Month: June 2003

Apple support and verizon fraud

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I am having a bad week dealing with big companies. I ordered a High speed (well sort of) data card for a laptop at work. We got it through verizon wireless. the card is fine, but for some reason I got charged an extra $575 on the same day from verizon. In their defense they cannot find the charge in their system and believe it to be fraud. But it had to be one of their people doing it. I called the order in over the phone. At least my credit card company is taking care of it.

As for apple. Their support is good, when you get them on the phone. But if you don’t have applecare (i don’t) you pay first and then only if your problem requires hardware to be fixed within the first year they wont charge your credit card. First off applecare is expensive. Does other support agreements cost that much? Apple hardware is more money as it is, I don’t want to pay an extra $250 for a support deal on top of my expensive computer.

At least in my case the problem IS hardware related, but I hate giving out my credit card number to people if I am not actually buying something.

IDE Raid and other stuff

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IDE RAID is nice. I have spoken of its virtues on this blog before. It is cheap and it is not that much slower than SCSI. What it is NOT, is very compatible with stuff. Because of all the different versions of Linux (or so I guess) the new versions are not supported with any of the IDE RAID devices. I cannot get drivers for either the promise controller’s or the 3ware controllers. We have both. The newest we can get is Red Hat 8.0. our older IDE RAID systems can’t have anything newer than Red Hat 7.2 because the drivers will never be made for anything newer. On the flip side I can run Windows 2003 server on all but the oldest IDE RAID system. Those drivers are being made.

I can’t believe I am complaining about driver compatibility for Linux, but people can change. I mean these inexpensive solutions are perfect for linux. Linux doesn’t need a high end machine to run. It will work perfectly on a cheaper server with IDE drives, but the nice cheap $1500 servers we buy can’t run the latest version of Linux. You can’t win!

On a happier note we have a Linux System Administrator starting on Friday. He can help with our backlog of linux related projects. I have at least 8 at last count. But I keep remembering more. The only down side is I get tripled up in my office:( As I said before it is only temporary, or so we say.

Space, Space, Space, No Space

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Work space in my office is in short supply. We are over crowded. This will continue until we finish our new call center in kingston. Unfortunately that wont be till the end of the summer. It is going to be a hot and crowded summer at work. For the past year I have been lucky. I have been doubled up in an office with Keith. We are messy with all the computer crab we get, and we can lock it up so that is why we are in an office. Well, we are probably hiring a sys admin to oversea some projects we have going on. That means we are getting a new office mate. Our building area is now going poof. I won’t feel the pain until all the kingston servers come in. Not sure where we will stage them. On the plus side this will be a temporary (2-3 months) thing. The problem with temporary things at my company is they tend to end up permanent or long term things.

Thankfully I have input in space allocation. To my dismay I ended up with that job when we moved into our new office. Not sure exactly why I got that privilege, but I have an idea. I have come to accept it. It has it’s plus’s and minus’s.

The next problem to tackle is the lack of GOOD AC at work. It is always hot. I am going to start leaving the door closed to let the AC work.

New apartment status report

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I am all set to move on July 1. I have 2 guys that work in my buildings maintanence department who will move my furniture from one building to another for a small fee. I don’t have that much big stuff so they can do it without hiring movers. I will move the rest of the stuff myself. My new (parents old) living room and dinning room set will arrive sometime in September. My mom was not just ready to redo her living room, so I don’t get stuff till then. I am getting an awsome couch and wall unit. The dining room table is ok, but I need one so I am not going to be picky. This stuff is sort of old. They bought it when I was in Junior High or early High School. I think JH. But my mom is a crazy cleaner and neat freak, so it looks like it did back then. The style is modern so it looks good.

I still need to call the cable company but other than that I think I am on target to move. More updates later.

Your special favorite place to be

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Do you have a special favorite spot you like to go? Where you feel the most relaxed, or at “home”? I do. It is not anything fancy. I am most at peace sitting on my bed at home with the pillows propping my back up. I sit in this weird position with legs propping my laptop up. I am doing this as I write this blog. I put a pillow on my lap and play music, and just type. Recently, it is the blog I write, but I can write anything. Emails, letters, etc. Hand pain aside I could do this for hours. It is calming and I always fee at peace when I am done. I don’t know why I just thought of all this. I did a thing in school once where they asked that question “what is your favorite place to go that makes you feel at ease or safe”. I had no clue to the answer then and came up with some stupid response, but now I know what the teacher was talking about.

This is an entry that either you will go “what is Scott talking about”, or you get the gist of what I am getting at. I can say that I am relaxed sitting here now. I am going to bed in a few minutes. I hope to get a good night sleep and do some Scuba Diving Class research tomorrow. I want to take that class more than ever now. I need a good hobby, and I liked diving better than golf. More tomorrow.

