Alan C Francis > Blog

My Keyboard Got Isaaced

My Keyboard Got Isaaced
Originally uploaded by alancfrancis.

--
http://www.alancfrancis.com/
http://www.cardboardsoftware.com/
http://www.scotlandonrails.com/

jello biafra

jello biafra
Originally uploaded by alancfrancis.

avoiding forth bridge traffic in 'frankie and bennys'

avoiding forth bridge traffic in 'frankie and bennys'
Originally uploaded by alancfrancis.

the family in the glen

the family in the glen
Originally uploaded by alancfrancis.

--
sent from my phone

alan and jer at rugby

alan and jer at rugby
Originally uploaded by alancfrancis.

--
sent from my phone

Pictures from our holiday in Elie

Elie: Isaac's Hidey Hole
Originally uploaded by alancfrancis.

We had a magic week on the beach.

Closing Time

I suspect this will be last post on this blog.

I'm mostly putting the short 'personal' stuff on tumblr, and anything longer and more work related will be going to Cardboard Software (my fledgling company).

That kind of leaves this typepad blog as just a place to bitch about Apple.  And who needs that.

If you've got me (and want to keep me) on RSS, I'd switch to the Stalkr Feed now :-)

CrapBook

My crappy black MacBook has another problem.  The infra-red receiver seems to have self-destructed, which is irritating as I'm giving a talk tonight and won't be able to use my remote.

I'll be taking the CrapBook into the shop for repair on Saturday, and may not get it back for a couple of weeks.  Hence, I'm likely to be away from most email, IM, blogging etc for a while.

I'm heartily sick of it.   I was actually browsing eBay today for second hand G4 iBooks and PowerBooks as a replacement.

Just to be absolutely clear - still a MacFan.  My 15" PowerBook G4 was absolutely great.  Jane's 12" iBook G4 is totally problem free for nearly 3 years.  The 15" iMac G4 that Isaac uses has never had a problem for the same nearly 3 years. 

There are a few other 1st gen MacBooks here in the team and all of them have had some problem or another (not quite as bad as mine).  The lesson learned?  Don't buy the first version of anything.

Apple redeem themselves again.

Dear Alan,

I apologize for any frustration this iTunes Plus upgrading issue has caused, and appreciate your patience throughout this. I understand that you were not able to upgrade your library with iTunes Plus due to errors. I am happy to hear that this issue has been resolved on both of your accounts.

To thank you for your understanding, I have issued four free song credits to your account "xxxxxxxx". I am issuing four credits, which are meant for two credits per account afflicted. If you are currently logged into the iTunes Store, please sign out and then log back in. This will fully refresh the account, and the credits will appear in the top right hand corner.

Thank you for being an iTunes Store customer.

Sincerely,

Xxxxxx
iTunes Store Customer Support

MacBook Pro line updated

The new units ship with either 2.2 GHz or 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo (Santa Rosa) processors, upgraded NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT video cards (with either 128 MB or 256 MB of VRAM), new mercury-free LED displays, and a minimum of 2 GB of RAM (yay!) with support for 4 GB (YAY!). The slot-loading optical drive has also been updated to 8x, in line with the MacBook configs. Apple also notes that the 17-inch model 'offers a new optional 1920-by-1200 high-resolution display, providing over 30 percent more screen real estate than the standard 1680-by-1050 display.' The 802.11n version of the Airport Extreme card rounds out the feature package.

(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).)

Stalk Me

I set up iStalkr with my blog, tumblr, flickr, twitter, last.fm and del.icio.us feeds.  Now you can stalk my every move.  Feed here.

iTunes Plus

So I went to iTunes store and switched on the Plus option.

I had the option to 'upgrade my library' which I selected. 6 albums and 5 tracks were eligible for upgrade at a cost of 10 quid. So I hit the buy button and get this:

I clicked the 'FAQ' link and got a nice error box (-98something something).

I filled in the form to mail support and mentioned in passing I'd looked for an option to selectively upgrade, so I could find which track was the problem. The response (boilerplate + marketing) is after the jump.

I wish the alternatives weren't so damn horrible or I'd drop Apple like a stone right now. Crappy laptop, lousy developer support, appalling customer support (at least read the whole mail, dont just buzzword scan!)

Two Revolutions

Well.

My little, half-empty talk at RailsConf was about XP and Rails and how one has bled into the other.

It seems that topic has struck a chord with a few people.

I'm not saying the talk told martin or Glenn anything they hadn't already been thinking, but I do think having it at the start of the conference drew attention to the idea for the rest of it.

Update:I bashed this post off in a bit of a hurry, so perhaps didn't say what I was trying to say :-) I'm not claiming the idea for my own, just that the talk was well timed, talking directly about somethinn that clearly has been on a few minds. Hopefully thats cleared things up. :-)

I aim to redraft the talk as an article or two and they'll be appearing soon.

Apple - more sucky customer relations

I just went to buy an ADC select membership.  I've done this before, in December of 2004, when my bank accounts were in the UK, but I was living in Australia.

At that time, I paid my 499USD (the advertised price) and they shipped the materials to Australia for me.

I went to renew and was informed when I added the 499 product to my basket that my cart would reflect local currency. They want to charge me 329 pounds (654 USD).  What's the reason for this 155 dollar 'tax' ?  Living in the UK, according to the customer service rep I spoke to.   

Seems strange they could post it to Australia, but not the UK.  And I'm not sure whether they can legitimately claim that my cart reflected local currency (which would 251UKP according to the universal currency converter).

Digesting RailsConf 2007

Digesting RailsConf 2007: "All in all, a spectacular extended weekend."