob. Matt8chew, a former Mac Specialist at an Apple retail store and a current video editor. I own three macs and one iPhone 1G with 2.0 software.
I have been a .mac owner for exactly a year and thus I was transferred over to mobileME. I did renew a week or so before my membership expired which was before the .mac/mobileME changeover.
To say the ME changeover has been rocky is an understatement. In my 7 or 8 years as an apple user this is the worst. Though I must say my contacts are now syncing, calendar is great, and I don't use ME email... thank goodness.
Last night I stayed up until the wee hours of the night talking with people in apple discussions (one, two, three) because at about 10:30 we all ran into the problem that no one could publish their iWeb sites to mobileME. A pop up box appeared that asked us to sign up for mobile me or sign in. After 3 hours or so I just gave up, but some people were very dependent on mobileME for their business. I think at 6am people reported that they were able to publish and throughout today things are fine again.
But that leads me to comment on those who are without their mail and some now have been for 11 days. If I was without my gmail for 11 days, I would be lost. We are of the generation that doesn't make phone calls anymore, we email. Or as I heard yesterday, even email is for old people, now we text and twitter.
Anyway, my final thought goes like this.
Steve (Jobs), buddy, I suggest you fire whoever is in charge of mobileME after the rough times get settled. Someone didn't do their homework. This is not the standard I am used to with Apple, this is a Microsoft Vista type mistake. I know we want to be friends (PC/MAC) but they should learn how we do it not us learn from them.

Monday, July 14, 2008

As the dust settles.













[photo source]
Well, it looks like that the iPhone has landed and the dust is just settling.  Many people waited in line for hours, some got in and out and were talking in minutes, and others got no iPhone at all.

I was really shocked with Apple about this.  This was supposed to be their big day, but man was it a cluster.

I'm not even going to talk about Mobile Me...

It wasn't really my plan to wait a few weeks for the 3G but I'm glad that I am.  I would have been up early hoping to get one and make it to work, and I might have just made it too.  A coworker got one and he had no activation problems while another coworker (though half the country away) got one and couldn't activate till 7 or 8 hours later.

Apple?  Did you not prepare for this?  

I didn't check to see the main reasons of the failure but was it a server issue in where they just got overloaded?  Surely they would have seen that coming.  Was it something bigger?

Why was Mobile Me acting so strange?  Working then not working then working again...

Not cool.

After reading reviews on Gizmodo and other gadget sites, I learned a lot about the 3G.  Their review was very helpful in letting me decide how long I should wait till I get one.

I'm just super excited that when I go to get one, I won't have to wait in line all day!

Although, I went to the mall yesterday just to play with one and there was a 20-30 person line just to get in.  Maybe it's still too early...

Friday, July 11, 2008

iPhone what?

I found this on MacRumors as someone's forum signature. This doesn't make sense (though I know what he's trying to say).








Last time I checked, there's no such thing as an iPhone 2G Nice try, but fail.

You obviously don't know what 3G is and/or means.

I don't even think I have to say anything.

What is today?  You know what today is.  Cmon, act right.


Why is today not a good day?  I'm not in line.  I'm not going to be in line.  I'm not getting one.  Though it's not for lack of wanting.

Oh, before I forget, for those of you with the new iPhone, check out this link for some cool free apps.  They look really useful too.





iPhone 3G Unboxing from theappleofmyi on Vimeo.

I thought I'd throw in an unboxing for those of you who won't get to do one yourself!

My first thought about the iPhone 3G, when it was official, was that I didn't know what I thought about it being black or white plastic.

Apple just worked to redesign the iMac from white plastic to metal and glass.  Oh, and before that, the iPods were only white, then were white and black, now are silver and black.  

Whhhhaaaa!?!?!!???

Yeah.  They kind of back pedaled on this one.

ALTHOUGH...

I think I know why.  If you know anything about the iPhone, the first gen and the second gen are very different in price.

My guess is that the only way Apple could lower the price so much was to use less expensive material.  See, I didn't say cheap.

Oh well, maybe I'm just looking to far into it.

