Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Odds and ends, Bugs/Recalls, iPhone, Snow Leopard
TUAW Sunday snacks: Some tasty tidbits of random information
In between watching those Sunday NFL games, we're hoping that you're snacking on some TUAW goodness. For your munching pleasure I thought I'd cook up some of the interesting tidbits that have accumulated in our inbox this morning and present them to you for consumption.First, from TUAW reader Tom, is a fascinating look at a pre-Apple "Apple logo." Apparently in 1969, Piaggio Vespa, world-famous for their Vespa scooters, had an Italian ad campaign featuring apples with both sides missing a bite. The campaign used the Italian phrase "Chi Vespa mangia le mele," or "He who Vespas eats apples." Echoes of the campaign can still be found on various Vespa websites, including the USA site where you'll find many dingbats and buttons are apples with a bite or two taken out of them.
Several readers including Colin Q., Matthew, and Michael have sent us tips about problems with Intuit Quicken and QuickBooks with Snow Leopard. In my opinion, this is no big surprise given Intuit's past history of Mac software that is buggy and/or lacking features. Michael pointed out some issues with Quicken and Snow Leopard that were due to expired security certificates for Quicken 2005, 2006, and 2007. This issue has a happy ending, since Intuit has published online instructions on how to update the certificates and resolve the problem.
Colin's problem was more serious, dealing with QuickBooks 2009 and Snow Leopard. Problems that many users are having include having the application crash when doing such common tasks as invoicing or receiving payments. Colin even lost his QuickBooks database, but was fortunately enough to have a backup (QuickBooks does automatic backups, by the way).
As Colin pointed out, Intuit is acting as if Snow Leopard was a big surprise that they didn't know about, although developers have been aware of the OS for several years. The company is working on QuickBooks 2009 R8, due to be released "sometime in September," that will resolve the incompatibilities with Snow Leopard. You can sign up to be notified when the patch is available. In the meantime, just don't invoice any of your customers or receive payments...
Other users have noted similar problems with QuickBooks 2007; I personally run QuickBooks Pro 2007 for Mac to keep my business books, and have had no issues to date since upgrading to Snow Leopard. Your mileage may vary.
Finally, we received a note from TUAW reader Steve (no, not me!), who was proudly touting that he broke the record for the most text messages in a month by sending and receiving 662,258 texts from his iPhone 3GS. As Michael Jones mentioned, Steve could have just signed up for every SMS alert known to man, then sat back and watched those alerts roll in to get to this incredible number. If you want to hear about this and the 13,000 page AT&T bill he received, watch the video below.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Taylor Stakes said 6:59PM on 9-13-2009
On the video....
Here's the deal it's not that hard to receive 600K messages, create your own sms number, a five digit number only for texting... like 50927 and crete an api to set it to message you.... This guy did it 600K times. Guinness could care less what he did...
However I find it absolutely hilarious that at&t sent him all the pages.
and since I hate at&t I may do it myself....
Reply
Spedione said 7:13PM on 9-13-2009
Man, that has to cost AT&T a lot to send all those pages.
matthew said 10:13PM on 9-13-2009
Yeah I think that's roughly 130 pounds of paper. That's kind of ridiculous. I still don't understand why AT&T insists on listing every text message and data use on their bills. This is obviously an insanely extreme example, but even a normal heavy user can receive a ridiculously long monthly bill.
Dustin said 8:10PM on 9-13-2009
Only AT&T wouldn't question a 13,000 page bill. I mean come on this guy is totally wasting resources. Jackass should at least recycle that, because that's pretty much useless info besides the 1st and last page.
On a side note, i wonder how many of these go around since txting is pretty heavy now a days. Greenpeace should be all over AT&T not Apple. haha
Reply
Andre said 8:30PM on 9-13-2009
The tethering data log works fine (here in Canada).
Reply
puhsitch said 8:36PM on 9-13-2009
I'm seeing the "Tethering Data" section on my 1st-gen iPhone...and strangely, it says that I've received 1.0 kb of data.
Reply
Jason said 8:43PM on 9-13-2009
It's a shame AT&T probably won't offer a pay-as-you-go option for tethering on the iPhone, for use only when your broadband is down.
Reply
TheCastro said 11:32PM on 9-13-2009
I don't get an itemized bill from AT&T. Uses to from T-Mobile though.
Reply
robogobo said 1:52AM on 9-14-2009
Congrats sms hero on being the worlds biggest loser. Nice waste of paper, really something to be proud of.
Reply
Ben said 7:45AM on 9-14-2009
Yeah, shame he couldn't afford to turn the lights on for his video.
Victor said 11:02AM on 9-14-2009
I'm pretty sure that falls under the excessive usage clause in the AT&T contract. This guy right here is the reason every iPhone customer has to pay for data whether they need it or not.
Reply