I decided to be in the holiday spirit and wish the toll attendants a Merry Christmas.  Out of six attendants, two returned back a reply with “Merry Christmas.”  One replied back with “back to you…”  One just looked at me dumbfounded.  And the last one said thank you.

And there you have it ladies and gentleman.  The latest poll results at just how friendly Florida Tollbooth attendants are around the holidays! 

My normal steps require:

1. Open browser (or switch to it if already opened).  If the latter, I use ⌘-TAB until I highlight the browser of choice (Firefox/Safari).
2. Open a new browser tab: ⌘-T
3. Type “google”; the first item defaults to http://www.google.com
4. Type my search query, press ENTER.

After following these steps I found on Google.  My steps have been reduced to a customizable global hot key…

1. Press ⌘-2
2. Type search text, press ENTER.

Much better, now I just have to retrain my mind and fingers.

I started out by wanting to update my iTunes account to use my MobileMe email address.  Upon logging into my Account Settings, I attempted to update my email address.  I quickly noticed there was no longer an email address field.  Instead, reading the helpful hints in between the fields, they explained that the Apple ID and email address are now one in the same.

OK, no problem, I’ll just put my new MobileMe email address (firstname.lastname@me.com) into the AppleID field.  I clicked submit and received an error.  iTunes was telling me that my MobileMe already had an iTunes account associated with it.  What?!?

To shed some light on this…after going back and forth on several emails, I received the following from an Apple iTunes customer service employee:

Dear Mark,

I have read and UNDERSTOOD everything that you have stated. You want to use the same email address for your mobile me and iTunes account. As stated in a previous response to you, This cannot be done through iTunes. You are allowed to change your iTunes account email address under normal circumstances. The errors that you are receiving are telling you that the conflict is due to your mobile me account. Your mobile me account is designed to automatically setup an iTunes account as a convenience to the customer. At this point and time you have a mobile me account and an iTunes account. You are free to stop using  either account but u will lose access to some of your purchased content.  If iTunes tells you that you must have a different mobile me account email then that is what needs to occur before you can alter your Itunes email.

Note: No wording has been changed; I only used bold to emphasize the very statement I find ironic.  Please keep in mind that I have not posted the entire email thread (yet).  This was a response after about three emails each, back and forth.

My response?

The convenience you speak of is going to cause me and my family to abandon the MobileMe service.  Would you pay for something that you cannot use by the very company that sold it to you? I understand what you are explaining to me, but I do not choose to accept it.  Does it seem like the correct business solution Apple should be serving to its customers? You are asking me to either (1) stop using the MobileME service or (2) throw away all of the media I have purchased through iTunes to date.

I am not putting the fault on you, in fact I appreciate you assisting me.  I realize you are only conveying to me what you have the power to change and correct.  Can I speak with your supervisor or can you ensure this ticket is escalated to the next level?

It is illogical to sell me a MobileMe email address that I purchased from Apple and cannot use with my iTunes account containing all of the media I have purchased to date.

Thank you,

Mark Hurley
<<my cell phone number was here>>

Note: only edited to remove my cell phone number.  I don’t feel like telemarketing SPAM.

First, I have to give Apple’s employee kudos.  This person is still listening to me, although it would be nice to have at least a name to make it more comforting (that’s for another blog posting).  Customer service is not the only thing broken here.  What is broken is Apple is cracking the very wishbone that put Apple in front of me.  Opportunity.

Someone at Apple decided a nice feature would be to automatically generate an iTunes account when you signed up for MobileMe.  That short sited thinking has now cost his/her own company a black eye.  And people think the power of one doesn’t matter in corporate America.

I’m doing my best to leave my feelings out of this, but since I am human, I do have them.  So what do my feelings tell me to do? I want to fly out to Apple and work there until this problem is fixed.  Sounds like a poor attempt at obtaining a job right? No….I’m just passionate enough about companies seeing the viewpoint their customers see to fix it.  I’m not sure my current employer would take me back.  They are another corporation.

