PDF is now a standard!

This is a good thing. Everyone is using it - it might as well gain an extra measure of legitimacy.

http://www.sdtimes.com/content/article.aspx?ArticleID=32477

Ever get that email about Fleming and Churchill?

http://www.snopes.com/glurge/fleming.asp

Don't believe everything you get in your inbox!

W00t!

AND I figured out my file sharing issue. Eat that, Puppy Linux!

Samba Blues...

I wish that all computer networking between all operating systems would just work... I've reached a point where when I'm not at work, I'm just not in the mood to figure stuff out.

Welcome to Ticket World

Ticket World is a mystical realm where systems type people live. They make their living by fulfilling tickets. They fulfill their tickets in the order in which they are received, blissfully unaware of why they are being asked to do what they are doing.

Sometimes, what a person is asking for cannot be fulfilled in a ticket. This is a BIG DEAL, requiring management interference and meetings that cannot possibly take place this week because they are too busy.

I'm sorry - if I performed my job as if I lived in Ticket World, I'd probably be fired. Sorry to all the systems type of people who don't act as if they live in this bubble.

This is why my job is important

I received this email from XM today...

XM Service Update As many of you know, XM customers have experienced service outages or significantly degraded service since Monday mid-morning, May 21. We quickly identified the problem and are working hard to return to our normal levels of service. The problem occurred during the loading of software to a critical component of our satellite broadcast system, which resulted in a loss of signal from one of our satellites. We expect normal service to resume midday today (eastern daylight time). XM apologizes for any inconvenience this has caused. For updates, please go to http://www.xmradio.com. In the meantime, you can enjoy many of our music channels on XM Radio Online (http://xmro.xmradio.com) if you are close to a computer. Again, we regret any inconvenience for not having your XM Radio service fully available.

Java vs Rails

This is pretty funny

http://www.railsenvy.com/2007/5/14/ruby-on-rails-commercial

(posting as I'm running a process to build a bunch of jars...)

I cannot stress this enough...

When relying on a computer for your important documents...

SAVE EARLY AND SAVE OFTEN!!!!!!!!!

Computing at Bear Rock

Having a nice evening computing at Bear Rock Cafe in South Plainfield. Nice place. Back to helping out the Skyliners with web stuff. It's a good thing.

Breakthrough!!!

I've (sort of) figured something out that I've been banging my head against the wall for about two weeks over.

The cool part about my job is that I get to play w/ stuff and try to make it work... The hard part is that things that I *have* to make work by a certain time.

Ah well.

Mmmm... Computer languages....

http://www.levenez.com/lang/history.html

Gmail on my Blackberry!

I am in heaven! Gmail has an application that works great on my Blackberry!

Success!

Sale at Best Buy... I bought a 1GB USB flash drive for $20. On the second attempt, I got Puppy onto it and viola! I booted puppy from a flash drive!! BUT, I had no access to my ntfs formatted hard drive. No problem - I just had to put a file called pup001 onto the root of my C drive. So, looks like I am now able to play with Linux whenever I want, access my files without having to do anything to screw up my Windows installation. Life is looking good. :-)

Settling in

I really feel like I'm starting to understand a lot more things and am becoming less of a burden to my team. After my fleeting experience with a start up company, I am really glad to see that I am lovable and capable.

Except that I never got Puppy to work on my jump drive.. I think it's because it's a USB HDD as opposed to a USB Flash. Oh, well... It's still cool running from CD.

Oh, and my bowling team is tied for 5th place!

Feeling geeky!

Just loaded Puppy Linux onto a CD-ROM and started it on my PC. Next I'm going to put it on a pen drive. This is really cool stuff!

Google Calendar

W00t - I added my Google calendar to my blog! I'm really stylin' now! :-)

The Great Job Search is Over!

I think yesterday was one of the best days I've had in a few weeks. I interviewed with Vonage in the morning, and they had an offer letter for me in the afternoon. The salary, culture and bene's are great. I can start there as soon as I get back from my cruise in Bermuda next week. Who could ask for anything more?

Everyone go get Vonage service and tell 'em an employee sent you!

PC Repair - Technical Writing Sample

Considering that all of my work at Verizon Wireless is proprietary property, I am intending to send a recruiter a link to this blog as a sample of my writing style. I am going to use this post to document the work that I performed on my friend's PC over the past two nights.

View in Microsoft Word.

<-- Begin Writing Sample -->

PC Repair Summary

10/23/2006 - 10/26/2006

Machine Specifications
Processor: Intel P3, 1ghz
RAM: 256MB SDRAM
Hard Drive: Western Digital 40MB
CD-ROM Drive: 12x DVD / CD-ROM
OS: Windows XP
Notes: This is a custom built PC with a very compact case.

