This Christmas, we're at my wife's sister's house for the holiday week. We've been deeply involved with the theme of sharing.

So far, it's been fun sharing gifts, time together, good cooking, and just being together with family.

Unfortunately, it's also been about sharing sinus infections, stomach viruses, and nasty hacking coughs. We weren't the healthiest bunch traveling out. I'm not sure if we will leave healthier or sicker. Will have to post an update.... The unfortunate part is also that due to illness, we weren't able to visit my wife's parents which was the original intent of the trip....

At least we're not flying through Denver....

Had kind of a bad day (and evening) at work today. Frustrating probably more like it.

The situation reminded me of a character in a movie - Howard Beale in the 1976 movie "Network".

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechnetwork2.html

If only I could get away with that. But then, Howard Beale was shot at the end for bad ratings, so maybe I shouldn't....

I have to rent this movie so I can enjoy it again....funny that I remember this movie so well - I should never have been watching it when it came out (I was too young)....

One of my wife's patients brought her husband along for her appointment at my wife's office yesterday. As often happens, my wife received a remark from the husband along the lines of "You don't look old enough to be a doctor." Except the remark came out something like (and I am probably paraphrasing what my wife said), "So how long have you been surgecking?"

So my wife and I learned a new word yesterday. "Surgecking". I guess the definition means "Being a surgeon" in Southern Maryland speak....(and the answer from my wife was "Since 1997 - ask my husband."

I've been sick the last few days, so unfortunately, dinner tonight was frozen pizza. I flipped the box over to check the oven temperature settings and saw the following as the first instruction:

Do Not Eat Pizza Without Cooking

Um.....Sad because you know someone tried this in order for someone to have printed this on the box.

WalMart often touts its ability to offer low prices because of its ability to purchase in volume and the efficiencies that drives. How they handle merchandise, how they stock stores, etc.

So, standing in line at WalMart today (yes, I do shop there) I wonder why they can't seem to improve the efficiency of their checkouts at WalMart and Sams Club stores. The lines always seem long. Movement slow. Frustration high. Even in the 12 items or less line. Sams Club compared to Costco is always a huge difference - same type of store and while the lines at Costco can be long and slow, it doesn't seem to be nearly as consistently long and slow as Sams Club.

Yes, I know that low-paid possibly-less-than-motivated cashiers will play a role. But for all of WalMart's abilities to be more efficient, you'd think they could apply some of that at the checkout....

This is a rant because this started as an issue that has been going on for a long time....

Ever since moving to our new house, I've been plagued with fairly frequent outages from my cable modem. Since I work from home, no cable modem means not being able to work. And mind you, I am paying extra for Business level support for my cable modem.

Finally, last week after calling in about my latest cable modem issues, Comcast discovered, among other things, that I've been getting residential level service and not commercial/business level service ever since I moved. This in addition to yet another line problem that caused my service to basically be on the blink for over a week. We are still discussing how many months of service they are going to start crediting me for (they want to credit me for 2 - I am holding out for 4 after this latest discovery). But that's a different story....

I decided that since these outages seem to happen at least every other month for prolonged periods, it's time to give the local Mega-Telco a chance. I ordered up some residential DSL service on Wednesday. I'm impressed that Verizon had everything I needed to my door and provisioned by Friday evening. This evening, I took everything out of the box and hooked it up and had it running in no time. The only annoyance was having to install line filters on all the phones utilizing the second line in the house...

I'm actually fairly impressed with things. The hookup was completely easy, and a brief bit of Googling got me the information I needed to tie in my Linksys WRT54G wireless router into the DSL network. Home networking now consists of the fast-but-fragile Comcast 12Mbps/768kbps on the main network line and one wireless network, and Verizon 3Mbps/768kbps on the second wireless network.

I'll have to investigate some of the SOHO devices that allow for dual WAN connections to see if I can get true redundant networking, but hey, this is a start. Go ahead Comcast - I'm ready for your next line oopsie...and you'd better watch out because I hear FIOS is just 4 months away in my neighborhood...

Some time ago, I blogged about my opinions on the Real Estate Bust many have seen coming.

As a bit of an update, not only are homes not selling in our neighborhood, but prices are beginning to plunge. Prices for houses in our neighborhood seem to have stepped back to the pricing of December 2004 when we first signed a contract on our current house. And they are still not selling.

Wonder how low things will go around here....

Today I am thankful for the good and the bad
Today I am thankful for the happy and sad
Why am I thankful for things big and small?
Because God provides everything, all in all.

Or in other words, be thankful for everything. You could have nothing.

I feel like a horrible mean dad today.

Today was Declan's 1 year checkup. (It kinda goes with that birthday thing from a few days ago.) First, Declan seems to have developed a big case of stranger anxiety lately. Not really sure why. And he's also gone into super Cling-On mode...so taking him to the doctor and having him go into the exam room immediately resulted in screams, tears, and crying....

Then, add the 3 vaccinations. "Pin Cushion" syndrome as Zandra puts it.

Then add that mom had to go back to work and dad got to take him home. Fortunately, he fell asleep in the car on the way home and slept for 2 hours.

