Actually, what annoys me the most about detailed billing (I don't have an iPhone with Cingular, mind you) are the incoming calls listed. I'm not sure if this is a state or federal thing, but I've been with three providers over the last 7 years and each of them simply list incoming calls as something to the effect of "Incoming: 23m". I would really like to know WHO called me that I talked to for 23 minutes. Or even better who the hell I called me during peak times that I ended up talking to for 104 minutes. That knowledge should have just as much bearing on my personal cell plan auditing as knowing who I called out to.
Other than that, with my current provider everything else is generally listed as Data usage: 0.00, Text messaging: 0.00, etc.
Due to some weird accounting on Sprint's part when I changed to Verizon last year, I received two bills. The second bill was some small amount less than the first -- a couple of bucks, I think. Unfortunately, I immediately paid the first bill and didn't realize what happened until the next month I started receiving a bill from Sprint for something like -$2.33 on an account which no longer had a phone number or plan attached to it. The small amount of the money meant that it really wasn't worth my time to sit on the phone, just like you. I laughed when it kept up after several months and I guessed that they had probably spent more than the amount of the credit to continue sending me a bill for that credit.
Eventually, it looks like one of their employees caught up with it and zeroed out my account because I finally stopped receiving the bill.
Or if you got a $30 bill from your ISP with the explanation, "This is the computer industry. Though our adverts say this plan is $30 a month, that's hex. In base-ten dollars, you owe us $48." That's a good idea. I wonder if I can patent it.
Actually, years ago we had a C-Band provider that did offer an a-la-carte plan. This was in addition to all of the free channels on the C-Band satellites, of course. However, as technology progresively got cheaper, their rates seemed to get progressively higher so that they eventually priced their services such that it just made more sense to switch to Dish Network.
And unlike guns, any asshole (or kid) can assemble one from parts, with absolutely no regulation, and leave me permanently blind.
Are you kidding me? Have you never heard of a zip gun before? Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_gun, but in case you don't feel like reading it, a zip gun is basically a small, improvised gun made from a pice of metal tubing. Your basic zip gun can be made from easily scavanged parts, none of which require any sort of license to purchase or acquire. The ammunition would be the hardest component to acquire since you have to be 18 to purchase rifle or shotgun ammo and 21 to purchase handgun ammo. Even then, it's not that hard to get ahold of. To my knowledge, you don't have to register to purchase ammo (at least I don't remember having to do anything other than prove I'm over 21 when I've bought in the past), meaning there's no real oversight of ammo purchases, meaning any apathetic ammo dealer could sell ammo to a minor without much threat of "the man" catching up to him.
Point is, a zip gun is about 100 times easier to create than this flashlight laser. All you need are some rudimentary tools and you're good to go. The only reason you don't see or hear more about zip guns these days is because real firearms are so much easier to get ahold of and are much safer to operate.
Oh yeah, and why does everything have to go back to terrorism? People like you who are so scared of the big bad terrorists that their first thought when they see or hear anything bad is to think about how the terrorists could use it to harm them, kind of make me sick. If you're living your life in constant fear of being a victim of a terror attack, then you're letting the terrorists win. They are achieving their goal with you. I don't know about you, but I'm much more afraid of dying in a vehicle accident than in a terror attack. Or of becoming the victim of a violent homicide than a terror attack. In 2001, nearly 3000 people were killed by the 9/11 attacks -- the single deadliest terror attack in the US and incident which sparked off this wave of terrorist paranoia that has swept the US. That same year over 42,000 US people died in vehicle accidents and almost 30,000 US people were killed by guns.
It's a good thing that you'd rather be shot than blinded by a laser at a disco because you've got a much greater chance of being shot than ever being blinded by a laser weilding terrorist. Stop watching 24 and get a clue. Terrorism isn't nearly as dangerous to you as the government and news media would have you believe*.
(*Note: I am not, in any way, attempting to trivialize the 9/11 attacks or the grief that the victims families undoubtedly experienced. I'm merely trying to point out that the parent poster needs to stop living his life in fear of the next terror attack because that's just letting the terrorists acomplish their goal and that statistics show he's more likely to die in a manner other than a terror attack.)
Actually, what's scary to think about is the number of corporate intranet websites which require Java. My previous employer utilized a Java applet to retrieve scanned documents from a datastore. I feel sorry for the sysadmins at that company who really can't do much to prevent such an attack. (OK, a proxy server with very strict allow rules would work, but IT never had enough clout to get something like that pushed through.)
For that matter, the web-based management utilities for various pieces of hardware (network switchs, SANs, printers) will alot of times utilize Java. Off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure that HP's WebJetAdmin software is Java-based. I'd tell you for sure, but I haven't reinstalled the software since the last time it pissed me off. While Java may not be the new kid on the block these days, it certainly hasn't fallen totally out of favor just yet.
