Congratulations to them for sucking a little less than I expected.

Because I always delete files with shift+delete combination, there have been several occasions in the past that I needed to un-delete the files which I mistakenly made disappear. In fact, once I deleted a directory containing all my close-to-finish PhD studies – years of work has gone in a blink of an eye! Thanks to Dropbox, which is a real life saver by the way, I was able to recover them all.

You probably know that files still remain on the filesystem in a masked state, even if you think you permanently deleted them. That in my mind, I always have a recovery software installed on my computers in case of an emergency.

An old version of UFS Explorer was installed on my PC when my brother asked me to recover his photos, and it certainly was my first shot. However, it wasn’t even able to find the deleted files on the memory card. Then I thought that I might need something newer, something more modern this time and tried FileRestore Professional. Although FileRestore was able to see the deleted files on the filesystem of the card, it can only read photos in a garbled form, which was useless.

It was obvious that the photos on the card were malformed somehow and I need to find something specific for photos. Something can carve the data from the memory card and turn it into a human readable state. While searching for such tool, I stumbled upon to TestDisk & PhotoRec suite. Instead their outdated latest stable, I downloaded the v6.12-WIP (beta) version. With that, I was able to recover all digital images from the memory card in a few moments with PhotoRec, without any errors.

TestDisk & PhotoRec suite is free (open sourced, GPL v2) software. It’s Windows version is actually a Cygwin port and it runs in command-line. But, don’t let that scare you, its usage is pretty straight forward. Before wasting your money on propriety software, give TestDisk & PhotoRec suite a chance. It worked flawlessly for me, probably will work for you too ;)

Anyway, here are the problems I’m encountering with Firefox 4 so far:

• It is slow.
  I read everywhere how fast Firefox 4 is, beats this on X test, smokes that on Y etc. Unfortunately, this is not the case for me. In my experience, Firefox 4 is a memory hungry piece of junk. I don’t care how fast is its new javascript engine or how effective its fancy hardware acceleration techniques, if it needs to consume more than half of the installed memory on my system to do that. I’m getting hard time to understand how a software, which drives the system to a swapping death, can be considered “fast”?
  I know, Firefox may seem slower to me because of my old PC and the plugins I’m using, but I’m not going to accept these as excuses. If I’m able to use the latest version of Chrome (+plugins) without any problems on the same computer and was satisfied with the performance of the previous version of Firefox, it’s the Mozilla to blame, not my PC.
• It fails to render Helvetica fonts correctly.
  Although it has been a known issue in the beta releases, looks like Mozilla didn’t care to fix it in the stable. Annoying.
• F6 is not working.
  I like using keyboard shortcuts and F6 was one of my favorites. It’s function was ( and still is on other major browsers like Safari, Chrome and Opera) to highlight the address bar for input. Now it only selects the current tab. Useless and annoying.

Unfortunately, they appear to left those good days far behind.

Here is what happened with my last order; I ordered four different items as a package. After couple of weeks, they told me that they couldn’t find the memory card reader I ordered, hence they split my order in two shipments. They sent the first three item after their message and told me that they’ll send the remaining item when it’ll become available.

A few more weeks later, I wondered about my card reader and tried contacting them through their online chat support. After waiting almost half an hour before I could find someone to talk to, I told my problem to the staff. She told me that they are still waiting for the supplier.

Thought since I have a pending order in the system, I might try adding a new item to my order. Since my first order has tracking because total was higher than $15, my pending order will certainly have tracking as well and I can use that opportunity to add free tracking to my new order, which was below $15 by itself.

Asked her that how long will it take them to get the item I was thinking add to my pending order. She told me that the item is out of their stock and she can’t give any ETA. Because the item I was thinking to add was listed as “in stock” on the site, I was surprised with her answer. When I asked her about this inconsistency between the site and her answer, she copy&pasted this fine-print from the footer of the site to me:

Note: Stock and Availability shown on this site is for your reference only. While we strive to provide the most accurate and timely stock and availability information, availability information may become out of date and may change between the time you added an item to cart and the time your order is received.

After her responses, I gave up the idea of adding a new item to my pending order and decided wait. And I waited a lot!

I’ve put my order on 24th December 2010 and they’ve send me an email only 4 days ago stating that my they’ve shipped my last item. Yes, exactly 89 days after my purchase. Considering item hasn’t arrived yet and probably won’t for another two weeks, it’ll take more than hundred days to get an item from DealExtreme.

I will definitely not buy anything from them in the future and I suggest you to do the same. There are a lot of alternatives, try them instead.

