Daniel’s Blog

On Wednesday night I rung Apple as that was what everyone was recommending. For some reason I thought Apple support was meant to be good. How mistaken I was. The call was logged through to someone in America, and to some guy who didn’t understand how we say ‘Z’ in New Zealand (zed vs zee).

After I had given the guy my iMac’s serial number and my name, he decided it was time to try and sell me something. He went on for a couple of minutes about the “benefits” of Apple Care. And this was after I had clearly stated I didn’t want to purchase it. And then, just to top it off, he tried to sell my a Time Capsule. Y’know, for just in case my failing pixels destroyed my hard drive. Or something.

Turns out he didn’t want to know me anyway. Apparently one red stuck pixel in the middle of the screen is acceptable. So he gave me a number to ring and I was on my way.

Next morning I gave Toucan Computers in Wellington a call. And the guy on the phone said that he could do something if needed. But suggested I contact Dick Smith first as they can do a DOA.

Now in the time this happened, Dick Smith had Twittered me . So I sent an email off to them, as requested, and then phoned the store I purchased the Mac from to explain my findings. And, about an hour later, to my surprise, I got a phone call from one of the top guys at Dick Smith New Zealand!

And he had some very good news.

Dick Smith are going to replace it as soon as they can get one in stock, and take it up with Apple themselves! I do wonder why they couldn’t just do this in the first place, surely a satisfied customer is more important than, well, anything else? Well anything else that’s at least reasonable.

So big kudos to Dick Smith here for standing by the products they sell! I wouldn’t hesitate to buy from them again.

And Apple should be ashamed of themselves. If they want to call their computers the best, they should stand by them when something goes from. And they really shouldn’t try to sell me products I don’t want when I ring up about a faulty product.

I’m not too sure if I would buy another Apple machine. I will see how my new iMac goes, and make up my mind then.

But why all this over one measly pixel you may be thinking? Well it’s simple. When I purchase an expensive computer, and from Apple, I expect it to be an expensive computer. And an expensive computer is supposed to be built well. And a stuck pixel doesn’t show quality to me.

Now, if the pixel was on the very edge of the screen, I wouldn’t really care because it’s out of the way. But it isn’t. Its in the centre of the screen, so it bothers me. Especially considering I use it for web design and development where white is a very prominent colour.

So hopefully the new iMac will have no problems. It truly is an amazing machine, and has been a joy to use. Don’t think I will be giving Apple a call anytime soon though. Don’t really fancy them trying to sell me products when there’s something wrong with the one I already own.

Update: Just got another call from Dick Smith and they have a new one in stock for me! Will be going to pick it up tomorrow.

Update 2 (26/02/2009): Have had the new machine for nearly 2 weeks and all seems to be well. Didn't enjoy carrying the box through town though - you feel like an Apple billboard.

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I am yet to blog about it – but last week I purchased a 24” iMac after months of consideration. And until last night everything had been going fine. It had been one of the nicest machines I've ever used.

Then last night while surfing the web I noted a little black spot on the screen. At first I thought it was dust. After using the Apple branded cloth to wipe it down, it was still there. My heart sank. A dead pixel on my one week old iMac. I know some people wouldn't care, but me? I do.

So I went in to Dick Smith and asked them what they would do about it. And they said they’d replace it at no cost to me. Great! Or at least I thought.

Got a phone call a short time later saying that Apple doesn’t think one pixel is an “acceptable amount for replacement”. What the fuck? How can you have an acceptable amount? I could understand it if the computer was 10 years old, but it’s a brand new machine. It shouldn’t have any dead pixels after a week. And if it does, Apple should replace it. I paid enough for the machine.

So tonight I have to ring Apple and log a support request with them. And then apparently a technician, sorry genius, has to have a look at it and “asses the damage”. If they just replaced my machine, I would again be happy. Here’s to hoping they will do something. Or it will be going back to where it came from.

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Note: This is a long post that probably goes off topic a little and was actually written a long time ago. Sorry for any odd things

Well this is a little late, have been back in New Zealand for a few months now (it feels like forever), but I thought I would reflect on quite possibly one of the coolest things I’ve ever done – Travel around Europe.

