Electronics
Why the iPhone, Though a Cool Gadget, is Ultimately a Joke
Jun 9th
I bought an iPhone about 2 months ago. I had never touched one before, I had never seen anything but some online videos and some information about the phone. My old phone was crap, had no features, couldn’t connect to the internet, and it got shitty reception in the area of my new apartment. So, I knew I had to get a phone. I thought, since I saw refurbished iPhones for $99, I’d pick one up. I like it. I like it a lot. I can do all sorts of things I could never imagine doing with my old phone.
I wanted to go with a Rhapsody-capable phone from Verizon, as I have a Rhapsody music account, and I could listen to my music anywhere. You can do the same thing with the iPhone, but iTunes is crap- when software can turn deleting music into a confusing ordeal in itself, you know you have a loser on your hands. When I sync my phone, videos and songs I deleted before get added back on. It’s an annoyance to go in and uncheck everything you don’t want synced- a nice windows-like folder layout that would, I dunno, simply show the contents of my iPhone’s storage would be MUCH too easy. (ugh)
The iPhone’s application store is nice, and it’s something you can’t get on a lot of phones. People are more apt to create all sorts of applications for this phone as opposed to many others on the market. That’s a plus.
The announcement of the new iPhone today is- well, it’s a joke. It’s an offensive joke that angers me. Steve Jobs is a not only a weird looking turtlenecked geek, he’s also a jackass. What does the new iPhone offer for $800? Well, you can record video now. Well, my $15 phone from before recorded video all day long! It can also send picture messages. My $15 phone could do that as well! They will eventually roll out the 7.2gb network that will more than double the current 3g speed. Okay, fine. But after looking over the reports today, it seems the two biggest changes are the video recording and the MMS. Apple truly has some chutzpah. Jobs and his pals decide- what the hell, let’s release a NEW iPhone, charge $800 for it, and it’ll merely do what the ORIGINAL IPHONE SHOULD HAVE DONE IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!! Are you f’in kidding me turtleneck boy?!
And AT&T is no better. The monthly plans for the iPhone are absurd. I pay nearly $87 for the cheapest plan (450 anytime mins and 5, 000 nights and weekends), with the iPhone you MUST pay for a $30 data plan, and I pay $5 for 200 text messages a month. Yes, you heard that right, text messages, in the eyes of AT&T aren’t considered “data.” You get “unlimited data,” except if the data comes in the form of a text message. Even though a text message is NOTHING BUT DATA! Yes, it is, indeed, a lowlife move that is meant to do one thing- rip the consumer off. Unlimited texting for the iPhone through AT&T is $20 a month. That means their cheapest plan with the least amount of mins, the data, and the unlimited texting will run you nearly $100 a month. Imagine if you talked on the phone a lot and were forced into paying $20-40 more per month for more minutes. $140 a month for a cell phone? Ridiculous. Especially since bandwidth and cellular network prices are going down overall!
Like I said, I like my iPhone. But, I don’t doubt I’d also like any number of other phones out there. Apple is, for the most part, clueless…which is why they will never have the market share that Microsoft, for example, enjoys. Try buying a mac laptop…when you realize you can buy any number of MS-based laptops for $500 yet a macbook will cost you three times as much, you get an idea why Apple will never come close to MS. Who wants to pay three times as much for basically the same thing just to have the desktop completely backwards? Wanna close a window? Forget clicking one X, this is a mac, you’ve gotta do ten things from left to right to get it closed! Aren’t we Apple guys clever? (ick)
So, is the iPhone utlimately a great phone? I’d say, ‘no.’ It’s a good phone, but if it takes 3 tries just to get the basics right (basics that even free phones have built in), you’re either dealing with a product that isn’t all it’s cracked up to be or pure greed on the part of a confused company that tries so desperately to be “different.” Or maybe it’s a bit of both. Maybe I’m the idiot for buying an iPhone to begin with?
