Say Eight

“The DVR Expander typically lasts one year.” That’s what the first support tech at Western Digital told me, when I called in to try and have my second DVR Extender replaced.

The DVR Expander is an external hard drive by Western Digital which is recommended by TiVo for adding many hours of additional recording capability to the Series 3 and HD TiVo boxes. It’s suppose to have “maximum reliability and performance” which is why it is TiVo Certified and you pay a premium for.

I purchased a DVR Expander on October 23rd of 2007 from TiVo. It worked perfectly for about 10 and a half months until one day the TiVo notified me that the external storage had been disconnected. I checked all the connections and everything seemed okay, so I restarted my TiVo. The TiVo once again did not find the storage, and it advised that if the storage was not reconnected almost all my recording would be gone. Sure enough, all the recordings except one or two had been deleted.

I called WD and they offered to replace the drive, with very few questions asked. I received my “new” drive on October 5th 2008. It was obvious that my “new” drive was actually a refurbished drive. It had a few scuff marks on it and it looked kind of used. Regardless, I was glad to have a replacement and it worked great, until 11 months later (to the day), which once again failed.

So, two dead drives in less then two years. The first one died after about 11 months, and the replacement died 11 months to the day. Again, all my saved TiVo shows were gone. This made me a bit more sad then before because I had a few weeks of True Blood to catch up on, which are now gone.

So once again I call WD support to get another replacement, but this time the support agent notifies me that my second drive is out of warranty. I try to hopelessly explain that I’ve had the replacement drive just about as long as I had my original, but he won’t budge, and here’s is the real kicker… The support agent tells me that “these DVR Expander drives typically last one year.”

I shit you not, he actually said that. Obviously, my second dead drive would support what he said, but I couldn’t believe that a: WD would admit that their drives last less than a year, and b: they still would not replace it.

Dumbfounded by the “support” experience and the support agent repeating some nonsense, I ask for a supervisor which at this point I’m placed on hold for about 10 minutes. While waiting I get another call which is the supervisor calling me back…. while I’m on the phone waiting for him to pick up. He basically tells me that my drive is out of warranty, and he cannot help me at all. When I ask him twice about the comment which his support person made about the drives lasting one year, he ignores my question, both times.

So, here I am with another dead WD DVR Expander, except this time no replacement on order. The supervisor has “escalated” my case and a Mr Kuris Glass or a Ms Dallas will be calling me on Tuesday.

So at this point I really do wonder how many other people have had failure issues with these “TiVo Certified” drives. Do they really only last one year? My two dead drives definitely seem to suggest so, and at $150 for a 500 GB drive that is a seriously high premium to pay for, specially for a drive that lasts less than a year.

I have a feeling I’ll be posting a bunch of these quick posts, so this is part #1.

A few days ago, I was working on finishing version 2.0 of Binary Game [iTunes Link] when I ran into an interesting and annoying problem.

For the high scores view in the app, I was programatically creating a UIButton then setting a Background image to it, like so:

[myButton setBackgroundImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"highscores-Button.png"] forState:UIControlStateNormal];


Running the app in the simulator worked perfectly. However, the button was missing it’s background image every time I tested on the device. I assumed that maybe some pre compiled code was not being rebuilt, so I Cleaned All Targets and rebuilt.. Still no go. Eventually, after much confusion and frustration I figured out the problem, which ended up being a careless mistake on my part.

The image name I was setting to the background was “highscores-Button.png” when I had actually named the image “highscores-button.png”.

It seem that the simulator doesn’t care about case sensitivity when setting imageNamed, so there were no warnings thrown at me. The device does care about case sensitivity in file names, but again, I didn’t notice any warnings, instead it just never loaded the background image.

So, if you run into anything like this, double check the capitalization of your files!

I very recently switched completely over to using Safari as my main browser.  On my laptop I have been using Safari as my browser for a long time, but for some reason at work I was stuck with using Firefox, and with no good reason.  

One of my biggest issues with Safari was that I had no good way of always forcing it to open links in a tab, instead of a new window.. After searching around for a short while, I found a hidden preference that can be set to always force Safari to load links in a new tab.

Load up terminal and type in:

defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true

If you want to undo this change, you can delete the preference by doing

defaults delete com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs

You’ll probably need to restart Safari after you make either change.

SayEight.com Releases Binary Game v1.2 with Facebook® Connect on Apple’s App Store

Springfield, NJ — March 14, 2009 — Version 1.2 of the Binary Game for iPhone and iPod touch is now available on Apple’s App Store. Binary Game features the new Facebook Connect for iPhone which lets users connect with their Facebook friends from their iPhone and iPod touch.

Binary Game now enables Facebook users to login to Facebook and compete directly against their friends. When a new high score is achieved and a user has defeated the score of their friends, they will now be able to post a social action on Facebook telling all their Facebook friends of their achievement.

