Experience with Aperture to share

After using Aperture for some time and pushing it to its extreme I would like to share my experience with other users:
Over *150,000 photos in one library:* no problem at all! This is very impressive and makes working with such a number of photos very easy. The size of the *library is about 360 GB*, using a 500 GB harddisk or the internal disk on a 1 TB iMac (3.06 Ghz) with 4 GB memory.
Sure, the technical demand is high, but nevertheless, it is such a great way to work with the total library, that I chose to go this way instead of building several smaller libraries. Backup by Vault is also very comfortable: the total needs several hours once, but from then on it is quite easy and quick. (the vault is much smaller, than the original library as it seems to omit previews and thumbnails).
The _*strategy to organize*_ your library via projects, folders and albums is very important. But the good thing is: you can change it later, if your initial approach does not fit your needs. Projects in my case are mostly "Years" but also special fields of work. It can be used well with each other: "normal stuff" by years, some (about 10) topics with its own project.
The other big thing strategically is the use of keywords. This is ideal in Aperture, as the checkbox filter for a keyword lists only those keywords, which are used in the chosen set of photos, say: you choose all the photos of 2004: the only the keywords used in 2004 project are listed. This is very handy and makes filtering very easy.
*One thing I am missing:* you can not tell, in which album a photo is included (often it is in a couple of albums). To find duplicates, it would be much better to have a list of albums of this specific photo. (I was used to iView for many years - this was one of their good features).
*The Calendar filter should have a list version*, instead of or in addition to the real calendar: just a list of all the dates included in the chosen set: with a checkbox to select these dates.
Question: I would be happy to hear other peoples experience with large libraries and "how far can you go". I will have to increase the library by at least some 100,000 photos and see how this behaves.
Remark: I am using mostly Canon SLRs, right now Canon 1Ds MKIII, using jpg and raw (up to 20 MB per photo). But my oldest digital photos date back to 1997 with the Kodak DC 210 and DC 260. And some QuickTake100 in 1994 - with (unfortunately) an uncommon format of file.
My photo libraries before Aperture were kept in iView-libraries, but each project in its own. The advantages of Aperture to iView a substantial.
Herwig Niggemann
(Germany)
Side effect of having all your photos in one library: you find a lot of photos which you did not know you still have them! Big surprises.

nigbo wrote:
*One thing I am missing:* you can not tell, in which album a photo is included (often it is in a couple of albums). To find duplicates, it would be much better to have a list of albums of this specific photo. (I was used to iView for many years - this was one of their good features).
Aperture Assistant will give you a list of every Album that a Version appears in, apart from Smart Albums (http://aperture-assistant.com)*. If you're using Aperture 2.1 or above, the list will be made of clickable links to reveal that Album in Aperture.
*The Calendar filter should have a list version*, instead of or in addition to the real calendar: just a list of all the dates included in the chosen set: with a checkbox to select these dates.
Agreed. Have you submitted this to Apple?
Question: I would be happy to hear other peoples experience with large libraries and "how far can you go". I will have to increase the library by at least some 100,000 photos and see how this behaves.
I'm only on 53,000 as I've not been shooting much recently.
Side effect of having all your photos in one library: you find a lot of photos which you did not know you still have them! Big surprises.
Yes. I've come across a few images I'd forgotten about by putting everything into one big Library.
Ian
*“I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.”

Similar Messages

Who Uses Applescript with Aperture and Why?

From time to time, I come see Applescript mentioned by Aperture Users. The Apple Support website devotes a few paragraphs.
For an amateur with lots of time. how would Applescript make my experience with Aperture any better? It automates what?

http://www.apple.com/aperture/resources/pdf/Aperture_3_AppleScript_Reference.pdf
http://apertureexpert.squarespace.com/forum-applescript/
http://www.macosxautomation.com/applescript/aperture/publish/index.html
http://www.macworld.com/article/2033806/import-like-a-pro-in-aperture.html
There's also an application that will give you lots of statistics on your Aperture library (lenses used, etc):
http://www.apertureexpert.com/inspector
I'm pretty sure it uses AppleScript to get the data.

