scott

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!

Fathers day

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Went with my family to my brother-in-laws family today. Well sort of family. It was a family friends house that they have been friends with forever. They are like family. If you know me, it is like the Stein’s for my family. They had an an awesome house with a nice in-ground pool on like 4 acres in Stamford CT. Nice place, but too far from the city for me. I had a good time. Mike pissed my sister off by dunking the baby in the pool. In my opinion the only thing wrong he did, was dunking her right in front of my sister and then not giving morgan to her when she started crying. Some things you don’t do in front of mom.

Not sure if we will do that trip again next year. The traffic sucked and my dad has a bad back. Sitting in the car is bad for him, or that is the excuse he uses. I guess this BBQ is an annual think, so we will see if we go next year.

I am spending most of my evening changing address’s on everything I can think of in planning my upcoming move. I got most of the magazines, the post office, the credit cards, and one cell phone company done. I still need to change my drivers license and some more stuff. Address changing is an art form if you have stuff auto billed to your credit card. If you change your credit card address you need to immediately go and change the auto billed account or else they will stop sending your or providing you whatever service you are paying for. I found that out when Amex changed my address on all my cards when I just wanted a corporate card changed. My Metro card was turned off. If you don’t live in NYC, a metro card is the credit card that you use to get onto the Subway. Mine also is linked to my Long Island Rail Road account, so having that get turned off was a bad thing.

Cleaning Up

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I finally got a fathers day card for my dad. I also got one for my brother-inlaw. He is a dad now too. The day before a holiday like fathers day is a zoo at the local card store. I also had a bunch of errands to run, so I took out my dad’s new Honda Accord. For honda that thing has some power. I always like driving something with tons of horse power. I will stop talking about it now because I am getting teary eyed thinking about my last fast car. I miss my mustang.

1999 My Mustang - 006

I also did the super fun task of balancing my check book. Or rather download stuff into quicken and make sure I actually bought the stuff it says I did. Turns out I actually found a $500 plus error. Gotta call and find out what is up with that. I am now up to date on all my bills and statements and other misc. mail, I think! My desk is sort of clean now.

I also started the grueling process of calling everyone and telling them I am moving. I always forget a bank or magazine, and then spend months figuring my mistake. I am doing allot of change requests on line, but it still takes forever.

Bluetooth Woes

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I may have mentioned my problems with bluetooth and my IBM thinkpad T30 running Windows XP. I have a Xircom Realport 2 Bluetooth card. I cannot get it to dial out using the bluetooth modem on my Sony Ericsson T68i. I can do it with my powerbook. Turns out that my problem may be the Xircom card. Howard (aka super smart guy that is an investor in my company) got it to work on his Thinkpad T40 with a built in bluetooth card and the same type of phone. that sucks because now I need to get a different bluetooth card. The Xircom one does not seem to work with XP. I hate wasting money on tech that doesn’t do what it was designed for. I am off to search ebay.

Vonage is out

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OK, so Vonage is everything they say it is, and probibly more. I used the service and the phone calls are nice and clear. The call routing is great. The service is just awesome. Just one little show stopper problem that I have. They won’t let you choose a vanity phone number. I got a really crappie number and would pay anything to get a nice easy to remember number from them. The problem is they automated the system and claim that they cannot in any way let you know the number you are getting before you pay the $10 fee to change it. With Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile I talked nice to the rep and was able to select the number that I want. AT&T even stayed on the phone for like 30 minutes with me till we came up with something good. They rock. Vonage is saying no, sorry. I wanted this service for incoming calls, so a crappy number is no good to me. I would rather change cell numbers and let everyone know about it often than keep a shitty number. I am looking into returning my router and getting a refund.

It is a great idea, but doesn’t seem to fit what I want if they are inflexible. I would still recomend them to others.

Flirting is ok, but not all the time

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Have you ever had a girl flirt with you and try to entice you into doing something you don’t want to do by flaunting her body? A girl I know was doing that to me today. Or at least I thought she was. Actually I am pretty sure she was or she has a serious back problem. She is nice and all, but if I know the flirting is going nowhere you can shake your chest at me all you want I am not going to help you do something I don’t want to do. Do women think guys are that shallow? I guess some are, but guys will do things if they think they have a chance. Being a flirt isn’t always a good thing.

(The contents of this blog are left some what vague for reasons of protecting me from getting people I know pissed off if they knew I was actually talking about them. Especially in this situation!)

never say its been a good day

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I believe that if you say the day is going well, or if it is “quiet” that fate will screw with you. I think that happened today. I said lots of good things about yesterday and it came back to haunt me today. First one of my helpdesk guy’s called in sick, when the other one was already taking a day off. then we had our site perform slow for a few hours during the afternoon. And to top it all off I get a call that Verizon is putting in a T-1 at our new office today. That would be a good thing, if it wasn’t the first time I was hearing about the install. I had no one onsite to greet them.

As you can guess it was hectic. I was able to get “back into the swing of things” but by doing that I found a bunch of problems that some people created while I was away on vacation. They say ignorance is bliss. I may believe them now.

I am looking forward to just resting this weekend.

Busy but good day, and good food Too.

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I was so packed with meetings today, and I still missed 2 because it was so busy.

Gus invited me to lunch with Howard Morgan. Howard is an investor in our company and one of the smartest people I have ever met. Besides being super smart, he reads almost everything and knows tons of people in the technology field. It was cool that he invited me to lunch with them. Never get enough of talking to Dr. Morgan. We ended up going out with his assistant Tori, and our CEO Glenn. We ended up at a Greek restaurant near our office. Gus wanted to take Howard to a authentic Greek place. Turns out it wasn’t authentic enough for Gus, but the food was awesome! I had some octopus, shrimp, steak, and this really good tasting cheese thing. We all just tried different entries. it was fun. I found it interesting to watch two really smart tech guys (howard and Gus) explain what a blog was to Glenn. Now glenn is not a tech guy but he does keep up on some aspects of the technology field. Internet culture such as blogging was not one of those fields!

I also got 2 tentative dates for some of my T-1 installs. That made me happy also. Still one more date to go. I also interviewed a guy to do some linux admin work for us. More on that later.

I am hoping I don’t get sick. everyone at the office is coming down with or recovering from something. I was glad I was away last week! The AC not working in the office very well can’t help either.

Dinner was good too. I defrosted a steak last night so I george forman’ed it up tonight. That is an kick ass little device. I need to order more steaks and stuff from freshdirect. They are a great food delivery service in NYC. The fresh meats and stuff are freaking great.

OK, time for bed. More tomorrow when my hands don’t hurt anymore (i hope).