There is a quicker and free solution to this in OS X and it is already built in…. Terminal.app.

1. Open terminal.app
2. Navigate to the directory where the .eps files are located… use ‘cd’ followed by a folder or directory string to move to the folder ‘cd ..’ to move up a directory level and ‘ls’ to tell you what is in the directory your currently in.
3. When you have located the files type the following: epstopdf filename.eps 
4. epstopdf will now convert that eps file to a pdf and place it in the same directory as: filename.pdf  

I have been an iPhone user since it was first launched in the UK. One of the nice features that came in a January software update was the ability to save an icon on your home screen that relates directly to a website. This allowed you to easily launch and few a site with one push of your finger.

A couple of weeks ago I had an icon made by Arron Hirst from RazorianFly. Arron is responsible for most of the graphics you see on my sites, mainly the icons, banners and post banners. I hope he continues to provide me with these excellent graphics for shameless plugs on my sites

Arron will soon be starting up his own graphics design business which I hope will continue to provide DavidJMoore.com with great, simple and clean graphics. Who knows, if the site becomes popular I may even be able to pay him, but that wouldn’t be frugal, or help me retire at 45.

To place the DavidJMoore.com webclip icon on your desktop you need to follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to DavidJMoore.com on mobile Safari.
2. Hit the plus button on mobile Safari.
3. Select ‘Add to Home Screen‘

For all of you that were on 2.x prior to 2.1 you will know it just plain sucked. It was buggy, laggy and crashy! I’m happy to say 2.1 is none of those and it also introduces some nice little touches:

• Pause app install by clicking on the app icon
• Triple clicking to go to the previous track
• Genius playlist
• Option to wipe data after 10 incorrect passcode attempts
• iTunes now displays ‘Apps’ space usage
• On UK English set iPhones holding ‘.com’ on the keyboard presents you with other domains

The following list summarises the list of issues I have had this year (some maybe missed):

1. First UK iPhone had 12 dead/fully lit pixels, Apple Genius at Manchester Arndale Store refused to replace it!
2. OS X Leopard 10.5.0, beta testing Guinea pig anyone?
3. 10.5.2, potentially has caused the sleep from wake issue. Either way introduced a raft of bugs.
4. iPhone 3G, screen does not sit flush with the body (Couldn’t be bothered to speak to Apple about it as they didn’t care about 12 dead pixels).
5. iPhone 3G software (Up until 2.1) has sucked big time. Frequent crashing, phone needing to be completely restored every time I tried to install an application. Keyboard lag, generally so poor I almost decided to give up and get a Nokia.
6. iMac and Macbook Pro’s not waking from sleep. It is becoming increasingly apparent that Apple Engineering are about to wash their hands of this and the Apple store wouldn’t even get their hands dirty with it. Add to this the single 1 minute visit from Apple following my second letter to Steve and it’s easy to see they would rather ignore the issue than deal with it - Bravo! 

Sleep issues can be seen here, here, here, here, here and here - with hundreds more all over the net and Apple’s discussion forums.

7. MobileMe. This has sucked since day one, I appreciate they have been big enough to acknowledge the issue, which is what we want for the waking issues Steve, but the support I am receiving (or not as the case maybe) is nothing short of appalling.
8. Macbook Pro battery failure. There is another issue I believe Apple has, which of course is “Not a reported issue” and that is Sony laptop batteries from 12-14 month old Macbook Pro’s. I can actually think of over 50 people that I have contact with who’s batteries all around the 12 month mark have all either suddenly lost battery life or would mysteriously cut out at a specific remaining battery percentage. I had the latter and the Apple Genius told me there was nothing wrong with my battery. 3 hrs later when I forced him to let me stay at the Genius bar and prove it, he admitted he was wrong and I finally got a battery. That was after the 5-7 people with battery and wake/sleep issues that were all sent away as ‘not being able to prove the issue’. Some links can be seen here, here, here and here. There are hundreds more on the Apple discussion forums.
9. And finally, Apple so called “Geniuses” who are trained to tell people that problems on the internet and forums are not real problems because angry people on the net are emotional and can’t be trusted. WTF!?

I know they are taught to say it because multiple geniuses have used the exact same phrases. But seriously Apple come on! Angry, upset or nuts… stating that your iMac or Macbook Pro will not wake from sleep or that your MBP battery suddenly cuts out every time at a certain percentage is something called FACT. It either happens or it doesn’t, emotion or anger does not jade these facts.

So far Apple has viewed my site but decided to not help me or contact me, I will continue to try and speak to them but I am not holding out much hope. If you too have suffered from any of these problems please do comment below.

First stop was the Apple online chat facility setup especially for those of us that were affected. The agent was very helpful indeed (Full points Apple). We got to the point where he realised that it needed to be escalated to an engineer and so on the July 20th 2008:

Apple Support Guy: okay, heres the situation: as you know the Senior Specialists have approved the escalation of your case based on the information I provided. Because you were affected by the email outage, and because of the circumstances of the case, they have approved this as an “Urgent Escalation” You will be hearing back from the Specialist who is assigned to your case in the next 24-48 hours with more information. Of course this is after they investigate the issue further
Apple Support Guy: oh it was my pleasure David. I’m just sorry we couldn’t get it fixed

In addition to being happy at how nice and helpful he was, not only did I see light at the end of the tunnel but they had given me 12 months free! All good!! Or was it?