Share my experiences with the B520 Model

I have purchased the Lenovo All-In-One desktop computer model B520 on Nov 15th. It arrived in my office on Nov 21st. It’s been a month now after using it, I would like to share my thoughts about it.
Pros:
Saves space, this is the biggest advantage of AIO desktop; this is the primary reason that why I have switched. Computers with a case and a separated monitor is a big issue for me. I never liked these cables for mouse, keyboard, speakers, …etc. it causes a huge mess under the desk. Now, with the All-in-one style, everything is simplified. The only cable I need for this B520 Lenovo desktop is for the power source. It’s designed with different wireless technologies. Mouse and Keyboard are connected through Bluetooth; The system has build-in with the latest 802.11b.g.n WiFi wireless technology. It also has the enhanced integrated 5.0 speakers system that supports SRS Premium Sound Audio.
High Performance, out of all the All-In-One desktop models out there in the market, this machine has the highest hardware specifications. Quad Core Intel 2nd Generation CPU i72600 with Hyper Thread Technology. This is a really powerful CPU, it gives its best performance when it comes with Video Rendering and image processing. Word processing and gaming is a piece of cake for the it to handle. I do a lot of video editing so I will only chose this model of CPU.
The B520 model also comes wit a Nvidia Geforce GT555M. This is a middle class close to a high end video card. It handles most of the 3D games in an acceptable setting, but will not be able to run games like BF3 or Crysis kind of games in high settings. This machine is not for serious gamers, because All-in-one desktops has the performance bottleneck with the video card. Computer manufacturing have to keep down the power it consumes to prevent the machine from over heating. High end video cards all have a very high demand for powers, at same time produces huge amount of heat. This is why there are a lot of people start to customize their own computer cases with water cooling system. It is more sophisticated and comes with a lot of trouble. If you want to have something easy, well organized, and just simply works, go for All-In-One. You will love it.
The Lenovo B520 comes with a Touch Screen, which I don’t usually use that often. If there are kids in the family, it will be a fun toy for them to play with. What I like better, is the Bluetooth mouse. The unique part about this mouse is that it has a build in gravitational sensor, means, this mouse is functional in the middle of nowhere, even hanging in the air. You can imagine using it like a Wii game controller.Just move the mouse and wave it in the air and you will see the cursor on the screen goes where ever you are pointing. How accurate is it? very accurate!! it’s is more sensitive and feels better than using a Wii controller. Lenovo has pre-install some games that can be played interactively with the mouse. The screen is 23″, so it would be a fun experience. I don’t have any kids in the house, so I uninstalled them all to save some disk spaces and speed up the system a little bit.
The keyboard and mouse are both connected by Bluetooth; I also noticed that every time when I start the computer, it takes about 2-3 seconds for them to become effective. I assume Lenovo has designed it with a “sleep feature” for this two devices; it helps to save battery and extend the replacement cycle.
The computer also comes with a 3D glasses. The touch screen has a very high refreshing rate(120Mhz) which is better for the eyes. The screen works interactively with the 3D glasses. When the computer is playing a movie in 3D format, when I wear the 3D glasses and facing the screen, it automatically turns on and I am in 3D mode!!! It supports a lot of 3D games too!! The feeling in a racing car 3D game is UNBELIEVABLY REAL!! I love it so much! It’s a TOTALLY NEW LEVEL of gaming experience!
Also, Lenovo has designed 4 slots for memory modules. they have installed 8GB onto two slots and there are another 2 slots available to use. This is very useful for people like me demands for more rams. It also provides four USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0 port; more than any other All-in-one desktops on the market. The 5 in-one card reader is convenient for uploading photos from cameras. two HDMI ports, I can also connect my PS3 or Xbox360 to it if I want to use it’s 3D touch screen. It has a building TV tuner, so watching TV on it is another feature.
Cons:
Even the computer is very well designed, as a high end user I found there are still a couple places that Lenovo can improve.
1. Lenovo has researched and developed this RapidDrive technology; I see this is an option on the Spec-sheet for the product, but I never had the chance to upgrade it. I demand for a high disk performance; I was a little disappointed when I found out that I wasn’t able to install another SSD high performance disk into the computer. I had to take out the 2TB standard disk drive and replace it with the SSD. It would be really nice if I can have the high performance SSD installed as the system drive, and the HD installed as the storage drive. The RapidDrive technology may become failing out now, because it was from those years that SSD weren’t popularly used. Compare to the present, SSD is getting more and more popular, the SSD is improving it’s performance and lowering it’s cost. In the next one or two years, the RapidDrive technology will likely become a history.
2. I have opened the B520 model to see the inside modules. I see there are still plenty of spaces that Lenovo engineer can use to expand the upgrade capacities. I can use some simple tools to modify the inside body a little bit to fit another hard drive, but it stopped me from doing it because there is not another power cord connector. Those extra mSata connectors are sitting there and watching me could do anything about it; = (
3. Lenovo technical support did not have a most updated tech sheet for their system. Again, I am a tech kind of guy. I was looking for a manual to better understanding the B520 motherboard.(so I can modify it and add some extra hardware to it) I have called their technical support, talked to people, went through their online data base, they weren’t able to provide me this manual. The lastest information they have is for the previous model. The B520 Model I have a the newest I believe. Lenovo should keep up with their technical support, and be prepare for experienced users.
Conclusion:
I am satisfied with it. I feel I have made a great purchase. Would be nice it I can install an additional SSD in there. Would nice if they can put a high end video card in there. Good for home offices, and home entertainments. Not recommended for hardcore gamer.
Price: 4.5 / 5
Performance: 4.5 / 5
Exterior Design: 5 / 5
Interior Design: 3.5 / 5
Customer Service: 4.5 / 5
Time from order to receive the product: QUICKLY
Other thoughts:
When I was doing my research on All-In-One, here are the reasons that why I have chosen Lenovo:
1.Sony has a well designed for their product, but the price is high. Most importantly, the video card they have is Nvidia Geforce 540M GT, and it only supports 8GB of ram, not 16 GB.
2. Toshiba has terrible customer services for technical support. I had a very bad experience with them. I believe they have out sourced it to India base companies. When the computer is out of warranty after 1 year, they charge a $35(or $30)dollars troubleshooting fee. I think this is ridiculous to charge the consumer to talk over the phone to find what is the problem with their product.
3. Dell has better customer service than Toshiba; They do not charge for talking and providing the technical support after warranty, but when it comes with parts replacement, that is something we have to pay which is understandable. However, one thing I really don’t like Dell computers is that they install a LOT of junks onto your machine when you buy it. It’s fully loaded with all these third party softwares who pays Dell for more users. It not only slows down the system, but also generate a lot of garbage uses a lot of disk space. I will reconsider to buy Dell if they give me a clean & Junk-free windows.
4. iMac is also a good choice because it’s well designed too. but I did not chose it because it has very limited expansion ports and they charge insanely more for hard-wares upgrade. They have extreme control over their product from customer modification. They don’t even allow the consumer to replace the hard drive themselves.
5. HP also has wonderful All-In-Ones, but their hardware specs seems weak. Never dealt with HP customer service before, so I will not say anything about their customer services. Hopefully it’s better than Toshiba. = )
also been posted on my personal blog

Thank you for replying.
Where I can buy a seperate RapidDrive?
I couldn't find it on the marcket, or on shop.lenovo.com / http://www.lenovospareparts.com/
With the mSata power splitter, there is a problem.
The data portion and the power portion shares the same connector I belive. I have thought of it but don't know how to make it possible. any suggestions?
the only thing I can find is this : http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0317944
but I still need to convert the power connector because it's 4 pin molex;. I guess it should work if I use another 6" Molex to SATA Power Cable Adapter.
Also, I couldn't find which is the SATA 3.0 and Which is the SATA 6.0 connector. SSD will have a huge difference in performace with a SATA 6.0 connector. This is confusing because on the B520 Spec sheet it stated both. I was looking for it's manual to identify, but no one can provides it. Last time when I called, they forwarded my call to Intel. LOL! I was like, **bleep**? It's a board you used and you dont have a manual for it?
Anyways,
Thanks again!

