Nikon-Guy's Blog Site

Just wanted to thank those that have commented on my posts, however, I do feel the need to tell people, that if for some reason that I think your comments is meant more for advertising or spamming, I will not approve your comment.

Too many of us are already dealing with stuff like this, and I will not let my blog turn into free advertisement for some people…

Hey folks. My first blog in a while and it’s being written on an Apple iPad using the Wordpess App! Woot!

I thought about it long and hard on what I should write my next blog about.

Hopefully, I don’t lose you guys here. But I thought I would write something up on iPhone photography.

That’s right, I said it. Photography with your iOS device.

BTW, Rogers has a new thing now, that they will do early upgrades, but at a cost. For me, as I’m 14 months into my current contract, and they require 30 months for regular hardware eligibility, I would have to pay an extra $240 on top of the cost of the iPhone 4s, plus a $30 administration fee, in order to receive an iPhone 4s. So for the 16 gig, I would have to shell out about… $479. Not likely going to happen any time soon.

First off, why use an iPhone for photography. Why not? The new iPhone 4s has an 8 megapixel camera built into and has the update iOS5 which includes a bunch of features, like on phone editing of pictures.

There are actually a few books out on the market that deal with just iPhone photography. Check out The Art of iPhoneography: A Guide to Mobile Creativity by Stephanie Roberts.

Why should I switch from my Blackberry to an iPhone. Well, it just seems the way everything is going. More and more products seem to be made for an iOS product.

However, from what I can tell, there are lot more people than just me that is unhappy with Rogers’ move from the 18 to 24 to 30 month hardware upgrade eligibility. What about those that took a 2 year contract? Do they have to wait another 6 months? Even though they probably paid the higher price for their current phone for the 2 year contract.

Well, nothing much to do now except to wait….

In July of 2010, I received a call from Bell to get me back as a customer.

A little more was offered for my Digital Cable TV, Hi-Speed Internet and Home Phone, all for the $119 a month.

I would get 1500 long distance minutes with the Bell Home phone, 100 HD channels with a free PVR rental for 3 years and the ADSL Internet would be 12 mBit per second with an 80 GB cap per month.  This was not a promotional offer.

Since I was paying a lot more with Rogers, I called them up and told them about the offer.

They offered me the same services that I had (Internet, 10 mBit per second with a 60 GB cap, Rogers Digital Cable with their measly choice of HD channels, and 500 long distance minutes for home phone), which I was happy with, for $115.

One year later, I’m being told that the discount offer I had was only for 1 year and that the second and third year would go from a 30% discount to a 20% discount.  And that these were the terms that I agreed to.

After the calculations, I figured that I would be paying $145.00 a month for the 2 years after that.

Doesn’t it seem silly that I would agree to paying more in the future?!?!  That’s just putting off the inevitable of me switching from Rogers to Bell or another media company.  Like Teksavvy, which, by the way, have amazing deals on highspeed internet.

Of course, Rogers Customer Relations, being as rude as hell this time.  “These are the terms you agreed to, is there anything else that I can do for you tonight?  Have a good night.”

Even after a discussion with another customer service agent, he said that if they were to apply a totally new discount, I would be charged an early cancellation fee, which could be $400.00

I’m contemplating on paying the early cancellation fee, just so I can save a tonne of money in the future.

Seriously, why the hell would anyone agree to pay MORE in the future?  I told the person on the phone that I was not told it was only going to be one year.  I had to “commit to a three years”, therefore, I believed I was getting this price for the three years that I agreed to.  Not this 30% for the first year, then 20% for the next two.

But of course, they just said that their notes don’t reflect what I have said.  Of course they don’t reflect what I said, these are “YOU’RE” notes that your employees enter.  They can totally disregard what I had said or leave out some things they have said and enter them or change them as they see fit.

I’m more pissed off at the fact that their customer retention/relations department doesn’t seem interested on keeping my business or in trying to help me out.  I have been a Roger’s customer for the longest time, even before they were called Rogers, CANTEL!  And this is how they treat long standing customers?  Hey wait, I think I’ve said this before in a previous BLOG post.

