Category: Miscellaneous

The Shipping News

From a review of a hard drive at newegg.com. S/he was done with listing Pros and Cons and then said this very helpful tip:

Other Thoughts: Here’s a suggestion for anyone buying a hard drive, go with FedEx, the express saver is the cheapest. I know it cost more than UPS and Newegg’s “free shipping” isn’t FedEx, but here’s the deal: I have bought over 30 hard drives (Western Digital and Seagate) through Newegg in the past 2 years, 100% of the ones shipped FedEx are still running, 80% of the ones shipped UPS were either DOA or failed within 6 months. UPS beats the He11 out of their shipments, even their website states that every package is subject to a 6 foot drop. Do the math, free shipping or cheaper UPS shipping isn’t free in the long run. I ship my non-fragile items with the free shipping, but I do a separate order and use FedEx for hard drives and motherboards.

Things we love and hate

And then there are those phenomena that stoke our duplicity:

  1. Apple’s rigidly constrained product line: Purchase decisions are easy, but you always want that one other product — the iMac that’ll take 8GB RAM, the MacBook Air with FireWire, the … dare I say it … tablet.
      
  2. Apple’s increasing popularity: It was fun to drive the BMW of computers. But now every other car at the coffee shop … er, I mean, on the road … is a BMW. I think Mac users used to skew smarter and more open-minded; now we’re all over the place. Plus, as evidenced by the MobileMe fiasco, Apple needs to stop trying to be all things to all people. Let the iPhone sync wirelessly with other services like Google or Plaxo, why dontcha? (I mean, besides Exchange, which is discountable as a consumer solution.)
      
  3. The Mac mini: 2GB RAM? Really? Come on! It’s a fantastic machine. I’m typing on one now. Gigabit Ethernet. Fits anywhere. Super-slick. It’s my multimedia server, and home backup. Fantastic — until it runs out of memory, and then nothing but a reboot is gonna fix it. Reaaaaaally?
      
  4. Democracy
     
  5. An unhacked iPhone
     
  6. OS X Server: So good, so pretty, so clean, yet so limited, and not nearly stable or reliable enough. There’s a reason that MS Small Business Server is so popular; if you follow the Microsoft dogma, you don’t have to learn anything else to be a PC tech. Apple has waited too long to make the managed-client scenario obviously plug-and-play GUIfied. And it’s got a lame Address Book Directory, and a calendar server that won’t easily sync with the iPhone. REALLY?!
      
  7. The f@$%*& iTunes App Store. What a boon to the iPhone, but I really can’t believe Apple rejected a podcatcher application. Jerks.

New product announcement

Apple announced today that it has developed a breast implant that can store and play music. The iTit will cost between $499 to $699,  depending on cup and speaker size. This has been hailed as a major social breakthrough, as women are always complaining about men staring at their breasts and not listening to them.

New Apple Store at North Star Mall


iFlickr
Originally uploaded by j-squared

Man, I haven’t really minded driving out to La Cantera, but it’ll be great for us and the clients to have a Retail Store this much closer. Here’s the requisite greeting line with all the cheering and clapping. Always a good time.