And of course, there’s the recent discovery that you can get by the locked phone screen by making an emergency call and double pressing the home button.

I’ve been showing the iPhone to people and suggesting they also get one because it’s such a great phone. The hardware is great. Perfect size. Lots of features. Great applications. But at this point, it’s just not stable enough for me to recommend to people. In fact, I realized that when I’ve been showing the phone to people, I’ve been trying to avoid indicating to them that it has problems. It will shut down as I’m showing it to them and I’ll just keep talking and describing the features as I turn it back on. At this point, I’m just not recommending people get it. I tell them it’s not very stable right now and there’s been a lot of problems and they may wish to wait for future updates and revisions.

In all honesty, I feel like I’m back working on the Windows platform. I have a Windows laptop from work and I hate it. Although I’m venting about my iPhone experience, while I’m at it, I might as well also note that 10.5 hasn’t been the most stable experience for me, either. And I understand Mobile Me has been a problem for people.

Oh, and on top of all that, when I returned my iPhone at the Apple Store, they had me scheduled for 6:00, but I ended up having to wait 45 minutes longer because they were backed up.

I was much happier with my Mac experience two years ago.

Awhile ago, I wanted to go to the Ubuntu website. Silly me, I forgot what the Ubuntu website address was. Did it end in .com or .org? Was it just “ubuntu” or “ubuntulinux”? So, like any other web surfer, I went to the search engine to type in Ubuntu, figuring it would be the first search result and I could just give it a click and go straight to the site. I figure, Ask.com could probably handle this; no need to expand the Google monopoly. Well, Ubuntu.com was not one of the search results for the first page and there was even an adult-oriented picture that was being displayed as one of the image search results. (Though, that image is still related to Ubuntu.) I took a screenshot, actually.

This was awhile ago when I did that search, so of course I thought I’d give it another try.  TheWikipedia entry aside, Ubuntu.com has managed to climb to the number two search result at Ask.com.  Not sure if I should be congratulating Ask or Ubuntu.  However, it does seem that the Ask.com search does still yield two particularly adult-oriented images.  Ask.com shows the results of the image search in the sidebar.

I should note that Google’s filter does also display those same two images in a search, but apparently Google favors breasts over butts.

Here’s an excerpt from the post:

I tried to log in to Apple Developer Connection this morning to find out that my password had been changed and the email associated with my account was now a yahoo.com address that wasn’t mine. Luckily, my “security question” was still the same, so I was able to reset the password and email address back.

Based on the emails that have appeared in my .Mac mailbox, this was accomplished by sending this classy one-liner to Apple:

am forget my password of mac,did you give me password on new email marko.[redacted]@yahoo.com

So a little crude social engineering to compromise your data. I’ve had and heard issues about Apple’s lack of a privacy policy, data destruction, and how they will handle repairs of their computers. But this is pretty bad.

I was a bit leary when I had to drop of my MacBook for repair and the guy asked me for my password that he proceeded to type into his “genius” computer. I was also concerned about what they would do with the backup they made of my hard drive. While I had no problems, it is apparent that the system is not setup to protect you. I remember dealing with Dell and Gateway, they’d ask you to remove your hard disk before sending in a laptop for repair.

Does anyone else have any Apple stories like this?

The mouse response felt sluggish and unnatural. When trying to be precise it felt sticky and jerky. I first thought the bluetooth was a lame interface and the source of my issues, but that was not the case. It was my second suspicion that was confirmed… the problem lies with the mouse acceleration curve (it’s software, it’s in an OS X driver setting, and it can be easily fixed by Apple). But, alas, OS X has no setting for acceleration and apparently has not had one for a long time. The cause and some solutions to the problems of the “feel” of the mouse in OS X has been well described. Read the article, it’s a great overview.

