Awesome Apple

I went on at length yesterday about my experience with Apple's customer service. To update, there was a knock on my door this morning around 10 a.m. It was DHL delivering my replacement Airport Express ... less than 24 hours after I had called them with my problem. That is amazing.

I'm going to call them tomorrow to ask for help again on getting it set up. I'm confident it will be a breeze!

Why Apple?

I've often had people ask me why I am such a fervent fan of Apple products. Most of the time I have a tough time explaining what it is about the Cupertino, Calif.-basied company's line keeps me loyal to Steve Jobs and his black-turtlenecked army. I tell folks that Apple's products are easier to use, superior in engineering and just plain cooler than anything else out there. Doubters always make the same arguments against Apple: Their stuff is more expensive, harder to find and does basically the same things as other company's offerings. These are valid points. Apple's stuff is more expensive than some of the other companys' products. In this case, however, you get what you pay for. They had been right about Apple products being tougher to find, as well. A visit to an Apple retail store means driving to another state for many people, me included. Everything is available online, however. By now, if you aren't using the Web to make purchases, you aren't just missing out on the convenience of online retail, you are also missing out on the best deals available. Still, Apple products are starting to show up at the same big-box retailers as the other companies. Regardless of what brand of PC you favor, walking into a Best Buy, Circuit City or the like isn't going to yield you the best deal. It's always better to customize and order exactly what you need.

There are many areas where Apple stands out, but the biggest is one I overlook when engaged in an argument with a "hater." Fellow Appleheads shuoldn't blame me, however, because I rarely need it. Customer service.

I bought an Airport Express wireless base station off Apple's Web site shortly after getting my iPhone. I'm finally taking my Internet connection WiFi. I found a solid deal on Apple's site for a refurbished unit. I've never had a problem with their refurbs and have encouraged others to give them a chance. After struggling to get the Express to work this weekend, I sought Apple's expert help this morning.

In the process of trying to get it to work, the Express seemed to die. The lights were no longer working and resetting it did nothing to bring it back to life. The Apple tech talking me through the setup process had me try a few things with no luck. What happened next won't come as a surprise to anyone who has dealt with Apple. Unable to get the Express restarted, the tech said, "We're going to send you out a new one." And, he tells me, they'll be sending a brand new Express, not a refurb. Once I get it, I'm to call them back and they'll have me running in no time at all.

Apple's customer care is unmatched. I've never had a problem, regardless of size, that wasn't resolved to my satisfaction and beyond my expectation. I hope to keep this in mind next time I'm extolling Apple's virtues to a non-believer.

Changing my pitch up

I intended to make this an iPhone only blog, everything about the iPhone and all postings done from it. But, that isn't going to let me make the most of what I can do on blogger.com. So, I think I'm going to mix it up, filing normally once in a while and on the go one in a while. I'm also going to try expanding what I write about.

Hopefully I'll have something to say everyday!

An awfully slow night

I'm sitting at work and I realize there hasn't been a post here yet today. So, I figure I'd take a photo of what I was working on at the moment and have it on here in a matter of a few minutes.

No chance.

The EDGE network, which I have to use at work since there is no accessible WiFi, is terribly slow. So slow that I couldn't log into my Photobucket account to send the photo that I'd taken to blogger.com. It was so bad, I abandoned hope and decided to do this post the old fashioned way.

While I'm taking a break from work, I might as well explain how I'm getting photos from my iPhone to this blog.

I take a photo with the iPhone, then email it to Photobucket. Blogger.com has mobile blogging capabilities, but I'm not really sending photos from a phone. I'm sending them from an email account, which I think tripped up the process there. It didn't work when I initially tried. So, I went the Photobucket route.

Once in Photobucket, I resize the image to their Web specs and then choose to share it with blogger.com. I had been doing all the HTML coding myself within my blog posts to link to the URL of each file on Photobucket, but using the sharing option starts a new post automatically and the HTML is there waiting for me. The only negative I can see in doing it this way is that blog posts from the iPhone will be limited to one photo. If I do the coding myself, I could have more, but without being able to cut and paste on the iPhone, it's a giant pain the iAss.

For Fellow Pearl Jam Fans

I found this video in the iPhone's YouTube browser tonight and figured I'd share it here. There aren't many Pearl Jam videos on there, yet. This one is a gem though. Anyone who has sat and dissected "Yellow Ledbetter" trying to figure out the song's lyrics should get a good laugh out of it. Actually, anyone familiar with the song should find it funny. I've heard the song live over a dozen times and the lyrics have sounded different each time. Anyone who has been to a PJ show should have great memories of hearing "Yellow Ledbetter" live. With the house lights completely up, they close most shows with it. Mike tears into his guitar as everyone at the show, including the rest of the band, watch on. It's an amazing moment each time.

Unfortunately, anyone viewing this on an iPhone will not be capable of watching the video. However, searching for "pearl jam" in the YouTube browser on the iPhone will get them to the video.

A little bit of cheating ...

I just posted a profile photo, which I was reluctant to do. It seems like I'm the only person reading my blog, so what the heck? I did cheat getting it on here, however. I used Photoshop to paste my photo into an image of ... guess what? ... an iPhone. I don't photograph well, generally, but this particular shot is one I can live with, thanks to photographer extraordinaire Joe Hermitt, a co-worker at The Patriot-News. Joe takes great shots, his Penn State football work is unmatched, in my opinion. He's a fellow Apple nut and was the most excited person who has checked out my iPhone.

