GarrettBartley.com

I just received an e-mail (excerpt below) that looks to me that I will be receiving a $200 refund on my iPhone 3Gs pre-order from Apple. I originally paid $399 plus taxes and fees since I am one year into my two year contract. Then, at 5:54 PM EST, I get this e-mail from Apple:

Update! It looks like this was announced earlier today. I should check my RSS feeds more often! From MacRumors.com: AT&T Extends iPhone 3G S Upgrade Pricing to Many Customers.

To Our Valued Apple Customer:

On June 17, AT&T announced a change to their upgrade eligibility policy and ‘best upgrade pricing’ for qualifying iPhone 3G owners.

Based on AT&T’s updated qualification criteria, we are pleased to inform you that you are eligible to receive a refund on your recent iPhone 3G S purchase.

Your Order Acknowledgment and Shipment Notification emails will reflect the original purchase price. However, Apple will issue you a refund in the amount of $200.00, which is the difference between your original purchase price and the new qualifying price.

Apple will process your refund in the next 5 days, and will send you an email when this has been completed. We will process your refund based on your original payment method. See below for details.

No additional action is needed on your part for you to receive the refund. These activities will not impact your estimated delivery dates.

You can view the most up-to-date status of your order, including monitoring the details of your refund, at online Order Status .

Thank you for choosing Apple.

Sincerely,
Apple Online Store Team

Answers to many Apple Online Store questions can be found at Online Help

Refund Details
-Credit card refunds are sent to the card-issuing bank. Please contact the card-issuing bank with questions about when the credit will be
posted to your account.
-Apple Gift Card payments are refunded in the form of a new Apple Gift Card. Please allow up to five business days to receive your
new Apple Gift Card via United States Postal Service (USPS) after processing.
-Cash payments are refunded in the form of a check from Apple, which will be mailed to your billing address.

Anyone else get this?

It’s 2 days before I’m supposed to receive my new iPhone 3Gs and things have already started going haywire at AT&T and Apple. I noticed around 9:45 this morning that I had no 3G (or Edge) data connectivity here in downtown Chattanooga. I got on and checked my account from the wireless.att.com site and, sure enough, there was no data plan or text messaging plan selected for my account. I tried to add them back from the web and received an error message.

I called AT&T from the land line at the office to see what was going on. After entering my number and pressing 0 a couple of times to get a person, I got a hold of a rep. It turns out that Apple dropped my data and text messaging plans. Even better, they also dropped my iPhone from the plan! The brilliant part was the web was still showing I had an iPhone. The rep was able to fix the data and text messaging plans and show that my plan has an iPhone. In all, the call took 13 minutes and 7 seconds. The rep was very friendly and helpful and knew what she was doing. Sure, something got botched in the works, but it was an overall positive experience.

I did pre-order the 3Gs from Apple online on Monday. She said that Apple wasn’t supposed to do anything to the upgrade accounts until the new 3Gs phones were activated on Friday. I think the blame may lay with Apple on this one. As of now, my 3Gs order status is “Prepared for Shipment”. I bet that order status may have something to do with the disruption in service.

Just to put this out there, I am posting the collection of iPhone apps that I use on a fairly regular (or sometimes not-so-regular) basis. There are 4 pages of apps. I’ll tackle one page at a time. And, yes, I realize the new iPhone OS 3.0 is due out in less than 24 hours. I have glossed over the default apps and focused on anything that I have installed.

WeatherBug – This one has been grandfathered in. It was one of the first (if not the first) weather app that didn’t suck, and I’ve been using it ever since.

Pandora – I use this one quite a bit. Whenever the news isn’t on NPR, I typically open up Pandora and tune in to music I want to hear. I’ve been using Pandora for a couple of years on desktop computers, so I have built up a decent set of stations. I’d recommend doing this first so you don’t have to worry about thumbing up and down songs to build your stations while driving.

Amazon.com – I have an Amazon rewards card and do a majority of my online shopping at Amazon.com. This app is pretty handy when I want to make a quick purchase or look something up. If you’re an Amazon.com addict, this app is not good for you unless you have amazing self-control.

Last.fm – A fallback to Pandora. Pretty good fallback option.

Facebook – The Facebook app. Not bad, but you’re probably better off waiting to get to a computer if you want to do anything on Facebook.

AIM – This does pretty well for AOL Instant Messenger. I also find it fairly useless unless chatting online and sitting inside a single app for an extended period of time (since there’s no background or push notifications at this point) is acceptable.

MySpace – I honestly couldn’t tell you the last time I used this app. I couldn’t tell you the last time I logged into MySpace anyways. I should probably delete this one.