I hope I get one, but who knows... I'm also in a contest to win one and hopefully i'll know by today, but I'll update you when I find out.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Sunday, June 29, 2008

MacBook Pro Screen Flicker


MacBook Pro Screen Flicker from Mike Petrucci on Vimeo.


This flicker happens out of no where whether the laptop is sitting by itself not being used or even on my lap.

It always starts at the top and sometimes the flicker covers the whole screen.

I'll try to get more video of it, but I can't replicate it, I just have to wait for it to happen.

It's very strange! Has anyone else seen this?!

Computer Info:

MacBook Pro 15 inch
OS X 10.5.3
2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB Ram

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

You have mail!

This is a great email from Bill Gates.  I don't want to ruin it for you, enjoy.  Jump for source.

    ---- Original Message ----

    From: Bill Gates
    Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM
    To: Jim Allchin
    Cc: Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Bharat Shah (NT); Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta (RESEARCH)
    Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame

    I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don't drive usability issues.

    Let me give you my experience from yesterday.

    I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack ... so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.

    The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up.

    This site is so slow it is unusable.

    It wasn't in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45.

    These 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:\Documents and Settings\billg\My Documents\My Pictures seem clear.

    They are not filtered by the system ... and so many of the things are strange.

    I tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.

    So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?

    So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.

    They told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!).

    I tried that. The site was pathetically slow but after 6 seconds of waiting up it came.

    I thought for sure now I would see a button to just go do the download.

    In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations.

    This struck me as completely odd. Why should I have to go somewhere else and do a scan to download moviemaker?

    So I went to Windows update. Windows Update decides I need to download a bunch of controls. (Not) just once but multiple times where I get to see weird dialog boxes.

    Doesn't Windows update know some key to talk to Windows?

    Then I did the scan. This took quite some time and I was told it was critical for me to download 17megs of stuff.

    This is after I was told we were doing delta patches to things but instead just to get 6 things that are labeled in the SCARIEST possible way I had to download 17meg.

    So I did the download. That part was fast. Then it wanted to do an install. This took 6 minutes and the machine was so slow I couldn't use it for anything else during this time.

    What the heck is going on during those 6 minutes? That is crazy. This is after the download was finished.

    Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night -- why should I reboot at that time?

    So I did the reboot because it INSISTED on it. Of course that meant completely getting rid of all my Outlook state.

    So I got back up and running and went to Windows Updale again. I forgot why I was in Windows Update at all since all I wanted was to get Moviemaker.

    So I went back to Microsoft.com and looked at the instructions. I have to click on a folder called WindowsXP. Why should I do that? Windows Update knows I am on Windows XP.

    What does it mean to have to click on that folder? So I get a bunch of confusing stuff but sure enough one of them is Moviemaker.

    So I do the download. The download is fast but the Install takes many minutes. Amazing how slow this thing is.

    At some point I get told I need to go get Windows Media Series 9 to download.

    So I decide I will go do that. This time I get dialogs saying things like "Open" or "Save". No guidance in the instructions which to do. I have no clue which to do.

    The download is fast and the install takes 7 minutes for this thing.

    So now I think I am going to have Moviemaker. I go to my add/remove programs place to make sure it is there.

    It is not there.

    What is there? The following garbage is there. Microsoft Autoupdate Exclusive test package, Microsoft Autoupdate Reboot test package, Microsoft Autoupdate testpackage1. Microsoft AUtoupdate testpackage2, Microsoft Autoupdate Test package3.

    Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.

    But that is just the start of the crap. Later I have listed things like Windows XP Hotfix see Q329048 for more information. What is Q329048? Why are these series of patches listed here? Some of the patches just things like Q810655 instead of saying see Q329048 for more information.

    What an absolute mess.

    Moviemaker is just not there at all.

    So I give up on Moviemaker and decide to download the Digital Plus Package.

    I get told I need to go enter a bunch of information about myself.

    I enter it all in and because it decides I have mistyped something I have to try again. Of course it has cleared out most of what I typed.