Thanks for the photo, Joe. It'll probably be the only one I use from here on out. When I run for office ... or am mistakingly picked up in some type of police sting ... when I'm finally vindicated of said sting ... when I donate portions of future lottery winnings to charity ... with each life-changing invention I bring to fruition ... on the jackets of my childrens' book series and my autobiography, "If You Could See What I'm Thinking: The Chris Boehke Story," ... on the promotional materials for my subsequent book tour and lecture series ... in the playbill for the Broadway reproduction of my life story ... in the background of a scene from the movie based on the Broadway show based on the book of my life story ... on T-shirts featuring hilarious sayings from various periods of my life ... on the day-to-day calendar of my most inspirational quotes ... carved in granite at the cornerstone of The Chris Boehke Relaxation Reservation, Museum of Reality Television and used flying-car lot ...

Bloggin' from work

Day three, and I'm finding easier and better ways of doing this. If I take a photo and email it to my Photobucket account I can share it to blogger.com. Once there, it kicks off a new post with the photo at the top and all the HTML coding done. That is a beautiful thing.

I also discovered how to scroll through a box within a Web page, such as the editing box on blogger.com. If you use two fingers to scroll, rather than one, the interior box moves but the Web page stays put.

So, this gets easier. As long as you take your photos ahead of posting.

I'm filing this post from the training room at The Patriot-News, where I work. We're busy learning a new front-end system as well as InCopy and InDesign. I should be helping more than I am, so I am going to cut this short.

Coming soon: Getting photos from iPhone to a blog and the true cost of being an early adopter.

Here's something that sort of sucks...

No, peace doesn't suck. Having ham-like hands doesn't even suck as bad as it could, either. More on that later.

I've been thinking about the advantages and disadvantages of blogging strictly from my iPhone and I've come to the realization that I am going to have to learn some basic HTML commands. That shouldn't be too tough, but it is something I've been putting off since I was in college. That's 1995 or so for those keeping score at home.

Now, those familiar with blogger.com may be wondering why I'm going to have to mess with HTML at all. Using the WYSIWYG editor and compose option here, I shouldn't need any commands, right? I don't have a mouse or any way to highlight a section of text, so if I want to include a link to a Web site, for example, I have no way to highlight a block of type and assign a URL to it. Another disadvantage I see is in editing HTML code, or any type longer than the editing windows, once I get rolling. It's tough to scroll through sections of type in the editor's windows without a mouse or a keyboard with arrow keys. The only solution I have found so far is to use the touchscreen "magnifying glass" and hover near the edges of the editing window to move within that window.

I like that the magnifying glass feature zooms in on text, but I would rather have arrow keys on the iPhone's virtual keyboard to move a cursor around.

To end on a positive note, I wish the typing recognition featured on the iPhone was available in some of the software I use at work, such as InDesign, QuarkXPress or Word. I read somewhere (I'll find a link later and include it once I figure out how to do so) where someone said using the iPhone's keyboard required some faith in the auto-correction. They referred to it as "trusting the force." Geeky, but true. Once I gave in to the power of the iPhone's correction ability, I found myself typing with two thumbs, and doing so quite well. And I have short, chubby, sausage-like fingers. See the photographic proof above! That's also my first attempt at getting a photo from my iPhone to my blog, and it wasn't easy!

Sent from iPhone?

I don't know about other iPhone owners, but I've had my "baby" for just over a week and I can't shake the question "What am I going to do with it?" As a phone, it has worked perfectly. Sadly, though, owning Apple's latest gem hasn't made me more popular! There hasn't been a sudden flooding of calls. Visual voicemail worked well ... both times I got a message this week. It's nice to be able to access the Web, Safari works as advertised if you are on WiFi, but I'm near a desktop computer all the time. In fact, I have three on my desk at work currently. Choosing between going online with the iPhone or a traditional computer isn't a difficult decision. I'll take a keyboard any day. The iPod functionality on the iPhone is awesome, and possibly worth the cost alone. The 8GB *cough, cough* of space goes too fast to take true advantage of iPhone as a replacement for an iPod, however. Watching YouTube is cool, I guess, at least in the way it was cool to watch "America's Funniest Home Videos" back in the day when Bob Saget hosted. You see one kid whack their father in the nuts with a wiffle ball bat, you've seen them all. There's serious content on YouTube as well, and Web sites that want you to see such videos feature them ... unfortunately, the iPhone doesn't handle embedded video. Or flash. Having a watered-down version of iCal is cool. Hopefully it help keep someone as hopelessly unorganized as I am from missing appointments. The notes function is nice, too, I just have to find a use for it. I won't plan on cutting and pasting to or from it, though, can't do that on the iPhone.

So, what can I do on this thing? Other than surfing the Web from the bathroom and checking email without having to leave the sofa when my iMac "bings" to let me know there's a new ad for erectile dysfunction cures in my inbox, that is?

I'm going to try doing something I've failed at every other time I've tried; maintaining a blog. I'm going to try doing it completely from my iPhone. All text entered on the painfully small touch screen keyboard, all photos taken with the impressive iPhone camera and all posts filed through Safari on the go.

I spent about an hour last night getting the settings done and struggling to figure out how to get photos here from my iPhone. More on that later. Thankfully, I haven't been trying any of this on the sluggish EDGE network. Also, the way I end up typing on the small keyboard, these posts are going to be done at a snail's pace. This one took over 45 minutes and I haven't spellchecked it yet. If only I was getting paid to do this.