Nambu – This is probably my 2nd favorite Twitter app. It also supports a couple of extra services that I don’t use. But it shows you the number of unread messages since you last checked with the app (up to 100). It does pretty well. For a free Twitter app, I recommend this.

myLite – One of the first flashlight apps available. Really, it needs to just turn a bright white. There are a couple of flashy effects and even a lighter effect. I use this app whenever I need to brighten up anything in the dark. This is a recommended one.

eBay – This is pretty handy for buyers and sellers on eBay. If you are an eBayer, use this.

Flixster – This is probably one of the cooler apps out there. It shows movies playing around your location and can view trailers, reviews, showtimes, and theaters.

ScoreMobile – I’m a hockey fan, so this is handy to check scores while I’m out and about. I had this before the NHL had their mobile site, but it works for all sorts of sports.

Brightkite – I’ve been using Brightkite to upload pictures to Twitter for a while, so I thought I’d give their app a try. I rarely use it unless I want to set my location and upload a geo-tagged picture to Twitter. I pretty much use e-mail to Brightkite or TwitPic.com these days, though.

Google Earth – Yeah, it’s neat. But it’s really slow and the image detail kinda sucks. I personally don’t think this app is worth it.

Tweetie – This is the first paid-for app in the list. It cost me $2-3, which isn’t bad. It does all the things you might want a Twitter app to do. I use this more than Nambu these days mostly because I got tired of Nambu’s dark color scheme.

Skype – This is mostly a novelty app for me. I’ve toyed around with it before but don’t have many people I could call on Skype. I’d rather just dial them up from my contacts.

WootWatch – If you want a good Woot app, this is my favorite. It shows all the items from woot.com, shirt.woot.com, sellout.woot.com, and wine.woot.com. If you are a Wooter, I highly recommend this one.

RDP – A remote desktop protocol app for the iPhone. It’s slow and clumsy, but it works well in a bind.

myWireless – AT&T’s app. It lets you check your usage and pay the bill (except I’m on auto-pay). So far, I haven’t been able to retrieve my data usage, though.

IM+ Lite – This is just a free instant messaging app that supports XMPP (Jabber) without having to proxy through someone’s web service.

PhoneFlix – If you have Netflix, get this app. That is all.

TouchTerm – An SSH client for the iPhone! It’s slow and you have to use the on-screen keyboard, but it’s pretty useful when you need SSH on-the-go.

Mobile Fotos – This is the first app I ever paid for. If you have a Flickr account, it will let you upload full-resolution pictures to your account. Features include geo-tagging, names, descriptions, and tagging.

Slacker – Another backup in case I have run out of skips on Pandora. I don’t use this one often, but it’s a free music streaming service, so why not?

Shazam – As seen on the iPhone commercials. If you hear a song that is playing and what to know the artist and title, this will do the trick…assuming you aren’t in a crowded place and/or are close to a speaker.

MultiCamCT – Another paid app ($2-3). It basically lets you access the TDOT SmartWay cameras around Chattanooga. You can even plot your route and scroll through the pictures to check on traffic for your ride to or from work.

Graffitio – Virtual messaging in the meatspace. You can leave messages on a virtual wall wherever you are in the real world. I use it sometimes for restaurants to recommend a new or favorite meal.

Kindle – I honestly haven’t used this yet. I have a Kindle, but still prefer real books.

WordPress – If you need to update your WordPress blog on-the-go, this is the app to do it. I think I’ve used it once for this site and that’s about it.

Evernote – I have an Evernote account and use it mostly for work. It comes in handy sometimes when I am in a meeting and need to pull up a document that I have saved on Evernote. I also found it useful this past weekend when we went to Ikea. I scanned in kitchen and bathroom dimensions on my desktop and saved them to Evernote. Then I was able to pull them up when we went to Ikea without having to tote around a few pieces of paper (lazy, I know).

feX – Another paid app (don’t remember the cost). This is one of the few must-have apps that I could recommend. That is, assuming you use Facebook. It will sync Facebook contact pictures (and birthdays) to the contacts on your phone. If you have a picture already assigned to that contact that wasn’t assigned through feX, it will let you selectively sync those. Cool app, works well, and is nice to help round out your contacts’ photos.

TiVo Mobile – This is actually just a web shortcut to m.tivo.com. If you own a TiVo, you should probably have this shortcut.

Quicken – If you use Quicken online, this will let you quickly view your finances. It’s not that robust, but it doesn’t hurt. I don’t maintain Quicken Online like I should, so it’s a little off. I just keep a mental note of my finances in my head and use Quicken on my desktop regularly.

Oregon Trail – Fun paid-for game. It’s a time-killer, but can crash every now and then and lose some of your progress. I plan on using this to entertain myself in airports. Just don’t get dysentery!

Zen Bound – Another paid-for game that’s interesting. You basically try to wrap a string around a block and cover as much surface area as possible. It’s very pretty and the music is relaxing.

TapDefense – A free game! If you like the tower defense style games, you’ll like this one (especially since it’s free).

