Geek

We’ve been messing around with VoIP for the past couple of months, the latest contender being AT&T CallVantage. VoIP is pretty cool technology, in that it takes phone service, which has been around for over a century, and sends it out over your internet connection. You can take the phone adapter that provides this service, plug it into any broadband connection, and your phone number is active there. Anywhere in the world.

Too bad it didn’t work as planned.

There’s a couple of caveats with VoIP. Unlike POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service), it doesn’t work during a power outage. No internet connection means no phone connection. And since it’s portable, you need to make sure your 911 information is up to date in case of an emergency.

We’ve had CallVantage service from AT&T for about two months. Our home telephone number was transferred to the service. Outgoing calls have worked beautifully with the exception of not needing to dial “1” to dial a different area code and having to dial all 10-digits for all calls.

Inbound calls have been a different matter.

At first, our phone would ring four times and then instead of transferring to voice mail, it would just drop. Callers would get what we call “dead air” and then back to dial tone.

When I had AT&T look into the trouble, they did something so that our phones never rang and all calls went to voicemail.

Not a convenient scenario.

I’ve been on the phone with AT&T Technical Support for a total of 10+ hours over the past week, and when it wasn’t fixed today as I was promised by a Tier III support person, I decided enough is enough. I placed the order to switch back to Verizon.

VoIP is a promising technology and will eventually be the way everyone is connected by telephone. But it’s not 100% there yet. And with family literally scattered all over the globe, it’s important that our phone service is reliable.

Call me old fashioned.

Somebody in the Microsoft marketing department wasn’t thinking too clearly when they came up with Windows Vista. Not only does the name lend itself to one my new favorite terms, “Crashta La Vista Baby”, Vista is also an abbreviation of the biggest problems with Windows.

Viruses
Infection
Spyware
Trojans
Adware

It’s all so clear to me now.

So Microsoft announced what the newest version of Windows, expected in late 2006, is going to be called. Introducing…

Windows Vista. Clear. Confidence. Connected. Bringing Clarity To Your World.

Wow. I really thought the version formerly called Longhorn was going to be called “Windows 2006” or at the very least “Windows Longhorn”, much like the latest version of Mac OS X stayed “Tiger”. It certainly is a change of direction for the company, as an IT professional, I don’t think I’ve ever used “Windows” and “confidence” in the same sentence before. It’s a novel idea.

I really don’t get the whole “clear” concept, especially since the downloadable marketing video is fuzzy as hell. But that could be due to the bastard version of Windows Media Player that I have on my Mac.

“Connected”, well, that I must agree with, because an operating system that can’t connect is dead in the water with today’s technology. But heck, even DOS is connected.

Personally, I think the marketing department of Microsoft has kind of gone off the deep end with this one. Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m excited about the end product, as I’m always intrigued by new technology, even though I’m typing this entry with great delight on my PowerBook G4 using Tiger. Keeping up with the latest software from Microsoft is important in my line of work. I need to know how to keep those Windows computers running. But “Windows Vista”? Vista?

Like Crashta La Vista, Baby?

I’ve decided to utilize the Mac Mini a little bit more in my daily computing routine. I’ve been waiting for the USB interface that will allow me to record audio into the computer from my mixing board to arrive, but it’s been on back order for the past two months. So the Mac Mini has just sort of been sitting there. Then I realized that I can record audio easily on my PowerBook, so I’ve swapped the two to see how I like it.

Right now it’s a little disconcerting, because I’ve grown very attached to my PowerBook, but I think the Mac Mini is enjoying stretching his legs.

I really shouldn’t get so personal with inanimate objects.

I was lucky enough to be able to attend a work training course today, along with the director of the department I work in. I truly enjoyed the experience, as it gave me the opportunity to enhance my skills and be a more integral part of the team. I even raised my hand and asked a question about the software we were being trained on.

“Does this application work on anything other than Internet Explorer?”, hoping that it would hum along nicely in Mozilla Firefox.

“No, it’s only been tested on IE.”

Ugh.

There’s no escaping the monopoly of Microsoft and the buggy Windows OS. As I’ve mentioned on numerous occasions, I am a very happy but recently converted Mac OS X zealot. I love my Mac. I love the flavor of unix that lives under the hood. It’s stylish, yet fully functional, and doesn’t bring the headaches of malware, spyware, adware and fsckware that Windows introduces to the party. And I don’t even want to think about the viruses!

As I type this entry I am simultaneously fixing a family member’s computer which has Windows distorted beyond all comprehension. I was able to double the length of my beard in the time it took to open Internet Explorer. After this little waltz, I have my sister’s laptop to diagnose, a computer to finish building for my mother (she’s getting converted to Linux whether she likes it or not) and that doesn’t include all the “Please Help Me” requests I get at work.

It’s not that I don’t mind working on computer, because I like it very much. With all these projects, the geek in me is getting his opportunity to shine. But admittedly, my frustration with Microsoft products tends to shine through as well.

“Windows has not detected a keyboard. Press any key to continue.”

The software package we use at work is all built on Windows. It only runs on Windows. It’s so Microsoft centric that it doesn’t even try to use any other mail program when its sending out an e-mail bulletin. It’s Outlook Express or it’s tough luck.

