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I just returned from a shopping expedition today from one of those Retailers where it is advertised that you can get the best buy in technology products, and I must say that the tech staff working the floor there scared me. To the poor unsuspecting and unenlightened shopper who is shopping for their first or next computer, these people are the ones who should make the shoppers transition into the technology world a smooth one. Instead they often confuse, befuddle, and outright lie about things. I don't really know whether it is just ignorance and poor training that is the cause, or whether it is a purposeful thing. Perhaps it is a bit of both.
Some of the things that I heard today: 'The most important thing when deciding on a computer is the speed of a processor' - this was the reply when a customer asked the difference between a Celeron and a AMD 64 processor - the customer was going to chose the Celeron because it was faster. 'Integrated graphics is the way to go because you don't have to worry about replacing a video card' - this was the response to a woman who was looking for a machine her son could play the latest games on.
The sad thing about these cases was the fact that the customers probably would have spent more money to get what they really wanted. Of course if the customers had done a little research before going to the store it would have saved them a lot of trouble, but in my opinion, when you go to a large national chain that is 'supposed' to be a technology oriented store, you should be able to at least trust the technical knowledge of the staff. It all comes down to a phrase coined a long long time ago - Caveat Emptor - let the buyer beware!
Posted by jrfree1 at 08:56 PM | Comments (4)
Spam is what this world is coming to with e-mail now a days. Everyone gets it. You could have an e-mail account that absolutely no one knows about yet still receive a spam message. So everyone gets spam, and everyone hates spam, and there are more spam filters out now than you could ever need or want, but yet people are still sending it. I really don't have a problem with it as my filter is nearly perfect and only misses the random message that might just be useful.
So, what have spammers been doing to get their messages through? Lately, I've gotten about 15 junk messages. This has taken about 3 days as I've kept the e-mail account this is all based off of relatively hidden from everything. Out of those 15 messages, maybe 2 have been from an actual beleivable date. Most of them have been from either 1969 (did they have the internet back then?) or sometime way in the future, some from a few months down the road, others from 2050. So, unless time travel has come into exsistence without anyone knowing, they aren't helping their cause as a strange date throws up about a million red flags for "Junk" right away. Now, I get the point that people need this to make money, but it's just plain useless. People don't care, and the random sucker that you do find won't be that way for long, so they are slowly removing their pool of potential victims. And I feel that the people that 'support' spammers are really victims as they can't know what they're doing if they're helping out the idiots filling up my inbox along with everyone elses.
So, what can we do to prevent it? Really, there isn't anything we can do. There has been an idiot critcizing Microsoft of spamming users and telling the world about this through his own spam that he's sending out. Sort of defeating the purpose, rallying against spam with more spam, a little counter productive the way I see things. About all we, as annoyed users, can really do is find a filter and get rid of the junk. To date, a baynesian filter (not sure how that is really spelled, but that's close) is the best thing developed as it 'learns' what you consider spam and then gets smarter as time passes. After a few months, they are reportedly nearly 100% efficient at keeping the junk out of your inbox and keeping the real mail there. It's the best filter and that's what I use as Thunderbird includes this filter. Other programs that are out there, Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, all have tools that can be used to include this type of filter, although I think it's hardest to get around Outlook and Outlook Express's built in filter.
Now what I started considering is to just start replying to all of the e-mails. Send out about 5000 replys to it over a week and see if they get the point. Maybe I'll send out a couple 10MB attachments with it too and fill up their inbox while I'm at it. I have plenty of 10MB files just sitting around. Granted, it will probably be the most counter-productive thing I will ever do, but I just feel as though the people are sending out e-mail because they don't get enough contact with others and want to make themselves know. So, for minter@kumikazi.com, you will no longer feel left out and have a need to send me e-mails from 7:00PM on New Year's Eve in 1969 about enlarging my penis with patches that are safe easy and effective. You will get the attention that you deserve so you will no longer have to clog up my inbox, and the inbox of millions of others just like me with the crap that you're sending out. I'll do your mail server a favor and fill your inbox with more messages than you could ever hope to read so that you'll share the joy of receiving the junk that millions of us see and delete every day.
Posted by imnuts at 11:51 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
I have to sprout off here...I just got done reading the article on MSN about the Mayor of New Orleans complaining that the quote -"federal official in charge in New Orleans, Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen, had made himself “the new crowned federal mayor of New Orleans.” " - endquote
Wasn't this same man(Mayor Ray Nagin) that just 2 weeks ago complained that the federal government was so slow in responding and that he "was pissed off" about the whole thing?? Of course, the "feds" have told him that NO is still unsafe and that the time table for citizens to return should not be this accelereated. In addition, there is a nother tropical storm(Rita) possibly headed in their direction and that to have to rescue the 150,000 people that are expected to come back again! Talk about shear stupidity! The same folks that are being blamed for the storm and it's damage are again trying to stave off some of the cries for help that will happen if they rush to resume "normal" life!
