My new Lacie D2 Network drive is Time Machine compatible. That means it’s really easy to setup with Time Machine – no hacks required, it just gets detected.

LaCie D2 Network – Time Machine

Then, you get blamed for running a .exe from a share on it. That exe was the MS Office installer. Why was that a problem? EXEs are not compatible with the drive’s operating system !

It was related to running the .exe file on the drive.  The file is proprietary to an OS such as XP, Vista, or Mac OS X.  Running the file on a non-conforming OS is going to create severe havoc and other issues.  I am glad the reset resolved the issue.

Lacie Tech Support doesn’t know what a share is

And then, you ask them about firmware updates to fix some small issues here and there, and this is what they tell you, barely over a year after you bought it:

Since this type of unit is no longer made, it’s unlikely there will be any further firmware updates for

So am I surprised that my piece of junk Lacie D2 NAS does not support the latest AFP protocol required for Time Machine?

Of course I’m not. But who cares, it’s not like I trusted the thing as my main backup anyways.

Cause: The LaCie NAS OS does not support Time Machine with Mac OS X Lion.
Solution: Use Mac OS X 10.6.x or earlier when using Time Machine to back up your Mac to a LaCie network hard drive.

But I’m sorry. The solution is actually to buy hardware from a company that at least pretends to give a damn. Apple should be ashamed of allowing this junk in an Apple store. I don’t care how cool your USB sticks look or how fast your Thunderbolt drives are, LaCie, I’d rather use old Sony 1.44inch floppies. Oh, and I called my D2 “Lassie”, cause it runs like a dog.

( http://xkcd.com/458/ )

I couldn’t resist.

Actual Numbers from Google (Canada)

“I should have kissed her” : 7730

“I shouldn’t have kissed her:” 806

Results from Cuil

I should have kissed her: 4

I shouldn’t have kissed her: 0

My regret is actually having wasted time to check this out. I actually feel guilty comparing anything to Cuil, since it might generate some “buzz” around it.

Does this make anyone want to buy it? Why would I want to buy an Identity Management solution when I see that? What, it’s so great the people who work with it have time to learn ballet instead of how to use it? Wow.

However, this is very amusing:

http://identityhero.sun.com/

Run over people to “provision them” , manage groups, give Single Sign on capability to users, burn auditors…

And the third weird to hell thing about this is the video about Federated Access/Web SSO. Yes, I said Federated, so an obvious bad pun would be…uh..this

How is someone supposed to trust having access to their money if needed when the banks are closed and the ATM’s crash all the time?

Oh, they want to beat Google!

Oh, they have some super wise intelligent technology so the results are better!

Wait a minute. Has anyone ever been able to actually FIND something using Cuil? I mean, at first I didn’t even want to try it because the name sounded stupid, but I forced myself to try it in case it was good. I mean, the homepage is pretty clean, which is nice.

So, at one point today I wanted some details about a group policy setting versus how it affects Internet Explorer precisely. So I “Cuiled” this:

Group policy prevent save username Internet explorer

And got THIS:

No results were found for: Group policy prevent save username Internet explorer

If you’ve checked your spelling, you could try using fewer or different keywords to broaden your search.

Still no luck? Send us your feedback: noresults@cuil.com

Ok, so you didn’t find anything, and you want me to go through the trouble of SENDING YOU AN EMAIL? Are you nuts? I want to find stuff, not email you ! What are you going to do, email me the results back?

I tried a few other searches, and I either got no results, or got a ton of results which were mostly spam.

I don’t doubt that they have some “Cuil” technology over there, but it isn’t nearly ready for prime-time. Re-launch in a year and we’ll see.

Did anybody get good results using it? Seriously?

1 – Order iPhone, ask to block data. You’ll be told the block will be active in 2hours, and that in the meantime, you will still get billed. No problem, iPhone won’t be here til Monday..

2 – Monday morning, try iPhone. Wtf Internet works? Call customer service…wait on hold. Be told that you probably had Wifi on. (There is no open Wifi near my house and I hadn’t entered any keys yet.) Customer service “resets the block”. CSR asks to turn off phone and back on to try again. I do it. It still works.

3 – Call back. Explain situation. CSR tells me “I see no data usage on your account so you must be on wifi”. Explain that wifi is disabled on iPhone. CSR tells me that “You’re lucky then, you’re getting Free Internet!” – obviously she was sure I was stupid and on Wifi, I can’t really blame her for that, I’m sure a lot of users aren’t exactly tech friendly. There’s nothing more she can do. Hang up

4 – Call retentions, explain the whole thing. I’m told that the store made a mistake: you are not allowed to own an iPhone without this plan. You need to sign up for it right away or I will cancel your contract and you will have to send it back. WHAT?

First, it was not a “store” – it was Fido directly. Second, I paid 50$ extra for the iPhone BECAUSE I didn’t have a plan over 30$ and/or the 6gig data plan. Guy refuses to leave my stuff alone. He enables 6gig plan on my account. Hang up.

5 – Call CSR. Explain previous call with reference number. CSR says “Oh, he must’ve been confused, the policies change so often”. Well he was extremely aggressive, and I bet they get paid commission on selling data plans, how weird. CSR cancels my data plan, waives the cancellation fees. CSR contacts tech support. Tech support tells him that the wrong “block” was on my account from the beginning. They say that within 2 hours it should be completely blocked.

6 – After waiting 2 hours…let’s test. Yes, I still have 3g god dammit!

7 – Called CSR. Found someone with a brain this time (previous CSR was nice as well, unlike the 2nd one in the morning aka Ms. Free Internet and Mr. “Send me your money or your iPhone). He tries to contact tech support but it’s taking too long. Says he will call me back. He calls me back maybe an hour later, saying that they put another block on my iPhone and that if it still works now, they’ll see what else they can do. I test while on the phone, 3g works. He says I might have to reset the phone, so I have to hang up. He tells me to call back if it still works. I shut the phone off…turn it on… 3g still works.

8 – Called back to leave a message for previous CSR to call me back. He should call me back today.

Update!

9 – Obviously they didn’t call me back! I called back late, finally got someone on the line. As soon as I asked for a possible rebate or some kind very subtly, he went to tech support for 20minutes, and they found an issue in the switch’s configuration. It got instantly disabled (Edge, 3g) !
Great, so now I have an ipod touch with phone capability. I’ll probably sign up for the data eventually, as soon as they have plans smaller than 6gig for 30$.