These new community features will create a new level of competition and excitement for Binary Game players. Stay connected to your friends, check their scores and try to beat them. When you do best their scores, let them and all your other Facebook friends know.

About Binary Game:

Developed by John Kassimatis, sayeight.com. Binary game is a very simple to pick up numbers game, that anyone can learn how to play in seconds. The most important thing is to understand that you don’t need to know anything about Binary, or be a math whiz to enjoy and be good at this game.

Game Play: You’re given a target number and have to hit buttons with set values (like 128, 64, 32, etc) to match the target. Sounds simple? That’s because it is. It’s one of those “take a minute to learn, a lifetime to master” games.

Two main game modes:

1: Challenge Mode. You progress through levels by completing 5 rounds in succession before the time runs out. See how far you can progress before the timebar runs out.

2: Speed Mode. Complete 15 rounds as quickly as possible. How fast can you do it? Can you beat your friends?

All your scores can be submitted online and you can now compete against your Facebook friends, as well as the rest of the world!

Binary Game is now available for $1.99 from Apple’s App Store on iPhone and iPod touch.

# # #

Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc.

Early on Monday I submitted the next version of Binary Game for the iPhone to Apple for review.  I am very excited for this upcoming version for reasons I can’t say yet.

Erik Kastner and I worked very hard, in the very short window of time we had to get this version out to Apple for review.  If everything goes well with Apple’s review process, I’ll be posting all the details in a few short days!

You can get the current version of Binary Game here, and the update will be free when it’s available.

Coming up:  an update on my Weekly Goals post from last week.  (It’s not pretty :/)

Following in the footsteps of my good friend Erik Kastner, I will also be starting weekly personal goals this month.  In the past I have failed miserably when I’ve attempted to complete such goals, but lately I have been feeling very focused and motivated.  So now feels like a great time to give it another try. 

Goals for 3/2 - 3/8

• Lose 3lbs
• Do 100 pushups
• Do 150 situps
• Deposit $100 to savings
• Submit an update to Binary Game for Apple review
• Start working on another Binary Game update
• Write a small iPhone development tutorial
• Update the blog with another Weekly update on 3/8

I have been interested in the 24-inch Apple Cinema display for sometime now, and I decided to buy one.  The Apple store was closed, but I remembered that there is a Best Buy  just a few minutes away from my house, which also happens to be  an Apple retailer.  It was on our way home, so my fiance and I decided to stop in.

It was easy to spot the Apple section with the larger than life Apple logo glowing brightly in the  otherwise cold storage-like computer section.  Best Buy had a single table housing four Macs setup for display. A 24-inch iMac, 15-inch MacBook Pro, 13-inch Macbook, and the MacBook Air.  There even was an iPod Touch present.

I waited around for a few minutes and spotted a Best Buy employee by the CD section,  looking right at us.   We wait another minute to see if she’ll come help us. But she’s just hanging out.  After another minute I walk over to her and ask if she works in the computer section.  She replies that she does.

ME: “Do you have the 24-inch Apple Cinema Display in-stock?”

Best Buy Girl: “The 24-inch, yeah this way.”

We head towards a humongous ladder.  I look up and see 3 iMacs, and a few Apple MacBooks on the very top shelf.  I don’t see any cinema displays.  I figured that maybe they’re in a different spot, or behind the iMacs.

She climbs to the top of the ladder, and starts pulling on a 24-inch iMac.

ME: “That’s not the 24-inch Cinema Display, is it?”

Best Buy Girl: “Yeah, 24.  It’s heavy!  I’ll need to get someone else to get it down.”

ME: “Yeah, sorry about that, I meant that I wanted just display. What you have is an iMac.”

Best Buy Girl: “No this is definitely it. See it says it here”

ME: “Right, but that’s a whole computer, I want just the monitor part of it.”

Best Buy Girl: “This is the monitor and these days they put everything in the monitor so you get a lot more.  So you’re getting a better deal.  They don’t have just the monitor anymore.”

I was not going to argue with her.  So I thanked he for her time and we walked away.

In the end, I was way more  amused with the whole incident than annoyed.

On Monday night around 6pm I got the email from Apple which I had been very impatiently waiting for.  Since then I have gotten very little sleep, but had a blast with Gary Vaynerchuk, Erik Kastner, Brian Woolley and AJ Vaynerchuk promoting and talking to people about the game.  So far the game has positive reviews on iTunes, and around the web. 

Some quick stats.  In about 24 hours there were roughly 500 scores submitted to the High Score list.  There is heavy competition for the top 10 spots.

Binary Game can be found on iTunes.  It’s currently on sale for $1.99.  

High Score leader boards with All-Time and Daily High Scores can be found on the official website:  b1narygame.com

It has been a great experience releasing this game, and I hope that people keep enjoying it.

