You know how sometimes you keep an eye out for interesting events to attend but when one comes up it’s either a) too expensive to be able to justify, b) too far away, or c) already happened? Well that’s my experience anyway. But today was different.

As somebody who uses the PHP framework CodeIgniter for projects I was interested to read earlier that the there was a CI developer conference coming up in August. My initial thought was that it would be tucked away somewhere in the US, but when I looked it up it was right here in Bristol, and to top it off it’s only £20 for a ticket. Result.

It’s a two day event, with Saturday being presentations, and Sunday being a workshop/hack day. Some good quality CI developers speaking as well, so all looks pretty good, and with it only being three miles from my front door, I could well be the most local attendee.

So if you’re even remotely interested in using CodeIgniter and you’re anywhere close to Bristol on the weekend of Aug 14th, I’d seriously give it some thought. All the details are on their website. Ticket sales are open until August 7th.

http://cicon2010.com/

Following on from a week or so of my phone crashing when receiving calls dropping after upgrading my 3GS to iOS4 I decided enough was enough. I had tried restoring the phone from a backup several times to no avail. I also deleted the iOS4 download to force a new download and install of it, which again, proved fruitless.

So that’s when I called O2 to see what they had to say about it. In short nothing. “Have you tried restoring it from a backup?”, was about as helpful as they got. After that in-depth assistance, they gave up and told me to call Apple.

I called AppleCare who asked me to delete the previously downloaded iOS4 update to force the download of it again. “Yeah, I’ve done that – three times.”, “Oh, OK.”. That was the end of their usefulness. Just glad it was an 0800 number.

AppleCare then made an appointment for me to take the phone to an Apple store the next day. So dutifully I rolled down to the Apple store where the “Genius” listened intently to my plight, and whilst claiming they hadn’t heard of this problem before, without any further question just told that they would just replace the phone with a new one.

Now being a big cynic in life I really don’t believe that Apple aren’t aware of this issue. Why? Well the post on their own discussion board on the Apple website which has a countless number of people with exactly the same issue for one, and for two why would you just replace a phone with no question asked if it’s a problem you’re not aware of?

You could say it was just good customer service, and to a degree it is. But denying that an problem exists when it clearly does is a bit galling.

As I was leaving the “Genius” said “I hope this new phone resolves the problem for you”, to which I replied “I’m sure it will – because I’m not going to upgrade it to iOS4″.