Dumb Move: Netflix Scrapping Account “Profiles”
Jun 18th
Netflix, which I have used for over 3 years, has an option to use different profiles on your account. You can assign a DVD to each profile…for example, if you have the 2 at a time unlimited plan, you can assign each of 2 profiles to get 1 DVD. That way, you can have a father with 1 DVD at a time out from his very own queue and a son with his own favorite movies in a queue with 1 DVD at a time out. This was nice for me because the queue’s are limited too 500 movies, so I added more movies to my second profile I created but didn’t assign it any DVD’s (I’m currently on the 1 DVD at a time plan anyhow).
This move seems odd, especially considering Netflix’s EMail I just got about it:
Important News Regarding Netflix Profiles
Dear Josh,
We wanted to let you know we will be eliminating Profiles, the feature that allowed you to set up separate DVD Queues under one account, effective September 1, 2008.
Each additional Profile Queue will be unavailable after September 1, 2008. Before then, we recommend you consolidate any of your Profile Queues to your main account Queue or print them out.
While it may be disappointing to see Profiles go away, this change will help us continue to improve the Netflix website for all our customers.
If you have any questions, please go to http://www.netflix.com/Help?p_faqid=3962 or call us anytime at 1 (888) 638-3549. We apologize for any inconvenience.
- The Netflix Team
The bold text above sounds like code to me. Code for- we have a dumb reason for doing this, but we’re going to pretend it’s going to add some improvement to your experience, except we can’t tell you anything about this supposed improvement. It’d be nice if they’d share what sort of improvement this could possibly bring.
I’ve seen many many people who are very upset over this already on various sites around the net. I can imagine few are going to be happy with this move. Will families start opening multiple accounts and pay more money? I can’t see that happening. Will some people choose to scrap one or two of their DVDs and go to a smaller plan? I can see that happening for sure. Why, with that knowledge, Netflix would make this decison, I’ve no idea…Seems dumb all around.
Dealing With Dummies
Jun 12th
I swear, it’s so annoying dealing with dumb people or dumb situations. I’m sitting here TRYING to watch Fear Itself on the local NBC affiliate’s HD feed, but I’m getting piexlation every few seconds, and the audio is completely dropping out every time it happens. I rebooted my box, but that didn’t help anything (and it usually doesn’t), and I can’t even watch this stuff it’s tiling so bad and I’m losing every other syllable.
I’ve had issues with my HD channels before, so many problems that they had to come out and install a brand new line to my place due to such a weak signal coming in. I call the cable company, explain to the woman who answers that I’m having digital breakup in my signal, I’ve had this problem before, it’s only on the HD channels so far as I can tell, and I already tried to reboot my box and that didn’t do anything.
I should mention that I was recording Fear Itself and Swington to the DVR at this time.
The first thing the lady does? She sends my box the signal to reboot it! So, there go my two shows I was recording and wanting to watch (Swingtown was fine, no issued with CBS tonight). She tells me to tune to an HD channel and see if it’s okay. I tell her the first channel I can think of is Universal HD, but I was having issues with NBC. Universal is fine, but I will need to check NBC…
“Okay sir, glad that solved your problem, thanks for calling Insight.” I don’t have the energy to stop her, beause seriously- why bother? She’ll just tell me they’ll send a tech out to look at the issue, and the only available time slots are before 3PM a week from now during the week. I will tell her I work days during the week, and that no one is here to let him in. She’ll say they have a spot a month out after 5PM. He’ll come out and reboot the box, check the signal with a meter, see it’s low, then he’ll tell me he has to call in an order with a line tech and that’ll be another week wait. Meanwhile, they give me a 2% discount for my troubles, I have no HD TV for a month, and the problem comes back in a month.
Why not just listen to me when I say I rebooted the box and it didn’t help? I wonder why they even have a technical question option when you call them, as I’m pretty sure they send you to the same exact person no matter which option you choose. The billing specialist who has been trained to say “let’s reboot your box” isn’t going to help me, and it’s surely not tech support by any definition!
No wonder cable TV companies score so low on customer satisfaction surveys.
That and some idiot spilled coke all over my keyboard (it seems), and now the arrow buttons and the number keys stick. Ugh.
