you realize Air France sucks big time.

So I fly from Chicago to Bangalore on Air France - cheap yes but pain the a-- too! Paris CDG airport is probably the worst International Airport in the Western Hemisphere. Driving around on a bus for 30 minutes to access a terminal to which I could have walked in 5 minutes!!

Anyway, the Air France stewardesses think they are doing you a favor and one accidentally spills hot coffee on my arm - but then walks away without even as much as an apology or concern!

Their booking agents in the US and India have no clue. If you want to change a reservation, you have to be prepared to receive a fax, sign it and then then fax it back! So if you wanted to change a flight say 2 hours before, apparently there is no way to do it!

Thats the first and the last time I'm flying with Air France.

you make sure the iPhone 3G works with Airtel India

Airtel India has a problem with unlocked iphone 3g - unlike Vodaphone India and other carriers.

1. The Airtel 64K chip will not work with the iPhone 3G - if you have the 64K chip, return it and ask for the "big chip".
2. Even if you have the Big Chip from Airtel - under Ultransn0w .91, Airtel works sporadically. The only sure way to have an iPhone under Airtel (except paying through your nose for iPhones sold by Airtel) is to use an iPhone 2G. I can confirm that the iPhone 2G works without any problem all over India!

Airtel customer service is absolutely great and their roaming plans are also very reasonable but somehow the unlocked iPhone 3G's have problems on their network!

HP decides to suck and I give a $8000/- order to Dell

Look, I'm a Mac person - but I had to get a PC workstation for a company project - needed to run Windows etc. I disliked Dell - actually Michael Dell because he tries to piss on Apple users as much as possible. I configured a HP Desktop system online with RAM and Video Cards totaling about $8000! I placed the order, paid with a credit card - and waited. First they send these cryptic e-mails that I cannot track or reply. There's no online support e-mail - they want me to call for any problems. After a day I get a message that my order had been declined. I call the number - jump through some hoops, get passed around and then a lady tells me that they cannot ship to a Mailbox - mine is a UPS store - where I have received hundred of packages this year alone! Ok, so I give our office address and the lady assures me that everything is fine and the order is through. After another day, some one calls me and leaves a message saying there is a problem with the billing address. I call back the next day (they only work 9AM to 9PM) - I needed this PC asap and after half hour of hold when I finally reach a support guy - I explain that this has been a frustrating experience and that I was considering canceling my order if I had to jump through any more hoops. His answer - Go Ahead Cancel - thats probably best for you - and I did! I quickly called their customer support line again and made sure everything was removed from my account - but then they tell me that there could be a hold placed on my credit which may take upto a week to clear!

Switch to Dell - I configured a more powerful system for $1000 less - then I called their customer service - I got a free upgrade on a video card. They price matched software I was planning to buy from other places and were very pleasant to deal with. They got my order and I bet you I'm never buying a HP system ever again. I have also instructed my offices outside the US not to buy HP when possible.

I think HP has become too big and they dont care anymore. Well - its time for them to learn about the free market.

[Update: April 25, 2009]

There's an interesting article at NYTimes about HP:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/technology/companies/26hp.html?hpw

And its obvious that HP has become a company run by a number cruncher. At the same time Apple keeps reinventing itself with huge profits and completely radically different new products.

You book a ticket on the Indian Railway Internet Reservation System

After trying for about 10 hours on the Indian Railways Internet reservation system at:
http://www.irctc.co.in/
and being faced by errors such as:
- Prs Error : no server available to handle specified key value
- Payment connection failed
- Java language error
- You Were Trying To Use icici Payment Gateway And The Transaction CouldNot Proceed Due To Transaction Failed in ICICI PG(URL Based)
- Unable to retrieve due to communication failure.
- java.lang.NullPointerException
at com.irctc.action.booking.QuickBookAction.perform(QuickBookAction.java:588)

I thought it might help someone else trying to do this - because evetually I think I have it figured out!!
1. Important: Make sure that your Residential and Office addresses (BOTH) match the credit card billing address - including telephone. If not it will fail the authorization during payment. It does not say this anywhere on the site!
2. Do not use Quickbook with Citibank Gateway - it will fail with the Java exception - atleast on Safari 3.0 Mac OS X 10.4
3. If you get the dreaded communication failure error repeatedly, logout completely out of the site and then try again!
4. ICICI payment gateway did not work for me and it also pops-up multiple windows which can be confusing. AXIS gateway also does not work with CC's from USA.
5. Use the Citibank Gateway. Do not choose the Citibank Credit Card payment even if the CC was issued by Citibank elsewhere - it will not work unless the CC was issued in India. Citibank ATM/Debit cards do not work either.
6. Move though each page during booking as quickly as possible using Auto-fill where possible -timeouts will cause the dreaded "communication failure" message.
7. IMPORTANT: You NEED access to a printer - to print the slip confirming the reservation or else a Rs50 charge will be levied! Or you can pay the Rs 50 since Internet cafe's may charge that much in certain parts of India for a printout!

