One of the best parts of buying small electronics straight from China is the joy of trying to understand the product packaging. The words make sense, but they're never in the right order for the English language. It's like they use Google Translate to get their copy into English, rather than hiring an interpreter.
Here are a few shots off the box of a remote control helicopter I got for Christmas.
Many Mac users talk about how "everything just works." For me, this has never been my experience with any Apple product. Ever. I finally realized why: because I don't do everything their way.
Today I had to get a replacement iPhone from Apple. When I restored the backup of my phone to my new device, I was frustrated to discover none of my apps synced, among a litany of other odds and ends. As it turns out, this was because I didn't have "Sync Apps" checked within iTunes.
Despite the fact that I "backed up" my iPhone, I got screwed because I didn't submit to Apple's entire - and narrow - use case. (Also, Apple failed to explain that a "backup" doesn't actually back everything up.)
So to the rest of you who have a habit of going your own way and not following all the "rules" - or in this case, letting Apple manage everything for you - look out. Because if you don't drink ALL of the Apple Kool-Aid, you too might find yourself in a world of hurt.
Skype had some technical difficulties today. So far, they've been mostly down for 10 hours. A couple weeks ago, Tumblr was down for two days straight.
When things go wrong, people make a stink. And quickly. While it's reasonable to be upset when our favorite websites go down, people often overreact. Some run their mouth about how angry they are; others threaten to move to a competing service. I find the sense of entitlement that people claim, to be both comical and depressing at the same time.Here are a few tweets about Skype I found on a quick search:
Clearly no one has broken the news to these people that they are NOT the most important person in the world. The fact is, it's not like the people behind these websites want their sites to go down. Downtime sucks, but it can happen to anyone. Behind these faceless websites are people who devote their lives into making the products you love. And guess what? They hate downtime more than you do.
So the next time your favorite online service goes down, here's what I propose: Go outside, get some fresh air, and realize that a few years ago, this awesome technology that you rely on didn't even exist. We are blessed to live in an age where we can communicate with people across the world in realtime. Our grandparents would have killed for that.
As hard as we try, things will never be perfect. So instead of just complaining, let's try to look on the bright side once in a while.