Psst... Hey buddy wanna buy a song?

Well, another gripe about one of my favorite companies... Apple. I hate to post yet another gripe, but as a fan, and as someone who spends their hard earned cash on apple products, I figure that gives me the right.
I've been a big fan of itunes. I buy all my music via itunes now rather than steal. Apple made it easy and cheap and convenient for me to do this, so I can't justify downloading via the peer to peer sites. But something recently happened that changed my view of itunes. I bought a comedy album that had 22 tracks on it. (Kevin Meaney - That's not right). I was watching the songs download, and noticed that they were taking a long time, and they were downloading out of order. Then all of a sudden it jumped from "downloading 6 of 22" to "downloading 7 of 20". huh? what happened to the other two? Sure enough after it downloaded the 20th song, it came up with an error 502. and told me that there was a problem and that I should go to the advanced menu and select "check for purchased musci..." I did this and again got a strange error. I restarted itunes, and did this again, and was told that all songs have been downloaded. Now what do I do? There was obviously a glitch, but how do i straighten this out? I went to the apple website hoping to find a phone number. NO! All itunes support is done through email. And takes 72 hours for them to respond. ok - what choice do I have? I sent a detailed email explaining the problem, and asked how do I go about getting the other 2 songs. two days later, I got a response... it was obviously automated response and clear that no one had read my email. In a nutshell they told me to install itunes. (huh!?) So I had to resubmit another email telling them that they did not read nor respond to my original email. Then yesterday I decided to try and talk to a human at apple. I can go on describing this fiasco, but I'll give you the short version... 1 hour on the phone (about 40 minutes spent on hold). Spoke to one tech support person who had no idea what error 502 was, and finally talked to a customer service person who basically resubmitted an email for me to the itunes support website. Argh. So I'm still waiting for a response, I've spent hours trying to figure out how to get my two songs, and all to no avail. I then realized that buying music via itunes is no different than buying something from a guy in an alley. If something goes wrong you are screwed. I have one final option of course, to go through my credit card company and dispute the purchase, but I hate to go through all that over $1.98 - but I hate it more when someone rips me off.
I'll post back if/when apple responds to me again "hopefully" crediting me for the two missing songs.
In addition to all this, I now have lost all trust in my itunes purchase. What happens if this happens again!?
I may go back to buying physical disks now.
Apple - tsk tsk. Shame on you for not offering proper support.
Cyen

words of wisdom...

Just thought I'd pass this life experience on to you all. Take it for what it's worth (if anything at all).
I live in an apartment. The maintenace people are a REAL PAIN to deal with (not to mention shoddy work, when they do "repair" something.) I've had a leaky sink faucet for about 10 years (since I've lived in the apartment). Every few months (it seems like every week!) I take the faucet apart and replace the "O" ring with a new one that i buy at the local home depot from a generic plumbing washer kit. Maybe it's because it's a generic kit, or just cheap o-rings, but they work great for a while, then they start to leak and drip again. This past weekend, I took a gamble... I saw that they had replacement "faucets" meaning the internal device itself. But there were a ton of them, all marked with special codes that didn't mean a thing to me. So, from doing the o-ring I knew roughly what it looked like. For $4.97, I took a gamble and bought the one that looked right. I usually get burned whenever I do this. But this time it WORKED! So I got a whole new faucet assembly (including o-rings and washers) and it works like a charm.
I'm not sure what the words of wisdom are exactly other than, sometimes it pays to take a gamble based on an educated guess.

Cyen

PS> I small plumbing disclaimer incase you want to attempt this on your own. There is actually a special tool to remove the actual "knob" of the faucet. It's quite complicated looking but basically it works like a corkscrew. Without this little $10 tool it would make removing the knob very difficult.

The Traveler: A Novel

It's been a hectic past few weeks so I've not been in the mood to blog anythng, but today is a good day and so I thought I'd post something small.
I wanted to tell you all about a book I'm enjoying very much called "The Traveler: A Novel" by "John Twelve Hawks".
It started off a bit confusing, but I stuck with it in the hopes that things would be made clearer and luckliy they have. I am only about half way through the book now but am enjoying it a lot.
In a nutshell... Corporate conspiracy, science, religion, chase, action, living off the "grid"... All things I enjoy.
I could easily see this turned into a movie. (though not as good as the book I'm sure).

If you are looking for a good read, check it out (available on amazon).
Cyen

not so evil apple

Well, after getting riled up by what I thought were some pretty devious itunes policies it turns out it is not quite as bad as I thought... It turns out much of this policy was not new, just that I had never run into it before. It also appears that the reason they charge you for the entire album for only wanting one song has to do with the length of the song. Apparently anything over 7 minutes. But, I am still confused by this. I can't understand why a song that would be over 7 minutes warrants a $10 price tag. It can't be a technical issue can it? After all you can download an entire CD (approx 40-60 minutes worth for the same $10 price. Oh well. I still think that the soundtrack issue is much more devious though. (see my previous post).

unrelated posting...
Eagles won today! By a landslide! As I am a new Eagles fan, I am happy about this.
Phillies are doing well also... Apparently there is still a good chance that they will make the playoffs. Thanks to my bro for helping me to understand the playoff process.