Please share experience with Report Designer in BI7

I am looking for people to share their hands on experience with Report Designer in BI 7.0.
I have seen the video, blogs, sap documentation, and the marketing materials. I have also test driven it myself. I have found not found it very useful for complex formatting. While I know there will be lots of opinions, I am looking for real life, hands on experiences you have had with the tool and if some of the complex things you have been able to do with it.
Here are some of challenges we are faced with:
1. Need ability to combine data from multiple queries into a single report. For example, one query has statistics and the other has amounts. We need to be able to create averages combining the data from both queries into a SINGLE result area.
2. We have need to be able to create a report where GL Accounts with activity over threshold amount are shown with a line for each account. Any accounts with amounts less than threshold, should be grouped on a line called 'other'. Again, this needs to be combined into a single result area.
When I say, single result area, I mean to be able to calculate amounts using data from both queries into a single result area. Displaying each query separately side by side is not an issue.

Have been playing around with Report Designer and I found it useful for basic formatting but not for the one's you had mentioned in your post.
SAPs suggests you do all the data manipulation in the Query Designer or Infocube and use Report Designer for just formatting the data. In the past we had issues where we could not certain calculation in query designer and have used Crystal Reports along with BI data for similar kind of things which you had mentioned in your post (using sub reports and report level data manipulation). Report Designer unfortunately does not provide any of these functionalities.
I have seen comments from SAP saying Report Designer will be developed further, not sure of any specific functionality whichis coming in. I think it is SAPs first step in the formatted reporting area and may be in the future we will have a tool which can handle much more complex scenarios!
Thanks.

How share Iphoto library with Aperture 3?

I would like to know if it's possible to share the iphoto library with aperture 3 without duplicate the photo. could be possibile to modify one photo with aperture and view the correction with iphoto? is it possible to have one library for the same and open it with one or the other sofwtare?
thanks a lot,
V.

Welcome to the Apple Discussions.
is it possible to have one library for the same and open it with one or the other sofwtare?
It's not possible.
iPhoto cannot understand the Aperture Library.
Some things you can do: Have two separate libraries pointing at the same set of photos.
Share the Aperture Previews with iPhoto.
But there is no way to have edits made in one Library show up in the other automatically.
possibile to modify one photo with aperture and view the correction with iphoto?
Aperture is not an pixel editor like Photoshop, you cannot use it as an external editor for iPhoto.
Regards
TD

Experiences with Nikon D750 and Aperture

Hi,
a few weeks ago I bought a Nikon D750 – my camera before was a Nikon D700.
All in all I am disappointed about the quality of my photos with the D750 in Aperture – they’re all 14bit RAWs without compression. The problems e. g. are:
- Photos shot with the D750 at low light conditions at home are too much colour saturated - especially there’s too much red in it.
- Contrast is much too high.
- Dark areas are often black without details.
I looked at many of these photos in Adobe’s Lightroom. The RAW intepretation seems a bit better (especially regarding contrast and dark areas) but has other problems (e. g. with skin tones).
I made a few comparision photos with my D750 and the D700. All in all the D700 makes a much better job in home light conditions. You can see more details in the photos, colour saturation and contrast are better.
Can anyone confirm these problems? At the moment I am not sure if it is a problem of the D750 (which is reviewed everywhere so excellent!) or of the CameraRAW interpretation of Apple. Will future Camera RAW updates mabye have better interpretations?
Regards, Ulf

To illustrate, what I mean: I shot today a photo (nothing special) with my lensbaby fisheye lens in low light.
That’s the way the photo looks like in Aperture 3.6 (I tried to improve it a bit):
In Apertue the photo has to much contrast. But reducing it makes the photo ugly. You can also see that dark parts of the photo (not the black) tend to be brown and the transition between black and brown looks terrible.
The Same photo processed and also a bit improved with Lightroom 5.7 looks a lot better:
You can see a lot more details - details you can never get with Aperture.
In my opinion Apple’s camera raw for the Nikon D750 makes a very bad job. A lot of my photos can not good be processed in Aperture.
Does anyone with the D750 make same experiences?