The lightbulb burned out and I don’t want to go out to get another pack of bulbs, so reading more of Kevin Smith’s My Boring Ass Life is out of the question for now…
I’m off to watch Hawaii Oslo on DVD from the library…
Obama Already Starting to Scare Seniors Into Social Security Scare
May 18th
Barak Obama is starting the “scare seniors into thinking big bad Republicans will take their social security away” campaign early.
It’s rather funny, as it’s a well known tactics by Democrats to try their best to scare seniors into thinking a vote for a Republican means they will lose their soc. security benefits. True to form, Obama is doing just that by claimimg privatization would mean an end to benefits, and that he (as messiah) is simply making sure they get their money.
Unfortunately, Obama is being half honest when he claims Bush (and McCain) pushed to make accounts private. He leaves at the important aspect that accounts would be partially private, in order to make sure they money is actually there and the program doesn’t run out of money. That, and the privatization aspect was voluntary- you could sign into the private account if you wanted- giving Americans more choices in how they spend THEIR OWN MONEY.
This is, once again, an instance where Democrats think that it’s the government’s role to look after you all of your life, make sure you have the best job you could ever desire, have the luxuries you’re sometimes not willing to go out and work for yourself…the government is not a nanny, and the worst idea is to depend on the completely ineffecient government to do everything for you. Republicans understand that government is NOT the answer, that the American people are the answer with less government interference.
These scare tactics are lame, and they’re dishonest. A vote for McCain wouldn’t in any way lead to smaller benefits or an end to benefits. However, refusing to fix the problems within the system, as Obama is doing will almost surely lead to an end of the plan.
20 Questions Game- FREAKYYYYYY
Feb 16th
A guy at work told me about these handheld electronic 20 questions games, and he says it can guess what you’re thinking of even if it makes no sense…and it can do it within 20 questions. Sorta creepy. I found an online version here.
I was weirded out that it guessed I was thinking of Charlie from Lost…tho, I guess when it says “island” and “music” it’s sort of obvious…but still, how did it even get to Lost in so few questions??
Q19. I am guessing that it is Charlie Pace?
Right, Wrong, Close
——————————————————————————–
18. Are you female? No.
Are you an action/adventure? Unknown.
Do you involve someone’s death? Unknown.
17. Are you on cable T.V.? No.
16. Do you involve music? Yes.
Are you a sex symbol? Unknown.
Have you ever been in jail? Unknown.
15. Do you involve criminals? Yes.
Are you tall? Unknown.
Are you short? Unknown.
14. Are you quirky? Irrelevant.
Do you perform your own stunts? Unknown.
13. Are you American? No.
Are you in movies? Unknown.
12. Do you have special powers? No.
11. Are you about an island? Yes.
10. Are you a relatively young actor? Yes.
9. Do you have dark hair? No.
8. Are you about family life? No.
7. Are you violent? Sometimes.
6. Can you fly? No.
5. Do you involve someone who is on the run? Sometimes.
4. Are you a drama? Sometimes.
3. Were you originally a half hour TV show? No.
2. Are you still on the air? Yes.
1. It is classified as Person.
Cable Company Review: Insight VS Wow!
Dec 29th
UPDATED (Updates within body of post)
I’ve had Sigecom (which was recently bought by the horribly named company, Wow!- it stands for ‘Wide Open West’) cable since 2001. I’m a TV junkie, so moving from a small town with 33 channels to a bigger city with a cable company that offered a digital set-top box and 200+ channels was heaven to me. I remember when we moved in and I just watched TV for a week straight. I had little else to do at the time due to some changes I was making personally and professionally (so to speak).
I recently decided, thanks to a phone call from direct sales, to switch to Insight cable to save $15 a month. I’ve had Insight’s superior cable modem service since 2002 (I tried Sigecom, and they were terrible- poor service, lots of downtime, utterly clueless tech support, you name it.)
The two companies (Insight and Wow) are sort of a mixed bag together. It’s like having the best of both worlds if you had pieces from one company and pieces from the other. I wanted to take a bit to compare the two companies in the Evansville area (the channel lineup will be different in other areas, and for all I know- they might use different software and hardware in different markets.) So, what follows fits for my area, and might not fit for yours.
