Month: November 2003

A Clean Apartment

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Why is it that I clean my place right before the cleaning lady shows up? I don’t dust or use cleaning stuff, but I neaten up. I always seem to do it the day or two before the cleaning lady shows up. It is really weird.

I started cleaning because I needed to tidy up, but I finished because I will probably have company later. I don’t want this place looking like a whole in the ground. Of course it is kind of empty when it is clean and I still don’t have a couch or dining room table.

This cleaning frenzy also got me wondering how to you clean an iMac when the white starts getting dirty? My tan logitech keyboard is greying because of dust and dirt. This iMac is snow white, and I don’t want to think how dirty it will get over time.

My Web Site And Tech Projects

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I finally went out and I am trying Macromedia Flash MX. I have used dreamweaver and fireworks, but never mastered flash. Most of my website (my regular website, not the blog) is done with fireworks, and dreamweaver after I abandoned Frontpage XP last year.

I also updated some pages on my site using fireworks. They were only minor changes, but I haven’t worked on the site (except for the blog) for a while. Long weekends are good like that. I get to do stuff that I don’t normally get time for.

My next home computer project is to setup apache on a linux box (my dad gave me his old dell desktop to use) or on my new iMac. I also want to setup MYSQL on a machine so I can access my personal DB I have from any machine and not just my laptop. I currently have an access DB. Of course I have had this project kicking around since 1999, when I worked at Datastream doing SQL work. Then I was going to make a SQL 7.0 DB. I did, but never used it. This will eventually get done.

This entry was written while listening to American Girls LP by Counting Crows

Windows 2000 SP4

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I finally began upgrading servers at work with SP4 for Windows 2000. it has been out for ages, but I have waited to upgrade. All new servers deployed since September have had it, but I did my first upgrade thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is after all 1 of 4 days that my office is completely closed. I got most of our internal box’s, but have some more to do. We have been fully patched, but just were using SP3. You should be able to just keep applying hot-fix’s and not need to do the SP’s but I don’t think that is a good idea. Eventually you need to apply the latest service packs.

Thankfully everything went well. I also took the time to deploy more machines to our internal windows update system. This will save time for my team since they won’t have to manually patch every machine. That becomes a real pain in the ass after a while.

This entry was written while listening to Bouncing Around The Room from the album “2/28/03 D1 Nassau Coliseum, NY” by Phish

Number Portability Day 5

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I am on day 5 of my attempt to change my cell number to a new provider. After being told yesterday by both AT&T & T-Mobile that all roadblocks to transfer the number have been cleared, I still don’t have the number moved. I am now being told that YES there are no technical issues, but AT&T is just backlogged and having technical problems. I was told to wait another 24-72 hours. That would put me at 6 days. I have no idea if these people are telling the truth, but I have no choice but to wait. calling them and waiting on hold for an hour is not my idea of fun and I have done it several times already this week.

Impatiently waiting!!!

This entry was written while listening to All Star by Smash Mouth

Thanksgiving

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Had a nice thanksgiving. Not as many kids over at the Stein’s like there was during the jewish holidays. It was only Dara and Morgan. Both are so cute and fun to play with. Dara got so big. she is running around and talking. Morgan is crawling around, and trying to eat everything. Talked with Amy and Jared, Don & Lori, and plenty of others. Allot of the Stein family didn’t show this year. That is of course not such a bad thing since there are so many people. It was nice to keep this dinner down to under 20 people.

I saw Justin V for the first time in a while. It is nice to see him, but also kind of sad. He was one of my best friends in elementary school up until I was like 13. Now I never see him anymore. He dropped out of school, and drives trucks now. It is funny how some friends you keep in touch with and others you just let slip away.

The turkey was ok. I am not a huge fan of Turkey dinner. The desert was great. My sister made my cousin Syndie’s chocolate cracker desert. I had nothing else for desert but that stuff. My dad was upset since I didn’t try out the chocolate cake. He won’t have any chocolate or sugar stuff unless I tell him it is worth it. He is diabetic, so he saves up for stuff that I say is really good!

All in all it was a good day. Thankfully I didn’t get bombarded with questions about computer stuff. I actually got to sit and talk to Jared about video editing. he works for the YES network and does production stuff. We were watching the football game and he explained how they did all the graphics and other segments. It was cool.

