March 10, 2011

California

OK, so I'm back in California. I must say it's good to be back. I find California to be much more laid back than Virgina, where I came from. The job (at Tellabs) is good - so much better than the more stuck up companies that I've been working at - it's much easier to connect to my web services like my email at home and calendars, etc. - much less paranoid that other clients I've been at lately. The job seems cool with interesting assignments and just a general laid back feeling as is what I remember from California. That coupled with a yearning to be productive from months of waiting for a gig and life it good. That plus my apartment is pretty kickass too - I can't wait really for spring and summertime and to get back out to the trails in California hiking and just enjoying the wonderfully weather and diverse topology of California as I remember it. That plus a cool job, money in the bank and what's not to love? Oh I must head out to Napa soon too...

November 01, 2010

Point people more directly

Why do people write stuff like:

For more information, sign on to your Bill Pay service, click Help at the top of any Bill Pay screen, click the "How Do I..." tab and select "How do I change the payment option for one of my current payees?"

Instead of "For information about how to change your payment options click here" or "How do I change the payment option for one of my current payees?""? I mean why do they insist on leading you through a maze to get to the answer?!?

October 20, 2010

Comcast speed


I mean wow! Remember speed kills!

Now if I can just get my static IP assigned.

June 18, 2010

More Playon Fun

On 06/17/2010 11:25 PM, PlayOn Support (Michael) wrote:

Andrew, Your PS3 can't communicate with your router the way you want it to. That can neither be caused by nor solved by PlayOn. It is a completely independent problem between two devices you bought from other companies. You need to consult with them how to fix it. Just because our product/business relies on your network does not make us responsible for maintaining it. Similarly, if the power outlet which your PS3 was plugged into was not supplying the PS3 power, we would not be able to help you there either. If you choose to respond again with profanity on this matter, you will no longer receive any replies or support from us at all, on any matter.

My right to "profane" is protected by the 1st amendment to the US Constitution. Now you also have the right to refuse to deal with me but I would not base that on "profanity". IMNSHO that would be unwise to do so. My profanity is a sign of extreme frustration. Now if you wish to blow off customers just because they are extremely frustrated at you I would suggest to you that that would be a very unwise move. Take it for what you want I guess.

Meantime I will do everything in my power to insure that everybody I come in contact with knows that MediaMall is not a company they want to do business with. Now is that what you really want? I would hope not. Or can we civilly work together? Your choice.

How not to run a company

I'm a guy who believes in giving credit where credit is due and the flip side of giving blame where blame is due. I like MediaMall and their product - Playon. In general I think they have a good idea. It's not many companies that I will actually buy software from, let alone shell out $40. However they have gone downhill and quite frankly are no long worth spending money on. I actually used to actively tout their product, Playon, to people. I no longer do that precisely because of the support, or lack thereof, that they offer. Seriously don't buy their product. You've been warned.

Here's a recent exchange:

In the interim here I just want to say - All I ask for is for this software to perform *reasonable* well. I want to be able to sit and relax in my easy chair and watch videos and entertainment on my device *AS PROMISED* by MediaMall in their agreement with me. Look I'm a reasonable guy and willing work with you and actually put out enormous amounts of effort and cooperation with you trying to help everyone in the process. But there comes a point at times when even I feel like I'm being abused and dumped on as if this is my problem with no help whatsoever being offered by your side to come up with a resolution to such problems. Like a trapped animal I will strike back if treated unfairly (and I believe I'm being treated unfairly). I will become your worst enemy. If you wish to resolve this privately then email me. Otherwise the public fight is on. I will not rest until I receive satisfaction. Enough is enough and I am tired of being treated like the enemy here.

Response from Playon support:

Your PS3 can't communicate with your router the way you want it to. That can neither be caused by nor solved by PlayOn.

Of course it can. You can make suggestions and offer work arounds. Surely you are not lacking that much foresight are you?

It is a completely independent problem between two devices you bought from other companies.

I.E. we're about to pass the buck here...

You need to consult with them how to fix it.

You know what? Last week it was working just find. You know what else? For the last 2 frigging years (like how frigging is not considered profanity yet we all know it's merely a substitute) it's also been working fine. It was not until you guys were suggesting that I run these funky networking programs that it suddenly broke. Gee, imagine that....

Just because our product/business relies on your network does not make us responsible for maintaining it.

I'm not asking to maintain it - I'm asking for help. It's you who are refusing to offer help, instead choosing to pass the buck onto somebody else - namely me.

Similarly, if the power outlet which your PS3 was plugged into was not supplying the PS3 power, we would not be able to help you there either.

Really? I mean really?!? You could not say "Hey plug it in?!?" Man are you missing the boat here!

If you choose to respond again with profanity on this matter, you will no longer receive any replies or support from us at all, on any matter.