Seriously, the best thing about Facebook is that it's closed to everyone but specific people that I want to allow. Nobody but my friends (or people in my network, Facebook offers a variety of privacy options) know what I'm up to, can see my favorites, or see my wall postings. I don't want random people to know specific things about my life. However, Facebook still allows you to do broad searches on specific fields in specific networks, but you can't access the real information until you become friends. Exactly! Facebook is nothing more than a convenient way for me to keep in touch with my friends and my extended friends and let them know what's up in my life. I was never big on MySpace. Yeah, I have a profile, but I'm not real keen on the site, partly becuase it seems to be nothing but the digital equivalent of a high school year book. It seems like it's more of a competition to see how many friends you can get than a way to keep in touch with friends. Not to mention, the whole MySpace profile editor fad. I just LOVE going to somebody's profile and being ambushed by a background that effectively make it impossible to read the text on their profile.
Facebook is nice. Profiles are kept relatively simple. Their newsfeed keeps you updated with your friends' profile changes, and the site is relatively bereft of the spam problems that MySpace currently has. I think my MySpace profile must get at least one MySpace slut request per day.
Anyway, I'm rambling, but the point is that an openness of profiles doesn't quite seem to be in everybody's best interest.
OK so wait times are down, but has the service actually improved?
In the past couple of months, I've had a couple of occasions to deal with them for BackupExec issues and came away none too pleased.
First situation: I spent 4 - 5 hours with support attempting to troubleshoot an issue over the course of an 11.5 hour day. In the end, BE support couldn't solve my problem and the only solution was a full uninstall and reinstall. Of Windows. Still not sure what happened to break the software. We'd performed the same task on this very server several times (rename server, run BE database conversion utility, connect drives and get to work), but this time the software blew up to the point where only a clean format and reinstall of Server 2K3 solved the issue. I gave up with their "support" when their "clean" reinstall of BE didn't solve the problem.
Scenario two: Apparently I didn't get enough punishment before. Call BE support for a new issue on the same server a couple of days (4 or 5) later. (Restoring data from before the format.) Get a new tech who flat REFUSES to help me until I download and install the latest version. I begin the download, but since our bandwidth is approximately equivalent to a pair of shotgunned 56k modems, I immediately deduce that the 500+MB software won't finish downloading anytime before the end of the work day. I call back and explain that the server has been down for 5 days already due to their inability to solve my issue before and now their "solution", which may or may not work, will cause another day of downtime. I ask that we skip that first step and try some other troubleshooting in the meantime. The tech's response: "nope". He wouldn't help me at all so off I went on my own......which is what I should have done anyway, but I was mentally drained and at my wit's end with this whole debacle so I decided to call the "experts" hoping they might be able to at least point me in the right direction. For the record, I eventually determined that the problem was due to bad LTO media. The tape verified fine after the backup, but there was a section with about 1.5 GB of data that the drive just couldn't read from for whatever reason. I've never had a tape fail like that (usually an all-or-nothing failure), but I was able to just restore around the bad section and retrieve the other 1.5 GB from a previous backup. Still, it would have been nice if the people who actually deal with BE problems every day could have suggested that possibility to me. Or any possibilities other than "upgrade first".
Is it too much to ask that a person supporting a piece of software actually be more capable than I?
One of my employees made a mistake of running the uninstall tool on the same computer on to which he had downloaded the latest install sources from our corporate repository in... well Timbuktu judging by the download speeds.
The result? Yeah, the tool cleaned up Symantec AV off the server. It also deleted the new install source that he had just spent the last 30 minutes downloading. LOL. The tool is thorough if nothing else.
The new changes in ratings won't be appearing until the release of the 2008 models.
As I see it, there are a couple of factors which, combined, could account for worse mileage these days. (I can't really say that I remember 80's cars getting such great mileage, but then I didn't start driving until '97.) First, as other people have mentioned, there's weight. As government crash standards have increased, so has the weight of the cars increased to meet these standards. Say an airbag weighs, I don't know, 40 pounds. Now we have two of those. Oh? Side curtain airbags? Sure, let's install 4 of those. That's an extra 240 pounds right there. Not to mention, all of the pretty much standard features on most cars today (power windows, keyless entry, A/C... all features which were options in the 80's). Simply put, cars are heavier. My '85 RX-7 weighs around 2200 - 2400 pounds (depending on if the motor is sitting on the engine stand or actually in the car;). My Mom's '01 Eclipse (an example of a modern sports car) weighs in at a portly 3000+. My '86 Corolla weighed in at around 2100 - 2200 pounds. My '03 Civic weighs 2553 (according to Carpoint).
But here's the other consideration: speed. The national speed limit wasn't repealed until 1995. Prior to 1987, the standard speed limit was 55. After 1987 and 1988 interstate and then "interstate quality roads" could be increased to 65 in rural areas. Now, it seems that most freeways are at least 70 out in more rural areas. Furthermore, an informal survey of most larger cities I've driven in over the last couple of years (Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, etc.) seem to indicate that the "accepted" speed limit is generally closer to 80. That 25mph increase in speed probably does more to kill our economy than any other factor. IMHO, of course.
Actually, the ATM in the building where I work apparently does the same thing. I've never tested it. My bank's just down the street so I've only used the ATM in the building twice for an "emergency" $20. I would imagine that it has to do with the Social Security Administration office and the IRS office both being in the building and probably demanding cash payment of some random fee for some service.
