_{(or download an mp3.)}

This is the best ever. Just kick off your shoes, curl up next to the fire with a cup of apple cider, and enjoy.

(As heard on the Mikey Show on Rock 105.3)

I admit, the last two Verizon “rants” were problems that I could have prevented if I had been more aware and responsible of the matters at hand.

But this time, this isn’t really a rant. It’s more of a statement of just how little Verizon cares about you as a customer.

Back in October, I incurred $97 in data charges checking my e-mail during my honeymoon. It’s my fault, I admit it, whatever. In early November, I went to a Verizon store, while at DevConnections in Las Vegas, and spoke to a manager there about the situation. He agreed to give me a credit of half the $97 (approximately $48.50) if I agreed to add a data plan onto my phone right then and there. I told him yes, and then asked if I could just cancel the data plan in a week or so. He reluctantly said yes, and wrote down on a piece of paper the details of the credit. He added the data plan and that was that. No receipt or anything, and I didn’t catch this manager’s name.

It’s been two bills since then, and I still haven’t seen the credit. A few weeks ago I went into a local (San Diego) Verizon store, and the person there explained that there’s nothing noted on my account regarding a credit. I explained the entire situation and he agreed that I should be getting the credit. He said he was going to put a note on there, and if I still don’t see a credit next month (maybe the manager in Las Vegas just didn’t post it yet?) then I should call Verizon or visit a store again to make sure I get the credit.

Today I called customer service (via *611) and had the customer service rep explain that since I don’t know the name of the manager in Las Vegas, and because they didn’t put any notes on my account, she basically can’t do anything. I would have to find exactly who I spoke to and bring it up with them. I ask if she can tell me what store this happened at, since I don’t live in Las Vegas and was just visiting. It takes her at least three minutes to just tell me the name of the plaza the store is in. What, your database doesn’t show things like store numbers?! I also ask her about dropped calls and poor reception, since Heather and I can’t get reception worth a darn in our house. She said we need to call #832 immediately after a dropped call, and they will credit me automatically. Why Verizon can’t credit me automatically anyway (without calling a number), I’ll never know.

I’m starting to think at this point that the manager pulled a fast one on me. I decide to try and find the store. I end up locating the exact one I went into, via the plaza name the CSR gave me before. It’s on Tropicana Ave in Las Vegas. I call, and explain the situation to the first CSR, and say that I may need to speak to the manager to get this resolved. He explains that since I don’t know who I talked to, he can’t just ask everyone about my situation. He puts me on hold repeatedly, and in between holds, asks for my phone number. I finally give up after being on hold for five minutes and hearing ringing that entire time.

I’m probably going to call Verizon’s corporate line (thanks Consumerist!) and leave a message, see what happens. I’m just over Verizon in general now. The concept that the customer is right is totally lost on them. Who knows what other wireless companies are like. I want to just bail on cell phones entirely, but obviously can’t do that. Maybe Cricket wireless would work for Heather and I. I dunno.

P.S. — Read this awesome tale of woe from another person dealing with Verizon.

I was trying to open a project from SourceSafe under the new Visual Studio 2008, and my list of SourceSafe servers was blank. After a few moments of frustration, I found a CTP (beta) release of a pack of fixes for SourceSafe, and Microsoft suggests you install it before using Visual SourceSafe 2005 in Visual Studio 2008.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=FAF41EDD-924D-449F-AEFC-9C86DD499720&displaylang=en

The CTP seems to have fixed my problem, as I can now open VSS2005 projects from VS2008.

Over the past few years, I’ve accumulated a collection of add-ons for FireFox that I genuinely use almost daily to do my job. I’ve seen other “top development add-on” lists, and I don’t really agree with all of the items. With that said, here goes my take:

1. Console²
   http://console2.mozdev.org/index.html
   
   Allows you to filter the JavaScript Console by type, language and context, compared to the way the console works by default where it just shows everything all in line. You don’t really notice it, because it should’ve been built into Firefox to begin with.
2. Firebug
   http://www.getfirebug.com/
   
   Adds an full JavaScript debugging solution to Firefox and much more. Also helps debug your AJAX applications, because it has a network activity view to show you the ins and outs of your page. I can’t live without this add-on, really. Being able to set a breakpoint in my JavaScript and fully explore the DOM/variables while debugging is immensely helpful.
3. HackBar
   https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3899
   
