I find it absolutely amazing and unacceptable that Apple can get away with almost a full day (so far) of downtime of their MobileMe (previously known as .Mac) service and there’s hardly any news/blog coverage of the event.

What was supposed to happen:
7/9/2008 8PM: Shutdown .Mac
7/10/2008 12AM: Startup MobileMe

What has happened:
7/9/2008 10PM: Shutdown .Mac
7/10/2008 ALL DAY: No .Mac, no MobileMe

Imagine if there were Microsoft (the evil bastards):
7/9/2008 8PM: Someone reports they can’t login to XBox Live
7/9/2008 8:15PM: The story is picked up and shows up on the front page of Digg, Google News, and a special alert is issued by CNN.
7/9/2008 9PM: Someone loses their connection to XBox Live
7/9/2008 9:01PM: Reports of widespread connectivity and scaling issues of the XBox Live service make their way around the news and blogging sites.
7/9/2008 10PM: Microsoft issues a press release acknowledging intermittent connectivity issues on XBox Live. Advises users to continue to use the service normally.
7/10/2008 12AM: It is discovered that the person who was unable to login to XBox Live had an expired account.
7/10/2008 8AM: The blogosphere is in arms against Microsoft for “anti-consumer behavior” and an “inability to meet SLAs”. Demands of refunds and class action lawsuits are suggested.

And… MobileMe is $99/year for email, calendaring, PIM, remote storage, and other services. XBox Live is $49/year for gaming.

Now, I realize things don’t always go as planned. But what makes Apple so special that the media is given them a pass on the whole incident?

WTF blogosphere?

Technorati Tags: Apple, botch, botched, downtime, failure, Mac, Microsoft, mobileme, rollout, screwup, Service Level Agreement, SLA, uptime, XBox, XBox 360

As you may know, we recently went to our timeshare in Poipu (on Kaua’i). As usual, I had booked many, many months ago on Expedia. I had found what I believed to be a pretty good deal on first class round trip tickets on United Airlines, which I was pretty excited about.

Sadly, my enthusiasm faded really quickly once we began our trip.

First, the “first class” cabin was really crappy. It was dirty, small, and not really well-appointed with niceties. Things that we’ve grown used to on other first class cabins (like Hawaiian Airlines): footrests, personal portable entertainment centers, LCD TVs. What United gave us: A somewhat larger seat and some footroom. That’s it.

So on the way to Kaua’i we were disappointed but figured “oh well”. At least we were on vacation and how we got there didn’t really matter too much.

On the way back though…. that’s how United really lost our business.

First off, in Kaua’i, there was no one at the United check-in counter. There was a line forming, but no one behind the counter. We waited about 20 minutes and then figured out we had to check-in at Aloha Airlines because the first part of our trip was run by Aloha (to Honolulu). This should’ve tipped us off that United was going to do their best to screw up our trip.

When we arrived in Honolulu (6:30PM), it took forever to find a flight board telling us where to go. We finally found one and our flight had the comment “See Agent”. We walked all the way across the airport to the designated gate and, of course, there wasn’t an agent at the gate. We waited there a while, an agent didn’t show up. There were other travelers waiting for an agent, but it seemed like they were waiting for information on another flight.

So I called United’s 800# and, I’m not kidding, I spent two hours on the phone. About one hour forty-five minutes of that time was on hold. They had no idea what was going on. First they tried to tell us to talk to the person at the gate – who didn’t exist. So they had us go to another gate. We were turned away by that agent, who said they couldn’t help us because we weren’t on their flight, and that we should go to another gate. We were bounced to four gates (three different gates) and all of them told us they couldn’t help us. Meanwhile I hadn’t hung up the phone because I couldn’t get any answers. In the end the person put me on hold for over 25 minutes and I just hung up. When I called back and realized I was talked to “Sandy” in India, I knew the 800# was a waste of time.

We finally did find out what happened to our flight. I was delayed >3 hours to 12:50AM. We were supposed to land around 9:18AM, San Diego time. I was pissed. My original plan had us back at 6AM, with plenty of time to pick up Toby at 10AM (Markim Pet Resort’s only Sunday morning pickup time). Even though it was close to midnight, I was able to get my dad to agree to go pick up Toby since we had little to no chance of getting there on time.

So we were stuck in a completely closed airport from 6:30PM to 1AM, when they started boarding. We actually didn’t land until 10AM. And the crappy first class cabin and the delays solidified our resolve to never fly United Airlines again.

United Rating:

Technorati Tags: airline review, flight delays, United Airlines

Ah, the Internets really do bring us all together, eh?

I’ve been having trouble with my Guitar Hero 3 wireless guitar for my XBox 360. I don’t like my Rock Band guitar, so I had gotten back one my Guitar Hero 2 X-Plorers, which is working great.

When I finally got around to googling the problem with my guitar, it turns out I’m not alone, by a long shot.

Red Octane, the makers of Guitar Hero, don’t seem to be interested in doing right by their customers at all. I tried to RMA Exchange the guitar, and was told it is out of warranty – that’s all. Too bad, so sad.

Fuckers. I could’ve just bought the game and kept playing with my X-Plorer controllers. But I paid extra for a wireless guitar. Going forward, fuck them and their piece of shit controllers.

Red Octane, you just lost my business. Rock Band is way more fun anyways, so go fuck yourselves.

Update: At least Costco isn’t a bunch of assholes. They took it back as soon as they heard me say it was defective.

Technorati Tags: Guitar Hero 3, Red Octane

So it seems that Seth Bogart over at Abbey Carpet Corner is finally taking the situation seriously.  He said they are going to refund my money, without having me come in, and that I should see the refund in a day or so.

Right afterwards, Adam (the General Manager, I believe) called me to ask if I will be taking down abbeycarpetcornerreview.com.  I think I had predicted that question (and I still would love your input):
[poll=2]

I told Adam I would continue to update the site, for now, with the most current status.  Now, if the status is that I’ve received my refund, that would be the most current update.  However, until there is tangible proof that someone else would not have the same experience as me, I could not in good conscience, take the site down and leave others to go through my hell.  The only “tangible proof” I could think of are “Updated Terms & Conditions” on the contract.  Got any other suggestions?  Email them to me at roopesh dot blog at sheth dot com.

During my conversation with Adam, he said that my situation was unique and that the installer decided not to do the job.  I pointed out that the correspondence from Abbey Carpet Corner to both the BBB and Bank of America called out that materials were late.  Adam said he’d “have to go look at those letters”.  I think there’s obviously some scrambling to cover up lies and get the site down ASAP.

And you, loyal reader, can always get the latest updates right here or here, without having to dig through the whole site.

I’m not going to re-hash the entire story here, but Abbey Carpet Corner screwed me over, bad. They took my money and provided no services. So, I’m fighting back the only way I know how (after the BBB and credit card disputes): I put up a website, bought advertising, and am now running an internet campaign against Abbey Carpet Corner. Learn more at http://www.abbeycarpetcornerreview.com.