Mayor Ray Nagin has said he wants to hear Jazz instead of helicopters but can't you at least wait until everyone is rescued before starting the party!
And while I DON'T mind giving to help those that need it...I hate to have to support those(again and again) that are just to blind to see the truck coming at them!
New Orleans WILL be revived...just not at the pace that Mayor Ray Nagin wants it to be...and you know that in this world of "instant gratifacation"..."Now" is just too late!!
Paul
Posted by RRCinci at 12:29 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
With every release of Vista, Microsoft's next generation operating system, there are new features introduced, and there are some that are removed. One of the biggest changes is probably the addition of a lot of games to the previous lineup from XP. On top of the new games, they've also changed how the games are displayed and they are much more graphical now. But, the most loved feature of what was Longhorn that was removed after build 4074 has returned. That's right, the sidebar is back for it's loving fans and it's looking great so far.
The sidebar was a feature that was mainly included because it was figured that most people would be running a widescreen or multi-screen computer in a few years. The problem is that this didn't happen as planned. The sidebar in general also got a lot of heat due to the many problems that were associated with it in early builds, mainly the massive memory leak in explorer. So with things not working out as planned, the sidebar was pulled. Shortly after discovering this, many people cried out in outrage to the fact that the sidebar that they loved was gone and it didn't appear as if it would make its way back. Then, talks started about re-introducing the sidebar since so many people complained about its departure. At the arrival of Beta 1, many people were disappointed that it hadn't made it back yet, but it's been just over a month since Beta 1 was released, and low and behold, the PDC of '05 has brought back everyone's friend, although not in the build that everyone in the beta program received. The internal build used for the conference showed everyone the new sidebar. Then, a couple days later, a sidebar for Vista has mysteriously appeared in many screenshots around the web on the 5219 build that the beta testers received. I'm not sure where exactly it came from, but this new sidebar is looking much improved over its previous renditions. Now we just have to hope that it continues to improve.
Not only has the sidebar returned, a lot of DWM features have been updated and the GUI is by far the most impressive yet. Even though it has its quirks from time to time (it is a beta after all), the overall look, feel and performace of the new display system are impressive. There is one thing about it that is continually amazing me and that is the size of the installation. This thing just keeps growing and growing. You currently need a 15GB hard drive just to install it, and that isn't leaving you much breathing room in the way of installing programs. I surely hope that things improve down the road as people with older systems aren't going to be able to install this cause their 40GB hard drives aren't going to be big enough. While I'm sitting here just fine with my storage space, others probably aren't in the same boat and are probably wondering if this thing is ever going to stop getting bigger and bigger. One thing that is nice is that, at present, nearly all drivers that work in XP or XP x64 (for the 64-bit persons) also work in Vista, which makes testing it out on a daily basis fairly easy as you can do pretty much everything you're used to doing and have all your little add-ons that need drivers work too. Hopefully, Microsoft continues to push in the right direction with this and gets everything together, but they still have a lot of work to do to compete with Tiger from Apple, so I guess that only time will tell.
Posted by imnuts at 09:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
As taken straight from the source:
"Inspired by the true story of KURT COBAIN, the lead singer of the popular Seattle-based rock band Nirvana who committed suicide in 1994, director GUS VAN SANT (Elephant) presents this meditative journey through the last days in the life of a fictional musician"
I was fortunate enough to catch this independent film at a theater at my school. I have split this "review" into two parts; for those of you who have not seen it, you can read about it in the first part. For those who have seen it or would like to hear more details on my thoughts, read the second part.
Part 1:
For the purpose of this review, I will call the names of the characters by their real names, not the names used in the movie.
I saw this movie with my girlfriend, a much less of a Nirvana/Kurt Cobain fan as myself yet considerably knowledgeable about the final days of Kurt's life and his death. Her knowledge and interest in Kurt's life is directly related to my ongoing research and reading on Kurt's death. Even she had unanswered questions after seeing the film; all of which I had to explain. For those who are unaware of Kurt's death and his final days alive (other than knowing "he killed himself") you may find this movie confusing and hard to follow. This is an independent film, you will find lots of odd angled shots, long unnecessary scenes (from a non-artistic point of view) and a short script. Michael Pitt (Dawson's Creek, Murder by Numbers) plays Kurt Cobain (Blake in this movie) and fine job might I add. His looks and sound are pretty authentic sounding which makes the movie better.
Those who are not fascinated or even interested in Kurt Cobain should not see this film. You will most likely find it slow, confusing, and un-eventful. This is not a Hollywood type film, it is cut straight to the point.
