Amazon Local Register falls so short it's sad.

I spend quite a bit of money annually at Amazon, for virtually everything.  In general, their service is world class.  I heard they were offering discounted fees over square, so I gave it a try. 

At every turn, there's been SO much I've had to forgive.

- The app is HORRIBLE. (ugly, slow, unintuitive)
- Mutes phone when you quit the app. (No reason - just to annoy you)

- The reader is goofball - longer than it needs to be and unreliable.
- The service can ONLY be managed from the phone - you can't get anything via the web.
- They don't email the merchant after each transaction, only the consumer.  There's no way to have it email the merchant.
- You can't sign up for the service with an existing Amazon account - you have to sign up with a NEW account. Ridiculous!

And the worst thing of all - A 14-DAY HOLD on manually entered transactions.  For me, that's a DEAL KILLER.

Sorry, Amazon.  I'll pay a little more and get VASTLY SUPERIOR service from Square.

4/13/2015 - UPDATE: It's more than six months since I've posted this and the app is STILL hideous, and the service still is WAY BEHIND Square.  Sorry, Amazon.  I love your retail operation, but the card processing service is a failure.

Please Stop Making New Phones With Old Firmware

Please Stop Making New Phones With Old Firmware

Samsung Omnia II "Review"

A client of mine just got the Samsung Omnia II. It's clearly being marketed as an "iPhone competitor.". In reality It's not at all competitive. The touchscreen appeared to be resistive, which means you have to physically push down on it. It had a sort of "skinned interface", but underneath it runs Windows Mobile, which was a decent competitor to the old Palm OS on PDAs several years ago, but it doesn't hold up very well today. Bottom line, it's a very dumb "smartphone".

Dead iPhone 4.

I dropped my iPhone 4 from a height of less than 1 meter onto a "soft" linoleum floor.  It (the phone) was wearing a bumper case.  When I picked it up, it was OFF.  And it stayed off.  There was zero visible damage of any kind.  It just refused to light up.  I know the battery was well over 50%, so that wasn't it.  Could it really be that a short drop like that killed my iPhone 4?  Apparently so.

Needless to say, I was upset.  I went to the nearest Apple Store (Pasadena) and got on the "standby" list at the Genius Bar.  After about 40 minutes, someone called my name.  About 10 minutes after that, I had a new iPhone 4 at no cost to me.  I last synchronized this morning and am in the process of restoring from that backup as I type.  Of course, I'll still lose any pictures/videos I made since this morning, and have to re-enter a bunch of stuff on the phone (at least 30 usernames & passwords, several wireless keys, merchant id's, etc.)

While Apple's support and service is world-class, I'm beginning to worry that the iPhone 4 is not.  Is it wrong to expect a phone to survive a drop of less than 1 meter?

iTunes 9.1 on Windows 7 (64-bit) is BROKEN

Just updated my iTunes to 9.1, and now it won't start.

Apparently I'm not alone:
http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=150&start=45#threads

No error messages, no apparent problems during installation. :(


UPDATE: TURNS OUT IT'S A PROBLEM WITH BONJOUR - WHICH IS USED FOR APPLE TV. I REMOVED IT AND ALL IS WELL WITH THE WORLD.

Internet overtakes print in news consumption among Americans

Internet overtakes print in news consumption among Americans

Would You Have Spotted the Fraud?

Would You Have Spotted the Fraud?

ATM "skimmer" found in Woodland Hills, CA. Would you have noticed it before inserting your card and keying in your PIN?

Disney/Pixar's UP Blu-Ray - second disc won't play

I just got "UP" on Blu-Ray, and put the "Special Features" disc in my PlayStation 3. No dice.

It loops at the dog with the wagging tail - endlessly. I sent an email to Disney's Blu-Ray support team, and I'm waiting for a response.




UPDATE: They're sending me a pre-paid label so I can mail them the disc. If they determine it's "defective", they'll send me a replacement.

Donate to the Red Cross through iTunes

In the wake of the Haiti Earthquake tragedy, there’s been a lot of media coverage about donating to the American Red Cross via text message.  While that’s a clever method, and apparently it’s generating a lot of donations, I stumbled across another method that I think is likely to get the money there faster.

Did you know you can donate via iTunes?  Click the button below to donate to the American Red Cross via iTunes (it will open iTunes on your computer):

I’ve already donated.  You should too.

