Alliston, what a town. They have a retirement home lodge right next to a graveyard, a school across from a funeral parlour, and a combination Fish and Chips + Thai cuisine restaurant.
Archive for November, 2008
I own a bit of vinyl, and I love sitting around listening to it while reading a book, or similar relaxing activity. The only problem is that I’m unable to capture these listening sessions to my last.fm profile. I’ll admit that I have (once or twice) played the album in iTunes on mute while spinning the album just so I could capture the tracks, but even I’m to lazy to do this every time. Well, it looks like someone has hacked together an interesting solution using Shazam, an iPhone, and a simple ruby application. Shazam is an amazing application that can listen to any 10 seconds of a song and tell you what that song is. A short talk discussing how the hack went down is available at the aforementioned link. This solution is crude, but it shows it is possible.
The International Space station is celebrating its 10th birthday this month, and the Boston Globe has collected an assortment of high quality images to celebrate the event. [via Gizmodo]
An article was recently posted at cnet news claiming that The Dark Knight will be the most pirated movie of 2008, and goes on to lampoon pirates of stealing money from the coffers of big business, and being the cause of a lack of quality entertainment (like The Dark Knight). I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that The Dark Knight is going to be the best selling DVD/Blu-Ray title of the holiday season, breaking a number of sales records. I’m still of the mind that most people who pirate movies do so because they can, and they would probably never have bought the item otherwise. I’ll have to remember to look up the data come the new year.
Google recently added millions of photos from LIFE to their archives. Search images that date from th 1750′s to today.
Surfline has an amazing 30 page spread on the geography and other factors that interact to create one of the most amazing waves in the world. Pipeline is an epic wave located at Oahu’s North Shore and is the final stop on the WPT schedule. It’s heavy and gnarly. I want to see it.
A study released shows that BlackBerry’s have a failure rate of 11.9% after the first year, while the iPhone comes in with a failure rate of 5.6%. Don’t those values seem a little high?
What will the develop next? A group of computer programmers at the University of California San Diego have developed a bit of software that can convert a photo of a key into the actual thing. The software examines the image, wraps it around some stock keys, then spits of a 5 or 6 digit code that tells a key cutter where to cut.
The Preamble
Oh the horrors of bleeding edge technology and the companies that push them as ‘stable’ and ‘useful’. Those of you who support RIM products will probably enjoy the next few paragraphs, but let me just defend myself one last time and point out the crummy support Blackberry’s provide for Mac computer users. If the Blackberry played nicely with my computer I’d get one of those. But let’s not let the Bold off the hook, as it too has had many reported 3G network problems, while the iPhone has not been without complaint since its debut. From what I’ve heard my problem is with Rogers and their 3G network, and not the iPhone specifically. But I digress.
The Problem
I picked up a 3G iPhone last week to replace my dying Motorola flip phone. I’m currently involved in some work that requires I have access to the Internet when I’m away from my computer, so I figured the iPhone was the solution I was looking for. With advertised 3G speeds and wi-fi I would be covered pretty much anywhere I travel. Everything was well and fine until a couple of friends let me know that when they called me they got a busy/network error beep after a few rings. They’d call the number again right after and the second try would go through. However on my end I never received any indication of the first attempted phone call, while on other occasions I would get one ring followed by a missed call message. Having finally received a call from a friend i was startled to experience no less then 4 dropped calls during the conversation. My other job hinges on me receiving phone calls and not dropping any calls. If I don’t receive a call, or if the call is dropped I don’t make any money, so one can see how these two habits of my new phone could be devastating.
The Call to Rogers
I made the call to Rogers technical support, and after the mandatory 15 minutes on hold I was met with a real person ready to solve my problem. They made sure I was running the latest software update (2.1) and had tried a hard reset, as that sometimes gets the phone back on the network. They then suggested I try turning 3G off and just using the Edge network. If I did not drop/miss calls on the Edge network then I should leave 3G off and just turn it on when I wanted to use data.
Ummm, excuse me? Your solution to my problem is to have me go into my settings when ever I want to use data to turn 3G on? Ok, but what happens if I get a phone call while I’m using data, and that call then drops or is missed?
They told me to take a day and try it on Edge to see if I drop any calls. I made a few 20-40min calls to test and no calls were dropped. I turned 3G back on and tried the phone and sure enough within 10 minutes I would get a ‘call failed’ message on my phone. I called Rogers back today to follow up on my problem. After another 15 minutes on hold I talked to a technician who gave me the same solutions, and also suggested that it might be my SIM card, and told me to go to a Rogers store (on a nice sunny Saturday in November) and have them put a new SIM card in. If the calls still drop I should call back and they will try another solution. It was at this point that I grew ever more frustrated and asked to speak with a customer service rep about my situation.
The Frustration
My frustration is that I was sold a phone that utilizes Canada’s fastest high speed wireless network with the network that has the fewest dropped calls, and this is what they told me when I was buying the phone. They never made mention of this apparent common 3G problem. My other frustration is that I was loosing out on income because my phone was not receiving calls. I expressed these frustrations, along with the fact that I know had to spend my Saturday in line at Rogers to try and fix a problem that should not exist with a brand new phone. For my troubles Rogers credited my account $50. Gee, thanks Rogers, that really helps (please note this sentence is laced with sarcasm).
