Judge Orders Apple To Pay Up For Bad iPod Batteries

The settlement, which won tentative approval in June, gives buyers of the first two iPod models either $25 cash or $50 in credit at an Apple store that can be redeemed for any Apple-branded product, including iTunes downloads. Owners of the third-generation iPod are entitled to a free replacement battery if theirs fails.

This is kind of disappointing...

I had a 3rd Gen iPod....from October 2003 to August 2004....and I was hoping to get a $50 credit for it. Considering I (initially) replaced it with a 4th Gen iPod...which is now a year old.

Which kind of implies that it is probably suited for another upgrade, where $50 off of a new iPod would be nice. But, I don't really need a new battery for my old 3rd Gen iPod. Especially, since the would probably only offer an apple branded replacement (or 50% refund of an apple performed battery replacement). Ignoring that the aftermarket iPod battery is of higher capacity, etc. Plus they probably won't like the fact that I opened up my iPod myself (kind of roughly too....and stabbing myself, because I tried to pry it open using my pocket knife, probably complicates things for me....)

iPowerWeb's Enhanced Account Access Requirements - Part Deux

Got an email this morning on this:

After receiving feedback from many of our customers, we have decided to discontinue the mandatory requirement to update your password.

...

We want to thank you for your feedback and can assure you that we are listening to you, our valued customer, in our continued efforts to consistently improve our services.

If this has caused you any inconvenience, we sincerely apologize.

iPowerWeb's Enhanced Account Access Requirements

August 18, 2005
Enhanced Account Access Requirements

Attention vDeck users:

For your protection, we are enhancing your account access requirements. Starting today you will be periodically asked to change your password prior to accessing your vDeck Hosting Account. For added security, you will be asked to authenticate yourself prior to accepting the change. We strongly recommend that you choose a secure password - ie, one that does not sound like a word, and contains at least one non-alphanumeric character - eg., !@#$%^&*. Your new password may not be the same as your old one.

Well, I was in the middle of making some changes to my site, when FTP stopped working. I go to vDeck to see what it going on, and it wants me to change my password.

Only apparently, I'm not allowed to change my password, because I get a cryptic message about access denied to some passwd file...and included in the message is my old and new password along with my 'secret' identifier...all in clear text.

And, now neither my old or new password is working.

Do a live chat, and get a canned response that the developers are working on it....and that's about it. Alledgedly my old password will get me back in once they get things working again.

Meanwhile, I guess their idea of enhanced security is lock everybody out.

What is it about companies breaking production systems this month????

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Update: It is working again, but it was messed up. Had to use my old password to FTP in, but it sent me to jail where a bunch of named files said I had to change my password. But, the vDeck login wanted my new password and required me to change it yet again.

Meanwhile, my blog ftp account was also messed up. The only way to get it working again was to remove it and add it back again.

Otherwise I seem to be in business again.....

Warm Planet Fears

New Scientist News - Climate warning as Siberia melts

Another terrifying bit on the fears of global warming....

.... meanwhile, I've giving serious thought to the possibility of considering employment opportunities in even hotter areas of the US.

The power of other people's blogs....

As I continue the job hunt looking for a new opportunity, that will hopefully lead me to a placement where I can better balance life and work within the various constrainsts that are imposed on my life(style).

One of the ideas that has me intrigued is the whole downtown living (again). I kind of had downtown living when I was living/working in Medicine Hat. But, not so here in the greater Columbus, Ohio area...where I've and work just on the Dublin, Ohio city boundary. In fact I cross the boundary every day going (walking) to and from work. The office is just inside the Dublin boundary (most of the parking lot is in fact not) and my apartment is on the outside....so I'm considered in Columbus. Which is largely only an issue with figuring out which school district I'm in and which city I'm a resident of for taxation.

But, the life part of the mix hasn't been that great...and now that the work part isn't anymore....I'm leaning towards finding a new situation where both are good.

Last night I heard of an opportunity in downtown Memphis, TN. I admit this isn't probably the most idea opportunity....the weather is going to be even less like what I was accustom to in Calgary or Medicine Hat, Alberta. And, there are no direct flights from this city to Calgary or places where other family members reside. Though these aren't really major sticking points on what I was looking for.

Anyways...my prelimary research of Memphis, TN....was a mixed bag....found it annoying that when I queried a yellowpages site (actually a couple) on what businesses are near the zipcode of downtown Memphis....it reported lots of hits. Which I later found out that it had set the zipcode field for all the businesses to match the zipcode I was looking for...and in reality most of the businesses weren't anywhere near downtown....in fact some where in different cities that neighbor Memphis. This started to worry me that downtown Memphis might be worse that downtown Columbus....somewhere that is recently started to shift to increasing residential living, while the downtown mall is shrinking (in fact I hear the last remaining anchor [of 3] might be going away....perhaps because the chain was acquired by the company that owned one of the other anchors that closed its fixture of a downtown department store...because it didn't see the value of continuing to stay in downtown Columbus). Plus there are other factors why downtown Columbus living just isn't good at yet.

Then I came across this blog entry....though somewhat 'dated', it is quite an intriguing and detailed entry that has me intrigued with the whole possibility that this might be one of the opportunities to consider.....now if only each of the apartments mentioned actually had websites.....

...or I could find other websites about life in downtown Memphis....I guess I'll thumb through the guy's blog to see if there's more....

Hopefully, I'm not getting too far ahead of myself again....

....though the uncertainity for the future is affecting whether I'll make the family reunion later this year. Which I hear might not be as grand as originally envisioned. Though is that because I might not be able to make it now?