Wish the article published today on New York Times was a fine piece of satirical humor. On the contrary, it contains the sad but true facts about our ignorance on nuclear energy, from top government officials to the average Joe.

I quote:

“Nothing, absolutely nothing has changed in 25 years,” Mr. Gurbuz said Monday during an interview, referring to the Turkish government’s response to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, fallout from which hit Turkey’s Black Sea coast.

According to a Greenpeace report published in 1996, Cahit Aral, the trade minister at the time of the Chernobyl meltdown, coaxed Turks to drink tea from the contaminated harvest, telling them that “a little radiation is good for you.” Mr. Aral, now 84, drank the tea on television to persuade compatriots to follow his example. The then-prime minister, Turgut Ozal, proclaimed that “radioactive tea tastes better,” while Kenan Evren, then president, claimed radiation was good for the bones.

Even without a nuclear reactor, Turkey in 1999 rated a level 3 incident on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event scale, classified as “serious,” when a container of highly radioactive Cobalt-60 turned up at an Istanbul junkyard, Mr. Gurbuz said.

You can read the full article here.

I say tabloid-ish because the papers’ new size is little bigger than the tabloid standard. According to their new editor in chief Mr. Can, they choose this format – the “Radikal Size” – because it suits better for Turkish readers needs (comparing it with the tabloid size) and, combined with contextual changes, this represents “a radical revolution in media”.

I have to admit that I liked the new size. It’s now much easier to read the paper, i.e. you don’t need think if you’re going to disturb the by-sitter on the bus while turning the page. However, contrary to the Mr. Can’s idea, I think they choose this size not because of the limitations of the tabloid, but because of the newspaper stands here in Turkey.

Since all newspapers in Turkey use the traditional “broadsheet format”, stands have pockets for holding broadsheet newspapers folded in two. If they would have gone for tabloid instead of their current format, Radikal would fell short in size when presented with traditional newspapers in conventional stands and, to the untrained eye, image of Radikal would seem more like a magazine than a newspaper, which obviously would affect their sales in return.

Radikal’s new size is equal to a traditional broadsheet newspapers’ size when folded in two and, as you can easily see in the picture I took on the top left, the first thing a reader probably recognize would be its layout, rather than its size. I think what Radikal doing here is trying to soften the switch by mimicking the traditional.

I hope their clever marketing trick will ease the consequences of their revolution bold move :)

Now, I’m about to permanently leave the town which I’m living for 14 years and the university which I’m working for nearly 9 years, thought that I would probably need something more efficient than email and IM for keeping connections with my friends and colleagues. Since all of them are using Facebook (just like the rest of the world must I say, if we consider the network is dwarfing any other alternative with its 400 million users!), using it seems inevitable. So, I decided to came out of the rock I’m hiding under for years, and created myself a profile.

Since every once in a while I read about privacy concerns of Facebook users on the net, I was skeptical about how it handles the privacy, and this was on top of my list of reasons for not using Facebook. However, I found their way of handling privacy more robust than I imagened. It looks like Facebook listens their users voice (“scream” could be more appropriate here), and evolves with their needs, which is good know.

I still have few annoyances about the service though;

• Joining a network shouldn’t automatically change your privacy settings
  There are a lot of options that lets you fine tune your privacy at the privacy settings section, but you probably know that already :) Anyway, I tuned everything, than I joined the network of my university and – almost – every setting on that page automatically changed to allow the members of my university network to see everything on my profile! Approximately 1000 people are working in my university and more than 20000 students are having education. There is obviously no chance I’m knowing them all :) Also, since anyone can join the network even if they are not affiliated with my university in any way, anyone can see my full profile, wall etc., regardless what I set on the privacy section. What is the point of “friending” then? I don’t know.
• There should be a way to moderate wall posts before they get published
  I know, this may be a stupid wish for a network like Facebook, but I really would like to have more moderation rights on my wall. We all know that not everybody in our friend list is really our “friend” (who has 500+ “friends” in real life, right?). We sometimes add people we see on the corridor to our office or people in our neighborhood just to be polite, who we just say “hello” or “good morning” once in a while. Can he/she turn into a jackass one day? You can’t be sure. Also, you may have bad times with your real friends, who can post things you may not want to see on your wall after your argument. It’s possible to think more scenarios here. What I’m trying to tell is just being able to remove posts from my wall is not enough, I should also be able to approve posts before they show themselves up on my wall. Being able to customize the group of people allowed to post on my wall with lists (rather than all my “friends”) could also work, I guess.
• Navigating through pages are difficult than I thought
  I don’t know what it’s like before, but I found the new design difficult to navigate. I think clicking on the “Facebook” on the header should take me to the home page (or refresh the homepage, if I’m already there) rather than just refreshing my news feed. Also, I didn’t like pop-up boxes and I’d love to see a direct link to my friend list somewhere on the top navigation menu.
• Applications are not descriptive enough
  There usually are very limited information on the application pages about their functionality and how they are handling privacy.