Please share experience with managed cluster

Folks,
I am curious to hear about your experience with compressor's managed cluster.
Here is my experience with a setup that consists of
a) 8 quadcore mac mini, with Mountain Lion and Compressor 4.06
b) NFS storage connected with 1gb link to each mac mini
c) Compressor preference set to never copy to/from cluster storage
Experiment 1: One managed cluster with 4 compressor service instances on eight mac mini. So a total of 32 compressor instances.
The instances are set to send an email when they go down.
Source: 4K Image sequence with 1850 images
Target: Apple ProRes 422 (default)
Output: NFS storage
Observations:
1) The target codec determines the number of segments the job gets broken down into. For example the HD 1080p setting will break the job into atmost 6 segments (regardless of 32 instances that I have available). In case of ProRes 422 the number of segment were 64 ie 2x more than the number of instances available.
2) The compressors service instances are extremely temperamental and flimsy. I got over 100 error notification for this experimental job, about a dozen instances of compressor were in bad state/dead and the job failed with many errors as follows.
The error seems to indicate an issue with file naming, but I am unsure what it points towards
1/26/13 7:03:54.815 PM compressord[12399]: *** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: '*** -[NSPlaceholderString initWithFormat:locale:arguments:]: nil argument'
*** Call stack at first throw:
          0   CoreFoundation                      0x982c712b __raiseError + 219
          1   libobjc.A.dylib                     0x92eea52e objc_exception_throw + 230
          2   CoreFoundation                      0x98226bbb +[NSException raise:format:] + 139
          3   Foundation                          0x93885d02 -[NSPlaceholderString initWithFormat:locale:arguments:] + 99
          4   Foundation                          0x93886e8c +[NSString stringWithFormat:] + 88
          5   AECore                              0x000805da -[ImageSequenceMedia fileURLForFrame:] + 399
          6   AECore                              0x00082908 -[ImageSequenceMedia readImageInfo] + 118
          7   AECore                              0x00080968 -[ImageSequenceMedia isNativePixelFormat:] + 34
          8   StompTypes                          0x0032b791 _ZNK27CExtendedImageSequenceMedia19isNativePixelFormatEi + 47
          9   StompTypes                          0x003202d1 _ZN5stomp13IMediaDecoder20IsDecodablePixelTypeEiRK7CURLRefRKNS_18CFilterSetting sRefE + 71
          10 Transcoding                         0x004c4ac4 _ZN5stomp17CQTSpitTranscoder16optimalPixelTypeERKNS_18CFilterSettingsRefE + 856
          11 Transcoding                         0x004c5ca3 _ZN5stomp22CQTSpitMovieTranscoder22configureSpitComponentEm + 761
          12 Transcoding                         0x004c38eb _ZN5stomp17CQTSpitTranscoder3runEv + 327
          13 Transcoding                         0x004a8498 _ZN5stomp16CStompTranscoder15_processRequestERKN5swamp18IServiceRequestRefE + 3740
          14 ServiceControl                      0x00cbde00 _ZN5swamp24CServiceControllerThread7runOnceEv + 2068
          15 AECore                              0x00023364 _ZN6aecore7CThread9runThreadEv + 36
          16 AECore                              0x00020ffc _Z10threadProcPv + 17
          17 libsystem_c.dylib                   0x95b5d557 _pthread_start + 344
          18 libsystem_c.dylib                   0x95b47cee thread_start + 34
******************************************************************************** ******************************************************************************** ************ Experiment 2: Experiment 2: One managed cluster with 2 compressor service instances on seven mac mini. The master controller is not running any compressor instances its just taking care of house keeping. So a total of 14 compressor instances.
Source: 4K Image sequence with 1850 images
Target: Apple ProRes 422 (default)
Output: NFS storage
Observations: job failed, two dead compressor instances and about 20 error notifications of instance down
Conclusions:
Overall, the jobs which transcode movies from one format to another have a good chance of success. However the same is not true for Image sequences.
The distributed compressor instances are extremely flaky and their revival scheme of four times(as per documentation) is not enough.
I am eager to know your experience with distributed encoding using compressor.
a) What are your thoughts on stability of distributed encoding using compressor for a large number of jobs
b) Is there an automatic way to revive dead compressor instances?
c) What other tools are out there which perform better? I am looking for a way to setup unmanned operation.
Cheers
-A

Have been playing around with Report Designer and I found it useful for basic formatting but not for the one's you had mentioned in your post.
SAPs suggests you do all the data manipulation in the Query Designer or Infocube and use Report Designer for just formatting the data. In the past we had issues where we could not certain calculation in query designer and have used Crystal Reports along with BI data for similar kind of things which you had mentioned in your post (using sub reports and report level data manipulation). Report Designer unfortunately does not provide any of these functionalities.
I have seen comments from SAP saying Report Designer will be developed further, not sure of any specific functionality whichis coming in. I think it is SAPs first step in the formatted reporting area and may be in the future we will have a tool which can handle much more complex scenarios!
Thanks.

Printing on HP c7180 with Aperture 1.5

Recently bought the c7180, a compact and nifty All-in-One printer.
Now, the task is to make it work with Aperture. So far, the printing results are dismal.
The colors are muddled (yes a bit like a good military camouflage), not the clean and crisp photos shown in Aperture.
Has anybody worked with this combination of printer and Aperture, and would be interested to share experience on the way to good results?
Looking forward to pool experience!
BR,
plq
iMac Mac OS X (10.4.8)

A few different things to try. Once you use the
Print command (Command+P) hit the "Printer Settings"
button. Chose your printer and in the third drop
down (the one under "presets" make sure that you turn
colour management off. For my printer, (Epson) there
is an option labelled just that - it may be different
for others, but check every box.
Yes, I have done that. The choice in my case is labeled 'Application managed',
meaning color profile is managed by Aperture, and not by the printer color
profile. It does not produce any significant improvement.
Once that's been done, back to the Aperture print
dialogue and press "ColorSync Profile" Chose the
paper type that matches what's in the printer from
the "Output Type" selection. Then print and see if
that's any better.
Again, I found this in the Aperture print dialogue. I selected
the printer/paper type, "HP PS ... C7100 - Premium Paper".
No significant improvement, sorry to say.
iMac Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Backing Up With Aperture -- Article in MacZealots

I have an article published today in MacZealots magazine: Backing Up With Aperture. It covers the pros and cons of all the various ways to back up your library and other Aperture data.
http://maczealots.com/articles/aperture-backup/

A second on that Steve....thank you for using your clear, comprehensive writing style to share your Ap experience. BTurf is a daily read for me and I have learned SO MUCH from it. As Apple enhances the product (and they WILL), your "roadmap" for understanding will be even more valuable...
thanks again,
david
MP, PB12 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Awful Experience with Delivery and Installation of Appliances from BBY

