I work in the cloud files division, called Mosso, as a Linux Systems Admin. Tomorrow, I get to find out exactly what that means.

I spent the day today going through their “new-hire” process. It was actually pretty interesting.

We spent the morning going over and signing up for our health benefits. They provided lunch, and then the afternoon was spent with presentations from security and systems administration.

I also received parking tags and an ID badge.

I’ve never had to wear an official ID badge before. Of course, many of my school district clients had me wear visitor badges, so the concept isn’t completely foreign, but still, it’ll be kinda weird.

Jill and I went through all of the healthcare paperwork tonight. Whew.

Just found out while doing some research for a customer that HP has discontinued it’s 2605 series of printers.

What a bummer! They were inexpensive, reliable printers.

The good news is that they’ve replaced them with a new series. If you’re looking for an equivalent to the 2605dn, check out the new P2055dn.

Hopefully the new series will be just as nice.

We’ve been working on the store for a few weeks, and it’s now ready to go. Check it out! The store is powered by Zen Cart, which seems pretty nice.

Buy something for your Significant Other!

http://kiladesigns.com/

To view it, point your mobile’s browser at my URL (http://dereksblahg.net).

Let me know if it doesn’t work for you!

Next time you have the chance, kick someone over at AT&T for me. Thanks.

Then kick yourself for allowing AT&T to dictate how you sell product. Thanks.

Wow… purchasing an iPhone 3G was so not the experience I expected from Apple.

Ok, waiting in line for an Apple Launch, I don’t mind.

I got to the La Cantera store at 9am. They opened at 8am, so I figured the line would have moved some by the time I got there. Not so much. It didn’t even seem like anyone was coming out with new phones!

At 10am, Jill left to take Ian to his six months doctor’s checkup. She got back before I got into the store.

By noon, I wasn’t in the store yet. Let’s be clear, I was only 250 or so people back in line, when I got there at 9am. In fact, I wasn’t as far back this time as I was for the original iPhone launch. I waited in line from noon to 6pm that day, but that’s because the store was closed! I knew there was going to be a long wait… I even took a cooler and a lawn chair. And then, after the line started moving, it only took a half hour or so to get inside the store. But not today, though.

We were hearing from people coming out of the store that activation was taking about 15 minutes per person (per phone, I guess).

Once we got in the store, it didn’t get any better. We tried activating Jill’s phone first, an 8GB. Her activation failed for reasons unknown — perhaps the servers were having trouble at that point. I don’t know. Whatever, though, once that happened, then her phone number was caught in the middle of the “port” — because she was moving her phone number over from Verizon — and her phone couldn’t be activated.

So, we decided to activate my new phone, a 16GB model, and then work on hers. Mine activated just fine, no problem. Well, almost no problem. Once my phone activated, my old phone no longer worked. You wouldn’t think that would be a big deal, except that my new phone had to be plugged into iTunes before it could finish activation. So I was basically without a phone for almost an hour while we worked on Jill’s phone.

We waited in line again for a “concierge” to help us fix the problem with Jill’s ported number. He had to call AT&T directly, wait on hold forever, and then cancel her number port so we could start again.

During this entire time, you have to realize, the handheld kiosks that the Apple employees were using were working really, really slowly. So we finally got Jill’s phone activated, on the third try.

Then we went to another part of the store, and meet with another Apple employee to plug the phones into iTunes so that they can “upload the IMEI number”, according to one employee. Surprisingly enough, each phone at this step only took a minute or two. The employee told us when we walked up that it was taking “5 to 45 minutes” for this step. Boy, were we happy at this point. Just to get out of the store.

Let me say that all of the employees were nice, even though they were obviously frustrated. I mean, everyone was great, it was just a bad situation.

All of you guys (and gals) that skipped today’s launch… pat yourselves on the back.

On the other hand, a friend of mine, Chad, stopped by the La Cantera store around 10:30 or so, and said that he already picked his phone up, at an AT&T store, and everything went smoothly.

Of course, I heard from someone else in line that they went to an AT&T store, waited since 6:30am, just to find out that store had only been shipped 15 phones!! So, did Chad get lucky? I don’t know.

Stephen twittered today about the Northstar opening… reminding me that I took a few pictures of the event, and promptly forgot to post them!

Check them here.

I had recently installed a new router in my network to take advantage of the increased speeds coming from my ISP, RoadRunner. They offer 15Mbits down and 2Mbits up in my area, so I needed to finally replace my ancient Linksys WRT54G. The WRT only supports up to 10Mbit on it’s WAN port, although it does support 100Mbit on it’s internal switch. Either way, the wireless stopped working on it months ago, so it needed replaced anyway.