That said, I can attest to the fact that my bank's ATMs dispense $10 bills. Actually, I can remember when they used to dispense $5 bills -- getting 40x$5 bills was no fun when it would run out of the big stuff.
Anyway, aren't ATMs getting a bit redundant these days, what with practically everybody out there accepting debit cards now. I used to be that guy who always kept at least $100 cash on me... now I usually keep less than $20.
What? You mean my 1,000,000 lira note is now worth about 1 lira? For some reason that doesn't seem as much fun. (Although I don't blame them for revaluing the currency. I had a college roommate from Turkey who would talk about money in Turkey and I always thought about how much easier it must be to manage money here in the US due to the smaller denominations.)
What's great were the FEMA fuck-ups where they withheld aid for those who fully qualified for it. I'm over it now, but this happened to me. I lived in the affected area and that $2000 would have been a great help to my finances (especially when my job stiffed me for the majority of my moving costs). Unfortunately, I either screwed up or their server screwed up during the transaction, but they claimed that I checked a box stating "I do not have immediate need for assistance" when I registered. (Nevermind the question of why I would even bother registering before I required assistance.) I sent in countless appeals, waited on hold on their ridiculous help line, and otherwise spent a large amount of time trying to obtain that financial aid. I think that's why it pisses me off so much to see these people who exploited the system. I was trying to use the system legitimately and I basically got screwed due to one little problem on my application for aid. I had legitimate ID (several forms including my most recent electric and cable bills to prove my current residency). Eventually, I gave up trying to get that money becuase I did still have a job and I did need to get on with my life. But I just find it ridiculous that they made it so hard for me to attempt to get aid when so many others were easily able to exploit them....posting without Karma Bonus since this is getting OT...
Many years ago when I took my obligatory first aid course, the MD teaching told us how he distinguishes between civilised and uncivilised country: In a civilised country, if you notice a traffic accident, you stop and help. In an uncivilised country, you drive on.
Some countries in Africa, and the USA, fall under the category "uncivilised".
German rules: You can't get a driver's license without passing a first aid course. You can go to jail for not helping a person in danger. You cannot be prosecuted for any damage that you do while trying to help. Your car insurance will voluntarily pay you for any damages to you that happened while helping in a traffic accident (for good reason, because you might save them lots of money). That's interesting. Sadly, one of the reasons that I haven't re-uped my CPR certification/first aid is due to the potential complexities involved. For instance, I've heard stories about pricks who had their lives saved via CPR but then tried to sue the CPR administer for breaking ribs and/or other accidental damage during the process of having their life saved. I've always wondered if these stories are true, but I'd hate to find out. The potential costs of a lawsuit, whether frivilous or not, are enough to make me think twice.
Then there's the story that I heard from an EMT one time. Apparently in some areas EMTs will not procede without police first arriving on the scene of an accident (or violent crime), due to the threat of being acosted by other citizens -- especially if the accident wasn't necessarily an accident.
Lastly, there's the case recently near me where a citizen was attempting to render assistance to a mugging victim and was shot in the head by the mugger before escaping. The sad truth is, many times you take personal risks simply by rendering assistance... and I can't really blame people for not wanting to take those risks some times.
I feel like calling 911 should be enough. It's best to let the professionals handle things...
I actually had a similar problem when I left my last employer. They accidentally entered my termination date as one day earlier than they should have, meaning I didn't get paid for my last day of work. After fighting with HR for, literally, 2 months I finally left a VM for the lady handling my case one day threatening to file a complaint with the attorney general. I got a call back the very next day asking where she should FedEx the check to. The only reason I waited that long was because of the complexity of my situation. I worked for a company based out of Texas, and was technically employed in Louisiana, but had actually been performing work at an office in a third state due to the problems after Katrina.
Anyway, most companies perfer not to have those sorts of complaints on file and will usually strive to resolve any wage complaints in an extremely efficient manner when threatened.
More like someone copying and pasting the story "Guts" by Chuck Palahniuk (author of "Fight Club"). Supposedly some people faint when listening to him perform readings of it. I have no idea why the GP posted it here, though.
Probably because to make this addition:
It's hard to say what my parents were more disgusted by: how I'd got in trouble or how I'd saved myself. After the hospital, my mom got scared. And said "You're moving with your Auntie and Uncle in Bel-Air."
I whistled for a cab and when it came near. The license plate said "fresh" and there were dice in the mirror. If anything I could say that this cab was rare. But I thought "nah forget it, yo Holmes, to Bel-Air!"
I pulled up to a house about seven or eight. And I yelled to the cabby "yo Holmes, smell you later". Looked at my kingdom, I was finally there. To sit on my throne as the prince of Bel-Air.
All those people grossed out or feeling sorry for me.... Chuck Norris it's not, but I guess "Bel-Airing" people is the popular thing on the internet these days.
That said, I'm glad that you pointed out that the story was written by Chuck Palahniuk. The entire time I'm reading it I can't help but get the feeling that it sounds just like some of his work. It's nice to know that I'm not crazy.