I went to the Best But in College Park, MD on 02 March 2015 with the intention of buying an appliance suite (refrigerator, range, and dish washer). A sales associated assisted me promptly upon entering the store, and I let him know what I needed to purchase and that I would need delivery, installation, and haul away for all three items. He stated that the delivery, installation, and haul away was included with the price of all three items, and we scheduled my initial delivery date for 13 March 2015.
The evening before my delivery, 12 March 2015, I got a call from the Geek Squad giving me a three hour window they would be there to deliver and install my items. In going over the order with the representative I asked if the same crew dropping off the appliances would be installing the plumbing for the dishwasher. Contrary to what I was told in the store at the time of purchase, the representative on the phone notified me that a dishwasher installation was not sold to me and the following day the only thing the crew would be doing is dropping off the dishwasher. She then instructed me to call the store to see if there was any adjustments that could be made that would not change my delivery date the following day.
So, I call the store and explain what is going on to the representative in customer service. He instructs me that he cannot add the installation on to the order for the next day because the route has already been made and the warehouse told him its too late to change. So, instead he, in conjunction with his manager, said he can add the dishwasher install for a later date that I was available, but the delivery of the range and the refrigerator would remain for the following date. After about 45 minutes we work through the kinks and he lets me know he will call me back the following day to give me a solidified date and time that the dishwasher can be installed.
So, the following day comes and the time frame for my delivery and installation of the range and refrigerator comes and goes without hearing a word from Best But or the Geek Squad. So, I call customer service and the rep I'm speaking with lets me know that whatever the in-store rep did over the phone the following night put the entire order into reschedule and nothing would be delivered to me that day. Imagine my frustration because I've taken off from work to take possession of appliances that AREN'T GOING TO SHOW UP. Immediately, I hang up with customer service and go into the store where I originally purchased the appliances. I was told it did in fact get pushed into reschedule and my only option was to reschedule the delivery AGAIN. After working with both the rep and the General Manager in-store I was able to get the delivery rescheduled for 23 March 2015 with the dishwasher installation added to the order for free since it was an error caused by a Best Buy employee.
On 21 March 2015, I got the calls from the automated system giving me my three hour window the installers would be there on the 23rd of March to install my items. On 23 March 2015, the crew with the refrigerator and the range showed up first. They asked me to come to the truck upon arrival because there was some issue with the refrigerator and they wanted me to see it before they unloaded it and brought it up to my home. The refrigerator of course shows up badly dented on the door, so I refuse it because I haven't gone through all of this to take possession of a damaged product. The delivery man let me know that if I did take possession of it, they would offer me some discounts because it was damaged. I said no thanks and he called customer service for me to speak with a woman at the warehouse about the damaged product. The woman at the warehouse said she was going to check their inventory and call me back within a few moments to reschedule a new unit to be sent out. They install the range without an issue. Next, the dishwasher team shows up and that goes off without a hitch. Of course, I didn't hear back from anyone at the warehouse at all that evening to reschedule the delivery of a new refrigerator.
All in all, this has been a HORRIBLE experience with Best Buy. As a loyal Elite Status Rewards Zone customer and a former employee of the Best Buy in College Park, MD, I can say after this appliance experience, Best But has lost a lifelong customer. The level of customer service I received was sub-par and their attempts to correct an issue that started with their employee giving me improper information about installation being included in the price of all the appliances made the situation worse. I ended up returning the refrigerator because I refuse to wait any longer or go through anymore drama in order to take possession of something I paid for twenty days ago and can't receive because of Best Buy's inability to get their act together. I ended up purchasing a refrigerator from Sears immediately after cancelling my order for the one from Best Buy and it was delivered next day and damage free.

Hello canbro34,
The purchase and delivery of new appliances should be exciting and fun and not result in the kinds of tribulations that you describe. Our representatives should ensure that you have everything you need for a successful delivery and installation and I was surprised to read that the did not. I apologize for your having to cope with this frustrating experience.
I was gratified to read that the store's general manager was able to work with you to help assuage some of the problems that were created. It was regrettable that the refrigerator arrived damaged, but I was happy to hear that the delivery and installation of the other appliances went smoothly.
Although I understand your reasons, I was dismayed to read that you elected to purchase your refrigerator from a competitor and that this experience may influence your future shopping destination. It is my hope that you will give Best Buy another chance one day soon.
Please know that I am sincerely grateful that you took the time to share your experience with us.
Sincerely,
John|Social Media Specialist | Best Buy® Corporate
Private Message

My experience with the Z2

Hi there!
I decided to register on this forum as to be able to share my personal experience with the Sony Xperia Z2 thus far.
To start i want to make it clear that i personally believed this phone offered a rather good experience at first, unfortunately like some other users i too started to notice the phone had its issues which needless to say take away from this 'great' experience it has to offer.
So lets begin.
The first Sony Xperia Z2 i received had a lot of issues, this one was a 14w20 version:
- The device had quite a few scratches on the sides OUT of the box, which nearly made it impossible for me to return it .......
- The MicroSD flap was not leveled and would stick out very noticeably
- The Camera lens was not centered
- The phone had gaps in the upper right corner and the lower left corner which were also very noticeable
- The phone would not record 4k longer than 2 minutes before it would heat up ( tried multiple times )
- The pictures would have a very strange colour to them, sort of neon'ish
- Charging was extremely slow, i specifically used your standard usb cable and i used the Z2 dock, neither had effect
- The back side would make a very annoying squeeking sound when pressed, even slight pressure would do so
- The WiFi would be terrible, since i travel a bit i tried it on different networks with pretty much the same results at home and at the office, my other devices have no issues whatsoever nor have they ever had any issues like this device
- The call quality was rather mediocre, quite a few contacts noticed during calls that they had to concentrate more in comparison to my other devices as to understand what i was saying
- The 'close cover message' which pops up once you open your flaps would appear out of nowhere, whilst my flaps were closed properly
To be honest with you there were other issues as well but i think the upper list is rather enough to understand the interest for a replacement.
And so i did, i had this one replaced for another one, i was barely able to convince my supplier to replace this one due to the scratches it had which they would not believe were present on the device out of the box.
The second Sony Xperia Z2 was also a 14w20 and.. unfortunately.. it too has issues :
- The gap issue is present on this one as well, same locations as aforementioned but a tad smaller
- Recording in 4k now has increased up to 4 minutes before it stops recording, i find this unacceptable
- The mechanism for open flaps is a good idea were it not for the fact that this device also keeps saying the flaps are open. When they are not I could configure it to stop notifying me but what if some day i go swimming and i believe the flaps are closed since the device does not say they are open and i take a dive? I find this very inconvenient ..
- Call quality has not improved, my contacts say it sounds muffled and after asking my partner to switch our phones and try calling i totally agree it sounds muffled and one has to concentrate as to understand what the other side is saying ....
- The WiFi issue is present on this device as well, now i noticed that i have to shut it down and power it back on again as to 'fix' the issue with streaming, i experience it on YouTube, Netflix, Facebook videos and others.
I also noticed that it d/c's often than not, i tried downloading a 10gb file as to see what happens and it literally stopped
more than i can count. My other devices do not have this issue... tried this at home and at the office as well.
- The battery charging issue continues on this one as well, to be sure that it is not related to the electricity at home i took the dock with me everywhere i went and charged it where i could, needless to say it did not matter at all
I encourage people to test their phones and decide for themselves and not just buy into what i am saying, remember this is my experience with it and yours can be different.
For me, unfortunately.. i will be returning this one as well and will consider purchasing something else but nowadays it seems personally that quality is hard to find..
/xiLuS