Trace – Another free game. You basically trace lines on the screen and try to get your stick figure to the exit without hitting an object.

Sol Free – A free solitaire game. What more could you ask for?

AFII Lite – Aurora Feint 2 (the free version). This is another time-killer game. You basically try to get 3-(or more)-in-a-row of blocks to earn resources and advance in levels or buy scrolls or spells. Definitely a good one for the price.

Lightsaber – Because you never know when you might encounter another Jedi.

PBJ – It’s peanut butter jelly time!

EpicPetWars – I got this one for Amy. It’s an iPhone client for Pet Wars on Facebook. Meh.

Inotia Lite – I haven’t played this one yet.

Kingdoms – This is basically another Pet Wars or Mafia Wars clone.

My Bute – If you play My Brute, this is the standalone iPhone version. Kinda fun to kill a few minutes. I think it cost around $5-6.

YouMail – This was just announced today. If you use YouMail (and I do), it gives you a client to listen to your voicemail and change the default greeting.

That’s all for now. After writing all this up, I think I may clean out some apps just to reduce clutter. And who knows what new stuff will come out tomorrow with iPhone OS 3.0 or on Friday with the iPhone 3Gs (yes, I pre-ordered mine). I’ll probably make another post in the future!

After many years of a very unsightly window air conditioning unit uglifying the den, we finally got it removed and filled the empty space with pretty much nothing.

Before (it’s in the background)

After

It still needs to be painted, but the hard part is over with! If you’re in Chattanooga and need quality handy work, I have a really good guy that I can recommend! He also fixed the flashing and shingles on the roof of the porch at Amy’s house on Alden and put up a gutter with a downspout to help with water runoff onto the porch and flooding into the basement.

In the spirit of my tweet, I decided to post this little gem that I made several years ago.

Sound familiar?

Over the years, I have stumbled into this error more times than I care to count. And I’m pretty sure the culprit is doing rsync backups from my Linux server to my Windows file server using CygWin. I finally think I have a fix, though. This is working in Windows XP and I assume that it will work in Windows Server 2000 and 2003 and maybe even Vista, Windows 7, and Server 2008 (as long as it’s Windows NT-based and NTFS).

If it’s a single file:

1. Right-click on the offending file and go to properties.
2. Go to the Security tab.
3. Click on the Advanced button in the bottom right (above OK, Cancel).
4. Go to the Owner tab.
5. In the “Change owner to” frame, highlight your username, and then click Apply in the bottom right.
6. Click OK a couple of times to get back to your file.
7. Right-click on the file and go to properties (yes, again)
8. Go back to the Security tab.
9. Click on the Advanced button again.
10. Make sure you are in the Permissions tab.
11. Click the “Allow inheritable permissions from the parent to propogate …” checkbox.
12. Click OK a couple of times to get back to your file. You should be able to delete it!

For a directory:

1. Right-click on the directory and go to Properties.
2. Go to the Security tab.
3. Click on the Advanced button.
4. Go to the Owner tab.
5. Highlight your username.
6. Click the “Replace owner on subcontainers and objects” checkbox.
7. Click OK a couple of times to get back to the directory.
8. Right-click on the directory and go to Properties (again).
9. Go to the Security tab.
10. Click on the Advanced button.
11. Make sure you are in the Permissions tab.
12. Click the “Allow inheritable permissions from the parent to propogate …” checkbox.
13. Click the “Replace permission entries on all child objects …” checkbox.
14. Click OK a couple of times. You may have to tell a pop-up message Yes.
15. Delete the directory!

That’s been bothering me for years and nobody else seems to have had that problem (that or my Google-fu sucks). So, I’m putting this out there so that Google will pick it up and hopefully help out somebody else.

After assembling the prototype template using cardboard, I started taking external measurements. Refinements to cutouts were made and all dimensions were converted to millimeters. I’m strongly considering using Ponoko for this project. It’s a good excuse to try it out.

Here’s a shot of the external part of the frame in SketchUp. I changed the color to black and set it to 75% transparency. The final product will be completely transparent.

Update
And here’s the internals. A couple of pieces for the motherboard and the LCD to mount or rest on. Some dead space in between. And some pieces to connect the mounting pieces and provide more rigidity to the whole thing.

Another Update
Ponoko isn’t cheap. I’ll probably be doing this one without Ponoko.

After stumbling across this site, I decided to dig up my old eMachine M5310 laptop and see what I could fashion out of it. Fair warning, I was lazy and didn’t feel like getting out a real camera. All of the pictures were taken with my iPhone 3G.

My old eMachine has been a pretty trusty old laptop. The original motherboard in it died about 3 years and 10 months into the 4 year warranty. The original 40GB hard drive died somewhere in the 3rd year as well and was replaced by warranty with a 60GB hard drive. Other than the usual stuff dieing over the years due to use and abuse, it has been a very good laptop. The battery was completely dead, so I recycled it to reduce weight on the thing. One of the two hinges on the screen also broke, so it was a little flimsy. Ever since getting my new unibody MacBook Pro in November, I haven’t touched the laptop. It’s been collecting dust under the end table for a few months now.