   Just recently found this. It adds a toolbar to Firefox that helps you test for security problems with your app, mainly with querystrings/URLs. Gives you tools to automatically increase/decrease values, test for SQL injection, etc.
4. HTML Validator (based on Tidy and OpenSP)
   http://users.skynet.be/mgueury/mozilla/
   
   Another “core” add-on I use, that I couldn’t live without. This one adds native HTML validation inside of Firefox. You can use different types of validation, and choose how strict it is with your code. Even checks for accessibility problems. Use this and find out just how syntacticly bad your HTML really is.
5. LiveHTTPHeaders
   http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org/
   
   Like the name implies, shows the live HTTP headers of your page, underneath the “View Page Info” section of Firefox, or via a pop up window in “realtime”. Lets you also change the headers and re-send the request. Kinda like Fiddler, but built into Firefox.
6. Save As Image
   https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3408
   
   Again, like it implies, it saves a webpage as an image. Useful for generating “thumbnails” of site designs, bug snapshots, etc.
7. Server Spy
   http://jacquetc.free.fr/mozilla/exts/ServerSpy/
   
   Shows (on the bottom of the browser) what web server software the current domain is running. Useful for planning out what web capabilities you’re working with when initially meeting with a client.
8. ShowIP
   http://l4x.org/frontpage/showip
   
   Shows (on the bottom of the browser) what the current web server’s IP address is. You can then query that IP address with numerous lookup services to find history, etc. Useful for knowing what server you’re on, or figuring out a domain/subdomain’s structure.
9. URLParams
   http://urlparams.blogwart.com/share/index.php
   
   Adds a sidebar to Firefox that makes it very easy to edit GET (querystring)/POST (form) variables, as well as change your referrer, and submit them again.
10. View Rendered Source / View Source Chart
    http://jennifermadden.com/scripts/ViewRenderedSource.html
    
    Visually displays the source code of your page, using literally “blocks” of varying colors to represent each element in your code. Each block is collapsable as well. Gives you a quick way to see how deep an element is nested, where it’s nested, what tags are used, etc.
11. Web Developer
    http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/
    
    One of the most important add-ons. Adds a toolbar to the top of Firefox that has almost everything a web developer could ever want/need for tweaking pages, tracking down problems, editing CSS on the fly, etc… This toolbar has it all. Really, go check it out now and install it. If you don’t install anything else on this page, you need to at least install this one.
12. Autofill Forms
    https://blueimp.net/mozilla/
    
    Like it says, it automatically fills forms! Useful for filling out forms with test data repeatedly.
13. Cache Status
    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1881
    
    Adds a section to the bottom of Firefox showing current memory and cache usage, and allows you to right click and reset/clear the caches (RAM/disk.) I use it just to have that cache clearing shortcut.
14. IE View Lite
    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1429
    
    Adds a right-click menu to your page that brings up the current URL in Internet Explorer. Useful for quickly jumping to “the other browser” to see what it looks like over there.

P.S. — An e-mail from Mike at HireAHelper.com prompted me to write this list. Check out his site if you need moving help, landscaping or general help!

Made by Drew Struzan, it looks like it pretty much embodies and keeps with the spirit of the old posters. I like it!

USA Today has an article about the upcoming film, and it reveals some plot points:

• Indiana Jones has aged in “real time”, 19 years since Last Crusade, so this film takes place in 1957, during the cold war.
• Locations visited include New Mexico, Connecticut, Mexico City and the jungles of Peru.
• Nazis are not the main “bad guy”. He’s trying to find the skull before agents for the Soviet Union do. Cate Blanchett plays one of these agents.

If you feel generous, here’s my Amazon wishlist. Feel free to post links to yours, if you’d like. It’s gift exchange time!

Over at the Franchise Sizzle, they’re having a kick-off contest, in which some lucky soul will be winning an iPod Nano. Here’s hoping it’s me, so I can give it to Heather and she can have a Merry Christmas.

Oh yeah, you can enter it too I suppose. It’s free, just leave a comment. Enjoy!

Worked my booty off this weekend to get Chris’ new design up for Flawd Clothing. I suggest you all check out the site and let me know what you think— from a technical and/or design, etc. point of view. And buy some shirts while you’re at it

I love where chocolate is splashing on him at the end. WTF? Hah. Literally a CHOCOLATE RAIN. I get it!

