I just checked my phone bill from this past month…
Anytime Usage 197 Minutes
Mobile2Mobile (M2M) Usage 179 Minutes
Nights and Weekends (N&W) Usage 216 Minutes
Vision Data 18300 Kilobytes
Vision Data 22016 Kilobytes
Text Messages 6624 Messages
I really overuse those texts and data packages.
It’s that season again. The air is getting colder. Snow is starting to fall. Lights are going up on houses and trees alike all over the nation. Special music is heard on the radio. And there’s that feeling that permeates everything of goodness and happiness. That’s right. It’s time to save a ton of cash on some great Mac apps!
Every year around Christmastime, the fine folks at macsantadeals.com work tirelessly to give you some great discounts on some awesome Mac applications. Every day a new list of apps are posted at 20% off, and when they day is past they are archived (“Extended Offers” link) for 10% off. This continues all the way until Christmas. All you need to do is enter the code (given on the website) into the “coupon” area of the software when you make your purchase.
If you’re a Mac user make sure you check this site out on a continual basis all throughout December. Last year I bought a few apps with MacSanta, and they’re great.
Visit MacSantaDeals.com
May I recommend two apps in specific that I have and love. Both are currently located in the archived section.
1. MarsEdit (Red Sweater Software). This very blog post is being written in MarsEdit. It’s an amazing piece of blogging software. For a long time I’ve wanted a stand-alone app to reside on my hard drive that would let my type, edit, format, and work through my blogs. I use WordPress to host the blog, but I never like using web apps to do work. I’d much rather work on my Mac and then upload it all when it’s to my liking. I first heard about MarsEdit on MacBreak Weekly, and instantly downloaded the trial version for 30 days. After the first blog, I knew I was going to buy it. And so I did. It’s absolutely fantastic. It has a lot of features to format your blog and setup links. And what’s really nice is Flickr integration. It sees your Flickr account, and you can call up, view, and insert your Flickr images right from within the app. If you blog, I think you definitely need to check out MarsEdit. It retails for $29.95, but now through Christmas you can get it for 10% off.
2. Audio Hijack Pro (Rogue Amoeba). Audio Hijack is an audio recording application that I simply love. I bought it when I first got a Mac
because I needed a simple app to record the teachings at my church for later podcasting. I used to use Adobe Audition on a PC to record, but couldn’t find anything within my price range for the new Mac. Enter Audio Hijack. It’s a great little app that easily records audio from Skype, iChat, iTunes, the Web, or any other input you have. That’s right, you can record audio from your existing programs to use for any purpose you’d like. The really great thing is that it encodes and saves as it records. With Audition, and even Apple’s Soundtrack Pro (part of the Final Cut Studio
Merry Christmas!
So yesterday I posted about how I was stuck with an antiquated phone while my Treo
Apparently these older phones were not made for high-text capacity. Before 11am I had already run out of room for text messages. I received an error/warning box popup on the phone with each text received telling me that I was close to, and then that I had reached the limits of the phone’s texting storage and older messages were deleted. By 11am! That’s ridiculous.
It came to pass that I got out of work and returned home and proceeded to call Palm in order to take advantage of the warranty the phone was still under. It was discovered that the problems I was facing were not hardware related, but rather software. The fact that I dropped the phone had no effect on it’s performance. We performed a simple hard reset and the problem was solved. The Palm associates were quite knowledgable and helpful throughout the entire process. Kudos to you, Palm, on some great Customer Service work!
And then I called Sprint. Actually I called twice. The first lady I spoke to was wonderful. She seemed like she genuinely wanted to help. I explained my story to her: “My regular phone was damaged so last night I switched it over to an older temporary phone while the other would be repaired. It so happens that the manufacturer fixed the error over the air, and so I want to switch it back now.” She promptly reactivated my Treo, but since I was calling on the temp phone I had to call back for programming. No problem. She finished up her legal talk at the end, thanked me for calling, and paused. It seemed like she was trying to think what to say next to finish business, but instead, “I hope you have a wonderful evening,” came forth. And it seemed like it was a genuine good-wishing stemming from within a genuine good-hearted person. It took me aback for a few seconds. I wished her the same and we ended the call.
