Baggas' Blog

To conclude my story of dealing with Palm customer service, I am happy to report that I received my replacement Treo 650 phone yesterday, less than a week after initially phoning up Palm to report my problem. The whole process has been smooth and painless, and I am incredibly satisfied with the company. The new unit works perfectly – I just need to finish re-tweaking it with all my old settings etc. This is one happy customer

Expect this blog to be quiet over the next week or so as tomorrow we fly off to the Gold Coast for a week of fun and relaxation, with lots of theme park action to be had. Hopefully I’ll have plenty of photos to post when we get back.

To conclude my story of dealing with Palm customer service, I am happy to report that I received my replacement Treo 650 phone yesterday, less than a week after initially phoning up Palm to report my problem. The whole process has been smooth and painless, and I am incredibly satisfied with the company. The new unit works perfectly – I just need to finish re-tweaking it with all my old settings etc. This is one happy customer

Expect this blog to be quiet over the next week or so as tomorrow we fly off to the Gold Coast for a week of fun and relaxation, with lots of theme park action to be had. Hopefully I’ll have plenty of photos to post when we get back.

Well thus far the process for getting my faulty Palm Treo 650 replaced has been very smooth. I posted it to Palm late on Friday last week, and this morning received two emails saying firstly that they have received it, and secondly that they have dispatched a replacement unit to me by courier which should arrive within 3 working days. Very good service thus far.

I just hope it arrives by Friday as we are flying off to the Gold Goast on Saturday for a week and I would definitely prefer to have my PDA with me instead of this old fashioned Nokia phone I am using. Texting with only 12 standard numerical keys is just too much!

I was a little saddened last week to see that Phil Baker has removed the commenting facility from his blog. I’ve been a long time follower of this blog, although rarely had enough time to get involved in the commenting much myself. Phil’s explanation for the removal of comments :

Well the blog just morphed.

One of the struggles I have had over the last couple of years with doing the blog has, apart from the time commitment, been the good and bad of allowing comments. A community has formed and much great stuff has happened..people in need being encouraged, prayer requests, serindipitous connections etc. Also we have used you all for info, research, discussion, response and much else….

The dark side is that over the existence of said blog there has been obsenity, allegation and much comment that leaves the biblical injunction of ‘let your speech be seasoned with grace…’ far behind. Most of us can take this and are not too perturbed by it all, yet there are also many young people and children not to mention those who are fragile…the depressed, the suicidal etc online. I have on several occasions seen people much wounded because in the cyber world one does not know who one is speaking to and the caustic comment can do far more damage than anyone realises. Add to this the site is much frequented by the seeker due to the range of pre-evangelistic and secular speeches I give. I am frequently embarrased by the often vacuous and often inflammatory comments made by some.

After all this was just a hobby…a bit of cyber fun. So we will keep posting, providing links etc but the comments option will cease. No one wants their own house continually graffitied and then be accused by said vandals of censorship when you decide to contact the police and repaint….

I can certainly see where he’s coming from. The conversations there have ranged from edifying, playful and fun, serious and illuminating, right through to hurtful, slanderous and defamatory. It’s a shame that a minority of bitter people damaged by past hurts pushing their own hypercritical agendas get to ruin what in many ways was a very positive forum (many of the culprits hang out over at Signposts, a blog that I really should avoid reading since every time I go there it makes me angry and saddened – to see their take on Phil’s latest move go here…) I shall continue to browse Phil’s blog, as he and his fellow contributors often have very interesting links, quotes, and observations to share about religion, news, and the arts, but it just won’t quite be the same.

The Australian: Work and worry making doctors sick [March 11, 2006] – this article about doctors’ health problems, in particular mental health, is pretty spot on. I tend to be cope fairly well and don’t let other people’s problems get beneath my skin, but this can be a big issue for many doctors, with serious consequences. I must say I fit squarely into the younger generation of doctors who don’t want to work insane hours and have a life outside of work – that’s the number one reason why I decided to be a GP in the first place instead of a neurosurgeon. Have a look at the article though – it has some very good insights.

