Category: Web/Tech

  • $200 Asterisk for the iPhone 3G


    iphone 3g $199    If you are like me you didn’t notice the tiny asterisk in this image. But there is one. Do you see it?

    This morning I intended on lining up at the Partridge Creek Apple Store to upgrade both of my AT&T phones to the smoking hot iPhone 3G. 

    Since I’ve been a loyal AT&T customer since 1998 I knew I needed to call their customer service and make sure there weren’t any surprises. And boy am I glad I did.

    Not pictured here with Steve is the asterisk. You have to be a new customer or have an expired contract with AT&T to get this price. In the dozens of articles and videos I’d watched about the new iPhone I somehow missed this little detail. Stupid Adam, fooled again.

    So, people like me who have been loyal to their wireless company are getting hosed. No love for us on the iPhone. The loyal customer price is $399. Even on the Apple site I can’t find $399 mentioned as the price, but that’s how AT&T has always treated loyal customers… horribly. 

    So, I talked to customer service. If you are like me and are looking to get an iPhone 3G for the advertised $199 instead of the loyal customer price of $399, here are a few tricks the customer service agent told me to try. 

    #1 Cancel your existing account. Yes, she told me that! After 10 years as a customer, I was told the best service I could get with AT&T was to cancel my account. 

    #2 Add lines, suspend lines. To get the $199 I could add 2 lines to my family plan for $10 per month and suspend my current 2 lines for free. Eh? She even told me I should just give away my other 2 lines “to anyone.” 

    #3 Keep calling AT&T until you get someone to agree to give you the upgrade price before your current contract expires. (Mine is in September)

    #4 Open a new account under a new name. If you are like me and have a family plan, just close your account under one name and start a new account under the other. 

    Of course I am not going to do any of these. Next month we are moving across the country and I know from experience with AT&T that they’ll offer me a new two year contract than. This may also be our time to try a new company, like Verizon. 

    AT&T has always had the worst customer service in the mobile phone industry. I’ve long held that AT&T is a great company as long as you never call the 800 number and that is re-confirmed every time I talk to “customer care.” 

    Here I am, a customer of 10 years that would like to re-up his contract for 2 more years at a rate nearly double what he currently pays and I’m told I can do one of 4 “tricks?” 

  • Buy N Large Privacy Policy

    I saw this over on the MailChimp blog, check out this privacy policy. (The legalese on most company websites)

  • By visiting the Buy n Large website you become a registered member of the Buy n Large Database. You may not unsubscribe to this database at any time.
  • Buy n Large will share your personal information with third parties whenever it deems such sharing to be advantageous to it, including when you engage in certain activities on our site such as using a menu, viewing, clicking your mouse or breathing.
  • By visiting Buy n Large you are contractually obligated to read all email that is sent to you via the Buy n Large servers. Failure to do so will be considered a breach of contract.

    • The best part is that this fictional privacy policy, created for the movie Wall-E, is pretty close to what really happens. While you can always delete an account or take yourself off of an email list, you can never cover your tracks and say you didn’t visit a website. Some people think that if they use a proxy server they can go wherever they want an no one will know its them. Just keep believing that. 

    The truth is that the courts have deemed it perfectly acceptable for websites to track you, learn about your browsing habits, and then use that information to market to you. And you just thought the ads on Facebook and Gmail were targeted to people like you? Nope. They are targeted specifically to you!

  • GPS Joys

    Kristen and I got the TomTom 130 a couple weeks ago. Essentially, I got it because I stink at directions and with a little more travel in my life and a new city to figure out… I thought it was well worth the money.

    So over the last week or so I’ve been looking for excuses to put it to the test. Of course, that’s pretty tough for a guy who works out of his guest room!

    But tonight I had a real opportunity to see what it could do. And let me tell you, it passed with flying colors. We went to the fireworks display in St. Clair tonight. And when the fireworks end about 100,000 people head to their cars to try to head west to where they live. 

    After we finally got to the car and out of the parking lot I pressed the “home” button and the GPS routed the fastest way home for us. The only problem was that there were hundreds of cars going nowhere. So, GPS screen in front of me I started to improvise. A side street here and back track there and I was starting to wiggle past traffic. 

    My favorite GPS move of the night was when the route lead my down an alley marked “dead end.” While the alley was indeed a dead end there was an open, unmarked driveway into the back of a school parking lot that dumped us onto a main road. Not the recommended route for commuting, but it definitely got the job done in a pinch. 

    When we saw this little trick open up Kristen and I both laughed knowing we had just saved ourselves 20-30 minutes of frustration. 

    For someone like me who is famous for getting lost, the TomTom 130 is well worth the $130.

  • Blog issues

    Just a quick note to those who have noticed some blog issues lately. There was a corrupt database that deleted a couple of my posts and a few comments. I’m really sorry about that and I hope the issue is fully fixed.

    Thanks to Matt over at BlueHost for correcting the problem.

  • Santa = George W. Bush

    I don’t know what the rest of you did with your economic stimulus plan checks, but Kristen and I spent it. We were irresponsible, reckless, and unspiritual about it. We just flat out blew it on stuff we wanted. Easy come, easy go baby!