8. Patience - and a lot of it needs to stored in advance.

Finally I did get my ticket from Trivandrum to Ernakulam - now I need to find a printer somewhere!!

Hope this helps someone.
AM

Who died and made him God?

Maybe Rick Warren is an intelligent, all around nice guy. But who died and made him God? Jesus?

The way the presidential candidates grovel at his feet makes you think about the true nature of secular democracy in the USA. Rick Warren must have cured cancer or something. This is no different from India where I was born and politicians had personal guru's to guide them in all their decisions. I thought I came to something better but.....

When did we last see these two president candidates sit down with a leading scientist or a scientific panel and discuss the future of technology and science in America? Never - the president cherry picks scientists to prove and disprove their own fantasy's and ideologies and treats them like dirt. But ..oooh.. if you had a Master's in DIVINITY... you just might be the one controlling America's destiny.

it is amazing how easily Americans are fooled by both these presidential candidates and the religious leaders (not to mention the president).

God save this country.

Samsung S204N Lightscribe works with Mac OS X 10.4

Thanks to Lacie, the "unsupported" drive from Samsung S204N Lightscribe works quite well with my PB G4 1.5ghz, Mac OS 10.4. All the required software is here:
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10096

Yes, the Lacie software DOES work - but you have to make sure you also install the Host software as the page mentions. Its pretty ok speed - the basic design takes about 2 mnutes - including some text and graphics.

You do not have to fork money over to Roxio for yet another upgrade to Toast - I'm using Toast 7 - thank you.

Again, thanks Lacie!

you get ripped off by PayPal and Sellers from China.

I buy this Keyboard Protection Skin from Xskn for my PB G4
http://www.xskn.com/
I get one for an iBook G4. I paid for it through our "Bank of the Internet" PayPal.

So I expect a replacement from the seller or a resolution from Paypal.
I sent multiple e-mails to seller, placed a service ticket on their website - no response - somebody named Lajo Cymbalski seem to run the show there.

So I escalate the dispute to a claim at Paypal for only half the order since one of the skins they shipped was the right one.

Paypal refuses my claim with this asinine, canned response
"As stated in our User Agreement, the claims process only applies to the shipment of goods. It does not apply to complaints about the attributes or quality of goods received. Therefore, we are unable to reverse this transaction or issue a refund."

WHAT!!!!

So if I bought a computer through Paypal and the seller shipped me a rock, Paypal would not do anything because after all the seller did SHIP me something! The "attributes" of the rock may only be slightly different from a "computer" but what the hey - atleast I was shipped something!!

Ebay buying Paypal only meant that Ebay's - ignoring the buyer - culture was transferred to Paypal. See my last problem with eBay and the abusive seller!

My suggestion - avoid stores that use Paypal and use the Credit Card directly. I only used Paypal so that I could track all my online purchases in one spot - NO MORE.

So again there is NO benefit from using Paypal to buy something if the same store offers credit card sales - choose the credit card option and you wont have to waste your time with Paypal.

And ofcourse avoid
http://www.xskn.com/

AM

Making the Pismo DVD-ROM Region-Free

We hit this wall on our beloved Pismo G3 400 Powerbook running OS 10.4.9 (6 years and still going strong!) a few days ago. I thought I had this Region thing licked on it but after we played an Australian DVD a few times and changed the regions to region 4 and 1 - back and forth, we were STUCK!

Looking for information on how to make the Pismo DVD region free involves a lot of visits to various DVD sites but ultimately what is needed is the utility "Region X" even if your drive has been flashed Region Free.
Interestingly the author of this utility has "retired' from the region-free business so the download in the RPC1 site http://forum.rpc1.org/portal.php for this app is missing.

The site with the most information on making Mac drives region free is at:
http://www.powerbook-fr.com/dossiers/dvd_region_free_en_article30.html
However, they dont have Region X anymore and dont provide a valid link. However, they do provide instructions on making the drive region free from OS 9.

After several cleverly phrased Google searches, I was fortunate to find Region X tucked away on a New Zealand site at:
http://www.ilovedvd.co.nz/dvddownloads.asp
I suggest you grab it asap and store it somewhere because if this site goes down too, I have no idea if there are other sites hosting the application.

In any case, I did walk through the whole procedure to make the Pismo DVD drive region free - and I'm not sure if it was already region free to begin with.

Here it is again:

My drive is NOT the original Pismo drive - Matsushita SR-8174 - but mine is taken from a PowerBook G3 (Lombard)Matsushita SR-8173 - which is already region free or RPC1. To make the 8174 Region Free you have to download the modified rpc1 firmware from the above site.

Install and boot from Mac OS 9.2.2 (last release of OS 9!)
Download and Run the firmware update if you need it for your drive.
Run Regionbuster or Regionreset or RegionChoice.
Reboot with PRAM Reset.
Check if O9 DVD Player runs the new regions and OS 9 Region application can reset it.

Now in OS X you need Region X which is in the link above.
I hope this post helps some other Pismo owner who may have misplaced the Region X application!
Bye
AM