This is my first post from the recently released WordPress App for the iPhone and iPod Touch! I have been waiting for this App to come out for quite some time, and hopefully this will increase my rate of bog posts.
It’s nice to see a Photo publishing feature in the first release. Combined with the 2.0 firmware’s Home+Power button screenshot feature I can easily make posts like this all from my iPod Touch!
July 23rd, 2008 by rickatnight11 | 2 Comments »
I have been loving my 8GB iPod Touch since I got it last Christmas, and after jailbreaking it the moment I got it I have played with all the fun (and useful) community-built applications for it. There are reasons why I don’t have an iPhone yet, however. I’d love to use one as it could make my personal and accelerating business life much more efficient. I have a few major caveats that I expected the Internet community to have solved a while ago: I have Verizon, and like it (for now), so I have to wait for the 3G version to come out this summer, but where is a hacked USB interface for the iPod Touch and iPhone? I hate iTunes, and since the entire filesystem and bootloader for both devices has now been hacked and made accessible, why hasn’t anyone rewritten the USB interface on these devices to let any program access and manipulate them?
May 14th, 2008 by rickatnight11 | 1 Comment »
Since starting this brief I have installed Ubuntu’s new version, 8.04 Hardy Heron (if this is any indication of my thoughts on this Linux operating system. ) This brief will document my experience with installing and using the popular Linux distribution, Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon, as a primary operating system. My last experience with Linux was several years ago with Ubuntu’s Dapper Drake release. While impressed with the capabilities of such an insignificant operating system (at least to me), I was dissapointed with the hardware support. I could never actually get my graphics and network devices working properly with the operating system. I realize this is a limitation of Linux in general as most hardware vendors only write drivers for major operating systems, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth. Thus, I was rather skeptical of Gutsy. While intruiged by the Open Source community and love their software for web-server work, I didn’t expect to be able to transition to Linux as a desktop replacement. I have just gotten too used to the interoptability (albiet error-filled) of the Windows environment. It may not be the best, but it’s the most popular, so you are almost guaranteed to “make it work”. So, without very high hopes, I started my journey.
Sorry for the downtime. I just switched servers and it took some time to get things situated. It was a fun experience figuring our how to convert a database over and getting WordPress to recognize everything. Cheers!
April 24th, 2008 by rickatnight11 | No Comments »My girlfriend was in class, but we both wanted Chipotle when she got out. Unfortunately her night class ends only 30 minutes before Chipotle closes. Not to worry! Chipotle has Internet ordering, and LogMeIn.com was here to save the day! I just logged into the computer that she was using in class, let her make her order, I made mine, hit submit, and it was a beautiful thing! Ah, the power of technology. What kind of things do you do with LogMeIn.com?
April 4th, 2008 by rickatnight11 | 1 Comment »One of the most powerful tools a tech support specialist can utilize is remote technical support via the Internet. There are many solutions online, some for free, that let techies remote control the computer of a client, friend, or family member, and access the mouse and keyboard as if they were physically in front of the computer. Here are two of my favorite that I use together to service my clients the most efficiently and some tips to using them well.
February 29th, 2008 by rickatnight11 | 1 Comment »
After jumping on the “Hatin’ Vista’s Performance” bandwagon rather early on, I figured I should get some first-hand experience to backup my claims (besides the weak proof I held from RC1 months ago.) After installing Vista Ultimate on my laptop (Athlon 64 3000+ 1.8ghz, 1GB PC3200 ram, Radeon Mobility 9700.) I was pleasantly surprised with the performance. After enabling all the goodies (Aero, Dreamscene, etc.) I realized that my previous claim that at least 2GB of ram was necessary to run Vista smoothly was false.
I wasn’t sure if Microsoft really had optimized the new operating system to perform these visual goodies better, or if it was copying Apple’s infamous “technique” of smoothing the front-end to create the illusion of adequate performance. In any case, I was a happy camper. Vista’s DreamScene brought me a pretty snazzy feature. Nothing says smooth criminal like popping open my laptop in Econ class and having a cool, crisp waterfall cascading in the background of my work. While everything seemed to run smoothly, I still wanted to see what kind of effect DreamScene (and other visual enhancements) had on the system, so I decided to run some discrete tests.
February 29th, 2008 by rickatnight11 | No Comments »My personal experience with a very special customer:
Originally posted at http://notalwaysright.com/i-once-had-a-customer-this-dumb/406 February 29th, 2008 by rickatnight11 | No Comments »Me: “Thank you for calling The UPS Store, this is Rick speaking, how may I help you?”
Caller: “Yeah, hi. I need to find out how much it will be to send something to Iowa.”
Me: “I’d be happy to get you an estimate on shipping. Could I get the dimensions and weight of the box as well as the ZIP code of the destination?”
Caller: “Yeah, it’s probably about 10 pounds, and about this big.”
Me: “Well, I need a ZIP code for the destination, but you didn’t really give me the dimensions of the box.”
Caller: “The ZIP code is 51365, and it’s about this big.”
Me: “Ma’am, I can’t see your hands, so you’ll have to give me some sort of numeric dimension to work with.”
Caller: “Oh, let me get a ruler–” *click*
Me: *sigh*
Customer in the store who overheard the phone conversation: “Are you serious?!”