The second time I called (via Skype) was not so pleasant. I mean, the lady was nice, but it was obvious she was reading from a book. I told her, “I just called to get my phone activated, but the previous lady asked me to call back for programming.” Sprint rep #2 seemed to have a hard time grasping what I was talking about. She wanted to go through the steps in her book. So we did. When we entered the programming mode, I noticed the phone was already programmed from the day before. I tried to explain this to her, but she didn’t understand. She made me go through the steps, but I was getting errors because the information I was entering was the same as what was already in there, and so the phone kept telling me, “Hey stupid! You’re not changing anything!” This too she did not understand. We were stuck on this step for 15 minutes. Finally the conversation looked like this:
Me: It looks like it’s already programmed.
Sprint Lady: No, we haven’t done it yet.
Me: Well, we can test it. If I call my voicemail and it connects, then it’s all setup. If it doesn’t then I can just program it with a bogus number and then reprogram it with the right information.
Sprint Lady: …….
Me: I’m going to try it.
Sprint Lady: Sir, you need to program it.
Me: It is programmed. I’m going to call my voicemail.
Sprint Lady: You can’t get voicemail. It’s not….
Me: Ok, it connected my voicemail. It works.
Sprint Lady: Sir, it won’t…
Me: ::Holds up voicemail on speakerphone to mic::
Sprint Lady: ….
Me: We’re all good here.
Sprint Lady: Ok, sir, you won’t be able to make any calls for at least 2 hours….
Me: I just made a call.
Sprint Lady: No, it will take at least 2 hours for voice, and 4 for data.
Me: Um…
Sprint Lady: Thanks for calling Sprint.
Me: kthnxbai
Sprint Lady: Bye.
Well, something like that. I liked Palm lady. I like Sprint Lady #1. Sprint Lady #2 annoyed me. But in either case, the Treo works now. The L button was damaged in the process of the last few days, but though it is ugly it still functions to some degree. I’m just happy to have my QWERTY keyboard back. I am happy to have my Treo once again… at least until I get the iPhone. And I am listening to Guns ‘n Roses
Oh, and some other random goodness that has befallen me today:
– The boss is on vacation for the rest of the week.
– I finally ordered a replacement disc for MediaShout so that I can get the laptop setup and stop carrying that blasted desktop to and fro’ the Liberty.
– Went to Van Gogh’s Ear cafe with friends and listened to poetry and live music.
– Made a significant, yet hushed, purchase with the help of a good friend. More on that later.
– Played Scrabble
Good night and fare thee well. May peace be with you.
I accidentally dropped my Treo
Anyway, today I was without phone all day. Without texts. Without Twitter. It was rough. So I went to the Sprint store this evening to see about repair or getting a new cheap phone. No such luck. Apparently I was not elidgible for any discounts at Sprint and so the cheapest phone I could get was $170. There’s no way I’m paying almost $200 when I plan on getting the iPhone in the start of 2008.
And so, at the recommendation of the Sprint associate, I came home and found a crappy old unactivated phone that has been sitting in the drawer for the past few years as a backup. Tomorrow I have to call Palm and setup a repair for the Treo
This is going to be rough.
Behold my bane:
All entries are taken from my Twitter from the past 24 hours. To follow me on Twitter, click here and select “follow.”
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All entries are taken from my Twitter from the past 24 hours. To follow me on Twitter, click here and select “follow.”
Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter
– – – – Original Message – – – –
We got a msg from whartz01 #
All entries are taken from my Twitter from the past 24 hours. To follow me on Twitter, click here and select “follow.”
Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter
So due to the fact that I was away for a week, my podcast publishing schedule went out of whack. I missed the week of the 28th due to shopping and packing and flying. While I was away there were some “technical difficulties” in the recordings, so we had nothing to post the week of the 4th. And finally I was back and recording on the 11th. And so I have everything posted that I have to post back til the 28th of October for all three of our podcasts.
Click here to subscribe to any of our weekly podcasts.
Christ Fellowship:
10/28 – Go Fish VII: The One that Got Away
11/11 – Take a RestConnecion:
10/28 – Communion
11/11 – Twisted Logic: The Misunderstood KingSanctuary:
10/28 – Growing Spiritually IX: Love
11/11 – Accountability
Sorry for missing the teachings from 11/04. We’re back on a normal schedule now.
In related news, we should be ready to start up the monthly Bridge podcast very, very shortly. Keep an eye out.
Happy halloween everyone.
We’re leaving for the National Youth Worker’s Convention in St Louis, MO in about 3 1/2 hours. I’ll be blogging from there as well as Twittering and possible lifecasting via Justin.TV or UStream.TV.
Also check out Janelle and Samantha who also will be Twittering.
See you in Missouri.
🙂 I love TextExpander.
williamhartz.com 
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