Teksavvy is also now providing home phone services for a more reasonable price.

-NG

Just wanted to let some of you know about the convo that I had with Rogers Customer Relations department.

To start, I’ll have to tell you about the recent past.

When the iPhone3G came out, I was 3 months into my new contract, I was bummed out, since at the time, I would’ve liked to have an iPhone, but was told I wasn’t able to upgrade.

Quietly, less than 2 weeks after the launch of the iPhone3G, the newspapers released an article saying that Rogers was allowing some that was 3 months max into their contract to get an iPhone3G. I went immediately to the Roger’s Plus store, only to find out that ALL the iPhones in the city had been sold out. You know, this really pisses me off. But I lived with it. I had my Blackberry 8900 and I started enjoying it more and more.

I especially enjoying talking with my friends in South Carolina and Georgia over Blackberry Messenger, at no extra charge. $0.75 per text for long distance texting, if I had gotten the iPhone.

Recently, my 8900 took an unfortunately ‘dive’ into the Ottawa River. Suffice it to say, even if I could retrieve it, it’s most likely dead now.

I called Rogers about their Handset Protection Guarantee. The girl, being very friendly, I should’ve gotten her name. Most friendly person that I have ever talked to on the Roger’s Customer service call centre.

She offered me a free replacement of a Blackberry Pearl. Well, after having a 8900, I really didn’t want a Pearl. She then offered me a BB9100 for $249.99, well, the 9100 is still a Pearl, just an updated Pearl.

She took a look at my HUD eligibility. She saw that I only had 5 months to go until I was eligible. So she said because I’ve been a long standing customer of Rogers (1991), they would let me upgrade early to a 9700 for $99.00

When I was talking to her, it was only 12 days til the launch of the 9800. She did say that was my option, however, I do still have to go in store to pick it up since that is the only way to do a HUD and that I would have to purchase another SIM card.

So I went to get a SIM card anyways, since I have an old Blackberry 8130 that would hold me over until launch date. Well, the girl at Carlingwood Shopping Centre sold me the SIM card, but refused to activate it, because their system showed that the account was under my english name and that it didn’t match my ID.

She went on to tell me to call customer service to have them activate it. Which is what I did.
They did see that my name was different on the system. But the person I was talking to was Roger’s Blackberry Tech support, he activate my SIM got me going on the older BB. And transferred me to customer service to have my name changed.

I spoke with another girl, who I explained the whole situation to, about losing my 8900 and was hoping to upgrade to an 9800 early, etc. etc.

‘She’ told me that I would have to talk to Customer Relations. So she transferred me there.

Now, the next guy I was talking to, he said that only Customer Relations was the only people that could allow an early upgrade and that they would have no problems upgrading me to the 9700 for $99.00 as spoken to before. But when I mentioned the 9800, we got into this small tiff about how the 9800 ‘might’ not be available available about a Customer Relations upgrade and that I could not go into the store to pick up the upgrade, because Customer Relations would have to ship it out, even if it ‘is’ available on launch date. He said that there were no guarantees.

Oh c’mon! I was told by one person that I could go into the store to pick it up on launch date and then by someone else that I can’t?!?

After a bit of bickering back and forth (the guy still being friendly), he asked that if he could be ‘blunt’… And to give Customer Relations a call back (on the 27th) to see if it is available for them to upgrade me to. My response was “So, you want me to call back, 3 days after the launch, when it could be possibly sold out? Like the iPhone3G?”

He responded by saying “Or you can call back on the launch date, but we might not have anymore information than we do now…”

What can I do? ‘Settle’ for the 9700? Continue on for the next 5 months with this 8130 (which doesn’t have wifi, btw, and can’t upgrade to the OS5, so apps are just crap, compared to my 8900) until I can properly upgrade?

With that ’sorta’ behind us, he wanted to make sure that everything was still in order. The name change. Well, they still screwed that up as well (even though I just talked to the girl about 15 mins earlier). They missed spelled my name and there was 4 other names attached to my account. All of them a different variation of my legal name and my english name.