I'm far from impressed with mine. Very similar issues and also a cracked bezel. Unless my issues are resolved I'll be going back to an iPhone. At least if there is a hw problem they swap it out there and then. None of this sending away and being without you phone rubbish.

My experience with the N97 - "my last Nokia"

Hi everyone,
I know this is a user-to-user support forum but I believe a complaint to be some sort helps users to decide whether the N97 is for them or not. Before you read on, this post will contain comparisons to competitors, so if you hate apples, feel free to ignore me! (Also I don't think users should stop harassing Nokia for what they have done to us - the more complaints the better. Igoring customers is not a very good corporate strategy. Eventually it will take them down - people buy Nokia for quality, otherwise they could buy a rip-off from ebay).
Just skimming over the posts shows me that I am not alone. So let me share my experience with Nokia and the N97. I am too tired complaining about this phone, at least I think my experience has made sure that no-one of my friends and relatives is ever going to buy a Nokia again.
When I bought the phone for then 500 pounds at the Nokia flagship store in London it seemed nice enough. Good camera, decent keyboard and features competitors could only dream of. Unfortunately, that's paperwork. For a start, the much advertised facebook application was completely disfunctional and taking into account that Nokia clearly tried to compete with the iphone (my apologies again for mentioning a competitor) frankly a lame joke. I know a firmware update has somewhat relieved the situation now, but I will come to that later.
Okay, so I have disabled the facebook application. Not a drama, surely the rest will work okay. But then after a week some of the pictures I took with the built-in camera weren't accessible anymore (broken image displayed). Again, I have another camera and I was hoping for a firmware update so I ignored it. I had now started using the joikuspot app to browse the internet on my linux box. Very nice. I started using email a lot on my phone but again was disappointed. I have a £165 ipod touch here. Without kinetic scrolling and an extremely bad UI design, by which I mean the icons and menus (ignoring the graphics flaws all the time) it is no match for the ipod, so what i did was to use joiku spot with my ipod touch. Before that firmware update the N97s browser was also still buggy so I used joikuspot for that too. I was now down to using my £500 smartphone as a wireless modem. What a shame. But I was still hoping for some kind of magic update.
Then finally, I found out about the firmware update. I had to open my phone, check the serial and visit the Nokia website. Unfortunately, the Ovi software and drivers supplied with the phone did not recognize my N97 properly. Something which I think was fixed with the firmware update (anyone seeing a circular dependency here? ) Furthermore, the built-in firmware update over 3G seemed to be disabled. So I made the journey back to the flagship store in London, explaining the problem. I was greeted by an extremly rude employee. Well, I think that's not really his fault, I guess he was just sick of all the complaints. Anyways, I told him that the 3G update was not working and he started to be really patronizing telling me that I wouldn't listen to him (he said it was "working" but "disabled"). Maybe I should have told him that I am a software engineer and that in 99.9% of the cases in which we disable a feature, the reason is that it is "not working". Anyways, he kindly allowed me to use one of their machines to update the firmware "at my own risk", which worked. At no point I have received an apology for the fact that I have paid Nokia £500 to beta-test their products.
Now of course, the firmware update has succeeded, but is all fine? Far from it.... As many report on this forum the N97s battery meter is faulty. Countless times, my phone has just literally died overnight. It even forgets time and date! This is more than bad - every phone I have had so far complained about a draining battery well in advance. I had to dig out my old phone to serve as an alarm clock again - the fact that the alarm clock itself is unreliable is a alltogether different matter... One time the battery died during the day - after doing nothing for 4 hours in my sports bag (started with 1 bar down). When I had to make a call that day, for the first time in I don't know how many years I had to use a telephone box. Progress?!
The firmware update has also barely improved the email client - just a few ui glitches solved. However, the biggest issue at the moment seems to be the weird memory organization. When I buy a phone I don't want to deal with something like the c drive problem. Reinstalling applications on the 32gb partition helps somewhat but why didn't Nokia do that in the first place? Has this phone never been tested?The phone is still way too slow.
I can't comment on the iplayer app - says it needs wlan to work. But the youtube player has crashed every time i used it. And by crashing I mean it took down the whole phone with it. I admit that my ipod crashed a few times too - in just under a year (~3 times). But the reset was straightforward every time. With the N97, the only thing that seems to help is to take the battery out!
Before I forget, the N97 doesn't even work as a phone. In a 30 minute conversation, the call got dropped 4 times. I don't know whether it was because of a calibration issue with the proximity sensor or a more serious problem, all I know is that this is unacceptable!
I am sick of the phone and Nokia's service. The joikuspot app ran out and asks me to pay... I have paid £500 pounds for the bloody phone already. The adobe reader asks me to pay... (somehow it ran out without me even using it). Maybe you see why I am getting angry now - the only use case that actually put the N97 on top of my old phone was gone. What infuriated me even more, is that Nokia bundles this software with the phone. It cannot actually be deinstalled! It just sits there merrily and takes up my hard drive space.
Last but not least, I have written to Nokia already, but not received a response! This is a Nokia forum with Nokia employees following the posts. I would be very, very, very grateful if Nokia could give me a refund. However, with them not even acknowledging the various problems I somehow don't see that coming. I'll probably have to sell it with a massive loss on ebay.
Cheers,
Will
P.s.: I have all the same small issues as the other guys here - slider lock at the side not working etc. You are not alone... Has anyone complained about the music player? I have 16gb of music on the phone and scrolling is impossible! The Symbian OS is so obviously not built for a touch screen that it hurts. Of course they don't put much music on the phones in the Nokia store so people only find out when they get home...
Message Edited by alcroth on 12-Sep-2009 11:32 AM
Solved!
Go to Solution.