I let the days roll by until the 3rd August 2008 when I had decided Apple were starting to poke fun at me:

Apple Support Women: Hi David, how can I help today?
David Moore: i was here 4 days ago, my mobile me account is pretty much useless at the moment. It was approved for escalation to your engineers, i was told i would hear from them within 24-48 hrs
David Moore: i’ve heard nothing
Apple Support Women: OK, I do know we’ve been receiving a larger than normal volume of escalations which is resulting in the delayed response. I’m sorry we haven’t been able to answer your request in that time frame. I do know that the specialists are working quickly to answer them in the order they are received and will be answering you as soon as they can.
David Moore: i don’t mind it not being fixed, however, i would have at least expected an email from them acknowledging that the issue has been pasted forward to them etc
David Moore: that was all i was expecting from them within the quoted 48hrs, in stead its been twice as long, my issues have got worse and i haven’t even had an email of acknowledgement
Apple Support Women: Sure, I can understand that. I’m sorry that we are unable to do that as that would also increase the amount of time it would take to answer the requests.
Apple Support Women: I can see that your escalation has been created though.
David Moore: ok, well i guess there is nothing i can do but wait
David Moore: thanks for your help
Apple Support Women: I’m sorry David, but thank you for your continued patience. I do wish you a speedy resolution to this. Have a great week!

So what….. had the first agent lied to me? I don’t trust Apple with my email (I use Gmail mainly) so I wasn’t loosing too much by waiting - though the synching between my iMac, Macbook Pro and iPhone being so buggered was really annoying….. I’m patient I’ll wait…..

So I let thew best part of a month pass with no replies or anything from Apple, now I am really starting to get annoyed so on the 25th August 2008 I return to the online chat for a 3rd time:

Apple Support Guy: Hi David. What can I do for you?
David Moore: i had an issue i reported last month that was escalated to your engineers
David Moore: i was told i would hear back from them within 24-48hrs
David Moore: i haven’t
David Moore: and my account is still not usable
Apple Support Guy: Let me see if I can get you a case number, just a moment.

[Idle chatter etc]……..

Apple Support Guy: I understand your inconveniences, I have spoken with escalation and was trying to give you steps if you haven’t already tried this (It’s not the run of the mill Reset Sync Data measure). I have received word that they have sent an email to your alternative email account at “**@gmail.com” but have not received a response. I have spoken to *Apple Support Specialist* who will be handling your inquiry. You should receive a response from him sometime in the morning through email support.

At last only one month after I was meant to I might actually speak to someone who can help! But I will say at this point, what utter crap that I didn’t respond. They either didn’t email me or hand typed the address in wrong as I check that email account every 5 mins, and there was no spam.

No email from the support specialist from the close of business Cupertino time, back to chat again on the 26th August whre I was told it may take him another day to reply to me! At the end of that business day I eventually received an email from the Apple Support Specialist.

Hello David,

My name is *Apple Support Specialist*, I am a MobileMe Support Specialist. Your case was forwarded to me for resolution.

I understand you have been in contact with a specialist, but have not received contacts recently. I’m sorry you have not received the emails which have been sent previously.

I have reviewed your case history and see you are having difficulty syncing with your MobileMe account. I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

To be able to investigate this issue, I would like you to send me a copy of the affected data. Before I explain how to do that, let me assure you that Apple takes your privacy seriously. The files you send to us will be used only for the purposes of troubleshooting your issue, and all of your data will be carefully protected….. [Instructions on how to complete etc]…..

So I followed the instructions and sent him the info he wanted, all minutes after he had emailed me. An automated response came through saying they would respond within 72hrs. This is good as I have given a guy I don’t know full access to my account (They made me change my online password for them to gain access). Five days pass!

Here is the response to an email I sent after the 72hrs had passed telling them I was revoking their password and resetting my own. On the 31st August the following arrived:

Hello David,

I apologize for the delay in response. For some reason your reply was separated from the primary request and just arrived with me. I have modified the case so this should not happen again in the future.

Please ensure any reply you send to me has this follow-up ID (without quotes) in the title: “; Follow-up: 52XXXXXX”.

I will be testing your data and searching for the cause of the issues. I may not be able to follow up with you again until tomorrow, but I wanted to let you know I received the data.

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to assist you. You may receive an AppleCare survey email; any feedback you provide would be greatly appreciated.

I reset the password back to the Apple one, emailed him back to acknowledge him and to let him know he could once again access my account. The survey arrived, nothing else. To this day, half a month on, despite two more emails to my “support specialist” I have heard nothing back from him!

And as of typing I have tired logging in to MobileMe to be told it’s broken and I should try again later.

Are any of you having any problems with MobileMe or Apple Support? Please comment below and let me know.

First, the positives. It’s a nice looking site, the owner is enthusiastic if not a tad deluded given the negatives. I have to admit the guy has a real skill for graphic design, he did the banner for this site and another site of mine (positives didn’t last long ).