Verizon once again screws Heather and I over. We went 90 minutes over our “family share” plan, and will have to pay 45 cents for each of those minutes. $40 extra dollars this month.

Verizon can send you free texts to tell you your bill is ready, how many minutes are left, what your current bill is, etc… but they can’t send you an automatic “heads up” warning when your minutes are almost gone? Of course they can’t. It would kill their profits from these sort of scenarios. And do you really think those extra minutes are worth 45 cents a pop to them? No way.

I’d say we’re switching to another company when our plan is up, but they all suck. Some major reform needs to happen in that industry and fast. Bah.

http://inquisitivesensitive.blogspot.com/

You should all check it out, and add her to your feed reader. I know she’s got quite a bit to say…

I’m thankful for my amazing wife, Heather. She supports me in every way, even when I’m being a bit eccentric.

I’m also thankful for Heather’s family, my own family, and our friends, for being so supportive of us and helping us through the engagement, wedding and our marriage.

I thought I’d throw in a cute picture of Joshua (my sister’s son), too. They all live in Arizona now, so I don’t get to see the little guy as much anymore. I certainly miss him. It was only a short while ago he was born premature, but pulled through and look at him now! What a cutie.

What are you thankful for?

Overall I like it, but there’s still some slightly rough edges that will hopefully be addressed via minor updates.

Until I’m able to write further on the subject, I’ll leave you with the swank “Now Playing” screen:

7:52 pm Update: If you’re having album art troubles (where some of the album art doesn’t match properly), check out this workaround from Microsoft. I had a few that were off, but are now fixed.

From http://www.austinpc.com/TF2/ (NCSoft):

(second place: girl in a splicer costume from Bioshock!)

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From http://wire.ggl.com/2007/10/29/team-fortress-2-the-best-halloween-cosplay-ever/:

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From http://kotaku.com/gaming/halloween-hangover/how-nihilistic-celebrated-halloween-318050.php (Nihilistic Software):

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From http://kotaku.com/gaming/halloween-hangover/how-ea-la-celebrated-halloween-318045.php (EA Los Angeles):

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From http://kotaku.com/gaming/halloween-hangover/how-blizzard-celebrated-halloween-318035.php (Blizzard Software):

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From http://www.flickr.com/photos/klutzo/sets/72157602826116221/ (Bioware Games):

I was using my favorite audio player/manager, MediaMonkey, this afternoon and ran into a really annoying bug. All of the songs in a particular album would play except for one. MediaMonkey would just skip the file, no error or anything.

At first I thought the file was “corrupt”, but it couldn’t be. It had only been ripped a few weeks ago, and plays fine in other players, such as Winamp, VLC and Foobar2000. I started to think logically about the problem, and noticed that particular track had parenthesis in it’s filename. I removed the parathesis, and replaced them with another character. Nope, still skipping.

So I thought more, and concluded that the filename was the longest filename on the album. I removed a few characters and tried again. Voila, now it works!

I do some research and find that MediaMonkey (at least the new beta for Vista) uses the Quicktime API to playback AAC files. I decided to try an experiment, and attempted to load the troublesome file (with it’s long filename) into Quicktime via Quicktime’s own “open file” menu. It’s leads me to a wonderfully unhelpful error message of “Error -37: a bad filename or volume name was encountered”. Oh, really?

Doing even further research, it seems that Quicktime can’t handle a file with a name longer than 60 characters. What the crap?

Searching around the web, I find a handful of people who have run into this same problem. Why hasn’t this been fixed yet? Is this why iTunes automatically stores most songs in a “cut off filename” state when “Keep my iTunes Folder Organized” is checked?

Ugh. Will someone at Apple get their head outta their butt, fire the entire Quicktime/iTunes for Windows development staff, and start over? I’m tired of it crashing, having exploits, making my computer slow to a crawl, and not playing back “HD” content on even screaming-fast PCs. All major reasons I switched to MediaMonkey. But alas, since MediaMonkey relies on Quicktime for it’s AAC playback, I’m going to have to truncate all my AAC filenames until a fix comes out.