I doubt they could get good battery life for a phone in such a small device though. I'll bet they could if the phone didn't have a screen on it. And then anybody who wanted a screen, could just pick up a BT headset with a screen.
What? You don't take off your watch at night? How often do you have to charge your cell phone anwyay? Talk time is rated at 3 1/3 hours, which is more than most people spend on their cell phone in one day. Non-talk features might eat into that battery time, but probably not too much since it would be a pain to do anything BUT talk on that phone.
I'm not saying I want this phone either (although it is kind of cool in a Dick Tracy sort of way), but I would imagine that with 3.3333 hours of talk time and 80 hours of standby time, one should get a full day's use out of it.
As for it being huge... well, it looks about regular watch size to me, although they suspiciously don't give any dimensions on the specs page, nor do they have any screenshots with the phone on a wrist in their gallery page.
Plus all but one or two of the so-called missing features are software features. Something Apple can easily add to the iPhone, at any time, with only a software update and without having to create a new phone. Which is very nice. The point remains: why didn't they add these software features in for the launch? Surely they had to know that people would see these features as shortcomings of the phone and lambast Apple over it.
Ignoring the fact that it's a Verizon phone (this is not the time or place for that argument): MMS? check Video Recording? check Custom Ringtones? kinda-check (VZW lock in means you have to use BitPim) Mass Storage? check (I think the latest software update will allow up to 4GB cards) Bluetooth with stereo streaming? check Voice dialing? check Sending contact info? check-via bluetooth Instant messaging? check SMS to multiple people? check
And the one feature that the 9900 has that, for me, trumps most other phones, a full QWERTY keyboard. One that is larger than that of the iPhone and which has real buttons for tactile feedback. I've used the iPhone and had a hard time typing on it. I know that everybody likes to say that there's a learning curve for the keyboard, and that's fine, I guess. There wasn't one with the keyboard on my phone.
In the iPhone's defense: their music player is leagues above the shit MP3 software on the 9900. Safari on the iPhone is definitely better than the WAP browsers on other cell phones. It's also better than Opera Mini. And the iPhone does have a very, very slick user interface.
Anyway, this wasn't meant to be a my-phone-is-better-than-your-phone post. It was just meant to be an illustration of a phone which, for the most part, included the features missing from the iPhone.
Is the iPhone a cool phone? No doubt. Is it worth $300 - $400 more than a phone with more features? Not in my opinion, but that's because, to me, it seems more like a WiFi enabled iPod first and a phone second.
Oh, and one last thing...
...without acknowledging the other 1000 fantastic features of the iPhone or acknowledging that Apple will update the software on a regular basis, from someone who simples wants to appease the Slashdot-type crowd. This kind of makes you sound like an Apple apologist. Maybe they will update the software on a regular basis. So why not wait until the software is updated with the above missing features to shell out the $500 - $600? In the meantime, one can keep using a phone which does have all of those missing features. It actually sounds like you might be a little upset that somebody turned a critical eye to your new toy and actually had the gall to point out its shortcomings. I for one, actually appreciate the fact that a reviewer took the time to comment on the good and the bad instead of solely focusing on the new, gee-whiz features.
Anyway, just remember. While you may bash Lam's review, but in the end he did say that he was overall happy with the phone and will continue to use it.
I've *bought* my movies on DVD. I've got better things to do than wait two weeks for a high def movie to download. And even when the last mile problem is solved, if they keep it free of DRM crap and sell it *at a reasonable price* (and, btw, I think a few bucks is a reasonable price when they don't have to print, press, package, or distribute anything). If you could download a HD movie in a few minutes for a few bucks and store it as long as you want it, why wouldn't you? I would. Thank you! This is the same argument I've been making about CD's for years. Give me a DRM free, lossless encoded CD at a reasonable price and I will buy it. iTunes is part of the way there, but a full DRM free album is still encoded with lossy algorithms and costs as much if not more than the CD in the store. The only difference between music and movies is that you can download an entire (lossless encoded) CD in hours, not days. If it's a CD that's not likely to be at the local Wal-mart, I can actually download the damn thing quicker than I can get in the car, fight the traffic to the closest Best Buy/Circuit City/wherever, buy the CD, and drive back home. This is why the people who can afford to buy CDs still pirate CDs: sheer convenience. Those are the music and movie industries' true lost sales.
If the music and movie industries gave us what we want instead of what they want, they would make money. I guarantee it.
Newsflash: If you're checking the results of monitoring software, you're not a manager, you're an SA or an operator. I'm not even a manager and yet I've not even seen my company's monitoring tools. If something is wrong, someone who's watching that stuff will tell me.
Newsflash: in smaller organizations, the manager is also usually a member of the staff, albeit one more technically skilled than the rest. Since I'm the one ultimately responsible for the uptime of my equipment, I like to be the first one into my office in the mornings so that I can properly asses the day's issues and give direction where direction is needed. That way, when my boss asks me what's going on, I can have a legitimate answer for them and an action plan already in place. The non-critical issues (backup logs, etc.) I leave to my staff when they arrive, but I like to know about the fires ASAP, and the best way to do that is to check on things myself.
