Category: General

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General Tech

Windows 7 Beta Downloading

The big thing this week  is Windows 7 being released on 1/9 sometime in the afternoon.  I figured I’d wait till later in the day to download to avoid the rush.  I guess even Microsoft underestimated the demand.  You couldn’t get to the Microsoft site.  Microsoft eventually pulled the software so that they could add more servers.  (You would think they would talk to VeriSign or other large content provider and discuss P2P technology offerings.)

So I decided to wait till Saturday. I checked the site throughout the day and at my 3:15pm check, the link was there to start the download.  After logging into Live Id and answering a short questionnaire, I got my product key and the opportunity to download. 

Lucky me, the  download button didn’t work.   My Mac’s Firefox was setup to allow all cookies, etc.  Nothing.  I couldn’t figure it out. So I figure, let me fire up Safari and try with that program.  Again, nothing.

On a goof, I RDC’d into a WinXP VM I have running on my Ubuntu server and lo and behold – the download button worked.  The button attempts to install an ActiveX control from Akamai.  You would think that Microsoft would mention that someplace on the website so that downloaders that aren’t using a Microsoft OS would know what the issues were.

In any event – the download was FAST!  I had the entire x64 version downloaded in just under 40 min.  Earlier in the day, I had started a bit torrent download as a backup plan and even with 1700 people online, I was still at 1% after 3 hours!!  But that was for an unofficial bit torrent on a shady service.  If done correctly, P2P could have beaten the 40 min download that I eventually had.

So now off to creating a VM on my Mac to see if I can get Windows 7 installed.  I haven’t mentioned this yet, but after my last VM Fusion upgrade to 2.0.1, I totally messed up my main Vista VM to the point where when it boots, all networking on the Mac goes away.  It time for a new VM and I’m thinking it’s going to be Windows 7

Categories
Blogging General Tech Tip

Dated Material

I’ve help develop a couple of websites lately and I’ve been bitten once again by dated material found on the Internet.  I seriously hate it when you are doing research and you encounter what you think is a great page with pertinent data only to find out you based all your research on ‘yesterday’s’ technology/views/opinions.  I guess I’ve been running out of patience to do thorough work in some aspects.  Yet, I do think that anyone that attempts to share information, they should put it into context or at the very least put a date on their article/comment.

On this blog, I’ve been a little re-miss as well.  I’ve taken the easy route and just have the blogging software display the date that the article was published or edited.  I think I’ll need to do more than that as a vanity search has proven that people have been reproducing info from this site (thank you btw for stopping by and I do hope you found the information useful) and basically the reproduce information was ‘archaic’ as one commenter mentioned.  Now I’m not saying that I have any control of what people do with the information I post – but I think I’ll make more of a concerted effort to inform all readers that the information on this site has a limited usefulness lifespan.

Thanks!
JT

Categories
General Tech

Apple "Bricked" my iPhone

 Iphone<RANT>

Looks like the activation servers for iTunes are seriously swamped with requests.  Looks like their capacity planning folks failed in their job and didn’t anticipate the demands for a world wide roll-out of a new iPhone and a firmware upgrade of older iPhones and IPod Touch devices.  Well, it’s not like they had MONTHS to prepare for it.

</RANT>

So when I plugged my phone this morning, iTunes popped up and told me that the v2.0 was ready and if I’d like to install it.  uhm… Hell yes!  iTunes downloaded the new firmware, backed up my phone, placed the new firmware on the phone and restarted the phone.  Once the phone is back online, it was to go back to iTunes and ‘re-activate’ (I guess).  Since the servers are swamped, I get an unknown iTunes Store error of -9838.

The phone can now only be used for emergency phone calls.  Which is very disappointing – but I’m also a little relieve to see that the Apple had the ability to put that functionality into the phone without the phone being activated.

Anyway – don’t call me… at least for a few hours.  Hopefully Apple will fix their issues and I’ll be in v2.0 Heaven soon.

-JT

Categories
General

Balance…

I really need to find some sort of balance in my life.  I tend to fixate on a particular thing for a long period of time and then move on to the next – dropping the original item like a hot rock.  This time is different.  The last few weeks I’ve been looking for a job.  My wife has had enough of me giving my opinion around the house and wants me out.

So in the last few weeks I’ve been concentrating on the employment process.  Which I think I could write a book on now.  Since I have a couple of good leads, I thought it would be okay to find a more balanced work/life equilibrium.  So I’ll post a few very quick entries on the interesting stuff I’ve seen lately and have personally experienced.

Categories
General

Case-Mate Naked Case

Finally got my Naked Case from Case-Mate. The case was on back-order for 3 weeks and the wait was worth it! The case has very clean lines and doesn’t interfere with the look of the iPhone. I’ve put on the phone and haven’t taken it off since getting it.

My biggest concern was the ability of the touch screen retaining it’s responsiveness with the cover on. The Naked Case ‘s cover does such a good job, it’s like it’s not even there. I’m very impressed.

There are only two issues I have with the phone:

  1. The case doesn’t fit into the dock included with the iPhone. According to the site, it should fit in a Universal dock… what’s that? Of course, I’ll have to get one because I didn’t spend a ton of money on the cosmetics of the workspace to just leave the iPhone laying on the desk with a cable attached to it.
  2. The screen cover maybe a little too snug. The first few attempts on putting the cover on ended up with large sections of the screen “touching” the cover. This creates a darker patch and looks like an inverse “bubble”. After several attempts of cleaning and resetting the cover, I’ve got the “bubble” to livable amount. I’ll have to look on their site to see if this is a common issue.

Overall, the case is great. If you have an iPhone, do yourself a favor and take a look at the video they have on their site. Also, check out the close up pictures at iLounge.

-JT