Mail-In Rebates Suck

I love going to Fry's to check out whatever deep discount sale they have going on. The only thing I don't like is that they usually achieve those prices through the use of mail-in rebates (MIRs). For example, they had a sale going where you could get a 160GB Hitachi hard drive for $30. The price at the register was $90, and I received a form for a $60 MIR. I have had success with Fry's rebates in the past, and I thought this was just too good of a deal to pass up. Six weeks later, I receive an e-mail from RebatesHQ that says my submission was invalid due to a missing sales receipt. I knew I had packed the receipt. My co-worker gave me the idea to call and double check. Well, finding the customer support number for this company was a serious chore. I did eventually find it (using this extraordinarily helpful list) and got through to their automated help center. I went through the menus, entered my confirmation number, and listened to the current status of my rebate. After the status was given, the automated attendant said "Press One to repeat this information, or hang-up to end this conversation...". Then there was a long pause. To my surprise, after waiting a moment I got a new option, "Press 2 to speak to a customer service representative." Woohoo! After speaking to the rep, I learned that the information on my rebate was simply incorrectly entered. He saw that they did have my receipt and it was properly dated. I should get my rebate check in the next couple of weeks. Success!

My buddy at work tipped me off to how these rebates work. Essentially, a rebate clearing house like RebatesHQ guarantees Hitachi that no more than X% of qualifying customers will actually turn in a valid rebate. This percentage is very low, less than 60%. Hitachi then issues a payment for that percentage to the clearing house. If the clearing house receives less than the estimated number of rebates, they make a profit. If they receive more, they take a loss. Given that scenario, the rebate clearing house makes it as difficult as possible to properly submit your rebate information. They have you send your rebate form to some little served post office in BFE. Then, they occassionally "lose" parts of your submission and send you a post card asking for you to resubmit, knowing full well that you've probably thrown away any copies you may have kept of your purchase receipt. They had their phone numbers, and make it really difficult to reach them. It took me a bit of research to find the number for RebatesHQ, and once I did, the service rep was helpful, but there were times that I felt like just giving up. He was breathing heavy into the phone, and asking the same questions multiple times. My perserverance paid off though, and I'm looking forward to getting that check in the mail.

If you ever buy something with a MIR, make sure to send it in. And if it looks like you may have forgotten something, track down the clearing house and give them a call. Chances are, you can clear it up over the phone and get your rebate in short order. I have to give RebatesHQ credit here. In the end, they were helpful, and their online and telephone status information is nice. I'll probably continue buying equipment with MIRs, but I'll only do so when no better option is available.

Birthday / Christmas Lists

My birthday is coming up fairly soon, and folks who love me (yes some people are crazy enough to do that) are asking what I might like as a gift. I got to thinking about it, and it made me realize just how blessed we are. There isn't anything that I absolutely need that I don't already have. Sure, there are lots of very selfish things that I might want, but all of the essentials in life are covered. I have a wonderful, loving family, a fun and affectionate (if mildly psychotic) dog, a good job that I like, and plenty of hobbies to keep me busy. We've been so busy with work, selling the house, playing with Corbin, and basicly living our lives that I haven't found myself just sitting idle.

That said, there are still some things that would be fun to have. You can click the link on the right side of the page under where it says "Feeling Generous" to see a quick wish list I put together on Froogle. If I were to pick just a couple, here is what I would pick:

1. Ninja Gaiden Black for the XBox
   
2. One Year Susbscription to Sirius Satellite Radio
   
3. Broken Angels by Richard K. Morgan
   
4. A Gameboy Micro or a Nintendo DS
   
5. "Walking around money" at Fry's
   

I always have reservations about giving out wish lists though. I'm into some fairly technical / obscure stuff, and finding the right item isn't always easy, even when you understand what I'm asking for. I'm also torn as to whether I really want to put more video game systems on my wishlist. I have plenty of systems already, and there are scads of great games for them at discount prices that I have never played. Still, it is a wishlist, so I'm going for it :-) The Nintendo DS vs. Gameboy Micro issue sort of vexes me. I mean, it would be sort of silly to have both, although I would certainly love to have one of each if anyone were so generous. The DS is a gameboy with two screens and a touch pad. The Micro is a tiny gameboy with a backlit screen. The Micro would be great for just keeping in my backpack or pocket, and would be a fun upgrade from my current, first generation Gameboy Advance that lacks a backlit screen (very painful, trust me). The Micro is only priced a shade less than the DS though, which offers TWO backlit screens, and plays not only GBA games, but also the new set of DS games that take advantage of the dual screen and touch pad.