The Story Continues
I spent my Saturday waiting at Rogers store for them to try a new SIM card that resulted in the same dropped call problem I’ve been describing above. They instructed me to call back Rogers and tell them I went to the store and tried a new SIM card that did not solve the problem. They suggested that Rogers send me a new iPhone, and if that phone performed the same they would know it was a network issue. I called Rogers back and proceeded to spend 20 minutes on hold before speaking with a technical support person who told me they have been experiencing 3G network problems and my ticket would be escalated and I would be issued a ticket number that I would use in 3 days when they called me back. They took my nearest intersection and suggested that I use the phone in Edge until I hear back from them.
The Conclusion
My iPhone has been missing and dropping calls while on 3G, so I called Rogers and managed to get a $50 credit from them, and after many phone calls and hours on the phone they have told me to use the phone with 3G off while they investigate network issues in my area. That investigation should take about 3 days. The technical support people openly admit that dropped calls are a ‘common’ problem on the iPhone, yet the sales people aren’t so forthright with this information during the sale (should I expect anything less?). It’s funny that after you explain your problems, and they admit their problems and don’t offer any real solutions, they still end there calls with, “Thank you for choosing Rogers”.
So I guess we will see what transpires over the next few days. I really enjoy the functionality of the iPhone, along with its wi-fi abilities and other tricks, but am just frustrated that I can’t use 3G, as I can’t risk not receiving calls.
Update (11/06/2008): It has been 5 days if you count Sunday, or 4 days if you don’t, since I placed my last call to Rogers. They indicated that they would get back to me within 3 days regarding my ticket number. Nice of them to keep their word. I love how they say, “We’ll call you back within 3 days, but if we forget then you call us.” Way to put the onus on your customers to fix their own problems with your network. That is brilliant consumer relations.
Update 2 (11/06/2008): I received a call from Rogers tonight about my problem. It came directly from a tech who wanted a bit more information on my problem. He texted me some instructions on what he would like me to do with m phone and 3G, and asked that I text him back in 24h to report, or to text back as soon as I experience a dropped call. I’m mildly impressed by this service. Here are the directions he gave me to ‘fix’ 3G:
Under ‘Settings-General-Network’ set ‘Enable 3G’ to On. Wait 20 seconds. Under ‘Settings-General-Reset’ select ‘Reset Network Settings’. Wait 20 seconds. Press top button for 5 seconds until ‘slide to power off’ appears. Power off for 30 seconds. Turn power back on and monitor both calls in and out.
Update 3 (11/09/2008): I’ve been using my iPhone since Friday afternoon with 3G turned on (having performed the steps listed above) and have not experienced any dropped calls, and don’t think I have experienced any missed calls. However I don’t feel confident enough to leave 3G on during the week when I can’t afford to miss or drop any calls. I’m not sure what evidence I have to back this up, but it feels like the dropped/missed call issue is something that creeps back after a while, and will require a network reset to fix again (sort of like how the iPhone needs to be turned off every few days to maintain proper functioning). The rub is that the indication that the iPhone needs to be reset/the network needs to be reset is a missed or dropped call — and at that point the damage has already been done.
Update 4 (11/10/2008): It seems I spoke to soon yesterday. I just experienced two missed calls with 3G turned on. The caller informed me it rang twice before giving them the ‘busy’ signal, and the second time they tried it rang busy right away. My phone rang once on both calls only to display ‘missed call’ after one ring. I have informed the tier 2 tech support person who is working on my account.
Update 5 (11/21/2008): I have have no further communication from tech support at Rogers regarding my missed call issues, despite having a tier 2 tech on sms-speed-dial. I continue to use my phone in Edge mode when I know I might be receiving important calls, and occasionally switch over to 3G in the evening and on weekends when I am out and need to use data. Apple has released v2.2 of the iPhone firmware today, and some of the promises are fewer dropped calls. Has anyone running 2.2 experienced better performance on the Rogers 3G network?
Update 6 (11/25/2008): Having upgraded to v2.2 I am still experiencing missed/dropped calls. I called Rogers today to re-open my ticket and got through within 3 minutes. I talked to a wonderful support person who was very knowledgeable about the problem, and actually expressed that he was upset that Rogers keeps giving people the run-around when it is obviously a network problem. He then went on to say that he has spoken to people who have the Bold and the iPhone, and the Bold does NOT drop calls when on 3G, so this makes it sound like it is an iPhone problem. He went over my account, and since we had documented all my previous calls he was able to get authorization to send me a new iPhone. I am pretty confident it won’t fix my problems, but if it does great. If it doesn’t at least I have a newer device to live with. I don’t blame the support folks on the phone, as they aren’t the ones making decisions about network capacity or (if it is an iPhone problem) the inner workings of devices. It’s not their fault, so I make it a point not to take out my frustrations with my Rogers service on them.
Update 7 (12/02/2008): I just received my replacement iPhone via UPS. This being Canada, and December, the new phone is freezing cold (as it’s probably been on the truck all day). I’m going to wait until tomorrow night to make the switch to the new phone. Hope the cold doesn’t affect the phone in any adverse ways (i.e. screen problems or the insides getting damp from the thaw).
Update 8 (12/17/2008): I still don’t trust 3G enough to leave it on full-time. I forgot it was on when I placed a call on Monday evening and my call promptly dropped within the first 5 minutes. I switch back to Edge and was able to complete my call that lasted about 20 minutes. I haven’t had 3G on since this new dropped call and haven’t found the time to call Rogers to update my file. I want to make sure I bug inform them every time I have a problem so that it’s easier to negotiate compensation for this on going problem.
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