May 12

Well, hello Weekend.  I'm talking about the two days, Saturday and Sunday, not the guy who got pissed off because he didn't get a Grammy nomination a few years back.  I didn't see, did he get a nomination this year?  Or has he already begun to cycle past his relevancy?

A lot was accomplished yesterday. I rode 4 miles on the bike and realized I needed to do some more rearranging.  That took up a bit more time than I had been expecting.  The camera and mic are now set up downstairs in preparation for the YouTube channel.  I'm sort of excited... but only sort of.

One of the things that surfaced during my rearranging, was this:  Back in 1977, while at Lebanon Valley College, I direct West Side Story.  Here's my program, with the tatters of my 'opening night' boutonniere still pinned to the cover.

And I ordered a new gaming PC as well:

The new computer is not due to arrive until May 12, which gives me plenty of time to prep the stuff I want to transfer, and decide what I want to store in the 'cloud.'  Honestly, I can't wait.  The speaker jack faded out yesterday.  My speaker system is now connected to the headphone jack in the front of the PC, which still works.   More wires = less fun.

 

History

 Welcome to Friday... one of my days off.  Yesterday, we had a lot of rain.  We've had April showers on and off for several days now, however yesterday the rain was steady.  There were times when, sitting at the flooring desk, I could hear downpours pounding over head.  Of course, that meant I got to hear the occasional customer complaining about 'all of this rain.'  We've had this showery, drizzly, not quite rainy weather for about 3 days.  If we weren't getting the rain, and their lawns weren't rapidly turning green, these same people would be complaining about 'how dry it is!'  Why do so many people feel the need to whine?

I had an odd night's sleep.  Restlessness.  Not quite dreaming and not quite sleeping.  Politics seemed to play a big part, not solid thoughts I could focus on, and not disturbing at all, more like a silent presence that kept causing me to roll over.  I'm sure part of the reason was my PC.  I have a CyberPower gaming PC upstairs which is between 7 and 8  years old.  In computer years, that's old.  My last PC was a Dell and that worked well for about 6 years... and then died a sudden death.  Prior to that I had an large iMac which lasted 14 months before the hard drive decided to consume itself.  Rather than let that type of history repeat itself again, I've been looking at getting a new PC while this one is still on it's last legs.

And, of course, yesterday another type of history was made.  Ketanji Brown Jackson became the first black woman join the Supreme Court.

I was at work when they vote was held, though I watched later.  One thing that stood out in the joy of that moment: the sight of bitter, white Republicans walking silently out of the chamber like spoiled 12 year-old losers.  They have no decency, no respect for anything they cannot dictate.  History will look poorly on them.  They will clutch and grasp onto the past with their old, dying hands until time buries both them and their beliefs.

Evil Staples will suck the money from your wallet

One of the things which needed to be taken care of, in regard to my new gaming PC, was connecting the computer to the monitor with an HDMI cable.  Like most people, I don't have them laying around the house.  This necessitated my using the one connecting my blue ray player to my TV.  Having off today, and needing to go to the supermarket, I decided to hit Staples while I was out and pick up a replacement.  Before leaving the house I checked on Amazon.com in order to get an average cost (about $12 for a decent  6 foot cable).  When I got to Staples I was shocked to see that their least expensive HDMI cable was priced at $34.55, and that was for their average rated 6 foot cable.  Their 'good' cable was over $55.  Now I realize Staples is going to charge more, you pay for the convenience.  But, if you if add in the freight charges to the Amazon cable, their cost is $17.  Something is wrong here.

Too many people don't think outside of the box.  For them, Staples is the 'go to' place for all of their home office, computer supplies.  About a year ago my friend Deb bought a new PC from them.  Till all was said and done, she paid more for hers then I did for my super charged, blow your socks of graphics, gaming computer.  She doesn't even have 1000 GB memory.  But, they did transfer her files from her old computer to her new computer at no charge.  When I asked her why she didn't do a little research first, maybe see what deals Amazon was offering, she said "but Staples is right down the road."

Too many people don't understand that "Easy" has a cost.  They don't understand that given the chance, Evil Staples will suck the money from your wallet.

As for the HDMI cable I needed to replace?  I picked up a 12 footer at K-Mart for $19.99.  Believe me, it will work just as well as any of the cables being sold by Staples.

Microsoft - attack of the Jello Brains

I was looking through the news on MSNBC and saw one of their staff tech writers had an article about the upcoming Windows 8.1.  Not to my surprise he was fairly positive about the new Windows 8.1 which Microsoft is rolling out, first as a beta version on 6/26 to certain users, and then later in October to everybody who happens to have been cursed with Windows 8.  At that time there were 79 comments, the vast majority being negative.  Did you expect anything else?  Quite a number echoed my own lament, that Microsoft would have developed and OS geared for tablets and phones.  The author, himself, echoed what seems to be Microsoft's stand that PC's and laptops are on their way out and that hand held devices are on their way to ruling the Internet.  Horseshit.  That being said, I wonder if he wrote his article on a tablet, or better yet, his phone.  One has to wonder if he sat there with his new HTC and, using that little keyboard, wrote his lengthy article.  If he didn't he's a phony (bad pun). 

