How your printer tricks you into buying ink and toner when you don't need it
How to fight back against the lying, infuriating, evil ink-and-toner cabal.By Farhad Manjoo - Slate Magazine
The application VLC quit unexpectedly
Unexpectedly my ass! It happens about once every three times I close the video window. Tiger, Leopard, PPC, Intel. Other than that it's hands down my program of choice for video.
Address Book and configuration.apple.com
When I launch Apple's Address Book application and try to open the Preferences window, Little Snitch tells me that Address Book wants to connect to configuration.apple.com. If I deny the connection, the Preferences window will not open. I don't care about the benefits this might have behind the scenes. This is evil.
I allowed the connection once, quit Address Book, relaunched it and I was not prompted to allow another connection to configuration.apple.com. That seems odd. The Preferences window opened without a problem.
I took my computer offline, no internet connectivity, and was able to get into the Preferences window. I don't know if this is because I already allowed the connection once, or if Apple has some way of determining if a connection is available and only demand the connection to configuration.apple.com if there is one.
Googling around suggests this has something to do Software Update. I don't care.
It's Evil and wrong for applications to phone home without user consent, and it's DOUBLY EVIL and wrong to disable application capabilities if the secret phoning home is uncovered and disallowed.
Evil.
I allowed the connection once, quit Address Book, relaunched it and I was not prompted to allow another connection to configuration.apple.com. That seems odd. The Preferences window opened without a problem.
I took my computer offline, no internet connectivity, and was able to get into the Preferences window. I don't know if this is because I already allowed the connection once, or if Apple has some way of determining if a connection is available and only demand the connection to configuration.apple.com if there is one.
Googling around suggests this has something to do Software Update. I don't care.
It's Evil and wrong for applications to phone home without user consent, and it's DOUBLY EVIL and wrong to disable application capabilities if the secret phoning home is uncovered and disallowed.
Evil.
Bookmarklets for movie and dvd searching
Reviews & Info
IMDb Bookmarklet
MRQE Bookmarklet Movie Review Query Engine
Metacritic Bookmarklet
All Music Guide Bookmarklet (flaky, and their site is so slow)
Rotten Tomatoes Bookmarklet
Wikipedia Bookmarklet (because they often have useful external links)
DVDs and consumer reviews
Netflix Bookmarklet
Flixster Bookmarklet
Yahoo Movies Bookmarklet
Amazon Movies Bookmarklet
Alternative sources
ALTFG Bookmarklet Alternative Film Guide
Late Mag Bookmarklet
Getamovie Bookmarklet
Plume Noir Bookmarklet
Not Coming Bookmarklet
Film Database Bookmarklet
Worst Previews Bookmarklet
Beyond Hollywood Bookmarklet
Asian sources
dvdAsian Bookmarklet
Snowblood Bookmarklet Asian Extreme Cinema
Hancinema Bookmarklet
Asian MediaWiki Bookmarklet
Illuminated Lantern Bookmarklet
Movie posters
IMDb Bookmarklet
MRQE Bookmarklet Movie Review Query Engine
Metacritic Bookmarklet
All Music Guide Bookmarklet (flaky, and their site is so slow)
Rotten Tomatoes Bookmarklet
Wikipedia Bookmarklet (because they often have useful external links)
DVDs and consumer reviews
Netflix Bookmarklet
Flixster Bookmarklet
Yahoo Movies Bookmarklet
Amazon Movies Bookmarklet
Alternative sources
ALTFG Bookmarklet Alternative Film Guide
Late Mag Bookmarklet
Getamovie Bookmarklet
Plume Noir Bookmarklet
Not Coming Bookmarklet
Film Database Bookmarklet
Worst Previews Bookmarklet
Beyond Hollywood Bookmarklet
Asian sources
dvdAsian Bookmarklet
Snowblood Bookmarklet Asian Extreme Cinema
Hancinema Bookmarklet
Asian MediaWiki Bookmarklet
Illuminated Lantern Bookmarklet
Movie posters
Labels: bookmarklets, movies, search
Amazon 24 months NO interest NO payments MacBook Pro
[UPDATE] I need to update and point out that the really crummy organization here is GE Money who plays the role of Amazon's credit department in this story as they are the bank that underwrites, or guarantees. Amazon CS reps have the call notes from the day of purchase that quote the credit department: "we were told by X, from credit, no interest and no minimum monthly payments on selected computer." Some total winner named Gwen from GE Money said "I don't care what X said, she's only one person in the company."
I "bought" my new MacBook Pro a couple months ago when Amazon offered a deal of interest free financing for 24 months with NO MINIMUM PAYMENTS. The catch is that if I have to pay it off in full within 24 months or the interest is charged retroactively.
I couldn't believe it so I called Amazon customer service to confirm. They confirmed. I had to pay for it with an Amazon.com store card, so I opened an account. Problem was that the card had a $1500 limit, so we conference called the credit department to increase the limit. No problem. I had the credit department confirm, again, that I didn't have to make any payments for 24 months. I asked "Are you saying that I don't have to pay a thing, that when the monthly bill comes I can ignore it?" That seemed like an unequivocal enough question.
They confirmed.
Two months later I got a call from Amazon credit (GE Money). They wanted to know why I hadn't made a payment.