The profanity is a sign of extreme frustration. Need I point that out to you?!? Your support sucks! You blame your customers for things and refuse to offer assistance. You constantly pass the buck and blame your customers for problems you refuse to assist on. I am not the only customer that has pointed this out to you. When will you start listening? I can put you down without profanity but unlike you I am able to use the full vocabulary of the language to express myself including what you call profanity (which is BTW protected by the 1st amendment of the US Constitution) to not only express your incompetence but express my frustration in what may be called a short hand that you full well intuitively understand and know as I assume you are 1) human and 2) relatively intelligent adults thus comprehending not only "adult language" but also understanding it's common usage and expression. Yet you are about to use it as your scapegoat to refuse to deal with this issue because truth be known, you don't wish to deal with it. What exactly does that say to your current customers and potential customers? I leave you to ponder that.

But here's the real deal. You have a product that often does not work and that people are simply dropping you off as yet another company who does not know what the "F" you're doing (and who are we kidding here - everybody knows what I meant by "F" so lets stop kidding around and start really acting like adults. Ain't nobody being fooled by what "F" means. Your protestations about "profanity" are silly!). I would think if you were smart you would be working with such people - especially such people who were 1) technically inclined and 2) tenuous at working solutions such as I am rather than blowing them off with the "Hey you said a dirty word" excuse.

OK, fine, I didn't say what was politically correct so you'll just censor me in order to attempt to maintain a pristine reputation (though I'll just capture this over on my blog which you cannot censor) rather than deal with the real issues. Great. Give me my f**#$in $40 back and I'll go away. I'm sick of dealing with your screwed up company! I tried to help you but you refused the help so I give up!

April 02, 2010

How to get your mic working on Ubuntu 9.10

I've been having a hell of a time trying to get my mic to work on my Ubuntu 9.10 machines. Part of the solution I believe is to get the latest ALSA libs, utils and driver and build it. The other part has to do with damn Linux guys often label things funny and provide options that are not really useful or at least are not documented.

Here's the deal, if I run pavucontrol (Pulse Audio Volume Control) and go to the Configuration tab there's a drop down for my Internal Audio. I had it set to Audio Stereo Output. Seemed to make sense to me. But my mic appeared as greyed out in the Input Devices tab. If, however I change it to Audio Stereo Duplex then the mic starts working. I guess it makes sense now that "duplex" means "goes both ways - in an out" but what doesn't make sense really is why would I want the option of making it so that my mic doesn't work (i.e. Audio Stereo Output)?!? I mean if I don't want my mic to be active there's already a mute button!

And on my desktop, which has a 5.1 sound card (and yes I have a 5.1 speaker setup) the option to get my mic working there is to select "Analog Surround 5.1 Output + Analog Stereo Input. Now all I have to do is go out and buy another mic for my desktop - I seem to have lost the last one.

Still haven't gotten HDMI working under Ubuntu 9.1 but I have some things to try out from the Ubuntu forums.

March 06, 2010

Cell phones - Not up to snuff!

What is it with cell phones anyway. It's primary function, while I admit is not a function I do that frequently compared to other things, it can't do all that well. I mean calls but I don't mean hard to hear connections and dropped calls. Those are problems too however just the mechanism of placing the call...

First off - never make a fucking phone dialing app that is incapable of accepted a paste of a phone number!!! You'd think that'd be a no brainer but way too many phone dialers do not allow paste. So you find a number in a web page or an email or you put it in a file - whatever. You select the phone number and you go to the phone app and want to paste it in. There's no paste. Stupid phone!

Secondly you would think that a phone application would be, oh, I don't know.... RESPONSIVE PERHAPS. Many play back those button tones we all know and love. But most phones can't keep up with even the slowest of typists. How hard is this to sense the button was pushed and immediately (I mean right away, with out hesitation - IMMEDITATELY!!! - did I say immediately?) play the fucking tone and be ready for the next button push. Come on folks, this is not rocket science nor is this a lot of work that the phone needs to do in order to accomplish this minor fucking miracle - yet on both Windows Mobile based phones and now my Android based phone this constantly happens. Is it hardware related? Again, how much hardware is needed?!? My old land line never seemed to have an issue accomplishing this task - why can't my $$$ phone do it?!? Write the damn phone app in assembler and make it (and the tones for that matter) memory resident so you have no excuses WRT speed! Really is this too much to ask?!?

And another thing about phones - why is it that the most common things I do require push and hold in order to work. Not just phones, sometimes accessories. For example, my Bluetooth headset of choice (Sony Ericson HBH-980) has a recessed power button and you must hold for a few seconds to turn on. Now I understand the concept of requiring such a delay to distinguish between a real turn on/off event and an inadvertent one but trust me you would not be inadvertently hitting this power button.

And why is it that I must always wrestle with Bluetooth to get it to work right. My BT headset can handle both "Media audio" (from the media player) and "Phone audio" from say and incoming all. Why the distinction? I don't care. Just call it audio. You don't know how many time I try to connect my BT headset and only the phone audio gets connected. No media audio. So I try to connect again. No go. Try powering off the BT headset and back on. Nope. Try turning off BT on the phone and back on No go. Then the phone hangs. Bluetooth is the only thing that seems to have the power to hang my phone, requiring me to open the case and yank the battery in order to reboot!

And then when listening to Bluetooth often I'll get gaps of silence, especially when starting a new song or podcast, as if it needs to buffer stuff or whatever. It's real annoying. Why is Bluetooth so hard, flunky and trouble ridden?!?