Bad news for the modern man

If he wrote it on a laptop or PC he's a Jello brain.  I suspect that as an individual who get's paid by MSNBC he has to be pro horse shit to get a paycheck.  As such, his propaganda isn't supposed to really ameliorate the complaints, just satisfy the higher up Jello brains at Microsoft who dropped a turd in computerland.  While it might be okay to view a spreadsheet on a tablet, or even phone, all of the data entry involved requires a keyboard.  I used to work in accounting, I know.  Even though I may make some notes on my tablet, most of my writing is done on either an Imac or a laptop.  Right now I'm using a laptop with Windows 8 and while I can access blogger through the Start screen, I don't.  I skip that Start screen, geared for a touch screen, and go right to the desktop.  The Jello brains at Microsoft chose to ignore the workhorse, the PC and laptop, and aimed straight for the tablet and phone.  What Jello brains they be.  Convenience for some is inconvenient for others.  With so many customers, one can only wonder why they would choose to turn their backs on so many.  

There are pudding heads at Microsoft!

For those of you who didn't know, not too long ago Microsoft came out with a new product they called Windows 8.  I'd heard about it but not experienced the joy until I purchased a Samsung laptop (mostly for gaming) and discovered the pre-installed OS was Windows 8.  Five seconds after playing with it I realized there were some really high level pudding heads at Microsoft.  They have foisted an operating system on the public which is primarily designed for tablets and phones, not for laptops or PC's.  On a tablet or phone, a single swipe will scroll your apps either to the left or to the right, on a laptop you need to use your arrow keys to get to the desired app.  If you use your mouse and it strays to close to the right hand side your "charms" pop up, and then you have to wait for them to disappear to continue. You need to corner you mouse in the lower left hand corner to get to your actual desktop,  which is where I do most of my games are loaded.  You would have thought some pudding head at Microsoft would have realized most small businesses are not going to want their associates dicking around with a bunch of apps.  No, they want their associates working.

I read where one of the pudding brains at Microsoft was touting the fact that 100 millions licenses for Windows 8 had been sold.  She did not say there were that many satisfied customers, in fact customer sat did not even enter the news release.  However, if you do a search, there are vast numbers who are not happy.  Quite a number are running Windows 7 instead of the new OS and I suspect it's all because of the new Start screen.  I'm sure there were not be nearly the number of complaints if it were effective on desktops and laptops instead of being a massive waste of time.  How bad is the problem?  I understand that a number of the pudding brains at Microsoft have decided to pool their intelligence, the end result being a major patch which is supposed to be released in September.

Microsoft should have approached Windows 8 from two different angles since they do have two disparate customers, those who mainly use PC's and laptops, and those who use tablets and phones.  While some of us may have both of these product lines, the OS on each group needs to be different.   Instead they chose to lump them altogether and ended up with this fiasco that will probably, in the long run cost them more then they even vaguely anticipated.  It's time for the pudding heads at Microsoft to put on their thinking caps.

Garmin gets swallowed up in the Tsunami of social networks

Last week I had to deal with some disappointing news, not job related, or personal, no illness in the family, nothing like that at all.  There are a number of workout products which Garmin sells that I like.  I own and Edge 605 and a Forerunner 405.  My first Garmin product was a bicycle computer which fit my needs at the time.  When I purchased it I also their Garmin Training Center.  A few years ago, when I bought the Edge, I saw they had added something onto the Garmin Training Center - a little thing they called Garmin Connect.  This was, basically, a social network for Garmin Users; you could upload your data for others to see, and create contacts, or friends who also use Garmin products.  I had no need for that.  I had no need for that.  My main interest was in tracking my own data: total time, total miles.  There was GPS so I could see hills, how fast I went up them, what effect they had on my heart rate. This is what I wanted.

Back on January 3, 2013, I put in some time on my Sole 95 (Elliptical).  When I went to upload my data in to my Garmin Training Center nothing happened.  I use a USB hub, so it didn't really concern me.  Occasionally that happens.  Two days later I did another Sole workout and again there was no upload.  I checked the Garmin ANT Agent and all of my data was there, it just wasn't uploading.  After spending quite a bit of time troubleshooting, I sent an email to the Garmin Help Desk.  This is the response I received:

Garmin Training Center for both PC and Mac, has been discontinued.

Garmin is moving forward with Garmin Connect, and no longer releasingupdates or support for Training Center.  You can still upload activitiesto Training Center.  However, due to it not being updated, other programs like the ANT Agent, will not directly communicate with it.  Inorder to get information to show in Training Center, please manuallyupload the activities to it.  I apologize for any inconvenience this maycause.  If you have any further questions, please contact us.


The first word out of my mouth was, as you might suspect, "shit."

An untimely death

Then I wondered why it is everybody needs to create social network?  And of course, working in retail and prior to that in business accounting, I knew the answer: marketing.  You don't have to be a bonehead to put two and two together, or I should say thousands and thousands.  If you sell a product, and you get a large number of people gathered in a network around that product, you have a ready market for any type of upgrade or new product.  And it isn't just Garmin, it's everybody.  Every car manufacturer does it.

Most people don't even understand we are being inundated by a tsunami of social networks.  I'm a member of LinkedIn.  I recently sent a connect to my Behr Paint  rep.  When I talked to him later he said "everybody I know joined, we use it as a social network."  Isn't this contrary to how LinkedIn promotes itself?  I have the basic service, but if I want to, I can "upgrade," for a fee.  Isn't that horse shit?  Talk about putting free money in the bank.  They all seem to be doing it.  Map My Fitness, you have your basic, bare bones service, but you can "upgrade" which gives you more benefits, including Chat.  They are always reminding you there is strength in numbers, so if you want to chow down on a couple of mini-snickers you can always go online and find some bozo who's going to counsel you into not eating them.  A lot of people sign up for these services because they feel they are necessary.  Do they work?  For the vast majority of people I'd have to say "hell no."  Sure, some may say they are beneficial, but I'm a skeptic and think too many people are paying for nothing.