The above list is pretty much in order of preference. It's a given that, if I get nothing else, I want a nice day with the family for my birthday. But if I were lucky enough to receive presents, Ninja Gaiden Black tops the list.

What would I "walk around" to at Fry's? I've been using my aging Gateway 2000 PC as a Linux computer for a while, but the old cow (FYI - all gateways come in boxes with cow spots, thus I refer to this lovable beast of burden as the big fat cow) just doesn't have the muscle to keep up anymore. I'd really like to have a bit swifter, second PC running Linux available. The reason is that our primary PC is getting bogged down by the services necessary to run all of the peripherals we've attached to it. I got a free motherboard from a buddy, and now all I need to get it running are the extras - hard drive, RAM, power supply / case, DVD. Once complete, I could attach all of our digital camera, video camera, scanner, printer, and other devices to it, and our primary PC could run smoothly again. Putting those items on a wishlist for someone else to buy is an exercise in getting people to hate me, so I chose to put "walking around money".

Hopefully this doesn't come off as incredibly selfish or greedy. Like I said at the start, I feel really good about how my life is going, and lucky to be in a position where I don't want for anything. Still, birthdays are a little bit about being selfish, so there is my list. Please coordinate with Jenn if you are getting anything, as she has a master list of who is getting what. Thanks family, I love you all!

Cool Optical Illusion

I love optical illusions, and this one was just too cool not to share.

http://www.patmedia.net/marklevinson/cool/cool_illusion.html

Combating Comment Spam

Several fellow bloggers have noticed comment spam creeping into their blogs. Comment spam is where you receive comments that advertise for Viagra or something and it is totally unrelated to your post. Fortunately, Blogger has introduced a new feature to help combat comment spam. It's called Word Verification. Word Verification shows an image on your comment entry screen and asks that the commenter enter the text from the image. The text is wavy, or slightly distorted in some way such that it can't be easily read by a program, but real people will have no problem recognizing it. It is a small extra step to make sure that your comments section don't get overrun with spam. I'll be turning it on here. If you have a blog, you might want to consider too.

Price of Freedom

We hear a lot in the news about the price of our freedoms. Usually it is in reference to the price we pay in lives defending our freedoms by sending troops to the middle east. I feel that the real price we pay for freedom, the one we pay everyday and will continue to pay so long as we wish to be a truly free society, was thrust into the limelight yesterday in Toledo, OH. If you haven't seen this in the news yet, a group called the National Socialist Movement had made arrangements for a police protected march through a portion of town. The National Socialist Movement is a self-called Nazi organization, promoting white supremacy ideals. What ensued was a major clash between local residents and youth gangs and the police ordered to supervise the march.

I want to make very clear that I couldn't disagree more with the politics that the National Socialist Movement promotes. I say that because I don't want there to be any confusion that I am defending their organization. However, I mentioned that Toledo was an example of the price we pay for our freedoms. The price we pay for our freedom of speech, our freedom of press, and our freedom to associate is that we have to endure others promoting ideas we don't agree with. Larry Flint is probably the greatest exploiter of this situation. Flint owns the publication house that produces pornographic magazines like Hustler, which have arguably little artistic content. Still, Flint has time and again found himself in front of the Supreme Court and other high courts, defending his right to produce such a publication based on those same freedoms we hold so dear.

Unfortunately, the result of the gathering in Toledo was chaos. Rather than ignore the march, which would deal the harshest blow possible to the group, people turned out in force and began rioting. This was precisely the type of behavior that the National Socialist Movement had hoped to incite, as it would reinforce the beliefs they promote. The people who turned out to riot were, in fact, helping the organization by providing much publicized images that they could then turn and use in their pamphlets.

The sad truth is that in order to enjoy our freedoms, we must also pay the price that we allow those with differing views from ours (and even ugly, disgusting beliefs like the National Socialist Movement promotes) be allowed to exercise their rights as much as we do. The best weapon that the people of Toledo could use against this group is not stones and rioting and violence, but to not provide any eyes and ears to receive the message. It is a difficult choice to make, to protest through inaction rather than action, but it is absolutely the best method in this case.