Since there is no way for me to directly link this content, and I also wish to keep it for history’s sake, I reproduce it here without permission of Ramona Sentinel or Keith Hansen. If anyone from the Sentinel (or Keith) reads this and wants it taken down, please contact me. I did not write the following editorial; Keith Hansen did at RamonaSentinel.com — I should say that I wholeheartedly agree with the tone and statements made in this editorial. If the water board members did in fact do something “wrong”, then they will be punished for it after investigations. But until then, let’s cut them some slack, and not try to instantly strangle them. Also, most geniuses in Ramona don’t realize that the Ramona Fire Department is actually a department UNDER the water district. Do we really want to affect our firefighters with this mess, too?

A mob mentality seems to be growing around Ramona since the smoke and fire moved out of town.

It seems that some folks are after the hides of Ramona Municipal Water District board members and the general manager. We’ve been fielding phone calls from irate district customers complaining that the district did not have 20/20 foresight, leaving Ramona without water when the electric lines feeding the pumping station in Poway were burned by the Witch Creek Fire.

One may have noticed signs taped to the backs of portable toilets along Main Street that essentially call for the resignations of all board members and the management of the water district. Well, that’s everyone’s right as a paying customer to demand service. It’s also everyone’s right to sit back and gather facts before throwing gas on a fire!

Critics said that board president Bob Krysak was nowhere to be found during the raging inferno. That’s correct. He along with his elderly mother (who is on oxygen) were forced to evacuate with the rest of us.

Director Kit Kissinger lost his house in the blaze, and director Doug Wilsman, who has asthma, left when wind-driven smoke came over his house and it was obvious the fire was coming. Directors Jim Robinson and Red Hager remained in town.

It is our understanding that board members stayed in constant contact with district management.

I’m not sure, but I do believe that the evacuation order given by law enforcement was mandatory for all citizens. Members of the water board were among those of us who where told to get out when the reverse 911 order came.

Now, for those among us so eager to point the finger at these folks and demand their resignation, I’d ask all of you to stop and think for just one moment before you throw the rope over that low-hanging branch to lynch these five citizen board members. First, consider that the fire roared through Ramona like a locomotive bent on killing everyone and everything in its path. No amount of water or flame retardant was going to quench that fire’s lust for fuel.

Second, the board, even if they would have had an emergency meeting in the middle of Main Street while the embers were flying around their heads, it is doubtful they could have forced the fire to stop.

Third, the problem was in Poway. The electrical feed that powers the huge pumps to bring water up the hill was cut off when this demonically driven fire moved down the hill. Even if the board and the general manager had been there 10 seconds prior to or after the fire hit the pumping station, there was nothing that could have been done to pump water up the hill.

Fourth, even if there was fault, however great, is there no more room in our town for giving each other a bit of slack? The board is made up of citizens — just like you and me. I don’t know about you, but I’ve made a mistake or two in my lifetime, and I’d venture to guess so have you.

Finally, if the mob does prevail and the board does resign under pressure and the general manager is forced out of his position, who is going to take their place? Will it be a group of village idiots who have no idea of how a water district is operated or maybe we’ll be lucky and get five people with Ph.D.s who have IQs over 200, but don’t know the first thing about running the water district.

Some have said there was no contingency plan. No alternative source for water. Yup, that’s right. The old back-up source for water was the Barger operation, which was too costly to run and, as I understand it, just plain worn out. The board decided it was too expensive to operate and did not want to saddle district customers with the cost of running an obsolete system. So, they voted not to include the Barger system in this year’s budget.

“Yeah, well they should have known!” has been the outcry from the mob. Well, they like everyone else had not predicted the Santa Ana winds to blow into town last week and spark an inferno that would wipe out the lives of folks from our town.

Let’s focus on those folks who need our support. There’ll be plenty of time for a good lynching after the entire matter has been investigated. If they are negligent, I’m certain we can get a good deal on hanging rope!

Keith Hansen

The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that’s what an army is—a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any man at the head of it is beneath pitifulness.

Mark Twain

Okay, I messed up. This past month, especially during the honeymoon, I was using my cell phone’s internet client to check my e-mail, etc… I didn’t think it’d be that big of a deal. Maybe $10–$15 worth of charges, right? I get my latest Verizon cell phone bill and it’s almost $100 more than usual. Apparently I used 6 megabytes of data, and Verizon wants $97 for it. What.. the.. f—k?