He did apologize and looked into my account to see there if there was something that could be done. Again, since I’ve been a long standing customer and that BELL has been calling me with offers to entice me to move to them, I’m pretty much extended on any discounts that I can get. He did work something out for me, but I’m not at liberty to mention this out in public.

But I’m still a little miffed about the ‘possibility’ or the ‘impossibility’ of me upgrading to a 9800. I was so psyched about going in to the store on launch day to pick up one.

Now, I’m sorta dreading the call back to Customer Relations, because of a fear that it won’t be available as a Customer Relations upgrade.

I don’t blame the people, they’re just doing their jobs.  But I sorta feel that they could’ve done more in this case, getting my hopes up and all.

So, this is how long standing customers are treated?

So, last Saturday, my father-in-law calls me and asks  if my car is leaking oil.  My response was “Not to my knowledge”.   He goes on to tell me that he found a very small pool of oil on his driveway, where my car was parked.

This concerns me, since I just remembered, that I had to top up my oil a couple of weeks ago.

Sure enough, when I take a look under my car, there’s a couple drops waiting to happen.  Unfortunately, at the time, I didn’t have the right equipment in order to get under the car for a proper inspection.  Checking the oil level and making sure that there was a safe enough level to get home, I decided that will have to check the next day, during the day light.

So, the next day comes along, and I go into Canadian Tire and pick up a 5 litre jug of Castrol Syntec and  a Fram oil filter for synthetic oil.  I decided that was going to do a complete oil change while I’m under the car anyways, since it was getting close to the mileage that I should be changing it anyways.  I remember the last time, I had gone to Oil Changers and had them do it.  I do normally let them do it, since it’s more convenient and faster.

I went to the service counter and asked the ‘Sevice Advisor’ where I can find the gasket/washer for the oil drain plug.  I might as well pick one up while I’m there, just in case I need one.  I don’t know about this guy, because he suggested that we go into the ‘plumbing’ department and pick one up there.

My friend, pipes up and says “Now why the f**k would an automotive part be doing in the the plumbing department?”, just as the store manager was walking up to use to make sure if we were taken care of.  He promptly showed us to the area with the washers would be for the drain plugs, goes as far as to look up the part number for the drain plug to find the correct size of washer we needed.  We told him what his service advisor had told us and he was astonished to  hear what we repeated to him.  “He’s the service advisor for god sakes!” was his reply.  We’ll let him deal with his employee.

We paid for the stuff and left to do a complete oil change on the car.

I put the car up on the ramps and crawled under.  Yup, I can see a leak coming from the drain plug and the oil filter.  I asked my friend to hand me a 17mm wrench so I can loosen the drain plug.  As I was putting the wrench on, the nut turned by itself.  WTF?!?!?

I use my hand and remove the drain plug, without the wrench.  Is it just me or does something not seem right here?!?  I shouldn’t have been able to remove that plug with just my hand alone!

Once all the oil had drained, I put the plug back in, with the new washer and made surer I tightened it with the wrench.  Next, the oil filter.  Since that was leaking as well, I thought to myself “I wonder if that’s loose too?”  Sure enough, I was able to remove it without any tools and resistance.  What the hell?!?!

It is now obvious that those guys that are working at Oil Changers, didn’t tighten anything!

I did my oil change and made sure everything was tightened properly.  No leaks, no drips.  Just goes to show you, if you want it  done properly, do it yourself.  Unless you don’t know how to do an oil change (which every male should!), don’t have the facilities or tools (again, if you are a guy, you should have tools and at least a friend with a driveway), or if your vehicle warranty doesn’t cover self done oil changes.  There’s a few out there that want a receipt of oil change done at the regular intervals.

In any case, you’ll want to make sure that you take it to a proper mechanic.  It may cost you most, but a trusted mechanic goes a long way.  My own trusted mechanic is Autovation, located in Stittsville, ON.

That’s my rant for this time, til the next.

Good evening all,

Today, I went to visit my friends Bruce, Jennifer and her son Cameron (who is also my godson).

We had planned on going to Thistle Springs Trout Farm & Camp Grounds to do some fishing.  It’s just outside of Ashton, ON, off Copeland Rd. (RR2)  The Garmin In-Car GPS says that it’s actually in the township of Goulbourn, ON.  Well, it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting.