Code Camp – Auckland, New Zealand

I flew out of Wellington very early in the morning on the 31st of August to Auckland to attend Code Camp. Arrived in Auckland around 8 am, checked into my accommodation, and went off with Owen to the venue.

The day, while long, was really interesting and I learnt quite a lot that I otherwise wouldn’t have known, especially around Linq to SQL which I now love. Met a few people there, and also saw Scott Hanselman do his thing – that guy is brilliant at speaking.

The biggest surprise of the day was winning a 30gb Zune which is rather cool.

Tech Ed 2008 – Auckland, New Zealand

Would love to go to this again, there was so much to do and learn. I was stuffed by the end of each day, but it was real fun and the hands on labs were real cool. Love (some of) the free stuff that came in the bag, but most of all the bag. Used it since I got it.

Also enjoyed Auckland more than I thought I was going too.

On the Tuesday night I boarded the Air New Zealand flight to Los Angles International. It was my first long haul flight and time on a 747 since I was a couple of months old. Was far to excited to sleep for the first few hours, but boredom kicked in eventually and the earplugs came to the rescue.

LA Airport

Landed in middle afternoon and MAN it was hot! The guy at customs didn’t understand what I mean when I replied to him saying “How are you?” with “Not bad”. Had to explain it to him. Maybe it’s a kiwi thing? I thought it was quite funny personally.

Walked around the airport a bit, but when you have 9 hours to kill, it’s not the most exciting place in the world to be. Spent most of that time trying to get my cell phone working, turned out to be quite easy once I found out it was on “Flight Mode” ;-)

Orlando/Disney World

After a horrible flight from LA (we had to dodge a hurricane which made the flight about 2 hours longer and extremely bumpy) I spent the morning and lunchtime sitting around the airport waiting for Katie. And after spending 9 hours in LA, Orlando airport was amazing, there was so much more to do.

Disney World was incredible. If there’s one thing you have to do before your old, it’s that. We stayed at one of the Disney World resorts (see here) which meant we got to skip certain lines and various things like that. But the best part was free transport between all the parks, Downtown Disney AND the airport. Disney made it incredibly easy to make the most of the time there.

We made it to all of the parks, one a day. Wouldn’t recommend it, you end up very exhausted by the end. But all the parks are really well done, especially Magical Kingdom, Epcot and the water parks.

I would highly recommend the Disney World Resorts to anyone wanting to go to Disney, it makes life a lot easier, and the whole experience a lot more “Disney”

Photos: http://flickr.com/photos/dwnz/sets/72157606687695353/
Photos: http://flickr.com/photos/dwnz/sets/72157607361713553/

London

Out of all the places we went, my favourite has to be London. There was just something about the whole place that I loved. Sadly we only got to spend two days there, but we got most of the “touristy” things we wanted done. I will definitely be going back there one day. Hopefully to work and live as well.

Photos: http://flickr.com/photos/dwnz/sets/72157607362064459/

Penkridge, Middle of nowhere, England

Spent a few days with Katie’s family in a tiny village. It wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t amazing.

Alicante, Spain

Spent a week in Alicante staying with Katie’s brother. It was really nice, heaps of sun, and hot. It’s really fun being in a place that doesn’t speak English, even if you end up with the wrong food and can’t understand what they’re yelling at you.

The beaches there are really nice if you don’t mind the occasional topless old oily lady walking past. The castle is definitely something you have to do there as well – the view is amazing.

Photos: http://flickr.com/photos/dwnz/sets/72157607361570731/

Nice, France

We arrived in Nice after spending a night in an airport in Switzerland, so we were both really tried. But we still went out and explored the area, and man was it worth it! Nice is beautiful! We stayed in a hostel up a big hill (for lack of a better term) and caught the trams in and out of the downtown area. Gotta love 1 euro tram rides.

Photos: http://flickr.com/photos/dwnz/sets/72157607570851172/

South Coast of France

Katie’s (other) brother met us in Nice with a rental car to drive us around in. He took us around a couple of place in the South Coast of France. Can’t remember all the places we went to, but I know we made it to Cannes, Monaco, Juan le Pin and a few others.