Basically the movie is just the directors take on what happened with Kurt Cobain during his final last days of his life despite the fact the movie is really about "a fictional character". (We all know this is not the case).
Overall it is a decent movie for real Kurt fans to see, anyone less of a fan would probably leave the theater. More details on my thoughts can be found below. I don't mean for anything to be a spoiler but there really isn't any since we all know the ending...suicide (or is it?).
Part 2
There are lots of little things in this movie that people who are not familiar with Kurt's death will miss. These points are my observations and what I think they mean in the real life case of Kurt Cobain, they may or may not have been the intent of the Director; if they are not, they are odd coincidences. The facts are in no particular order.
1) Cali (Luke in the movie - long dark hair) took a credit card from Kurt when he was making Macaroni and the 3 others where high listening to music in the other room. Cali claimed he needed money for a heater and a plane ticket. The relevance to the real Kurt: After Kurt was dead, someone was using his credit card. Until this day it is unknown who was using it. This fact that Cali took the card suggests that he had the card and would explain why it was used after Kurt was found dead. This contradicts murder theorists thoughts that the murderer of Kurt Cobain took his card. (Note: If you are unaware of the murder theory, I highly suggest you go to cobaincase.com and have a look at the information provided by Tom Grant, the P.I. hired by Courtney Love to find Kurt Cobain before his death.)
2) The guy with the dark glasses - Cali's friend (or his lover if you believe this part of the movie) saw Kurt in the greenhouse as the three of them (Cali, his lover and his girlfriend) were leaving the house, just before Kurt's death. In the real case it has been said that Cali's friend was in the back seat of the car and looked back to see "someone in the greenhouse" but they chose to ignore it and continue driving to wherever they were going, an odd thing to do since Kurt "was missing and no one had seen him".
3)There were 4 people that should have been in the car stated above, Cali's girlfriend; however, she was not. This leaves the idea that Cali's girlfriend could have murdered Kurt since they left without her. The credit card could come into play here. The credit card Cali took could have been given to his girlfriend to catch a flight to meet up with the other three after "the job was done".
4)When the three of these people were watching the news and saw about Kurt's death they decided to "get out of here". I believe they were at Kurt and Courtney's cabin's in the woods. In real life, Dylan and Tom Grant were supposed to go to the cabins to look for Kurt however they "got lost" and had to turn around. This could have been Dylan avoiding coming into contact with the three of them at the cabin.
5)The first time Dylan and Tom go to the house, Cali tells them to "come back later". I don't recall if this happened in real life or not. However, if it did, Cali could have really said "come back later we are going to the cabins" and thus the reason, Dylan did not go to the cabin's the night they were suppose to.
6)When the three of the people left the cabin they said they would go to L.A., in real life Courtney was in L.A. - could there be a connection?
7)A huge thing in this movie is the fact you don't hear, see, or is it even implied that Kurt killed himself. We know from point 3 above that there is one person not accounted for, could they have killed Kurt?
8)There is a great visual effect when Kurt's soul leaves his body. It really depends on your take on religion on what you want to take as this. You can take it as strictly a visual effect, not meant to have any significance. If you are religious and believe that Kurt was killed and thus would be in heaven, then his body climbing up and out of the greenhouse could resemble his climb to heaven, thus he was murdered. If you believe that no matter what, Kurt was a bad person and he would go to hell no matter if he was killed or not, then there is no significance to his soul climbing up. If you believe in suicide, you could just look at this point as his soul "being free" from his body and life which we are led to believe he hated. (Thanks to my girlfriend for pointing this out to me)
I am sure there are more little subtle things but that is all I can think of off the top of my head. Thanks for reading and remember, these are only my thoughts, not yours or anyone else's.
Posted by tweakmod at 07:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
How often have we been outraged by something we have seen on tv, or read in a newpaper or on a website? How often have we felt an outpouring of emotion from just a few words, or a picture? How often do we base our opinions on this information?
The media controls our lives, what we see, what we hear, and to a point what we believe. They put the 'spin' on the stories that we ingest. But with so much information that bombards our senses, we are often left with the dilema - who do we believe?
With so much going on in the world today, and coverage of events by so many sources, we often find ourselves overloaded with information. For every story there are numerous takes, numerous opinions, numerous slants. Sometimes we end up believing that which fits with our own ideals and preconceptions, while at other times we actually see things in a different light.
Sometimes we become part of heated debates in which we cite the numerous sources that support our position, while those who have different ideas cite their own sources. Yet often these sources are privy to the exact same information. Where does the data become corrupted? What is the real 'truth'?