Microsoft is Scared

The conference I'm attending isn't put on by Microsoft, but it is covering Microsoft tools and most of the speakers are drinking the Microsoft Kool-Aid. It struck me tonight the Microsoft is definitely scared. Scared of Apple and especially scared of Google. Microsoft has gone through the last three decades following a farely predictable and very successful model. They wait for someone to innovate in a particularly interesting way. They then either buy the company that performed the innovation, or take all of their ideas and make an even better product out of it. It has happened time and again, and with the incredible wealth of the company, both financially and intellectually, they have been able to continuously squash competitors and march forward. This model is very dependent on one thing, though, and that is the assumption that the initial innovators suck at getting the product to market. Microsoft is an absolute champ at getting 2nd-generation software to market in an easy to use, well packaged form. In most cases, the initial innovator comes up with an outstanding idea that is very useful and people will love it. Unfortunately, the initial innovator spends all of their effort in developing the idea itself, and not in how to properly deliver it in a form that people will find easy to use. In other cases, the product may be easy to use and perfectly implements the innovative idea, but it is horribly ugly. Whatever the case may be, the initial innovator rushes to market with this astounding new product but leaves open a huge gap for improvement. In swoops Microsoft with their second generation product which is either a) the same product because MS bought the company, b) better because Microsoft took the idea and took advantage of the room for improvement, or c) bundled into the operating system, negating the need to install the competitors product. This pattern has been seen in the word processing space, the groupware space, the browser space, and in just about any area where Microsoft invests.

Microsoft is scared though. They are scared of Apple and of Google because they are innovating at a rapid pace, and they aren't making those first run mistakes that Microsoft can capitalize on. The iPod is a good example. There isn't anything particularly special about the iPod from a technical perspective. It is functionally just like any other digital music player: flash or hard drive storage, plays a variety of formats, easy to carry around. The iPod has one very important thing going for it that Microsoft know that it can't beat: it is sexy! The iPod broke new ground in that it oozed style when it first appeared. First generation MP3 players were ugly, unfriendly, geek toys. The iPod was sleek, and dead simple with the introduction of the click-wheel. Apple beat Microsoft to the punch in getting the second generation product out, and left little if any room for improvement. And Apple didn't stop there. They released iTunes, a music store for purchasing and downloading music for your iPod. I consider iTunes a first generation music store, and in this case, it was innovative while leaving very little room for improvement. There was little room for Microsoft to improve upon with a second generation implementation, and add to that the headache of working with the music industry to try to get the product integrated into the OS. Microsoft lost the battle before it even started. So now, at this conference, the Microsoft cheerleaders are begrudgingly giving away iPod minis that were provided as prizes by one of the vendors. It was almost sad that pathetic little rant that one speaker went into before giving one away. It went something like, "This is a piece of junk! How many of you have bought more than one iPod? It's because it's junk!". No one in the croud was sympathizing with him, and there were great cheers when each iPod was put up for raffle.

Google is the other fear inducer for Microsoft. Once again, Google developed a tremendous innovation in the world of search, but left little room for improvement. The interface was clean and simple. The results were quick and accurate. Microsoft tried, and largely failed to beat Google at the search game with the MSN portal, and later the start.com website. Now Google is expanding into other areas, and they are doing such a great job with their first iteration innovations that Microsoft is getting left in the dust. Google Maps, Frugal, Google Dictionary, Google Desktop Search, Picasa, Google Groups... a string of well done features. Certainly not all of these applications are new, but Google has done a great job of turning Microsoft's own game plan against them in the web world. MapQuest had good maps, now Google has fantastic mapping. Microsoft had a hard drive search feature, now Google has a fantastic desktop search tool. Google looks poised to continue this type of innovation and I'm sure the execs at Microsoft are wringing their hands over how to combat it. During this conference, Microsoft's own developers admitted under their breath that they were more likely to use Google Groups and other Google search tools to assist in solving their development issues than the equivalent MSN sites.

All that said, I don't think there is any chance of Microsoft seeing a drop in their stock price anytime soon. Microsoft has the operating system market securely in the bag, and it would take a monumental foul up on their part to lose it. Microsoft also has the productivity suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and GroupWare (Outlook, Great Plains, SharePoint) solidly handled. Now that I've been developing with Microsoft's programming tools, I have to admit that they are head and shoulders above the crowd of free tools on the market, and some commercial tools I've tried. Still, Microsoft has reason to be concerned because their once ever expanding future markets have hit a couple of walls. It will be very interesting to see how this all shakes out.