Five out of six patients didn’t turn up last hour – that’s gotta be some kind of record. It’s not only frustrating but it costs me money – for every patient that doesn’t turn up is lost income. Which at the moment is definitely a concern given that we have a big new mortgage and I’ll have a full week off work next week for our holiday (I don’t get paid holidays)

On a positive note, my new iPod just arrived so I’ll be able to start playing around and transferring songs to it tonight. 60gig, yet it’s virtually the same size as my old 40gig one, yet with a much larger, clearer colour screen. I look forward to trying out the video capabilities of it

And being an iPod lover, it seems I’m in pretty good company – it seems the Pope loves his iPod too, having been spotted around the Vatican with those distinctive white earphones. Wonder what podcasts he subscribes to?

Hot on the heels of my dead iPod, my Palm Treo 650 PDA phone has now become seriously ill. As of yesterday there is now no audio when I make calls – the ear speaker and microphone do not work. The only thing that works is if I plug my wired handsfree into the headphone jack, which is presumably the source of the problem. The Treo believes for some reason that there is a handsfree plugged in all the time, even when there is not, due to a faulty jack (apparently a not uncommon problem.)

Anyway it is still under warranty so on Friday I rang up Palm Australia, who asked me to send it back to them and they would send me a replacement. All sounds very simple and smooth on the phone, but it will be interesting to see how it works out in practice, like ob1’s experiences with O2 a few months back. Would be really nice to get my Treo back before we fly off to Queensland on holiday next Saturday. At the moment I am struggling with no PDA and a dodgy old Nokia phone which just doesn’t cut it any more.

Meanwhile on the iPod front we have had a few developments. Firstly Jenni got her new iPod nano for her birthday on Thursday, which is very small, very cool, and so far I’ve used much more than she has. I’ve ordered a 60Gig Video iPod direct from Apple but it is yet to arrive. In the meantime I happened to show my old iPod to my tech wizard of a brother who within 5 minutes had the back off, and 5 minutes later had it working again! No matter that my old monochrome 40Gig iPod now looks big and clumsy, at least I have a working unit (and soon will have two – how crazy is that!) to listen to podcasts again, like the one I caught today from Cedar Ridge Community Church. They have a new senior pastor, Matthew Dyer, who is a former medical doctor from England, and an excellent speaker to boot. I’m really getting a lot out of his stuff so far.

Just loved this quote from The Australian, in an interesting piece discussing the Da Vinci Code juggernaut and the surrounding controversies, past and present :

[Dan] Brown represents the Barry Manilow of the book world.

That’s got to be one of the most spot on comparisons I’ve seen. Reading the Da Vinci Code is a similar experience to listening to one of Manilow’s tracks – you know it’s cheesy and bad, but you just can’t help yourself turning another page, or tapping your feet and humming the infectious melody.

I don’t know about anyone else, but this photo on the front page of today’s paper gave me a bit of a chuckle…

It seems that President Bush is in Pakistan, and decided to try his hand against the Pakistani national cricket team. He got hit on the shoulder by a bouncer from Inzamam-ul-Haq, though later actually did manage to get bat on ball at least once. Check out the SMH Photo gallery for more shots from Bush’s cricket clinic. The ones of him bowling are particularly amusing

I must admit that among my music collection I possess a cassette copy of the classic 1990 album “Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘em” by MC Hammer. And I could still probably remember the words and rap along to “U Can’t Touch This” if I wanted to. Well I was interested to discover today that the man is still kickin, and even has his own blog : Look Look Look – MC Hammer Blog. Unlike other “celebrity blogs” this one appears to be legit (in fact you might even say it’s too legit to quit!) – it’s well written and reasonably interesting, detailing Hammer’s musings on music, baseball, and fatherhood, including a reflection on the fatherhood of God.

Now if only I had my iPod working I could crank up some Hammer style hip-hop, dust off the baggy pants, and break it down, but my ongoing attempts to resuscitate it are still unsuccessful. I feel like the time to turn off the life support is drawing near. That 60Gig iPod is calling.

[HT : Rodney]