Disjointed Kitsch

Funny. I was about to write a post on Apple computers the other day and for one reason or another stopped. Glad I did since today’s more appropriate given that it’s the 30th anniversary of the first Apple computer going on sale.

30 years is a lot of water under the bridge and as many have commented Apple is hardly recognizable from the company that Woz and Jobs started – except perhaps in one area: pushing the envelope.

Apple has always been out on the cutting edge with innovation, industrial design, quality, customer relations, etc. From the humble Apple to the Lisa, Mac and and all subsequent Mac computer lines, Newton, PowerBooks, iPods, OS X, Macbooks, AppleTV, and now the iPhone, Apple’s out there pushing and not in a “me too� way. They are pushing that envelope way out.

Not everything is a success, e.g. Newton and perhaps AppleTV, but it’s out there. You can love ‘em or hate ‘em but you can’t ignore them because they drive innovation in whatever industry they choose to target - computers, music, phones.

I’m a fanboy but a realist. Apple products are not for everyone. You have to be a bit of a “risk taker� to own an Apple product. You’re putting yourself on the line to step beyond conventional thinking and into the “think different� arena.

I’m excited to think about the next 30 years of Apple products and where Apple will push things.

Guy Kawasaki is a familiar name to me. I’ve been reading his stuff and about him since his days at Apple. His work as an Apple Evangelist helped a lot of the faithful keep our collective “head upâ€? during some fairly dark days. He’s moved on since then getting involved with startup ventures and what not, but he’s still an evangelist at heart – always promoting, encouraging, and telling the world at large what he thinks and experiences.

His “By The Numbers” post in his blog is a prime example of his evangelism – relating the startup of his latest venture Truemors in a way that makes the entire venture seem worth the effort despite setbacks. True to his style, even the negatives have a positive edge. Truemors will succeed or fail, but no matter what, Guy will positively promote the heck out of it and in the process educate those that bother to read in and between the lines.

While reworking my site I installed the Mandigo theme. I noticed that the FAlbum plugin that I use for my photos page was formatting oddly. I was able to resolve the problem by using a theme specific “falbum.php” file and replacing the basic “get_header” php statement with the following:

<?php
get_header();
$alwayssidebars = get_option('mandigo_always_show_sidebars');
if ($alwayssidebars) {
	include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/sidebar.php');
	if (get_option('mandigo_1024') && get_option('mandigo_3columns')) {
		include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/sidebar2.php');
	}
}
php?>

That’s it! FAlbum started producing the correct page layout.

Well, the saga of crappy tech support from eapps is just about over. After receiving lip service support from my hosting provider I decided to take matters into my own hands. After all, this is my virtual server. The main problem was that the dspam service I use against spam stopped working. It’s never really run correctly since I started hosting with this provider, but it did tag the spam and that’s all I asked. It stopped working when I added a new mailbox to support “blog by email” posting. At that point I had done nothing.

Being the technical type, I investigated. I tried changing permissions and ownership but nothing helped. I did contact tech support and let them know that something was wrong. Here’s the “help” I got.

To cut this story short, I ended up installing my own copy of dspam and in the process figured out why the prior installed version stopped working, which was something they evidently couldn’t/wouldn’t do. Now, while I’ve had reliable service from eapps, I’m not impressed with their tech support. It would appear that all they know how to do is install RPMs and tell you to re-install if you have problems. It’s not good customer support and not a great way to keep customers.

I have learned my lesson, however. The best thing to do when I have a problem is get rid of their installed version and install from a “tar ball”. That way I know what’s actually happening.