    Let me also say, I don’t know about you haters, but any president who sends me cash is my best friend. Bill Clinton never dropped $1200 from the sky on you, did he? Haters. Shoot, I’d vote for him again. 

    So what did we get? We blew our money on electronic toys, of course. And we bought over the internet, of course.

    Kristen broke our last two Sony cameras. I don’t know what happened but both cameras started showing us a crazy error message and stopped taking pictures. She got a Nikon D60 (The Ashton Kucther camera) For those looking to buy a sweet Digital SLR, this is it. And please don’t stimulate the economy of Ritz Camera or Best Buy. If you are looking for a sweet deal on your camera I have two words for you: Ebay.

    I got a GPS. I have a unique ability to get lost. And with all of my recent travel I decided it was time that I advanced technologically. So I went to Amazon.com and bought the Tom Tom One. Kristen and I tested it out last night and it works great. If you’ve not used a GPS lately, they’ve come a long way. This one talks to you in. (You can even buy Mr. T’s voice for $12! “I pity the fool who don’t turn right.”) It’s loaded with features too. With our upcoming move to San Diego, a place I’m always turned around, I felt like this was a smart buy. And it was really cheap! And to complete my geek fest, Tom Tom has an online community that I joined last night. Love it.

    For those who have received their “check that dropped from the heavens” what did you do with yours?

  • How Safe are Mobile Phones?

    It seems like we all have one attached to our ears. Check this video out and think about this… is that thing really safe?

    HT to Seth

  • Converting User Names to Real Names

    It goes without saying that I’m a web dork. But I have to be honest and say even in my dorkiness I sometimes get confused on who is who. A blog may be named “Two fish with green eyes” but I know it’s Joe’s blog. And his AIM name is probably “PistolJoe” and I know that too. Then his YMX name is “JoeFish” and his myspace is “GreenfishJoe.” Weird legacy old school web stuff… and it’s plain confusing to me. Yuck, I hate it.

    So in the last few weeks I’ve been changing everyone’s feed titles in Google Reader and AIM screen names to their real names. (Easy options for both) It’s happy on my eyes.

    Real names? Yeah, like the name mommy and daddy gave you when you popped out. You’re name isn’t some weird web-name you use… it’s a first and last name. 

    A vent: Now that I’m completely addicted to twitter [follow me] and now that I’ve been sucked back into myspace… I wish I had a way to edit both of those profiles with people’s real names. Hey myspace and twitter… figure that out!

    Maybe this is why I like the idea of OpenID so much? Having a single, cross-platform profile/login will be commonplace in a few years… the whole “pseudo name” thing really is archaic. 

  • Facebook changes on the way

    Facebook changesI’ve not been shy in sharing my preference for Facebook over Myspace. (Although I will admit that Myspace is much better.) Well, a friend of mine sent me a link about some upcoming changes to Facebook as they seek to de-clutter the site.

    If you are getting fed up of all the vampires, booze mail and super wall posts, then help could be on the way.

    The social network site Facebook is getting ready for the first major makeover in its short history.

    Designers are planning some widespread changes to the way the core profile page is organised, aimed at making it “simpler, cleaner and more relevant”. link

     

    Basically, their solution isn’t to get rid of anything. It’s just to offer tabs to sort all of the different applications, photos, wall posts, and other stuff. It’s a welcome change.

    Bonus: Not that anyone cares but me. But I’ve gotten tired of Firefox’s instability on OSX (mac) and am trying out Safari. So far so good. 

  • adammclane.com mobile

    That’s right sports fans. My blog is now compatible with your mobile phone. So the next time you are waiting on a plane, chilling at a coffee shop, or just killing time feel free to check out my site on your web-enabled phone.

    Bloggers, add this to your wordpress self-hosted site.

  • 7 ways you can connect with me

    connect with meOne of the reasons I blog is to stayed plugged in with the people in my life. So I thought it would be good to point you to the right sidebar and walk you through 7 ways you can connect with me.

    1. About me. Head over to this link to learn what I do, why I do it, and some other fun stuff.
    2. E-mail. My email address is mclanea@gmail.com. That comes to my phone, is on my desktop, and otherwise follows me around everywhere.
    3. Facebook page. If you are under 30 you probably have one too. It’s a great way to send me messages, see who I’m friends with, check out the causes I care about, and a bunch of other stuff.
    4. Google shared items. For serious. Wanna know what I’m reading and I think is interesting? Check out this page… it’s changing all the time as I keep up with about 100-200 sites per day. When I think something is worth looking at, I click “share.”
    5. Linkedin. For people under 30, it’s a Facebook for professional-types to connect with one another. Check out my profile, add me as a connection.
    6. Subscribe to my blog’s feed. Join millions of others and follow my blog. (OK, just my wife and my mom.) You can subscribe using your favorite feed reader or via email.
    7. Follow me on Twitter. Twitter is the latest dance craze sweeping the nation. Well, not so much. I use it as a back channel of letting my friends know what I’m up to in an informal, fun kind of way. Why? Because Facebook, Linkedin, RSS, reading my shared items, e-mailing me, and reading all about me may not be enough Adam McLane in your life.