The first thing I look at each morning are the diagnostic lights on each of my servers as I walk by to my desk, followed by the lights on the communications equipment and the display on the UPS. While there are certainly many other tools out there that I could use, I've found that looking for anomalous lights on my servers is the quickest, easiest, and most efficient way to tell me if there's something that needs my attention.
After I get to my desk it's Fluke to quickly check the status of connectivity at our field offices.
And then it's probably Slashdot for the next hour until somebody else actually arrives at work and I need to start looking busy.
I think it's a matter of perception. If you're one of those on the cusp, like I was for a long time, you didn't want to purchase a player that would only hold 1/3 of your music. At least in my eyes, anything over ~1GB wasn't going to be worth it to me until I could fit all 50+GB of music on one device. If I'm going to have to pick and choose a subset of music to fit on my player anyway, why not go with a smaller and cheaper player. Yeah, I might be transferring music back and forth more often than somebody with a multi-GB player, but I usually have a good idea of what music I'll be in the mood for when I go out with my MP3 player.
I still don't own a multi-GB MP3 player, either. I don't have much need for one. And if I did, the only benefit I'd see was saving myself an extra 10 mintues before each trip out to run or mow the lawn when I traditionally load songs onto my player. 10 minutes is worth it to me -- especially when I consider that I'll feel a lot less bad when I drop and break my $30 MP3 player than my $300 MP3 player.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, what annoys me the most about detailed billing (I don't have an iPhone with Cingular, mind you) are the incoming calls listed. I'm not sure if this is a state or federal thing, but I've been with three providers over the last 7 years and each of them simply list incoming calls as something to the effect of "Incoming: 23m". I would really like to know WHO called me that I talked to for 23 minutes. Or even better who the hell I called me during peak times that I ended up talking to for 104 minutes. That knowledge should have just as much bearing on my personal cell plan auditing as knowing who I called out to.
Other than that, with my current provider everything else is generally listed as Data usage: 0.00, Text messaging: 0.00, etc.
Due to some weird accounting on Sprint's part when I changed to Verizon last year, I received two bills. The second bill was some small amount less than the first -- a couple of bucks, I think. Unfortunately, I immediately paid the first bill and didn't realize what happened until the next month I started receiving a bill from Sprint for something like -$2.33 on an account which no longer had a phone number or plan attached to it. The small amount of the money meant that it really wasn't worth my time to sit on the phone, just like you. I laughed when it kept up after several months and I guessed that they had probably spent more than the amount of the credit to continue sending me a bill for that credit.
Eventually, it looks like one of their employees caught up with it and zeroed out my account because I finally stopped receiving the bill.
Actually, years ago we had a C-Band provider that did offer an a-la-carte plan. This was in addition to all of the free channels on the C-Band satellites, of course. However, as technology progresively got cheaper, their rates seemed to get progressively higher so that they eventually priced their services such that it just made more sense to switch to Dish Network.
And unlike guns, any asshole (or kid) can assemble one from parts, with absolutely no regulation, and leave me permanently blind.
Are you kidding me? Have you never heard of a zip gun before? Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_gun, but in case you don't feel like reading it, a zip gun is basically a small, improvised gun made from a pice of metal tubing. Your basic zip gun can be made from easily scavanged parts, none of which require any sort of license to purchase or acquire. The ammunition would be the hardest component to acquire since you have to be 18 to purchase rifle or shotgun ammo and 21 to purchase handgun ammo. Even then, it's not that hard to get ahold of. To my knowledge, you don't have to register to purchase ammo (at least I don't remember having to do anything other than prove I'm over 21 when I've bought in the past), meaning there's no real oversight of ammo purchases, meaning any apathetic ammo dealer could sell ammo to a minor without much threat of "the man" catching up to him.
Point is, a zip gun is about 100 times easier to create than this flashlight laser. All you need are some rudimentary tools and you're good to go. The only reason you don't see or hear more about zip guns these days is because real firearms are so much easier to get ahold of and are much safer to operate.
Oh yeah, and why does everything have to go back to terrorism? People like you who are so scared of the big bad terrorists that their first thought when they see or hear anything bad is to think about how the terrorists could use it to harm them, kind of make me sick. If you're living your life in constant fear of being a victim of a terror attack, then you're letting the terrorists win. They are achieving their goal with you. I don't know about you, but I'm much more afraid of dying in a vehicle accident than in a terror attack. Or of becoming the victim of a violent homicide than a terror attack. In 2001, nearly 3000 people were killed by the 9/11 attacks -- the single deadliest terror attack in the US and incident which sparked off this wave of terrorist paranoia that has swept the US. That same year over 42,000 US people died in vehicle accidents and almost 30,000 US people were killed by guns.
It's a good thing that you'd rather be shot than blinded by a laser at a disco because you've got a much greater chance of being shot than ever being blinded by a laser weilding terrorist. Stop watching 24 and get a clue. Terrorism isn't nearly as dangerous to you as the government and news media would have you believe*.
