I switch to Qwest DSL Platinum

I used to have an ISDN broadband connection.

Hey, everyone has a special story.

When I switched to DSL I went with VISI.COM, a local company. They provided great services back then, before a series of management changes. Alas, they were dependent on Qwest for connectivity, and Qwest had other priorities. Meanwhile my ActionTec router was behaving miserably.

I considered cable, but that sounded equally bad -- especially since we don't have cable television (or much of any television, actually).

The ActionTec finally died, and I decided to try a higher grade of service, in the hope it would come with better gear. I'd become disenchanted with VISI over the past few months, though their support people were always great, so I figured I'd just go with Qwest/MSN - doing a Qwest DSL | High-speed Internet Upgrade. At least with Qwest I'd have one place to call.

I didn't get any deals doing it by phone -- except they waived the connection fee. My new 2WIRE router cost $100. The Qwest rep I spoke with was, wait for it ... efficient, funny, charming, and even a bit sarcastic. I'm guessing phone support isn't her regular job.

The economy can't be all that good, by the way, because lately I've been getting excellent phone service from a variety of companies. That's a sign skilled people are having to take whatever jobs they can find.

The MSN part of the deal is irrelevant. I get all my ISP services,including IMAP email, from Google Apps anyway.

The changeover could have been worse. This morning we lost internet service, and this afternoon the the router in the box we put out for it. After 5pm I plugged in the $100 WIRE router (no wifi, which is great since we use an Apple Airport Extreme) and it connected quickly.

Alas, the box didn't contain our un/pw for the connection or even for MSN. For that stuff you have to install Qwest's "QuickConnect" software.

I sighed deeply and started it up on my XP machine. I didn't want Qwest's vile code infesting my Mac.

Minutes later the splashscreen was still drawing.

Evidently they wrote this app using a new programming language that runs in a sandbox that runs in a 68030 emulator running in a non-compiled Java 1.0 VM.

Or maybe there's code running in the background outsourcing Qwest's computational work.

It chugged along a bit further, but by now I'd decided I didn't want this dreck infesting even my XP box. So I fired up 192.168.0.1, found the screen for adding un/pw, and called Qwest.

The tech person was, again, very good. She promptly gave me my Qwest un/pw and, for what it's worth, my MSN un/pw (guess I need a mail forwarder there [1]).

So far it's been fine. I'll update with this post as I learn how well it works, and, most of all, learn how much it will really cost. (Signing a contract with a phone company is good practice for besting Lucifer in a tough deal. I suspect it will be about $50 a month when all is done.)

[1] MSN won't forward to a gmail account, so I had to use my custom domain. Cowards. MSN sign-in creates a Windows LIVE account, with all sorts of nasty authentication issues, so use a very strong password.

Update: no MSN actually doesn't forward at all - despite what they say. It rejected faughnan.com and spamcop.net. Incompetent cowards.

Update 9/17/08: Qwest has done well. No complaints.

iPhoto '08: don't embed metadata in JPEG originals

I've written previously that iPhoto '08 is Aperture-Lite, but with nastier bugs. Apple appears to use a lot of the same source code for both now.

So I decided to retest export behavior in iPhoto and see if it was still smarter than Aperture.

In particular, Aperture is very dumb when managing an export of mixed JPEG and RAW files. If you select JPEG format rather than current format, Aperture doesn't simply export the original JPEG, it processes the JPEG and then repeats the lossy compression.

Dumb.

iPhoto used to be smarter. If a JPEG original was untouched, and you specified export as JPEG, iPhoto would export the original JPEG. Perfect.

The good news is iPhoto is still smarter than Aperture. If you specify export as JPEG on a mixture of RAW and JPEG images with "maximum quality", iPhoto will export the JPEGs without transformation.

EXCEPT, if you embed metadata like rating and title. In that case iPhoto expands the original and writes a new file that's been recompressed.

So a 1.8 MB unedited JPEG original becomes a 4MB export if the metadata feature has been used. A bigger file with quality loss due to repeat lossy compression.

Yech.

It doesn't have to be this way. GraphicConverter and other apps will allow EXIF header changes without a lossy compression cycle.

So iPhoto's JPEG handling isn't quite as stupid as Aperture's, but it's headed that way.

How do you replace iPhone 1.0 with iPhone 2.0?

Given all the restrictions Apple has placed on iPhones, does that mean we can't sell an old iPhone if we buy a new one?

Apple - Support - Discussions - Replacing my iPhone with the next ...

.... Suppose I buy an iPhone today using Apple's plan.

Sometime in the next year Apple, according to what Jobs has publicly said, will produce a new model. Say it costs $500 for new customers.

Suppose I decide to buy the new model.

Would I be able to buy it for $500? What am I allowed to do with my old phone? Can I sell it? Can I give it away? Can I transfer it to my wife?

Update: Here's the answer from the Apple Discussion thread (link above) ...

... You can sell your phone to another person. They can go to AT&T and get a SIM for the iPhone...then go home and activate it with their account. Very similar to when you get back a refurbished phone or a replacement from an Apple Store (just a bit reversed)...

... You could sell your iPhone to me and before handing it over, the iPhone includes an option to erase all data and settings and you would remove the SIM card and transfer it to your new iPhone.

I would visit a local AT&T Store and request a new SIM card for the used iPhone I purchased which would allow me to activate this iPhone with my existing AT&T number or if I wasn't an existing AT&T subscriber I would need to become one via the iTunes activation process with AT&T...

So if you're an AT&T subscriber who's interested in the iPhone, you might be able to get a used 1.0 phone fairly inexpensively when the 2.0 phone comes out (perhaps in ?).

Google project inventory

The FSJ satire site is also an "insider" gossip site. I really liked this list of Google projects - with status. It's incomplete of course, I could add another six I've personally used.

Still, a good reference.

Update: a less sarcastic review - for 2007.

Leopard Mail.app has unique message identifiers

This will enable many very important productivity applications.

Daring Fireball: 'message:' URLs in Leopard Mail:

... The new version of Mail in Leopard introduces a ‘message:’ URL handler that allows you to refer to individual messages in Mail from other applications. You can use a utility such as RCDefaultApp to see that Mail registers as the default handler for the “message:” scheme. That Mail now supports these URLs does not seem to be documented by Apple anywhere, but it’s fairly simple, and very useful. It’s one of my favorite new features in Leopard Mail...

It qualifies as a 10.5 "hidden feature".

Now if only Mail.app (and Gmail) would implement Outlook's most important feature -- the ability to edit the subject line of a received message.

New Canon CanoScan drivers

Mac OS X 10.5: Canon CanoScan scanners unable to scan tells us Canon has updated CanoScan drivers out. I didn't check this out as my mother won't be on 10.5 for a while, but she does have a CanoScan. Canon's OS X drivers have been quite horrid, so anyone stuck with a Canon scanner might want to take a look at this.

OS X Backup doesn't do other users folders

I don't recall anyone every mentioning this:

.Mac: Backup intended for backing up files in your Home folder, but not your entire startup disk

...Files in other user's Home folders Because Backup runs with the same file permissions as the currently logged-in user, you can't use it for backup up files in other user account's Home folders even if they are on the same computer. Log in as the other user before using Backup.

Backup works with .Mac. In some ways it's the precursor to Time Machine.

I wonder how many people think they're backing up the family's files, when they're only backing up their own ....

Kind of worthless on a multi-user machine.