The red circle shows the small pond like steel barrels we fished at.

They charge by the measurement of the fish (inches) plus $5.00 per person admission.

There were actual ponds that you can actually fish at, but there was a mixture of fish there (to let you know, you must pay for all fish that is caught, no catch and release).

However, Jen, Cameron and my wife Christine decided that they want to eat tonight, so they decided that they want go fish at these 10’ wide steel enclosed barrel type ponds.  Both were full of Arctic Char and Rainbow Trout.

They had a few rods that were loaned out, however, they only had a few left, but one of us was stuck with a pink Barbie fishing rod, NOT ME.  Corn was given to us as bait to be used, worms and shrimp were available for purchase as an incentive bait.  Now it is to be noted last time Jen couldn’t catch a fish in any of these or what the operators called the “Magic Pond” (which any one can supposedly catch a fish without even trying).  Within minutes, Jen caught the first Arctic Char.

I caught the next Arctic Char, then Jen’s friend caught an Arctic Char as well, with the Barbie pink rod.  Cameron this time, almost caught a nice big one, but unfortunately, his line broke and lost it.  Poor little guy, well we definitely are not leaving without him catching one.

Cameron caught a Rainbow Trout, he said that it bite him as he was trying to remove the hook from it’s mouth. That’s okay, you’ll get to bite him back. LOL

Final tally, Jen, 3, Jen’s friend, 3, Cameron, 1, Christine (my wife), 1, and myself, 3.  Giving us a total of 11 fish.  However, when all the fish were counted out from the buckets, there were only 8 fish in total.  WTF?!? Where’d the other three go to?

We have no clue where they could’ve gotten to?  I did notice a couple of times that an Arctic Char did jump out of the bucket and was trying to make a break for it.  But for 3 fish to disappear completely?

Cameron later noticed that one of the dogs that was hanging around did have a fish in it’s mouth.  So, we can assume what had happened.

Now, I don’t know why, yeah, I’m not much of a fisherman.  I really hate touching fish, they’re so freakin’ slimy.  But, I was with a bunch of girls that even refused to put a worm on the hooks.  I didn’t have much of a choice, I got the job of removing the hooks from these slimy devils.  Damn they were slimy… ugh.

Usually, I’m opposed to fishing at a fish farm, because it sorta takes the sport out of it and it’s not really as satisfying a making a good catch, but it’s great to bring kids to.  Especially since it will boost their moral at being able to hook a fish and not walk away empty handed.  Even though this is a false sense for moral, because when you do take them out on a real fishing trip, they may get pissed off that they didn’t catch a thing and may not want to fish again.

Thinking back, this is probably the reason why I didn’t go fishing with my father.

WTF?!?!?  And you thought it was bad in Quebec.

On July 1st, protestors in the southern China city of Guangzhao were protesting for the right to speak Cantonese.

Apparently, the Chinese government are banning the use of this dialect which is spoken through out the Canton province of China, Hong Kong, Macau and various other parts of South East Asia.

Apparently, this according to some news sources, this is not true. 

A proposal by the Guangzhou political advisory body, is to increase the amount of local television broadcasted in Mandarin, which is China’s official language, by November for the Asian Games to make visitors feel welcome.

This obviously didn’t sit very well with the people, especially since Cantonese is widely spoken throughout this area.

According to Ouyang Yongsheng, deputy director of the general office of Guangzhou city government, there are no efforts to marginalize the Cantonese language, and those spreading rumors to the contrary, will be “duly punished” as reported by the Daily China newspaper.

Duly punished?  What the hell does this mean?

Well, according to one story I read, a protestor that had been at both rallies (the one from yesterday and the one from a couple of weekends ago), he said that he was taken by the Police at 2:30PM, to ‘go have coffee’…  Yes there was a hidden message in that, since they did not release him until 6:30PM.

