GotVoice is a new service that will check your voicemail for you, convert it to MP3 files, and email it to you. This is great, because I’d been looking for a way to archive important phone messages. Say someone calls you up and says they got married. Wouldn’t want to have that archived, to play it back to them years later at their wedding anniversary? Or your brother calls you up to tell you his wife just gave birth to a baby girl? Wouldn’t it be cool if that message could be kept forever? Well, with GotVoice, you don’t have to hold your cellphone next to your computer’s microphone. You can just let it do the work for you! 🙂
Tag Archives: computers
Caveat Emptor: Global Internet Solutions (GISol)
➡ Updated 11/4/2008: See FOX News expose GISOL for the crooks they really are, and watch the two people behind the scam literally run from the camera. Watch the video on YouTube or below, and read the post, as well as the numerous comments here or on this post (over 300 comments in total). My thanks go to Mike of Report-Gisol.com for doing the legwork to get these criminals on TV.
These same crooks have been calling me from private phone numbers, harassing me, and trying to intimidate me into letting them post responses on my website. They’ve tried repeatedly to post comments on this post and on my other post about them, and I refuse to let their lies go through to the live site. They need to be in jail.
This is one web hosting company you should not touch, not even with a 10-foot pole!
I signed up with them back in January of 2006, because I was attracted by their many features and low price. They were offering over 35GB of space, and unlimited bandwidth. While that last hook should have had me turning away, I fell for it. I anticipated increasing traffic to my sites, and was worried about bandwidth fees. Their many features blinded me. See the attached PDFs for the details of the hosting packages (Gisol Windows Hosting, Gisol Linux Hosting). 
Sure, there were signs this was a shady operation right from the start, but I ignored them. The cheesy site design should have clued me in, as well as the script, which is still running, and says there are so many more hours left until the “blowout sale” expires… As of the date of this post, that script’s been running for at least 6 months (January to June 2006).
I took the bait, and signed up. That’s when my problems started. I knew I should leave right away, but I was hooked on their Control Panel, which let me do everything easily. They were, and they still might be using the H-Sphere Control Panel, which lets one do just about everything (add/manage domains, sub-domains, DSNs, MIME types, databases, etc.) You name it, the control panel can do it. Unfortunately, that’s the ONLY thing that Gisol has which works well. Everything else is broken in one way or another.
Let me give you a few examples:
Their web servers always go down! By always, I mean always. It could be daily, it could be a few times a day. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, your sites will stay up for a few days, which is nothing short of a miracle when it comes to GISol. The funny thing is, they advertise 99.999% uptime on their site – look at the plan specs, linked above, or this beauty: Gisol Uptime Guarantee. I’m still not sure how they compute the percentage they list in the plan specs, but I think their formula automatically eliminates the downtime to the third decimal point…
Their web servers don’t store session variables. Yes, you heard me correctly! I used session variables for logins on one of my clients’ sites, including a couple of my own. I’d log in, and the site would kick me out, because I had the web pages look for the variables, and they couldn’t be found anywhere. I had to argue with their tech support for days, and finally appealed to management. They kept accusing me of being at fault, when their pathetic servers wouldn’t work right. Finally, they switched me to another one, and wonder of wonders, no more session variable problems… but of course, other problems awaited.
Their tech support is outsourced to India. Normally, I don’t really care where the tech support is located, as long as they can do their job, but when they can’t speak English, are obviously reading packaged phrases off some sheet, are rude to me, don’t solve my problems, and lay the blame on me when they’re at fault, I tend to get a little upset, and I think you would, too.
False advertising: they say they have millions of customers on their site. I doubt it. I think their real number of customers is somewhere between a few hundred and a few thousand. Why do I say that? Because:
- They only had 1 mySQL server. Seriously. I’m not kidding. The name of that server was was mysql1, and they couldn’t move me to a new one when I asked.
- I signed up for a Windows Hosting account, and my server’s name was win2k8. When I had problems with that, they moved me to win2k9, then win2k10.
- I also signed up for a Linux Hosting account, and my server’s name was web16.