Number Tramsfer Day 3

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So I am still waiting for my AT&T number to move to T-Mobile. T-Mobile says AT&T has an issue. AT&T says my account looks fine. I am back on the phone with T-Mobile trying to sort this out. I knew the process would take time, but this is starting to be not funny. I am 6 or 7 calls into this process and I have no end in sight. The crazy thing is I understand what they are trying to do. Forget someone who has no clue. they would be waiting forever for this to happen. I am being told to call back tomorrow, and have the rep get AT&T on the phone to fix the issue at the same time with me on the phone.

So far today I have had a good rep, and a really bad one. FYI, when dealing with people on the phone always get there names. T-Mobile is good since they give out their rep id so if you have a problem you know who you spoke to before.

This entry was written while listening to Crutch from the album “Mad Season” by Matchbox 20

Politically Correct Has Gone Too Far

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OK, I am all for attempting not to offend people. I also know that some people are more sensitive to things than others. What pisses me off is stuff like this CNN Article. NO ONE is trying to put down slaver or make any political statement by using these terms for computers. Is the “Slave” server going to get upset? No, of course it wont. If you know anything about computers, the analogy of Master/Slave designation fits in some scenario’s. That is why they use them. In others they may be called Subscriber and Publisher, but the terms are used in different scenarios.

Come on people, aren’t we getting carried away with this stuff? What angers me is that this article said that some tech companies are also listening to these requests. Are we all a bunch of cry babies all of a sudden?

OK, rant over. This was just so funny and stupid at the same time, I had to discuss it. Thanks Keith for pointing this article out. Of course you should have been working when you did find it!!!

What I Said Yesterday

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What I said yesterday is totally true. So I waited till like 3PM today to call and check on my cell number move. Turns out the first guy I spoke with last night didn’t actually put the request in. Luckily I had the guy’s name and rep number. They were able to see that he did stuff to my account, but the number port didn’t go in. The new guy I got I got went ahead and put the request through. I am now on hold to check up on his work. This will be call #4. This does not count the time I tried in the T-Mobile store on monday. This is crazy. Does no one know how to do good service?

On a brighter note I was able to return the Treo 600 today. The moron’s at the AT&T store didn’t give me a hard time. Of course the thing was still in mint condition so they really couldn’t say much. When they asked about why I was bringing it back I told them about their network woes. The lady was like, wow that is the first I have heard about it. I was like are you living in a bubble, or do I look that stupid that you can say that to me with a straight face. I got my money back and I await the T-Mobile version of the 600. If Handspring, or Palmone follows their patter, the T-Mobile version will be out in 2-3 weeks. I am waiting…

Technology Is Not All Bad

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Just to show you I don’t gripe about everything, this new iMac rocks. I still cannot get over this huge crisp screen. I was watching the Two Towers on one half of the screen while working on a word document on the other. it is big and I still can see the text even with my less than perfect vision.

The only problem I am having is that I cannot figure out what I am going to do with the free desk space I now have since I moved the other computers out my living room.

AT&T Has To Go

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I tried. I really tried. I gave AT&T some time. I even gave them a second chance by using them again this week. Once again they have failed me. Today GPRS was up and down all day. And phone quality in my apartment sucked even when I had 4 bars of signal. I am a friggin stock holder of AT&T Wireless. Now I know why my stock is doing so bad. This company has some major issues.

I am on hold now with T-Mobile to transfer my coveted AT&T wireless phone number over to my working T-Mobile account.

Well that didn’t work. The person I spoke to said I had to goto the store for them to transfer my old number to an existing T-Mobile account. that goes against everything I heard yesterday. I am about to call back and see if I get another answer. the trick with dealing with customer service reps is call a few times and see if you get the answer you want. it actually works allot of the time. I will return the Treo 600 and wait for T-Mobile to come out with it. What good is the device if it cannot connect to get data anyway?

I know I have been preoccupied with this problem but it is an issue I have wanted to resolve for years and now that I am so close to fixing it I am getting roadblocks everywhere I turn.

Have I mentioned I dislike all telecomm companies???

This entry was written while listening to Satellite from the album “Under the table and dreaming” by Dave Matthews Band