Wow! has stuck with the same layout, look, guide, menus, etc as we’ve had with Sigecom. Nothing has changed outside of the new name and new logos all over the place. Sigecom’s layout, menus, software and hardware, have gone unchanged for at least 3 years when they did some minor changes to the software used for the STB’s (set top boxes).
Let’s start off with the channel lineup. This is where Insight shines on the face of it all. Insight has a number of high def channels they just added that Wow! currently lacks. When I EMailed them as a customer to ask if they had plans to add any more HD channels- well, they didn’t respond to my query, even though it says they reply to every EMail within 2 business days. I guess that’s a tick against their customer service.
Wow! has the following HD channels in one HD package-
802 – PBS HD
811 – ABC HD
872 – HBO HD
804 – NBC HD
818 – A&E HD
874 – SHO HD
808 – FOX HD
819 – Big Ten HD
876 – Starz HD
810 – CBS HD
812 – HDNet HD
827 – ESPN HD
839 – HGTV HD
813 – HDNet Movies
829 – ESPN2 HD
843 – Food Network HD
821 – NFL Network HD
836 – HD Theater
871 – Universal HD
A decent lineup of HD channels. More than a most cable companies offer from what I have been able to tell. To get those channels, you have to have digital cable with a digital box. Starz! is included as part of the digital package, so the Starz! HD channel is included. Insight charges $10 a month for the Starz package, so no included Starz HD channel. But, Insight has the following HD channels Wow! doesn’t have- (Insight has all the HD channels above plus these extras):
[UPDATE/CORRECTION: Insight does NOT have all of the HD channels listed above. I noticed today that they actually don't carry HGTV HD or Food Network HD.]
TNT HD
National Geographic HD
Animal Planet HD
TLC HD
Discovery Channel HD (this is an HD mirror of the actual Discovery Channel, which is different than Discovery HD Theatre)
TBS HD
MHD (Music HD from MTV, VH1, and CMT)
So, 7 HD channels that Wow! doesn’t have. Pretty impressive. Having an HD TV, this was a big deal for me. All of these channels are 5.1- though the mixing on Discovery, TLC, and Animal Planet are a bit off- the vocal track comes from center, right, and left which is annoying- have yet to figure out of it’s the cable company or the source.
Discovery HD is a nice bonus- it’s cool to see Mythbusters in HD. I even watched a few episodes of Dirty Jobs, which I rarely watch- just to see it in HD. TLC, Animal Planet, and National Geographic I could care less about. I do like TBS HD though. My Boys and Family Guy and Ten Items or Less in High definition. Very cool.
Overall, Insight has a better lineup than Wow! outside of HD as well. Insight has GSN (game show network) that Wow! lacks. Here are some other channels Insight has that Wow! doesn’t have:
Si TV
GSN
CSPAN 3
iLife
Fuse
Sleuth
Versus
Nothing to write home about if you ask me, outside of GSN which is awesome. I’ve been bugging Sigecom for years to pick this channel up somehow. Sleuth looks decent, and Versus is the home of Dennis Miller’s new show, so that’s cool as well. The others are bonuses, but not a huge deal.
As I mentioned before- Wow! includes Starz as part of their digital package. This is very nice. Something Insight is lacking. Insight charges $10 a month for the package of 8 Starz channels. Both Insight and Wow! have all the same Starz channels. (an east coast feed of Starz, a west coast feed of Starz, Starz Cinema east and west, Starz Comedy, Inblack, Starz Edge, and Starz Kids and Family.)
So, the downside here is with Insight and it’s pricing packages. I also noticed an issue with Insight’s premium channel lineup compared to Wow! It’s considerably smaller in some areas. I have Showtime (which was free for 1 year), but none of the others right now. I used to have all the premium channels for a few years but got rid of most of them. I do notice, however, that Insight only has 4 channels of Cinemax, whereas Wow! has 8! Insight is lacking the following Cinemax channels that Wow! carries and has carried for years:
WMax (Women)
OuterMX
@Max
5StarMax
Another tick against Insight’s lineup.