- When I called Tech Support, I kept speaking to the same 3-4 technicians all the time.
I had numerous – and when I say numerous, I mean plentiful, as in plethora – database connection problems. Just about every time I tried writing to one of the mySQL databases, I’d get timeouts or connection problems, and they simply couldn’t solve them.
The user testimonials on their site are false. They have to be. I can’t imagine I’m the only one who’s had problems with them. Besides, the problems are so blatant that anyone but a blithely unaware novice would know they’ve got serious problems.
I made the mistake of buying a domain through them. When I wanted to switch to another web hosting provider, they held the domain hostage. It took several emails and phone calls to get them to release it. I kept getting bounced from one “department” to another. Welcome to Indian-style bureaucracy, right here in the States!
I cancelled my web hosting plans. On their site, they say they offer refunds any time, for any reason. That’s the biggest crock of crap I’ve ever seen. It’s now three weeks since I requested a refund, and I’ve still to get it. I spoke with their Billing “department” – and I use the term loosely. They passed me off to the Refund “department”, and told me I could call them at certain phone numbers – one was a toll-free number, and the other was a long-distance number. I called the first number, only to be disconnected right away. Then I called the second number, only to have it ring endlessly, then get disconnected. No, not even an answering machine. Finally, I wrote to their email address (refund@gisol.com). I’m still waiting for an answer. I’ve already started fraud proceedings with my credit card company.
All in all, I think I don’t exaggerate when I say you should beware of Global Internet Solutions (aka GISol). If you value your sanity and your wallet, stay far away from them!
AMD plans "4×4" platform computer
In a move that’s sure to make other computer makers uncomfortable, AMD revealed it’s working on a 4×4 platform, which will pair two dual-core AMD chips with two dual-GPU graphics cards. This will be a boon to gamers, and I’m sure it will give the new Apple Power Mac successor a run for its money when it comes to graphics and video-crunching power. Engadget has the details.
Moving email from a PC to the Mac
Background
For the purposes of this guide, I’m going to assume that you were using Outlook or Outlook Express on the PC, and you want to import your messages into the Mail app that ships with Mac OS X. I speak from personal experience with this guide. I had to do this when I switched from a PC to a Mac in September of ’05. I’ve finally solved the last piece of the puzzle, and I wanted to share this information with you so it won’t take you as long as it took me.
I had an email archive that spanned close to 10 years – a fairly complete one at that. I’d been keeping it in Outlook Express, then Outlook, over the years. When I switched to the Mac, I didn’t want to lose it. My wife had an archive that spanned a few years as well, and she kept it in Outlook. We didn’t want to lose those messages, either. As you know, there’s no easy way to import email directly from the PC into the Mac. There’s no nice and easy transfer wizard, for multiple reasons: different operating systems, different file systems, different ways of storing the mail, different applications, etc. Even if there had been a wizard, given my huge mail archive, I’d have probably crashed it.
What didn’t work
Still, I tried to be reasonable. I thought equivalent Microsoft products on the two platforms might be able to import from each other. So I took my PST from my PC, transferred to my Mac, and opened Entourage (the Outlook equivalent on the Mac). The import failed. The two can’t talk to each other. You can’t import between them either way. I thought that was pretty silly. Of all the things Microsoft does wrong, this has to be one of the more obvious ones.
Next I tried the less possible, which was to import from the PST file directly into Mail. That didn’t work, either. I surfed the internet for solutions, and stumbled across a possibility of installing Eudora on the PC, importing from Outlook into it, then copying the library onto the Mac, and using some special utility to do the PC to Mac translation. Well, Eudora failed on the import from Outlook. Again, I had a big PST, I wasn’t surprised. Plus, even when I tried transferring the messages it had managed to copy to the Mac, the utility didn’t do its job. At any rate, I hadn’t put my hopes in Eudora. It might have been all the rage in the early nineties, but it’s pretty useless now. Somebody else suggested using old versions of Netscape Mail. I tried that as well, only to fail again.
