Hawkman: The Movie

This is hilarious. What if DC Comics (and parent company Warner Brothers) ran out of good comic book characters, who would you have left? One of the most lame, Hawkman. I was a comic book geek as a kid and loved the Justice League series, except for Hawkman. He was always pretty useless (but not as bad as Aquaman, amiright?). Seems that other superheroes feel the same way. Check out this video where Hawkman crashes a party that celebrates Green Lantern’s success.

Bose Earbuds

I’ve never really bought into the hype of over-priced headphones and earbuds. I understand the value of high quality speakers, but never thought there could be that much difference in portable audio accessories. I know they provide better sound than a $10 pair but never saw the need to have an expensive set. I can somewhat understand paying more for noise-canceling headphones, but with as quick as I go through headphones and earbuds, I never saw them as worth it for me.

Recently, I decided to start looking for a nicer pair of earbuds that I could use while working out. One of the major problems with earbuds is their tendency to fall out while moving a lot. I went on Best Buy’s website and started looking at earbuds to see what I could find. That’s when I found the Bose MIE2i earbuds. They have a patented Stay Hear feature that provides extra support in the ear so that they are less likely to move around and fall out. I asked around on Twitter and read the reviews and saw mostly positive things about them. Everyone I talked to said they love the sound quality. I decided to bit the bullet and buy these as they were the only ones I could find that looked like they would provide a durable, comfortable fit.

As soon as I tried these bad boys out I was not disappointed. I get it now. I understand why people opt for the high quality equipment. The sounds produced by these tiny buds were amazing. The basses were deep and I heard other tones in my music that I’ve never heard before. It was like experiencing some of my favorite music as if it were my first time listening. I knew right away that I would not feel bad about dropping $130 on earbuds. I should note that I use my earbuds a lot as I use them while working out as well as pretty much all day at work. Best Buy even ran a sale on them this week so I took my receipt back and got $13 back, so these great earbuds are now even more worth it. Even though I’ve only had them for a week, I definitely recommend them.

Cardinals Fans Will Miss 20 Games Thanks to Fox Sports Midwest and Uverse

If you’re a die-hard Cardinals fan, like I am, you’ve probably watched every painful game this season. Well, almost every. I say almost because Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday games were blacked out because of a squabble that Uverse is having with Fox Sports Midwest.

Last year, local station KSDK aired some of the games. At the end of the season last year, the Cardinals announced all games would be broadcast on FSMW this season. Fast forward 6 months or so and we Fox Sports Midwest wants additional carrier fees because they have 20 additional games. Most major companies are willing to comply because Cardinals have some of the most watched games in baseball. Charter, all satellite providers, and many smaller cable companies paid the fee. AT&T’s Uverse did not.

So, Uverse customers will now miss 20 games (17 to go) of Cardinals baseball because UVerse and FSMW could not reach a deal. So, what can you do? You can call both companies to complain, but I highly doubt Fox Sports will listen. Uverse customers are just a small percentage of overall viewership. No, if you really want your voice heard, contact AT&T and complain or even cancel. If you really want to hurt AT&T’s business, cancelling is the best thing you can do. Some people might not want to flat-out cancel though. If that is the case, call and complain and demand a discount. I’ve seen them give $15 off a month for 6 months to some customers. When I called and complained they offered $25 off a month for 6 months. I would start there. Demand the discount. Hurt their bottom line. That is the only way they will listen.

A Tale of Bad Customer Support… With a Happy Ending

For my domain email needs I use Rackspace and, for the most part, have been happy. Over the past several months though, I have had issues with their webmail freezing when using Chrome on my Windows 7 work machine. Because I only use webmail to check and purge spam, I never really decided to do anything about it. That was until this week.

Earlier this week my payment to Rackspace did not go through. Curious as to why this is the case, I logged into the control panel and started a live chat with one of their support representatives. Because it was a billing issue, they suggested I email their billing department as they couldn’t help me. This type of thing is frustrating, but common with most companies. Since I had support on live chat I decided to inquire about Google Chrome support. I opened a ticket the previous day about this issue but had not heard back from anyone. Over 24 hours to reply to a ticket is not the type of support I was used to. On the live chat, I was told that Chrome wasn’t officially supported. This kind of shocked me. Chrome is now the #3 browser and is already at version 10. It’s hardly a beta product. It should be something that they support. I was left kind of disappointed.

Since I got my answer to my ticket in live chat, I went in and closed the ticket I had opened. When closing it you get to rate the helpfulness of support. Since no one bothered to reply to the ticket, I gave it the lowest rating possible; a 0 out of 5. I did have to go out of my way to get an answer to an already submitted ticket, after all. Within an hour of closing the ticket I receive a call from an unrecognizable number. It happened to be Rackspace. They wanted to make sure I was satisfied and apologized for my dissatisfaction with the ticket I had opened. They gave me correct information about Chrome (it’s a problem with Chrome and Windows 7 when you have new email sound notification enabled, it freezes the browser) and apologized for not responding to the ticket and making me seek support from the live chat.

Needless to say, what started out as a bad customer experience turned out to be a good one. Rackspace knew I was dissatisfied and they made up for it. After rating tickets and surveys and performance with just about every company that asks for them, I honestly was not expecting anything to come from that low rating. Nothing ever does. To my surprise, Rackspace did. It shows they are willing to go the extra mile to make sure they have happy customers.

Kudos Rackspace.

First Thoughts on the iPad 2

So, I did get an iPad 2. I woke up at 3am to place my order and received it less than a week later. In fact, I’m blogging from it now. Here are my first thoughts on the machine.

First off, let me say I do not regret my purchase. The iPad is every bit as awesome as I thought it would be. I’ve used it browsing the web, reading my RSS feeds, reading books, and playing games. I use Reeder for feed reading. The app is great on the iPhone but the iPad reader is extraordinary. I thought it would take some time to get used to reading books in iBooks, but it hasn’t. I actually enjoy it. The app that I use, and love, the most is Zite. It’s a news app that creates a personalized newspaper for the user. The interface is great and it incorporates so many different news sources you will always finde something interesting to read.

The keyboard will take some getting used to. I try to type without looking at the keyboard, but because the keyboard is smaller than a physical keyboard it does make it difficult to do at times. Once you get in the rhythm of the layout, it becomes easier and easier. The web browsing is surprisingly fast, thanks to the changes in iOS 4.3 and the dual core processor. I’ve not played any graphics heavy games, but I’m sure that will change with time.

The smart cover is also an ingenious product from Apple. The stands it creates are perfect for typing and watching video and it does protect screen. I do have to minor issues with it. It tends to leave bars down te screen where the creases meet the glass. This can be solved by wiping it with a soft cloth, but it is still kind of annoying. The other issue is that it does not protect the back. I’m not interested in protecting the back from damage, a smart cover would not do that. It would be nice if it protected it from dirt though.

Anyway, I love my new iPad and am so glad I finally got one. I can’t wait to see what other apps and uses I can find.