But then, after being all rested and fed, dad picks him up from his toys to drag him over to the local lab to have blood drawn as part of his physical. More pricks. More tears. More screams. More blood. More agony for dad.

Makes me wish I had had more meetings today....and it's not like those have been fun lately either...

(Graphic copyright ESPN)

A sad day in Michigan Football. Bo Schembechler has died at age 77 today. Coverage at ESPN. Truly the passing of a legend.

Hard to believe it has already been a year. Happy Birthday Declan! What a difference you've made in our lives!

See more pictures here.

So the background to this project is that I'm being placed back on the Corporate Paid Cellular Plan at work. Instead of submitting my monthly cell phone bills to work, I'm now going to get it paid for automatically.

One caveat to this, however, is that the corporate policy appears not to allow Blackberry devices, which is what I've been using for work, and, which is the account I just signed a new 2-year agreement with.

So, I had to get rid of the Blackberry. Too bad since I really liked my 7290 (see the review back in August). I decided to go Treo, and with a Treo 650 to be exact as these appear to be well-liked within the company (and the company actually issues them to the service engineers in the field). One problem....T-Mobile, my carrier, doesn't officially sell these devices. And a new unlocked one costs $549 (and the company won't pay for the new equipment). What to do?

So...I decided to turn this into a small project. I started with a used Cingular Treo 650. I purchased this unit from my friend at church for $150. Good deal for both of us - eBay average seems higher than that - no shipping, and I'm helping a buddy clean out his closet (I think he switched to Verizon because where he lives, the Cingular reception is very poor). My friend included the sync cable and charger. Phone is in pretty good shape - has a few nicks and scratches on the case. Clean. Used, but not abused -- the previous owner is a fellow Mac person who knows how to treat electronics right.

First thing I discovered - you can't charge the Treo off the USB port. I don't know why. I suspect because it draws more power than a USB port might safely supply. A little annoying....time to go out and get yet another iGo tip for my iGo Juice unit....

Went down to Walmart and paid $29 for a 512MB SD memory card + card reader (this was actually important - see later step).

Paid $24.95 for a MissingSync upgrade from my old version (old version was way old, but still got $15 discount for an upgrade). I last used it about 2 years ago when I still used my Sony CLIE unit.

All pieces together, the first thing I did was install MissingSync and sync over the unlock650.prc file from http://650unlock.com . This little utility extracts the necessary information from your Treo into a memo pad item to feed the phone unlocker and verifies your phone can be unlocked. Paid 650unlock.com $15 for an unlock credit.

Took the unlock code, went to 650unlock.com, fed it the information, my unlock code token, and got a code back. Inserted my T-Mobile SIM Chip, verified it didn't like the non-Cingular chip, followed the instructions on website, voila, phone now likes chip. Carrier restriction removed. At this point, I had a Cingular Treo 650 on the T-Mobile network with a T-Mobile SIM card. Half way there.

Next the unbranding so I could use T-Mobile's internet access properly. It seemed (to me, YMMV) that it would be easier just to whack all Cingularisms rather than try to figure out how to undo each Cingular inflicted branding issue as it came up. And, unbranding freed up 7MB in the ROM. More room for applications I really want....

Branded Treos don't want to accept unbranded firmware though. There's ROM settings that prevent that. Fortunately, folks out on the internet have figured a way around that. One person, in particular, apparently had a whole company's worth of Cingular Treo 650s to unbrand, so, he wrote a Palm equivalent of a script to do the ROM edits and flash the new firmware on to the phone. Downloaded the zip file referenced here, unzip'ed it, and then copied the files (per the instructions) directly on to the SD Card via the flash card reader.

Inserted flash card with this magic package into the Treo and reset the phone. Phone rebooted and spent 15 minutes loading, erasing, rebooting, loading, rebooting, etc. At the end of 15 minutes, voila, latest unbranded Treo 650 firmware and not a trace of anything Cingular anywhere except on the face of the phone. Unlocking and unbranding complete! Woo Hoo!

New internet settings appeared to get read off the SIM card (thank you T-Mobile for providing this). Did a little modifying of the default Blazer Web Browser settings to utilize the T-Mobile proxy cache and get me to T-Zones home (I actually like that launch page). Program up VersaMail with the configs for Work Email and Home email. Sync up contacts, calendars, to-do from the Mac. And away we go. I configured to sync via USB or Bluetooth.

Downloaded a few favorite apps I had been using on the Blackberry. Google Maps looks good. Google Mail required me to download a JVM from the Palm site to get it to work, but it seems to just fine. Downloaded the Adobe Acrobat Reader for Palm.

I then set about to get my Bluetooth headset to work. That new Nokia BH-900 I talked about in the last few days. This was a little harder than I thought it would be, but finally after about 20 minutes of fiddling got it to pair up properly. The Nokia headset I have has the capability of being able to remember 6 different pairings. So I already had it paired with the Nokia 6126 and the Blackberry 7290, and figured I would just add the Treo 650 as another pairing. Wrong. This Treo seems to have an ego (it rhymes). It wants to be the *first* paired device. So I had to erase all the pairings, pair the Treo first, and then the 6126. Seems fine now.

