Brown Minutes | Signal to Noise

Brown Minutes: iPhones can Fart but not Picture Message?

The iPhone was released to retail during the summer of 2007. That means, if the features conspicuously missing from the iPhone at the time were in fact missing due to bugs, then Apple has had well over a year and a half to resolve those bugs. Yet, in January of 2009, our iPhones still can’t send media messages, and they still can’t record video.

Moreover, any attempts to develop apps that accomplish video recording and storage or media messaging using MMS have been blocked by Apple’s Appstore Nazis. Why?

Does Apple have something so incredibly cool up their sleeve that they’re forcing would-be competitors to the sidelines while we all waiting in Lemming-like anticipation? I doubt it. If Apple had something that slick and revolutionary–having to do with mms–they wouldn’t need to worry about competitors or imitators in the app store, would they?

Seriously, it’s ridicululous that I can download a multimedia Fart catalog from the app store but I still can’t take video or mms on the iPhone.

Sonicwall touts enterprise progress, but jeremy at sonicwall is a dweeb

I got an email from Sonicwall that excitedly touted the progress they’ve made in the enterprise space since acquiring Aventail.

Just yesterday my business partner had the absolute WORST customer service experience EVER from a guy named Jeremy at Sonicwall support. Jeremy hung up on my business partner after steamrolling him the whole time, despite Sonicwall’s mistake in issuing our client an incompatibile upgrade key for one of their devices.

So here’s to you Jeremy. You suck.

Oh, and by the way, Sonicwall, you might want to have your marketing department double check those marketing emails that go out. This one had a 2006 copyright date on the footer. (Newsflash, it’s now 2008.)

Cell phone spam is killing my routine bigtime and newsflash: AT&T SUCKS.

About two weeks ago I began receiving calls from “Private No.” on the Nokia phone I’ve been using. At first I thought nothing of it, until these calls began to increase in frequency. It peaked a couple of days ago, when I received 55 such calls in ONE DAY.Â Â I know the fundamental spam-resistance technique: don’t answer it.Â Of course, sheer morbid curiosity got the best of me. I had a few words in mind for these mumbling, non-English-speaking nimrods that keep leaving me indecipherable voicemails.Â These voicemails sound like people talking in the background as opposed to actually talking to me.

So when I answered the call, the guy said some crap I couldn’t understand and managed to stay with me on the call for all of about 8 seconds before hanging up.Â When I’m in a meeting and I get 12 calls in a row, I look like a dweeb. I have to do something to silence my ringtone, so I dump the incoming private calls to voicemail. The other option would be to turn off my phone, but I just can’t afford to do that.Â What’s worse, when these morons go into my voicemail, they’re paging me and leaving me voice messages. The SMS page notifications I receive as a result incur SMS usage, which equals $$$ out of my pocket, sucks my phone memory, and creates a REAL nuisance. We’re talking 20 – 30 voicemails and 20 – 30 text messages every day.
Now here’s the real crap of it: AT&T says they “cannot block private calls”, period, end of story. How idiotic is that? Privacy management out to be the hallmark feature of a usage-based system like AT&T’s cell phone service. This is why companies like Iotum, GrandCentral, and TalkPlus are getting so much attention. They allow you to manage *more* of your own privacy than the cell phone companies do.

Problem is, I already use one of these services and I’m still getting Private No. calls, because the spamming caller isn’t dialing my GrandCentral number–they’re dialing my direct cell phone number. I cannot change my cell number because many of my clients use it to get a hold of me. My number is already on the national Do Not Call list (I registered it even though I shouldn’t have to since it’s a cell). Automatic callback to the private number doesn’t work.
It dawned on me that I should be able to turn my private call ringtone to silent with no vibrate, but as it turns out, this phone won’t let me do that either. So I started investigating call-blocking add-ons for the Symbian OS that runs on my phone. Haven’t been able to find anything yet.Â Any Symbian lovers out there know of a good solution?

Brown minute: United States Skype SMS fees among highest in world

Nearly thirteen cents for SMS messaging using Skype if you message to somebody in the United States–right up there with Syria. But to message Bangladesh, it’s only a nickel. Things that make you go hmm. Can somebody with more knowledge of SMS politics explain this to me?

Alec goes tubing; Lodgenet is awful

Alec writes about how he had a hard time uploading videos from the eTel conference while using hotel internet access provided by oh-so-fast-and-usable Lodgenet. Yup, the same Lodgenet that thinks keeping 12-year-old N64 consoles in hotel rooms and charging twelve bucks per half-hour of gameplay is a good idea. I used Lodgenet in Boston during Fall VON, and let me tell you, Lodgenet is awful. I also used it Baltimore once. Getting connected sucks. The transfer speeds and page loads times are universally horrible. Can you even imagine attempting to enjoy YouTube on this piece of crap? And the Lodgenet captive gateway always resets ‘whenever’, forcing you either to re-register your access code or to view that idiotic gateway page when you’re actually trying to surf to something else.