So I was bored and stumbling around and came across the page mentioned earlier and I decided to try my own laptop photo frame project of my own. However, most laptops turned photo frames are typically 13″ or smaller. My old laptop is a 15.4″ and widescreen, which, I think, might make it a little more difficult.

Step one was to disassemble the laptop. After about 20-30 carefully removed screws and some carefully pried plastic (due to adhesives), I had the thing apart on my coffee table. Some parts were kinda tricky, but it was mostly time-consuming and tedious (but easy). The only problem with screws I had to worry about is how to get the heat pipes re-mounted over the processor. They originally screwed through the motherboard and into the case. Without the case being there, I had to come up with something else. I got out my computer screw box and found 4 long screws that fit through the motherboard and conveniently screwed into standard case mount screws. This gave me an idea to use a little later on.

The next step was to come up with a template or prototype. I snagged some big cardboard boxes from work and decided to use them as easy-to-use material for crafting the template. I knew I needed a mounting board because the motherboard is a little flimsy. I also needed a way to help secure the CD-ROM drive and hard drive with the case mounts mentioned above. At this point, I had 6 mount screws already attached, so I put more screws through the holes in the motherboard and secured them with the mount screws. I also used one of the holes off in the corner to mount the LED “status board” (with the hard drive and power blinky lights) on the board.

Next, I traced an outline of the motherboard on a piece of cardboard and cut it out. I made sure to trim back a hair to allow the ports on the back to be exposed. Once I had the cutout, I basically mashed the motherboard on its mounts into the cardboard to make holes for the mounts. From there, I use more case mount screws to help mount the ones connected to the motherboard to the piece of cardboard. At that point, things were feeling pretty secure. All I had to do next was make one more big cardboard cutout to go between the mounting board and the LCD so things didn’t puncture and add a little more rigidity to the whole frame. Without the extra piece, I think the whole thing would be pretty wobbly and wouldn’t stand up very well.

So far, all is well with construction. However, as everyone knows, as soon as things start going right, something is bound to go wrong. I decided I better check and make sure the darn thing still turned on! I went ahead and stacked it up flat and tried to turn it on. No go. For some reason, it would not turn on with the wireless antennae hooked up to the wireless card. As soon as I unplugged those, it turned on like a champ. Since it has to be plugged in all the time anyways, I decided wireless wasn’t a very important feature. If it’s tethered with power, it might as well be tethered with ethernet. That, or I could try and find a PCMCIA wireless card (with better Linux compatibility) later.

If you’ll also notice, I had the motherboard facing the wrong direction. I wanted the exhaust fan to be at the top (heat rises) and to be able to cut some ventilation holes at the bottom to create a bottom-to-top airflow. This required the LCD to be flipped upside down, which actually turned out to be beneficial. The original orientation had the LCD cable being wrapped over and around the USB ports on the back. The new way just required me to cut a slit in the already blank space on the mounting board and all was well.

The final few steps were to cut out the actual box the whole mess would fit into. I basically took measurements and went and cut them out of cardboard. Then I lined them up to the sides and made marks and took measurements of the cutouts I would have to do for the ports and whatnot. I also cut out a frame to go around the LCD and one large back piece to cover the motherboard. I made the circular cutout for the fan by tracing a tea candle. After liberal amounts of masking tape, it was all put together!

As you can see, it’s not perfect. Nor was it meant to be. I wanted to use the cardboard to get the basic construction down. From there, I will be able to refine the measurements and probably build a final design in Google’s SketchUp. For the final version, I’m thinking about trying out Ponoko or maybe keep going with the DIY route and buy a Dremel and some Lexan. I think this would be a good way to test out Ponoko (assuming they’ve got their shipping prices down). If not, I’ll just make it super-geeky and transparent. For the final product, I also plan on cutting out the power button panel (with the power button, volume up/down etc) and the status LED panel to make the unmarked buttons and LEDs a little more informative. The speakers for the laptop are also super-duper-glued into a bar that I can’t seem to get pried apart. I’ll probably need a Dremel to cut into that and get the speakers out. I’ll find some empty space in the frame to mount those with rubber cement. And, finally, when I reconstruct it, I’ll see if I can’t figure out why the thing won’t turn on with the wireless antennae hooked up. I’m wondering if it’s just having problems creating a closed loop.

I’ll make another post when I get the final product assembled.

Next up is my SketchUp Design

What…the…?? I just got this randomly a few minutes ago. I thought it was too strange to not keep it. No, I do not know who or what “creepysalmon” is.

[UPDATE]
Here’s a new one.

[/UPDATE]