I've since loaded the DataViz doc translators, a good Klondike game I used to have, a few MIDI ringtones, and a few miscellaneous other little programs I used to use on my CLIE. I also, with some help from the nice customer service folks at T-Mobile, managed to adjust my plan to get off the Blackberry plan and get on to a regular phone plan with unlimited internet and HotSpot usage....

Issues I'm still working on:

Charging. Will probably go out and get yet another iGo tip for my Treo. That'll be another $10....I'm not crazy on getting one of these USB sync/charge cables because I think they will draw too much current from the USB. I might also go find myself another plain Treo charger...

Case. Need a case. Probably another $15 eBay purchase.

But the point is, it works. It can be done. It works well, and I've got a nice replacement unit at about half the cost.

And now that I've freed up my 7290, my wife can retire her 6230 and get a more modern Blackberry.

With the purchase of my new Nokia 6126 (see review here), I gave my old Sony Ericsson Z520a to my wife (who by the way seems to be having much better luck about not getting pictures of pocket lint from that phone....). Giving her that phone also meant my Sony Ericsson HBH-608 Bluetooth headset went with it, since we believe in using hands free devices while talking on the phone, and I never bought a corded headset for that phone.

So I set out to find a replacement headset since after just a couple of days, I was going nuts with the old-fashioned corded ear pieces....

After much research, I purchased a Nokia BH-900 headset from amazon.com. They had it for 41% off retail - just about as cheap as getting it off eBay but with a better return policy. And cheaper shipping (I found selecting ground is just as efficient as selecting 2-day since it ships UPS Ground both ways...). The key selling points were price (on Amazon), noise canceling features (remember, I drive a convertible Mini Cooper S), battery life, ability to mute via the headset (you wonder why this isn't standard), and good reviews about sound quality and reception.

I've had this device for almost a week now, and I have to say, I'm very happy with it so far. The sound quality is great. The volume is even better (I have a hearing loss - I can turn the phone all the way up and then further amplify it with the headset). It pairs to both the Nokia 6126 and Blackberry 7290 I have (though not simultaneously - at least it remembers both phones and I can switch back and forth without having to pair the phone every time I switch). Seems to have good battery life. It also uses the same charger as my Nokia 6126 phone.

I do dislike the funky clip thing over the ear. I haven't quite mastered how to put the headset on. It's very comfortable once I get it on, but getting it on my ear seems to take an inordinate amount of fumbling. My workaround has been to make sure I put it on before I go anywhere. I also do dislike the smaller-than-miniature power button on the phone. I don't know how anyone with normal sized fingers manages to get their headset to turn on....

Despite the drawbacks, I think this headset's a keeper.

Whether or not you are happy or sad over the results of yesterday's elections, I'm sure that most of us registered voters can agree on one thing.

We sure are glad we're not getting any more of those phone calls reminding us to vote, return our absentee ballot, vote for this candidate or that candidate, or political poll.

Don't you agree?

This cute little creature was helping me hand out treats last night during Halloween!

So about 2 weeks ago, I ordered a Nokia 6126 from Amazon.com. Not particularly cheap since I bought it without a service contract. But it also came without any carrier restrictions which would cause it to be only usable on one carrier's network, and without any carrier modifications -- something that I really wanted.

It's a very nice phone. Not perfect, but it's great for what I want it to do - remind me of meetings, keep my contacts available to me, and to make phone calls. I've used a Sony Ericsson Z520a and a Nokia 6682 in the past year. The Z520a was just junk - coupled with very poor Sony Ericsson customer service. The 6682 was nice, but overkill. I really didn't need the phone to read PDF files for me.... The 6126 is the same size as the Z520a even though it looks bigger than that.

The user interface on the phone (Nokia Series40 3rd edition) is typically Nokia. Very nice and intuitive. Nokia and Sony Ericsson have the two best UI designs I think. Motorola is way at the bottom. The 6126 feels solid. There's a button on the side that will cause the flip to open on its own like a Star Trek Communicator.

The phone syncs with my Mac via iSync. There's a hack you need to make it work, and then, it suffers from the same iSync bug that plagues all other Series 40 3rd edition phones in that syncs street address information into a note instead of the AddressBook field. I guess they'll fix that someday. Works well enough for me right now. Bluetooth transfer rates are great. And the Bluetooth headset I have (Sony Ericsson HBH-608) works just fine with the phone. Sound quality is good. It holds calls very well, even in my house which has notoriously poor reception. Data transfer is good as far as I've tried. Since I don't have a data plan, this feature isn't going to get tested. I'm not interested in the bill....

The camera is average. It likes a lot of light. If it's too dark, things look grainy. But it doesn't take infinite numbers of pictures of pocket lint like the Z520a was prone to do (due to the poor camera button design on the side).

The battery is a little disappointing. It's on par with my previous Nokia 6682, but it's behind the Sony Ericsson Z520a. I was hoping for a little better.

The phone's display is gorgeous. Large with good resolution, contrast, and color. But I'm also probably paying the price as a result with the shortened battery life.