Pennywise vs. Knucklehead

One other thing that I've noticed that is pretty much universal to everyone here at the conference (and it may not just be unique to us conference attendees, but I've noticed here), is that we are all extraordinarily cheap. There are a couple of vendors here giving away prizes and swag, and we (myself included) are all going to great lengths just for the opportunity to get this crap. Keep in mind that nearly everyone at the conference earns something like $25 / hour or more. Yet we are willing to stand in line for 15 minutes for the opportunity (not guarantee) of winning a $3 T-shirt. Just tonight I stood in line for a little over 30 minutes to get a free 32MB USB Drive. I think you can buy these at Target for $10 or less, and I'm sure the one I got was just surplus from some big box electronics seller that was trying to offload excess inventory. To be fair, the USB drive also included the opportunity to win an iPod mini (which I didn't). Then, there was "Midnight Madness", which was neither mad, nor did it run to midnight. Instead, from 8:30-10:00pm, there was a raffle for trinkets, software, more USB drives, and 4 iPod Minis. I didn't win anything. In total I think I've waited around in the attempt to get free shtuff for a close to 3 hours now throughout the conference. So far I've received the afore mentioned USB drive and a tootsie-roll. Something isn't right here.

Calling Average Joe

This week I'm in Orlando for a technical conference. I'm learning quite a bit, and had the fantastic opportunity to enhance the trip by taking a day of vacation and visiting the parks with the fam prior to the start of the conference. Now that it is in full swing, I feel a lot like I'm back at college. You've got all of the typical nerd/geek/dork archetypes here. If you have ever seen the reality TV show "Average Joe", then you'll understand when I say that the next time they need to do a casting call, they need go no further than a technical conference. I'm not trying to be cruel, or to suggest that I'm somehow better than the other attendees, it is just funny to be surrounded by folks that so typify the stereotypes of your occupation. First thing you'll notice is that the usually man-woman ratio has taken a drastic turn towards the male side. I'd wager that less than 10% of the conference attendees are women. The gender ratio may be very off-balance, but the nationality makeup has definitely become more diverse. I've met folks not just from across the US, but also from the former Soviet Union, Britain, and Germany, and overheard conversations in languages that I couldn't guess the origin of. The one unifying factor is that we are all hopelessly attached to our gadgets, and we all effect the IT stereotype to one degree or another.

There are several nerdy molds I've seen filled here at the show:

• Who Needs Hygiene
  
  These are the guys who are so deep in though, who spend so many hours at their machine at night hacking away, that they completely forget about personal hygiene needs. They have a sort of Grizzly Adams meets Cousin It look. Hair is usually long and unkempt (although hopefully recently cleaned), beard has completely occupied the face territory. Pants are a couple of sizes to short as they were purchased by someone else as a gift years ago, and never took the time to get a correctly sized pair. Nothing matches, socks included. Trying to carry a conversation with these guys on anything but the topic they are currently embedded in is totally useless.
  
• Mumblers
  
  One drawback to working with computers, especially if you telecommute or otherwise work remotely, is that you run the risk of losing touch with humanity. This can lead to the loss (if ever developed firstly) of social skills, paritcularly the ability to speak in an audible tone. Several times folks in a lecture have wanted to make a point, but just haven't been able to find the courage to speak loudly or clearly enough to be understood. Also, the inner monologue is completely gone. Making backhanded comments at your keyboard never hurts anyone, but sometimes that habit can rear itself in the middle of a speech in a most unfortunate way. If no one laughs, the poor soul then ducks his head in shame and puddles into nervous twitches.
  
• Cocky Bastards
  
  This is my least favorite type of nerd. When you get into a highly technical field, you are usually regarded among your non-technical peers as bright person. Smarter than your average bear. Unfortunately, some in the field take this as an opportunity to expound upon their brilliance to anyone in earshot, and continuously attempt to show how their intellect is superior to everyone else in the room. These are the rare nerds who are actually looking to talk to you. Actually, they are looking to talk at you. They really aren't concerned with what you have to say, they just want to be sure that you understand how miniscule your troubles are in comparison to the world saving cleverness they are about to implement into their next block of code.
  
• Goony Birds
  
  This is my favorite kind of geek. A goony bird is someone who, at some stage in their life, endured a period of tremendous social awkwardness. Perhaps they had a physical feature that was different (not bad, just different), or were the straight A student without trying, or for some reason felt that they just weren't part of the "in-crowd". It's really hard to accurately describe the goony birds. They usually have some quirk, habit, or hobby that is a bit odd. Friends and family might describe them as "different", "interesting", "odd", or just plain "weird". The unifying feature of the goony birds is that they have developed a sort of humility without becoming a mumbler. They generally have up-beat, happy attitudes, and love to talk about whatever quirky thing it is that they are into, but can still relate to "normal" things.
  