You’ve heard it before. Close your Windows, and open the door. There’s a whole wide world of easy computing out there waiting for you.

Back when I first started the moblog, I started it on TextAmerica based on a feature on the now defunct TechTV’s “The Screen Savers”. I loved the service but probably didn’t do as much as I could with it.

Now I’m finding Flickr much more interesting, as I have several other blog friends using the service. So I think I’m going to start using Flickr and kind of abandon my Textamerica account, though I’ll leave a link to Textamerica too.

The other question is, do I want to post my photos directly into my blog or do I want to have them on a separate page.

Decisions, decisions.

My apologies if you find the technical talk boring, but I think I’ve figured out the stylesheets for my blog enough to get it to look good in all browsers, including Internet Explorer. If you find any pages that look odd, please drop me a line and let me know.

So I was ready to settle in and write my latest witty blog dialog. Not that anyone reads what I write but I amuse myself easily.

I grabbed the iPod, plugged in the headphones and was ready to jam to the last batch of music I downloaded.

Except they’re not on my iPod.

Spin the wheel, spin the wheel, click, click, click.

There seems to be *nothing* on my iPod. Whenever I plug my iPod in to synchronize with iTunes, iTunes closes and wants me to send a crash report to Apple.

OH MY GOD.

This is giving me flashbacks to Windows XP. Apple announced this week that they’re switching to Intel processors. We’re going to have Pentium Macs.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the dark ages.

I was all proud of myself for tweaking my blog page last night and getting it just the way I wanted it to look. Unfortunately, due to Microsoft doing their own thing, it doesn’t render correctly in Internet Explorer. So my sidebar ends up at the bottom of the page, sans my smiling face. I don’t know if its been doing this for a long time or since I just made the changes last night.

Sigh.

Thank you for your patience, I hope to have it fixed soon. If you are currently using Internet Explorer and would like to see how this page (and the internet in general) *should* look, I highly recommend following my “Get Firefox” link to the right, er, below.

Addendum: If anyone can help me with the CSS problems I’m having with Internet Explorer, I’d really appreciate the help. Everything looks great in Mozilla based browsers, but IE is moving the floating sidebar to the bottom and I can’t figure out why!

In many respects, I’m a full fledged technology geek, eager to embrace the newest and shinest gadget known to man. I’ve had a Palm Pilot. I’ve done the satellite radio thing. I boast the latest in Apple innovations.

There are some things that I just can not move to the latest and greatest with. One of those things is my alarm clock. I’ve tried numerous alarm clocks over the past 30 years or so, and many of them are neatly stored in my closet with no hope of seeing the light of day or the dark of night due to one simple reason.

They’re too damn bright.

I’ve got this thing for sleeping. It needs to be pitch black or very, very close to it. I don’t do well with lights in the room.

I have an alarm clock that I received as a gift from my grandmother in 1983. Its a digital alarm clock, in that it has little numbers that flip once a minute. Of course my OCD has kicked and I have it synchronized with the school clock collection throughout the house, so that the number flips exactly when the wall clock clicks ahead. I love this alarm clock. You can barely read its dimly lit numbers and its very retro in a General Electric sort of way. The trouble is that you can’t set the alarm to an exact time. The alarm has a dial that has time divisions for each quarter hour. You can set it at 6:00 a.m. and it’ll go off at 5:57 one day and then 6:04 the next. In that respect, it drives me crazy so it has earned a spot of prominence on my desk, where I only need to set the alarm when I’m sleeping on my desk during on call. If it goes off too late, I usually don’t give a damn.

I’ve tried the alarm clocks that display the time on the ceiling but it did nothing but fuel my fear of alien abduction. “I’m being attacked by the 2:42 aliens! Help me! Help me!”

For most of our relationship we’ve used Earl’s alarm clock from his bachelor days. (I don’t like to think of whom else has turned it off in the past before that fateful day in ’96.) It has dual alarms. It employs the good old red LED display from the late 1980s era. Another box of GE goodness. The radio reception sucks and the noise sends the cat flying every morning but for the most part it’s all good.

But once in a while I try something new. The latest addition to the nightstand is an RCA with a “warm, soothing” blue display. The alarm ramps up in volume, starting at a soft peep and working up to fire alarm howl at the appropriate time. Whomever wrote “warm, soothing blue display” on the box should be shot.

I feel like I’m sleeping in the middle of the Carrier Dome.

The first night of this clock I felt like I was drugged. Everything I dreamed was in a blue tint. Shadows of frisky felines danced across my eyelids. It was like sleeping in that boat tunnel on Willy Wonka, without the dead chicken. All that was missing was an Oompa Loompa. Then I read the fine manual, which led the way to a switch that turned on the “auto dimming” feature.

So much for that.

While I didn’t see as much blue, it still lit up the room enough to allow me the luxury of seeing what the cat actually does while we sleep. He paws Earl’s goatee, he jumps on my balls, he licks my toes and he takes a dump in the plant on the window sill. Well maybe I’m being a little demonstrative, but nighttime feline activities should be a secret and should not be lit by an alarm clock.

Back in the box you go, dear alarm clock.

So now we’re back on the bachelor clock. It’s not as sexy, but it works. At least I won’t wake up with a tan on my eyelids.