Out of all the places we visited on the South Coast, Monaco was my favourite. It would have been nice to spend a night there, but of course, its incredibly expensive.

South Coast: http://flickr.com/photos/dwnz/sets/72157607539313100/
Monaco: http://flickr.com/photos/dwnz/sets/72157607801671343/

Genoa, Italy

Katie’s brother dropped us off at the train station in Genoa, so we didn’t really see very much of it. The port was nice though.

Milan, Italy

I was quite disappointed with Milan, it was really polluted and… I’m not 100% sure… there was just something about the whole place that didn’t feel right.

The stores were real cool though (obviously). I found a three story electronics store which was interesting. Brought a digital camera from there as well which proved to be fun as no one spoke English or anything close to it. But we got it in the end.

I did enjoy the hotel we stayed in though. It was simple to say the least, but you can’t go wrong with free breakfast and WIFI.

Photos: http://flickr.com/photos/dwnz/sets/72157607802512473/

Venice, Italy

Amazing amazing amazing! Seriously, Venice is sooo cool! Even though we didn’t stay in Venice itself, the camp site we stayed in was only a 10 minute bus ride to the main area.

The strangest thing about Venice is that there were no cars (obviously, but still). It’s strange after being surrounded by them all the time. Makes you realise how loud and annoying they are. That’s not to say some of the boats aren’t loud though.

Venice was very touristy, I’m not sure how many of the people there are locals, but unlike other places, because there were so many tourists and no locals, they weren’t really annoying.

Photos: http://flickr.com/photos/dwnz/sets/72157607755825493/

Second part coming sometime...

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It’s been a while since I released my initial Xero API wrapper, and I have made a few changes since then, so I thought it’s time for a small release.

The code you checkout on Codeplex now has a sample application in which you can get a rough idea of how  it fits together.

Note: This release is a source-only release. You will need to check the project out of source control. The wrapper will be going through a huge update in the next month or two with the new release of the API.

https://XeroLabs.svn.codeplex.com/svn

Changes

• Moved the ContactObjects to the default namespace – you can still call them the old way, but it will throw warnings.
• Changed the GetContacts() method to Get() to match naming standards. Again old will work, but it will throw errors.
• You can now pass the auth object in to the get methods meaning you don’t need to create the object first
• You can also create the auth object by passing in parameters instead of setting properties after it’s been created

Samples

Get All Contacts:

static Communication.XeroAuth auth = new Communication.XeroAuth(
    "Network Key",
    "Customer Key",
    "https://networktest.xero.com/"
);

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    ContactCollection collection = ContactCollection.Get(auth);
    foreach (var contact in collection.Records)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(contact.Name);
    }

    Console.ReadKey();
}

Create New Contact

static Communication.XeroAuth auth = new Communication.XeroAuth(
    "Provider Key",
    "Customer Key",
    "https://networktest.xero.com/"
);

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    ContactRecord rec = new ContactRecord(auth);
    rec.Name = "Daniel";
    rec.EmailAddress = "name@example.com";
    rec.Save();
}

The whole wrapper works in roughly the same way so it should be fairly simple to pickup from those two sample.

Have fun!

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I finally got around to plugging my Zune in again only to find that the Zune software doesn’t pick the device up on Windows 7.

After a little bit of playing around, I got it to go. Here’s how:

1. Plug your Zune in and let it do it’s thing. When its finished, open up Device Manager and uninstall your Zune
   
    
2. Press Ok to any popup boxes
3. Wait 10 seconds or so for it to fully uninstall, then run the Zune software as Administrator (Right click Zune Icon – Right click Zune - Run As Administrator
   
   
   
4. When the Zune software has loaded, plug you’re Zune back it. It should hopefully work. If not, unplug the Zune, close the software, and do step 10 again.

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I can’t remember being so excited for a Windows release. I was actually up early on a Saturday morning to get the download. Sadly though, Microsoft was overloading. I waited and waited, and still no sign of the download.

