Tag: apple

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Appnation: Boy are my dogs tired.

My legs are sore from standing for a couple days at one of the weirdest conferences I’ve ever worked. Over the past two days I represented the company I work for at Appnation. It was at Moscone Center and was a convention for mobile app developers to learn ways to make money as app developers. They say it’s a mash-up of developers, venture capitalists and people who do stuff that could benefit developers [more on that later].

This was a show that compared to MacWorld was an oversized garage type of event. There were maybe about 100 people hawking their wares and the people that would come by the booth I was working were a mix of end users, VC people, but mostly people who were too cheap to purchase a booth and were coming by to try and sell their product to me to include in my app even if it had nothing to do with or was of no use to my app. In other words, in my opinion the show was a bust for the company I work for.

There was lots of talk about how to get venture capital funding for your app, but in reality most of these hip app writers live out of virtual spaces that don’t have anything a real office has. Imagine working for a company that is based in a eggshell of an industrial workspace. They have no landline phone, no printers, cheap Office Depot tables and chairs, no form of interior design what so ever, mail never gets delivered because, well snail mail is so 10 minutes ago and after all, in a month or two we’ll be moving to an even better eggshell to work out of!

Eggshelled companies are not what a Venture Capital firm has much interest in because once they give you the money they want to be able to keep track of you by something other than email and a cell phone call, neither of which they can find a real person to shake down to get the money back.

I was able to meet some interesting people there though. Steve and Reed from appMobi were right across from me and put on a good show. Steve incidentally speaks 8 languages and was happy to demonstrate that fact even though it had nothing to do with his product. AppMobi is a web-based product that lets you write mobile apps using web design skills not programming languages and then deploy your product not just to one platform, but to several. This sounded pretty cool and they’re demo showed how cool it was. Then there was Chris and Cherie from Technomadia. These were a couple of Burning Man people who actually live out of a trailer and because of that wrote an app called State Lines. This is a fun app for travelers that tells you the speed limits, smoking rules, alcohol laws in every state. Very useful if you’re a frequent traveler and only $2.99. I asked them if the app paid them well and they told me that, “It keeps them in lunch and sometimes dinner.” OK, while I can’t exactly say I’d be able to live off that, at least I know I’d be getting a couple a meals a day from it.

Probably the best thing I learned from the show was that geek girls with iPads can be hot. These girls weren’t icing on the cake like you have at car shows, but they were spouting off about objective-C, equity investors, marketing throughput, etc and their eyes weren’t all glossed over like they were just repeating what they were told to say. I’d also have to say that most of the people there were talking more about the free after parties than the products people were trying to sell, so that should tell you something about the overall effectiveness of the show.

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Smartphones for Dummies: San Francisco

There’s something about smartphones that no one wants you to know. Now that I have my brand new iPhone 4 I am an expert and will share with you my font of knowledge.

Well, maybe at least what I’ve learned so far…First off, these are phones that connect to the internet. What they don’t tell you is that they try to access Wi-Fi first, then fall back to 3g, then Edge, then GPRS as the last resort. Everything after Wi-FI is where your monthly data charges come in. Now if you’re like me and the millions of other hipsters who got an iPhone to be cool and only make a few phone calls you can find a way to save yourself the $15-$25/month as soon as that’s not a part of your contract [looking into that tomorrow].

I’ve found there are tons of free Wi-Fi out there and there’s even a free app for the iPhone called of course, Free Wi-Fi Finder. While this works pretty good, I’ve found that if you see the #G or E or ° on your iPhone that you should go into your settings and try and turn on Wi-Fi. Chances are you’ll find an open system. I was wandering around my local Safeway and happened to remember this and turned it on and found that Safeway offers free Wi-Fi. So I connected and now because it’s a smartphone it remembered it and every time I’m in that Safeway it will automatically hook up. This is good because the cell phone reception is nil inside so I can run Skype if I need to make a call and call out over Wi-Fi and be a VoIP geek for a bit.

This secret has kept me from getting a Smartphone even when I could have afforded one because it was the data plan that pushed me back. I already pay less per month for much better Wi-Fi at home, why should I pay more for a slower connection outside the house?