I myself have been sucked in by so called trusted sources, believing them not just because they are trusted, but because I WANT to believe what they say because they fit with my own preconceptions. Sometimes I will let myself get worked up, debating a point beyond reason. Other times someone will point out a different point of view and I will take the time to investigate. Sometimes I even change my opinion, and other times I stubbornly refuse to.
Am I right? Am I wrong? Our opinions are only as good as the information we base them on, and in the end, unless it is something that we have experienced ourselves, we are left with information that is filtered by someone elses perceptions. Some may say "but I saw it on TV, I know it is real". But what did they really see? Did they really see the whole picture, the before scene, the after scene, the behind scene? No, they only saw the scene that someone presented. The scene that someone thought we should see.
As important as it is for us as human beings to feel compassion and have empathy for others, it is just as important for us to realize that not everything we see and hear is as it seems. We should always question things, and we should always be willing to listen to the other sides. Before you make an opinion on something, ask yourself is this the truth? Is this all there is to it? Do I believe this because I have looked at all the sides and formed an opinion, or do I believe this because this works for me?
Posted by jrfree1 at 05:39 PM | Comments (3)
So what does it take to enter the world of Tech Support?
Some say you just need a good undersanding of computers and some experience working with them. Others feel a Computer Science Degree is a minimum and others require both of those along with A+ and Network+ certifications.
These are the kinds of demands I have been met with during my slowly growing quest to find an IT job and remove myself from this disaster of a first career.
Some of you know that I am not happy at my current job. I find the work boring and less than stimulating. It drains all my energy and I rarely do anything besides work in AutoCAD or some other equally juvenile and less than stimulating engineering program. I actually spent 2 weeks, when my bosses claimed we would be "deperate for help" working instead of enjoying what was to be my last summer vacation ever during which time I logged about 75% of my time as general and non-billable.
So if its not obvious I need to make a change and make it quick. I have looked all over the Philly area for different job offerings. My high point so far is an opening (now 2 openings actually) at Villanova University as a Computer Support Analyst, Level 1. This job is basically the equivalent of what my bosses from school did. You supervise student employees and even do some fixing on your own for students, faculty and staff. Hey, I liked working at the techs support desk in school and interacting with all the people that came to me for help so why no try for this. This is a great opening for more reasons than just type of job it is. It requires zero, yes that's right zero, as in the number directly proceeding or following the number one, certifications and no degree in computer science. they simply ask that you have a BS in something (civil engineering in my case) and at least 2 years of experience working on computers in some way and what they describe as a good customer service skills. Keep in mind I could get the job, study for my certs and then put myself in a better position for promotion later on.
This is great for me as it is exactly what I did during college but just on a higher and better paid plane.
Now lets look at some other schools and their requirements. UPenn has an opening for a position with similar responsibilities. The difference is I need to be a CompSci graduate, with certifications and I get paid less for the same type of work as I would at Villanova. Drexel has similar requirements to this.
Now tell me if that makes sense to you. More skills, supposedly better oriented and diverse when it comes to computers but still not being paid what your worth.
What does being a compsci major mean anyways. Well for me it would have meant I knew C++ very well. Bucknell is stuck in ancient times in terms of their Computer Science department. And still, learning to code does not teach me to fix computers. It may give me some extra knowledge when accessing the command prompt, writing my own script to automate a program or god knows what else but it doesn't teach me how to clean a virus off a machine properly, how to keep myself from getting adware or spyware or what to do if my OS just takes a complete dump. I can't understand the importance of having a coding background when you truly do not need it. I've worked on almost every type of problem imaginable, dealt with all kinds of customers and even was asked by my boss to be an outside consultant for people in the community who needed help fixing problems but were not official members of the University. I believe I have the skills to take on a job like this, and though I lack the programming background and the certifications that seem to be oh so important, I still know my stuff and can get the job done.
I applied for the job at Nova with the idea that, "hey if i get it great I will be happy there and not be losing too much money if I only get the minimum salary and if I don't then whatever I have a job now and it pays so I can keep looking" I haven't yet heard back from Villanova. I called to make sure my resume and cover letter were received properly via email and was told they were and that they were handed to the IT department there for review. I am keeping my fingers crossed but don't want to have to wait too long. I will probaly give a call next week to find out a basic timeline on this so I can not be waiting in anticipation for a phone call from them.
So until next time stay tuned, Same PRO time, same PRO blogger :)
Posted by e to the x at 03:01 PM | Comments (3)
[note: this entry has explicit lyrics. They have been edited with asterisks * but are still readable]
Censorship has always been a debate in high school, college, and after. Whether it is banning books at the local library, placing parental advisory stickers on CDs, or editing movies to be shown on TV, the fact of the matter is it is against the freedom of speach...well sort of....