However, after posting a comment on his site one morning about an article that at first glance was so factually incorrect it wasn’t true I noticed that the edit he made in response to my comment was also not factually correct! I posted another comment to correct him…..

After the second time Aaron decided to pull the article (Not a good thing to do on the net) for correction and also decided to delete my comments! What Aaron doesn’t seem to understand is if you write shite then expect it to hit the fan, you will see numerous examples of this on big sites around the net where an author has got something wrong, they comment to apologise and correct the article, seems sensible. Not Aaron, he believes is complete control and censorship which is not what the net is about. Or does he? He seems to not like Apple’s censorship, but for him its a’ok! Apple removing “posts which might in any way make them ‘look bad’”…….hmmmm…… seems familiar. 

Every comment on his site I made where I picked up on errors he deleted. 

If that wasn’t enough to make me not want to read his site anymore the fact that he had then removed all links to this site (which was there under banner exchange) without having the courtesy to email me and tell me is not only not very nice it’s pretty rude. I even emailed him to say “I notice you have removed the link to my site so I returned the favour” and had no response, what a nice guy….would you want to work with him or employ him?

In fact one of my comments offered for him to contact me via MSN so i could help him correct his factually incorrect articles - he’s blocked me (Then he keeps deleting comments which could have been resolved via MSN - makes sense, not!)

So the moral of this story is don’t post on his site, your likely only be gagged and don’t bother linking with him as he will only pull the plug and not tell you and get a free link from your site to his!

Now I did mention negatives before and whilst I am here I may as well list them (despite the fact it may aid him in improving his site):

1. Content is pretty much copied from Macrumors and BBC News Website and others. What he can’t get his head round is this actually provides him with a lower page rank in Google. I have to admit he is getting better though. 
2. Censoring comments is so very uncool
3. Contradicting yourself from a post you make (saying your iphone has no dropped calls) and then a video you make (saying it does) and then blocking the comments from me asking why the contradiction is also ultimately lame. By the way before Aaron pulls the contradicting info his post stated “Fewer drop calls (this still happens? I haven’t had a dropped call in years)” and his video clearly said he was suffering from dropped calls!
4. The URL has nothing to do with his content - One of the first rules for making a successful site.
5. Consistently factually incorrect posts.
6. Writing a post so that your the first to have written about it then doing multiple updates to actually create the full post that should have been done in the first place is not only lame it makes the article really crappy to read. Aaron, take screenshots and create a full article before posting - there is no rush to be the first, especially when first in this case is crap.

There are a couple reasons for me making this post. The first is because I was utterly shocked when I spoke to people, including many in New York, who had forgotten it was September 11th. The second is because they had forgotten the four important times the events occurred, 0846 (Flight 11 Hits North Tower), 0903 (Flight 175 Hits South Tower), 0959 (South Tower Collapses) and 1029 (North Tower Collapses). Let’s not forget 1003 (Flight 93) for the PA crash and 0937 (Flight 77) for the Pentagon crash. And I guess there is a third reason, not one of them was even going to pause for a moment to reflect or to pay respect. 

It appears me as an englishman cares more about this tragic event that occurred on American soil more than some Americans. 

There has also been developments in the building of the Freedom Tower. It was scheduled to be completed in 2012 but today the New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, announced that the project should ideally be finished for the 10th Anniversary. Here’s hoping he provides the relevant rockets up the relevant rear ends to make it happen. Ground Zero is an incredibly sad place to visit, I hope that the Freedom Tower alongside appropriate memorials will give a sense of progression/closure to those that lost loved ones that day. I look forward to posting here after I am able to visit it and New York again, I miss it.

That’s a fat lot of good when the problem only occurs after the machine has slept after a large number of hours and there is no sleep/wake log showing in the logs. Apple engineering gave me the following steps to try:

1.  On iMac, type the following command on a terminal window    
   sudo nvram boot-args="debug=0x14e io=0x880"
2. On the logging Mac, connect to the iMac using firewire cable. Then type "/usr/bin/fwkpfv" on terminal.
3. Reboot the iMac, and do a sleep/wake to trigger the problem.
4.  Please send us the entire output from fwkpfv command.

1. Ensure iTunes is closed
2. Open Terminal.app
3. Copy and paste the following command exactly:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes DeviceBackupsDisabled -bool true

4. Open iTunes and Sync your iPhone, you should now find this very rapid.

Let’s hope Apple clear this up in version 2.1, due to be released in the coming weeks.

Samuel L Jackson plays a federal officer (Derrick Vann) who is trying to track down the stolen weapons cache that had been removed from their station. He set’s up a meeting with the thieves which is where Eugene Levy (Andy Fiddler) gets mixed up in the whole affair, naturally Derrick take him along for the ride. If you have seen the American Pie series then you know the kind of comedy to expect, he is just like his character “Jim’s Dad” from the series. In all this film makes for a great watch, it’s a serious plot with two great actors, but has hilarious moments of comedy thanks to Levy. I’d seriously recommend you rent or buy it and give it a watch - Well worth it!