hi ! the nokia n97 is a really an amazing device. It keeps up to the promise of live online 24 x 7. I discovered it and wanted to share. Still there are some unanswered questions and if any vetran could help would really appreciate.
i am an user from India. and have the n97 for about 3-4 weeks now. Practically I have been living online 24 x 7 as The list of unexpected issues that a nokia n97 offers seems unending, some of which i am narrating have made me scout on the web to try n search answers.Not that i will be able to action information you provide instantly. My new phone has gone for reparis(sic), so once its back can do that & will acknowledge your replies.
My Quests:
1. First things first! How to request for & get refunds for a Nokia Phone in India.
2. Is there a touch querty as an input method? like windows mobile ? Request Know How. I now seem to agree to the feedback on one of the blogs.. that nokia designers feel that the average size of user hands would be that of big people & fingers like a japaneese teen. The physical keyboard does not seem to offer any additional functions other than text input !
3. Predictive text where in the touch screen menu, the words dont get auto completed. This increases the number of taps/input strokes. Is the n97 intelligent & learn words from sms, contacts, emails. my blackberry does so. Request Know How & any options to edit custom dictionary. Auto Punctuation ? Am i expecting too much already ?
4. Single hand use of phone impractical using touch pad t9. Entering alphanumerics on the physical querty is a nightmare... Request Know how on tips & tricks.
5. Green tick yes or v button on top left of the text input screen. friendly again only for big handed people. Could this have been at bottom right. Is alternate screen for text input touch t9 available? Requested Know how.
6. Unnecessary taps additional taps alomost in all menus...for eg.. sending a biz card from n97 requires 5 taps... in the other mobile phone systems it can be done in 3 taps. Requested Knowhow for shortcuts.
7. Can In a nokia we get a view of the entire events as single thread.... No Provision for search display against keywords upon I can get call logs, messages - Here in Nokia, no search filters / advanced search and all searches results plotted to applications vs person/events. Requested Know How if it can be done like blackberry / windows mobile.
8. Copy & Paste across applications. eg. Select text from web page copy n paste on message application.... possible on Nokia...? Requested Know How
9. Call& Event Logs e.g Missed calls. If there are 5 missed calls the log will show the last called time only. In most other mobile systems Blackberry, windows each event is logged against a user. Requested know how on how this is handled in Nokia.
10. Lag in picture display upon call. Number displays first and after few seconds lag the pic pops up. Is this normal & acceptable ? Other windows / rim devices show it instantly.
11. When will Nokia enable usage of Native clients like google talk, yahoo like blackberry, iphone ? Any know how on possibility of release. Any equal alternatives suggested for n97. Tried Nimbuzz, Fring, Ebuddy. Miss the chat message notification icon on home screen, notification on the chat messaging icon, sound, breathing lights.
12. Is there any planning for better email client? Likely Release dates?
13. The Java App for GMAIL on blackberry shows an indicator on icon in addition to customised alert setting tone & breathing light for new messages. Retreiving Emails is consistent & auto on other devices. The Nokia Does not seem to auto refresh + No Notification. How is it handled on Nokia ?
14. Can user friendliness be something where we can do actions with a contact or on contacts screen single view... e.g see contact on google map, Help on contacts screen/n97 help, lookup contact on server, filter by category. new address, new group, view, edit, delete, activity log (incl sms, mms, email, calls), call, sms, mms, email, send as attachment, send as im, add a custom ring tone, add picture, options - sort by, separators, sync settings, actions, switch
applications, exit. We have seen it on inexpensive phones. is it possible to be done on Nokia?
SOME OF MY STILL UNRESOLVED PROBLEMS Post upgrade to ver 12. Did you also face similar bugs/issues?
15. Contacts inaccessible – “Memory Full Error”. No other applications were active at the time of the error. Just unable to reach any of my 3500 contacts through the contacts options & do anything.
16. Pbk2 error upon selecting contacts in the messaging application.
17. Audio Delay upon receiving a call. No Sound upon connection of incoming call. Especially if picked up too fast.
18. Shows as searching for network constantly many times a day. We have 2 n97s & observed that both n97 almost have similar timing of network loss. Whereas, our other devices like blackberry do not show any weak signal signs.
19. GPS Lock. Keeps searching for GPS locks constantly i.e Drops connection to GPS network frequently.
20. Unpredictive battery talk time, standby & required Charge time.
21. Voice inaudible at other end, when using loudspeaker & especially during calls from moving vehicle.
22. Camera:
a. Picture clarity issues. Secondary camera highly pixelated. Primary camera shows light flooding on pictures. Clarity Missing.
b. Erroneous Time stamp on images.
c.Lens Cover Started to show minor scratch pressure.
23. Ovi Suite recommends erroneous updates for E.g Maps 3
24. Text Input touch t9 screen freezes / Hangs, especially when entering special characters like period(.), comma(,), exclamation (!) etc
25. Selectively & at random contact Name not displayed on Caller ID (sometimes)
26. Selectively Message & Message delivery display number, instead of stored contact names.
27. Sync Issue, All contacts not synced always.
How to sync "categories" field as stored in outlook or how to map custom fields to Nokia.
28. Format Mass Memory error, Unable to format. Unable to delete specific files.
29. The auto lock... When attempted to unlock with querty out .. it still opens in portrait mode ?
30. SMS Logs Not updated. e.g any sms sent before storing a contact.... after storing or adding
contact the number does not get automatically updated to the name. It reflects the number still in the logs.
31. Picture caller... The face is half cut ..Looks weird on most images... as the number is not transparent. In landscape mode there is enough space on the screen to put up the answer or reject buttons and displaying the numbers.
32. Browser will close on its own & return to menu or home screen.
thanks in advance for your time to stop & read. Pls do send any information that you think will be useful to me for making the n97 do some work.
NEW additions:
(tested on another n97)
33. Predictive Text :
Usage for auto word completion only on physical keyboard, when the Dpad down key is used it throws up options but the way the scroll is designed you can see the full word and one makes mistakes.
34. another strange behaviour is on the text input... this was on an email i was trying to reply. the stylus touch will paste the last keyed in word !! we wonder why.
35. and while showing off the second n97 we have (again 3-4 weeks old) - we were asked how much did we pay for this second hand unit - 50% off .. apparently the comment as the surface has got scratched very badly.
i hope the info is good use to others who want to take the risk of buying this device