Both companies have all of the available HBO channels. BUT- Wow! has a east and west coast feed of HBO Comedy and both east and west coast feeds of HBO Zone. So, they have 2 extra feeds of HBO.
Now, onto Showtime. Again, Insight is lacking where Wow! has all the available networks Showtime has to offer. This was a big disappointment to me, as I will be missing out on some good stuff.
Insight has Showtime, Showtime Extreme, Showtime Beyond, ShowCase, and Showtime Too.
Problem is- Wow! has all of these plus these following Showtime channels that Insight doesn’t offer:
Showtime Family Zone
ShoNext (GREAT channel)
Showtime Women
So, 3 channels of Showtime that Insight lacks.
I’ll add this, just because I happen to be comparing the only channel guides for Wow! and Insight- Wow! offers a number of adult channels. It seems that Insight has these all contained within the OnDemand service. I could be wrong, but I haven’t seen anything about adult channels. So, if you’re into that sort of thing- Wow! might be a better service.
Both companies offer Music Choice digital music channels. From what I can tell, it’s the same exact lineup of channels for both.
Next is where Insight outshines Wow! on a massive scale. The selections within OnDemand. Wow!’s selection is just pitiful compared to what Insight offers, and truthfully the plethora of choices from the OnDemand section is what attracted me to Insight months ago.
Wow! offers the following on demand services- HBO, Starz, Showtime, Cinemax anime! network, WWE, HereTV (gay and lesbian), Food Network, ABC News, History Channel, A&E, PBS Sprout, Disney, Toon Disney, HGTV, and I think that’s about it. They offer a sampling of spanish language programming and some generic storytime stuff for kids as well as a small selection of magazine-type offerings.
Insight, on the other hand, offers nearly 10 pages of OnDemand selections including, but not limited to- TBS, CNN, Fuse, Versus, HGTV, Food Network, MTV, VH1, CMT, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Nickelodeon, Noggin, The-N, RipeTV, TNT, and much much more.
They have so many pages of OnDemand offerings, I can’t even remember them all. Now, maybe Wow! is at capacity or something, but there’s just no excuse for having such a tiny selection here. Granted, Sigecom only started their on demand service less than 2 years ago (Insight has had it at least 5 years), but still- give me a break. There’s ultimately no excuse that would satisfy me. When I asked if they were going to add new ondemand programs, they didn’t reply to that EMail other.
So, Insight blows away Wow! with their on demand services. Completely.
I think that just about covers the programming aspect of things, so let’s move onto menus, guides, functionality.
Menus- this is where Wow! shines and Insight makes me want to toss my box out the window. Wow! has a nice clean look to their menus- everything is fast to respond, you can quickly move thru the guide and customize your settings, CC’s, SAP, and much more easily. You don’t have to do a lot of searching- it’s all in one place. In the guide view, Wow! even has a logo for each network next to the channel name- this is VERY helpful. The logo shows up in the guide view, as well as other menus, and it even shows up when you hit the info button on each channel. It’s an easy way to see a graphic to know which channel you’re on and which is which- Insight has very short abbreviations for some of the channels with no logos at all- this makes it hard sometimes to even figure out what channel you’re looking at in the guide. Insight’s menus and settings are buried under a thousand layers of nonsense. It takes forever to do anything with the way it’s all set up. Plus, Insight is clunky and slower than Wow!. Insight does do a better job with the listings in general- they use TV Guide. Not sure what service Wow! uses, but often times you can’t get full episode info. with Wow! where this doesn’t seem to be a problem with Insight.
I should note hardware. Wow! uses Scientific Atlanta boxes. I had the HD/DVR model- Explorer 8300HD. It has a 160GB hard drive. Insight has the Motorola DCT6412 which has a smaller 120 GB hard drive. Both have digital audio out as well as optical audio out and HDMI. I asked Wow! about the output for an added SATA drive, but they said it wasn’t active. Not sure if Insight has this active or not.
The Wow! remote is much easier to navigate, the buttons are where they should be- they’re not too big and not too small…it just fits well in your hand and it makes sense. The Insight remote is a different story- it’s a bit of a mess in some regards. Things are harder to find and the buttons are too crammed together.
