Blog-o-licious!

Finally.

She’s dead.

March 31st, 2005 Posted by admin | General | 2 comments

Life and Death Matters

I’m putting this statement here because I truly believe that once some info has hit the Internet, it never really goes away, attaining some kind of informational immortality.

Frankly, the whole Terry Schiavo thing has got me spooked. The idea that total strangers, wielding their ugly cultish righteousness like a club, can keep me alive even if my partners might know my real wishes. Even when it can’t possibly do any good for me or for them if I stay alive. Even when it doesn’t make a damned bit of sense. . The circus-like stuff surrounding this woman’s non-life and non-death has me creeped out beyound belief–especially with the idea that George W. Bush himself can decide to keep my ass on this mortal coil long after I decide otherwise.

So. Now hear this. If my life ever gets to that vegetable-like point, or if my quality of life goes downhill to the point where it is no longer bearable, I do not want to stick around. I don’t want my loved ones going broke while they watch me not die. Nope, just get me the hell out of Dodge.

March 29th, 2005 Posted by admin | General | 2 comments

You’re Fired!

Now it can be told.

Over the last year I’ve discovered that poor quality, poor customer service, poor whatever-I-paid-for-and-didn’t-get-really is just not acceptable anymore. I’ve stopped putting up with it. Even better news: I’m not the only one.

It all started last year, with Microsoft Windows Service Pack 2. No, I’m wrong. The changes really started with programs like Microsoft Outlook (open to just about every virus and worm on the planet) and Microsoft Front Page (which can clean out perfectly good .jsp code and replace it with its completely incomprehensible font formatting code). Let’s not forget Internet Explorer, the web browser open to every pop-up spyware imaginable. And so came Eudora (and later Thunderbird), Homesite (and later Dreamweaver), and Firefox.

Last year came Windows Service Pack 2, the non-consensual software update that nuked countless computer systems around the planet. The one with a 16% failure rate. The one that was so bad, IBM delayed using it company-wide. Here at the House ‘o’ Chaos, every other computer in the house went blue-screen up–except for mine, which was still running Windows 98. Anyway, the result of that debacle was three weeks of running an outpatient computer clinic , and performing 24/7 tech support for friends and family. If you haven’t read Mark Morford’s blistering diatribe “Why does Windows Still Suck?”, well, do it now. I’ll wait.

Meantime, we were going through customer service hell with Earthlink. Now I’ve been an Earthlink customer since, oh, 1998. So you can imagine my frustation with the total inability to handle the email accounts on my own domain; four-hour tech support calls that consisted of various befuddled people in Bombay transferring me back and forth; a DSL connection that went away if a cat sneezed down the street. I finally ended up taking my voice phone off the DSL line completely, and wrapping the modem in aluminum foil. Stupid, but it worked. Checking out the user feedback at Broadband Reports, I discovered a lot of long-time Earthlink customers were in the same sinking, leaky boat.

And…on the telephone front was SBC, who carefully connected my phone line while leaving the house line disconnected for weeks; and Sprint, my cell phone carrier, billing me a stupifying amount for basic usage, while spotty network coverage made it impossible to use the phone in my own home.

Somewhere in there, I know that the few brain cells I can claim work reliably got together and proclaimed:

“F**k this s**t.”

Fast forward to a year later:

• Microsoft Windows: “reassigned”. Replaced by Ubuntu Linux, I basically keep Windows around for playing Project Entropia.
• Earthlink web hosting: fired, replaced by Speakeasy.net.
• Earthlink DSL: fired, replaced by Speakeasy OneLink.
• Sprint PCS: fired, replaced by Cingular.
• SBC: haven’t been given the pink slip yet, but they’re on the chopping block.

Since then, I’ve started to notice a few things about my new “fired-up” lifestyle. For instance, I no longer have to perform the weekly virus/spyware/malware exercise of updating, scanning, deleting. A week or so ago, I woke up from a nap to discover my computer displaying the dreaded blue screen. It took me a moment to realize that the blue screen was there for entertainment: it was a screensaver being run on Linux. I pick up my cell phone and use it all the time now; no more “dammit, I’m at home” moments. Customjuju.com runs silky-smooth–no more clicking through web page after web page, only to arrive at a login screen that won’t accept any password I give it.

So that’s my story. What are the rest of you waiting for?

March 6th, 2005 Posted by admin | Tech | no comments

Testing….

This is just a quick post to show I got Iimage Browser working. I’ve been reading through plugin after plugin, looking for one that would allow me to stick a picture in a post without too much fear and loathing. Amazing how many of them required deep code edits before they would work…

March 4th, 2005 Posted by admin | Tech | no comments