Category: product complaints

“Plays for Sure” will not play on the Zune

On By Rick McIn music, product complaintsLeave a comment

225px-Zune-colors.jpgI’m not making this up.

Microsoft’s “iPod-killing” Zune player won’t play music that’s locked up with Microsoft’s own anti-copying software. Music and movies sold through Napster 2.0, Rhapsody, Yahoo! Unlimited, Movielink and Cinemanow (heavily promoted in the past by MS) won’t play on the Zune, even though these services are marketed in conjunction with Microsoft’s “Plays for Sure”

Boing Boing: Microsoft Zune won’t play purchased Microsoft media files

Christmas morning how happy would you be if your brand new digital music player will not load your legally purchased music collection?

the broken promise of free wireless internet

On By Rick McIn internet, product complaints, travelLeave a comment

TODAYonline reports that Singapore will have free wireless internet from almost anywhere on the island by next September.

(via Dvorak Uncensored » Singapore, one giant hotspot — FREE!)

I’m writing this post on free wireless internet in San Francisco, another supposed hotspot of the technology.

My experience here close to silicon valley is that wireless internet, free or not, is inconsistent and unreliable. Weird things go wrong. It is frustrating to work with large files such as video and photos.

My free wireless connection at the glassy Apple Store was no better.

I just want to plug-in.

wireless.jpg
comic source – DoNotUpload.com

Vancouver airport sucks

On By Rick McIn product complaints, travel, travelogues4 Comments

This is my 4th trip to the States in 2006. I’ve passed through over a dozen airports.

Despite the security nonsense of the summer (don’t point that toothpaste at me!) I had no major airport hassles.

Then I arrived 5:30AM at the Vancouver, BC airport American departures cattle drive. It was a mess. Long lines at every stop including Tim Hortons coffee shop. Clearly they do not have enough capacity for the volume of traffic.

Or — speculating wildly — insane union contracts (15min smoke break every hour?) results in this kind of shocking service.

Happily the airport will be much improved in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics. … Wait a minute…. It seems the Olympic budget has doubled from the original estimate and could get worse.

Avoid Vancouver airport if you can.

» next travelogue post on this trip – hiking Mt. Shasta California

Newsweek the lapdog of the right?

On By Rick McIn economics, government, product complaintsLeave a comment

That is the claim sweeping the internet.

Check their cover story in different regions:

newsweekcover.jpg

I am sceptical. The American cover story is a feature on photographer Annie Leibovitz who just shot the fabulously profitable Suri Cruise photos.

This month’s cover is Angelina and her kids.

I expect the decision was based on which would move the most product.

new Flock browser – update

On By Rick McIn blogs, internet, product complaints, product endorsementsLeave a comment

For the third time I tried to use ultra cool Flock as a browser.

No go. Again.

Flock is only in beta release, but very basic features do not seem to work on my Mac laptop.

Is there no way to switch posting to my 3 different blogs?

And if I change the default search engine from crappy Yahoo to excellent Google, it defaults back to Yahoo.

And why does the home page take so long to load?

I will give the good folks at Flock a few more months to work out the bugs.

===== original post July 22, 2006

Flock.com — The web browser for you and your friends

It’s for real. Flock is the state of the art web browser. This is the direction Internet Explorer, Firefox and the rest will be going.

Flock is perfect for someone who wants to post a blog and integrate Flickr photos. It’s perfect for me.

Yet I will not be switching. I can already do the many things Flock now automates. There is no killer feature compelling enough for me to jump ship from Safari, my current browser.

But if you are thinking of starting a blog yourself, follow the instructional video on screencastsonline.com — exactly.

//www.flock.com/themes/flock/images/logo.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

technorati tags:

improving urban traffic

On By Rick McIn audiocasts, economics, good news, product complaintsLeave a comment

In the film Beverly Hills Cop, Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) asks his love interest, “Is this your car?”

She replies, “Oh, no. In Beverly Hills we just take whichever car is closest.”

I always loved that line.

Now it’s (almost) come true.

“Car Sharing Goes Upscale” by Paul Boutin, a Slate.com podcast brought me up to speed.

No longer a “save the Earth guilt trip”, car sharing is now cool.

In San Francisco you can grab a CityCarShare.com economy car just about anywhere in town and pay just $4/hr plus $.44/mile. That includes gas, insurance and parking.

citycarshare.jpg

Sweet!

As a non-car-owner I would take advantage of that often. A friend in Calgary has been doing something similar here. I will check it out.

High rollers and business travellers are paying much, much more for short-term luxury car hourly rentals. In San Francisco check ZipCar.com

It’s become a hip thing to do there.

Product complaint: I would love to link to the original Slate.com podcast archive so you could listen for yourself. But they look to be 3 weeks behind in posting them!

Instead you could search iTunes > podcasts > Slate Magazine Daily Podcast.

contractors in Iraq make war costs balloon

On By Rick McIn bad news, economics, government, product complaintsLeave a comment

As a teen someone taught me that — when you want to know why decisions are made — follow the money.

The rip-offs have never been greater in the history of the world than in Iraq.

Where are the billion$ going?

newsobserver.com | Contractors in Iraq make costs balloon

halliburton-soda-thumb.jpg

tobacco companies increased nicotine

On By Rick McIn bad news, health & fitness, product complaintsLeave a comment

Surprise, surprise.

Tobacco companies increased nicotine in kids’ and minorities’ cigs

A new study shows that tobacco companies have been quietly increasingly the nicotine in the brands most smoked by kids and minorities for the past decade, increasing the toxicity and addictiveness of their products.

Boing Boing: Tobacco companies increased nicotine in kids’ and minorities’ cigs
2006

Monsanto should be terminated

On By Rick McIn bad news, food, government, health & fitness, product complaintsLeave a comment

photo.jpgPlaying with Mother Nature is rarely a good policy.

This is bound to end in diaster.

… I believe Monsanto is going too far with this evil … Yes, I said evil. To prevent a farmer’s seed from previous harvests from germinating just to maintain a strong grip on the marketplace is sick, and one strong reason GM food is looked at with distrust and hatred in the rest of the world.

Terminator technology or anything that disrupts the proper development of any plant should be illegal.

Beyond protecting intellectual property, this is all about greed, plain and simple.

Dvorak Uncensored » Monsanto continues to pursue controversial “Terminator” seed-control technology

music-video-blog.com is a fake

On By Rick McIn blogs, internet, product complaintsLeave a comment

Hey, I’ve been “blogged” by an automated link farm blog. (There may be some term for these things. It’s not a splog, as I understand them.)

This is a blog with no original content at all. It merely cuts and pastes, then links to other blogs. The owner collects cash from the Google ads but does no editing on the blog at all.

I’m not sure how I feel about these sites. Certainly they clutter the web. But there may be some value in them.