I'm sure that there are other types of nerds, and there are probably finer breakdowns of the nerd species that I haven't enumerated here, but these are the stand-out stereotypes I've noticed on this trip. And I'll just go ahead and admit to belonging to all of these stereotypes in at least one period of my life. Growing up I would say I was probably a mumbler. Into college I turned into a Who Needs Hygiene guy. Somewhere along that timeframe I was also a cocky bastard, and I still have a little bit of that now (although I swear I'm continuously working on that). Now I consider myself primarily a goony bird. Sure, I've got my quirks, but I'm not so out there that I can't hold a normal conversation with someone outside the IT industry.

What kind of Nerd are you?

Serenity (Now!)

Saturday Jenn and I were lucky enough to snag Opa and Oma as babysitters for the evening so we could go catch a movie. We went to see Serenity and I loved it! The story was great, and followed along with how the 14 episodes of Firefly had built up the plot. I never read the three issue comic book series, so there were some small gaps that I missed, but really you could watch this movie without ever seeing the television show and still enjoy it. I even caught Jenn laughing out loud at a couple of sections of the movie. That's one of the things I really like about Serenity/Firefly... it doesn't rely on special effects to carry the film. Instead, the characters are charming, the dialogue is witty, and the story is intrigueing.

It so hard to give a good description of the show such that someone would be enticed to go watch. I mean, "The adventures of a group of misfits as they do odd jobs and get into scrapes" really doesn't capture it. What really grabs me about the series is how different it is from your typical space opera. This isn't the ultra-clean environment of the recent Star Trek series, nor is it the clear cut Good vs. Evil story of Star Wars. Instead, the division between good and evil, right and wrong are blurred. The crew of the Serenity aren't clean cut, uniform wearing stiffs. Instead, they each have their own individual quirks, and nothing about the Serenity is clean or organized like you might find on the Enterprise (referred to as the Sheraton of the future by Joss Whedon).

I'm not really sure I'm giving a compelling argument to go watch the show. All I can say is, Jenn and I both enjoyed it. If you are on the fence, duck into Blockbuster and rent the Firefly DVD set. Watch a couple of episodes and see if it piques your interest. If it does, you'll love the movie. If not, then perhaps Serenity isn't your cup of tea.

Sci-Fi

Normally, I abhor television. I rarely find anything on that isn't overly trite, incredibly predictable, or yet another copycat reality series. Lately, though, I've found a couple of shows that I really enjoy watching. As far as reality shows go, we still watch Survivor together, and The Amazing Race is one that I'll admit to actually liking. It's been a long while though since the last non-reality series caught my attention. Sure, CSI is great, and I look forward to new episodes, but it seems that the networks have cranked out a myriad of copy-cats. There are enough Law & Order spin-offs for a dedicated channel now.

Anyway, I was going to make a point. I started using the TV card in the PC to record shows on Sci-Fi that I was mildly interested in. I had heard of the new remake of the Battlestar Galactica series, so I recorded a couple of those, and I also had read about Firefly, a show canceled after one season, but with a huge fan base. I watched the episodes of Battlestar that I recorded, and I was immediately hooked! This is a great show! The Battlestar show of the 70's/80's was pretty cheesy, and I remember it mostly for watching the Cylons and humans engage in space battles ala Star Wars. The new Battlestar is a lot different, it is much more cerebral. I went to Blockbuster and rented the mini-series, and the Sci-Fi channel ran a marathon of season one episodes so I'm nearly caught up. The season finale was a great cliff-hanger too, and I'm looking forward to when (when?) the next season starts up.

That brings me to Firefly. Firefly is another sci-fi show that was written and directed by Joss Whedon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame (and Angel and several other television shows and movies. I had heard great reviews and of the fanatacism of the "Browncoats": fans who nicknamed themselves after the rebels of the show. I watched a couple of episodes to see what the fuss was all about, and I have to admit, I am totally taken with Firefly. Once again, thanks to the Sci-Fi channel for picking this up and re-airing the full season after Fox dumped it. I don't know if there are any plans to revive Firefly like Fox did with Family Guy, but there is a new movie coming out this Friday called Serenity that is a continuation of the story from Firefly. I like Firefly because it is so different from other space "operas". Rather than put old western plots into shiny ships, the show really is a Western. The characters live in a universe where there are no Lucas / Henson aliens wandering about. Instead, there are only humans who are terra-forming planets and moving out like old time pioneers. Outworlds are sparcely populated, and outlaws are common. The crew of the cargo ship Serenity (Firefly class) live from one odd job to the next, and not all of them are entirely legal. The show is laced with a kind of humor that I really got into, and the characters actually have character. I highly recommend that any sci-fi fan run out and grab a copy of the first season on DVD (only $40 at Amazon) and watch this great show. I'm really hoping that I can pop into a theater soon and see Serenity.