(*Note: I am not, in any way, attempting to trivialize the 9/11 attacks or the grief that the victims families undoubtedly experienced. I'm merely trying to point out that the parent poster needs to stop living his life in fear of the next terror attack because that's just letting the terrorists acomplish their goal and that statistics show he's more likely to die in a manner other than a terror attack.)
Actually, what's scary to think about is the number of corporate intranet websites which require Java. My previous employer utilized a Java applet to retrieve scanned documents from a datastore. I feel sorry for the sysadmins at that company who really can't do much to prevent such an attack. (OK, a proxy server with very strict allow rules would work, but IT never had enough clout to get something like that pushed through.)
For that matter, the web-based management utilities for various pieces of hardware (network switchs, SANs, printers) will alot of times utilize Java. Off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure that HP's WebJetAdmin software is Java-based. I'd tell you for sure, but I haven't reinstalled the software since the last time it pissed me off. While Java may not be the new kid on the block these days, it certainly hasn't fallen totally out of favor just yet.
Facebook is nice. Profiles are kept relatively simple. Their newsfeed keeps you updated with your friends' profile changes, and the site is relatively bereft of the spam problems that MySpace currently has. I think my MySpace profile must get at least one MySpace slut request per day.
Anyway, I'm rambling, but the point is that an openness of profiles doesn't quite seem to be in everybody's best interest.
OK so wait times are down, but has the service actually improved?
...which is what I should have done anyway, but I was mentally drained and at my wit's end with this whole debacle so I decided to call the "experts" hoping they might be able to at least point me in the right direction. For the record, I eventually determined that the problem was due to bad LTO media. The tape verified fine after the backup, but there was a section with about 1.5 GB of data that the drive just couldn't read from for whatever reason. I've never had a tape fail like that (usually an all-or-nothing failure), but I was able to just restore around the bad section and retrieve the other 1.5 GB from a previous backup. Still, it would have been nice if the people who actually deal with BE problems every day could have suggested that possibility to me. Or any possibilities other than "upgrade first".
In the past couple of months, I've had a couple of occasions to deal with them for BackupExec issues and came away none too pleased.
First situation: I spent 4 - 5 hours with support attempting to troubleshoot an issue over the course of an 11.5 hour day. In the end, BE support couldn't solve my problem and the only solution was a full uninstall and reinstall. Of Windows. Still not sure what happened to break the software. We'd performed the same task on this very server several times (rename server, run BE database conversion utility, connect drives and get to work), but this time the software blew up to the point where only a clean format and reinstall of Server 2K3 solved the issue. I gave up with their "support" when their "clean" reinstall of BE didn't solve the problem.
Scenario two: Apparently I didn't get enough punishment before. Call BE support for a new issue on the same server a couple of days (4 or 5) later. (Restoring data from before the format.) Get a new tech who flat REFUSES to help me until I download and install the latest version. I begin the download, but since our bandwidth is approximately equivalent to a pair of shotgunned 56k modems, I immediately deduce that the 500+MB software won't finish downloading anytime before the end of the work day. I call back and explain that the server has been down for 5 days already due to their inability to solve my issue before and now their "solution", which may or may not work, will cause another day of downtime. I ask that we skip that first step and try some other troubleshooting in the meantime. The tech's response: "nope". He wouldn't help me at all so off I went on my own...
Is it too much to ask that a person supporting a piece of software actually be more capable than I?
One of my employees made a mistake of running the uninstall tool on the same computer on to which he had downloaded the latest install sources from our corporate repository in... well Timbuktu judging by the download speeds.
The result? Yeah, the tool cleaned up Symantec AV off the server. It also deleted the new install source that he had just spent the last 30 minutes downloading. LOL. The tool is thorough if nothing else.
The new changes in ratings won't be appearing until the release of the 2008 models.
;). My Mom's '01 Eclipse (an example of a modern sports car) weighs in at a portly 3000+. My '86 Corolla weighed in at around 2100 - 2200 pounds. My '03 Civic weighs 2553 (according to Carpoint).
As I see it, there are a couple of factors which, combined, could account for worse mileage these days. (I can't really say that I remember 80's cars getting such great mileage, but then I didn't start driving until '97.) First, as other people have mentioned, there's weight. As government crash standards have increased, so has the weight of the cars increased to meet these standards. Say an airbag weighs, I don't know, 40 pounds. Now we have two of those. Oh? Side curtain airbags? Sure, let's install 4 of those. That's an extra 240 pounds right there. Not to mention, all of the pretty much standard features on most cars today (power windows, keyless entry, A/C... all features which were options in the 80's). Simply put, cars are heavier. My '85 RX-7 weighs around 2200 - 2400 pounds (depending on if the motor is sitting on the engine stand or actually in the car
But here's the other consideration: speed. The national speed limit wasn't repealed until 1995. Prior to 1987, the standard speed limit was 55. After 1987 and 1988 interstate and then "interstate quality roads" could be increased to 65 in rural areas. Now, it seems that most freeways are at least 70 out in more rural areas. Furthermore, an informal survey of most larger cities I've driven in over the last couple of years (Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, etc.) seem to indicate that the "accepted" speed limit is generally closer to 80. That 25mph increase in speed probably does more to kill our economy than any other factor. IMHO, of course.