To me, Apple is on the crossroads of customer loyalty and growing behind their capabilities (currently).  This customer service employee could just process my request along with all the others, hit a certain quota by the end of the month achieving a certain percentage of satisfaction and be happy.  But I want to challenge the employee to think outside the box…put yourself in the shoes of the customer and ask yourself….would you accept this as an answer?

Sounds funny? Unbelievable, huh? Well I don’t believe that.  All it takes is one person to affect one customer positively…and sell them for life.  That customer may even speak highly of the company and you’ve now gained a spokesperson for the company that if it performs well gives you stock options and/or a bonus annually.  Not bad for an employee among several thousand.

Since I am the customer here, I decide to take the issue to Steve Jobs.  Somewhere between Steve and the outward facing customer service employee, the message of what is important is lost.  It blends and then it is gone.  Thinking outside the box, using the tools provided fades as the sturdy box and script appears next to a computer of what to say, and how to say it.

Even if I don’t get a response back from Steve, perhaps one of those employees outside the box will pick up the email.  And they will do the right thing for me and all Apple customers.

I haven’t yet posted the entire email thread…if you’d like to see it drop me a comment.  Otherwise, I will keep providing updates as comments and/or blog entries.  That is if you care to read them…

-Mark

After getting the knack for VoodooPad, I began using it a bit more the other night. I am recording server setup steps so that I may refer to them the next time I have to set another server up.  I can easily flip to the applicable page “FTP HOWTO” in my notes and follow it to ensure I leave nothing out.

Months ago, I began toiling with the idea that I should use a wiki.  But the web still lacks one rich feature that pains me so.  Drag and drop an image into a form on my browser.  This often leaves me looking for a 1st class application on the OS I am using.

An online Wiki (like one from pbwiki.com) is a great aid.  In fact, it even ensures my data is always safe.  But still, I have to deal with that annoying File -> Browse -> Select -> Insert File workflow.

Tonight as I began adding more information, I found another digital notebook type of application called NoteBook by Circus Ponies.  I am impressed.  But I haven’t yet downloaded it to try it out yet.

Then I found DEVONthink.  Wow….not too bad.  Of course it should be when the Professional Office edition is $150.  Granted the “personal” edition is only $40.

So for now, its back to VoodooPad.  There are some things I wish it did better.  For example, I haven’t found a clean way to lay out items side by side (using tables).  I cannot associate an image with a link to another page or website.  I do however seem impressed by the Python script that can be ran within a document.  I could see writing steps to set something up, and including a test script that can be executed at the end of the HOWTO to verify the service is properly working.

Jury is still out on these…

The first problem we encountered is related to PEP 308.  Someone who had written a RSS parsing plugin for Django, failed to mention that it minimally needed Python 2.5 to run correctly.  But this is one of the greatest advantages of open source.  I rolled up my sleeves and removed what the PEP calls conditional expressions.  I’ve always referred to these as the Ternary operator [or operation].

I must admit, the style used in Python is nothing like I’ve ever used in C/C++, etc.  An example of what I had to replace was:

author = entry.author if entry.has_key('author') else ''

changed to:

if entry.has_key('author'): author = entry.author
else: author = ''

You can see how much simpler it is to write the first one.  It may be harder to read at first, but if you think of it as:

x = true_value if condition else false_value

Here is the original code I fixed to make it work with Python 2.4.  There are some other shortcuts going on.  One for example may be a bit more confusing at first, but it is nothing more than a “short cut” to make things simpler to write and read, right?!? 

Take a list:

>>> a = range(0,10)
>>> print a
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

Now suppose I want a list where I multiply every value in this list by 2.  I could write:

>>> x = []
>>> for number in a:
>>>     x.append(number*2)
>>> print x
[0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18]

To make the iteration more simple, Python allows us to comprehend the list into:

>>> x = [number * 2 for number in a]
>>> print x
[0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18]

This is best expressed as:

L = [expression for variable in sequence]

You can find out more about Python’s list comprehension here.

When rewriting the code, because I was unable to use PEP 308, I decided to write a classic iteration loop, to make the code a bit simpler to read and understand.  There is no reason to wrap a comprehensive list over multiple lines just because you can. 