I'm a little irritated that they changed the power plug type to a new style. I had a lot of old Nokia chargers lying around. However, unlike Sony Ericsson, you can buy an adapter from Nokia to enable the use of all your old chargers. I need to get me one of those.

I love the fact that the phone is unlocked and "as shipped" from Nokia. There's no annoying "customizations" like T-Mobile has put on their version of the 6126 (which is called the 6133) which, for example, cause MP3 files not to be usable as ring tones. There's also no attempt to divert you to your carrier's website to buy stuff like games, surf the net, or do other things that add up to more $$$ for them.

I'm so far very happy with the Nokia 6126, even with the extra cost of buying it unlocked.

Many years ago, I met my good friend Geoff Walton while pumping gas at a Chevron gas station in Pacific Beach, CA. We were introduced because of the license plate he had on this primer colored BMW 2002 - SETUID0.

If you don't know what it means, ask someone who has played around with UNIX too much.

I've always thought the plate was cool. I finally did something about it.



So now there's two green convertibles in the US running around with the same license plate (though Geoff has a Porsche now - he's clearly ahead of me...) Thanks Geoff for letting me plagiarize.

While on a recent business trip, I took the following picture:



Let's itemize:

- 1 Mac PowerBook G4 being charged by an iGo Juice Unit
- 1 Nokia 6126 being recharged off the iGo Juice Unit aux power port
- 1 30GB Video iPod being charged off the USB of the PowerBook
- 1 Blackberry 7290 being charged off the USB of the PowerBook
- 1 Canon S50 digital camera (not shown - it was taking a picture) charging off the wall

Glad there was no shortage of electricity...

Stay tuned for a review on the Nokia 6126. I just purchased one from Amazon.com and it's on its way to my house as we speak.

Hopefully this one doesn't take pictures at random or have any other firmware glitches.

I've finally just about had it with my Sony Ericsson Z520a.

When I got this phone a year ago, I had 2 straight months of absolute heck with this phone. It had a firmware defect that essentially caused the phone to freeze or otherwise do strange things within 24 hours. Sony Ericsson had the worst customer service response - in that they refused to acknowledge the defect and considered it "normal" to have to remove the battery every 24 hours to reset the phone (because often the phone was too screwed up to allow it to power off via the power switch). Because of that experience, I've said my next phone will *not* be a Sony Ericsson device.

Finally, Cingular, who sold me the phone, was able to get Sony Ericsson to produce a firmware update which resolved this problem. And the problem turned out to be caused by a condition which pathologically existed at my house.

In addition to that particular annoyance (which made for a very unreliable phone) the phone has a design flaw. It has a very low resistance spring in the button on the side which activates the camera. And the button is strategically placed so your finger always bumps into it while carrying on a call. So you're constantly activating the camera and snapping unintended pictures.

Lately, this problem has been getting worse and it seems like the camera is activating at random. It sometimes makes for an interesting game - figure out where you were when you unintentionally took a picture. A few times, I have lucked out because the camera went off in places it really shouldn't have.

If the camera were halfway decent, it might be one thing. This camera is far from it. And now, having to go and clear out a dozen pictures every few days has meant I've had enough. It's time for a new phone.

The front runner is the Nokia 6126. I'll probably pay more and buy it directly from Nokia or somewhere not Cingular in order to get one that is not carrier locked and not customized by Cingular. Cingular seems to have this horrible reputation for screwing up perfectly good phones with their customizations. Time to try one without them. The last phone I purchased this way was a Sony Ericsson Z600. An awesome phone. I would still be using it today if it supported the 850MHz band and had slightly better reception.

I think I will ask my wife for permission to acquire a 6126 and see what happens.

The more I read about the story of the Amish shootings in Pennsylvania, the more I am simply amazed at the Faith these families have, and the attitudes they are showing, especially to the family of the gunman.


From CNN:
Welk (grandfather-in-law of the shooter) said he had met Tuesday with family members of one of the dead girls, 13-year-old Marian Fisher, for about 30 to 45 minutes. Hess (Welk's daughter) accompanied her father to the meeting, and said family members embraced them.

"They were very consoling," Hess said. "They offered us their sympathy. They let us know that there was no hard feelings. They felt more sorrow for us because of what we were going through, than what they were going through."


From FoxNews:
Though the Amish generally do not seek help from outside their community, Kevin King, executive director of Mennonite Disaster services, an agency managing the donations, quoted an Amish bishop as saying: "We are not asking for funds. In fact, it's wrong for us to ask. But we will accept them with humility."

At the behest of Amish leaders, a fund has also been set up for the killer's widow and three children.


From the BBC:
A Roberts family spokesman said an Amish neighbour had also comforted the family hours after the shooting - and extended forgiveness to them.

"I hope they stay around here and they'll have a lot of friends and a lot of support," said Daniel Esh, an Amish artist whose grand-nephews were inside the school at the start of the attack.


I don't think many would say much if the Amish had come out angry at the gunman who took the lives of these children. The fact that not only are they not outwardly showing anger, but are reaching out to the family of the person who harmed them is just so out of place with what we've come to expect from people today.

I really hope people reading this learn from the example being set here.

