Quality of Life: August 2009 Archives

Maine has a program in the schools called Maine Learning Technology Initiative that provides laptops to middle school and now high school students. The program began with iBooks and progressed to MacBooks. The computers have a lifespan in the schools, and apparently with the stimulus package, are getting replaced sooner than expected in some school systems. The upshot is that there are many of these white MacBooks are available if you know where to look.

I have been struggling with how to get Arthur and Rori into Intel Macs, and the opportunity presented itself with a couple of these machines. Arthur can now use CS4 Master Collection and write Flex 4 code. We also want to write iPhone apps, and the old G4 Powerbook wasn't up to the task.

Thanks, MLTI.
When we bought our iPhones, we had phones with AT&T that were not on a contract. We had accumulated about 7900 rollover minutes over the years we had been with AT&T, so we wanted to be able to keep them, so we tried to simply add iPhones and a 2 year contract. Apparently, the result was that we got:
  1. A new AT&T account for the iPhones;
  2. The old account was cancelled;
  3. The minutes were left behind.
Unhappy with losing the minutes, I called and learned that the old account was a business account and the new one was personal. Regardless, I argued, I should be able to keep my minutes. without any hesitation, the lovely gal on the line told me that she could give me 1000, but she'd have to ask her manager about more. She text messages her manager (I kid you not) and the result is that we got 4000 of the minutes restored. Better than zero, and there's more. 

Because of the large number of accumulated minutes, I wasn't paying much attention to the minutes on the phone. Good thing I did, though, because the counter was reading low near the end of the month. I knew that we had called everyone we knew on these new gadgets, and that I was using it for most of my business activities, so I figured that I needed a plan with more minutes. I changed to the 1400 minute plan with minutes to spare, and forgot about it. I got the bill, and it claimed that I had gone over by ~150 minutes! The same call got the charges refunded.

I must say that the experience was pleasant and very rewarding, for me, anyway, and AT&T gets a thumbs up from me.
After the severe electrical and wind storm and subsequent power fluctuation and failure last night, the furnace controller would no longer ignite the furnace. We didn't realize it until this morning, when the showers were very cold. I decided to take matters into my own hands, so I removed the defunct controller, took it to Home Depot, got the closest thing I could find, and installed it. $73 later, and hot water again.

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This page is an archive of entries in the Quality of Life category from August 2009.

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