I agree with censorship to protect our youth from things they do not need to see and hear at young ages; however, it is the inconsistencies of censorship along with what is and is not censored that bother me.
The radio is something that can be accessed by any age level person. Cars have them and they can be found in nearly every room in a house. Since there are very few ways to restrict who listens to the radio, there has to be control over what is said, just like basic TV. (exceptions to radio are XM radio and exceptions to TV are cable - both of which are paid for...you pay for things to be uncensored).
Recently I ran a poll in the forums about people's opinions on swearing. I received a lot of thoughts from regular members to the staff members. Opinions vary from people not taking offense to swearing to people who do. There is one thing though that was common and that was more than half of people voting (11/16) found B*tch to be more offensive than sh*t. Interesting, B*tch is not censored on the radio, yet sh*t is...
Let's look at some lyrics samples (none are edited on the radio):
Jet - Cold hard bi*tch:
Cold hard b*tch
Just a kiss on the lips
And I was on my knees
I'm waiting, give me
Cold hard bi*ch
She was shakin' her hips
That's all that I need
Theory of a dead man - No Surprise:
Well it ain't no surprise
That you turn me on and leave
It ain't no surprise
That you turn it around on me
I don't know why
You won't give me what I need
It ain't no surprise
That that bi*ch is leavin' me
That that b*tch is leavin' me
The Offspring - Why don't you get a job:
My friend's got a girlfriend
Man he hates that b*tch
He tells me every day
He says "man I really gotta lose my chick
In the worst kind of way"
Now let's look at some lyric samples of songs that are edited:
Stone sour - Bother:
Wish I was too dead to care
If indeed I cared at all
Never had a voice to protest
So you fed me sh*t to digest
I wish I had a reason;
my flaws are open season
For this, I gave up trying
One good turn deserves my dying
Greenday - Longview:
Sit around and watch the tube,but nothing's on
Change the channels for an hour or two
Twiddle my thumbs just for a bit
I'm sick of all the same old sh*t
In a house with unlocked doors
And I'm f*cking lazy (this word is edited)
So I leave the evaluation of these song clips up to you, which one should we really be censored from our youth? Would you rather hear your child say "man he hates that b*tch" or "so you fed me sh*t to digest" - obviously the answer is neither but let us pretend.
I know first hand that kids repeat what they hear. It was my younger brother (5 at the time) that walked around the house pretending to mock "John Hammond" from Jurassic Park as he slammed his make-believe cane into the ground and yelled "damn". Or maybe the nine year old boy that called my local radio station to request the song "Cold Hard B*tch by Jet (which they did play).
This just covers what we think is more offensive between two swear words (whatever they may be, this is a topic for another debate). However, there are other inconsistencies in radio and censorship. Most noticeably the various versions of One by Metallica, Bulls on Parade by Rage Against the Machine, and Freak on a Leash by Korn. All three of these songs have the word f*ck in them and on some stations it is edited out and others it is not.
Or how about the song Down with the Sickness by Disturbed? When the song was first released there was a whole section of the song removed because of the intense lyrics. Slowly over time, more and more of this section was added until today, where you can hear the full length song. The part that was originally edited out is as follows:
No mommy, don't do it again
Don't do it again
I'll be a good boy
I'll be a good boy, I promise
No mommy don't hit me Oh-oohh
Why did you have to hit me like that mommy?
Don't do it! You're hurting me Oh-oohh!
Why did you have to be such a b*tch?
Why don't you,
Why don't you f*ck off and die?
Why can't you just f*ck off and die?
Why can't you just leave here and die?
Never stick your hand in my face again b*tch
F*CK YOU!!!
I don't need this sh*t
You stupid sadistic abusive f*cking whore
Would you like to see how it feels mommy?
Here it comes, get ready to die!
Of course there are more (What it's like by Everlast - various edited versions of the song on different stations some of which are hardly edited at all) but I will leave it as that, just some food for thought. While there may be some reasons for this behind the scenes of radio stations around the country, but from the listeners point of view it just doesn't make sense. If you can make exceptions for one song, why cant you for another. Where do we draw the line? Isn't that what censorship is for, to draw the line?
Posted by tweakmod at 09:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
I've recently learned to hate tech support more. I've been having router troubles lately where I can't get anything higher than a 25Mbit half-duplex connection on a 100Mbit full-duplex line. It's really annoying, so I've decided that I'd contact Linksys support and see what they knew that could help me fix this problem as it's painfully slow to transfer 20+GB between computers at 1MB/s if I'm lucky. Turns out, I probably know more than their "Technical" support, although the last agent I talked to genuinely cared about the problem and actualy tried to help, and soon my issue will be fixed.
