chronovore: (furious)
More fun in the new world: The place which advertised out-of-warranty iPhone repairs does not, for some reason, repair iPod Touch.

A long story, short: my iPod Touch headphone jack went flaky 3 weeks ago, which was 6~7 weeks past its one-year warranty. Apple wants 23,200 yen to give me a refurb unit, but recommended buying a new, same-capacity unit for 29,980 yen. Because of a 100 yen headphone jack. I have been pissed off since then.

Last night I called the US support line, and they reiterated the same policy: After 12 months, "it is a gamble" to own the iPod without extending the warranty through AppleCare, and the cost of my unknowingly cast bet is 199USD. This advice was not endearing.

During lunch today, I took a rushed trip by train to Nipponbashi to again visit the shop which had been closed on Tuesday. This time it was open, but the first thing the guy said was "Oh, this is an iPod. We do iPhones..."  He was helpful and gave the old college try to open the iPod, but the sucker-grip used for iPhone didn't work, and jimmying it with a guitar pick didn't have any more luck. He couldn't get it open and was worried about warping the case, especially since they didn't carry replacement cases. At this point, I'm considering shipping it to one of the US-based, third party repair places, then getting them to ship it to my sister, and having her bring it with her in June.

Also "at this point," I'm pretty sure that my current set of Apple goods are the last ones I will buy. Apple suggesting that a 13-month-old, 500USD piece of kit should be repurchased over a headphone jack, combined with the cascade of problems my refurb PowerBook had, with which Apple dealt so gracelessly, Apple is no longer the apple of my eye. My planned iPad purchase, my MacBook replacement for the still-ailing PowerBook, are no longer in the works. If Softbank gives me a free iPhone I won't refuse it, but I'm done sending Apple my money.

深津

Sep. 18th, 2008 07:33 pm
chronovore: (Default)
My Mac is back, after a nice guy in the IT department replaced my hard drive. 160GB Ultra SATA HDD for ¥5900. If I'd known I could get double the storage for about US$55, I'd have broken the damned thing sooner. ;-P

I'm just happy to have the thing back online...
chronovore: (furious)
Firefox 3's latest release candy-date runs snappily on my aging PowerBook; I'm able to put aside Safari again and regain parity with my other computers again!
chronovore: (Default)
I just KNEW there was more music in my iPod than I was hearing! Despite clearly setting preferences to be as random as possible, I kept hearing the same songs over and over. So I made a new Smart Playlist which contains only songs which haven't been played in the last two weeks, and it auto-updates every time I sync my iPod.

Now I'm hearing the other half of my library. Woooooot!
chronovore: (mouthy)
Salt Lake Tribune - Apple's new OS has its claws out for Microsoft:
Time for an OS smackdown. Turn to page E3 for a point-by-point comparison by Tribune staff writer Vince Horiuchi, who has tested both systems.
chronovore: (furious)
I had... storage issues with MS Word as well as our asset management application at work yesterday, which started me off cleaning. And then I couldn't stop.
  • work Inbox
  • work mail DMZ which has been languorously loitering for an embarrassingly long time
    (note: this hack works with a messy desktop just as well)
  • work HDD
    • deleted heaps of music that I have on my iPod
    • deleted movies that i've been telling myself that I'd watch -- for the past two years
    • deleted completed, archived project files
    • consolidated remaining media into one location
  • home iTunes Library, because there were a heap of duplicate files; i had over 300MB of them, apparently due to the way I'd transferred my library from previous machines and backups - here's a neat trick to get rid of them, from my friend K
  • home external HDD (to make space for the iTunes stuff, above)
  • Xbox Live messages folder
  • did the dishes
chronovore: (furious)
TiVo fears new open source license will harm business - Engadget:
As if TiVo honestly needed any more reasons to fear for its life, it looks like the forthcoming version of the General Public License could actually do more "harm to its business." It the firm's most recent regulatory filing, it warned that the third version of the aforementioned license "would prohibit manufacturers of consumer appliances that use open source software from implementing technical measures designed to prevent user modifications," essentially giving the TiVo hackers of the world even fewer hoops to jump through. TiVo fears that if GPLv3 is widely adopted, it may be "unable to incorporate future enhancements to the GNU / Linux operating system into its software," which would obviously affect the outfit in a negative fashion. Notably, Novell has also spoken up about how this latest document could "disrupt its Linux distribution partnership with Microsoft," but unless something major happens rather hastily, the Free Software Foundation reportedly expects GPLv3 to be published sometime this summer.
I'm guessing it's little things like this why Apple standardized on BSD instead of GNU/Linux for OSX. OTOH, it's bogus that TiVo doesn't want people messing with SOMETHING THEY BOUGHT. And it's based off FSS/OSS, the basic spirit of which is "you can do whatever the hell you want with this." I'm surprised that they're surprised.
chronovore: (Default)
My "like as new" refurbished Mac PowerBook, purchased last November, is finally in full working condition. It's narcolepsy hasn't manifested since I performed a nuke-and-pave (reformat, fresh OS and app install) on it. All of the niggling physical issues except the battery were fixed over three days at the Apple Store in Shinsaibashi (Osaka). The much-haggled battery replacement has been sitting at the shop until I can come pick it up (mail is quite expensive in Japan, based on weight, so the onus has fallen to customer pick-up). It has been there nearly a month now, because Apple Store seems historically unfailingly fond of calling me for pick-up about 1 hour after I have been near the store, and have already come home.

And yesterday, while I was in Yokohama, the "S" key came off the keyboard. [insert choice expletive here]

And yesterday, by a quirk of scheduling, I flew home from Yokohama via Itami Airport instead of Kansai Airport, which necessitated an additional bus ride to get to a train that would take me home, which put me right near the store.

The store still had my replacement battery, a very new looking one, plastic anti-scratch covering still stuck'on'er. BATTERY GET!

The store also replaced my "S" key while I waited. WHOLE POWERBOOK WORKING: GET!

If I could just get decent wireless reception on the thing, like my iBook enjoys, I would be utterly happy. As it stands, I feel like I can finally begin using it in earnest.

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