Early yesterday, just before lunch … I had one of those technologically sad moments. My precious iPhone 3G while holding her making a call … seemed different, especially near the back. Much to my dismay, what I discovered was a crack that goes from the USB connector up through to the “Designed by Apple” text. The phone, still worked, so I called AppleCare to find out what the deal was. After several minutes on the phone, we both figured out that a trip to the Apple Store to visit the support staff was the next best option.

I went to the local store, there are 4 in a 15 mile radius of the house, flashed my Apple ProCare badge and got seen within 5 minutes by a specialist. After looking at the phone for a while, and reading his special PDF documents explaining procedure, he said it wasn’t covered under the Apple Warranty, and that it was considered “damage”. Damage? I have never dropped this phone, it has stayed in a case for most of it’s waking life, and I’m being told that the hardware warranty doesn’t cover a flimsy back on the phone?

What seems to be of interest here to me, is that the crack probably started from the USB connector and gradually got larger. I haven’t noticed it until recently, because it’s always been “in the case”. Another possible troublesome issue, is the phone wouldn’t sync a few months ago, so I took it in to Apple, and the associate took a screwdriver and cleaned out the USB portion (could that have done it?).

I do hope they release a new phone next week, because I really don’t feel like shelling out $199 unless I’m getting something “extra” for it.

Here at Mystic, we’ve been using an install of TWiki 4 for more than 18 months. We’ve also started to heavily use more of the features available in the product, and became increasingly frustrated with the apparent lack of community as of late. We get a lot of support from folks on IRC, and while some questions were answered, it was essentially a one-man show. The tubes must have been listening, because right about the time I was ready to abandon all hope, I received a twitter follow from @Foswiki.

See the rest of our post over at Foswiki’s blog. Suffice it to say, we’re pleased with our choice to migrate as it looks like the development activity, bugfixing, and general stability of the product has broken through a glass ceiling that must have been in place before.

It would seem that Sun^HOracle is actually able to think outside the box a bit. The latest way they’re trying to get folks to learn JavaFX, is by a new online interactive game called PIE Theory. The idea is that you follow along with our two heroes, and help them unlock clues based on performing some tasks using JavaFX syntax? and generally learning more about the language.

Hats off for an interesting way to show off the technology, and I think it aims at an age group that will really enjoy the thought put into it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some JavaFX to learn so I can help Baron and Hector!