I'm sure everyone has had at least one bad experience with Tech Support, especially if you've ever had to deal with big companies like Dell and HP. The first bad support that I got was from Dell, where I talked to about 10 different people before one actually answered my question. Most of the time, I felt as if I was talking to monkeys as they seem intelligent enough to come up with the responses I was getting. I got to experience the same thing a little later from Dell once again a month or two later. This time I just quit asking as I got tired of 5 responses that didn't give me anything more than I already knew. Most of the stuff that they were telling me was either a repeat of what I already did or what someone else already told me in a previous e-mail, which was always included in the reply. It's really sad that a company that can sell a computer for $400 can't at least afford to hire competent staff so that people actually get their problems answered.
Then, I went on a Tech Support dry spell for about a year until now. I've relied on PROnet for all of my answers since there is always someone there that can help you out in some way, shape, or form. I figured that this problem might be beyond the level of knowledge that is there though since the problem just appeared without any configuration changes or anything, meaning it's a hardware problem that needs to be fixed by Linksys. Before contacting them, I did everything I possibly could think of to narrow down the problem and everything pointed to a bad router, at least the hard wire ports part since wireless seems to still work fine. So, starting last night, I started up a Live Chat session with the tech support at Linksys. talked to hime barely enough to get the really small window to scroll, maybe 10 lines by me and 10-15 lines by them, and he disappears. Waited for a half hour hoping to get a response, but there was nothing. So, I went to the e-mail support, got my request in for e-mail support hoping that I would get a good response today. In the meantime, I started up another Live Chat, hoping this one would be more productive. Well, my wish came true, I got to talk about twice as long this time, but once again, tech support disappeared on me after just a short conversation that amounted to me learning that the person on the other side didn't expect me to try as much as I did.
So, after wasting an hour of my life waiting for two "support" personnel to get back to me, I decided I'd go to bed and hope for a better response in the morning in my inbox through e-mail. So, I looked when I got up, and a plausible solution comes up of trying a version of firmware that wasn't publicly linked to on the site and had to be downloaded from the Linksys ftp site. So I figured, why not, I've tried everything else. No dice, still have the same slow connection. So I reply hoping for a response later today since I replied at about 9am EDT. Gets to be 7PM and I still haven't gotten a response from another failed attempt at fixing the issue, so I get onto the Live Chat one more time hoping for the best. This time, the person actually tried to help me. We had a conversation that lasted a good 30 min. or more and was a considerable number of lines of text back and forth. This person even cared enough to see if the "Team Leader" that was currently working knew of anything. Turns out that the fact that this issue spanned across three computers with three completely different operating systems stumped them too. Luckily, at the end of the help session, I got what I was glad to get, a way to replace the router since my original thoughts on it being a hardware issue are likely correct.
So, after payday, I'll request a new router replaced under warranty to be sent so I can get back up to speed. Why after payday? Well, it turns out that if you want to have the replacement shipped first, you need to provided a credit card so they can be assured not to lose money on the deal and you are gauranteed to ship at least something back. This requires $75, and since I only have a check card that works as a Visa and not that much money currently, I have to wait. I really like the fact that I have the option to have the replacement sent beforehand so I can at least use the very slow connection that I do have right now. I'd hate to have to use one computer instead of my normal 3 on the school's network, plus the fact that I have 3 unique purposes for every computer and I like to have the options provided available to me.
So, the main question here is, since this is likely not the first time people have complained, and the fact that many people that I know and talk to have had similar experiences, why are companies just sitting around doing nothing about it? I mean, you should strive to have excellent customer support to back up your product. It doesn't matter if you have the worst product in the world or the best, if people know that they can get excellent support and service for something, they're going to buy it. If I was out to buy something, and there were two products that were similar as far as specifications go, I'd pick the one that had the better support sitting behind it so I knew that in the event that something fails, I can get it fixed easily, instead of wasting my time, and the people in India's time, on something and getting frustrated when the person on the other end has the intelligence of a rock, and even that is giving some of them credit. I'd hate to be the company known for unusually bad service as that puts a black cloud overhead that is hard to get rid of and can come back to haunt you down the road when people are in the market for that product once again.
Posted by imnuts at 09:28 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
"It's the sense of touch. Any real city, you walk, you brush past people, people bump into you. In LA, nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think that we miss that touch so much that we crash into each other just so that we can feel something"
Thus starts the movie Crash. A powerful film which examines prejudice in the lives of a group of people in a city, who through circumstances, interconnect in their everyday lives.