Now, onto DVR functionality. Wow! wins this hands down. Insight’s DVR functionality is a complete disaster. With the Explorer box, you can hit a remote button to bring up your DVR section. You can hit 1 button to see recorded shows on the hard drive, another button on the remote next to it shows future recordings, and a third button next to this shows series recordings. You can edit all of this with buttons on the remote that are all in the same area. Play, Rewind, FFWd, etc. are all right near the middle for easy access.
With the Motorola box from Insight- you can hit 1 button to get to your DVR area, but it only shows you what is recorded already. Where Wow! shows a program currently recording with a big red record dot next to it, Insight does no such thing- you have to look at the box itself to see an orange light. Outside of that you have no way to stop a recording outside of deleting it from what I can tell. Silly.
Unlike Wow!, on the motorola box, to get to future recordings or series, you have to go to menu then scroll over to DVR to get to it all. Instead of a few buttons to delete a future record or change the settings, it’s a matter of going thru layer after laye of menus to do anything or make any changes. This is a major pain that motorola needs to fix if it wants to compete with Scientific Atlanta in this regard.
So, the box, the layout, the guide, the menus- the winner is definitely Wow! It’s cleaner, it’s easier, it’s faster, it’s just better.
As for customer service- so far Insight has been a pain. I ordered ALL the digital channels from the guy with direct sales. I found that I didn’t get ALL the channels. There was a $12 package I didn’t get. It was supposed to bring my modem price down $10, but that only happened with this $12 package. I had to argue with the lady to get her to see the logic of all of this. I didn’t feel like being treated like an idiot when she told me “maybe you were confused and when he said “digital channels” you thought he meant the manner in which the channels are delivered.” I wanted to smack her thru the phone, as only an idiot would confuse the two! Direct sales isn’t 100% honest it seems. I had to call about issues with channels I was supposed to get but wasn’t getting about 7 times that first day. I also had to spend around 2 hours talking to no less than 8 different customer service reps about figuring out how on earth to turn off the closed captioning. I was told by one woman that she assured me their boxes did NOT send out CC’s, it was ALL within the TV. Nonsense! I tried to explain to her I had my TV CC’s turned on and it was doubling them all- which meant it was being sent from the box and showing up on the box AND the TV. Finally, after getting all the wrong information, I talked to a woman who said “turn off the box, THEN hit “menu” to find the CC menu.” Why this was a good idea to hide the CC option- I’ve no idea, but it’s just plain stupid.
The verdict? If both companies were to merge into one and offer the best of each- it’d be a perfect match. The easy guides and menus from Wow! with the added HD and OnDemand of Insight. One can only dream. The winner, overall, is Insight I think. The added HD channels along with the massive library of OnDemand offerings as well as GSN and other channels Wow! lacks- one can look past the poor dvr functionality and the awful menus for these features, I think.
UPDATE (Jan 1, 2008): I noticed a few channels from Wow! that Insight doesn’t carry. They include ABC News Network, CNBC World, Daystar, and BYU TV. I believe Insight also lacks SHOP NBC, but I’m not 100% sure on that.
Another small update- I’ve noticed a glitch with Insight’s motorola DVR box. It won’t let me cancel future recordings properly. For some reason, it will only let me cancel some of them…if I try to cancel two in a row, it reprograms the first record to actually record again. If I go back and delete this one, it sets up the second record to actually record. Another thing- even when you cancel a record, it still populates the list but shows a red record dot with lines through it. Rather annoying. Not sure if it’s the hardware in general or if I have a faulty box…will look into this.
UPDATE 2: I found a solution (sort of) to the issue of not being able to delete all future recordings you want to get rid of:
“Simultaneous series recording cancellation problem, aka whack-a-mole
Description If you have two Series recordings scheduled at the same time (i.e. two events of separate full-season recordings at once), and you want to cancel them, it will let you cancel one OR the other, but not both. I.e. if you cancel show #1 @ 8pm it shows up as ‘Negated’ as soon as you say ‘Don’t record this episode’. But if you attempt to cancel show #2 also @ 8pm, that works… but then show #1 shows up as to-be-recorded again.
