Home-made DVDs of our travels and family events were backed up as disk images (.dmg) onto an external hard drive as they were made. When these were inadvertently deleted I attempted to re-create the backup using Disk Utility to create new disk images. I was very concerned to find that about a third of my collection would either fail to mount on the OS X desktop or, if so, caused Disk Utility to report an input/ output error resulting in failure to copy. So what gives Apple? Why can my Mac not mount, copy, or play back Mac-made DVDs—when my consumer player handles them fine?
Continue reading 'Home-made DVDs won't mount or copy on Mac'
Tag archive for 'Rant'
Well behind the American iTunes Store, earlier this month (June 2008) Apple gave iTunes Store customers in the UK the chance to rent (or purchase) movie downloads. Initially I wasn't sure I'd want to watch movies at my computer, even though I have a good screen and sound system. But I had to try it. With a 17Mbps downstream broadband connection getting the movie onto the computer posed no problem (a typical 1GB movie takes a few minutes). Trouble is all I see is a grey box with no audio. Now that I can't do it, of course I'm more inclined to want to.
Continue reading 'Silent and grey iTunes movie rentals'
Be Unlimited provide ADSL2+ services in the UK, supplying a Be-branded Thompson SpeedTouch wireless router called the BeBox. The Member Forum is full of complaints about router instability and errant behaviour. My 780WL had been doing well for around 6 months, then started resetting itself sometimes several times within a short period, but at least daily. Sometimes after a reset I was left with no Internet connectivity. Eventually Be sent me a replacement router, which came with replacement problems. So how do you turn a flaky BeBox into a rock-solid Internet router? Just take the "Be" out of your BeBox.
Continue reading 'Resolving router issues with Be Unlimited'
Just bought a new TomTom with a 30-day latest map guarantee? Don't download any map update as prompted by TomTom HOME on the day you register your device. Why not? Because if TomTom do release a new map in 30 days time, you won't be allowed to download it. You may still be within 30 days, but you will have the map that was current on the day you got your device. If, however, you carefully count to day 30 before downloading any map updates, you will get the latest map as of that time. The ambiguous guarantee is not for the latest map within 30 days—it's for a map within that period.
Continue reading 'TomTom latest map guarantee trap'
When you inadvertently write a cheque from the wrong account putting said account into overdraft, you expect to pay for your mistake. But would you expect to pay four different charges, incurring a total liability in fees nearly four times the size of the overdraft—even though it was rectified within 6 working days? If you bank with Halifax, who always give you extra, you can indeed.
Continue reading 'Unarranged overdraft bank charges'
Some cretin recently cloned our debit card, in reflection of rising UK and international rates of card fraud despite technological countermeasures like "chip and pin".
Continue reading 'ATMs should be avoided. The Internet too.'