I called Apple Support, who were completely clueless about this. Finally, on my second try, the technician suggested I use an IMAP account to transfer the email between the two computers. I saw two problems with that, both related to the size of my archive: one, where am I going to find an IMAP account with more than 4GB of storage, and two, I’m not going to sit there and upload over 4GB of data through my DSL connection. It was going to take days, if not more. Obviously, not a very practical solution.
➡ Updated 1/3/08: Gmail now offers more than 6 GB (and growing) of email storage, and includes both POP and IMAP access.
What worked
Just so I won’t drag this out needlessly, Thunderbird turned out to be the best solution for the transfer. I installed it on the PC, imported from Outlook into it, then transferred the mailbox files to the Mac, where I had to delete the mailbox index files (.msf) files, and only leave the un-indexed data files there. That’s because the Mac version of Thunderbird needs to build its own indexes. So, I located the directory where the email got stored for Thunderbird on my Mac, moved the mailboxes there, and deleted the index files. I then opened up Thunderbird, and after it re-built the indexes, there were my messages! After all the trouble, I was pretty happy!
Next, I wanted to get my email into Mail. This is the step that took the longest for me, and I just solved it yesterday. Granted, I hadn’t been looking very hard since last September… Now, some of you might be asking yourselves why in the world I’d want to switch from Thunderbird to Mail, and I’ve got two reasons: one, and the most important, Spotlight indexes Mail messages, so I can search for what I need from one location, and two, iPhoto sends out photos through Mail, and we email photos a lot; we wanted to have our email messages in one place. Yes, I know, we should share our photos on the web instead, etc…
So, how did I solve it? Certainly not by calling Apple Support, who are were clueless on this issue as well. And I also didn’t solve it by importing from Thunderbird into Mail, which is impossible (not any more), as you might find out if you try it. Version 2.0.7 of Mail crashes miserably, and has done so, reliably, since September of ’05, on my every attempt to import from Thunderbird. I choose Import, then I select the Other or the Netscape/Mozilla option (since Thunderbird isn’t listed as one of the options), then I browse for the location of the message databases, and when I select Import, it crashes like a drunk limousine driver.
Instead, I solved this by doing a search on the Apple Support forums, where intrepid users have posted some great solutions. Among them, I found the Eudora Mailbox Cleaner. It’s a wonderful little utility that will let you drag your Thunderbird message databases onto its icon, and will automatically convert them to Mail message databases. It will also copy them to the proper Mail message library. All you need to do is sit back and wait for it to finish, then rebuild your Mail folders, and all your messages will appear – just follow the directions you’ll find on their website. The best part is that it didn’t crash while it processed my entire archive (over 4GB of messages)! Now that’s a reliable application!
➡ Updated 1/3/08: It turns out, as one of the commenters has pointed out, that Leopard’s version of Mail includes an import function from Thunderbird. Problem solved. Thanks Logan! Now I wonder if a new version of the Eudora Mailbox Cleaner will be released, or whether this new import feature in Mail will negate the need for it.
When I got done, I was ecstatic. All my mail is indexed with Spotlight, and I can instantly find messages and files that are years old without having to do separate searches for each!
Let’s review
- Install Thunderbird on PC, import from Outlook/Outlook Express into it.
- Install Thunderbird on Mac, note storage location for mail files.
- Copy message databases onto Mac, in the specific directory where mail is stored, delete index files, then start up Thunderbird and let it rebuild the indexes.
- Use the Eudora Mailbox Cleaner to export to Mail. (only for OS X Tiger)
- Rebuild mailboxes in Mail, then relax, because you’re done! (only for OS X Tiger)
- If you have Leopard, skip steps 4 and 5, and use Mail’s import function to get your messages out of Thunderbird. (only for OS X Leopard)
💡 Thunderbird and the Eudora Mailbox Cleaner are free software. If you find them helpful, please don’t forget to donate to them, even if it’s just a few dollars. It’s the right thing to do if you want to support the efforts of their developers. Here is a donation link for Mozilla (the maker of Thunderbird), and here is a donation link for the Eudora Mailbox Cleaner.
Hardware review: Apple MacBook
I visited the Apple Store over the weekend and took a look at the new MacBook (the iBook replacement). Apple’s outsourced the production of this laptop to Asus, but it’s definitely still an Apple. It was supposed to arrive in June, so it’s ahead of schedule.
