Minute by minute

Monday, June 21, 2010

In a Business Insider article this weekend about Apple's FaceTime video conferencing technology, there's this interesting tidbit at the end:

For the next version of FaceTime that works over 3G, Apple and its carrier partners will need to decide how those calls are billed — as minutes toward voice calling, as data toward monthly data caps, or both, or something entirely different.

Once again, let us remember that with today's mobile phones these companies are in the business of shifting data. Bits. That's it. Voice calls are data. Email is data. SMS is data. There is no special kind of frequency or system for voice as opposed to data. There is no reason for "voice minutes."

But the phone companies rely on the ignorance of their customer base on this count. That's because they can still charge us using the fee structure they invented back during the age of analog cellular phones, making us pay per minute for calls. And even that is a hold over from the old long distance days, when we all were trained to think of a cost per minute. Even though this paradigm doesn't apply any longer, it's a great way to wrest cash out of people.

So now, we're moving into the Jetsons future of video calls (why I don't think that will fly is a topic for another post). And the phone companies are going to find whatever way they can to screw us. It's voice! It's video! It's data! Let's charge them THREE times for the same bits!

They've already done this with tethering charges, and they've done it with microcells running over someone else's network. Mark my words, this is another instance where the telecoms will blithely bill us for nothing once again.

Father’s Day

Sunday, June 20, 2010

CNN: [Louisiana] State senators designated Sunday as a day for citizens to ask for God's help dealing with the oil disaster. The resolution names Sunday as a statewide day of prayer in Louisiana and calls on people of all religions throughout the Gulf Coast "to pray for an end to this environmental emergency, sparing us all from the destruction of both culture and livelihood."

Sarah Palin: Gulf disaster needs divine intervention as man's efforts have been futile. Gulf lawmakers designate today Day of Prayer for solution/miracle.

Dear Father Who Art in Heaven:

Well, it seems that we totally fouled up your pretty planet. I know, I know, we screwed up, and we should be grown up enough to fix it, but you know how we kids are. We make messes and then never clean it up. We dig holes, we hurt helpless animals, we smear gunk all over the walls.

But you know what we're most worried about? Not that delicate ecosystem you dreamed up. Not the lives of all those creatures you created. Nope. Frankly, we're most concerned about our culture and making money. Now that is what a really good prayer is all about.

So... could you take care of that for us? Seriously, it'll be the last time. Swear. And did we mention what a cool dad you are? Really, we tell all our friends, too. They wish their dad was as cool as you.

Thanks a lot. Mean it.

We gotta go to a yacht race.

Money for Nothing

Thursday, June 3, 2010

It's sheer magic watching AT&T at work these days. The sleight of hand is astonishing, and I have a feeling it could only work in today's anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-truth, mathematically-challenged atmosphere.
AT&T does the unimaginable: they charge you for nothing at all.
Watch as they charge a fee on your long distance bill for not making any long distance calls!
See how they sell you a magic box for $150 that gives you cell coverage — bet you thought your monthly charges already paid for cell coverage, didn't you?
Marvel as they charge you for using voice minutes over someone else's network bandwidth! AT&T making money from Comcast's network? Brilliant!
Behold the magical, revolutionary, disappearing unlimited iPad data plan, mere weeks after its debut!
Be Astounded as they exponentially increase the cost per megabyte for 3G data, but promote it as a price cut!
Boggle at the gall of charging some customers 6¢ per megabyte, but others only 9/10ths of a cent, depending on the plan!
Witness their incredible ability to charge you twice for the same data if you use tethering!
Observe as a huge conglomerate threatens a single, lowly customer who dares to question!

Shows daily in most metropolitan cities (but not in rural areas).

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Update, about 15 minutes later:
As I went back through my various AT&T screeds, I came across a very interesting entry back in January where I said:

I think I get the gist of the AT&T "special deal" with Apple for the iPad: Apple uses a microSIM card in the pad, which means that people who are already paying a minimum of $70 a month for iPhone service — like me — can't just pull out the regular-sized iPhone SIM and put it in their iPad. They have to have a completely different data plan for the new device.

Things start to fall into place: if the rumored new iPhone uses a microSIM, just like the iPad, then we'll theoretically be able to swap SIMs. So, it makes even more sense that AT&T would take away unlimited data plans, since then you would only need one!

So Adobe

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

So, say you've got, oh, 400 web graphics that need to be saved at a higher compression to save space. Ah, you say — I have Photoshop, which includes a batch processor! Excellent, I'll get this done in no time.

So, you create an action to export a photo at a certain file size. Then you batch process the folder with all those images. Everything seems to be going swimmingly, until… suddenly you get an error message. Photoshop can't open that many files, it says. You swear a bit, and then click the OK button.

So, now you're stuck clicking that OK button another 200 times because after it displays the error, it keeps on trying to open the rest of the files in the batch.

SO, you figure you'll cut your loses and force quit Photoshop. You go create a new folder with fewer images in it and reopen the app.

SO, then when you go to do your batch action again, you discover that Photoshop didn't save the action you created — cos it only saves stuff like that when you quit the app. I don't know about you, but with Adobe apps I have to force quit far more than I quit the usual way. I lose so much work this way because the apps don't write changes when I make them.

So, anyway. Each time one of these things happen, you learn — you know, like a rat in a maze being shocked. You create the action again, quit immediately so it saves it, create a folder with only 200 images instead of 400, and then carefully start again.

So, everything works this time, and your images are all saved and you have 200 windows left on your screen. So, you go to the helpful "Close All" menu item.

So, 200 images. None of them have been touched or edited in any way, just opened and reserved.

SO, what does Photoshop do? It puts up 200 alerts, one at a time, asking if you want to save changes to 200 files that you made no changes to.

This was the first hour of my Tuesday. I'd stay out of my cube if I were you.

Short term memory loss

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The first article on the Apple-centric blog talks about suicides at the Chinese company Foxconn, which manufactures Apple gadgets. It says:

Foxconn claims it's not a sweatshop, but reports say the company is asking employees to work 60 hours of overtime a month (far over the legal limit of 36 hours of overtime), and paying only about $132 a month. Clearly something is wrong at the company that Apple depends on for much of its manufacturing labor.

Then the next article, breathlessly anticipating a new phone, says

the new phones might go on sale during the developer conference itself, which would be quite a way to kick off the summer.

Question answered, I think.