Yup, Lodgenet is a series of tubes–tubes that are too narrow and which do a lot of sucking.

Brown Minutes: LOL @ MySpace tech support

Recently written in a bulletin by one of my MySpace friends:

I recently sent a request to myspace asking how to take “last login” off my profile, this is the response i recieved:

MySpace Contact1 wrote:
Hello,

Please verify that you are logging in with the correct password and username. We also recommend clearing your browser’s cookies and temporary internet files and then try logging in again.

Often, changing internet browsers can do the trick. For example, try Internet Explorer if you are using AOL. Note: Mac users should use Safari or Firefox for the best browsing results.

Also, try lowering the your browsers security settings. If you are using a firewall, try lowering those settings, if possible.

If you have already tried the methods above, check to make sure your profile still exists by finding your profile on the site. Also, look for comments you posted on your friends’ profiles. If you cannot find your profile, it may have been deleted. MySpace may delete profiles if they violate the site’s Terms and conditions. You cannot retrieve a deleted account.

If problems persist, please reply to this e-mail and provide a brief explanation of the problem that you are having, the e-mail address and password with which you are trying to log in.

If this does not address your issue completely, please press “Reply” and provide any additional information you feel is relevant.

Thank you,
MySpace.com

Then I responded with:

To Whom it may Concern,

Thank you for your response to my question, however this is not at all what I was asking about. I would like to get rid of the “last login” line displayed on my profile that shows the last time I loged into myspace. I do not want people to know when I was on, even my friends. Yes I’m odd, thats just how I role.

Thank you again

Peter

To which they replied:

Hello,
Thank you for contacting Customer Service at MySpace.com.
To help us further assist you in logging in, please send the following:
Email/log on address:
Password (If you are uncomfortable sending your password, you may send a salute – a current photo of yourself holding a hand written sign containing your account ID for verification purposes):
A link to your site would also be very helpful as there may be an error with your email/log on address.
Thank you
MySpace.com

Which necessitated this from me:

Ok your completely wasting my time and clearly not even reading my emails. So first off, kiss my white butt. Secondly, I want to take off of my profile where it displays:

LAST LOGIN

if you cannot understand this they you clearly are a bunch of fools who have no business working with mentally challenged hamsters, let alone computers.

So if my profile suddenly gets deleted, you all know why.

Brown Minutes: Value-subtractions

The first Brown Minute of 2007 is going to be a gripe that’s been under my skin for a long time: the fact that well-established service often stubbornly refuse to adapt their offerings to the basic, fundamental needs (which always evolve) of their customers. Case in point: .Mac. After years of this $99 crapfest being available, Apple still is stingy with the storage space and doesn’t allow parking your own domain, making this completely useless for most potential subscribers. Moreover, all their iLife apps have .Mac-only features. For example iWeb can only upload sites to .mac. If you’re using FTP to upload your site, you’ve got to do it manually. I realize Apple was gambling on low support costs and high adoption when they introduced the service, but it is so useless now only the geekiest Mac users still subscribe, and they know they aren’t getting their money’s worth.

BROWN MINUTES: Grains of salt

Blog rumors are to be taken with a grain of salt. OK, Lesson Learned.
I stood in line trying to get my mits on a Wii this morning. Well, the fabled December 17 Nintendo Wii retail sale date has come and gone, and I’ve learned several things about gift shopping, blogs, and people in general:

- There is good information for shoppers on blogs. (The date was right, and the retail store suggested was right–Best Buy.)

- There is innacurate information for shoppers on blogs. (The quantity was dead wrong. A supposedly leaked internal memo from Best Buy “guaranteed” 40 Wiis per store. The store I went to only had 18, and I was 22nd in line.)

- There is some dead-wrong information on blogs. (The supply of Wiis was supposed to outpace the supply of PS3s by a factor of 4-to-1. In some areas, this has been exactly the opposite.)

- There is some dead-wrong information coming from the people standing in line for Wiis. (Some guy told me Super K had PS3s from floor to ceiling, but later when I checked it out, the store clerk told me they were raffling the chance to buy one, count em, one PS3 at the store PER WEEK. I figured hey, I can grab a PS3 or two, hawk it on eBay, and by as many Wiis as I want with the profit. No such luck.)

So concludes my “show up at Best Buy at 5 AM so my kids won’t be disappointed when the twenty-one people in front of me are all gangly teenage boys without kids and have been sleeping on concrete since 8 the previous night” experience.

This is a lesson to me, and should be, somehow, a lesson to my kids. In other words, I’ll never do it again.

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Teddy Wallingford, Rock and Roll CEO