Last summer I purchased a copy of Handy Weather from Epocware to have a weather app on my Nokia smartphone. I chose Handy Weather because it was relatively cheap and didn’t carry a ‘subscription plan’ like Mobimate did. However, I was recently informed by Epocware that I essentially needed to re-purchase the software because it was now under a ‘subscription service’. First off this kind of bait-and-switch stuff is just annoying; made even further annoying by the fact that Epocware has decent software. Second off, the ‘subscription’ is the entire price of the software. I could see paying $5USD or so but not being forced to re-buy the $15USD software.
I was left thinking, ‘surely there must be some mistake’. I contacted Epocware support and was flatly told to pay the re-purchase gouge or stop using the app (the latter option being sort of amusing because they disabled the app sometime in early July before they even sent me an email about the subscription).
The irony of this is that Mobimate is now offering a version of their software for free that includes weather, world map, world clocks and currency conversion. You can upgrade Mobimate to the ‘pro’ version which gives you access to live flight schedules and arrival/departure info (which I suppose if you traveled a lot would be quiet handy and worth the annual fee). I also note that Psiloc is now offering a completely free weather app as well. On top of this, there is always the mobile version of the Accuweather site which provides access to current conditions, multi-day forecast and even animated radar images.
My suggestion to those looking for mobile apps, beware of Epocware because apparently there is no telling when an app that you purchased free and clear will suddenly become a ‘subscription service’. I myself would not buy another app from Epocware and recommend that others don’t as well to keep from being burned by these dubious sales tactics.
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epocware, ripoff, handyweather, fraud, baitandswitch, mobimate, psiloc
gadgets
It comes as no surprise that Duke’s network issues were ultimately found to lie with Cisco and not with the Apple iPhone. After all, if this was a general issue with the iPhone, every open wifi connection in San Francisco (and other me-too gadget locales) would have been crashing just like Duke’s.
Other than applying a patch from Cisco, the root-cause remains a bit murky:
“Cisco has provided a fix that has been applied to Duke’s network and the problem has not occurred since,” the statement read. Cisco did not describe what the source of the problem was. Late on June 20, Duke released a statement elaborating on the problem and how it was resolved. “The reality is that a particular set of conditions made the Duke wireless network experience some minor and temporary disruptions in service,” said Tracy Futhey, the university’s chief information officer, in a statement. “Those conditions involve our deployment of a very large Cisco-based wireless network that supports multiple network protocols. Cisco worked closely with Duke and Apple to identify the source of this problem, which was caused by a Cisco-based network issue,” the statement said.
Sounds like one of those political non-apologies where ‘mistakes have been made’ but no admission of guilt or responsibility is offered.
Technorati Tags:
apple, iphone, ddos, cisco, chaos, iDDOS
apple, gadgets
Apparently Apple didn’t tell the world about it’s handy iDDOS feature of the iPhone; places like Duke University had to find out about it for themselves.
The built-in 802.11b/g adapters on several iPhones periodically flood sections of the Durham, N.C. school’s pervasive wireless LAN with MAC address requests, temporarily knocking out anywhere from a dozen to 30 wireless access points at a time. Campus network staff are talking with Cisco, the main WLAN provider, and have opened a help desk ticket with Apple. But so far, the precise cause of the problem remains unknown.
That’s because the misbehaving iPhones flood the access points with up to 18,000 address requests per second, nearly 10Mbps of bandwidth, and monopolizing the AP’s airtime.
Stellar. I suppose for added comic effect, you could ‘pronounce’ iDDOS like adios…
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apple, iphone, ddos, cisco, chaos, iDDOS
apple
Have we really become so politically correct that we have to screen for script-kiddie speak on license plates?
You know that you are not winning hearts and minds when you are forced to make a public statement like this:
“We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area.”
This would probably make an amusing party question/activity: determining your porn star name. A quick survey via email yielded these gems from some friends: “Fuzzy Boxwood”, “Bituminous Pineglen”(!) and “Buffy Maple”. Based on those results, I could see this really working for someone ‘in the biz’.
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fun, news, humor
fun