Remedy: If you cancel the recordings by going though the standard guide instead of the DVR scheduled recordings listing, it should allow you to cancel both recordings. Use one of the following methods to find the scheduled recordings in the IPG:
Press the MyDVR button, select Scheduled Recordings, highlight one of the recordings you want to cancel, then press the GUIDE button.
While watching TV, press the GUIDE button, then scroll to the scheduled recording.
Press the MENU button twice, select ‘TV listings by channel’, then scroll to the scheduled recording.
Note: This remedy does not appear to work on iGuide 74.53-3321. ”
source
Unfortunately- I guess my box has the version of iGuide listed as this doesn’t appear to work. Hopefully this issue is resolved with a future update, as it’s annoying. If I was on vacation or something (out of town), it’d mean I’d miss any number of records due to the fact that this box has such a small hard drive and HD content gobbles up so much of it so quickly.
UPDATE (Jan 5, 2008): I notice that Insight also lacks a STARZ HD feed. Wow! has had this channel for quite some time now…
I also received a reply from Insight’s customer service when I queried them about Showtime Women, Showtime Next, and Showtime Family Zone. I have pasted it below. (bummer)
Regarding your request to carry Showtime Women, Showtime Next, or Showtime Family Zone: we do not have any plans to pick up these channels at this time, although if we do receive enough requests for additional channels it would be something considered in the future.
We apologize for any inconvenience.
The Magic of Touching Up a Photo
Nov 20th
Here is a page full of pictures that have been touched up. Some of these will blow you away.
Reminds me of a few books I saw once while browsing at Barnes and Noble with before and after pics of women before they were done up with makeup and after…some of these women were downright ugly- painfully ugly, some of them…but, you add some makeup and a good stylist does some work with the hair and all, and BAM- a totally new person.
The Sheer Absurdity of the iPhone
Jul 4th
The iPhone. Oh my gosh, it’s here, it’s here! The hype on this thing is astounding.
I personally think it’s all pretty absurd. A phone for $600?! Does any normal person on the planet need a phone that costs $600 simply because it has a small hard drive ipod built in (as long as you have the $100 contract active!) and a touch screen?
There were people camped outside the AT&T store the day it came out to get their phone! Some local guy who basically begs for publicity started his ‘camp out’ at 6AM while the store was open (the store was open until 6PM, when they closed to ready the stuff, then reopened into the night.) Can I offer you a life, sir?
From what I’m reading, it will cost nearly $100 to replace the battery if you need to (you have to send it to Apple and pay a large fee and shipping charges.) Sounds good for the phone that is over half a grand!
Seems you also have to backup all of your data before shipping it out to Apple. Heaven forbid the $600 phone actually backup the data itself! That and all of this means you will be without a phone for 3-5 days! Wait, where’s my $600 phone?
I should mention, my phone (the samsung t-509) works just fine. It makes calls, sends texts, has various ringtones, alarms, calendar options, net access, a camera, a voice recorder, etc. It was free with my 1 year contract. The phone plan with unlimited nights and weekends, unlimited calling within my 5faves, and 400 monthly text messages is $50. That is too much for what you get in my view to begin with. Net access is an extra $20 a month, I think. Pricey in my book, but nothing close to what you will pay for the iPhone for some added, and somewhat useless bonus features.
Then there’s the cancellation fee of $185 according to the Boston Globe.
The top tier plan, from what I can figure from researching the issue, is $220. The complaint many seem to have with this is that even at this price, you don’t get unlimited text messaging. You pay $220 for unlimted internet and phone, but only 200 text messages! For extra texts, you have to pay at least $20 for only 200 more messages. $40 more a month for unlimited. Unlimited texting from tmobile is $15, just to compare.
If you wanted an internet PC, this might make sense. Well, probably not even then…as my cable connection running at over 10Mbps download is only $39 a month! Even after the higher price- you have to deal with the issue that iPhone runs on the EDGE network. It’s old, and it’s very slow.