Where you really surprised with today’s news of Sirus XM getting ready to file for backruptcy?  I sure as hell wasn’t.

I have been a faithful XM subscriber with multiple radios since early 2004.  The main reason I originally subscribed was to listen to Opie & Anthony, which were making their exclusive (forced out of commercial Radio) return to radio, only on XM.  I was very pleasantly surprised with all the music content as well, and for a very long time I enjoyed my XM.

From my prospective things started to go wrong right around the time merger talks with Sirius began, and by the time the merger was finally approved everything seemed completely out of place.  For a while XM was playing some sweepers promising and reassuring XM customers that if the merger were to happen, nothing would change, the service would remain the same if not get better, and prices would stay as they were.  Well, it’s no secret that very soon after merger a lot of people working for XM were let go, and XM channels (including some awesome music channels) began to disappear and getting replaced with channels which were on Sirius.  This is how Sirius XM as it’s known today was formed. 

Sirius XM then announced that prices would be going up this March, and tried to scare customers into locking rates by prepaying for service.  Satellite radio is already expensive enough to begin with, specially considering that it’s radio that you are paying for, so with the new prices quickly approaching it certainly did not become any more attractive to new subscribers, or existing subscribers.

To me it seems that big corporations often do the opposite of what they should be doing when they’re in financial trouble.  Sirius XM is a great example.  They already have the satellites in the sky and it really doesn’t cost them anything extra to add subscribers.  So why raise the prices, specially now when so many people are unemployed and cutting back on most luxury spending?  

Why not drop the prices, even by a small amount?  The press alone would probably make it worth it, existing subscribers would be happy and you would very likely draw in a whole new crowed of people that are curious about satellite radio. Going one step further, why not just offer 3 months of free service to all new subs?  Now, I know that XM already offers what they call ‘3 Free Months’, but if you read closely it’s just a marketing scheme.  You save the equivalent of three months by paying in advance.  You are not really getting three months of service for free.

So instead, the powers over at Sirius XM chose not to do anything beneficial for the consumer.  What they did was take away some of the best music choices, add a ‘morning zoo’ type of talk show to one of their most popular all-music channels, and raise the prices to what is no longer reasonable.   Satellite radio is now heading down the same road as commercial radio has, and will probably soon share the same fate, if not worse.

FM used to be really awesome and profitable at one point in history, but eventually the companies which owned the stations became more and more greedy.  They saw the many opportunities in advertising and took careless advantage of them, which eventually made commercial radio the mess it is today. It’s silly that there’s 25-30 minutes of commercials every hour.  Who wants to listen to that?   One thing commercial radio did do was make the iPod more popular by pushing people away by the masses.  Sirius XM is now desperate and greedy, and it wants more dollars out of it’s existing customers.  They are also pushing people away.

So here we are today.  Promises were broken and the service is just not what it used to be, so I am on the brink of canceling the rest of my radios and closing my account with XM. Everyone that I know that’s had Sirius XM subscriptions has already cancelled or is doing so very soon, because it’s just no longer worth it.

I will miss my XM, but it’s been a bitter love hate relationship for the past year.

Late on Monday night I finally submitted my very first App Store app(a simple number game) to Apple for review.   Aside from announcing it here, this post also happens to be my very first post on this blog.

I started developing this game on December 28th of last year.  Until I started working on the game I have had zero experience with Objective-C, and very little knowledge of Interface Builder.  I had picked up an iPhone Development Book (Beginning iPhone Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK) a few weeks before(also an iPhone Developer license 4 month earlier), which I managed to completely avoid until I started working on the app.

I spent the next four weeks reading parts of the book but mostly using it as a reference, and abusing the search features of awesome iPhone development sites such as iPhone Dev SDK.  Most of these communities are just amazing with extremely friendly and helpful people.  I learned more from sites like these than anywhere else.

In addition to the book and all the web resources, I also had the help of a really good friend, Erik Kastner, which had created some really cool iPhone apps back in the days where there was no iPhone SDK, and you had to be super cool to create an app by doing it all programatically.

After about 6 full weeks of learning, and coding, and learning more I finally got the app to a place where I felt good about it.   

For current and future iPhone developers: Learning about memory management is gold, and it will save you a ton of time if you do it right the first time.  Late last week I was getting ready to submit the app for review when I ran into a dreadful EXEC_BAD_ACCESS crash.  After carefully examining some of my earlier code, I noticed that I had not followed all the rules of memory management as well as I thought I had.  It took a while to rework the offending code, but now it’s correct.  

Now my app has been submitted to Apple and it’s pending review.  It can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks for Apple to even look at it, depending on the amount of apps they have in queue and how well your App fits in one of the categories on the App Store.  So I wait, patiently, and hope that it doesn’t get rejected for any small mistakes.

I will update again shortly with a description of the game!

Thanks for reading.