Forgiveness is a personal and difficult topic, no matter what your beliefs. Especially when it comes to the matter of tragic deaths.

A tragic shooting at an Amish School not far from where I used to live happened on Monday. Having lived near the Amish for 7 years while my wife was going through her Residency, I came to appreciate these very private people. After reading this article on CNN, I'm more and more convinced that these folks have the right idea.

To quote from CNN:

PARADISE, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- A grieving grandfather told young relatives not to hate the gunman who killed five girls in an Amish schoolhouse massacre, a pastor said on Wednesday.

"As we were standing next to the body of this 13-year-old girl, the grandfather was tutoring the young boys, he was making a point, just saying to the family, 'We must not think evil of this man,'" the Rev. Robert Schenck told CNN.

"It was one of the most touching things I have seen in 25 years of Christian ministry."

End quote.

This grandfather has it right. What an example, and what words of wisdom under horribly painful circumstances. We don't understand why things like this happen. But so often we fail to teach that revenge and anger aren't always the most constructive responses to things like this.

I'm certainly not a pacifist. However, I really feel this is the right answer to be teaching these affected children at this stage. There's no constructive purpose in breeding hatred into a generation. I truly admire this grandfather for teaching this. If only others in other parts of the world had had this insight, perhaps the world would not be the mess it is today.

You have to admire someone who is older than you are, and can still go out and beat guys half his age in baseball.

Trevor Hoffman earned his record breaking 479th save this evening to become Baseball's Save Leader. Wow. Anyone who can go out and do something 479 times (when people are actively trying to keep you from accomplishing your goal) deserves some recognition. Argue as you'd like that baseball players make too much. When a 39 year old guy sets a record like this, that is darned impressive. Add to that that he's a personable guy, a leader, a family guy, and community guy. He's actually a good role model.... Truly a rarity in this day and age.

Congratulations Trevor!

In my friend Fourth Breakfast's blog entry http://fourthbreakfast.blogspot.com/2006/09/tagged.html, I have been asked to "Tell us the 5th through 8th sentences on page 123 of the book nearest you."

To be honest, the first book nearest to me at the time I read this contained company proprietary information. Couldn't do that.

Went back to my home office, grabbed the nearest book, and to comply, here is the text:

"Then *pfa[] is a recognized as a dcl (sic), so (*pfa[]) is a direct-dcl. Then (*pfa[])() is a direct-dcl and thus a dcl. We can also illustrate the parse with a parse tree like this (where direct-dcl has been abbreviated to dir-dcl): [Image in book omitted] The heart of the dcl program is a pair of functions, dcl and dirdcl, that parse a declaration according to this grammar."

The source is "The C Programming Language, 2nd Edition (ANSI C)" by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie. Copyright 1988, Prentice Hall Publishers.

No real programmer would ever risk *not* having this be the closest book on their desk. It is, after all, the C Programming Language Bible.

docrpm, you're it.

Tags: Blog Tag

This past week, a co-worker and I were discussing how engineers always seem to want to optimize everything. Trying to calculate if buying gas at the gas station down the street because it's $.01/gallon cheaper is worth it based on miles per gallon consumed by the car and mileage to the gas station. Placing something at the bottom of the stairs so as not to waste the energy in making an exclusive trip upstairs but waiting until you had another reason as well. Trying to plan a route that combines 18 different errands in the shortest possible distance while minimizing traffic lights and left turns across busy streets. Stuff like that.

Every once in a while, that optimization comes back to bite you.

So we bought a second car seat to install into my wife's car last week. I left it in the garage right next to her car. After all, why waste the energy to carry it into the house when you're going to install it into the other car in the garage, right?

Well, I kept forgetting to bring out a box cutter, or some other excuse and the result was not getting it installed before I left on my California trip this week.

So I went out this morning to install it, and it was gone. And I instantly realized what had happened.

I had placed the box next to my wife's car. It was also next to the bins we put our recyclables into. My wife and our nanny, thinking I had taken the car seat out already, had assumed the box was empty and put it out with the recycling.

ooops.

We bought a replacement today. It's already in use. No procrastination this time....

Wonder how many gallons of gas it will take to compensate for this...

Someone pointed out this interesting fact to my wife recently...have you ever stopped to think about how many Disney movies have characters who are missing a parent?

This came about as we were watching "The Wild" this weekend with Andrew. No mother lion in this move.

Think about Cinderella - no dad.

Think about Finding Nemo - no mom.

Beauty and the Beast? No mom. Pocahontas? Treasure Planet?

Now granted, this isn't universally true. The Incredibles have both parents. So does Lion King (for at least the first third). Toy Story didn't have either parent (but then, they were toys and toys don't, well, you know....or do they?). Maybe this is just coincidence? But it does make you wonder....

No, I don't have amnesia. No, I didn't lose my badge today at work.

However, I've come to realize that in the last few weeks, I have lost an identity that I associated myself with. I've lost the unique identity of my group at work.

Almost 6 years ago, I joined a group at Sun called HES-CTE. "High End Services - Corporate Technical Escalations". I considered this organization to be like an elite strike team. We knew the complicated servers we supported as well or better than the engineering teams that designed them. We flew around the world on a moment's notice to fix the unfixable, to put our flaming customer issues at customer sites, to do whatever it took to get a customer running and save the business.

