Author: Aaron Nelsen

Improve Google Maps on the iPod touch/iPhone

This mostly applies to the iPod touch seeing as the iPhone also has cell towers to rely on, but apparently Skyhook has setup a page for users to submit their access points. No word on how quickly they’re added to the database, or if they even actually make it in, but it at least makes me feel like I’m contributing.

You will need the MAC address for your router in order to complete the submission.

[ Submit your AP to Skyhook ]

I live in the middle of no where, which currently yields “Your location could not be determined” on both my iPhone and iPod touch, so I’ll let you know if Skyhook ever adds my AP to their database.

April 12, 2008
Apple Repair “Completed”

I finally got my Macbook Pro back this morning after two weeks without it, and the good news is they did replace my LCD panel, but the bad news is they screwed up the rest of my computer.

The original issue I sent it in for was three defects with the LCD, a dead pixel, a portion of the backlight going super nova, and some weird squiggly lines that looked like a bug or something had been squashed on the LCD panel. I had to send it in for repairs because the Apple store didn’t have the part on hand and said it would take three weeks to get in, plus the nearest Apple store is a bit of a drive from where I live.

Upon getting my laptop back I started noticing several defects… most of it being physical damage to the machine! Here’s what I’ve noticed so far:

Gouges in three places around the edge of the battery, several scratches (they don’t show up as well in the pictures).

A small scratch around one of the screws on the bottom.

The plastic molding/edging along the front is separated and won’t lay flat.

There’s a small gouge mark along the top molding of the around the LCD panel

Currently I’ve not made any headway with Apple. They said I could send it in again, but that they might not cover it under warranty because I can’t prove they damaged the computer, and I really can’t afford to lose my computer for another two weeks with no guarantee of it even being fixed when it returns.

I guess a trip to the Omaha Apple Store is next on my list… Ugh.

April 11, 2008
Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting

Apparently when you’re rich you can make thousands of people wear stupid looking badges…

I just received the entry badges for the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder Meeting and man, they are ugly! See for yourself:

April 11, 2008
MS Paint + Notepad
I mentioned in my last post that I’d designed a basic website using nothing but MS Paint and Notepad. To expand upon that, the site is PHP driven, the only reason for that is I wanted to make the entire thing modular, as such the site is broken down into the following files:
1. header.php
2. menu.php
3. page.php
4. footer.php
Where page.php is actually index.php, photos.php, etc. depending on the page you’re accessing and it includes the call functions for header.php, menu.php, and footer.php (in that order). That way if I want to add a link to the menu I can just edit menu.php and have the entire site update automatically.

The site currently uses 14 CSS classes, the main reasons it takes so many is the menu formatting and the additional classes for skinning the RSS feed from FeedBurner. If I end up using the template for longer than a few weeks I may try and cut down on the style sheet size just a bit.

Oh, and the site is actually written in 100% valid XHTML!
April 10, 2008
Apple Mail-In Repair [ Update ]

I’ve called Apple a few times since last Friday (4/4/08) and finally got a hold of someone who had a clue… Apparently they received the part needed on Tuesday, installed it on today, and will hopefully ship it out to me tomorrow… Yay!

Using Photoshop on an Eee PC has been killing me. I actually designed a website in MS Paint and Notepad yesterday, it was epic. It actually only uses two image files, the rest is CSS… So don’t expect anything amazing, it’s just a really basic landing page right now.

April 9, 2008