This past weekend my wife’s iPhone was stolen from a store in Secaucus, NJ. While in store, she placed it down to try on a pair of shoes and then moved an isle down to take a look at another item which was long enough for the phone to “disappear”. Once she realized that she was missing her phone it was too late. The phone was gone, it was nowhere in sight. We traced our steps back and looked everywhere, I called it several times, but it was nowhere to be heard either. Then I remembered that I installed Find My iPhone on both phones and have tried tracking it from my phone. After a couple of failed attempts to locate the lost (stolen?) iPhone it finally displayed on a map, it was somewhere in the parking lot. We ran out to try and get a better location when all of a sudden it started moving. Its next stop was a Walmart parking lot in and this time we were able to narrow it down to within a few parking spots. Unfortunately, several cars were leaving that area as we arrived and the phone was on the move once again. Here’s where the fun really begins.

After a brief detour to fill my car’s gas tank and to drop my wife off to enjoy a sunny day by the pool (no sense in both of us spending time on this potentially useless chase) I was back on the trail of the stolen iPhone. Now, the app was showing it to be at a church’s parking lot in Fairview where it actually stayed for quite a while (at least it felt that way considering I was refreshing the screen every 30 seconds). This was good news as it gave me time to catch up, but as I was within a few blocks of that location, it started moving again – this time, heading back down towards Route 3. If you are familiar with that area (Fairview and North Bergen) you know that quite a few streets are one way which made my tracking a bit more difficult, but I finally caught up to my “blinking dot” in Union City, NJ.

License plate is obscured to protect the not-so-innocent

At a particular intersection, the app was showing the phone right in front of me (and as I remembered seeing this Volvo leaving Walmart’s parking lot) it all made perfect sense – I found him. The driver (who I also recognized from Secaucus) fed a parking meter and walked into a bar. So did I…

Bar where we had our chat

After a brief conversation (where he tried to come off as a good Samaritan) he was very apologetic and accommodating in returning the phone to me. It was in the trunk of his car under a bunch of towels and blankets – luckily none of them could interfere with the GPS signal.

iPhone recovered!

While the search lasted a bit longer, the actual conversation was very quick. Within a couple of minutes of arriving at the GPS location I had my wife’s phone back. All in all, a very happy ending to this escapade (for me at least).

In short: If you own an iPhone (or any other iOS device) make sure you install this app now. As you can see, it can be very useful in getting your stuff back.

Approximate path traveled by the iPhone - Secaucus to Fairview to Union City (NJ)

Find My iPhone app (along with Google Maps app) was instrumental in recovering the stolen iPhone, but I would like to see it further developed to include the following:

• Real-time updates as the phone moves
• Show both devices on the map, my current location and the location of the device being tracked, then provide directions – similar to their (Google) Maps app

Post from: Milos Topic

How I tracked and recovered a stolen iPhone

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A fine line separates good, valuable sales contacts from those removed from reality who end up causing more problems then they bring value for you and their own respective companies. It is important to stay in touch with your clients, but please no “stalking” as they does no good to anyone.

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Vendors beware

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I’ve been puzzled by this phenomenon I encountered in the U.S. for years, but this morning’s drive was abnormally challenging. This occurrence, called Rubbernecking is a frustrating experience every time it happens and unfortunately, unlike most things, it doesn’t get easier with time.

I don’t remember seeing this in any of the other countries I’ve visited, it seems to either be exclusive to America or simply more prevalent here. In any event, I don’t get it nor will I ever understand this urge to enjoy in other people’s misery and get into their business. Common sense and logic dictate that if you see someone injured or in need of assistance you should stop and help or if you decide not to do so keep driving.

Why do people slow down to a crawl just to see a car crash or someone pulled over by cops? What do they get out of it?

Post from: Milos Topic

Is Rubbernecking an American phenomenon?

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Here’s a clear example of why laptops are NOT for everyone. This particular user has already abused their laptop in the past which was replaced by the university, but now they have done it again.

Their current machine is scratched and dented on every side of the chassis. Looking at the battery we can also safely say that it was dropped as well. This Dell Latitude D630 has been in this users’ possession for no more that a year and look at the shape it’s in. Disgusting!