Since then we've been reorganized countless times, and with each successive organization change we lost a little bit of that "elite" status. But with this reorganization, the organization we had become, PTS (Product Technical Support), was finally buried along with whatever uniqueness we had left, and all ties with the past.

Our new Senior Director sent a memo out. To paraphrase, "We no longer escalate to PTS. There is no more PTS. There is no more call center. There is just TSC (Technical Service Center)." TSC is our new organization name.

While I think it's great we've broken down a lot of artificial barriers that used to exist between different groups, the fact that there is no real distinction between me who is a product specialist and the folks who answer the phones is a little sad from a personal point of view. It's like a step backwards. It's like losing something special, and the HES-CTE group I joined *was* special. Way back when. I think we took a lot of pride in what we did, because we knew we were the best and that our company depended on us as "The Last Line of Defense" (remember the movie "True Lies" and Arnie's character's organization?).

Tonight, I lift my glass to the memory of Sun's HES-CTE. To those who answered the call. To those of us who continue to try to carry its principles forward. Cheers.

A friend of mine recently sent me this:



Pre-school children were asked the following question:

"In which direction is the bus pictured above traveling?"

Look carefully at the picture. Do you know the answer? The only possible answers are "left" or "right."

The pre-schoolers all answered "left." When asked, "Why do you think the bus is traveling to the left?" they answered, "Because you can't see the door."

How did you do?

Steve Jobs yesterday introduce movies at the iTunes store. I am happy to say I *just* beat that trend by downloading my first movie to my new Video iPod last week. I figured out how to download a copy of a movie on my shelf to it late one night last week, after taking delivery of my refurbished 30GB Black Video iPod. I originally bought it as a giant portable photo album - as my wallet is too crammed with junk to carry decent family pictures.

It's interesting watching a move when your screen is only 320 pixels wide. But the quality is good and it sure is easier to hold than my 15" PowerBook.

Next - download multiple episodes of "Little Einsteins" so Andrew can watch them on the plane.

Major milestone in child development has occurred - Declan has taken his first two steps by himself at age 9 months and 13 days!

We've been noting his ability to walk around when supporting himself with furniture, etc., and in the last few days, noticed that he can actually stand up unassisted and balance himself. Last night, when I went to show my wife how long he could stand, he surprised everyone by taking two steps towards me and falling into my arms!

Great news is he's taken his first steps. Of course, the counter to that is that now he's going to be tearing around everywhere.....

So I've been having this little issue with the latest Apple Battery Recall. Frustrated, I posted my comments to a well known Apple support site - http://www.macfixit.com.

Well, I made the big time....if you call macfixit the big time....look at the bottom of the image....



Turns out, Apple had the affected serial number ranges posted incorrectly at their website. They've since fixed that.

But you heard it from me first, sports fans!

I installed the latest version 1.1 Boot Camp update on my wife's MacBook over the weekend.

In addition to the addition of iSight camera support in WinXP, that time jumping thing is now a thing of the past. Yipppeee!!!!

When my wife and I moved to Maryland, I took advantage of my company's (Sun Microsystems) Work From Home program. I use the office in my house as my primary work place. It's great for me. Traffic in the morning is passing my 7 year old son on the stairs, and lunch and meeting breaks give me time to play with my 9 month old son. It's a great break during a stressful day.

With all these benefits, I usually loathe having to go into the actual office. It's a nice office, really, located in a town about 20 minutes from my house - a direct shot via highway. I love the folks in the office, but there's really no motivation to go in to sit in a check out office and do the same thing (sit on conference calls, work on projects) as I could do at home. Yesterday, however, I had to 1) Pick up two packages from the office, 2) Get more expense reimbursement envelopes, and 3) Copy about 2 dozen pages worth of stuff. Enough things that pretty much added up to, "James, you need to go to the office."

What a day to drive into the office. I started off at 7:45a. It was a wonderful 72 degrees, fairly low humidity (for Maryland at this time of the year anyways), light breeze. Put the top down on the Mini Cooper S. Cranked up the iPod. Ahhhhh.....

I started off first driving 20 miles in the opposite direction. Had to deliver my wife's bag to her office (she accidentally left it at home). Almost no traffic. Very few trucks (trucks are intimidating in a convertible to begin with - compound that with the small stature of the Mini and it's really an experience....). Perfect temperature. No one cut me off on the road. It took me about 25 minutes to cover the 20 miles.

I quickly dropped the bag off, hopped back in the car, and headed up to my office, now approximately 35 miles away. Again, everything was great - no traffic, perfect temperature, pulled into a nice space in the parking garage in 35 minutes. Turned off the engine and sat for a moment and thought, "What a great way to start off the day - a one hour cruise in the Mini with the top down at true motoring speed." I grabbed my laptop bag and headed into the office with a smile on my face.

Could only have been made better if I had commuted in via scenic Highway 1 on the California coast instead of Maryland State Highway...but I won't complain.

