Flickr user Alexander Chadwick took a photo of people evacuating the Tube after the bombing this morning. It is being plastered over the networks and web (BBC, CNN, AP, etc). In this post of a screencap of his photo on TV, AlexCHAD says his lungs were burning. I bet!
I wonder what kind of (phone) cam took the photo?
Viva citizen journalism.
MacWorld Expo is dying, this year’s Boston show only has 62 listed exhibiting companies. This includes such firms as Macworld Magazine (ha!) and “David Pogue’s Genius Minibar” which I’m sure they are paying a nice sum for. In fact, going down the list I only a handful of the companies. If it is anything like SF was, about half are iPod accessory makers.
R.I.P.
I just put up another new mobile service on my projects page—mobile flight tracking. This is part of my ongoing annoyance with the mobile web and my attempt to make it easier. When I’m on the go I want very specific data without any fluff. To use the new service, just enter a flight number into the tracking box and you get a bunch of data about it. Example.
I haven’t tested it too much (I need to pick someone up soon so I made it on the spur of the moment) so let me know if you find a bug. It works with data from Google and a travel website. The advantage of this over some flight tracking services is you can enter it in plain English (US Air 723 for example) instead of choosing stuff from pull downs.
Your mobile device will need to support XHTML.
One of these days when I have a bit more time I intend to wrap these services into one page, using radio buttons or keywords to define what data you want.
I found a neat Dashboard widget thanks to Gibbons: Radar In Motion. For those of us in Hurricane country (he’s in New Orleans and I’m in Tampa) it’s great. Not to mention for the afternoon t-storm that define my errand schedule. Great stuff!
Dell is doing best to suck. I ordered a 24″ LCD display from Dell on June 21st and on the day it was supposed to ship I got an email saying there was a delay. The delayed date that it would ship by was today, but instead of a tracking number from UPS I got this gem in my inbox:
Dear Valued Customer,
Due to unforeseen circumstances, we have experienced another delay with your order number XXXXXXXXX. Our new anticipated ship date will be on or before 07-12-2005. Due to this additional delay, the Federal Trade Commission requires we receive your consent to continue with this order.
You know it’s bad when the FTC makes you confirm that your customers don’t believe they are being ripped off. I called the included phone number and it literally led to nowhere. A few seconds of silence followed by the if you’d like to make a call tone.
After managing to spend 10 minutes trying to get ahold of the right department (each time giving my 9-digit order number and sad story) I had the ear of a [American] that cared. She noted they had been having trouble getting some of their larger LCDs in stock and that she was really surprised this one was having more trouble. I’m still pissed, but she did a good job.
Update: I got an email today (one day after the above email) saying that it has shipped! And the ship date was yesterday, the same day I had to call because they didn’t have it. Gotta love it!
Why we have progressed so far as a society but still haven’t figured out a way to easily change webhosts is beyond me. And I think it’s safe to assume that anytime you have a server change, in reality it’s 2.5x more annoying than planned.
(I’m helping out on a host change for someone else today, so at least it’s not my own headache.)
I think the 4th of July may be my favorite holiday. It has a lot going for it, namely BBQ and explosives. The explosives help it edge out Memorial day and the warm weather gives it one up on New Years. It lacks a huge corporate driven shopping spree like so many of our holidays, such as Christmas and Halloween.
Happy 229th America!