Archive for March, 2005


Changed socks again

3/12/2005

Yeah, I changed the look of my site.. again. (grin)

Reason? Well, this widescreen display laptop makes my site look like absolute ass when it’s stuck “in a box” at 760 pixels wide. So… I made it full screen again. Actually, I took it a bit further. I removed a lot of font stylings. In my last article I said how much I missed how web sites used to look back in the day. I also missed how easy they were to use. So I sez to myself “Well, why not?”, so here is the result: A back-to-basics site. Text driven to the extreme. Fancy schmancy looks be darned. Graphics? Gone. Background? Gone. Text? Yep, we got that aplenty. (grin)

Looks great on my widescreen. I also tested it on a “normal” display and it looks cool there, too. So I guess I’ll stick with this one for a while. Or not. (hehe)

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The Inspiron is spreading…

3/15/2005

About a week after I bought my new laptop my sister’s computer over where she is in college died. Kaput. I told her about the new laptop I bought and she wanted one also. I got her the same model as mine (Dell Inspiron 6000) except that I cut a few things here and there to save on cost, like putting Windows XP Home on it instead of Pro and a few other things.

Yesterday I got the unit from UPS. Works great. I put all the apps I needed to on there for her, including the ones she requested (like MSN Messenger and AOL messenger) and it’s ready to go.

The only thing I’m not looking forward to is actually shipping this thing. Even though my sister is paying for the shipping, it’s going to be about 175 bucks!!! darn!! It costs that much because she’s in St. Kitts..
darn is that expensive. Were I to ship it local it would be under 15.

Sometimes I take for granted that we have things really good in the U.S., including our shipping. When shipping out of the country, it’s a big wake-up call. Big. (grin)

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Warmer weather a welcome change

3/15/2005

There has been absolutely no snow since this week started, and for that I am thankful. According to the weekly forecast there is no snow in sight. Thank God for that, too. I, like everyone else I know, am absolutely SICK of this GADDAM SNOW.

Sure, us New Engladers are used to snow. It happens every year. It only tends to piss people off (yours truly included) when it drags on and on and on. As soon as you get a little break in the snow action, -wham-, another foot of white crap is dumped on the ground… over and over again.

Everyone is..

sick

of

it.

I am, too.

When my birthday comes ’round this month I am hoping it will be a nice sunny day. Even if the air is cold, I don’t care. I just want some sun. Maybe some nice fluffy clouds, too. Maybe a nice big titted stripper could stop by and make my b-day worthwhile and.. sorry, got a little too ahead of myself there.

Anyway, I think I deserve that much. Everyone’s birthday should be a sunny day in my opinion. Hooray for sun.

Speaking of my b-day, I want only one thing this year. I want happiness. It’s not that I’m overly depressed now or anything, but to be happy, for the whole day, would be the best gift of all.

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Four-wheeled road kill

3/16/2005

Now that the warmer weather is upon us (hopefully to stay for a while), sport car and truck enthusiasts are appearing on the roads. Lots of Mustangs, ‘Vettes, imports and so on. I can totally understand why. This winter has beat the shit out of everyone and the sport car/truck owners are dying to get their cool rides out on the road. All of us have dealt with this winter far too long.

The unwritten rule of owning a cool ride is simple to understand if it hasn’t been on the road all winter. The rule is “check your ride”. Sounds simple, right? Well, there are those who forget that part. They think that if a vehicle has been off the road for several months, you can just hop in when the weather gets better and head on out.

Wrong.

I saw four “fair weather only” vehicles on the side of the road today. Two while going to werk, two going back. One was an import, two compact domestic cars, and one full size (and quite nice looking) truck. Every vehicle was different. Every vehicle looked great. Every vehicle was on the side of the road not running.

If you got a fair-weather vehicle that hasn’t been running for a while, check the darn thing before taking it out. This is not hard to do. Take a weekend, run it in the driveway for a while, check for loose cables, hoses, whatever.. then test drive it around your neighborhood. If it breaks, at least you can get it back to the house without costing you an arm and a leg.

For the poor souls that let itchy feet get the best of them, they will be paying monster tow bills because they didn’t check their rides first. Don’t let this happen to you. (grin)

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I’m a wireless hubbin’ fool

3/17/2005

Today is my first experience using wireless internet. I bit the bullet and spent 65 bucks on a Linksys wireless router. I decided to go with “G” band because evidently that’s the best one out there right now as far as I know. It’s best because it’s the fastest.

First things first to anyone wanting to delve into the world of home broadband wireless, you’ve GOT to secure your router first or else all your neighbors will be getting free internet off of you (it happens, trust me). Knowing this, the first thing I did was lock down my router with WPA and a key. It is now a “secured connection” so no one will be able to scarf my bandwidth.