1) Install iPython

1. sudo easy_install ipython

2) Download the file/egg for Mac OSX readline, and place in path, then edit easy_install.pth

1. Download:  http://ipython.scipy.org/dist/readline-2.5.1-py2.5-macosx-10.5-i386.egg
2. cp ~/Downloads/readline-2.5.1-py2.5-macosx-10.5-i386.egg .
3. sudo vim easy-install.pth
4. While editing the file add:   ./readline-2.5.1-py2.5-macosx-10.5-i386.egg

3) Run iPython and test.

WASHINGTON — Veterans and active-duty military not in uniform can now render the military-style hand salute during the playing of the national anthem, thanks to changes in federal law that took effect this month.

“The military salute is a unique gesture of respect that marks those who have served in our nation’s armed forces,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Dr. James B. Peake. “This provision allows the application of that honor in all events involving our nation’s flag.”

Which can also be found here. Nothing wrong with a proper salute by a vet.  Someone asked me today if I was happy being out of the military.  Hell no…I miss it, but it wasn’t fun all the time either.  The men and women who serve and the families left behind when they go off to fight dedicate a lot to this country.

To all the Veterans out there…thank you very much!

To my buddy Kurt….blue skies man…I’ll have a beer for you!

The irony at least for me, is I watched several entrepreneur TV shows that specifically talked about Earth Class Mail! I was quite interested and excited of what the company and CEO were doing.  Sure they had their problems with the start up.  Not to mention they rewrote their entire site to Microsoft’s ASP.NET barely finishing and pulling off fixing bugs before the start of a conference they were attending.  I was sorry to hear yet another company were accepting “offers” from Microsoft with no significant technical merit to back their decision.  Rather than perfect their product, they instead wasted precious time getting to market in fixing a new ASP.NET website written in haste! Still, I must admit, I watched the show.

Then I come across this blog, and find that Earth Class Mail is actually suing the domain name owner of EarthMailFree.com! Are you kidding me? Maybe Earth Class Mail are borrowing lawyers from Microsoft as well?

Let me say one thing to this new company.  Piss off enough of us “little” people, and it will spread like wild fire…see you back on the streets in a couple years!

Maybe I am growing old, but I have noticed lately I tend to listen more in conversations than to speak.  I find it enjoyable to truly process what one has said, combined with body language arriving in a few short sentences on the topic which we are discussing.

It is amazing even days ago that someone told me I am being too quiet during meetings at work.  I thought to myself; actually I only want to speak when I feel something is relevant.  I’ve come to the conclusion that people enjoy sharing their opinions, relevant or not.

There are also the people who speak because they are passionate or at times annoyed about a situation.  I use to be and still am one of those people.  My passion can cause me to dominate a conversation.  I would say I am making progress.  While others would say I am less passionate or disengaged.

The reason I am mentioning this is because I really enjoy listening to the stories shared on TED.  They host very passionate people who have some great ideas to share.  I don’t watch them all completely, but I give each one a few minutes to get started.

Tonight, I watched Anna Deavere Smith portray four American characters. Not only did she act out the parts, but the stories she shared caused me to become fully engaged in each.  Nothing seemed scripted, as she shared true accounts of research she had accomplished while traveling in America.  I highly recommend watching it! Anna demonstrates her acute listening skill by replaying her own encounters with these four American characters.

Overall, TED reminds me to be a better listener and consider what can be learned by each and every person I interact with in my daily life.  Listening better has helped me improve my personal and professional relationships.

1) Downloaded Django-1.0.tar.gz from here.

2) Created and extracted the contents of the tar.gz:

mkdir ~/sandbox
cd ~/sandbox
tar xzf ~/Downloads/Django-1.0.tar.gz

3) Make the following soft-links:

cd /Library/Python/2.5/site-packages/
ln -s ~/sandbox/Django-1.0/django django
cd /usr/local/bin/
sudo ln -s ~/sandbox/Django-1.0/django/bin/django-admin.py django-admin.py