Tinkering

It's been way too long since my last post. A couple of weeks ago, the whole family came down with some sort of sinus infection. I'm still not quite done with it, but I think I'm through the worst. This weekend I felt well enough to tinker around with my old Gateway PC. One thing had been really frustrating me for a while: I couldn't boot from a CD-ROM. Not only that, but if I tried using something like SmartBootManager or another Torito stack trick to boot the CD-ROM, I would get an Error 0xAA message. So booting from the CD-ROM was a no-go, even with a boot floppy. I thought maybe it had something to do with the fact that I had upgraded the CPU a couple years back using one of the Evergreen Spectra kits. I took the PC apart and put the old 100 MHz chip back in and flashed the BIOS back to the gateway supplied one (1.0.10.BR0T). It was kind of nostalgic to see that Gateway 2000 logo popup again when I booted the PC.

Anyway, booting from the CD-ROM was an option again in the bios, so I flipped it on and put in my SLAX live CD. Unfortunately, I got an ISOLINUX error. Evidently it was able to try to boot from the CD-ROM, but it ran into some other hurdle in the process. Fortunately, I have lots of spare CD drives hanging around. I took the spare Dell one and put it in, and sure enough it booted up fine. Something about that Plextor CD-R/W was not happy about booting. So then I thought, well maybe I can get this guy to boot to CD-ROM with the upgraded chip back in there. Well, it doesn't work perfectly, but using the SmartBootManager disk I can get it to boot to CD-ROM with the 400 MHz chip installed. Huzzah!

That leads to tonight. I've been trying to get the latest distro of Slackware Linux (10.2) running. It's installed, and I can use it, but it won't recognize my USB mouse. I have a PS/2 mouse plugged in now, and it likes that, but it is sort of a pain because the cable from the KVM is USB. So now I have 2 mice on my deks, one for the Dell, and one for the Gateway. Solving problems like this is part of the "joy" of using Linux. I'm sure I'll have it figured out in the next couple of days, or else I'll just switch to the next distribution.

Katrina

Jenn got the call today that her dad was being activated by the national guard in response to the hurricane damage in New Orleans. I've been reading, watching, and listening about the devastation in the area. What I find most appalling is how rapidly the civil situation turned into anarchy. Looting is a sad but expected result, but shooting at rescue personnel and causing general mayhem? I had higher expectations of the people of our country than that. What are these shooters thinking? Of course, there are lots of things I don't understand about this situation. Why stay after the order to evacuate? Why build a city under sea-level? Why make a bad situation worse by harassing the rescue workers and terrorizing other victims? I just don't understand it.

I'm also really disappointed with the media, oil, and insurance industries. The media has already started the witch-hunt to blame someone. It's completely ridiculous. A study was done several years ago that stated that a category 5 hurricane would completely destroy New Orleans. It was a known risk. Yet nearly every newscaster has asked the same ridiculous question: "Why weren't you prepared?" In a catastrophe like this, the loss of life is unavoidable. It's wrong to try and lay blame on any person or organization.

The insurance and oil industries didn't waste any time in using the hurricane to boost profits. Gas around us ranges from $3.19-$3.50 a gallon. Insurance companies are talking about how rates are going to rise.

While I'm ranting, let me make one final observation. What nations are rushing to OUR aid now? Whenever tragedy strikes in the world, we Americans are expected to come running to the rescue. When we need help, who answers the call. If any foreign aide is headed our way, I haven't heard about it yet. I suppose the rest of the world thinks we either don't need or don't deserve their help.

Sorry for the rant, but the whole situation just puts me in a foul mood.

PDA Post

This post is coming straight to you from my new toy, a Dell Axim x50v PDA! This thing is so cool! I reiceived my replacement last week and I have been loving it ever since. It can do jwst about anything a geek like me might want. It has built in wireless so I can browse the web from any hotspot. It has 2 kinds of memory card readers for lots of storage. It plays movies, music, games, and more. The handwriting recognition is incredible: it can recognize my chicken scratch. Jenn can attest to the fact that it has been constantly by my side since arriving. I keep finding interesting uses for it too. Aside from this post, I also take all of my notes on it, track my gas mileage, browse, check e-mail, and jot down appointments. It's really handy! Hopefully my zeal for this new toy persists and I get lots of good use out of this incredible machine.

