Matthew LaVelle’s weblog

Frightful is a bit of an understatement.
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This was one of the many good excellent comments I received from my boss in this years performance review. I think it’s fairly safe to say that the leaps and bounds I’ve taken in my professional career this year have outweighed all other areas of my life for 2005. I keep chunking this time in my life into the definitive 2005 for a couple of good reasons. Read the rest of this entry »

First, a little background information

An My iPod, for those of you who don’t know, can be used for several different things, the most basic of which are the:

• Storage and playback of up to 40,000 audio tracks (like a really big walkman)


• Storage of up to 40 gigabytes of data (like an external hard drive)

I was given an iPod w/dock connector in September of 2004. I promptly purchased an Apple Care Protection Plan (extended warranty) for $60 that covers my iPod for two years from the date of purchase. I’ve used the iPod as regularly as possible since and as of today, October 26, 2005, barely one year after beginning my Apple Care Protection Plan the following has happened to my iPod:

1. My iPod would not respond to any command when a hard drive failure occured, according to the customer service representative I spoke with over the phone last year, only a few months of regular use.


2. About 5-6 months later there was a major software failure on my iPod. I once again called Apple. This time, with the help of a technical support person, I tried to reset, then update my iPods Windows based software. With no luck I sent in my little white hard drive for some work.


3. On my trip down to Texas this last week I accidently unplugged my iPod from my Windows-based Dell notebook and, to no surprise caused a software failure in my iPod.

What I’m now realizing

Apple Computers has been notorious for several things during the company’s history. Not least of which is a simple rule they’ve lived by until a couple of years ago and that is that Apple has not writen software for use on Windows Operating Systems…ever. At first glance this technique seemed, to me at least, arrogant, elitest, and defiant. But now, just over a year after owning my first new Apple product, I’m begginning to understnad why Apple doesn’t write software for Windows. I haven’t pinpointed it yet but based on some well thought out statements I think we can figure that these things might be the cause of my angst towards my iPod.

1. Apple, until recently, had never written Windows Software. So this means that due to lack of practice, Apple is probably not that good at writing software for Windows.


2. Apple, having it’s own Operating System is probably more concerned (and rightly so) with supporting the OS X platform.


3. (All) Windows software has a reputation for being buggy, cryptic, and not very well supported. This statement is not working with the above statements but rather against it making my problems with my iPod compunded since I’m using an Apple product with a Windows-based PC.

What needs to be done?

Apple needs to write better software that should begin with better research into the use habits of people that use Windows. I seriously doubt that Apple has written bad software on purpose in an attempt to force users to switch over to using an Apple machine. Windows has had the ability since 2000 to accept 3rd party input devices (such as an iPod) as what they call Plug and Play devices. If Apple would spend some more time researching this technology they could no doubt figure out a way that I can plug my iPod into my Dell notebook, sync and/or charge my iPod and then unplug it and walk away without major software corruption taking place on my iPod.

What really frustrates me

Besides the fact that this iPod costed over $400 with the protection plan I was really hoping to utilize it as an external hard drive for my files. I’m a web designer by trade and

What are my options?

There are a few different options I have at this point:

1. I can sell my iPod on craigslist with my iTrip for a couple hundred dollars and take my chances with a different audio player


2. I can buy a top of the lineMac Mini for around $600, reformat my iPod and try my luck on OS X.


3. I can write a letter to Apple Computer that would be similiar to this weblog entry and see if they have any comments or suggestions that might help me make my decision easier.

This can only mean one thing, that’s right, I’m 30,000 feet above sea level on a flight going from Portland, Oregon to Dallas/Ft. Worth Texas. This, as all small things recently, got me thinking about why I have this craving for Ginger Ale. Stripped of Google for the next 2 hours since the only wireless network available (to the internet) is secured (thank God) I’m forced to sit here and ponder, “Why do I want a Ginger Ale right now?”.

At first I thought I’d be a little too embarresed to pull out my ten pounder Dell notebook remeniscent of the Ol’ Diamondback Sturgeons your Grandfather used to tell you about when you were just a tike. These three other guys sitting near me with their 4.5 pound IBM Thinkpads slowly two-finger typing out their schedules and reading their MS Outlook saved emails promising them their next big money making real estate scheme were a little intimidating at first. But once I slammed down my 6 kilos of pure gray matter on my fold out tray table (which just about broke it), I surfed into their networks one at a time to make sure they weren’t working on any national security white papers and felt at ease pulling up my desktop with an excellent background photo taken by my boss of a field of sunflowers in the summertime.

So, by now I’ve still got Ginger Ale on the mind. Why is it I always obsess over a Ginger Ale gracing my taste buds with it’s presence at 30,000 feet?
Some possibilities:

• The altitude may cause some kind of chemical reactions in my body that translate into some addictive chemical only found in Canada Dry’s concoction. (Damn Canadians…)


• An advertisement dating back to when I was a child growing up had a profound effect on me and thus branded all air travel nourishment with that of Ginger Ale.


• Some kind of wireless stimulous sent to my brain via some sort of contraption on board. This contraption is brought to us by Canada Dry via an agreement with someone very high up the corporate ladder at some kind of Standard Aircraft Construction Consortium (SACC). You heard it here first.

This high altitude has me thinking in all sorts of directions today.

Let’s do websites first. I’ve been very busy lately at work and very proud of some of the work I’m doing. I’ve created, updated, redesigned and redefined several sites recently.

• Umpqua Indian Foods
  

  • Totally redesigned. New products, new graphic design, new logo, new everything.
  
  



• Kris & Rick Wetherbee

  • New design. Kris is a writer and her husband Rick is a photographer. They needed a new site to show their work off to prospective clients. They really enjoyed the work I did on the Umpqua Valley Winegrowers website and the Music on the halfshell website so that’s where the creative direction came from for this project.
  
  



• Honey Creek Golden Retrievers

  • New design for Mac McClellan. He has a new litter of Golden Retrievers that he’s selling in different newspapers and he’s looking for an informational website to point prospective buyers to.
  
  

I’ve also been busy at the winery lately. I went to the Wine by the River festival with Cory last weekend and had a great time out in Bend. Satruday was cold and rainy while Sunday was warm and nice.

And then there’s the weather. Autumn is one of my favorite times of the year. The colors in nature are beginning to change, the winery is busy with harvest upon us, and the days are beginning to get a little shorter. Lot of 70 degree weather for Roseburg lately and the rain has held off for the most part so far this year. I’ve been workin a lot lately and I’m looking forward to taking on a bit more soon.