You know… while I understand the need for a national standard language, I feel the need to speak out on this.  It’s like trying to force a religion on someone.  Yes, I agree that everyone in Canada, should speak english, we’re not trying to say that it’s the only language and that people should not forget their mother tongue.  People here have the choice to speak whatever language they want, whenever they want.  Schools, in China, have multiple signs that say ‘Please speak putonghua’, (putonghua, is the name of Standard chinese, given by the communists party in China).  This warning is for children to even speak the language to fellow students during a social chat.

Funny, I don’t go up to the people in Ottawa, who are speaking another language to each other in a social setting, asking them to speak english, because it’s the National Language of Canada.

I have realized something last night when I put in a 3D version of Journey to the Center of the Earth, with Brendan Fraser. Yeah, I know, it wasn’t the best movie he’s made…  but it was there and I enjoyed looking at Anita Briem.

3D movies at home and at theatres aren’t made for people like me, who wear glasses.

The problem isn’t with the movies itself, but at the theatres, they had you these paper/plastic glasses, either with coloured gels or a type of polarized plastic that makes the movie 3D.

When I went to see Avatar in 3D, I had to wear these glasses over my regular seeing glasses.  I had too, in order to see the movie.  This is very uncomfortable, not to mention, it takes a lot of adjusting, in order to wear them properly to see the movie.  Also, the constant, re-adjustment of them, well, you probably won’t notice in the dark, but later you may, I don’t care what they say, those plastic lens may scratch up you own glasses lenses.  You paid hundreds of dollars for your glasses, are you going to risk scratching up your lenses with these RealD3D glasses?

Why can’t they make the frames bigger for those that do wear glasses.  Especially, since I wear a wide frame (Oakley Chop Top 6.0).

I guess there is a work around, that you can wear contacts, but you’d just can’t buy one pair of contacts just to go to the movies.  Sure you can buy a year’s supply of disposables and only wear them to the movies, but that’s not really financially feasible to most of us.  A year’s supply of Acuvue Oasis contacts (and this is without astigmatism correction), cost me about $350 CDN and they do have an expiry date on them.  It’s a couple of years, but how often do you see a 3D movie in order to justify it.

Most people have said on some forums that I read, that they don’t have problems and that the 3D glasses are designed to fit over top.  I say, some yes, the Real3D glasses did fit over, but they weren’t all that comfortable.  I have had to adjust them a few times during the entire play of Avatar.  However, some didn’t mention it, but the glasses they did mention, were small enough frames to fit comfortably over top.

So, what’s a near sighted person to do?  Don’t fret, I’ve found a place, with the help of the ever powerful INTERNET.  You can order clip on’s.  Yep, clip on’s.  Yeah, you may look like a doofus, but you’ll be able to see the movie and let’s face it.  People in ‘dark’ theatres don’t care.  They won’t be looking at you.

The Rainbow Symphony Store carries three types of clip on’s: Polarized (circular and linear), Red & Blue and Magenta and Green.  You’ll want to check, somehow, on which one your local venue is using.  Now, I’m not plugging for them (unless they send me some free 3D clip on’s and glasses), I’m just giving you an alternative to having put in contacts or wearing 3D Glasses over your regular glasses.  You can find another place online probably, but this is the first one that popped up.

Having said this, these will not work on your new Sony 3D home theatre system.  Those have been designed with a special kind of glasses.  These glasses use a shutter mechanism (yes, they run on a battery that you have to replace) and they will only work on the Sony plasma television.  They will not work on the Samsung system or vice versa.  I haven’t researched how these work, but they seem to only work on flat screens at the 240hz range.  NVidia has come out with a system that will work with you home computer system, but you need the Samsung monitor that runs at 240hz.

These glasses are NOT cheap.  The Samsung ones will run you at least $250 a pair.  The Sony’s will run about $150 a pair.  By the way, you will need a 3D enhanced system with 3D enhanced Blu-Ray player.

I have been to FutureShop where a co-worker of mine got a job with Sony and was showing off the new 3D tv’s.  Yep… as I thought, they won’t fit over my regular glasses.  So, either contacts or the system is totally useless to me.

That’s it for my rant this time.  Check back later has I will be blogging about my day at the Glengarry Highland Games in Maxville, ON (July 30th and July 31st weekend).