[Author's note 2016-05-02: this was typical of my "daily log" type writing when I put in a full day at the office. It does not follow a theme, and those who have been around see that even these older entries benefit from the formatting and presentation rules I've self-developed over the years. And here is a picture of Ko Samui, where I spend many a perfect evening on the Thai western coast.
Ko is the Siamese word for "island". This idyllic spot was just far enough away from the more famous Phuket Island. By 1988, Phuket was full of Australian men, most of whom are drunken jackasses in real life, and the attendant swarms of prostitutes. This also attracted so very many West Germans in those days. One day, I must print my diaries of Ko Samui, although I was only there for part of my lengthy stay of 1984-85.
Further, I remember this exact stretch of beach and that palm tree, so I know parts of the photo have been cropped. This is also the same stretch where I missed my only potentially famous photo, where my 35mm camera let me down. I remember that day, but I probably do not remember specifically any persons or programs in this post. Why? Because those work logs were not initially meant as blog material. They are here because that is all I have for May 1, 2006. To me, every day is an important day.]
The Screamin’ Demon is back in the shop. I had no idea that the SATA drives were an step backwards as far as operating system compatibility goes. You have to know exactly when to interrupt the install process. This completely offsets any potential good done by SATA using a single thinner cable. I know, it is hard to believe who they will give engineering degrees to these days. No, I don’t know all the facts, but I do know that I don’t claim to be an engineer, either.
My 40GB is in the shop to get the files transferred over so I finally put MS Office on this computer. It takes up 10% of my available hard drive space. This brings up three topics.
One, I use a 40GB because that is what I can keep organized right now using a lifetime of built up skills to do so. I could upgrade but I would be no better at keeping such a huge drive organized than some people are with a 5GB.
Two, this computer was slow enough that I could read the names of many of the installation files. What a load of needless crap, files with names like Post Mortem and Pleading Wizard. My advice is still to steal this product as your only hope of conveying to MS that they are not done with the basics yet. You are buying Spanish and French files whether you want them or not. Careful, or they can take up 10% of your hard drive.
Three, MS is getting greedy. The newer updates are coming back with a message that your version of whatever is illegal. I’ve only heard of it though it should only be a short time before I see it. My guess is that it records the product key during the initial install and the MS help line picks this up when you log on. The obvious fix is to turn off the update feature, or take the updates of another computer.
Is this unethical? That depends. Y’day I was writing an email and went to type a capital R. The email was not done, I was still working on it. I managed a typo that made my screen disappear. The file email was completely unrecoverable. But, did it wipe out or did the incomplete version get sent? No way to tell with hotmail. I attribute the command that caused the problem to MS and their obsession with gimp features. They rip you off, you rip them off. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but they let the person doing the first wrong know they aren’t going to get away scott free every time. I could have made backups, but that doesn’t address the problem, which is gimp features that cannot be turned off.
Of course, asking MS to limit themselves to perfecting what they already have been selling is fruitless. That would be like asking my parents if they should have more children or provide adequately for the ones they already have. These kinds of people will never do the right thing unless they have no other choice. So, I say, steal the product. They are dominating the scene so badly it is preventing others from entering the marketplace with better products which is even more illegal.
I got a little flak already about my comment that there are no breakfast specials in this town. Give me a moment to clarify. Yes, there is money to be made at it, my point was that people would abuse the offering and I don’t unsay that. I am implying that the reason no restaurant owner does it is because it would involve hard work, lots of it. Yes, they work hard now, but they work at managing rather than doing the actual work. They want to hire somebody else to do it for minimum wage and that is why they can’t make money at it – they are lazy. Every manager is lazy in my books, which is why he became a manager. Restaurants are one of the most over-managed industries in town starting around twenty years ago.
There was a salesman for the Hollywood Gazette in the shop today. I’ll have to be careful because both Mike and Fred have learned I won’t take any nonsense from these types and have passed them on to me. There is an old-wive’s tale that the easiest sell is another salesman. That has never worked on me. This guy was clever but had the wrong approach – demographics. There is plainly something overall wrong with basing advertising on demographics because it does not work and there is no adequate feedback, yet they all try it. I don’t care if the median household income near the beach is $70,000 (which is not that much these days). I’ve advertised in plenty of upscale media and got no response, yet my ads are the same as everybody else’s. He was continually trying to drive a wedge into the conversation that his advertising was somehow different and better. That is just not the case. I declined to buy anything and he finally left.
Last, I was over at Diane6’s for the network repair. That is trip number three and it still does not work. It has become an intellectual challenge. I’ll provide details because everybody talks about going the extra mile. This one has already been ten miles and we are not out of the weeds yet.
When I got there, she said “a guy from work” had come over a few minutes earlier and got it working. I could have left at that point. Instead, I thought to myself, “Even though this is my very first wireless network and I’ve never had a day of formal training, is it possible that somebody from Florida could fix a problem in two minutes that had stumped me for three days?”
I replied with complete confidence that she had better let me take a look anyway. Sure enough, he had a strong signal and he was on the internet and grinning broadly. Until I disconnected the transmitter. It kept on working – on the neighbor’s wireless. He did not have the skills to rename the SSID or create a workgroup to isolate the trouble. In any case, he left after an hour, which was just as well. Other than plugging in the wires, he had zero troubleshooting skills.
After resetting the router to factory and hooking up the laptop, I finally called back to India. I got a good tech who knew his stuff. During the next four hours, we went over every known step until finally we leaned back and let the patient die. We reconfigured every possible avenue and assigned a static IP address. We blocked neighbors signal and changed from channel 11 to channel 1 and back again. It was the strangest case, or as the tech said, “a rare problem”. On that note, everyone was scared, the lady because she was well aware that by ordinary standards, this repair was costing more than the computer.
I stopped, walked around the living room and made a decision. Fight or flee? My decision was to charge her nothing and handle this as an intellectual go-ahead. Here is where I got: the system has one base unit, and two remotes. Using a matching set of Linksys equipment, I can log on with the remote laptop, but not with the remote desktop. Swapping out all cables and all the simple stuff had already failed, if you can think of it, we already tried it at least twice. This is an exceedingly difficult compound problem that defeated all the experts. The most baffling thing is that the desktop that will not log on to my transmitter will easily log on to the neighbor’s signal and start working.
On that note, I called the tech back in India and explained that sometimes another pair of eyes can spot something. He agreed and sent the problem up the chain of command to Dorothy (supervisor, who gets credit for instantly recognizing this was no customer service problem), who contacted their top technician. Stay with me here, and remember the network still does not work. I have to go back there another time.
It was now 8:30 at night and I was bagged. However, by talking with the tech, we came up with a theory. He says there is a small app installed along with the Linksys driver that may have compatibility issues. You know, like Cheryl and I. The plan is that I will download a fix off the net, then delete the original off Diane6’s computer. At that point, I’ve promised to call back to India because the fix is not a straight install, it requires his directions. This makes sense because it explains why WinXP would allow the connection to the neighbor but not its own driver.
Yes, that is a picture of me making an apple pie. Deep dish, with nutmeg. All from scratch, meaning I opened the can myself. See, all my life I dated useless good looking women, so if I wanted any home cookin’ . . . .
In other news, I need a complete new set of tires for the car and this time I mean a good set. I’ve decided to get a third computer back onto the desks at work. This means I’ll have to assemble one from components I’ve got around here. Yep, the once since October that I had three people in, I didn’t have three working computers. I’m upgrading to 80 GB hard drives, but only because they are only 8 dollars more than the 40s.
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