Since I bought my refurbished Apple PowerBook G4 a few months back, I've been plagued by a sticking trackpad button. It would occasionally crunch, not respond to clicks, and or do other odd things. Previous trips to the Genius Bar at the local Apple Store resulted in a diagnosis of a loose screw in the trackpad assembly, and getting it tightened up.

After bringing it in for the 3rd time, the folks at the Genius Bar determined the contacts on the trackpad button itself were sticking. The extra force I guess was causing the screws to come loose. So Monday, I took it in for a new "Top Unit" (which contains new keyboard, etc.). I was happy about this since I had always been experiencing intermittent keypress drops on my keyboard as well....

I got the unit back. Ahhhhh.....I love having a working trackpad button. And, the keyboard is definitely more responsive now.

Would have been perfect had they not given me a heart attack when I noticed the system only has 1GB of RAM instead of 1.5GB. Turns out the 512MB module wasn't fully seated. Fixed that up in a jiffy, but....

Thanks to Apple nonetheless for good customer service and doing the right thing by replacing the defective part instead of repeatedly applying band-aids....

For my personal phone, I recently decided to upgrade my Blackberry 7230 (which had survived a dunking in the toilet) with a new Blackberry 7290. I decided on the 7290 because it was 1) Cheaper than an 8700 model, 2) Same form factor as the 7230, 3) Had a brighter screen, 4) Bluetooth, and 5) Quad-Band GSM support. My carrier for the phone is T-Mobile. Cost me $49 from T-Mobile (plus tax of course and after mail-in rebate with new contract....).

I love this thing.

First, it resolved a number of issues that made me dislike my 7230. It stays synced with the network time. It has a much brighter backlight so those with early on-set far-sightedness (me) can read the display better.

Second, all my old accessories work with the phone, and still syncs with PocketMac to my Mac.

But the unexpected fun came with the upgraded Blackberry OS loaded on it. This unit has decent theme support, and I was able to get the MacBerry theme which makes my Blackberry look like a Mac. Whoo hoo!

Another fun app I've discovered is Google Maps Mobile. If you've not tried this little application, it's great. It's just like Google Maps except smaller (obviously). It can give you step-by-step directions between two points, pan and zoom, and even use the same satellite imagery that Google Maps uses. An added feature is real-time traffic displays for 30 metropolitan areas. Very, very nice. Reportedly supported on any Java J2ME enabled handset. Highly recommended (but only if you have an unlimited data plan on your device - it does download a lot of stuff).

So there seems to a consensus that the real estate market is cooling off. Though, no one really seems to be calling it a bust (yet).

I just can't wait for the banking crisis to follow.

Why?

I'll take my neighborhood for example. A year ago when my wife and I moved into our house, people were lining up at the sales office every month to get a chance to purchase one of four homes (on average) that our builder released per month. There were no homes for sale in our neighborhood. Those that went on sale stayed on the market for a week before being sold. People were coming in with adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs), mortgages that were short-term fixed which converted to ARMs, and even negative-amortization loans where the monthly payment didn't even cover the interest on the house. Greater than 100% financing. 2nd mortgages to cover down payments on the 1st mortgage. Etc. etc. We qualified for our house with my income alone (which isn't a trivial amount, granted, but the mortgage payment would have consumed 75% of my take home pay...) incredibly enough.

My point? People literally begged, borrowed, and cheated their way into these very nice homes.

Now I think people are starting to pay the price. They're not lining up at the sales office anymore, and there are 8 or so houses in our neighborhood for sale. Some have been for sale for at least a couple of months. Coincidence, perhaps. But you wonder how much the recent interest rate jumps have started putting the pinch on people who took out ARMs or other adjustable rate mortgages. And if that's the case, how long before the banks start owning these houses? Which have been negative amortizing and are now worth less than their outstanding mortgage? And how long before those losses begin to add up, especially in overheated markets like mine?

And I am sure this isn't just our neighborhood either.

Might be some good buys coming up soon....but too bad that will be at the expense of the appraised value of my home....

American Express has the most screwed up mailing databases in the world.

In a previous residence, they kept sending applications for business credit cards to my address, because I happened to have been the unfortunate recipient of the previous phone number of that business.

At my current residence (and by the way, this is a new house so I'm the first owner), they send me credit card applications for the person I bought my previous house from (in another state). And now, they send me credit card applications for my mother who has been dead for over 11 years, and whose credit report I'm sure is marked with the fact that she's deceased.

The good news is I found this number: 877-370-0976 -- it's an American Express "Stop these incorrect mailings" phone number. They took the information from the mailing and committed to removing the incorrect entries from their database within 6-8 weeks. We'll see....

What is worse than spam?

Having a spammer out there in the world who got his PC infected with a virus. So everyone on his/her/its spam list gets a copy of a stupid Windows virus.

Another reason to have a Mac.

So my previous entry about time and Apple BootCamp needs an update - the fix is not 100% complete. It actually has nothing to do with the fact that it's on a MacBook, it seems to just be Windows as I've discovered the same issue on my AMD64 laptop which has the same hack.

Apparently, something comes along in Windows every so often and makes Windows forget about RealTimeIsUniversal....I suspect it's the screen saver or something related to the screen saver.

