I received a couple of MacMini servers, with Snow Leopard Server installed, as a donation for the site. I went ahead and added them to the server farm as web servers. However, testing showed that no compression of web pages was happening and requests served from those servers were consuming far too much bandwidth. The management software for those servers didn’t seem to allow one to configure mod_deflate to turn on compression.
Today Apple responded to the online hubbub over the location data found in the iPhone’s backup files in iTunes.
The response is delivered in a Question and Answer style. Apple dispelled all the misinformation floating on the internet and assured those wondering that there is no nefarious reason for the data that is present in the ‘consolidated.db’ file. It’s to help the location service in the iPhone function faster and the size of the data is the results of a bug that will be corrected in a forthcoming software update.
You can read the response in Apple’s Q & A posted on their site.
Many sites on the internet have the silly habit of disabling browsers’ contextual menu and drag ability in order to forbid users from saving pictures to their computer; Facebook and IMDB are two sites that come to mind.
Now, copyright infringement is a crime. I hate copyright infringers. But I also hate those who treat me as one without me doing anything. Saving pictures to my own computer is a fair use. If I save a picture and don’t spread it around, I’m not violating any copyright laws.
So, if you are like me, and want to save some pictures for your own private use, there is an easy and simple way to do this.
In Safari, make sure that you have the ‘Develop’ menu enabled (Preferences->Advanced: check the ‘Show Develop menu in menu bar’).
Now, whenever you want to save a picture, while viewing the picture, select ‘Disable Javascript’ from the ‘Develop’ menu. With Javascript disabled, the contextual menu will show up when you right-click/control-click on the picture, so you can select ‘Save image’ to save it or you can drag it to your desired location on your system.
Then after that, enable javascript again so that you don’t lose any functionality.
Today, a friend and I stood in line for few hours at Best Buy in Ottawa to get an iPad 2. We had checked the Apple Store in Rideau Center and at 2 PM, there was a crowd of around 300 people. The line looped around and then exited the door. It’s a nippy day in Ottawa with temperature around -3° celsius and a strong breeze making it feel like -10°. We weren’t willing to wait in that cold for long.
So we drove to Best Buy and found a short line of about 12 people. We stood in line and when the nice young lady came out and we asked, she told us that they’ll give us vouchers at 4 pm which will guarantee an iPad. By the way, the limit was one iPad 2 per customer.
So we stood in line for an hour and a half in the cold. The line was outside the store!
At around 3:55 pm, a UPS truck rolled to the Best Buy and the guy shouted at us “I have a hundred of them”. Of course nobody really believed him, but it turned out to be true.
At 4pm even, the nice young woman came out again and started asking each person what they wanted and handed each of us a voucher with the specifications that we asked for. By that time the line had swelled to about 50 people.
We were too cold and hungry, so we left to get something to eat and get warm somewhere. We came back around 5:45 and the line of people outside was around 70 or so, so we stood at the end of the line again and had to wait till about 6:30 to get in. Damn Cold again!
Anyway, after we were let in, we headed to the special area handling the iPads and soon we each got our iPads.
Overall, an interesting experience as it’s the first time that I stood in line to purchase a piece of electronics.
It’s definitely a nice piece of hardware worth the sort wait in line.
Since I updated to iOS 4.3 on my iPhone last night, I’ve been unable to log in to MobileMe on any of my macs, or iPhone or the website.
So after resetting my password on my own two times and failing to log in, I went to Apple’s and requested a call back after stating my problem. It was truly surprising that my phone rang less than 2 seconds after I clicked the ‘call me’ button on the web page.
I was immediately connected to a knowledgeable and courteous fellow that helped me resolve the issue in about 5 minutes.
Way to go Apple! That’s how tech support should be. Count me as one very satisfied customer.