It is a film not just about prejudice about other cultures, but prejudices of our own, and of ourselves. Prejudice, racism, both words to describe actions and thoughts that are based upon preconceptions of a group of people and culture rather than people as individuals. This film is a powerful statement which contains a message. It shows not only the results of prejudice, but some of the causes, or at least the circumstances that lead to these kinds of thoughts and actions. It also shows that ultimately, we each have a choice in the matter, that at any time we can change the way we think and act if we so choose. A good film is one that wraps you in it's characters and brings emotions within you out. This film succeeds in a way that amazed me. I felt gripped by the characters, felt for them and with them, and also saw what I think the film makers where trying to convey - it doesn't matter what has happened to us, nor what we have done that matters as much as what we do from this moment on.
Posted by jrfree1 at 04:57 PM | Comments (1)
The United States likely just experienced its worst natural disaster in all of history. More people lost their homes, their jobs, and their lives than can even be immagined. In fact, there's a good change that more people lost their lives in this tragedy than all of the victims of the war on terror combined; including the 9-11 victims, the Iraq casualties, and the losses in Afghanistan.
Then why the hell has it taken so long to help these people?
And I'm not talking about the Red Cross of any other volunteer organization, that's a completely different story. They get their manpower from volunteers and their funds from donations. No, I'm talking about our national government... FEMA in particular. How can it take us 1-3 days to invade a country, and over a week to rescue dying people from a hurricane disaster zone a fraction of the size of the country we invaded.
And don't tell me it was the looters either. I'm sure some of them shot at folks; desperate people do desperate and even crazy things. But you can't seriously tell me when we invaded Iraq in 2003 that no one was shooting then... sure didn't stop us that time.
And you can forget this being political... I don't care what organization you sponsor, what political party you back, or what side of whatever fence you're on; the point is... these people needed help, these people needed saving, and our government has failed miserably to help it's own people.
Now some folks are trying to blame it on them; the victims. How pathetic are we? I hear questions like, "Why didn't they leave... they could walk." Ok, how many of you have been to New Orleans who asked that? There's only two main roads out... both are interstate. Did you SEE the pictures of the interstate? Would you walk down a road like that with your family? Half of these people couldn't afford the technology to even give them warning via TV or radio, yet we expect them to jump in their cars and drive away while fuel is $2.80 a gallon. And where would they go? Some of these people have a 50 square foot piece of land that contains every last thing they own, and everything they've ever known. You expect them to leave what they already don't have to go somewhere they can't afford to go to begin with? If you are seriously blaming the people who are the victims... just wait until it's your home town. Wait until it's your home, or your family. And before you say, "I'd leave," remember that you have no bank accounts, no car, and no friends to travel too. Then I'll listen to your rants. Until then, shut up.
The Victims of Hurricane Katrina need our help... they need our government's help. It scares me that in FEMA's whole book of emergency planning only 2 plans talked about Hurricane's, and BOTH were related to terrorism in Hurricanes. What the hell is wrong with this picture?
Sometimes I swear we are a rolling keg of black powder heading down the hill to the fire. I surely hope it hasn't come to this. I was ashamed of how our government responded. But I was proud of the people of this country who gave what they could to help those who so desperately needed it.
And now I just pray the next disaster doesn't strike my home town... god knows what the government will do at this point. As Jay Leno said last night... "FEMA - Fix Everything, My Ass."
Posted by jcderrick at 03:22 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
I wanted to "join the party" on the Blog site...and now that I'm here...I don't have a clue what to say! But I'm sure I'm going to be able to come up with a few "interesting" topics! I've never been accused of being "shy" or "withdrawn" or andything related to that so we'll see what happens! I just wanted to put my first post up so that you'll be forewarned that "I'll Be Back"!!
RRCinci
Posted by RRCinci at 03:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
I have been listening to the CD 'Failure On' by Beloved a lot this week. The band comes from the ever great "Tooth and Nail" records, a personal favorite of mine. Some Tooth and Nail Alumni include the most recent Underoath (Taste of Chaos Tour - 2005 with The Used and My Chemical Romance), MxPx, and the ever popular P.O.D. Tooth and Nail is a straight up Christian label but don't expect to hear all preaching from these bands.
Beloved has an amazing mix of melody mixed with hardcore. The lyrics are great. Being a Christan band you get good clean lyrics; no F-Bombs thrown in the middle of a sentence making it totally awkward. In case your wondering, the words 'Jesus' and 'God' are not used once on the CD. One of my favorite tracks is "Death to Traitors" and the lyrics are as follows:
A line drawn in the sand
And we both know
I’m not about to bury myself
Sinking in my footsteps
But not coming up for air
A firm foundation of beating hearts
Is blistering enough on the surface
Closing in and holding out my breath
Hoping to mend the wounds
Opened by years of digging out
We fight fire with fire
And you’ll run back to your
Circles of friends
They won’t help you now
We drew a line in the sand
And this time it’s now or never
Go ahead and burn your bridges
But only if you can swim
Deep in the sea of disbelief
This time your screams won’t be heard
You will fight this battle
But we’ll take you out so quickly
That you and your so-called army
Couldn’t see us coming
Fight this battle
We’ll tear you down to the ground
We can’t stop now
We were born for battle
Without vision we will die
We were born for battle
Against the tide of compromise
There is life in this
The places so close can take you so far
We won’t trust our eyes to keep us there
You can check out sound samples on Amazon by going HERE
If you like good melody, excellent guitar riffs, and some good hardcore singing, you should definitely check this band out. You wont get the cheesy cliché lyrics that you find in a lot of mainstream bands and you wont be afraid to listed to this hardcore music in front of your mom. You can always use the excuse, but mom, it's Christian! (note: you do not have to be religious to use this excuse!).