Dell Axim x50v.... DOA

Oh Dell, why do you torment me so. A couple of weeks ago we ordered a new laptop to replace the one I had for school, and a PDA for myself. After checking out some review sites and waffling as to whether I would really use it, I decided to get the Dell Axim x50v. Dell was having a sale where the units were marked down 35%, and so I jumped on it. The x50v has quite a few features that appeal to me. It has a gorgeous VGA (640x480) screen. It has Wi-Fi (802.11), Infrared, and Blue Tooth built in. It has a fast processor, Compact Flash and SD I/O slots, and lots of other goodies. I wanted one to track my appointments, todo list, and for browsing the web from the couch. Jenn and I were both like little kids waiting for our packages to arrive. For Jenn's laptop, we chose the Inspiron 6000 with a Pentium M 1.6GHz chip, built-in Wi-Fi, and widescreen display. It's amazing how much laptop prices have come down: it was just a hair over $900.	That doesn't look right...
This isn't giving me a warm fuzzy feeling	I got the call from Jenn that the UPS driver had dropped off our toys. When I got home we got them out of the box and started charging them. I powered up the Axim and went through the setup steps, then shut it down to charge while I went out to mow. After dinner and giving Corbin a bath and putting him to bed, I retired to the basement to play with the new toys. The laptop was a breeze, it worked great straight out of the box. I had it updated and installed all of the programs Jenn uses (Picasa, Gaim, w.Bloggar) in just a couple of minutes.
The Axim was a completely different story. I clicked on the PDA and I saw a message which said that a memory error had been detected. I clicked the button to get rid of the error, and then nothing. Just a black screen. Hmm.... I'm new at the PDA game, so let me try a couple things. I plugged in the charger / dock and put the PDA in. I hit power. I see the same message. After clicking the button though, I see the Dell background. Success right? Wrong! That's where it stayed. No friendly start button, no prompts, no response, even to the power button. After actually reading the manual, I click the reset button in the back. It blinks off, then straight back to the Dell screen. Grrrr.... So then I checkout the forums on AximSite, a community run forum for Axim users. By holding down the power and reset buttons, I can force a "hard" reset. Unfortunately, even after the hard reset, I get the blue Dell button staring back at me. Reading further on AximSite, I find that there is a strange three button combo that will throw you into the Dell Hardware Diagnostics Utility. I ran through the utility, and it passed every test perfectly. One test was to record my voice and play it back, which was pretty cool. After finishing the test, I'm back to the Dell blue screen (of death?). I'm pretty sure that the hardware must be okay, and that the ROM / firmware is somehow biffed. At wit's end, I got on the Dell on-line customer support chat site and spoke with "Joshua". He ran me through the same tests I had already tried, and then came to the conclusion that I needed a new unit :-( The chat thing definitely worked better than the phone, as the problem was "resolved" in less than thirty minutes. Checking my order status now, the replacement has shipped and should be here sometime tomorrow or the next day. As a feeble last attempt, I let the battery charge overnight, but in the morning I was still stuck at the Dell screen. I was majorly disappointed that my cool gadget didn't even work out of the box. Hopefully I have better luck with this replacement.	Dell Blue Screen (of Death!)

State Fair

It's state fair time. I'm reminded about once an hour by the train whistle blowing. The train tracks outside our office are only used one time of year, and that is for the state fair. Normally, the tracks are bare excepting for now when they fire up the old engine and ferry folks back and forth to the fairgrounds. It's kind of neat hearing that whistle blow...

Froogle Wish List

I know, I'm probably years behind on learning about this one, but I just noticed the WishList feature over at Google's Froogle site. You can browse around on Froogle and add things to your shopping list. Then you can mark some of those items as being on your wish list. Items on your wish list can be viewed by others, which makes it sort of like a gift registry. I had an idea for a service that would work something like this, and intended to charge the stores that were available to shop from a small fee for anything purchased from a wish list. Google just beat me to the punch. Anyway, if you are feeling generous, here is a brief wishlist I put together.

The Miserable Meteorologist

I missed my calling as a weatherman. Every time the weather is about to change, whether it be from sunny to rainy, muggy to dry, or whatever the barometer chooses to do, I know well in advance. How? My sinuses start giving me fits. Today is one of those days. Anyone who has ever been around me knows that the day of a good rain, I'm a mess. And no, I don't have allergies. Trust me on this one. I've had that torture session otherwise known as a prick test performed three times, and each time I had no reaction to any of the allergens. Do we really need sinuses? I mean, really, what purpose do they serve (aside from making me miserable)?