Actually, the ATM in the building where I work apparently does the same thing. I've never tested it. My bank's just down the street so I've only used the ATM in the building twice for an "emergency" $20. I would imagine that it has to do with the Social Security Administration office and the IRS office both being in the building and probably demanding cash payment of some random fee for some service.
That said, I can attest to the fact that my bank's ATMs dispense $10 bills. Actually, I can remember when they used to dispense $5 bills -- getting 40x$5 bills was no fun when it would run out of the big stuff.
Anyway, aren't ATMs getting a bit redundant these days, what with practically everybody out there accepting debit cards now. I used to be that guy who always kept at least $100 cash on me... now I usually keep less than $20.
What? You mean my 1,000,000 lira note is now worth about 1 lira? For some reason that doesn't seem as much fun. (Although I don't blame them for revaluing the currency. I had a college roommate from Turkey who would talk about money in Turkey and I always thought about how much easier it must be to manage money here in the US due to the smaller denominations.)
What's great were the FEMA fuck-ups where they withheld aid for those who fully qualified for it. I'm over it now, but this happened to me. I lived in the affected area and that $2000 would have been a great help to my finances (especially when my job stiffed me for the majority of my moving costs). Unfortunately, I either screwed up or their server screwed up during the transaction, but they claimed that I checked a box stating "I do not have immediate need for assistance" when I registered. (Nevermind the question of why I would even bother registering before I required assistance.) I sent in countless appeals, waited on hold on their ridiculous help line, and otherwise spent a large amount of time trying to obtain that financial aid. I think that's why it pisses me off so much to see these people who exploited the system. I was trying to use the system legitimately and I basically got screwed due to one little problem on my application for aid. I had legitimate ID (several forms including my most recent electric and cable bills to prove my current residency). Eventually, I gave up trying to get that money becuase I did still have a job and I did need to get on with my life. But I just find it ridiculous that they made it so hard for me to attempt to get aid when so many others were easily able to exploit them. ...posting without Karma Bonus since this is getting OT...
Some countries in Africa, and the USA, fall under the category "uncivilised".
German rules: You can't get a driver's license without passing a first aid course. You can go to jail for not helping a person in danger. You cannot be prosecuted for any damage that you do while trying to help. Your car insurance will voluntarily pay you for any damages to you that happened while helping in a traffic accident (for good reason, because you might save them lots of money). That's interesting. Sadly, one of the reasons that I haven't re-uped my CPR certification/first aid is due to the potential complexities involved. For instance, I've heard stories about pricks who had their lives saved via CPR but then tried to sue the CPR administer for breaking ribs and/or other accidental damage during the process of having their life saved. I've always wondered if these stories are true, but I'd hate to find out. The potential costs of a lawsuit, whether frivilous or not, are enough to make me think twice.
Then there's the story that I heard from an EMT one time. Apparently in some areas EMTs will not procede without police first arriving on the scene of an accident (or violent crime), due to the threat of being acosted by other citizens -- especially if the accident wasn't necessarily an accident.
Lastly, there's the case recently near me where a citizen was attempting to render assistance to a mugging victim and was shot in the head by the mugger before escaping. The sad truth is, many times you take personal risks simply by rendering assistance... and I can't really blame people for not wanting to take those risks some times.
I feel like calling 911 should be enough. It's best to let the professionals handle things...
I actually had a similar problem when I left my last employer. They accidentally entered my termination date as one day earlier than they should have, meaning I didn't get paid for my last day of work. After fighting with HR for, literally, 2 months I finally left a VM for the lady handling my case one day threatening to file a complaint with the attorney general. I got a call back the very next day asking where she should FedEx the check to. The only reason I waited that long was because of the complexity of my situation. I worked for a company based out of Texas, and was technically employed in Louisiana, but had actually been performing work at an office in a third state due to the problems after Katrina.
Anyway, most companies perfer not to have those sorts of complaints on file and will usually strive to resolve any wage complaints in an extremely efficient manner when threatened.
Probably because to make this addition: It's hard to say what my parents were more disgusted by: how I'd got in trouble or how I'd saved myself. After the hospital, my mom got scared. And said "You're moving with your Auntie and Uncle in Bel-Air."
I whistled for a cab and when it came near. The license plate said "fresh" and there were dice in the mirror. If anything I could say that this cab was rare. But I thought "nah forget it, yo Holmes, to Bel-Air!"
I pulled up to a house about seven or eight. And I yelled to the cabby "yo Holmes, smell you later". Looked at my kingdom, I was finally there. To sit on my throne as the prince of Bel-Air.
All those people grossed out or feeling sorry for me.... Chuck Norris it's not, but I guess "Bel-Airing" people is the popular thing on the internet these days.
That said, I'm glad that you pointed out that the story was written by Chuck Palahniuk. The entire time I'm reading it I can't help but get the feeling that it sounds just like some of his work. It's nice to know that I'm not crazy.