When you boot, everything is fine, but some amount of time thereafter, you can look down and see that your time is off by exactly the number of hours between GMT and your timezone. If you reboot Windows, it's fine again, until whatever messes things up messes it up again...

Back to the drawing board....

I just got back from a wonderful family vacation - posted pictures, but discovered my camera has myopia. Sigh... In particular, take a look at my cousin and her husband's website for happy wedding pictures.

Technorati Profile

So here's a good one.

I have found what has got to be one of the most "customer unfriendly" organizations ever in terms of being able to resolve an issue.

The organization unfortunately happens to be the billing service for my son's pediatrician.

I will state, for the record, that the office manager there is very nice. She has responded to me personally to try to resolve this issue. She's a pleasant person and she understands my frustrations.

However, getting a personal response out of this billing service is more painful than beating my head against a wall repeatedly.

For 7 months, I've been getting claims reportedly rejected by insurance (they were submitting them to the wrong place). Then they lost the payment. Then they misapplied the correction. Resulting in a persistent stream of bills.

The contact methods are as follows:

- In writing
- Via "email" (which is a web form)
- Via "phone"

That last one is really a misnomer. Yes, you use the phone. No, there is no way at all to get to a real person directly. There is a lengthy introduction about how to contact them (and how not to keep repeating your requests). It talks about a response in 24 business hours. That's 3 days. Not including weekends. And then sometimes, the response takes longer to get to you because they decide to mail you a response via US Mail! By which time, if you've listened to the spiel, you're likely to have contacted them again because you didn't hear anything from them! And you get a response back "We've already responded to you, repeating your requests only delays our ability to respond to you in a timely manner."

And then, there is the ultimate implementation of voicemail hell. I've been through every one of the 10 options in their list, plus the "extension" listed on the bill. Every single one ends up in a different voicemail mailbox! They must be spending all their time entering in 10 different codes to get to all those mailboxes. And unlike most places where if you just don't hit anything, you get to an operator....not this place. You get yet another voicemail mailbox (oh, I guess that means 11 different mailboxes).

Talking with the office manager (yes, she called me once and I was actually available to take the call), she recognized this was a problem, but that her management didn't think so. I wonder what it would take to change her management's mind? Too bad my son's pediatrician group is really nice and I'm not motivated to change from the services provided point of view....

This is hilarious (and pathetically sad at the same time).

http://www.evanwashere.com/StolenSidekick

Note that this person is attracting a lot of attention, and he's having problems keeping his website online. However, if you can, read this. It's sadly hilarious.

If you don't know what a Sidekick is, it's like a Blackberry. Look here for more information.

Whomever American Express buys their junk email database from really ought to drawn and quartered.

So normally, junk mail comes in, I look at it for 10 seconds, then toss it.

Today's junk mail was special. Identical American Express financial services mailings. One to my mother (deceased for 11 years), and one to the person I bought a house from 8 years ago in another state. Not to me. Not to my wife. But to my mom and someone whom I did business with 8 years ago.

Mind you, I am the first person to live in my house, so it's not like I got the previous occupant's junk mail. This is junk mail that had to work to find this address....

This is actually getting a special mailing back to American Express and a nasty letter. Sheesh....

So my wife's new MacBook arrived late last week. It's a great little machine. I've not experienced the heat problems that others have had (it idles mid-50's C to a max of 80C). I loaded BootCamp on it, then WindowsXP on it to meet the requirements my wife had for work. Everything went flawlessly. My wife loves the system so much, I haven't had any time to play on it since the day I set it up!

Well, there was one issue -- my wife came to me yesterday and asked why every time she switched back and forth between WinXP and MacOSX the time always got screwed up. Hmmph.

Then, I realized this is exactly the same problem I had with my AMD Athlon64 laptop which dual-boots WinXP and Solaris. The time was always screwed up. So, I borrowed a solution from this entry in Casper Dik's Blog. This entry also has a link to explain why this works the way it does....

Boot MacOSX first. Make sure date, time, and timezones are set correctly.
Reboot into WinXP.
Run regedt32 (if you don't know how to do this, you shouldn't try this....)
Set the following registry key (note, it doesn't exist - you have to create it).

HKLM/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/TimeZoneInformation/RealTimeIsUniversal

Set the value of the key to

REG_DWORD = 1

In the control panel for Day and Time, make sure your timezone is set correctly and check the "automatically adjust for daylight savings time" box.

Reboot WinXP, you should be set.

I think my wife will be happier with this change.

I think this says it all...

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060531/sun_microsystems_jobs.html?.v=9

Mom, Grandma, we remember you, even after all these years.

So today, I finally bit the bullet and ordered my wife a new MacBook. It's a CTO config - extra RAM and disk from the base config. White. I don't believe in the $150 premium for the black one, even if it does look cool.

I am generally against first generation Apple hardware. Especially the first generation motherboards, etc. But the ability to run Mac OS X and WinXP (yuck) and the fact that even with the (I think mandatory) AppleCare, we're still hundreds cheaper than a comparable Sony VAIO....well...it was worth the chance.