Online Purge

Decodificador NET HD é uma torradeira de HDMI

2011-11-18T04:13:00.001-02:00

Minha Time Machine 2 tem duas portas HDMI atrás e uma porta lateral. Primeiro a porta HDMI onde estava conectado o decodificador da NET parou de funcionar. Troquei, coloquei na segunda porta traseira onde estava ligado o PS3. Essa também pifou. Comprei um cabo HDMI novo e conectei na última porta que me restou: a lateral. Essa também se foi.

O decodificador da NET destruiu todas as portas num intervalo de mais ou menos um mês cada uma. O técnico veio até minha casa e disse que o problema só podia ser na rede elétrica porque o decodificador tem proteção contra isso. Deixou outro aparelho e agora só tenho portas component disponíveis.

Não achei relatos semelhantes online então deixo aqui o meu.

Amazon, take my dead tree books!

2010-07-08T16:18:00.002-03:00

Now that I have a kindle what I want most is having all my books in it. All of them, including the ones I already have.

Amazon, take my dead tree books and give me a kindle edition of them in return.

That would make me happy, kill my book lendings thus making people get their own copies and it'd make you a profit on recycling.

Facebook Connect Cookies problem

2010-03-15T12:03:00.006-03:00

I've been using Elliot Haughin's Facebook Connect Library for Codeigniter and I have an annoying has-to-be-fixed-asap issue going on with it. Whenever I'm away from the site and facebook for a long time, it behaves oddly with its own facebook cookies with the name beggining with the session hash. If I delete any one of those cookies, functionality is restored and my site loads again.

These are the troublemakers:

It's not related to my own session cookie since it can be set to timeout in 5 minutes, and even be removed and it'd all be working fine.

I tried contacting Elliot, but got no response at all. Still investigating...

Update (march 16th): I got no access to facebook today, I killed all their cookies and got my access back.

Update (march 31st): Fixed with the help of the codeigniter community.

eBay scam and 45 days long warranties

2010-01-22T13:24:00.011-02:00

On August 7th, 2009 I bought a battery on eBay from the user pcpowertech. It carried a full year warranty! I sent out the payment to 10168iax@gmail.com through eBay of course.

The package arrived pretty fast. I was happy with it, it was working pretty fine until it abruptly died. On November 9th I sent an eBay message to Mr. Pcpowertech, informing my battery had died, and asking how we should do the exchange.

His response:

Dear Customer

We apologize for this inconvenience caused.
Please let us know your PayPal Transaction Number and we can process your RMA.
If you have any question, please feel free to contact us. We are gladly to answer it.

Thank you
Best regards,

- iax168

By December 15th we had a pile of 16 emails back and forth, I spent $40 shipping it back, and he had my battery according to USPS tracking.

Tracking info and his address:

Label/Receipt Number: CP30 6052 295B R
Class: Priority Mail International Parcels
Service(s): International Parcels
Status: Delivered

Your item was delivered at 11:30 AM on November 30, 2009 in WALNUT, CA 91789.

Detailed Results:

Delivered, November 30, 2009, 11:30 am, WALNUT, CA 91789
Inbound Out of Customs, November 25, 2009, 2:27 pm
Inbound Into Customs
Inbound International Arrival, November 25, 2009, 12:57 pm, ISC MIAMI FL (USPS)
Inbound International Arrival, November 21, 2009, 5:40 pm, ISC MIAMI FL (USPS)
Origin Post is Preparing Shipment
Foreign International Dispatch, November 18, 2009, 11:41 am, SAO PAULO, BRAZIL
Foreign Arrival at Outward Office, November 18, 2009, 11:41 am, SAO PAULO, BRAZIL

IAXTECH RMA# 091109003
385 S LEMON AVE E268
WALNUT CA 91789

Communications have ceased since then.

I contacted eBay on January, 21st, 2010 on the fraudulent listing and got back an email from Marlo. Other than doing whatever they might do:

We protect the privacy of our members, so we can't share the results of
our investigation with you. We appreciate you taking the time to file a
report and help make eBay a safe place to buy and sell.

Nothing - he asked me to file a complaint, which can only be done within 45 days of the end of the listing.

I got hit by a $80 scam, spent $120 and warranties on eBay are just good for 45 days.

Loja Oficial Motorola (Submarino) rastreia que nem o nariz deles

2009-12-18T14:14:00.006-02:00

Eis o status do meu pacote, e o link quebrado na imagem faz parte:

Fast Shop: yes, we suck!