So I think this weekend I’ll go fishing, but I’ll leave the pole at home and go around my neighborhood and as soon as I find I don’t have a Wi-Fi signal I’ll see who’s I can latch onto. I’ll also do that at the pizza place by where I work since I know they offer free Wi-Fi and they have good pizza considering they aren’t in New York.

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Hi I’m Eric and I’m a Mac Addict

Yes, I admit it. I have an addiction to my iMac. I’m not going to go all Mac is better than PC thing because it would probably be the same if I had a PC and it was suddenly gone. I noticed something was wrong with the computer when it started to get really slow and programs started to hang. I took it into the Apple store and they said they could see the drive, but I should back it up and bring it in for a replacement of the hard drive.

YIKES! I hadn’t been able to do a time machine back up since April 11th and realized that I might end up loosing some stuff so I took it home, loaded snow leopard on to an external I happened to have lying around [this is why you have externals lying around]. After three days I managed to get all the files off the computer and realized, “Hey, if it’s cleaned off maybe I can just erase and reinstall from the back up!”

Well, it started off fine, but eventually it showed me that the entire hard drive was screwed and I’d need to bring it in. Now this isn’t so bad because at least my wife has a MacBook with an account on it for me [this is why you have more than one mac], but she might want to use the computer at the same time I’m using the computer. So hear in is the beginning of my week without my own computer. The iMac is like my buddy. It does everything for me. It’s my recording studio, it’s a phone, TV, radio,,,Geez our lives can revolve around our computers and you don’t realize it until they’re gone. My wife didn’t realize what the 21st century was like until I got her the MacBook that I have know stolen from her possession to post this article.

I have an iMac at work, but it’s not mine and while it acts like my buddy [due to the syncing of my information between computers] it’s also a lot of other people’s buddies because there are like 10 accounts on it. This is the closest to my buddy that I’ll have. It’s kind of like having a threesome with your wife, only a computer is involved and not some blond cheerleader with that waka waka funk music playing in the background.

Apple tells me it will be a week to replace the drive because they’re all backed up at the store. This is something I’ve always noticed about Apple Stores. If you go to a mall, look at how many people are in the other stores, then look at how many people are in the Apple Store. The Apple Stores are always packed. It’s like the hottest club in town without a happy hour. So now with my luck I’ll be a week without the iMac and Apple will suddenly process my order for my new iPhone 4 and get it to me before the iMac is back in action [yeeee=ah beeaches!]

P.S. to Apple: I heard your conference on Friday and know the problem is fixed with the iPhone 4 so can you speed up the 3 week wait a bit?

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iPhucked…by the “wertsgeflauben”

What the hell did he just say? Wertsgeflauben. It’s a word I just made up and there’s a good reason for it. It’s a word you use when you want to tell people something that you don’t want them to understand. Weird things like this pop into my head at times, not like visions of Kathy Bates riding naked on a donkey singing Sondheim tunes [oh wait, where the hell did that come from?] While it sounds German, I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything in German. It’s just some stupid nonsensical word like “unbundled” which is what Apple is using instead of “discount”. I started my new job today with a tech company that writes apps for the iPhone. I figured I should probably get one so I started to look into it. I’m looking at the new iPhone 4 and running through choices and decide to select 16Gb black iPhone 4 [oooo all you mac groupies dontcha just wish you were hot like me!] I start through the process and it says $199 with a little 2 superscript next to it which I should have realized meant scroll to the bottom and read the fine print. Here’s the fine print:

Requires new two-year AT&T wireless service contract, sold separately to qualified customers; credit check required; must be 18 or older. Existing AT&T customers who want to upgrade from another phone or replace an iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS should check with AT&T or use www.apple.com/iphone/buy. For those who are not eligible for an early upgrade or who wish to buy iPhone as a gift, the prices are $499 (8GB), $599 (16GB), or $699 (32GB). In CA, MA, and RI, sales tax is collected on the unbundled price of iPhone. Service may not be available in all areas or at the signal strength, rates, speeds, or bandwidth as demonstrated. Wi-Fi Internet access required for some features; broadband recommended; fees may apply. Some applications, features, and services are not available in all areas. Visit www.wireless.att.com to check AT&T network coverage in your area. iPhone is configured to work only with wireless service provided by AT&T. Warranty information available at www.apple.com/legal/warranty/iphone. When available, transferring your mobile number to a different service provider will terminate your service with your existing provider; termination fees and other charges may apply. Some features may require added fees. Contact your service provider for more details. Use constitutes acceptance of Apple’s software license agreement and third-party terms located in the iPhone box. Unauthorized modification of your iPhone software violates the software license agreement. Inability to use an iPhone due to unauthorized modifications is not covered under your warranty.