Work, ipod’s, and Blog’s

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Work was crazy since I was only in for a half a day due to the eye doctor. We are going to go with the 3 ton HVAC unit. 1.5 tons for our new computer room is not enough, but my inflated estimate came out to requiring a 10 ton unit. Sorry Gus your theory of taking a maximum theoretical number of servers in the room and then increasing the heat load by 50% sort of put us way over the top:) It was sort of funny to hear the construction guy tell me we were way off and wanted to do my math since he thought I was crazy. I sent him my calculations, and they were correct. We just inflated stuff. Oh well.

While I was out this morning I think a demo that someone was supposed to do was not up. I don’t think people were happy since the site was supposed to be ready last week. Keith said their was some yelling going on. It was something my team didn’t screw up and I wasn’t their for the meltdown. I am glad for small favors.

It also looks like we are going to overhaul our Dev & QA hardware. I am waiting to see what the needs are before I make any changes.

Gus and I went to the apple store in SoHo today. He got a new 30gig Ipod. I am jealous. it is great. I can’t goto the apple store. They make it tempting to buy a new computer.

On the blog front another person I know did a blog. Howard Morgan got one going today. I felt really stupid since he asked a bunch of questions about Moveabletype and I didn’t have all the answers. I would consider it an honor to teach howard something new. I bet his blog will be incredible. So far I was the first person to comment on it.

Eye doctor was not what I expected

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So I went to the eye doctor. The results were not what I expected. No I cannot get La-sec surgery but the reason is not what I expected. Turns out my prescription changed. And it actually got better. So Dr. Marks (my eye doctor) does not want to do surgery since I am still slowly improving my eyesight. I can’t blame him, but I am still unhappy. He also gave me a new person to check out contacts with. her office is right in Union Square (3 blocks from my office).

I also got instructions for putting this gel goop in my eyes at night since they are really dry. I knew they were dry but I am being told that it is bad for them and I need to keep them moist or whatever if I want contacts. This stuff is supposed to help when sleeping. I will goto the drug store and get some. it will be weird putting on but I will try it.

Everyone at work thought I was crazy walking around inside with my sunglasses on all day. the drops never wear off quick with me. Dan thought I came from the matrix. he is a freak.

Dam Apple

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I am pissed. I called to get my Powerbook fixed tonight at a reasonable hour of 9:30PM EST, only to find out that apple does not provide consumer hardware support after 9pm. Uh, hello apple. People use their computers 24/7, so you should have 24/7 support. Your windows competition you love to bash has 24/7 support. What is the deal. Your hardware is not that indestructible that you don’t need to provide support. Now I have to call your stupid support people during work tomorrow. I love spending a half an hour on the phone for support people to realize what I knew when I called that my speaker port is blown.

I love this powerbook and it has been working well, but I have had it for less than 4 months and it will be in for servicing twice. That is not good. I have had other computers for years and never needed servicing.

OK, my apple support bashing is over. I actually like this company but I can’t stand when a company falls flat on their face completely on their own. Dumbass stuff like this gets me wondering if I invested in the wrong computer? Granted I still have a ton of intel box’s, but I just want apple to get it right, and then maybe Microsoft will get a clue.

Bluetooth dial-up works, finally!!!

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I actually got my Thinkpad to dial a GPRS connection through my Sony Ericsson T-68i using a bluetooth connection. I found an updated driver package for my Xircom card. It actually works with XP now. AT&T’s connection software still didn’t work. That ticked me off, but I found instructions on their web site to do it with XP’s built in dial up networking. It worked like a champ. Now I have to see if it works out and about. I have problems allot of the time when I try to use it on my powerbook. It is all due to spotty data service.

I am just happy I figured it out without having to buy new hardware. Now I wait until Verizon comes out with a Bluetooth enabled phone and I am all set. Of course having verizon’s data plan come down in price would be nice also. Until then I live with AT&T’s sub par GPRS system.

I like it when technology works the way it is advertised. Lets ignore that it took like 4 software revisions and like 6 1/2 months (with this provider) to get it working on Windows.

The eye doctor

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Tomorrow I am going into work late because I have an eye doctor appointment. It is my regular appointment I have every 2 years. Thankfully I don’t have to go every year like I did when I was younger. I am hoping that this year my doctor will say the La-sec (laser eye surgery) will actually help me. Up till now he said the surgery will not be as good as wearing glasses. if he says “i can get you to the prescription you have or better with surgery.” I am getting it. No question. If he says no to the surgery I am thinking of doing contacts again. I stopped because my eyes are too dry by nature, and I spend tons of time at a computer screen. FYI looking at a computer screen allot makes you blink less, thus dry eyes get even dryer. The other down side to contacts when I last had them was they cost like $500 a pair for me since I had special weighed lenses. Yes my eyes are really screwed up. Technology is improving so much I hope things have changed in that arena in the past 7 years.

I actually like going to the eye doctor because I always hope he has good news for me, like hey you don’t need glasses any more. It never actually happens, but I can dream. Hearing the news about the la-sec’s is good enough for me. On the down side I don’t react well to the eye dilation drops that he gives me. it always takes all day to return to normal and I can’t do much when my eyes are screwed up like that. Work tomorrow will be interesting!