Here are some complaints from various media outlets who say using the iPhone to get online makes them yearn for a dial up connection!
When it comes to basic features, the iPhone is missing some rudimentary options. You cannot even send pictures via texting. This has to be done via E-Mail. Remember, this is a $600 phone that can’t do with most free phones (free with a 1 yr contract) can do with ease.
I’m just not seeing the appeal here. At all.
Now, I’m all for new tech. I’m all for new features added to old tech that can make things better and easier or both. I don’t see how the iPhone can do that…and especially not at this absurd price. The phone itself costs way too much. The plans cost way too much. The internet speed (which is the only thing this phone seems really good at- connecting to the net in a nice format with unlimited data) is slow as a snail.
Hopefully most people will have the sense to blow past the hype and wait for a device that doesn’t literally cost an arm and a leg. I’m sure Apple will take body parts in lieu of payment, right?
HERE ARE MORE ISSUES from the site engadgetmobile
The mobile version of OS X or whatever it is the iPhone runs takes up 700MB of the device’s capacity. Damn son!
There’s no way to cut, copy, or paste text! WHOA! Big, big mistake.
No A2DP support. That, friends, is such a huge bummer right there.
Sorry, music can’t be used as a ringtone — even if it’s just a raw MP3. No additional ringtones will be sold at launch.
Adobe Flash support is officially out. It’s just not in the browser. Neither is there any other kind of embedded video support. Sorry everybody, that’s that.
It will take snaps, but won’t record video. How can Apple love YouTube as much as it does and not realize cellphone-shot movies make up a sizeable chunk of the crazy crap you find on there?
Cool Cell Phone Tricks, Tips, Sites, and Services
Jun 16th
I was searching for free software that would allow me to do voice posts from a phone to my website ‘blog’ (wordpress). I never found that software yet, but I did find this page here that lists a number of cool cell phone tricks, services, and more. There’s a service that you can use to identify songs you hear- just put the cell phone up to the speakers for 15 seconds of the song and for $3.99 a month you can get the title and artist of most any song you want. This site is called 411 Song. I tested it out (the 1st song ID is free), and it worked. I just hit play on EVERYTHING from Michael Buble, it sent me a text a min or so later telling me the song name and artist, tho it only said “Michael Bubl” without the “e” at the end there.
I also found Jott which allows you to call in voice reminders to yourself. It will translate the voice to text and E-Mail you the reminder/thought/note of interest, etc. Interesting idea, especially for me, because I always want to remember things but never have a good way to do so outside of texting myself which is a pain (and quite slow for the most part.) It looks like Jott might be free, but I haven’t tested it out yet or finished signing up, so I’m not positive.
Might try to find some other cool items and list them here later if I find any of value…
ONE THING I might mention. Personally, I find the net and the massive influx of info. in the past decade or so very confusing. Well, confusing in the sense that- in some aspects, there’s an overflow of information. I have probably (literally) 20+ E-Mail addresses, all that serve different functions sometimes…I have accounts at every site on earth (most I forget about and hardly use.) I get so many newsletters, spam, alerts, news notices, and so much more in Hotmail (my main E-Mail account) that I have over 16, 000 messages that I can never seem to make my way through. So…maybe all of this stuff isn’t making things easier. I’ll keep using most of it though. What other choice is there really?
Logitech Harmony 880 Remote
May 1st
I noticed Wal Mart has one of the Logitech Harmony remote controls. The model I saw was the 520 and runs right below 100 bucks. The reviews aren’t the best, so I went searching for a better model. I found the Harmony 880. It has a color screen and a docking station that recharges the batteries. Good thing, as the other models have no docking station, and you’d go through batteries all the time.
I have many components in my home theatre- too many in fact…I still need to get a multi-port HDMI/TOS LINK, so I have more inputs. I’m sort of in the stage where I’m having to remove one wire and plug it into something else every now and then. That’s always a pain.
Unfortunately, the price tag is a little high. I’m not sure I want to spend nearly $230 on a remote control- even though I have 7 remotes sitting on my table right next to me, and they’re starting to take over the room!
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