Damn. They denied ever making such an offer. No interest, sure, but no minimum payments was not part of the deal they said. The young woman even kind of mocked my idea that such a deal would have been offered. I screamed at the top of my lungs into the phone. She hung up on me.
I googled and wayback-machined for hours trying to find some evidence. None. Amazon doesn't google-cache well. I should have taken a screen cap of the offer. I wrote down the names of the reps I had talked to but Amazon has call centers all over the world and nobody was familiar with the names I offered.
I decided to keep calling Amazon CS in the hopes that I might stumble upon the person I originally talked to or someone who new of them. All I got was condescending, yellow laughter.
Then I found Kai. He searched back through my account's call records and found a call record that quoted the name I had taken down from the credit department which said "we were told by X, from credit, no interest and no minimum monthly payments on selected computer."
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I post this here in case someone else jumped on the deal and is googling around looking for a little evidence that it was offered because GE Money is trying to deny offering it. Maybe it was a typo, but on May 20, 2008, it was there.
I "bought" my new MacBook Pro a couple months ago when Amazon offered a deal of interest free financing for 24 months with NO MINIMUM PAYMENTS. The catch is that if I have to pay it off in full within 24 months or the interest is charged retroactively.
I couldn't believe it so I called Amazon customer service to confirm. They confirmed. I had to pay for it with an Amazon.com store card, so I opened an account. Problem was that the card had a $1500 limit, so we conference called the credit department to increase the limit. No problem. I had the credit department confirm, again, that I didn't have to make any payments for 24 months. I asked "Are you saying that I don't have to pay a thing, that when the monthly bill comes I can ignore it?" That seemed like an unequivocal enough question.
They confirmed.
Two months later I got a call from Amazon credit (GE Money). They wanted to know why I hadn't made a payment.
Damn. They denied ever making such an offer. No interest, sure, but no minimum payments was not part of the deal they said. The young woman even kind of mocked my idea that such a deal would have been offered. I screamed at the top of my lungs into the phone. She hung up on me.
I googled and wayback-machined for hours trying to find some evidence. None. Amazon doesn't google-cache well. I should have taken a screen cap of the offer. I wrote down the names of the reps I had talked to but Amazon has call centers all over the world and nobody was familiar with the names I offered.
I decided to keep calling Amazon CS in the hopes that I might stumble upon the person I originally talked to or someone who new of them. All I got was condescending, yellow laughter.
Then I found Kai. He searched back through my account's call records and found a call record that quoted the name I had taken down from the credit department which said "we were told by X, from credit, no interest and no minimum monthly payments on selected computer."
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I post this here in case someone else jumped on the deal and is googling around looking for a little evidence that it was offered because GE Money is trying to deny offering it. Maybe it was a typo, but on May 20, 2008, it was there.
Annoying stall before open/save dialog with firewire drive attached
I think it's the wrong choice to have the stall happen before opening the dialog box instead of letting you get to the dialog and decide from there. If you want something on the external drive, or if that's where you want to save a file, then it should spin up the drive. It shouldn't spin up the drive unless a request is made of it. More often than not, I don't need anything from the external drive and yet I have to suffer the stall and I think it's wrong to spin up the drive when there is no explicit access requested. Better to just leave it sleeping. Spin up/spin down is unnecessary wear and tear, I would think.
My ongoing Browser Wars
The big news is Flock. It calls itself the social web browser and uses the same Mozilla engine Firefox is built on. It's essentially Firefox with a different interface designed to act as a central host to all the social network sites you work with by plugging into them. It's got a built-in blog editor, photo and video uploader, feed reader, and a layout that keeps all the social networking accounts you belong to, if it supports them, in a sidebar for easy access. I don't use any of its built-in tools except for the feed reader because my work flow isn't made any easier by switching to them. I use it passively, as a viewer instead of actively as a tool. Since it uses the Mozilla engine, it supports Firefox add-ons and extensions, but there would be no reason to choose this browser over Firefox if you don't kick sand in the social networking sandbox.Flock is in beta (what software isn't?) with version 2 at this time. Flock version 2 equals Firefox version 3. That's big news version 2. Firefox 3 is now an almost usable web browser. I've never liked the look and feel of it, just can't dance to it. But it's gotten quicker and more polished with version 3. There was no chance for Flock v1 or Firefox v2 to get anywhere near my computer. Firefox is still a Windows application dressed up to pretend it can fit into a Mac environment. It's on my computer but I've removed its icon from my dock.
Camino remains my main browser for the time being. I love its easy to find and use preference for blocking Flash. I can't find the words to describe how much more pleasant a web browsing experience is with Flash turned off. Camino feels like a Mac application and is rock solid for the most part. It's does NOT feel like the fastest browser and may eventually fail me if it doesn't pick up some speed.
Safari has gotten a lot better, and faster, but there are a few picayune factors that prevent me from using it as my main browser. It still feels thin to me. It doesn't support separators in bookmark menus, and the ongoing refusal to support Mozilla-made Bookmarklets really pisses me off. Bookmarklets are at the heart of my browsing experience and I will never reconfigure all of them just so I can use Safari.
Finally, I still keep using and updating a little browser called Sunrise for reconnaissance missions. The reason I use it instead of Safari or Firefox is because it lacks the pretension of those big name guns.