2009-12-15T14:42:00.012-02:00

Um amigo tinha me avisado que o droid já tinha chegado no Brasil pela vivo. Iria pegar esse aparelho numa conta de um amigo, mas me disseram que também seria vendido na fastshop. Na capa do site da fastshop: Motorola Milestone. Achei bom eles estarem vendendo o aparelho unlocked, nao sou muito de contratos de fidelidade. Fui até a loja mais próxima para comprar, e nada, nao tinha na loja. Fui até a outra um pouco mais longe e nada. Presumi que nenhuma loja da fastshop tivesse recebido o aparelho, so fiz esse esforço de ir em outra loja por estarmos em época de natal e esperando que esse aparelho venda rápido pois na expansys UK durou 2 horas e meia no estoque.

Todo o processo de compra pareceu meio sombrio, praticamente a mesma segurança que eu tenho em comprar no mercado livre: sem saber o que vai acontecer de fato.

No dia seguinte recebo o seguinte email com assunto "Pedido não aprovado":

Prezado(a) Caio Cesar Iglesias,

Informamos que seu pedido de Nº G12275585 não foi aprovado por inconsistência nos dados informados.

Se tiver alguma dúvida, entre em contato conosco pelo e-mail fastsac@fastshop.com.br ou pelo telefone (11) 3232 3200, tendo em mãos o número de seu pedido.

Atenciosamente,
Fast Shop Comercial LTDA
www.fastshop.com.br

O pedido não foi aprovado por inconsistência nos dados informados. Que dados? Meu endereço? Meu cartão? Meu nome? E ainda tiveram a cara de pau de ter deixado a palavra "atenciosamente" no fim do email. Que puta tratamento atencioso!

Imagine a cena se passando numa loja física, você é atendido pelo vendedor, vê a peça, dá todos os seus dados, endereço, cartão de crédito, nome completo, aguarda na área do "pacote", aparece alguém e diz: Não aprovamos seu pedido, qualquer coisa estamos por aqui! Atenciosamente Washington!

Entrei no site para consultar meus pedidos, e encontro o seguinte:

O status do meu pedido passou para "Cancelar Pré-autorização". Não, não dá pra clicar nisso pra descobrir o que é. Simplesmente é isso aí, e contente-se com essa frase auto-explicativa.

Por curiosidade cliquei em "ver detalhes" e passo a uma versão mais bizarra ainda da sequência circense:

O status do pedido tem mais uma versão, controversa e grande: Pedido Recebido 14/12/2009 Pagamento Confirmado Nota Fiscal emitida Enviado para a transportadora Previsão de entrega: 2 dia(s) útel(is) após confirmação de pagamento.

Como sou curioso e gosto de testar a experiência do usuário de diversas empresas, liguei para saber como seria atendido depois de tudo isso. Obviamente não concluiria a compra nem com mais desconto. Após 7 minutos de espera um cara me atende, passo o numero do pedido, aguardo mais 5 minutos e eles desconectam a chamada.

É isso aí. Quem decide comprar online com eles cai num abismo sem resposta, e é ignorado. Entrei no site da motorola e descobri que eles tem uma loja online administrada pelo submarino. Tá aí uma empresa que entende de comércio online. Acabei de fazer meu pedido com eles.

Eis a equipe que me atendeu na fast shop durante toda minha experiência:

View Larger Map

maps dilema

2009-12-15T09:04:00.003-02:00

Google maps works, but when you're out of town or in another country its still impossible to rely on it given data prices when roaming internationally. There are applications for the iPhone out there, but paying $80 for every small European country is as crazy as paying those roaming data charges. Garmin sells their continent wide map pack for $150, that's acceptable but a little disturbing since the GPS unit itself cost $200. Getting their map source software installed might be a pain, so here is a little tip.

iPhone could rule them all

2009-12-08T18:27:00.007-02:00

I've had every smartphone option out there, except from Palm's new WebOs crop. I had the treo 600, 650, 680, the blackberry 8300, WinMo wizard from HTC and the samsung blackjack, the iphone 2g and 3g and the androids galaxy and milestone in this whole order.

The phone I'm currently using is the Milestone and I've had with the android. I really had high hopes with this system, but the way the updates are being pushed is ridiculous. I'd have to buy the latest google phone, which right now is the nexus one, to keep up with the latest OS goodies. I sold my samsung galaxy when I noticed it was abandoned, wouldn't get any more upgrades past 1.6. Now I find myself in the same situation wanting the latest 2.1 update while I find myself with the 2.0 and missing 2.0.1 already.

Imagine if HP, Toshiba or Dell had to tweak Microsoft's windows updates before pushing them out to everybody. That's what happens with the android platform and I don't like it.