Then came a link from Daniel, which pointed me to NeoWin. And guess what they had? Direct links to the ISO’s on the Microsoft site.

The Install

I was amazed how quickly Windows 7 installed, took around 15-20 minutes using a USB attached CD-ROM. Apart from that it’s not too different from Vista, though there are a few less screens.

I was also able to do a clean install of the 32bit version. Not sure why people were saying you needed Vista SP1 to go anywhere…

Running it

I knew that Microsoft had been promising us it will run on a netbook, but I still had doubts given how badly Vista runs on them. How wrong I was, it runs amazingly – even with Aero turned on. My whole machine feels as fast, if not faster than it did in XP, and the battery life seems to have improved which is nice.

Driver support, for me at least, wasn’t a problem. Only my card reader didn’t work on the first boot, but a quick Windows Update later and everything seems to be going! Even bluetooth which had caused me quite a few problems in XP.

Screenshots

More coming soon!

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An idea sprung on me last night – Why not let people update their websites uses Live Writer (or one of the other blogging tools)? They produce rather good HTML and are easy to pickup.

I have based it on the Metablog API that most blogging tools use, and have used the XML-RPC library to take care of the nasty parsing for me.

So I decided to build the functionality into MicroCMS, here’s how to make it work.

Step 1:

Checkout the latest source code from

https://svn.kustompage.com:8080/svn/microcms/trunk (username: guest)

If you don’t already have a website running MicroCMS, it will be easy to get started – just use the sample project provided. If you do have a website and you haven’t made any changes to the core, just copy the core project to your website. If you have made changes, sorry, but you’re gonna have to do a manual merge.

All references are in the lib folder (you might need to manually update the reference to the XML-RPC library).

If you are using the sample project, Metablog is already setup, so skip to the end to see how to setup Live Writer.

Step 2:

Ok, so you should be done copying or merging the core project, and it should fully build.

On your websites front end, create a Settings.xml file in your App_Data folder, and add the following xml:

[code=xml]<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings>   <setting name="API.Enabled" value="true" />
  <setting name="API.ImagePath" value="C:\Documents and Settings\Daniel\Desktop\MicroCMS\MicroCMS\img\" />
  <setting name="API.ImageURL" value="/img/" />   <setting name="API.FilePath" value="C:\Documents and Settings\Daniel\Desktop\MicroCMS\MicroCMS\files\" />
  <setting name="API.FileURL" value="/files/" />
  <setting name="API.Username" value="user" />
  <setting name="API.Password" value="password" />
</settings>[/code]

Step 3:

In your websites root directory (you can place it anywhere, I’m just trying to keep things simple) create a new Generic Handler called APIInterface.ashx.

Right click on your new file (in Visual Studio) and press View Markup. Replace the first line with this:

[code=aspnet]<%@ WebHandler Language="C#"  Class="MicroCMS.Core.MetaWebBlogAPI.Interface" %>[/code]

Check that you can browse to that page. It should produce a web service like page that shows you the methods that your client can use.

Done! Now to setup Live Writer

Step 4:

Install Live Writer if you don’t already have it (You could also use any client that supports the MetaBlog API, but I have only tested in Live Writer) – get it from http://get.live.com/writer/overview

Once you have Live Writer open, start the Add Web Blog wizard (Webblog – Add Web Blog)

Step 5:

Choose Another webblog service and press next.

Enter your website details. They will look something like this:

Website Homepage URL: http://yourdomain.com/
Username: your username
Password: your password

Hit next.

Choose MetaWebBlog API from the dropdown box and enter

http://yourdomain.com/APIInterface.ashx

into the Remote Posting URL textbox.

Click next a few times till you get to the end, and wow, it’s done!

What it does:

You can create pages just as easily as creating blog posts – enter a title and content, add images and file links – and it will all be saved back to your website.

If you want to open existing pages, simply open them up like you would an existing blog post.

You can’t yet delete pages using Live Writer. But that will be coming soon.