Honestly, I thought internet would be slower on wireless. It’s not. I don’t even notice a difference at all.. using any (repeat: any) of my applications. Whether it’s browsing, ICQ, FTP’ing or whatever, there is actually no difference at all. As a matter of fact, in some instances it actually seems faster. Maybe my old CAT-5 cable wasn’t too great? I dunno. All I know is that this is just plain frickin’ cool.

Now whenever I take a dump I can bring the laptop with me to the privy and surf whilst I shit. How cool is that. Maybe I’m doing that right now. . . doesn’t that put a great image in your head?

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What can I un-wire next?

3/17/2005

Because I’m all hot on this wireless thing now, I did a little research into the subject, with the question “How much stuff can I make wireless?”

See, when I bought my Inspiron, I made a conscious decision to make the unit as portable as possible - and that meant outfitting it with as much integrated wireless stuff as I could. My Inspiron has wireless a/b/g and Bluetooth - all integrated. The only wireless thing I didn’t opt for was the AT&T/Sprint wireless because I have absolutely no use for it.

Being that I got all this wireless stuph inside my laptop, I’m going to make the most of it - that’s what it’s there for.

The first thing I found out is: Serial connections absolutely refuse to die.

Got an old printer? Turn it into a wireless print server. And yeah it will plug into that big nasty Centronics port in the back of that old printer. I mean, sheezis.. you could even make a DOT MATRIX printer built 10 years ago into a latest/greatest wireless print server. Crazy but true.

Alternatively, you can Bluetooth your old printer. Slick.

To note: The reason this means anything to anybody is because you can grab an HP Laserjet 4 or 5 which prints perfect laser copies - and instantly network it. No worry for USB’s, network cards or any other of that crap. Just plug in and go. That’s what I call backwards compatible in the best sense of the phrase.

(And yes I plan on buying an older Laserjet 4 or 5 and doing just that. All inkjet printers are garbage.)

The second thing I found out is: If your computer has USB, you don’t even need to crack your computer open to go wireless. And if you don’t have USB.. um.. get a new computer. ;)

But anyway, going wireless with USB is so cheap it’s ridiculous. Like 17 bucks cheap.

Basically put, wireless is now cheap. It didn’t used to be, but now it is. A wireless router is 65 bucks. The USB stick is 17 bucks. And you can outfit your printer to go wireless for around 50 or 60 bucks. If you have a relatively recent computer with at least 2 USB ports on it you’re good to go. Sheesh, even if you have 1 USB port you can still get a USB hub and turn that into 4, cheaply I might add.

Those who would ask “Wireless? Why? What’s the point?” The point is portability. If you decide to move a computer from one room to another, you turn it on and your internet is there. You can place your printer anywhere in the room, or a separate room, or the garage if you felt like it. And let’s not forget, no wires to trip over, save for one power cord.

I think it’s just plain cool and I’m glad I did it.

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On hold..

3/18/2005

As I write this I am on hold with Juno billing support. I’m cancelling the dial-up account because after thinking about it, I really don’t need it. I thought I did at one point, but that’s another story.

I think I’ve been on hold about 10 minutes so far. Good thing I have a speakerphone built in to my handset. Oh, and yeah, if there’s any reason to have a phone with speakerphone option, it’s so you can put the darn phone down while you’re on hold. I use my speakerphone more for that than anything else.. unfortunately.

..and guess what. Juno billing support just hung up on me. Nice. ‘Scuse me while I call them back (sing cheesy elevator hold music to yourself whilst you wait)..

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Your call is very important to us. Please stay on the line and a customer service representative will be with you shortly.

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(music stops and you get excited because someone might actually pick up)

We appreciate your patience. Please stay on the line and someone will be with you shortly.

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Okay, okay. You get the idea.

I just dialed them back. Now I go on hold again. Yaaaa.. hoooo… Boy, do I love elevator hold music. You might be wondering “Doesn’t Juno offer a way to cancel your account online?”

Well guess what, JUST as I was typing that, a message came on the phone.. “Did you know you can cancel your account online? Just go to http://account.juno.com/cancel”.

It took me 15 minutes just to get this information.. and it’s not listed anywhere on Juno’s web site. Trust me, I looked. I’m wondering if Juno does this on purpose.. hm…

‘Scuse me whilst I cancel that account…

…

Okay, done deal.

Phew. I was totally going to write about something else but got interrupted by this whole cancellation crap. Whatever it was, it’ll come to me and I’ll write about it later.

Bye for now. (grin)

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Never dis the help desk

3/18/2005

Right as I submitted my last entry I remembered what it was I was going to talk about. Okay, here goes.