Summary
Problem: PC would not boot into Windows.
Solution: Hard disk needed to be replaced.

Details
10/23/2006
The customer contacted me via telephone to report an error message that was appearing on her screen when she tried to boot her computer. The message stated that there was a disk boot failure and that she needed to install a system disk. My first thought was that perhaps she had accidentally left a floppy disk or a CD-ROM disk in her PC and that the computer was trying to boot from one of those disks instead of the hard drive. The customer claimed that there were no disks in the drive. I scheduled a visit to the customer's location for Monday, 10/25/2006.

10/25/2006
I booted the customer's PC and got the same results that had been reported. There were no disks in the floppy or CD-ROM drives. I re-booted the machine again in order to check the BIOS settings. The hard drive and CD-ROM drive were both being detected properly by the machine.

I used a Windows XP CD-ROM to determine if I could start the machine and repair the Windows installation if necessary. I was able the boot from the CD-ROM, however, when it got to the point where I could choose the recovery option, it failed because the machine could not read the hard drive. When it failed, it went to a C:\ prompt. From there, I tried to execute chkdsk and dir commands but kept getting errors that the disk was not valid. I shut the machine down.

The next step I took was to open the machine. I unplugged all the cords and removed the two screws from the rear of the casing. I then slid the casing off. Because the case is so small, the hard drive is located under a hinged section that houses the floppy and CD-ROM drives. I experimented with the IDE cables to see if I could get a different result, but no matter what I tried, I was unable to read the hard disk. I determined that the disk needed to be replaced. We went to the nearest Staples and purchased a 160GB Western Digital drive on sale for $79. I put the new drive into the drive casing and plugged the power and IDE cables in but did not put it into it's place under the hinged section yet.

I was able to successfully start the PC using the Windows XP CD-ROM. I used the disk to partition the new drive and install Windows. Once this was complete, I attempted to setup the old drive as a slave to the new drive. I changed the pin on the old drive and plugged in the power cable and the IDE cable. The PC booted and recognized the drive, however, the drive could not be read. I concluded that the information on the old disk drive is unrecoverable and recommended (just in case) that the customer dispose of the disk by having it physically destroyed.

At this point, it was getting late and it was time to leave the customer's site. We scheduled an appointment for Tuesday 10/26 to finish putting the PC back together and re-installing security and printer software.

10/26/2006
Arrived at the customer's site and was able to put everything back together, making sure that all the cables were carefully tucked away. On first attempt, a cable was covering the processor fan, which caused a clicking noise to occur when we started the machine. Once this was corrected, there were no further issues.

I then ran Windows Update to get the latest fixes. This process ran without incident and 57 updates were installed.

Next step was to install the security software from Verizon. I was able to go to the Verizon website and download the anti-spyware / anti-virus package and install it.

After that, I needed to install the printer software. Ran the install from the HP CD-ROM. It installed the printer drivers and photo editing software. We tested the printer by printing a picture of my keeshond.

Customer needs to obtain a copy of Microsoft Office. Once this occurs, I will return and help install the software.

The (wonderful?) world of data entry

Yesterday I became a bag lady in New York City. Well, not really. I was carrying a big brown paper shopping bag in New York City. In it were a significant number of surveys from PETA enthusiasts expressing their love for little woodland creatures and the wonderful-ness of the people in PETA.

My mission is to type the names and addresses of these misguided souls (most of them fixed income seniors living in Florida) into a database so that they can be sent more twisted propaganda from this radical organization. Now, don't get me wrong - I like animals too (as you can tell from the fur piled from wall to ceiling in my apartment from my zoo.) BUT the people in PETA are just a little bit over the top. Oh, well. They were wacky enough to fill out the survey. Let the mailings commence!

Now, compared to all the other side jobs one can work, this deal is pretty sweet. I sit in front of my computer and type fast. I'm good at that. Only problem is that it takes 1,000 entries to make a meager $36. After roughly 4 1/2 hours of typing, I have completed a whopping 707 entries.

So, it's not a get rich quick scheme, but hey, money is money... Maybe I'll get faster...

CSS is fun!

Maybe this proves how outdated my web skills are, but I've recently discovered CSS and it is freaking awesome! Especially when you use Dreamweaver to create the stylesheet because you don't have to know what all the settings are yourself.

Besides being this wonderful thing that's supposed to help folks separate church and state (that's my analogy for content and style - clever, huh?), it also has helped me to do things visually that frankly would take me 1,000 years to figure out in HTML (and thus, I wouldn't have attempted!).

Thank you CSS and Dreamweaver! Maybe I will now be inspired to read that CSS book I bought 6 years ago (assuming it's not all outdated!)