Sure WinMo, Palm and Blackberry had lots less buzz with their own system upgrades, and some people go their entire life with the device without even knowing there is the option to update. It's not like that anymore! It's a war out there and I want to see the change logs too see what I'm getting, and right now I feel Im just getting bullshitted because someone out there is playing right. That'd be Apple.

I hate the closeness of their OS, their app store policy, and the battery life, but there's a lot more to love. The iphone gave me the best user experience I've ever had with a mobile device, and good experiences are things you'll want to remember, or even relive if possible.

If I ever feel like going through the bullshit of a carrier to get another phone I'd get an iphone, but unless they sell it away unlocked I'm not going back.

Layar x Google Mapplets + Enkin

2009-11-13T02:03:00.003-02:00

A long time ago I read about www.enkin.net and their Augmented Reality App that never came to life, after that those germans released their last blog post saying they were contacted directly by Google and that was it. Then came Layar and released their AR browser and opened it up so that people could create their own layers of info to be shared with everyone else.

I was expecting Google to hire those guys from enkin and add the AR functionality directly into Google Maps, that would enable people to bring up all the mapplets already available or even google directory listings.

Don't get me wrong, I loved what Layar did, but I can't believe google just ignored enkin like that, I'm expectign a surprise anytime soon involving enkin and putting some pressure on the fine folks at Layar.

Boteco São Bento (o pior bar do sistema solar) ~ Resenha em 6 - filmes, livros, CDs, bares descritos em 6 linhas ou menos

2009-09-29T23:04:00.000-03:00

Boteco São Bento (o pior bar do sistema solar) ~ Resenha em 6 - filmes, livros, CDs, bares descritos em 6 linhas ou menos

Depois da Faixa de Gaza e do Acre, este é o pior lugar do mundo para você ir com os amigos. Caro, petiscos sem graça e, principalmente, garçons ultra-power-mega chatos: você toma dois dedos do seu chopp, quente e azedo que nem xoxota nos tempos dos vikings, eles já colocam outro na mesa. E se você recusa, eles ainda ficam putos. Só tulipadas diárias no rabo para justificar tamanha simpatia no atendimento.

Fui no da Vila Madalena. Dizem que o do Itaim é ainda pior.
Para dicas de botecos que valem a pena, leia outras resenhas aqui
Siga o Resenha pelo Twitter antes que eu bote outro link na mesa.

Resenhado por Raphael Quatrocci às 23:22 .

Por favor conheçam o gerente do bar:

iPhone's GPS went berserk

2009-06-24T15:10:00.005-03:00

Last month my iPhone's GPS stopped locking on to satellites completely, it would only triangulate positions through my carrier's towers and stop looking. I tried boots, soft resets, restoring to factory defaults and nothing worked.

This morning I finally found the receipt to claim the one year warranty. I was going to show it to my friend, comparing his iphone to mine side by side, when suddenly both iphones got a gps lock.

???

I was sure it was broken, I tried every solution people gave me online and none of them worked. After that I tried to launch an app and it crashed, another and crash... every app was crashing on launch. Boots and soft resets weren't helping, after a sync to itunes the launch crashes stopped. Now to my surprise the gps isn't working again. Does my gps only work when the memory is low? What gives?

Update (june 24th): I'm not alone.

Update (june 25th): I contacted a few licensed repair centers and they said they're not authorized to give tech support or repair iPhones. I called Apple in Brazil and a voice message told me each carrier is responsible for their own sold iPhones' warranties. I'm not in the mood to call my carrier today, most employees don't have a clue what they're doing there.

Update (july 2nd): I walked into my carrier's store (Claro) and they didn't have any 8gb iphones in stock. I found a huge thread about the issue on Apple's own forums. It's only getting bigger and Apple hasn't publicly admitted the problem.

Update (july 16th): Back to Claro's store. They had the 8gb model in stock and replaced my old one which also had a cracked screen on the bottom. I upgraded it to 3.0 and the gps is working fine now. I'm surprised they replaced my faulty iphone so easily, I liked that.

Reading Mobipocket books on Kindle or Stanza for the iPhone

2009-03-30T09:25:00.006-03:00

Download Kindle for the iPhone, you'll need a US account.
Buy your Mobipocket book.
Download and install Mobipocket Reader.
Download your Mobipocket book through Mobipocket Reader.
Download and install Python.
Download Dark Reverser's script to remove the DRM.
Copy the book ".prc" file and the latest script to the same folder python is installed.
Find your PID on Mobipocket Reader's about page and strip the DRM using the script: python DeDRM.py yourmobipocketprotectedbook.prc* drmfreebook.prc* Your_PID*
SSH the DRM-free prc file to your iPhone's folder for Kindle eBooks or add it to your Stanza library.
Read your book wherever you are.