OK, that shouldn’t have been a big deal because I noted that I was upgrading [after my two year contract ran out] so this shouldn’t matter. So this phony surcharge shouldn’t apply. When I put in my zip code they tell me that my tax is $56.12!!!! That works out to about 28% sales tax and I quickly clicked on the speak with a representative button and all that Coreen could tell me was that it was because it was “unbundled” and they had to charge the full price. She never told me what the full price was or how I could bundle it with something else so that I could pay only $17 [state tax] or $18 [San Francisco tax]. She just kept telling me that it was because of Uncle Sam that I had to pay that much. Which I suppose Uncle Sam is going senile and forgot that California sales tax is 8.5% and in SF it’s 9.5%. I finally told her thank you for being so unhelpful and closed the window and picked up the phone and called Apple. This time I got Ryan who sounded a bit more American than the person I had been typing with since his grammar was much better and he finally told me that “unbundled” meant “discount” after I told him that nowhere on the page does it say that $199 is the discounted price. This came after 5 minutes of him trying to get around me asking him what I could “bundle” it with to reduce the tax. I finally said, “Ah so you’re saying ‘unbundled’ when you really mean ‘discounted’. Ryan politely said yes, very softly because I think he realized what a scam it sounded like.

The worst part of all of this is that I’ve been an evangelist for the Apple line for over 20 years. I even gave Steve Jobs a selling point when I said in my previous blog From where I sit, “Apple Macintosh, it just works” long before they used it for their ads. I even said he could use it if he’d give me the choice of Apple products each year. He never returned my email by the way. I’ve gotten quite a few PC people to convert over to the Mac and they love it and they’ve thanked me for making their life easier.

So now let us all embrace the word that means nothing and everything, “Wertsgeflauben.” It will save you money and get you out of a bind. Didn’t get the work done that your boss asked you to? It was because of the wertsgeflauben. Can’t pay your bills? It’s because of the wertsgeflauben. What was that sound? The WERTSGEFLAUBEN! Geez, I think I’ll start writing Dr. Seuss style books now. I have created a monster.

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If you have an apple TV you’ll LOVE this

OK, this doesn’t really have anything to do with San Francisco other than the fact that I’m a computer geek and there’s lots of us in SF, but I have to share this because it had a pretty big wow factor for me. It’s a program called Boxee. This is a little hack that you load onto your apple TV with a thumb drive and it adds a boxee category to your apple tv that lets you watch streaming video from the internet. Why is this cool? Because now I can watch TV shows and movies for free on demand from hulu.com. I can also view on demand shows from Comedy Central, CNN, CBS, plus Netflix the list goes on and on. 

The authors of Boxee also stay on top of things and offer regular updates which you can update from your apple TV. The hitch? It’s in alpha stages right now and you can only get the software by getting an invite from the boxee crew. I found the quickest way was to follow them on Twitter then just send them a direct tweet asking for an invite. It also has companion software for your computer, but currently only works on intel macs and linux machines. Windows is in the works.

The installation now is much easier and doesn’t involve using the terminal interface. There is a third party that wrote a program called the ATV USB Creator. This program downloads and installs on a thumb drive all the software needed to install boxee on your Apple TV. Just run the program then take out your newly created patchstick and plug it into the back of your Apple TV and unplug it then plug it back in. You Apple TV will boot from the stick and load the software at which point you unplug your apple TV again, remove the stick and plug it back in and follow the process of logging into your boxee account. Apparently you can download the software to the patchstick even if you haven’t received an invite, but once you have it loaded you’ll need to log into your account to use boxee so I wouldn’t bother doing this until you have the account.


quick intro to boxee from boxee on Vimeo.