Verizon Does Data Activation Right

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On the Chromebook? Just fire it up, without having Wifi.

On the first generation iPad? You better have Wifi before signing up.

What still sucks is that I still have to give my credit card information. They say it’s “soley to confirm identity”, but still… At least they follow it up by saying that “no charges will be applied to your account unless explicitly authorized in advanced.” AT&T? You’ll get charged if you don’t cancel in time if you’ve signed up for the 250 MB plan.

And what’s this talk of the PSP Vita getting AT&T? How much is AT&T paying these people to get these exclusives?

// TLDR: Moar Verizon plz. Less of the craptastic network that is AT&T.

// Oh, and yes, I have a Chromebook now.

Edge Case: 3G iPad 1st Gen vs iPad 2nd Gen Data Activation

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After an hour long conversation with AT&T and Apple, as well as an hour at the AT&T store (first of which, wasn’t the right store because they just sold phones), I am finally ready for the 3G on the iPad. I picked up a refurb 1st gen for $350 a couple days ago. (Super cheap, some crazy fire… sale at AT&T’s site.)

When I got it, I couldn’t access the Cellular Data tab in Settings to see if I could sign up for it. Kept giving me an error: “Your account type does not support the view account feature (H5006).”

So here’s the interesting info. The 1st generation iPads would come with completely blank micro SIM cards. The 2nd generations, however, come with a phone number already attached to it. Someone shipped my iPad with a micro SIM card with a phone number on it, and so the 1st gen couldn’t start the sign up process because there was already a number assigned to it.

You can’t just ask for a new SIM card if you have this error: You have to ask for a completely blank one.

Conspiracy Theory

Okay, so here comes my hatred/fear of the telecoms: When I signed up through the less-than-perfect AT&T site, I had to pick a data plan. Now, as you may know, I love love love the fact that on the 3G iPads, I don’t have to muck around with the pipe provider. You sign up for 30 days of X amount of data, and you’re done. No contract. No calling in to customer support, hammering at the 0, saying no to every single question. No bullcrap. But when I bought this iPad, I felt like I was entering into a contract with AT&T, telling them that I’d be giving them money regardless of if I used the 3G feature (which I normally wouldn’t).

Does the fact that the 3G iPad 2 comes with the phone number already attached to it say anything about the vendor/telecom relationship between Apple and AT&T/Verizon? Will there be a subsidized iPad in the future? Don’t know, but don’t sign me up on it.

Now to enjoy yet another addition to my ever-revolving set of gadget loadouts. Hooray.

Rails 3.1 Beta

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So Rails 3.1 beta just came out recently, a fact I found out as I watched the RailsConf 2011 keynote. Also a new Railscast (ASCIIcasts is really what I prefer) on the subject was posted.

I guess I’m taking a break from all the JavaScript diving I’ve been doing in the past two days. So many programming challenges… argh. I do hope that the next time I’m in this situation, I have enough source code available online so that I don’t have to wade through this process, but right now it’s completely understandable on the part of my prospective companies to ask me to do these things.

Three passes already, but plenty more companies left. Gotta keep rolling. SF Ho!

Edge Case: iTunes/Windows Doesn’t Recognize iPad

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Not 100% sure what the actual problem was, but I’m pretty sure it had something to do with Air Video.

I had Air Video installed for the third iPad I had, but when I got this “new” one, iTunes couldn’t detect it. The last.fm scrobbler saw it, so did Windows 7.

So I went to uninstall everything Apple installs through iTunes (six things listed here), but realized that Air Video requires Bonjour to work, which I found out as I was coming back from a reboot after the uninstall of said six things.

Now it’s all good in the hood. Hopefully this helps someone else.

// BTW: On a Mac? What ‘Control Panel’? What ‘System’? What ‘right click, update, go through directory structure to find a driver folder’? Ahem.

Google I/O

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At least watch the keynotes.

I’m getting more and more excited about the web. And I’m incredibly happy that Google is going in the directions that they are going.

And with that, I just bought a first-gen 3G iPad. (I’m almost certain it’s my 4th.) I still don’t know of any browser that works as well on a tablet as the iOS Safari. I also love that there is no contract that I have to deal with. And since it doesn’t seem like Chrome is coming to tablets anytime soon, I guess this is just how I’m going to have to roll for now… or until Android comes up with a better browser.

Syntax Error? Nope.

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Logical punctuation, please.

I’ve had this issue since around the time I started to write online. Commas, periods, parens, single/double quoations… I knew what the “proper” rules were, dictated to me by whoever was grading my papers at that time.

But since I make my own rules here, I decided to just keep going with what I felt to be correct. And especially in the Hacker Writing Style, computer syntax would override “proper” English grammar. So I’m pretty sure I kept up my own little system for punctuation.

Maybe it drove a couple of you crazy, but there was a method to the madness, is really all I’m trying to say here.

So if I parens (like so), then the comma comes after it. But if what was in the parens was a full sentence, then I would separate it out, and even include it in the sentence. (But then again, I really should be tangenting this stuff anyway in footnotes, but I absolutely hate footnotes. Probably the better way to do this is to have a second column or some other visual system to go DEEPER.)

Also: Suck it, spellchecker. Parens is a word now.

Just a couple interesting links from Hacker News.

Spark

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Some mornings, it takes a while to get started.

This is why some people like to leave tasks undone when they close up shop for the day, so that they can just pick up where they left off.

For me, though, I just have to find out some way to create something to get started.

And I guess that’s what this post is for. Have a happy rest of the day today.