The End

So I think that’s about everything, have got it running on a few sites and it appears to work. If anyone’s brave enough to give it a shot, let me know, I’m interested to see how it goes (and if I've missed any steps)

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I never thought that I’d be interested in what other people are up to. And even less did I think people would be interested in me. But it turns out I am, and they are. And there starts my addiction.

Now, while I love following “older” people (I mean it in a nice way btw), it would also be cool to follow my real-life friends. There’s just one problem: few of them seem to get the concept of Twitter. Or why you would want to use it. And none of my pestering has paid off. Yet.

So I am posting this video I just found in the hope that it people get the concept behind Twitter:

Right, now you’re convinced, head along to the Twitter Signup form and get your account setup, find some people to follow, and post away!

Useful things

I fully realise how annoying checking yet another website can be, I hate it as well. A Twitter client will make it nice and easy to view and post tweets.

I have two to recommend, depending on how advanced you wanna’ be:

First off there’s Twhirl. It’s real simple. Real fast. And real small. I’d recommend it if you have never used Twitter before. Or if you just want to follow people with the occasional update.

Then there’s Tweetdeck, my current choice for tweeting. Why? Because it breaks things down a little better. And, quite possibly the best part, it downloads all Tweets since it’s last update unlike Twhirl which only gets the latest 20.

Ok, so you’re now ready to use Twitter! Do it. Post random things that come to mind. What you’re up to. Actually, anything that you want to go public.

PS - Have Facebook and/or Bebo? You can also send your updates magically there. There’s a Twitter app in Facebook. And Bebo have just launched their integration service. Click the link at the top of the (new) home page.

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It’s been a week today since I got my new LG KU990, so I thought I would update my good and bad list as things have changed a little.

The good

• The battery has been fine since the first day. It doesn’t last for days on end, but I plug it in to the computer enough to keep it charged.
• Worked out how to change the text size in the browser. Also found out that it has tabs. Sweet!
• Most software designed for the Nokia N95 runs fine on the LG. Now have a Twitter client, MSN client, Gmail, Google Maps and a couple of other little apps.
• The camera is just as good as my “real” digital camera if I set the quality to 5mp. I’m honestly amazed.

The Bad

• The LG Sync software is rubbish! Haven’t bothered using it again since my initial sync.
• LG’s email client is… simple… to say the least. It doesn’t do a very good job at rendering emails. It’s better than nothing though.

Overall the phone has proved to be real good. It does everything that I need plus more in a cool little package. There are so many features built into it that I’m still finding new things to do a whole week on.

8.5/10

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Over the last few days I have been writing a small Xero API Wrapper for the new API. It pretty much takes care of requesting the XML from the API, parsing it, and returning populated objects – Saving you from doing it all manually. You can even save objects back to Xero!

The API hasn’t been fully released yet, but if you are busting to try it out, you can email network@xero.com to request an API Key.

Download Here

Setup

Before you can make any request, you will need to setup a new XeroAuth object. You will need to provide it with your API Key, Customer Key, and URL you wish to you. You only have to set this up once as you can reuse the object.

Xero.API.Communication.XeroAuth Auth = new Xero.API.Communication.XeroAuth();

Auth.CustomerKey = "Customer Key";
Auth.ProviderKey = "Your Provider Key";
Auth.URL = "https://networktest.xero.com/";

Each new object you use will need to have the its Auth property setup like the following

Xero.API.Object.Auth = Auth;

Using

Hopefully everything is fairly self explanatory. Use the Get() method to get objects from Xero, use the Save() method to save them back. All properties in each class match up to the Xero API XML.

Sample Code

public static Xero.API.Communication.XeroAuth Auth = new Xero.API.Communication.XeroAuth();
public void PrintContactName() {
     Auth.CustomerKey = "Customer Key";
     Auth.ProviderKey = "Provider Key";
     Auth.URL = "https://networktest.xero.com/";

     Xero.API.ContactCollection.Auth = Auth;
     Xero.API.ContactCollection Collection = Xero.API.ContactCollection.GetContacts();
     
     foreach (var contact in Collection.Records) {
           Console.WriteLine("Contact Name: " + contact.Name);
     }
     Console.ReadKey();
}

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