Just finished a strange book by Cory Doctorow... Someone comes to town someone leaves town.
I can't say that this was a good book, but I stuck with it and finished it. It was very creative, which is the only reason it kept my interest. It also has a geek element to it, which I enjoyed. It was almost like 2 books combined into one. I'm glad I finished it and have moved on to a new one I bought called "The traveler". This is much more up my alley, though it too has a strange factor that is a little difficult to get beyond.

Music: Purchased the new album by NickleCreek about 2 weeks ago. And I'm looking forward to the new album by Depeche Mode! An 80's synth band that for some reason I never out grew and enjoy their music to this day.

News> not really following any stories at the moment. I watched some of the Roberts confirmation hearings, but it was pretty much just an excuse for the senators to spout off their beliefs. It was very scripted for a TV audience. Of course the Katrina coverage is still going strong, and it sounds like the clean up/rebuilding process is just now starting. It will be interesting to see how it will be rebuilt. I have no doubt that it will be rebuilt.

End of the weekend. Try to enjoy your work week. Ugh.
-Cyen

Evil Apple!?

A friend of mine just pointed this out to me yesterday (Thanks Steve), and after a little digging myself, I confirmed his suspicions! Apple is implementing a slow but "evil" plan... By using itunes to purchase music, which I do now for all my new music purchases, it used to be Apple would sell every song for only 99 cents. BUT apple is now making it impossible to buy that one favorite song unless you purchase the entire album for $10 (or more). I can not fathom this decision by Apple! They will alienate many faithful users by this policy! And there is another level of deviousness here... My friend is into movie soundtracks at the moment (which is how he discovered this trend). How many times have you watched a movie and then heard a particular song that you really liked? You sit through all the credits to get the name of the song and the artist. It used to be you could then go onto itunes, and purchase that one song. Not anymore... Now you must purchase the entire soundtrack! BUT if you look up that individual song and the artist, you CAN purchase it individually (in some cases). So, apple is charging a full $10 for those who may not be smart enough to look up the actual song versus purchasing the song via the soundtrack.
Here are two examples...
You know the song "American Pie" (bye, bye, miss American pie...) by Don McLean? Well if you try to purchase that classic hit for 99 cents, you can't! You must purchase the entire album.
And say you were watching the movie "Sahara" and really liked the song "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd... If you went to the soundtrack of Sahara, you would have to purchase the entire album! But if you did a search for just "Sweet Home Alabama" you find that you CAN purchase this song by itself.
I hope this new practice by Apple quickly makes the rounds on the internet and that people become as upset as I am.
This will probably force many people back to "sharing" music again, to eliminate corporate greed.
Apple... I'm ashamed of you!
Cyen

Dishwasher

Another problem "fixed" today in my daily apartment life. Saturday, I had a knock on the door (a rare thing), and was greeted by my apartment maintenance. I was informed that water was leaking into my downstairs neighbor's apartment. He thought it was coming from a broken seal on the toilet, but I suspected it was my dishwasher. I had a small leak before, that I tried to fix myself by stuffing a papertowel into the seal. He said he would notify the office and have someone come out to fix it on Monday. I called Monday morning to confirm... And they had no idea who I was, or that there was a problem. Finally I set up an appointment for someone to come out Tuesday morning (today) to fix it between 8 and 9 am. Well, by 8:45 no one has come out. Again, I call to confirm... "Uh, sir, there is no one here right now, they are all out on the grounds picking up trash". Oh. Great... What should I do? Her reply in a nutshell was "uh..." She put me on hold, then came back on, and "miraculously" a worker had just walked in, and could come over right now. Great I said. So after about an hour or so, he everything back up and working, Including fixing another piece that wore out (and probably caused the leak). So... Fingers crossed he did a good job. When I get home tonight, I'll try it out, and see if I flood out my neighbor again. Ugh.

Lesson learned: Always call to confirm the appointment.

Cyen

New Fema and New nano

Two things of note:
Apple just released a new ipod called the "nano". I find this interesting that instead of introducing this as a new product in the ever expanding lineup of ipods, they chose to discontinue the "mini-ipod". I guess it just wasn't selling? I thought it was a cool design. Anyway, so is the new nano ipod... Check it out here on apple: NANO

And in the news just now as I checked yahoo, they have fired the fairly new FEMA director, after what appears to be in response to a news article all over the TV and internet this morning about how Michael Brown had "discrepancies" on his online resume. Apparently TIME magazine did a background check on him based upon his claims on his resume, and found that not all if his job experience was on the up and up. (also on the Daily Show the other night John Stewart was ridiculing Mr. Browns background also.)
From all that I've heard, it sounds like a good call to get someone in there with better experience.

Have a Great weekend!
Cyen