I repeat, laptops are NOT for everyone and will even go a step further to say that computers are NOT for everyone.

Post from: Milos Topic

Laptops are not for everyone

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Some 2-3 years ago I mentioned this site on a different blog and this morning I was reminded of it once I saw the above parking job. I have removed their license plate number to protect the guilty, even though I considered leaving it visible.

If it wasn’t so cold and windy, I would print one of those signs and leave it prominently displayed on their windshield. There is no reason to be this moronic and self-centered and take two parking spots. Taking two parking spots in a public lot/garage is rude and unacceptable no matter who you are or what kind of car you drive.
If you can’t park you car you shouldn’t be driving it.

Post from: Milos Topic

You park like an a..hole

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Facebook has revised their Terms of Use recently and most notable changes basically state that they own all of your content from now until perpetuity.

Under “Licenses” heading they state the following:

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.

This notion of Facebook ownership of anything you have posted under your account goes a step further and is additionally outlined even when you try to quit their service and remove your account (taken from Facebook “Termination and Changes to the Facebook Service” section):

The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service: Prohibited Conduct, User Content, Your Privacy Practices, Gift Credits, Ownership; Proprietary Rights, Licenses, Submissions, User Disputes; Complaints, Indemnity, General Disclaimers, Limitation on Liability, Termination and Changes to the Facebook Service, Arbitration, Governing Law; Venue and Jurisdiction and Other.

On the other hand, under their “IP Complaints” section they state:

We respect the IP rights of others and we prohibit users from Posting User Content that violates another party’s IP rights. When we receive a proper claim of IP infringement, we promptly remove or disable access to the allegedly infringing User Content. We also terminate the accounts of repeat infringers in appropriate circumstances.

A bit of an oxymoron on Facebook’s side, but time will tell what these TOS really mean. We will have to wait until content of a deleted account is reused and the inevitable law suit.

Post from: Milos Topic

Facebook Terms of Use

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I appreciate your answer as you would be surprised how many people either don’t care for the message or simply can’t read. Furthermore, we had two people say “machine must be broken if there’s a sign on it”, clearly indicating that they didn’t even bother to read those three sentences.

Post from: Milos Topic

Is this sign confusing to you?

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Late last night, I read a post by Michael Arrington of TechCrunch and was appalled by the actions of people mentioned there. Not to reiterate the entire post here, but in short he writes about a recent example of someone spitting in his face at an airport in Germany which is very primitive and bellow any human being with a grain of self respect and dignity. He also talks about an even worse example of human stupidity, insanity and greed where a demented individual threatened to hurt him and his family and all of this supposedly over either ignoring their start ups or simply disagreeing with how TechCrunch handles publishing and reviews.

Is it possible that some people are so shallow and moronic to go to these lengths to get their point across? All of this because they didn’t get a positive (if any) review on TechCrunch? I don’t know whether to feel bad for these poor excuses of human life or be in shock of extremely poor parenting skills of their families.

How sad, miserable and completely out of whack are their lives when all they care about is a simple review on a blog?

Post from: Milos Topic

Some people have no shame

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I have heard a number of folks speak this way in the past, most of which I didn’t know that well, but have recently heard a friend use it as well and had to stop him right away. This nonsense way of referring to yourself in what I call “router speak” has to be stopped before it spreads across all of our domains.

Please know that you sound stupid when you say stuff such as…

“Thanks for pinging me”

“I need to reboot/reset myself”

and my “favorite”…

“I don’t have enough bandwidth to get it all accomplished today”

STOP! Please stop using the router/computer/networking terminology when referring to yourself, especially given that most of those using it have no clue what those terms really mean. Repeat after me, “I am not a router, no one will download and propagate my ARP tables and as such I will immediately stop saying these things.”

Thank you!

Sincerely,
Annoyed

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“Router speak”

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Here’s a video sharing my experience driving to work this morning. It took an hour and ten minutes to get to work, a distance it can normally be traversed in 15-20 minutes. Driving in New Jersey is bad as it is, plus when you add snow or any other inclement weather component people completely freak out and don’t know what to do.

Hopefully your morning commute was less “eventful” and more manageable.

Post from: Milos Topic

This morning’s commute to work

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