ASUS CG5290-BP009

Around a month ago, my primary business computer died.  It was a top-tier consumer HP Pavilion Elite.  It was the second to “die” within 1 year of purchase.  The prior HP desktop was also an “Elite” HP.  Both started having weird problems that weren’t windows-related, but brought the machines to a halt within moments, with virtually no advance warning.  I think it’s because HP is putting Samsung hard disks in their desktops.

As a result, I knew I needed to get a new one quickly but didn’t want to give HP more money.  I could’ve ordered from Dell, but needed a working machine within 24 hours, so ordering it wouldn’t do.  I was able to use one of the notebooks to do invoices and such, but needed to get my Outlook and iTunes (more for iPhone than music) back up on a “permanent” machine.  I can’t load up all that stuff on a notebook.

So, I went and spent about $1,400 on an ASUS desktop:

I got it up and running within about a day, and transferred all my files to it within about 3 days.  Over the last month, I’ve gotten almost everything I need on it and configured the way I like it.

This thing is a beast.  I couldn’t be happier with it.  Now let’s see how I feel about it a year from now…

Fantastic GPS mount

Since getting the "new" car, I've been using a "bean bag" type mount for the GPS. I didn't like it, but like the suction-cup-on-the-windshield mount even less. Also, the bean bag mount put the GPS in such a position that it would reflect off the windshield at night, which made for a constant annoyance if I needed to use it after dark.

I found an alternative that worked wonderfully. In this new position, the GPS screen doesn't reflect off the windshield, but it's at a perfect viewing position, and easily within my reach. I bought a custom-made mounting bracket (basically a small, bent and drilled piece of sheet metal with a ball on the end) from the geniuses at Pro.Fit International. They even sell a simple plastic tool to allow me to pop the console off without scratching it. It required minor drilling (but the two small holes are hidden under the console if the mount is removed) but the results are outstanding. Witness the new mount below:Now I just have to find a way to secure/conceal the cord a little better...

Blocked Caller ID

I know when Caller ID first came out, many people freaked out and voiced privacy concerns. But the truth is, if you're the caller, why would you want to mask your number unless you're up to no good?

I don't know why people still have their number blocked. It's stupid. Some people aren't even aware that their number is blocked.

UNBLOCK YOUR NUMBER PERMANENTLY. The people you're calling will appreciate it.

Windows 7

I just put Windows 7 Ultimate RTM on a pretty modest test machine (P4HT, 512MB RAM, Intel Graphics).

Despite the fact that it's a low-end machine, I'm very impressed.

Many of the things that were quirky about the UI (user interface) on Vista are much better. Overall, the interface seems smarter, and more user-friendly. A frequent complaint about Vista is the UAC (User Account Control) pop-ups. With Vista, even when a user is simply changing their desktop background, they're asked to authenticate/approve the change. Many UAC pop-ups require two separate approval clicks. Windows 7 gets a big plus in the user-friendliness department - UAC pop-ups are very infrequent. In fact, I haven't seen any since installing it.

One thing I hate about Vista is the Sidebar. Without exception, I turn it off immediately when setting up a client machine. When clients have it already enabled, I often simply ask them if they care about the "clock, calendar, and sample photos" that the default "sidebar" includes. 98 times out of 100 they don't, and I kill the whole thing. One less thing running can't hurt performance. I like the idea of Gadgets, but hate the fact that Vista sticks them in a window that interferes with other things. In Windows 7, the gadgets are independent - little "windows" on their own, without actual windows of course.

There are some things I'm "on the fence" about, however. A feature of Vista that I think is great is the Windows Photo Gallery. I think it gave Windows users a near equivalent to the Mac iPhoto application. Unfortunately, it's gone by default in Windows 7, but Microsoft offers "Windows Live Photo Gallery" as a replacement. It requires you to have a Windows Live (or MSN/Hotmail) account, and also requires that you login to the service to use it. I don't see the customer benefit of this change, since the program seems to work very similarly to the Vista program. If Microsoft wants to integrate Windows Live features into it, I wish they had made it an optional setting so that the user could simply use it on their local machine.

Despite my minor misgivings, seeing how well it's running on this old-ish POS, I'm likely going to put the retail Windows 7 upgrade package on at least one of my own machines.