As I’ve mentioned off and on, I (currently) work at a computer support help desk. The job pays the bills - that’s it. There’s nothing more positive I will say about it.

I am continually shocked by the complete lack of common sense when people call the help desk. You want an example? Well, here’s a few.

1. Get to the point

If you’re calling the help desk to get assistance, state what the problem is. Don’t do this 4-mile-long introduction speech of how you got to the problem. About 99% of the time, the tech will know exactly what caused the problem in the first place if you just state what it is that doesn’t work.

Don’t start off your conversation with “Well, you see, I was writing this document and I went do put in a chart that I’ve always done before and for some reason the chart doesn’t look the way it does, but that’s not the problem (insert help desk tech gritting teeth here). When I went to print my document the text came out all weird looking, but then I realized I was using the wrong font.. how stupid is that? (tip: never ask the help desk if you’re stupid) So anyway, I have this document and there are cross-out lines where I don’t want them to be, what caused that?”

The above was a completely useless conversation. It should have been this:

“I’m in Word, and there are cross-out lines where I don’t want them to be. How do I get rid of them?”

..and go from there.

2. Never assume

The help desk does not magically know what your problem is unless you say so.

Here’s an example of a stupid call:

Dummy: “I can’t print.”

Tech: “From where?”

Dummy: “My computer.”

Tech: “What application?”

Dummy: “Windows.”

Tech: “What program in Windows are you using?”

Dummy: “Word.”

Tech: “Is it a document, label or envelope?”

Dummy: “Envelope.” (tip to other help desk tech’s, always ask the document/label/envelope question)

Tech: “So Word isn’t printing?”

Dummy: “No, the envelope got caught in the feeder.”

So you see.. it wasn’t even a problem with Word. It’s a hardware problem with the printer itself, most likely because the dummy end user shoved an envelope in it the wrong way and broke it.

The proper common sense statement should have been:

Dummy: “I have an envelope stuck in the printer that I can’t get out.”

A-DUH.

3. Never ask for the manager.

Contrary to popular belief, asking for the supervisor or manager will get you nowhere. Fast. You can do this all day if you want to, but in reality it will cause your issue/problem/whatever to get done slower because you’re a whiner.

The best thing to do if you’re pissed off at the help desk is to not ask for the manager. As a matter of fact you shouldn’t speak to anyone at all at the desk. If you’re in an office environment, speak to your manager and have them call. If you’re a regular Joe/Jane consumer, write a letter to the company itself, not it’s help desk. You will get way farther, because absolutely no one at the help desk gives a shit about you - no one. That’s because help desk is a crappy job.

Okay, end rant here. ;-)

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Not lightly do the leaves of Lorien fall

3/20/2005

Leaves of Lorien

The image you see here is an early birthday present (my birthday is on the 27th of this month by the way,) from Kat. It’s an official replica of the Leaves of Lorien (what Hobbits wear) from the movie The Lord of The Rings. Those who know the movie are familiar with it. The image you see here is clickable to see a big sized image. I decided to take a pic against a white piece of paper and super-sized it in case anyone wants to use it as wallpaper.

Thank you to Kat for a cool gift. :-)

– edit –

This is not the Leaves of Lorien, it’s an Elven Brooch. My bad. I still really like it though. :-)

– edit part 2 –

Actually, this might be the leaves of Lorien. Not sure on that one. Either way I still like it a lot. (hehe)

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Best chain letter ever

3/20/2005

Everyone hates e-mail chain letters, which have been around as long as e-mail has been around. These are those STUPID e-mails you get from friends the say something to the effect of “If you send $1 to [this person] and then forward this e-mail to 10 people, you’ll get good luck!” Yeah, right. More like you lose a dollar and piss off 10 people.

Anyway.. I was checking out the HR Wiki Sandbox and found this. This is awesome:


Send this to 1 person and you’ll die.
Send this to 5 people and someone you know will die.
Send this to 10 people and you’ll pass out.
Send this to 20 people and someone you know will pass out.
Send this to 30 people and the person you have a crush on will pass out.
Send this to 40 people and the concept of fainting will pass out.
Send this to 50 people and your address book will pass out.
Send this to 70 people and you probably don’t have a life. At least no one passes out.
Send this to 100 people and be happy.
Send this to 120 people to actually smile.
Send this to 150 people and you might actually laugh.
Send this to 200 people to be able to laugh at me.
Send this to 300 people to find out I can’t believe you’re still reading.
Send this to 500 people to find out I can’t think of anything else.
Send this to 700 people to find out my imagination has limitations.
Send this to 1,000 people to find out your imagination’s limitations!

Awesome. :-)

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