*Replace these with your own info.

integration mess!

2009-01-17T20:45:00.002-02:00

all right... i had twitter updating facebook status, but i like how brightkite pinpoints me on a map so now i have brightkite updating twitter and facebook. people comment my posts on twitter, facebook and brightkite. friendfeed catches all action on all of this and people comment there too. wtf? unified online identity and commentosphere unification anyone?

Mapas da Garmin para o Brasil

2009-01-09T17:24:00.004-02:00

Comprei um nuvi, mas veio sem mapas brasileiros.

preço do SD direto com a Garmin: US$99
preço do SD com o representante da Garmin no Brasil: R$395

Não fosse esse preço descarado no Brasil eu até compraria aqui, mas eu quero agora e quem perde é a garmin... não vou pagar $99 pra esperar vir pelo correio...

Digital delivery... conhece garmin? Pois bem, o pirata já é assim.

Using Google Contacts, Mail and Calendar on the iPhone

2008-11-20T18:13:00.004-02:00

Android can work perfectly with all these Google Services out of the box, but the iPhone... you've gotta work around Apple's barriers.

For the contacts and calendar you have to use Nuevasync. They simulate an exchange server that will keep your contacts and calendar synched in real time.

I don't know why, but Gmail won't push emails to the iPhone, but Yahoo will. Create a yahoo account and then set up gmail to forward all emails to that account.

That's the only way I found to make Google work the way it should with the iphone.

Update: The downside in this all is that people will eventually see replies coming from this new yahoo mail address, which isn't something I really wanted and Yahoo won't let you change it.

Update: This tip is useless since Google has Exchange Server fully operational now for contacts, mail and calendar.

Local iPhone App Store

2008-11-13T13:38:00.005-02:00

eBay, last.fm, yelp, loopt... they won't show up on my iTunes since I'm registered with a brazilian account. I'm still deciding on wheter I'll create a fake american iTunes account or jailbreak my iPhone to download these FREE apps.

I bought this iPhone legally through an official authorized local carrier! It's not because of some sort of ban, it's just how it is!

I'm still obligated to download free music from soulseek and tv shows / movies through bittorrent. Can't reach those too with a brazilian iTunes account. Good, saving money! Thanks Stevie ;)

Update 1: This fixed everything! Now I'm happy!

Update 2: Apple has shut down the hole allowing payment method to be set as 'none'.

Update 3: There is still a breach!

eBay can't read emails!

2008-11-13T13:29:00.004-02:00

Yesterday I wanted to know why ebay wouldn't let their iphone app be downloaded in the brazilian iphone app store, so I sent them the following message:

I buy a lot on eBay and I own an iPhone. It says the ebay app isn't available at the brazilian app store. Aham... why?

After sending it, a survey popped up. I answered it saying mostly that I felt they'd never read my email. I was expecting some kind of answer saying they were sorry and they couldn't do anything about it, but check out what I found in my inbox the next morning:

Thank you for writing eBay in regard to the iPhone you bought on eBay.

I am sorry for any additional delay in getting this resolved for you,
but before we can diagnose this problem, I need the item number. I
appreciate your patience in sending the number to us. The more
information I can get from you, the easier it will be to solve this
issue to your satisfaction.

I hope they won't read the survey results with the same special attention my email got.

Ditching Plaxo and keep syncing

2008-11-05T22:36:00.003-02:00

Since Plaxo decided they wanted to be just another social network and leave contact management behind I decided to look for something else.

First you will have to sync up your contacts with Google Contacts. They launched their API in April and all Plaxo came up with was a one-way sync, pff... I was syncing Plaxo to Thunderbird, so I got this add-on called Zindus which did a nice job syncing some contacts that were already on Google Contacts. You'll end up with a ton of work to do. My 500 contacts became 800, but they were not mostly duplicates. Most of them were people I had on orkut so Google added them automatically to Contacts.

I'm planning on getting an Android based phone so this would end here, BUT since I don't own one yet here is how you'll sync: Soocial. Soocial can sync your Google Contacts with a bunch of phones and Mac. Enjoy!

TVersity + PS3: amazing!

2008-09-28T06:36:00.004-03:00

I really liked the fact that ps3 could see my computer's media through the network without going through any settings at all, it was just there. The problem was playing the files it could see. It couldn't keep streaming without crashing or showing some weird errors on top of the TV screen. I gave TVersity a try and gave up because it looked confusing at first. I tried Nero and it sucked as much as windows media player's server. I went back to TVersity, played with the settings, added my stuff to the library and it blew me away. It works beautifully.