I had previously installed a little Belkin router as a simple access point in my house, just to have 54g wireless after the WRT’s wireless went out, but my new router supports wireless-N.

So I have the new router set up for N only, and the old router setup for B/G. Oh, and everything’s running WAP now, too!

Essentially, my AppleTV now has the wireless-N to itself, as I have no other wireless-N client devices.

I did have to order an Intel Pro 1000 PCI card for my server… it’s so “old” now that the on-board NIC is only 100Mbit.

So, I installed the NIC and the switch today, and my transfers from my Mac mini to my server increased dramatically.

I timed a 4.3GB transfer before and after, here’s how it looks: 8 minutes before, 2:06 after. That’s 2GB per minute, as opposed to only about 600MB per minute before. Woot!

Here’s what I did, I’ll just link to the forum post I made, over at Acurazine… look for my username “DMoyes” it’s the 5th and 6th posts in that thread.

http://tl.acurazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=173870

So, anyway, he was worried about having to buy a new battery. It’s kind of a bummer, but what do you do, if you haven’t bought AppleCare?

Well, I suggested that he go down to our Apple Store, since he was in town for a few days, over Thanksgiving.

Oh, BTW, Happy (belated) Turkey Day!

The guys at the Apple Store, who are usually pretty good, basically told him that since he hadn’t registered the MacBook, they couldn’t even look it up! And if it wasn’t in their system, they couldn’t help him.

So he decided to come home and register it. Of course, after registering, it showed as “out of warranty” — he knew it was pretty close, and most likely over a year old. Close indeed.

He left San Antonio late Saturday night, to travel back home, and today I got an interesting email from him:

“I cannot believe it!

Apple is going to send me a free replacement battery for [my wife's] Macbook. Only 15 minuets [sic] on the phone – troubleshooting the steps, and they confirmed that even though I am exactly 62 days past my warranty they will replace it for free. I am stunned.

Much thanks to Elroy at Mac Support…”

Awesome! He then went on to tell me that he had researched it, and J&R Electronics had the lowest price on the battery, and he was just about to click “Buy” when he decided to call Apple’s Support line.

I know he’s glad he did… once again, Apple Support comes through. Tell me how often Dell, HP or Gateway would do this for you.

He purchased a MacBook for his wife some time back, and now the battery isn’t holding a charge. I forwarded him to a couple of places that could sell him a replacement battery, but I also asked him if he had purchased AppleCare.

He had not, but AppleCare for that one would have cost $249, so if all it needs is a battery in three years, he’s still ahead, since a replacement battery should be considerably less than $249.

Generally, though… I have decided to buy AppleCare for laptops that I purchase, but not desktops… although if I bought an iMac I probably would throw it on there, just because it’s basically a laptop in a nice desktop case.

I do have AppleCare on my PowerBook, and this year after T-Day it’ll be 2 years old, so I’ll still have a year left. On this one it was $349. Of course, my battery was part of the infamous Sony recall, so I got a new battery for free earlier this year.

However, I also own 2 Mac minis that I do not have AppleCare on… I think the Mac mini “replacement cost” is too low to spend the money, even though it’s only $149, not $249.

On my son’s iMac, it was a gift, so we didn’t put it on there.

So, basically, I have 4 macs and only one has it, the laptop. But if I bought another laptop I would certainly buy it.

Now, all of that said… I think that AppleCare is a MUCH better deal than most stores’ “extended warranty” (or “performance plan” as some of them call it)… basically, with it you take your product to the Apple Store, and they fix it. Seriously.

As an example, I bought an iPod 5G, a 30 Gig, used from a friend, and it failed (hard drive) within a year (of my friend’s original purchase date) — the Apple employees still let me buy AC for $59. Even though it was in warranty, I would have had to leave it at the store, and wait for a new (or refurbished) one to come in. When I bought the AC, they just gave me a new one. Furthermore, that same iPod failed again after 6 months (bad batch of HDDs, I guess) and the second time it cost me nothing except my time for a trip to the Apple Store, and I again walked out with a new one. If I hadn’t purchased AC within the first year, I wouldn’t have been eligible for it the second time around, and I would’ve had to pay to fix or replace my iPod.

Another thing I just thought of — I bought an Apple Mighty Mouse, sometime after I bought my laptop, but it broke while I was trying to clean it (the little scroll ball on top). When I called it in, since I used it on my laptop (which had AC) they replaced it for free… I called them around 3pm, and a new mouse was on my doorstep at 10am the next morning… with a return box and an 800 number to call for pickup. $0 out of my pocket for overnight shipping on a replacement MOUSE!! Who the hell else does that?

UPDATE: More Thoughts On AppleCare, Or At Least, Apple Support (2007 Nov 26th)