If you know this band or check them out let me know what you think of them.
Posted by tweakmod at 09:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Ok, this post is one I'm sure many of you can relate to. You don't even have to be over 15 to see where I'm coming from, though I'm sure some of you who are 30 will still scratch your head afterwards and go "Huh?"... right before you head back to second period.
Any volunteer organization on the web naturally has to take the chance of "employing" the type of people shall we say are... "unstable." Now nine times out of ten this is never an issue, but just on the rare, special occasion I find one of those gifted people. In fact, I'm almost started to think I have a knack for finding and hiring them.
Our latest "run-in," if you will, was with an individual we'll lovingly call "Wach," no pun intended. Wach appeared to be a good individual for helping on our extremely large and busy website, so naturally we scooped him up and hoped he'd be a good asset to our team. And for a while, he was... but then the real "fun" begins. Apparently Wach takes medication, and apparently Wach forgets that being off his meds causes him to act, well, Wach.
So after a run-around and a few legal emails between Wach and us after he spamed, threatened, and cussed on our site, we parted ways. Boy were we sorry to loose that talent. Good luck to ya Wach wherever you get employed, I'm sure McDonald's will love you. And hey... there's always Windy's.
It's recently also come to my and other's attention that Wach believes cussing us out on his personal website will actually make us care. LOL, I love people with a sense of humor... way to go Wach. You're a real hoot. Hey, screw me... I'm an idiot. Ooooh do I get to go back on the "axis of non-evil immature brats list" now?? Do I, oh do I?
See in the real world folks we call this immaturity. My blog here isn't a whole lot better, but I'm just telling the world how I feel about Wach. He's one craaazy dude, but hey... you can't avoid them all.
As for the rest of the normal people on our staff, thanks for your hard work, dedication, and loyalty. Since you all have real lives, jobs, and futures ahead of you... I'm proud to be associated with you and work with you daily. I can also say we're much better off with the "Wach's" of the world long gone...
Here's to you Wach... here's you you.
"Two trailer park girls go round the outside;
round the outside, round the outside
*scratches*
Two trailer park girls go round the outside;
round the outside, round the outside
*scratches*
Guess who's back
Back again
Wachy's back
Tell a friend
Guess who's back, guess who's back, guess who's back, guess who's back
guess who's back, guess who's back, guess who's back.. {*PROnet hums*}"
SEE-YA!!!
Posted by jcderrick at 03:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
I have always been puzzled by the T-Shirts young teens wear. I know when I was 11-15 I wore a lot of sports t-shirts or polo shirts. Once and a while I would wear a "band" t-shirt with my favorite band on it. Actually, now I have more of these "band" shirts than ever. When I go into the clothing stores now a days I notice one problem...
the sayings on all our youths t-shirts. If it is not bad enough that our youth are wearing shirts that glorify selfishness with sayings like "All I want is everything, Is there a problem?" (See HERE for shirt picture) but more the fact that there are older and supposedly wiser adults creating these slogans. Personally, I would like to go to a meeting with a T-Shirt designer and listen to their slogan campaign.
"I think we should have a shirt for guys that is pink and says 'Don't laugh it's your girlfriend's shirt' (yes, this is an actual shirt).
No, says another, "I think we should have a young girls shirts that say 'I'm Busy Now, Can I Ignore You Some Other Time?" (See HERE)
Personally I would like to see the daughter of the person who came up with this slogan wear this shirt and the next time their parent asks them to do chores, they point at their shirt and say "No, I'm busy". What, you don't think this is realistic for a child to do this? Then why do we put it on a shirt?
Call me old fashion or too up tight, but this kind of marketing is not good for young people. It may not have a direct influence on crime, drugs, or sex, but it does have an unseen effect on personality. In our American culture where we are all self oriented and do not rely on others, we get too caught up in our personal lives. This "me me me" kind of advertising on our youth shirts are only starting them at a young age to be selfish and self centered.
Remember these are my thoughts and not necessarily yours. Take them as you will.
Posted by tweakmod at 06:19 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
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