I scheduled an appointment to upgrade to Directv HD. Mind you - I get something from Comcast almost everyday about switching to their service. I have been very happy with Directv for over a year now, but it seems their customer service is a bit lacking. I had a no show/no call appointment on Monday so I called on Tuesday to see what was going on. The customer service rep told me I had to be conferenced in with the “local office”. After over 30 minutes of waiting, the local person informed us that their computer systems were down and that he would call me back in a few minutes. Two days later, I called back because I was still waiting. This time around, I asked the customer service rep to just talk to the local office himself and call me back with the next available install appointment. This guy, at the very least, gave me a $100 credit, but informed me that he was not allowed to call me back and that someone in the “local office” was the only person that could call me. Fine. Today…after not hearing anything again … [more]

This summer I have been doing a lot of traveling. Back in July I drove through Pennsylvania - and I have an iPASS so I do not need to stop and deposit coins in tolls in IL, PA, NJ, NY. I just got 2 bills in the mail for failure to pay 2 $0.50 tolls in the mail. Each were for $25.50 - $0.50 for the toll and $25.00 for the “administrative filing”. Good thing iPASS keeps a record! PA will hear from me tomorrow.

One of my top pet peeves in my field is the use of self-signed SSL certificates for public web sites. I have no issue with using self-signed SSL certificates for a development environment or something internal, but when you have outside users, you need to show them that they can trust you. Just today - I got a “secure” email from my student loan company (which first got marked as junk). When I clicked on the URL in the email (https://securemail…) I got the error message “certificate was signed by an unknown certifying authority”. My blood began to boil.

A. You have all kinds of personal information about me, my loans, etc and you cannot pay $199 a year to get a certificate that my browser recognizes and trusts?

B. You make an extra effort to send a “secure email” to a “https” (secure) site, and choose to setup a “securemail” sub-domain - and when it comes to the certificate, you skimp? Wow.

If you know me…and have seen me work with hardware, you know my style of troubleshooting. First - read to see if others are having issues. Second, make sure all the connections are working. Third, look for the dumb reasons why something would not work (electrical, buttons). Fourth - use force to beat the hardware. At first step four was out of frustration. Then, Apple made it an official option with my old displays. I quote: …you can most often break the adhesion between the grid wires by using the heel of your hand to moderately impact the side of your display under the Apple logo on the right, then left side. Using moderate force does not damage your display.

Today I ran into some hardware trouble in my car - my super finicky - already been replaced “CD Error” prone CD changer in my Volvo. Last time I got the “CD Error” my Volvo dealer had to send the changer to Sweden so they could send my back my CDs. Since I no longer have the luxury of a warranty, I had to take matters into my own hands. … [more]

Serenity now - Apple has updated their .Mac service. There are some good updates…and some bad. The good: the Web Gallery looks pretty sweet. The bad: .Mac users can now send and receive email attachments up to 20mb. Ugh…nothing drives me more crazy than getting large email attachments. What is large? For me it is anything over 3mb. How to completely drive me insane? Send me your billboard sized photos that total over 3mb. On the upside of the .Mac improvements, I am very excited about the additional space - 10gig as well as Junk Mail via their webmail app - still no filters, but I am almost ready to give up. Looks like I will stay on for another year of the .Mac tax.

I love America…especially when we have the “state safety rest area” and next to it a big liquor and lotto store. Awesome. Thanks to my sister for capturing this great picture on her recent travels.

After a long day of craziness, I was feeling overwhelmed and exhausted…then I noticed Amanda Congdon posted a new video on her site. In this video she covered the Nintendo Amusement Park and after everything, that made me smile and laugh! Thanks Amanda!