    I try (typing) the right stuff in 5 times and it just keeps clearing things out for me to type them in again.

    So after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven't run Moviemaker and I haven't got the plus package.

    The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. I thought we had reached a low with Windows Network places or the messages I get when I try to use 802.11. (don't you just love that root certificate message?)

    When I really get to use the stuff I am sure I will have more feedback.

Monday, May 5, 2008

iPhone Carrier Option Video


iPhone Carrier Option Vid 3 from Mike Petrucci on Vimeo.

iPhone Carrier Option

I received an email late tonight (5/4) from one of my buddies. Well, he also happens to be an iPhone user. Some interesting things happened on his iPhone. I'll copy/paste his story below. I'll let him explain.  Oh, and pics and video are coming soon.  Uploading as I type.

_____

Tonight my phone froze. And when powered back on some interesting results were there.
The photos tell it all.




















Description of what happened.
A hard restart was applied.
I powered back on my phone and went to system preferences.
An item appeared just below wifi that read "carrier." The label read AT&T.
Each time I clicked it, it would bring up the thinking wheel and then it would give an error. I wish I would have got a photo of that.
I then proceeded to look for any other new stuff, but found nothing. When I finally went back to system preferences it was gone. Poof!

_____

Update: I was able to recreate what happened, several times. The second time I got options under the carrier. There were two options, but they both read AT&T. At random I chose one of them and the phone gave an error message which then took away my service until another hard restart was applied.

I have no idea if this is news in new of if anyone has experienced this.
Speculate all you want but this is clearly some sort of testing.

Monday, April 28, 2008

7 Confessions Of An Apple Macintosh Specialist (from Consumerist)

Great info.  Some of my suspicions were confirmed and I think this gives great insight into the inner workings of this company.  One on one training, maybe I should sign up for that...

7. iPods have two fixes. Resetting and Restoring.
If both of those features do not work, your iPod is trash. Unless it's under warranty or you purchased AppleCare, then they will give you two options. First is to trade in your iPod for 10% off any model (except shuffle), or they will give you out of warranty replacement, Which usually means that you will pay around $100-$250 depending on the model you purchased.

6. We have 4 things that we will try to sell you when you purchase a computer.
AppleCare, of course, is your extended 3 year warranty, we are told to sell it as a service plan, but it does not do ANYTHING extra, but extend your warranty, and does not cover anything extra. .Mac is a ripoff unless you use the web site hosting. ProCare has to be the biggest ripoff. All this does is upgrade your AppleCare for one year. It has a little perk for business uses, but otherwise useless. Lastly, One-to-One training, which is the best deal in the store.

5. If you have a return outside of the return policy we will most likely take care of you.
If it's sealed we'll take it back, and open, if you speak to a manager and plead your case, they will most likely take care of you no matter what.

4. We do not know ANYTHING about when some product will come out.
And we aren't allowed to speculate on anything that isn't on apple.com. We can get fired if we even tell a customer that a 3G iPhone might come out.

3. Apple Employment: If you want full-time, do not get into this company.
To be full-time, it is a recommendation that you be with the company for a year or more. The shifts are horrible, and they typically have more than 100 people working in a single mall store. For part-time you can get anywhere to 4-20 hours in one week, very very unreliable."

2. Why we will ask you for your e-mail at checkout.
This is for two reasons. One, we will send your receipt to your email, and two there is a survey at the bottom of the email. This leads to the store being ranked on what is called detractors and promoters. The company takes an average from the surveys and ranks us. 10-9 is a promoter, 8-7 is a "passive" and 6 below is a detractor. Which leads to the next confession.

1. If you fill out the survey and rank us 6 or lower, a manager will call you the same day or the next, corporate policy.
They usually will ask why you had a bad experience, and offer to make it better, usually by discounting something or another for you. These are directly related to the salesperson who checked you out, so we get our asses reamed when we make a detractor. Also, If you complain to a manager, nothing usually gets done, it goes in one ear and out the other. Buy something very small, have them email your receipt, and fill out the survey. The management will wait on you hand and foot. Oh, and return the product.