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So, another weekend has passed by. Figured I’d blog something because I haven’t in ages. We got Guitar Hero recently - that’s soaked up a fair amount of any free time I may’ve had.

Spent most of this weekend fighting with postfix.. Why do mail servers have to be so complex? You change one setting, and one seemingly unrelated component fails to work (the example I have in mind is the virtual mailbox base and the error “smtp server does not support authentication” - wtf?!). When I eventually figure it all out, I’ll write it up on here - mostly so I have something to reference if when I have to tackle one again.

In other, more social news, JB is coming up at the end of May, and I’ve booked some time off to be lazy and generally celebrate the Bank Holiday for a bit longer than is normal. Should be good.

There are some fucking scumbags in this world… More namely the baghead fucks that happen to reside no too far from my area and do things like this:

To fund their fucky little drug habits. I hope this pays for the bag that kills them.

I guess we’ll have to sleep with one eye/ear open in future.. And this is a nice area!

I used to own As Good As It Gets on DVD. Someone borrowed it a long time ago, I never got it back. That’s another rant.

Today, I decided the time had come to replace said DVD, so pointed Camino in the direction of play.com and made the appropriate search.

Success! £5.99 delivered, I was a happy bunny.. But you know how these kinds of sites can get, so I had a browse around. No BluRay offers on, but a massive “Mix n Match” sale on DVDs, CDs, Books, Clothing, and so-called Gadgets; 2 for £10!. “Ok”, I thought; “that sounds good - I wonder if As Good As It Gets is included in the offer”. Despite there being no signs of an offer on the DVD in my basket, I went to the DVDs section, sorted alphabetically and on page 2 I found it, As Good As It Gets - 2 for £10. Excellent! After much scrutinizing I decided on The Last of the Mohicans as my other choice.

The problem began now. I had the items in my basket, but the total was £11.98 - not the alleged £10. Knowing how play.com’s system usually applies offers, in the basket as opposed to at the checkout, I thought this odd. I added the As Good As It Gets DVD from the Mix n Match listing, and my basket value came to £15.99 - meaning that removing the As Good As It Gets that the search picked up brought the basket total to £10. The advertised offer.

Why do I not get the Mix n Match offer if I’m searching? Is this some form of low-cpu-usage green-computing scheme masterminded by play.com? Sounds more like dodgy marketing to me. Who in their right mind will search through 800 odd DVDs just to save £1.98? It happened by chance for me, but I’d probably check any DVDs on play.com that are reduced to £5.99 while that Mix n Match offer is on - they’re probably hidden in there somewhere! Sneaky bastards.

Edit: Obligatory “I love Louise, ‘cos she’s megas” *looks at date*

This has been pissing me off for a while now, so I’m going to try and bring it into the public eye - in the hope that a solution can be found. Since a few days ago (that’s a guess, it could easily be a week) digg.com’s iPhone interface (by far my most-used iPhone Web Site) has been “acting up”, to say the least.

If you go to http://digg.com/iphone in your PC Browser (well, in Firefox.. Not sure with IE would make of it) you can click the stories, the page will scroll across and you get to read some comments, and follow a link to the dugg article. Now try this on your iPhone. it used to work fine, but now I am unable to follow any links. “Clicking” (so, tapping) on a link on my iPhone does nothing. Nothing changes, nothing loads.. Just nothing. I would be tempted to blame my Jailbroken iPhone at first, but I just tried it on my friend’s iPhone (running 1.1.3 - which I wouldn’t trade for a Jailbreak, btw) and had the same problem.. So it can’t be me.

So, Mr Digg.com, will you please fix the Digg iPhone interface? I can’t handle my commutes without the satire spin on anything current that is Digg.

…But if they did, they wouldn’t be as good as iPhones.

So, 48 hours later and the “Activation and Porting Ordeal” is finally over. When I Activated my iPhone, O2 informed me it would take up to 5 business days to transfer my number (from o2 pay as you go) to my new iPhone Contract, but that they would provision me a temporary number, so I could get started playing with my iPhone straight away.. “Fair enough”, I thought.

A mere 16 hours later, I received an SMS from Facebook on my iPhone.. My number must have transfered. I checked, it had. Hurah!…. I thought.. A few minutes later, a “you have voicemail icon” appeared, but with no number in it. When I attempted to go to voicemail, my Visual Voicemail just plain refused to work. I hastily rang O2 (UK Based!) Tech Support, and was informed by the Apple Representative(!!!) that the O2 Network could not take the strain, and I should just wait until after the weekend. I rarely use voicemail, so I was not too bothered, although did feel somewhat put out. A few hours later I left the house, so naturally, got my iPhone out and hit “Safari”.
“Safari cannot open the web page because it cannot find the server”.. HMM. To the O2 Store! We tried to go the trafford centre on the way home, but we had no luck. Even hoping to park, on a Saturday, was foolish of us, so I rang O2 instead and we carried on our not so merry way.

After sounding puzzled, and sticking me on hold, the Apple Rep discovered that AT&T had encountered this problem also when porting AT&T numbers from AT&T to iPhone Accounts. The GPRS/Voicemail etc settings had not been setup. He told me a need to speak to O2, and put me through to them. I told the O2 woman what I wanted. Immediately her incompetence became evident. “You settings are automatically activated automatically”. Now, maybe if I had just asked for the features and not explained my whole situation, that would be a valid response, but I had told her everything. That it did work, that I’d spoke to Apple, that AT&T had the same problem, etc, etc. I re-iterated the point, and informed her more firmly that she would be provisioning Visual Voicemail, GPRS, and EDGE on my account. I was put on hold.
Ten minutes later or so, the annoying voice in my head ear returned, to inform me that she had made the necessary changes (but I thought no changes were necessary?) and that provisioning would take upto 24 hours (but I thought they were already provisioned?).

So. I am now left with an iPod Touch, that can make calls and send sms. Not really what I shelled out ¬£269 for, or why I’m paying ¬£45 a month, but there you go. 24.5 hours later and my GPRS/EDGE/Voicemail were still not working. I rang O2, again, and informed them of my unhappiness. The equally incompetent o2 iPhone team member attempted to patronise me. His first and only mistake. We finished up on the phone and a few minutes later everything started working.. The iPhone kicks ass. Can’t wait for a jailbreak