WTF!?! gmx.net doesn’t like gmail…
Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 9): 550-5.1.1 {mx093} … Sorry, your envelope sender has been denied: The recipient 550 5.1.1 does not want to receive mail from your address. ( http://www.gmx.net/serverrules )
Yet another proof that one email account per person isn’t enough in this world.
Apparently not the people of New Orleans.
After the failed master plan people there decided to take action and plan their city theirselves. 15 planning teams will design neighborhood by neighborhood. Even if the teams are supported by urban planners and architects, the final decision about how their neighborhood is going to be developed and built is up to them, the people.
Some might call it “democracy in action”, I call it dangerous. Maybe future of this planning process will teach me better, but I doubt that a city at the dimension of New Orleans can be developed without any long-term strategy and concept. Urban development is too complex for planning decisions made on an ad-hoc basis.
(via The New York Times)
Today I got deeply surprised by the uncomplicated handling of Apple’s costumer service. A key, the left shift key, of my new MacBook was broken and I wanted to exchange it. I didn’t expect Apple to be prepared for single key requests and already thought this is going to be complicated (like ordering a half keyboard somewhere in Suzou). I called the support number to ask what to do to get my keyboard fixed. They told me to visit an Apple Service Provider.
Since I bought my MacBook directly at the Apple online store I expected the small Mac shop to be a bit unhappy when I come there just to get a device fixed I got at the big evil Apple online store.
No, the support was extremely uncomplicated! I got there, told the guy what’s broken and what I need to be fixed, he had a look at my keyboard, made a phone call, another guy come out of the backroom with a new shift-key and replaced the broken one with the new one.
Done.
No “what’s your costumer ID, when and where did you buy the product” troubles, nothing about “leave the notebook here and we contact you in three weeks when we eventually know if we can fix it or not”, just solved the problem as it should be.
The service point I went to: McShark in 1050 Wien.
I felt to post this positive support experience because usually I only come across support horror stories.
…don’t want the public to sneak a peek into their palaces. Otherwise why would the Ministry of Information order the Bahrain Internet Exchange to block all access to the Google Earth servers?
Authorities usually don’t get tired telling us again and again that who has nothing done bad, has nothing to hide and nothing to fear when it comes to privacy critical issues like video observations, biometric security or data mining projects (hello AOL!). So I’m wondering what is it what the Kingdom of Bahrain wants to hide from its people. Have you done something bad Bahrain?
Read some more details in this post.
Information means power, free information is the key to a free world.
(via OE)
Actually I only wanted to update my WordPress installation to version 2.0.4 this weekend. Everything began when I started checking my plugins if they were updated too. I somehow ended up in the code of my WordPress theme, pursuing improvement of my site. A bit unhappy with the structure and appearance of it (I usually get bored with a theme every 6 months) I started browsing thru alternatives. So here we are: most of the (geek) sunday was used to implement and customize this new theme.
I know, it’s a heavy load with all the background images. Quite the opposite of a slick and fast text-based design. Well, if you prefer text-only, there is still the RSS feed.
Though the site is useable in IE6, it doesn’t look as nice there as in Firefox, Safari or any other web browser I know. The problem is the lack of transparent-png support of this old school web browser.
Now that’s what I call a precise weather map!
German perfectionism at its best.
Flickr reads out IPTC place information and automatically tags your pictures with it. Tools like GPS Photo Linker allow you, based on given GPS tracks, to add coordinates, elevation and IPTC place information to your photo. I figured this out after I geotagged and uploaded the pictures of our last weekend trip. Nice feature!