09.12.06
Posted in reviews, tech, quest for the perfect laptop bag at 5:15 am by stickupkid
Time for the first review in the (dum dum dum!) “Quest for the Perfect Laptop Bag”: The Breakfast Buffet
by Crumpler.
Crumpler is a pretty well-known and regarded Australian bag company that started out making messenger bags for bicycle couriers. Their irreverant attitude and distinctive style has endeared them to many an owner, but will their smaller Breakfast Buffet measure up?
First, an overview. Small and bottom-heavy, this is really a bag I use for carrying around my 12″ Powerbook. It comes in a number of colours, but the muted light blue/yellow combination of mine certainly draws approving comments.
There are no external pockets, just a small (awkward) handle and the little crumpler man logo.
Opening it up, we see the internal yellow. The flap contains a mesh pocket and there is a small outside pocket.
The crumpler attention to detail shows up with the _very_ usable logo zip. Really like this, its size, weight, shape and even paint is great to zip and unzip! (Yes, I fear I might be autistic) The mesh pocket is intended for carrying cables, and makes the flap bulge somewhat.
The strap is wide and well-made, attached by a double velcro strap to the bag. Feels very sturdy and I haven’t had any issues with it yet. Crumpler logo shows up on the velcro again.
Looking inside the main section, you see the main problem - it’s tiny. There is a shock protected pocket that holds a 12″ laptop securely, but otherwise there is limited space for anything else.
… and that’s pretty much it! Which leads to the basic issue with this bag: it has no storage for anything much. I can fit the Powerbook, my notebook, perhaps one other item (PSP, Camera) and the power brick in the flap. Far from perfect.
The flap storage pocket is also not without issues - because is goes all the way through the flap, when you open it up items drop down into the bottom, which prevents the flap from closing: somewhat of a problem, especially if you’re in a hurry.
So, a summary of the good:
- Sturdy construction and attractive design
- Well-padded laptop storage.
- Good attention to detail
- and the not so good:
- The padded shoulder guard is not attached to the strap, which makes it skate around when you’re walking - a real pain in the a**. Or shoulder, as the case may be.
- There are no external pockets
- There are almost no _internal_ pockets - everything goes in the same 2 compartments with no filing.
- The flap pocket catches items in its base, preventing closure.
And against the criteria:
- macbook: NO
- psp or ds lite (or preferably both): One (possibly)
- iPod Nano: Yes, but with no protection
- power brick and mouse: YES
- moleskine notebook: YES
- document pocket: No Sir
- camera: Not really
- a book to read on plane takeoffs: Not even close.
- miscellaneous junk: Also no hope.
So, nice for a specific use but far from perfect. The quest continues.
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09.06.06
Posted in rants at 8:43 am by stickupkid
Nice bit of thought at membox… no answers unfortunately, but I certainly agree with the idea that business concepts are fundamentally simpler than technical concepts.
In my experience, this sort of counter-intuitive thinking is particular prevalant in financial services - for example, banks typically rate financial experience many times higher than technical competence when choosing employees or consulting partners. You may have done full end-to-end real-time integration of a global supply chain, but somehow they would prefer someone who knows how to work with finance. You know, primary school arithmetic. Finance is simply a form of specialised and very simplistic mathematics - the kind that any programmer understands inside out as a prerequisite. After all, is it any coincidence that when you get a programming manual, example 1 is “Hello, World!” and example 2 is a bank account. The only requirements are: +, -, *. Really not so hard…
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Posted in rants, tech at 4:59 am by stickupkid
After an exhausting (and still ongoing) encounter with Apple support in Australia, it seems clear that Apple are unwilling and uninterested in supporting the use of Apple computers in a business.
My odyssey began when my new (< 3 months old) black Macbook started the dreaded random shutdowns (a la Kevin Rose on Diggnation - possibly recently explained?). I’m currently travelling back and forth between Sydney and Melbourne for work, so on the weekend at home (Sydney) I backed up and prepared to take the Macbook in for servicing, figuring I could do without it for a couple of days without a serious work issue (I have a client PC to use for email). After taking the Macbook to Melbourne on Monday, I prepared to drop it off with the local reseller who I had purchased it from (fortunately on a Gold Card, more to come on that).
However, upon opening the case Monday to do a last check on my backup, I was greeted with a piece of the edge of the topcase “sproinging” off, holding on by merely a thread. Literally, I saw part of the case detach spontaneously! This piece fell off completely when i closed the lid. Insult to injury and all that. I took the Macbook in to the Apple reseller on Monday 14th of August. After some days I had received no contact, no information and no indication of when I might receive the computer I work on back. It was suggested I speak to Apple Australia customer relations by the reseller in order to escalate the priority of the repair, however Apple seemed surprised to be called in this case and referred me back to the reseller again.
