Category: Computer technology

Does the federal government own a Photoshop license?

Does the federal government own a Photoshop license?

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The news and blogs are all abuzz about the low flying jets over New York City. Evidently, these jets are a result of some desire to photograph Air Force One with the Statue of Liberty.

Air Force One

I don’t understand this! Surely there are a million pictures of Air Force One. There are probably a billion pictures of Lady Liberty. With a bit of talent using Photoshop these two icons could have been combined. This would have saved a reported $300,000 and not caused panic in the most populated city in the USA.

And there was a legitimate reason for that panic. It was less than 8 years ago that this city was bombed with planes by terrorists. Of course, that was under a different President so our Executive memory doesn’t go back that far.

Burning Towers
Image from Ron Pass

I really hope someone got fired over this. A major mistake like that in the private sector would have been a pink slip. It is amazing that this is the same bureaucracy that wants to run our health insurance! Is there anything that the government does that private industry cannot do better?

Using the iPhone as a newsreader

Using the iPhone as a newsreader

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I read a lot of RSS feeds for work, blogging, and general interest. I used to use Google Reader for most of this before I had my iPhone. When the iPhone came out though I found that the iPhone reader was very difficult for me to read without my reading glasses (I have reached that point in life when I need to keep reading glasses like the ones found at https://felixgray.com/pages/readers-glasses, close when I am going to do serious reading). Of course, many adults reach that age earlier than they expect. Presbyopia is a condition that makes it a lot more difficult for people to see objects that are close to them. This happens to almost every adult over 45 years old (normally). Most people will need reading glasses for this, but others might decide to look for more info on presbyopia surgery. That could improve vision and prevent people from needing their reading glasses.

When I read feeds on my laptop, I don’t mind using my glasses but if I am away from the computer and just trying to catch a quick update, reading glasses are a pain to deal with.

Since the Reader on the iPhone wouldn’t let me change fonts, I went with another service, Newsgator, for my needs. This required me to use their desktop app (or web app) as well. I still prefered Google’s Reader but the entire package put me ahead.

Of course, the value of capitalism has stepped in. Where there is a gap between need and fulfillment, someone is surely going to create a product to fill that gap. I am happy to report that there are at least 3 options for reading news feeds via Google on the iPhone that don’t require the Google site. Those options are Gazette, Byline and Doppler. The good folks over at The Blog Herald are reviewing the various apps so if this subject interests you, jump over and read their reviews.

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Obama has set the standard as the Great Communicator

Obama has set the standard as the Great Communicator

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For the past decade or two, Ronald Wilson Reagan set the standard as “The Great Communicator” while he was President of the United States.  There is no question that he excelled over the many bumblings of George Walker Bush as David Letterman has so aptly recorded for us!

However, it is already clear that President Barack Hussein Obama is going to take the mantle of the Great Communicator if he hasn’t already done so.

Here are some of his accomplishments so far:

Congratulations to BHO and his staff on all of this.  I am sure that it has been quite difficult! Our government has never been the center of excellence for the use of technology. Clinton’s team was extremely frustrated at the lack of technology when they moved into the building.

Let us hope that all of this will result in a better run government, although the various missteps on getting nominees approved has been a bit disconcerting.  And like all Presidents, he needs to stop exaggerating the truth.

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RANT! Be careful buying iPod Touch from BestBuy

RANT! Be careful buying iPod Touch from BestBuy

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My 3 teenagers have all purchased the iPod Touch from BestBuy.  Actually, the youngest one just received his as a birthday gift and that is what is prompting this rant.

There are a variety of gadget sites that talk about the deals available at BestBuy (see here and here). The forums are split as to buying the warranty (here and here) but Apple doesn’t have a great track record on iPods and the BestBuy warranty has replaced 3 separate iPods for my family over the years so we think it is a good deal.

So when my youngest son wanted a new iPod Touch to replace his nano, it was natural for us to go to BestBuy. He was ecstatic when he opened the gift and it was plugged into the family computer within minutes.  Imagine his disappointment when his brand new Touch had pre-2.0 software on it and iTunes wanted him to upgrade for only $9.95!  This OS upgrade was announced almost a year ago.

I wouldn’t have been too upset except for four issues:

  1. this same thing happened when my daughter bought her iPod Touch 9 months ago and we had to fight BestBuy for a resolution
  2. if we had bought the unit from Apple, it would have had the latest software (according to the Apple customer support person when we dealt with this issue on my daughter’s iPod)
  3. because of the experience with my daughter’s iPod, we had asked the BestBuy sales person upon purchase if it had the latest OS and was assured that it did (I am not sure why I trust a young man that still is suffering from teenage acne though)
  4. the rude treatment that I received on the BestBuy support call

I have already written to BestBuy complaining about their support call as well as their shady service.  But they don’t get off that easy.  I am also going to complain here.

I have no quibbles about the software not being up to date for a product that is shrinkwrapped and unopened.  I fully understand that BestBuy is buying their Apple products by the truckload (or container load) and that some of these may sit on the shelf past an upgrade.  However, they should be clearly marked as having the old OS and there should be an automatic coupon printed at the time of purchase to allow the consumer to upgrade the unit. The unsuspecting consumer should not be penalized for BestBuy getting a great deal from Apple because they bought a million iPods at once.

I almost wonder if this is a plan by Apple and BestBuy to lure some unsuspecting consumers to pay for the upgrade to the new OS even though they are legally entitled to that upgrade for free.

So what was the resolution?  The same as it was for my daughter’s iPod.  I called BestBuy, complained, and told them we would be returning the unit if they didn’t make this right.  After a bit of grief that was inexcusable for customer service rep, they promised to send me a $10 BestBuy card to cover the out of pocket cost for the upgrade.

BESTBUY SHOULD AUTOMATICALLY GIVE OUT COUPONS TO COVER THE COST OF UPGRADING TO THE CURRENT VERSION OF OPERATING SYSTEM!

Lesson learned for any readers out there: check the OS on your iPod Touch that was recently purchased from BestBuy. If you need to upgrade to a current OS then call BestBuy for a gift card to cover the cost.  Don’t pay for the upgrade yourself!

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Groups (categories) in your iPhone

Groups (categories) in your iPhone

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This may be incredibly obvious to everyone else but I have wanted to do a better job of managing my contacts on my iPhone.  When I used Windows Mobile, I could put categories on my contacts in Outlook and those categories meant something on the phone as well.  The iPhone doesn’t support categories so all my contacts (approaching 1000 at this writing) were in one big list.

I did a little experiment and found out that the Groups function on your iPhone includes not only your Global Address Book from your company, but also any sub-folders of your Contacts on the Exchange server.  This way you can divide different types of contacts (work, customers, family, vendors, etc. into different Contact folders on your server and they appear correctly on your phone.

Here is a screen shot of my folders in Exchange:

Clip1

and here is a screen shot of the Groups on my iPhone.

photo

To make the sub-folders available to you when you are addressing email or looking for contact details, in Outlook go to Tools|Address Book and then do Tools|Options in the Address Book.  This will let you change your search preferences on the different Contact folders that you have available (including your Global Address Book from your Exchange server).

Hope this helps!  I solved one of my problems.

I am done with this topic for now but I reserve the right to rant more on it someday.

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