Tag Archives: UPS

My iPhone 4S Purchase and AT&T Activation Lesson

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I wanted to be the first on the block to own an iPhone 4S. I waited 9 hours and 47 minutes the week prior to pre-order the latest and greatest iPhone. It wasn’t until the morning of October 12th that it shipped from China.  I tracked it landing in Alaska that very same day (actually gaining 7 hours). By Thursday it had landed in Louisville, Kentucky. By the time I had gone to bet Thursday night, it had traveled to Salt Lake City, UT.

I went to bed feeling knowing that it would arrive in the Boise Metro Area during the early morning hours and put on a UPS truck for delivery. The iPhone arrived sometime after 10AM Friday October 14th. I had read on Twitter that AT&T was having issues activating the newly arriving iPhones.

This did not detour me. I took some snap shots of the un-boxing with my iPhone 3GS. Posted them to twitter and then began the process. I found that I needed iTunes or a wireless connection to activate the phone. I thought this was weird, but I had alternatives as iTunes 10.5 was not available on my work PC and wireless signals were weak at best.

I took a stroll to the local coffee shop in an attempt to secure a wireless signal for activation. I was in luck and began the process. The new phone displayed a message it would take a mere 3 minutes and I would be activated. After about 3 minutes I received a new message stating:

“Your activation is still pending. You will receive an email notification once your activation is complete. We’re sorry. There was a problem connecting to the server. Please try again later.”

Though my new iPhone 4S was activated around 7PM my time, what transpired in between receiving the device and afterwards is a lesson learned. I tried to complete the activation at an AT&T store in my local area at lunch. I was met with brick wall of “you ordered it through Apple, there is nothing we can do”. I headed to the Apple Store, and was met with yes we have been activating AT&T all day with one problem.

The Genius tried, but failed two different times. An AT&T representative was trying her best to get me along with 5 other with the same issue activated, but with no luck. While about to leave, I ran into a gentleman that walked in, bought an iPhone 4S, activated it on AT&T and walked out of the Apple Store in less than 30 minutes. He said that it was true of many people that day.

Apple Store employees said the same, but could not help in my situation since I had pre-ordered the phone. The AT&T representative only made matters worse by having me complete several non effective tasks in order to complete activation. Discouraged I headed back to work a few minutes late from lunch.

After arriving back to work things got worse.  I read an article that many people were able to activate there pre-ordered iPhone 4S with an AT&T representative over the phone. I made a call. I was greeted by a warm voice that was more than happy to help. She discovered that my data plan was not matching the SIM card. She put me on hold, worked some magic and came back on the line. It was about then the call on my 3GS failed and I had now lost phone service on my 3GS and my iPhone 4S was not activated, but something new appeared, a 3G signal.

After several attempts to activate I continued to get nowhere. I called back to AT&T to see if the process that had been started earlier could bring the phone to life, but no such luck. I was also told that my 3GS was dead in the water as well.

It was time to head home for the day. I attempted over the newly acquired 3G signal to activate the 4S while driving home. Driving home in rush hour I have frequent and long stops. While picking my daughter up from daycare I returned to my car to discover that my phone had been activated. At last after about 8 hours I was finally activated. However, I needed to connect to my iMac to restore my settings.

The next day I arrived back at the Apple Store to purchase a case. I found droves of people purchasing phones without activation issues, most of which were AT&T customers. For all my waiting, complaining and pure madness through purchasing and activation, I could have kept my sanity and walked into my local Apple Store and been in and out in 30 minutes. I learned a valuable lesson in all of this; it’s not worth being the first and AT&T is a terrible iPhone launch partner.

Product Review: The APC UPS BN600

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I don’t know if it was the Mac User Group presentation, my mother in-law’s computer power supply failing or the sale price at Sam’s Club last week, but I finally purchased my first UPS.

For those that do not know a UPS is a uninterruptible power supply.  A UPS comes in handy when there is a sudden power loss. apc-bn600-225x150 In the event of a power loss the UPS provides battery power for your computer or other electronic device.

This allows you time to turn off your computer of other electronic devices in the event of loss of power. This is particularly important as it allows you time to properly shut down your computer. The data cord that comes with the APC interfaces nicely with Mac OS 10.5, allowing you several setup options in the event of a power loss, such as how long the computer should run on the battery backup until it shuts down.

The UPS I purchased was a APC BN600. This UPS has 4 battery/surge outlets and 4 surge protection outlets. The battery provides up to 60 minutes of battery back up and the APC UPS provides up to $75,000 protection. The purchase price was about $40, which is a cheap price to pay for this type of insurance.

The UPS is not a perfect solution, but it is a very good solution for random power loss or spikes. My 17″ iMac and WD backup drive hold all if my essential pictures, documents and digital media. It would be very disheartening if I lost that information via a power loss.  I do also I recommend an alternate form of off site back up as mother nature has a funny way of raising its ugly head.