After a few more days and call, eventually I was told that it would be somewhere in the realm of 5 or more working days for Apple to decide if they would replace the cracking case under warranty. After having a minor rant at customer relations about this being a work pc and this kind of downtime being untenable, they came up with a compromise: they would tell the reseller to install a new logic board to fix the shutdowns, return the Macbook to me that Friday (18th August) and take the cracking case offline for resolution (they had photos of it so could run their process independent of me getting my computer back to work on).
But it was not to be.
After waiting until Friday with no contact, I called the reseller for an update. They were too busy dealing with repairs instore (probably more with random shutdown problems!) to take my call, and promised to call back… but didn’t. This pattern that repeated itself several times until on WEDNESDAY 23rd, I finally got in touch, only to find out they hadn’t been given any instructions to return the Macbook and they were still waiting on an email from Apple Care Engineers to send the photos through so they could judge if the case issues was a defect. I got on the phone again to Apple customer relations - upon which, after much ranting, I was informed that their policy was if they decided that the case was damaged (not a defect) then they would refuse to fix ANY defects under warranty on the basis the physical damage might have caused them. Ye gods.
Fortunately, this particular f-you from Apple turned out to be a false alarm: On the 29th of August, I was informed that the case was considered damage, and it would not be covered, HOWEVER Apple would continue to look at fixing the random shutdown. Fortunately, through purchasing the laptop on a Gold Card that had purchase insurance (against any physical damage in 90 days), I was able to claim for the repair, no thanks to Apple. I kicked off the purchase insurance proces, which due to paperwork, processing etc takes some weeks to resolve. However, I felt at this point (2+ weeks after putting it in for repair) that the process had been unacceptable - an obviously defective (random shutdowns) unit was still not repaired, and I was becoming steadily more impaired in my ability to work. (As an aside, I work in IT Consulting where my rate charged to a Customer is roughly 1 Macbook/day - so the loss in productivity was quite an issue!)
I asked Apple what the complaint process was, and I was told that my only recourse would be to mail or fax (iLife, anyone? Nice to see a supposedly modern computer company using Fax and Snail Mail) a complaint to Apple - which I did. I have yet to receive any response to this complaint.
On Friday the 1st of September, I spoke to the reseller, who told me they had ordered the logic board, and it would arrive Monday. Note they didn’t order it when I brought it in, but rather waited until the latest necessary time. Good call. Upshot was, I would finally get the laptop back, over three weeks after it had been sent in with a known issue, on Monday the 4th of September. No word on Monday, so I contacted them Tuesday the 5th. I was informed that the logic boards were out of stock (I guess there are a lot of defective 2GHz Macbooks out there in Aussie!) and they couldn’t tell me when one might be available, and to contact Apple to get more info. I contacted Apple _again_ and was told they didn’t know when one would be available, but would get back to me. Come Wednesday, I was informed they were unable to give me any ETA whatsoever, and I was back in limbo.
So the current state of play: I have been without a work machine for 3 and a half weeks, Apple have basically told me they won’t do anything to resolve the issue, I still have no ETA on the repair, no idea when I might get my laptop back, and to make matters worse the case is defective and won’t be repaired under warranty! At the end of the day, it looks like the only way to get any accountability from Apple is to name and shame them! There are several key lessons everyone out there should be taking away from this:
- Apple (in Australia at least) are unwilling to support the needs of a business user.
- Apple Australia will gladly screw their customers to avoid replacing a defective unit.
- Make sure if you buy an Apple product that you have alternative purchase insurance or you run a high risk of getting a defective, unfixed product.
- Reiterating 1) above - if you are in business, and want to use an Apple, buy two and keep them synchronised - when one of them goes in for repair, you’ll need the other to tide you over.
- Apple make defective products, and don’t support them. Okay, laptops are complicated to make, and all manufacturers have a return rate, but at least they generally fix them quickly when they are defective!
PS: To add to the fun, my backup computer is an old 12″ Powerbook. And yes, I recently learned that it’s included in the battery recall. While the Macbook is in the shop, I can’t give up the battery (they expect you to hand in your battery, then wait EIGHT WEEKS for a replacement! Go Apple Australia again!) so any day now I fully expect it to explode on me. Joy. If anyone else out there in the Australian internetland has had a similar experience, add to the comments: it would be good to get a body of evidence for us all to take to the consumer commission!
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09.03.06
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:43 am by stickupkid
Well, after a long and illustrious career talking sense on his blog, Joel Spolsky has gone and pulled a pretty monumental blunder. He writes an extensive post about how you should stick to Java if you want to do big Enterprisey Serious Business Stuff, and how all non-standard languages are risky and career-limiting. He then moves on to single out Ruby on Rails as unusable due to performance and unicode limitations.
Response from the RoR blog community (particularly DHH) : “Oh no you Didn’t!“
Not only does Joel apparently have some kind of minor brain implosion when suggesting that only the mainstream can ever succeed, he then finishes by saying that despite all his advice, for _his own team_, they develop in their own proprietary language. Because somehow his own flawed advice doesn’t apply to him. I really can’t think of anything better to say than how DHH put it: “Joel, you’re my new hero of irony.”
technorati tags:rubyonrails, joelonsoftware, dhh
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