Motostorm Update

2008-09-28T06:32:00.002-03:00

I was already getting used to the fact that I would never play motorstorm online. The update would always freeze the console when it was almost done. I read some posts about it online and there were some advices to format the HD and try again. I really wasn't in the mood go through all this trouble, so I tried to update it one more time and... it worked! Go figure... 4th time is the charm!

PS3 and WMP11 media sharing

2008-09-17T01:01:00.002-03:00

"windows media player network sharing" crashed every single time I tried accessing folders containing divx or xvid movies on my computers. Removing all codecs and installing Vista Codec Package got it working properly. I had k-lite mega codec pack before that.

WRT54GS x WRT54GL: both running tomato

2008-09-17T00:22:00.002-03:00

Well, a friend of mine got amazing results on his GL linksys router after installing tomato and boosting the wireless signal. I got excited and did the same on my GS. I tried installing it twice but it said it failed on both attempts. Weirdly it stopped displaying linksys' router page and started showing tomato's. I reinstalled tomato under tomato's firmware just to be sure. I boosted my wi-fi signal and... nothing. I got no improvement at all on signal quality :(

google brasil...pfff...

2008-06-18T22:23:00.002-03:00

Fiz a inscrição no dia 6 de maio, e hoje 9 dias antes do evento: no donuts for you! thanks bitches!

Agradecemos seu interesse pelo Google Developer Day 2008, que acontece em São Paulo, no dia 27 de junho. Infelizmente todas nossas vagas foram preenchidas e por isso não conseguimos encaixar sua inscrição para este ano. Nós pedimos que você confira os novos APIs e as Ferramentas para Desenvolvedores no endereço http://code.google.com/intl/pt-BR/. Não deixe de ver os vídeos que vamos postar sobre o evento depois. Contamos com você no ano que vem.

Atenciosamente,



Equipe de Desenvolvedores do Google

developerday-br@google.com

sharing links turns out to be better afterall

2008-05-28T09:10:00.001-03:00

Until now I've been sharing interesting articles using google reader's "share" feature. "Share" creates a feed of interesting articles that people that subscribe to my feeds and feed aggregators like friendfeed can fetch. Most of the articles in feeds require readers to go to the source to read the entire post, see attached videos and so on so you'll end up clicking on the ones you like anyway.

This week I got an invite to mento, which is all about sharing links. At first I thought it was just another delicious, but it's different, it will make you feel like delicious is a static website. Mento is a feature rich system for sharing links, but you'd have to use it yourself to see what I mean. It made me write this article, it made me rethink my habits and it makes sense. Now I'm just sharing the links and have abandoned google reader's share.

There has been a lot of noise about other people's contents being used to generate traffic on services like shyftr. This could all change if everyone could turn their heads to plain old link sharing on steroids that mento can offer. Traffic would still go to the source and people would still see your favorite articles on friendfeed, facebook and delicious too. Hell yeah, mento can do that!

Why I'm removing Ubuntu from my DV6770SE again

2008-05-22T04:44:00.001-03:00

I tried ubuntu once with this laptop and got disappointed, I tried it again and got really excited. The second time I tried I went deep into all the issues I encountered, fixed most of them with some effort, but the ones I couldn't fix were the one that made me ditch ubuntu again: hardware support. I'd still install linux on some old home desktop / office PC instead of giving money away for a windows XP system.

Laptops usually are more problematic regarding hardware, at most you'd add memory to it and that's it. You can't get a different GPU, CPU, hard drive without giving up and buying a new laptop.

I paid $1000 for this laptop, it has a built in webcam with microphone, a pretty decent GPU from nvidia, some touch sensitive buttons to start apps and it comes with windows vista home premium. Big deal, so what? I mentioned those because they're the ones I can't get to work properly. Everything I used to do on windows can somehow be done on ubuntu in terms of softwares, but when you have to make workarounds for all your hardware to work it starts to get too shady.

Wine couldn't run any windows game (team fortress 2, counter-strike, battlefield 2...) at decent frame-rates. I tried Quake 4 which theoretically is made for linux and I got some pretty bizarre metallic sounds and ugly graphics. My webcam wouldn't work on flash websites like tokbox, flash won't support V4L2, just V4L1 (work-around available but... damn!). Two of my touch-sensitive buttons became just two decorative illuminated leds (work-around probably available but... damn!). My wireless card's on/off switch lost it's function and the built-in mic above the monitor too.

My point here is that installing linux on this machine is just an adventure. It's cool and all, but when you see you're not getting all you can get from the hardware you paid for, you just switch back to the OS that came with it.