So how do we fix this feeling like our mousepad is a piece of fly paper? Well, my suggestion is to download MouseFix 1.2, a free program by Richard Bently. Why do you want this solution? First, because it’s free. Second, because in version 1.2 someone copied the acceleration parameters from Windows! Get it, run it, it’s great. I suggest setting the acceleration factor command line parameter to 1.8 (the default is 2)… so run it like:

./MouseFix 1.8

After that, play with your tracking speed for your mouse to dial in what feels good. If you are on a laptop, you’ll probably also need to decrease the tracking speed of your trackpad to dial it in. At first you may not like the new feel because you have spent years and years as an unsatisfied user who has eventually gotten used to crap. But after a short period you’ll find it’s much better, even the trackpad is much nicer to use after the fix.

Have fun actually being able to click on things now!

Oh, and as a final rant, why is this issue so infuriating. Because I spent $70 for a mouse… just because it matches my laptop! For double to triple what a good mouse should cost I expect perfection, or at least something pleasurable and effective to use. Yes, this was not a hardware problem, but since Apple controls the whole ecosystem the software that integrates the hardware should be perfect. And anyway, the hardware isn’t even that nice… the “squeeze” feature requires a hard squeeze that is uncomfortable, I sometimes miss-click the left vs right buttons, the ergonomics aren’t that great, and the features that work well are no better than any other $15 mouse. I hate that I am now bought into Apple and form comes before function… except for my iPhone, few complaints over that!

This is when I got a little frustrated. When I don’t have internet, I can’t get work done and I don’t have any entertainment. I spent the evenings playing single player video games and staying afloat with my iPhone.

So that very night I ended up getting in touch with Astound. They were incredibly responsive. They told me they could have a tech out by Monday to install everything for me. Considering there was a weekend and they were getting me this in shorter time than AT&T, I was quite pleased with that. Moreover, they had much better options for getting a cable modem. They came out and set everything up that Monday perfect. I came home from work and had internet. Ran a speed test and everything was just as it should be.

But back to AT&T. Now that I had found a solution with Astound, I had to call and cancel service with AT&T. They put me through to some “customer retention department” or something. I explained I wanted to cancel my service. They asked why and I explained it was because I wasn’t getting any service. (It’s not my intention to hassle these poor phone operators, so please don’t misunderstand my tone. It was very calm and constructive.) The young lady offered me a month of free service or something like that. I explained that the cost wasn’t the issue and I would gladly pay $100 a month of I could be certain I would receive reliable service. I told her I would like to cancel everything unless she could somehow guarantee that my future experiences with customer service would be responsive and ultimately satisfactory. She agreed to continue with canceling my order. She then proceeded to tell me I would be charged $40 for AT&T activating the line. I had to explain to her several times my unwillingness to pay because I never got a dial tone and did not want to pay for service that I never received. She told me there was some sort of FCC thing that said they had to. I’m certain she didn’t know what she was talking about.

She ended up sending me to a supervisor, but as that was going on, she told me her supervisor had noticed that charge was waved for me when I first ordered the service. So this wasn’t even an issue. I did end up speaking with the supervisor, but she was incredibly rude and self-righteous. In speaking with her, all I wanted to do was to confirm the situation and ensure I would be receiving no charge. Even when I tried to repeat what she had just told me to make sure I understood, she would interrupt.

And here’s the other thing, the DSL modem ended up arriving late. They told me to just refuse to accept it when it arrived so it would be returned to them. It did not arrive on Saturday as they had told me it should, since it didn’t arrive on Friday.

I really am annoyed enough with AT&T to want to ditch them on my cell phone. If I weren’t locked into AT&T with my iPhone… ugh…

But much thanks to Astound. I can’t speak for all customers and I don’t know them very well as a company. But I had a very positive experience with them thus far and wanted to note that.

From the Cents website: “We never realize how much we spend on the little things in life… but it all adds up. This pocket app will help you keep track of your little spendings and show you how much you’ve spent.”

Check it out!  Requires Leopard, $4.99.

(Sorry the video stalls a bit.)