Jay Lagare

When I got home yesterday afternoon, Gretchen told me the iPad wouldn’t start. I figured the battery self-drained and I left it charging while Jeanne and I went to the playground to play for a bit. When I got back, the iPad still wouldn’t start. I tried the home button and the power button. No luck. I was about to give up and resigned to returning it to the shop. As one last effort, I searched for “ipad won’t start” and I saw this YouTube link. I followed the instructions: I connected the iPad to the MacBook, started iTunes, pressed the home and power button at the same time for 10 seconds, released the power button, and continued pressing the home buttons for 10 more seconds. Then I clicked the restore button on iTunes. The iPad finally started up, restored, and synced.

Whew again!

UPDATE: Looks like there’s a whole procedure from Apple for reviving an iPad that is not responding.

This blog site crashed yesterday night. I tried upgrading WordPress to the latest version and it wouldn’t start because of an old version of PHP. A few weeks ago, I had also tried upgrading and there was a compatibility check which indicated I need a newer version of PHP. Soon after that, my hosting service informed me that they will be updating PHP among others.

So last night, I tried upgrading again and it seem to have passed the compatibility check as there was no error message or anything. Success, I thought. Then I tried accessing the site and was greeted by “”Your server is running PHP version 4.4.9 but WordPress 3.2.1 requires at least 5.2.4.”

Obviously the compatibility check didn’t even run and my hosting service has not yet updated PHP. Looked like I have to roll back. No problem, I thought, since the upgrade procedure made backups of the old WordPress database and files. I used PHPMyAdmin to delete the new database. Then I ran the SQL script to restore the old database. Quick and easy.

Next step is to restore the old files. It was then that Murphy’s Law reared its ugly head. Since I had no real shell access (sucks!), I had to rely on WebShell (yech!) and for some reason I couldn’t copy the backup files. After tinkering around for an hour or so, I eventually called it a night and requested tech support to copy the files.

This morning, I saw that the files have been copied but WordPress needs to be configured. Good thing there’s a quick script for that. Bad things is it’s not working. It seems I didn’t have the right settings. It took me an hour or so of digging around the files in server before I found the proper settings. That done, the site finally started started up.

And then I saw the broken images. Apparently, while tinkering around with WebShell, I had accidentally deleted the old wp-content folder which holds uploads among others. I dug around my files for a backup but couldn’t find any. Giving up, I asked tech support if they have a backup and, if so, to restore it. As luck would have it, they did have a backup and in literally just a matter of minutes, the wp-content folder was restored and the images were fixed.

Whew!

A view from the ground up. Reasons why Globe will fail:

1. Elitism – Maybe it’s a colonial Spanish thing but Ayala always had elitism in its corporate gene. Its real estate businesses have until recently only focused on the high-end. BPI always has this “preferred clients” counter in its branches. If you’re not one of these “preferred clients” what are you? The unpreferred? As for Globe, they have Platinum subscribers. My brother-in-law Edong was about to buy a phone when it was pulled out from literally under his nose because a Platinum subscriber wanted what happened to be the last available unit of that phone. It may not be unprofitable to focus on the high-end but the way they’re doing it is alienating a lot of customers.
2. Lack of Marketing Focus – Globe is fighting tooth and nail against Sun for bragging rights on who has the most postpaid subscribers. And yet they run promos for prepaid subcribers that make it more advantagous to be on prepaid. I guess it’s because Globe was rather late into the prepaid card business so they’re not so good at it yet. Or maybe prepaid is really more profitable. Whichever it is, they should focus. And speaking of marketing, what’s up with “Tattoo”? That and the cheap stickers they use. It’s the first thing that goes, I’m sure.
3. Lack of Innovation – I know of some tech geek friends who work or used to work with Smart and Sun but not one who works with Globe. And it shows. Smart or Sun are usually ahead of Globe in terms of product offerings: Prepaid cards, E-cash, broadband wireless, etc. Globe is almost always playing catch-up.
4. Lack of Customer Focus – Two times, for two separate lines/accounts, I applied for an bill autocharging arrangement to my credit card. And two times, they failed to do it. I end up with a disconnected line, having to call the customer service line to try to find out why, ask to get reconnected, and be told that I need to talk to the branch where I applied for autocharging. Ask for the phone number of the branch and guess what? They don’t know the number, couldn’t provide it, wouldn’t provide it. So I have to physically go back to that branch and re-apply. Where’s the “tele” in “telecommunications company”?
5. Functional Factional Silos – It seems Globe is a bunch of  silos who do not talk to each other or even know of each other. There is little communications, little linkage, little synergy. From what I heard from people who used to work with Globe, these silos are fiercely territorial to the point of isolation.
6. Non-Competitiveness – Globe also tried to acquire Sun. As Yoda said: do or do not. There is no try. So PLDT bagged the Sun deal and now Globe is being a cry baby and trying to stop the deal from going through. It’s claiming the PLDT-Sun merger would result in a monopoly because of the resulting 70% market share. How is it a monopoly when you’re actually allowed to compete? It’s a free market. If there’s an opportunity, someone can come in and compete. Exactly what Sun did and what Globe should do.
7. Stupidity – And finally, it all boils down to this. Take for example the recent boo boo about the Tonino Lamborghini USB modem. They either think too few know about the Tonino Lamborghini brand (I didn’t until recently) or they didn’t know the difference between Tonino Lamborghini and Automobili Lamborghini (I didn’t either until recently). But regardless of the reason, they decided to market the USB modem with some race car driver and an image of a Lamborghini supercar. Now Tonino Lamborghini is raising a fuss about the misuse of its brand.

Unless they change, they’re doomed. And you should sell those GLOs and buy those TELs :P