July 12, 2008 by Stacy Young
I was one of many that hopped on the protest (ruinediphone.com) bandwagon when Rogers announced their price plans for the iPhone to be released up here in the Great White North. To my amazement something actually came out of the effort! Whether it was the blogosphere or Apple’s very public snub of Rogers (chopping their number of units shipped) I’m not sure …probably a combination of both. Rogers turned around and offered a 6GB data plan for $30/month. Now considering the old $115 plan only bought you 2GB of data, this was a major 180 by the Canadian carrier. (so it seemed)
Friday I swung by a local wireless shop to see if I could grab a phone. There were about 15 people ahead of me so I was pretty confident I’d be walking out of there with something. Fast forward 3.5 hours later, I’m at the cash for about 45 mins as the sales person and I watch as Rogers computer system crashes and times out repeatedly. Kind of amazing that 1-2 users across 300 or so stores could bring a system to its knees …but I image it’s a messy hodge-podge of web based and legacy back-end system requiring provisions …but I digress. Here’s where it got interesting …
The fine print: (actually I could not find any advertising at the time with these details) The $30 data plan is ONLY available if you have a voice plan over 35$. Kind of a bummer for me as I’ve been running a sweet deal with 200 any time minutes for $20. Ok, so I wasn’t a happy camper when the girl threw this at me after waiting the entire morning …but I was determined at this point.
“Oh and if you’d like caller ID and the visual voicemail, it’s another $15/month as well.”
That one really stung. Already I’ve tripled the original cost of my voice plan and we haven’t even talked about data. Delirious from lack of food and caffeine I just waived my hands (while mumbling expletives) in surrender and just asked her to ring it up.
“Oh and one last thing I forgot to mention. The price of the device (8GB version) will be $350. We have to charge you $150 more to upgrade your plan.”
The second she said this all I could picture was that old viral video on the web of the office guy ripping his monitor off his desk and tossing it over his cubicle…I must have been shaking at this point but I somehow contained myself. All this cash to transmit 0’s and 1’s from a device to a frickin’ cell tower? Sad to say I was already beaten at this point and reluctantly nodded my head in agreement. I have a feeling I’m going to have a hard time sitting down for a few days after the “Rogers treatment”.
This really is just a lack of competition. Our limited market size doesn’t help but we’ve got to do something about this highway robbery.
On the bright side I can take solice in the fact I can start writing some apps for the phone. 
[This rant is mine and mine alone, nothing to do with my employer]
Tags: iphone rogers pricing fine print
Posted in Apple, Misc, Technology, iPhone | 7 Comments »
December 18, 2007 by Stacy Young
Hey the book is finally listing on Amazon!
AIR Unleashed
Covers all the nuts and bolts as one would expect but includes some goodies on frameworks, design patterns, continuous integration and automated testing. (in the context of AIR)
Cheers!
Posted in AIR, Adobe, Apollo, Book, Flex, Learning, Publications, Technology | Leave a Comment »
December 13, 2007 by Stacy Young
I’m ashamed to say that this year will be the first that I’ve put real effort into having a tree. Felt it was necessary not that I own a place. (used to move around a lot)
I had a hard time making a decision to go real or not. I’m not a huge fan of killing a tree to hold up a bunch of lights for a few weeks …but I’m greedy, for a real Christmas you need a real tree damn it!
Then a few weeks back I was at Rona (Canadian Hardware Store/Depot) and spotted all these weird little trees dolled up with lights and decorations. Of course I forget the actual name of the species, (if anyone knows please post – some kind of fir?) but the girl referred to them as an “upside-down Christmas tree”. As you might have guessed, the branches grow upward and out. It can also have multiple trunks which really fill out the tree.
Anyhow, I had found my solution. These little trees (they can get quite huge if you keep moving them into larger pots) are the new-age holiday trees!
- They’re real
- No petroleum based fake tree shipped from China
- It’s soft to the touch, not prickly
- No need to toss them away after, they’re stylish! (although I still want a giant palm tree for the living room)
Top it off with some low wattage LED lights and you’re good to go. Just need to leave out the plate of cookies and cold beer -err I mean glass of milk for Santa.
Tags: xmas tree green environment environmental LED christmas
Posted in Environment, Misc, Personal, Technology | 3 Comments »
December 10, 2007 by Stacy Young
While he’s not the most animated presentor at this conference, his topic is mind blowing if you consider the implications over coming decades and beyond.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/38
p.s. Beware, if you’re a Science nut this site has the risk of consuming your life for the next couple of hours.
Posted in Misc, Productivity, Publications, Technology, Video | 6 Comments »
December 3, 2007 by Stacy Young
After sifting through all the fan mail of folks asking for new material on this blog, I figured I should fire out an update. Ok “fan mail” might be a bit of a stretch …maybe more along the lines of “inquiring minds” …ok ok there’s only been spam and the occasional hate mail. I tell ya there’s nothing more uplifting in the morning when you login and see refreshing remarks such as “You suck” or “Get a clue lady”. (pssssttt, I’m a dude)
All joking aside, I do have some news. I’ve begun work on a new book for Sams. It’s on AIR!. In fact it’s practically made of air at the moment -I need to get writing. It’ll be part of Sams Unleashed series …with a slight twist. More details as they come about!
Posted in AIR, Adobe, Apollo, Personal, Publications | Leave a Comment »
October 22, 2007 by Stacy Young
Jim is a Flex/Java wizard and is my former partner-in-crime over at Optimal Payments – before I made the leap over to Adobe. He’s only just started but expect to see plenty of useful nuggets over the coming weeks and months.
Jim’s Blog
Posted in Actionscript, Cairngorm, Flex, Personal | Leave a Comment »
September 18, 2007 by Stacy Young
Hey so do I! Sorry to get your hopes up but I’m only here to publicise a very short survey for Developers that would like to comment on the pains and pleasures of dealing with forms in Web Applications. (Or data capture in general)
If you think about it, forms are everywhere in our apps. I’m not just talking about capturing user sign-ups and what not …but development tasks even closer to the core of an Application. i.e. Record editing etc
There are only 7 or 8 questions on the survey, please spare a minute or two! Cheers!
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=7iJCXjs8tPzK_2bjog9_2bGMLA_3d_3d
Posted in AJAX, Components, Flash, Flex, Survey, Technology | Leave a Comment »
August 21, 2007 by Stacy Young
Posted in Adobe, Flash, H.264, Video | Leave a Comment »