I’m looking for a useful Greasemonkey script for Facebook, like to hear your suggestions. Also, I’d like to hear which applications you are using. Couldn’t find anything interesting by myself. Looks like there are tons of alternatives if you are MMORPG gamer, but there is nothing really interesting if you are not :)

Now, I’ve dedicated myself enjoying the unusual emptiness in my life, which feels eternal for the time being but will last with the beginning of April :/ Military service is mandatory for every healthy men in Turkey and I have postponed it to date because of my studies. The first week of April will probably mark the beginning of that duty.

There are several alternative ways for serving in Turkish Military depending on your education and in my case it will either take ~6 months if I’m lucky or a whole year if I’m not!

So, please wish me luck :)

This is kind of late reporting and I’m sorry about it. I was really busy at work and couldn’t create much time for an update. Anyway, it is always better late than never, right? So, here is the rest of the story;

A week after I blogged about the Philips customer service’s approach to my problem with my Philips earphones, a friend advised that “Why don’t you file a dispute at the local commission of consumer problems arbitrators at the district governorship? It’s a much more effective way than writing on about your problem on your web, just let the officials deal with them”. And I thought “Why not?”.

I called the office and they told me that all I need is a service report stating that my item neither can be repaired, nor can be replaced under the terms of its warranty. So, I went back to local Philips customer service center and insisted them to take my earphones for repairs and told them they should check my situation with their head office at Istanbul.

Well, I have to admit that I lied to the lady at the service center :) I told her that, after I blogged about my problem, somebody from their Istanbul head offices contacted me and told me that I should take my earphones to our local service center, then they will solve my problem. In reality, although my blog has been visited several times by some people from Philips (first an IP from Germany, then USA and lastly from Turkey), nobody had called me from their Istanbul head offices.

Another week passed by and I’ve got a call from Philips head office at Istanbul. Representative on the phone told me that my earphones has been fixed and I can get it back from my local service center. When I asked her “Both your local service center here and your representative on the toll free customer care line told me that the Philips does not produce spares for the part missing on my earphone. How could you find this part?”. She told me that they’ve tried really hard for my satisfaction.

Am I satisfied? Of course not. This should happen before I wrote about my problem on several places on the net and decided to go to commission of consumer problems arbitrators. Resolution should came at the moment I entered in their local service center, not a month later.

In the end: spares miraculously found and my earphones has been fixed free of charge, which feels like a happy ending.

I’ve bought a pair of Philips earphones (SHE 3600) 6 months ago and, because they use a weak adhesive material putting it on while manufacturing, the rubber cover of the left earphone dropped last week. Since it is impossible to wear the naked earphone because of the uncovered sharp edges after the rubber cover dropped, I’ve decided to call Philips for help. I thought that 2 years warranty Philips offered is still valid, why not use it?

I called the toll free number written on the warranty and they gave me the number of the local service center.

I told my problem to the Philips representative at the local service center. She told me that “because the dropped part is an accessory, Philips doesn’t produce any replacements for it”. After a few seconds of shock, I told her back; “How could this part is considered as an accessory? It’s impossible to use the earphone without it because of the underlying sharp edges. If it is preventing my usage with its absence, then it is obviously a necessary part for the functioning of the earphone!”. Then I told her that if they are not producing spares for this part, they should replace the earphones. She told me that they can’t replace the earphones unless the sound is problematic or there is no sound coming.

After I felt the dead end, I left the service center and called the Philips customer care again, and told them her response to my problem. The lady on the line approved their approach to my problem and told me pretty much the same things. I told her that it’s written on the warranty that the “whole product, including all parts, is under warranty of Philips”. She told me that the warranty only covers “malfunctions”. Meaning; only sound complaints about the Phillips earphones are considered worth giving repairs or replacements under the warranty, according to Philips.

Well, that sucks.

I always believe that there are little or no differences between products of competing well-known consumer electronics brands and what makes a company “big” in its league is the customer support.

I can understand not producing spares for a product which itself retails between $15-20. But, if you are offering 2 years warranty to that cheap-labored product, you must at least show the courtesy of offering new one instead of lowering your reputation, which doesn’t come easy.