To rub salt in the wound, Verizon offers a pre-paid “data block” of 10 megabytes for $25. Or unlimited data usage for $40. But of course, they can’t retroactively add these plans to your phone if the bill has been generated, according to them. Which is total baloney. According to the woman I spoke to, if I had changed my plan last week (to have the data block), I wouldn’t have had to pay this charge. Glorious!

I know the error is clearly on my side, but don’t you think they could have a little compassion for someone? The $95 for 6 megabytes is clearly raping the customer for no good reason, when compared to their other plans— that’s $15 per megabyte, compared to the pre-paid 10 megabyte block coming out to $4 a megabyte. Blah.

Also, looking at my phone bill, I noticed minutes deducted for calling voicemail. I was under the impression that calling your voicemail was always free with Verizon. Bzzzt. Wrong. According to Wikipedia (and other sources):

Verizon Wireless charges customers peak minutes if a user dials his/her voicemail during peak hours which is in contrast to its competitors. A customer may have mobile to mobile but will still be charged peak minutes for dialing his/her voicemail. Many customers are used to having free minutes when checking voicemail and are unaware that Verizon Wireless is deducting peak minutes.

Awesome!

Anyways, when our contract is up, Heather and I will most likely be finding another wireless provider.

Heather and I had to evacuate Ramona due to the recent Southern California wild fires. We’re safe, and our house is okay. Pray for everyone in this town, and in California, who might have suffered losses.

Heather and I joined together in Holy matrimony on October 13th, 2007. Amazing!

The honeymoon’s been a long week, and we’re still decompressing from it all. Expect a full update soon.

Until then, check out some of the wedding photos via my flickr account.

Amazon unveiled their new “amazonmp3” service a short while ago, and it instantly replaced iTunes as my provider for purchasing legal music. Bye bye, iTunes, with your DRM/protection. Yes, I know Apple sells “unprotected” files via their store, but you’re paying more for that. At AmazonMP3, you’re not. Most tracks are .99 or .89, which is fine by me.

If you don’t understand what I’m saying.. If you purchase music through iTunes, just plain ‘ol .99 cent tracks, you’re paying for a track that is “protected” and locked to only work with iTunes and iPods. You can’t using the music in Windows Media Player, or any non-iPod digital audio players (well, you can, if you burn a CD, then re-import it, but that results in a loss of quality, and who has the time?!) — Apple is basically limiting what you can do with music you _own_.

Anyways, Amazon has a little downloader program too to help automatically download tracks you purchased and stick them into Windows Media Player or iTunes for you automatically.

If you like paying for music, head over to Amazon’s site and start browsing. They’ve got over two million songs. And the sound quality is great. Amazon says they’re 256kbps, but some of the tracks I’ve downloaded are actually VBR MP3s, encoded with Lame 3.97, using the profile “MP3 VBR V0”. If you ask the guys over at Hydrogen Audio, they’ll tell you those settings are awesome.

If you use Vista, you’ve run into this problem. Vista seems to think that every folder contains music, because the “Artists”, “Album”, “#”, “Genre” and “Rating” columns are always visible. Look at my example above. This is after resetting all of the file type settings, etc… and Vista still thinks that a directory containing two MDB (Access databases) and a ZIP file warrant showing media columns. Ugh.

Please, Microsoft, fix this for SP1. The fact that it isn’t fixed already via a hotfix speaks volumes about how slow you react to even the smallest of bugs.

Just got a Samsung 22” LCD today, which is now my primary display. My older 20” Dell is now my secondary/side display.

And hence, the current state of my desk:

Wasn’t that fascinating?

Yes, when you think PETA, think naked girls:

You guys are real winners! You sure convinced me to join your group after that video…

Oh wait, you didn’t. This hamburger is tasty. Mmm mmm good.

Heather and I registered (on our wedding registry) for a Dyson vacuum cleaner, and my mother was generous enough to purchase it for us. Today was my first time using the vacuum, and it impressed the heck outta me. This picture says it all:

That’s almost four inches of solid dirt, along with hair, fluff, whatever sitting on top. Yuck. I knew my house was dirty, but not this dirty.

Definitely the best vacuum I’ve ever used/owned, and for $400, it better be  The wife-acceptance-factor was very low for this at first (due to the price), but she now sees just how good it is at what it does.