Great time last night catching Beck’s set at the Echo. He warmed up his new band in advance of the summer European tour and dropped lots of classics plus new tunes. Lambie captured some awesome vid. Check a new song here and below, Beck rocks “Scarecrow.” Shout out to The Echo!
iPhone 2.0 Falls Short
I’m not gonna say sorry Steve Jobs, but I”ve established long ago that I won’t play your games. All I wanted in the second generation iPhone was 3G and video support. Well today Jobs announced a slim, 8GB iPhone with GPS, 3G and a host of 2nd party applications at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference.
But I’ve had a phone for two years that works on AT&T’s 3G HSDPA network and shoots video that could be immediately uploaded to the internet. The iPhone tries to be a fully operational mini computer but does not even allow for simple cutting and pasting.
Sorry fanboys and girls, this is a joke. Jobs is just working his strategy and playing consumers for tools — I can only hope he adds video support this year, but chances are it will be longer than that, in an upgraded model that would inevitably carry on the sales model of buy-an-iPhone-every year, you fools.
Now to seriously research and purchase either the Nokia N95 or Blackberry Bold 9000. Is there something else I should be looking at? Should I just stick to my LG CU500-v?
For not-such-bitter coverage of Jobs’ keynote, see: VentureBeat, Engadget, TechCrunch, NYT Bits Blog, iPhone Alley, CNET.
2 Weeks Later: Experian Removes Mystery Accounts from My Credit Report
Finally got thru to Experian (the number for disputes that worked was 1 800 208 9232) and cleared 21 accounts from my credit report that weren’t mine as well as at least a dozen addresses where I never lived. The woman on the phone confirmed that “this happens all the time.” These computers are made by humans, she said. Sounds like you really need some new computers, or an overhaul of your IT staff, I rebutted.
All in all, I was only concerned about this until I realized that the issue didn’t exists on either my TransUnion or Equifax credit reports. If anything, it only felt bizarre to know so much about another’s credit history and status — in this case, a married woman my age with two mortgages and a couple credit cards with nearly 100k in combined balances (among 18 other open accounts).
I had no luck disputing via FreeCreditReport.com as Experian’s site appeared to not be functioning for many days. However, I began the process again thru TransUnion’s TrueCredit.com site.
Keep an eye out on your identity too. The FTC recommends AnnualCreditReport.com
Amazon’s US Site Goes Down… Millions in Sales Forfeited
Very disturbing to come across THIS at http://amazon.com — generally believed to be one of the strongest and most stable web companies with servers so trusty that thousands of businesses lease space via Amazon’s S3 Web service.
UPDATE: It’s been shaky, but back up after nearly two hours of all systems down. AdAge estimates that Amazon lost about $2 million in sales:
E-comerce site Amazon went down this afternoon around 1:30 EDT and stayed down for at least an hour. Attempts to access Amazon.com were met with the following message: “Http/1.1 Service Unavailable.” It’s hard to know exactly how many dollars a minute Amazon loses in sales for every moment its site is down, but simple math pegs it at about $1.8 million an hour, based on Ad Age estimates.
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