My Experiences With The A Series NW-A867

Having owned this Walkman for about one month, I thought it may be helpful to share my experiences with it. Earlier, I questioned this particular model on this post here: viewtopic.php?f=34&t=12708
First, I receive very little software support for this model at all. x-app will not install on my non-Japanese Windows 7. Due to this, I have no ability to create playlists to transfer to my Walkman. Due to one neat feature of this Walkman I will describe below, it turns out that this is a minor inconvenience for me. I also downloaded the Content Transfer application from Sony of Japan's website. This utility does install and work on my version of Windows 7. It's more of a convenience app though. It does offer the ability to check for firmware updates for my Walkman. This makes the utility worthwhile.
I mentioned above the inability to create my own playlists for my Walkman. The Sensme feature makes up for this (to some extent) by creating random channels of my library I can select. The first channel of this feature picks songs based on the current time of day. For this reason, it is important to set the date and time of the Walkman. The random channel feature has not played a repeat song for me yet in all the time I have listened to my Walkman. I currently have 6,605 MP3 files stored with 5.61GB free, so I have a decent sized library. The Sensme random channel is nice, but it is not perfect. The 'Picks of The Day' channel usually plays moderate to up-tempo songs. This channel is featured from 10AM to 4PM every day. However, for some strange reason, Miles Davis' Flamenco Sketches from his Kind of Blue CD was chosen to be played on this channel. This song did not fit in with the mix at the time at all, so I'm not sure why it was selected. Other than this incident, the random channel feature plays songs of a similar tempo. It does appear that genre is ignored, so it's not unusual to have any type of song played in a mix.
I usually have the song shuffle feature turned on unless I am listening to a complete CD. This allows me to select a specific genre of music and hear a mix of only that genre. I can also select a specific artist to hear a mix of only that artist, and so on.
The video feature I do not use at all, so I cannot comment on it.
One complaint about this Walkman is the ear buds. These are constantly falling out of one ear. Also, the ear buds must be inserted fully into your ears to hear a full sound. If they are not pushed into your ear firmly, you will hear a sound lacking bass. I have to push the ear buds into my ear every so often, because they come out on their own. Any headphones will work with this Walkman, but for the built-in noise canceling feature, you must use the supplied headphones. Sony does not appear to sell headphones separately that are compatible with this noise canceling feature.
This Walkman does not appear to be an MPT compatible device at all. It appears to work only as a UMS device. At least if there is a way to configure it as an MPT device, I have found no way to do it. The difference between the two here is that some features are not available via Windows Media Player through Windows (such as playlist creation and transfer).
So far, I am impressed with this Walkman. I see nothing else on the market that compares to it feature for feature, size and storage capacity.

Thank you for your post and detailed observations which I'm sure will be very useful to anyone contemplating purchase of NW-A867.

Apple TV 1st Gen + iTunes 10 + Photo Sync (with Aperture 3) = No Sync

I recently started to experience the same issues that others have reported regarding not being able to sync their Apple TV classic (1st generation) with iTunes 10.
I grudgingly disconnected my Apple TV from iTunes which wiped out all the content. Then when I started a new sync, the Apple TV (and my iMac) froze when trying to connect.
So, I disconnected them again, and quickly set the sync preferences to a "Custom" sync. After an hour of playing around with the settings, and turning on (one by one) syncing of video content, music and podcasts, I've narrowed it down ... to Photo syncing with Aperture.
All of the other content that iTunes will let me select, syncs fine. I've re-synced my entire music library, but if I even setup iTunes to sync 1 photo from Aperture to my Apple TV ... freeze-o-matic.
Anyone else run into this issue and/or been able to find a workaround to fix it?

Finally found answer, many thanks to:
Winston Churchill Poulton-le-Fylde, UK
This solved my questionHT1784 Re: In iTunes my Apple tv (1st Generation) only shows Summary and photos so I can no longer load a movie and sync to the Apple tv. Anybody else experienced options now missing ? Jun 13, 2012 5:04 AM (in response to Savlegs)
Welcome to the Apple Community.
Your library has become a secondary (streaming only) library only (it is possible to turn syncing off by ctrl-clicking on the Apple TV listing in the device list and choosing 'Turn Off Syncing" from the contextual menu) and you need to reconnect your library as a primary library.
Navigate to Settings > Computers > Your Library on the Apple TV, you may be told you will lose all synced content, but you can sync it back afterwards, you won't lose any purchased content that has yet to be transferred. Then select Settings > Computers > Connect To iTunes, note the passcode that appears on screen, click on the device in iTunes and enter the passcode when prompted.

Experience with creation of a large number of key figures

Hi:
I have a need to create a large number of Key Figures (at least about 50 of them) for DP use. Do you have any experience with automating this task if so, can you share your experience? Thanks.
Satish

Hi,
So far we have not come across a need to automate KF creation. And 50 KF is not a huge number, it would take may be a couple of hours to create them. Also, since it is a one time activity, developing an automation script for the same does not sound useful. You might want to consider creating them manually so that you can ensure all settings are proper.
Hope this helps.
Thanks & Regards
Mani Suresh

Experience with Aperture to share

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