Month: June 2009

Went to the Del Mar Fair this weekend, and in the hawker’s pavilion there was an AT&T booth.  Good size, well staffed, fairly small amount of product – and no iPhone.

They’re selling the most popular phone on the market – the one everyone wants (yes, I exaggerate), and the one that all the other phone makers want to copy (this one I think is more true).  Why don’t you have it on display?  Why do you treat it like the red-headed stepchild?

And why, if I have my cellphone, internet/cable TV, and home phone are all on their services, can’t I get a single bill, like they promised when I signed up?  In fact, they seem to be unable to get be a Uverse bill online at all.  They’re good at getting the late notices out to me, but the actual invoices not so much.

Learned the hard way: Windows XP restore on netbook (with broken screen, cheap cheap cheap on Craigslist) requires working primary screen for XP registration.  At least I can get a new screen on ebay.  And it appears Windows 7 doesn’t have this problem (will find out soon).  Linux works, but it’s ugly.  Hackintosh would probably work if I could be bothered.

Knew this one already: if you sell a computer on Craigslist, wipe the hard drive first, because you may not sell it to someone as honest as I am.  (If you buy a computer on Craigslist, see if there’s anything interesting there before restoring it.  Like, say, MP3s, or maybe documents with bank logins!)

Any software you get on a purchased computer, that does not include the original disks, is stolen.  And may be virus-infected or configured badly or just plain unnecessary.  So pretty much any computer you buy should be restored to factory settings if possible.  Windows makes this a royal horrible pain in the tuchas.  With OSX it’s simple.

(from a message I posted on Yelp)

 I recently reviewed a place I went to dinner for the first time, and gave it four stars.  Yelp calls this “Yay!  I’m a fan.”  The owner messaged to thank me, and ask me what he could do to get to five stars.

Listen here:  I only award five stars to my all-time very favorite places.  The ones I go back to again and again, that have a fond place in my heart.  Now and then I might even give five stars to someplace where I have an exceptional experience the first time, but that’s very rare.  Most places I go are frankly three stars, but if they do a good job and the food is good I inflate it to four because that seems the norm here.

This is not how many reviewers play the game, though.  I see a few Taco Bell and McDonalds on here with five stars.  The only way that any McDonalds in the world merits five stars is if they find my kidnapped child or donate me a kidney.  Three stars for a Mickey D’s means they were exceptionally good – most of them are a solid two-star experience.  Nearly any chain restaurant – Chili’s, Outback, Macaroni Grill – had better do a truly outstanding job to merit four stars.

On the other hand, I’d like to see zero stars as an option.  A place so nasty I will never go back, and will reccomend that people avoid, deserves zero stars.  Foreign matter in my food, zero stars.  A bathroom where I’m afraid to touch the faucet or doorknob – zero stars.