Taken

Click here for a sweet little animated short.

Movie Review: War of the Worlds

Tonight Corbin spent the night with Oma & Opa, so Jenn and I had a date night. It was quite the date night we had hoped for because we couldn't get reservations at Mitchel's for dinner, and the movie started at either 7:30 or 10:30, so our options were reduced. We went straight for the 7:30 showing and made popcorn and frozen coke our dinner.

Before I get into the movie, what is going on at the theaters these days? $9.00 for tickets?!?! Fortunately for us, we had a free pass we received as a Christmas gift, and it proved to be a good investment as tickets were $8.25 at the time it was purchased. Then inside we had a 10 minute wait to get our large popcorn and large frozen coke ($10.50). The popcorn was stale and full of those tiny pulverized pieces from the bottom of the popper. When we find our seats, we greated with a rolling set of commercials for coke, diet coke, television shows, and reminders to turn off our cell phones. When the lights dim we get our standard 15 minute roll of previews. Normally I don't mind these, as they are usually previews for movies coming out next year, but in this case they were for movies currently in theaters (Stealth, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Are we entertainment consumers such mindless sheep that we don't notice what a bad deal we're getting at the theaters? For the same $30 the two of us spent, we could have rented several movies at $4 each (or bought one for around $20), popped up a couple of bags of $0.50 popcorn, and enjoyed the movie in front of our state of the art widescreen television and dolby digital 5.1 surround sound system. And at home, we have the freedom to pause, rewind, take a bathroom break, or anything else we want.

But I digress. We caught a showing of War of the Worlds after discussing what we should see. Evidently, Hollywood is running short on writers because there seem to be a lot of remakes, sequels, and adaptations in the theaters now. Several folks had told us they liked War of the Worlds, so we settled on that one. Neither of us was all that impressed. The movie had excellent effects, and the mood of the film was tense throughout. Unfortunately, the atmosphere was all it really had going for it. I already knew the story, so I went in knowing the plot line and the ending, but I still hoped that this would be an interesting retelling. I didn't get what I was hoping for. The plot of the movie is outlined in the 5 minutes of intro and outro speech by Morgan Freeman (who never appears in the film). The rest is a cookie cutter sci-fi / action film that really could have been used in any movie. It was almost like Spielberg and company were doing a technical demonstration, and not really making a movie. The ending of the film is what really clinched it as a disappointment. It's almost like they said, okay, we've made our demo, let's wrap this up and go home.

Needless to say, we aren't recommending this to anyone.

Taking Notes

When I was in high school and college, I was a judicious note taker. I made a sort of an art out of it. I had multi-colored pens, and each color had a particular meaning to me. I would jot down just about everything the instructor would mention, as well as any notes on the board or important tips from slides. The result was spiral bound goodness, brimming with colorful pages of knowledge.

Now that I've been in "the real world" for a while, I've noticed that my note taking is not just less colorful, but almost useless. In most meetings I attend, I rarely jot anything down. I have the pad and paper there mostly to show respect to whomever called the meeting (rather than offend them by being honest and showing that I have no intention of taking notes). It isn't that the discussion isn't always noteworthy, it's just that there are so few new thoughts that come up in a meeting that I can remember them without notes. The notes I do take are mostly for show, again, just to humor the speaker. In nearly all cases I end up with a couple of scraps of paper that I'll NEVER reference again.

And here is where the real trouble comes... I'm a pack rat. I HATE to throw things away. And to throw away notes, well, let's not even discuss it. After all, if it was worth jotting down (referring back to school days), then it MUST be important. Unfortunately, now I have these worthless notes littering my desk that I don't want to throw away. In my mind I'm thinking, "Well what if so-and-so asks if I recall a previous discussion". That never happens.

The only notes that I really do care to take and keep are the ones with contact information, calendar appointments, and task lists. These usually end up scattered across a variety of the bad notes, and are in no way organized. If I'm sitting at my desk, I'm pretty good about entering them into Outlook, but otherwise they end up scattered across lots of scraps of paper. I'm considering getting a PDA to better organize these, but I'm afraid that I'll just be pissing away $400 on a toy I use for three weeks, and then forget.

Has anyone else noticed this futility in note taking in the real world? Do you actually use the notes you take now? If you have a PDA, is it useful?