Tag Archive for: Apple

Customer Service

My MacBook developed a crack along the wrist rest due to the lid’s impressions on the surface. It was a common problem with the model that I have and is covered under the AppleCare plan. The same thing happened to a friend of mine and several other people on the internet. It was one of those flaws that were just cosmetic and didn’t inhibit the use of the computer.

This past weekend I finally had time to take it to West County Mall’s Apple store to get it fixed. I made an appointment with a Genius and they took a look at it, gathered information and grabbed the part from the back before anyone else could. The Genius told me it would be ready in 2-3 days. I was kind of bummed because I heard reports of it taking 20 minutes if they have the part in stock. Apparently they were quite busy with repairs. So, I leave expecting it to take 2-3 days. 3 hours later I get a call from the Apple store telling me it’s ready to be picked up. I hate fanboys as much as anyone, but I can see why people like Apple so much. People rave about the customer service they experience when buying an Apple product and now I can too.

iTunes Problem Leads to New Solution

Friday night I plugged my iPhone into my computer and let it sync. Next thing I know, all the apps on my iPhone were deleted and some of the songs and videos that were on the iPhone were removed as well. It’s no secret I really do not like iTunes, especially with how slow and buggy iTunes 8 is, so when I started iTunes the other day and it told me the library was corrupted and it backed up the corrupted file and loaded up a new, I thought nothing of it. Typical iTunes being stupid and not working how it’s supposed to. I never thought that the broken library file would effect my syncing, but it did. I’m guessing because the file was broken, the new one it created didn’t have all the music and applications that it should have. Therefore, when my iPhone synced, it deleted the things on the iPhone that did not exist in the library.

I added the applications, music, and podcasts back into iTunes. The problem was knowing what songs were deleted from the iPhone. I add only checked files, but that doesn’t always work (because iTunes sucks). So sometimes I have to add them to a playlist in order for them to sync, even though they are checked to sync. Trying to figure out which ones were in a playlist or already on the iPhone would take forever. That’s when I decided to do a little searching. That’s when I found this post. Basically, what I did was create a smart playlist that included items that I check. As soon as I check an item, it is added to the playlist. If I uncheck, it is deleted. I set up my iPhone to sync that playlist, now every song that I check is synced with my iPhone. It’s the easiest way I’ve found to manually manage the music to sync. So, iTunes breaking and not doing things right made me find a solution that I never knew about that will save me a lot of time. Of course, if iTunes “just worked” I wouldn’t have had to search for a solution in the first place.

My iPhone

I’ve only had my iPhone for a day and I am in love with it. I love being able to get on wifi networks on my phone, having a full html browser, the applications. To be honest, while the phone is great, I don’t know if I’d ever buy it if it didn’t allow 3rd party applications. That’s what makes the iPhone truly great. I love being able to be in contact with people anywhere, whether it be email, IM, twitter, or whatever.

This is my home screen on the iPhone

This is my home screen on the iPhone

The email on the phone is fantastic and looks just like it does in Outlook. Now, if our work webserver goes down, I can be notified right away if I’m not at the computer. Twinkle is great for a Twitter client. I tried Twitterific, but whenever it would launch it would crash right away. Probably my favorite has-some-use app has to be Shazam. You let it “listen” to part of a song and it will tell you what song it is. That should come in handy whenever I’m in the car and don’t know the song.

Another cool app, and this one cost, is the MLB At Bat. When I bought it I thought I was just getting

The second screen of my iPhone

The second screen of my iPhone

the box scores and the Who’s On stuff, but no. They did more than that. They update the games with video highlights as they are going on, so you can watch the highlights of the game. And the video quality is amazing. Other great apps that I’ve tried are Facebook, Last.fm, The New York Times, and Google. The Google one is a little pointless because you can get to all their stuff via the Safari web browser. It is kind of nice though because it is a quicker way to get to those things. All in all I’m extremely happy with the phone thus far. And I’ve not even used it to watch movies or listen to music yet. It was a great purchase and I can’t wait to see what other cool apps come out for it.

Computer Frustrations

I’ve been really frustrated with my Windows Vista box. When I first got the machine, last summer, I loved Vista. Now, with each day, I tend to loathe it more and more. This is due to many frustrations I have with it.

Things seem to freeze all the time. Whether it’s Internet Explorer (yes, I use it to check the compatibility of websites I work on), Windows Explorer, Windows Sidebar, or pretty much anything else. I don’t run a lot of programs at once and have 2gb of RAM (which Windows while idling uses about 44% of) and these things still freeze.

Things just don’t work. Windows Media Center is a piece of crap and can’t play DVDs without freezing or taking forever to load. I went to burn a cd this morning using Nero and clicked “Burn” forgetting to put in the cd. No problem, Nero notified me and I put in the blank disc. What’s that? Windows decided to drop the drive altogether? Nice. So then I had to reboot the machine so it would pick up drive. All to burn the cd.

Another factor weighs in on my continuing hatred for Vista. My MacBook. While I do find some faults with OSX, for the most part, it’s a good OS. It’s fast on my MacBook, there’s good software, and the look and feel is great. And I never run into any of the problems I run into on Windows. My next desktop computer is going to be a Mac. Too bad that won’t be for a while.

I could install Linux on it, which I do have Ubuntu installed via Wubi, but I don’t want to have to do a lot of work to get something to just work. I don’t want to go around the bend to get my ATI card to work to it’s full potential all while sacrificing other aspects of an environment I like (If I want to use the ATI drivers for desktop effects I can’t play games or have a screensaver because the screen flickers while doing those things). Too bad OSX won’t work on PC hardware (without mass amounts of hackery).

Stand in Line for Me

So, the day that the iPhone 3g comes out, July 11th, I will be having my wisdom teeth removed.  All four of them.  What I need to do is find someone to go stand in line and buy one for me at one of the AT&T stores or the Apple store.  That way when I leave the surgeon, in complete agony, I will have something to do while I rest up and float high on Vicodin.  So, to my lovely sisters and/or brother-in-law, if you would like to volunteer for this tremendous oppourtunity to help out a person in need, I would appreciate it a great deal.  I might even make it worth your while (no, I will not buy you an iPhone).