The overall impression is that it’s a very nice laptop, and a welcome successor to the iBook, whose design I thought was in need of improvement. The MacBook is thin, glossy, and beautiful. The design is very similar to the MacBook Pro, except that the case is plastic, not aluminum.
The option to get it in two colors is a nice touch, and coming from Apple, is a tip of the hat to PC laptop users, who are used to the black color. The two finishes are a bit different. While the outside of the computers are similarly glossy, no matter the color, the insides are another story. The white MacBook’s inside finish is a little grainier than that of the black MacBook.
Having never owned a white iBook before, I wondered what grime from everyday use would do to the keyboard and the white finish. I can say that my white iMac keyboard has stood the test of time well so far (since last September, at any rate.) I can also say that I could see grease from people’s hands on the black MacBook in the store. The grease didn’t show on the white MacBook, but there was a bit of grime. I guess you can take your pick: grease or grime. That’s why I always wash my hands before using the computer.
Apple did another nice thing by including some of the features people have come to love on the MacBook Pro as standard on the MacBook: integrated iSight, remote control with FrontRow, and the MagSafe power adapter. This is good stuff!
The wide screen is beautiful. I know people are used to the matte screens, but either finish is fine with me. What I look for in a screen is brightness, high resolution, a wide aspect ratio, and wide reading angles, and the MacBook has all those.
The lid doesn’t have a latch like the MacBook Pro or the now-extinct PowerBook. Instead, it has a notch, so you can just pull it up. What I didn’t like so much is that the lid seemed pretty flexible. If I grabbed the corners, I could bend it back and forth, and I wondered what that would do to the display after long-term use.
The keyboard is interesting. One thing I liked on the iBook was the ability to remove the keyboard in just a few seconds. That was handy in case you spilled something on it. You could rinse it, and wipe underneath. With the new MacBook, the keys rise out of the plastic casing, and they’re more square around the edges than I’m used to. They’re very similar (although the feel is much better) to the keyboards one finds on the computers inside REI stores. The design is utilitarian. But again, I wonder if Apple’s placed anything under the MacBook keyboard to guard against spills.
I wasn’t thrilled with the battery lock, which is a coin-screw. I guess that’ll come in handy for college students without a screwdriver, but I would have liked to see a latch. The coin screw will get damaged over time (it’s plastic) and it’ll look bad. The store model’s screw was already damaged.
I like that Apple’s put a Firewire port on the MacBook. I think their decision to start moving away from Firewire was a very silly one. Firewire is so much better than USB in many ways, and I’ll hopefully detail them in a future post. The digital audio inputs and outputs, which used to be standard only on the PowerBook G4 17″ models, are now standard across the line, including the MacBook. I was amazed to find out this little tidbit.
The Intel Core Duo chip is another nice surprise. Initially, there was talk of only having a single core chip on the MacBook, so this is a bonus as far as I’m concerned. The applications loaded very fast, even with only the standard 512MB of RAM. I’d like to see how the MacBook works with 1GB of RAM and Photoshop. The graphics card uses shared memory, so if you’re thinking of using this laptop for graphics-heavy applications, in particular video, you may want to upgrade to the MacBook Pro line, which has a graphics card with dedicated memory.
I wasn’t happy when I learned that it weighs 5.5 lbs. For a 13.3″ laptop, that’s a lot of weight! But I guess that’s what happens when you pack a lot of features into a tiny laptop. They add to the weight. It’s the same as my MINI. You wouldn’t think a car that small could weigh over 2,700 lbs., but it does!
Last but not least, the MacBook comes with the latest version of the iLife software, which allows for just about the easiest creation of web pages, blogs and podcasts.
Bottom line: I really liked it, and I’ve already started recommending it to my friends. But, given the shortcomings outlined above, such as the overly flexible lid and new keyboard, I’d also recommend buying an AppleCare Plan, just in case.
(Photo courtesy of Apple. This review can also be read on BlogCritics.)
Raoul Pop 