What? You don't take off your watch at night? How often do you have to charge your cell phone anwyay? Talk time is rated at 3 1/3 hours, which is more than most people spend on their cell phone in one day. Non-talk features might eat into that battery time, but probably not too much since it would be a pain to do anything BUT talk on that phone.
I'm not saying I want this phone either (although it is kind of cool in a Dick Tracy sort of way), but I would imagine that with 3.3333 hours of talk time and 80 hours of standby time, one should get a full day's use out of it.
As for it being huge... well, it looks about regular watch size to me, although they suspiciously don't give any dimensions on the specs page, nor do they have any screenshots with the phone on a wrist in their gallery page.
Ignoring the fact that it's a Verizon phone (this is not the time or place for that argument):
MMS? check
Video Recording? check
Custom Ringtones? kinda-check (VZW lock in means you have to use BitPim)
Mass Storage? check (I think the latest software update will allow up to 4GB cards)
Bluetooth with stereo streaming? check
Voice dialing? check
Sending contact info? check-via bluetooth
Instant messaging? check
SMS to multiple people? check
And the one feature that the 9900 has that, for me, trumps most other phones, a full QWERTY keyboard. One that is larger than that of the iPhone and which has real buttons for tactile feedback. I've used the iPhone and had a hard time typing on it. I know that everybody likes to say that there's a learning curve for the keyboard, and that's fine, I guess. There wasn't one with the keyboard on my phone.
In the iPhone's defense: their music player is leagues above the shit MP3 software on the 9900. Safari on the iPhone is definitely better than the WAP browsers on other cell phones. It's also better than Opera Mini. And the iPhone does have a very, very slick user interface.
Anyway, this wasn't meant to be a my-phone-is-better-than-your-phone post. It was just meant to be an illustration of a phone which, for the most part, included the features missing from the iPhone.
Is the iPhone a cool phone? No doubt. Is it worth $300 - $400 more than a phone with more features? Not in my opinion, but that's because, to me, it seems more like a WiFi enabled iPod first and a phone second.
Oh, and one last thing...
...without acknowledging the other 1000 fantastic features of the iPhone or acknowledging that Apple will update the software on a regular basis, from someone who simples wants to appease the Slashdot-type crowd. This kind of makes you sound like an Apple apologist. Maybe they will update the software on a regular basis. So why not wait until the software is updated with the above missing features to shell out the $500 - $600? In the meantime, one can keep using a phone which does have all of those missing features. It actually sounds like you might be a little upset that somebody turned a critical eye to your new toy and actually had the gall to point out its shortcomings. I for one, actually appreciate the fact that a reviewer took the time to comment on the good and the bad instead of solely focusing on the new, gee-whiz features.Anyway, just remember. While you may bash Lam's review, but in the end he did say that he was overall happy with the phone and will continue to use it.
That's all fine and everything, but what I want to know is: where is the damn golf course!?
If the music and movie industries gave us what we want instead of what they want, they would make money. I guarantee it.
Newsflash: If you're checking the results of monitoring software, you're not a manager, you're an SA or an operator. I'm not even a manager and yet I've not even seen my company's monitoring tools. If something is wrong, someone who's watching that stuff will tell me.
Newsflash: in smaller organizations, the manager is also usually a member of the staff, albeit one more technically skilled than the rest. Since I'm the one ultimately responsible for the uptime of my equipment, I like to be the first one into my office in the mornings so that I can properly asses the day's issues and give direction where direction is needed. That way, when my boss asks me what's going on, I can have a legitimate answer for them and an action plan already in place. The non-critical issues (backup logs, etc.) I leave to my staff when they arrive, but I like to know about the fires ASAP, and the best way to do that is to check on things myself.
The first thing I look at each morning are the diagnostic lights on each of my servers as I walk by to my desk, followed by the lights on the communications equipment and the display on the UPS. While there are certainly many other tools out there that I could use, I've found that looking for anomalous lights on my servers is the quickest, easiest, and most efficient way to tell me if there's something that needs my attention.
After I get to my desk it's Fluke to quickly check the status of connectivity at our field offices.
And then it's probably Slashdot for the next hour until somebody else actually arrives at work and I need to start looking busy.
I think it's a matter of perception. If you're one of those on the cusp, like I was for a long time, you didn't want to purchase a player that would only hold 1/3 of your music. At least in my eyes, anything over ~1GB wasn't going to be worth it to me until I could fit all 50+GB of music on one device. If I'm going to have to pick and choose a subset of music to fit on my player anyway, why not go with a smaller and cheaper player. Yeah, I might be transferring music back and forth more often than somebody with a multi-GB player, but I usually have a good idea of what music I'll be in the mood for when I go out with my MP3 player.
I still don't own a multi-GB MP3 player, either. I don't have much need for one. And if I did, the only benefit I'd see was saving myself an extra 10 mintues before each trip out to run or mow the lawn when I traditionally load songs onto my player. 10 minutes is worth it to me -- especially when I consider that I'll feel a lot less bad when I drop and break my $30 MP3 player than my $300 MP3 player.