Monthly Archive for December, 2007

Palm’s Awful Tech Support

Published
by
Jeremy Clifton
on December 29, 2007
in Geeky Stuff
. 0 Comments

Tristan Lewis recently had an encounter with Palm’s tech support that’s caused him to abandon them. Reading his experience makes me glad I did so as well.

In the midst of reading it, I remembered a long-forgotten experience I had with their tech support myself … one that had led me to abandon them in favor of a Handspring device (and of course I had to go back to Palm once they merged with Handspring a few years later).

I had a Palm V that had quit working for some reason or another about ten months after I’d bought it. It was my second PalmOS device.

I dutifully called the 800 number provided for support and waited on hold for approximately an hour or so. I then spoke with a guy who spoke poor English, and eventually he realized I’d had the device for more than 90 days. He then informed me that the 800 number was only for people who’d had their devices for less than 90 days, and I’d have to call another (non-Toll-Free) number.

So, I dutifully (but begrudgingly) called the other number he’d provided, and waited on hold (once more) for an hour or so. When my call was answered, the name I was given and voice sounded familiar. Then, much to my surprise, once he’d gotten my name, he said something like “Oh yes, we talked earlier!”

I was peeved, to say the least.

They did ship me a replacement device, and it broke about 15 days after the warranty period was over. So, I got a Handspring Visor Edge, which lasted me until some time after the Handspring/Palm merger.

AOL Kills Netscape (the Browser)

Published
by
Jeremy Clifton
on December 29, 2007
in Geeky Stuff
. 0 Comments

I still remember the first time I launched Netscape. I was in one of the NCSU computer labs (in the basement of Leazer Hall, to be exact) in late 1995 using a DEC 2100 workstation, and Mosaic crashed on me. When I complained audibly about it a bit, the guy next to me asked “Why aren’t you using Netscape?” Once I found out what the heck he was talking about, I fired up Netscape 2, and was happy.

For the next few years, I was a Netscape fan (except for a brief dalliance with IE 3 that quickly ended once I saw how poorly it rendered HTML I’d coded to the standards of the time). I put “Best Viewed With Netscape” buttons on the web pages I designed (what was I thinking?).

At the time, I was angered that MS would dare give IE away for free and thus try to put Netscape out of business (though in retrospect I recognize that MS was simply being shrewd). When all hope for Netscape’s survival seemed to be lost, AOL stepped up to the plate in 1999 and bought them. I tenaciously kept using the 4.x branch of Netscape even as IE more or less took over the internet world.

AOL then open-sourced the Netscape codebase (which has been pretty much the only good thing they did), and after what seems like about two long years, we got Netscape 6. I loved it. Well, actually I used the Mozilla branch, not the “official” Netscape branch.

Then along came Firefox, and Netscape and the Mozilla browser (or Seamonkey, as it’s now called) quickly became irrelevant. I kept thinking though, at the time, that maybe Netscape was still a player.

The final insult was when AOL released Netscape 8 (link is to a screenshot). The interface was apparently designed by folks on a bad acid trip. Unfortunately, this monstrosity apparently inspired the hideous interface of IE 7 in some ways too (that’s my best explanation, anyway).

And now comes the news that AOL has finally abandoned development of the Netscape Browser. Surprisingly, I don’t care. In ten years, I’ve gone from unswerving support to complete apathy.

The truth of the matter is that Netscape wasn’t all that great. NS3 was pretty darn good, but it innovated in regards to the standards. NS4.X was really awful … the only thing that saved it was that it was better than IE, up until IE6. It rendered HTML in bizarre ways, only made the pretense of supporting CSS, and made coding JavaScript positively painful (as did IE). The codebase of what would have been NS5 was so bad that the developers abandoned it completely and started from scratch with NS6/Mozilla 1.

So, really, the Netscape browser has been dead for the better part of eight years now. I am happy the people that rallied behind it and developed Mozilla did so, because now we have Firefox (and God knows I can’t live without Firefox + Firebug when I do any sort of serious web development).

But there was one great contribution Netscape made to the computing world … the about:mozilla page (which existed at least as far back as NS2):

And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire and thunder upon them. For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror. - from The Book of Mozilla, 7:15

That was from the “new” version … I forget what the pre-NS6 version said.

In the end, the quote is right. Everybody had written off Netscape. From the ashes of what had been the Netscape browser rose the new Mozilla project, and its rendering engine became Firefox. Microsoft had gotten lazy, and had let IE sit without any real development … and then along comes Firefox.

Ron Paul Excluded in NH [UPDATED]

Published
by
Jeremy Clifton
on December 29, 2007
in General Stupidity, Politics & Other Objectionable Subjects and Ron Paul
. 1 Comment

UPDATE: It appears that Ron Paul may not be excluded, since the debate in question was reportedly cancelled weeks ago.

UPDATE 2: The article linked to above seems to be false. See this post on the Ron Paul Forums.

It would appear that Ron Paul is going to be excluded from an upcoming Republican Presidential Forum to be held on January 6. The forum is sponsored by the New Hampshire Republican Party and will be broadcast on FOX News.

Although I haven’t been able to confirm this to be the case, it would appear from posts I’ve read on dailypaul.com that FOX has taken the initiative in excluding Paul over the protests of the NH Republican Party.

I’m actually amazed at this point that Paul would be excluded. In the last few weeks, he’s consistently polled at just below Huckabee (or in one case as well as Huckabee), and in every case he’s polled as well as Thompson if not better. And … these are “real” polls, not the “internet polls” that Paul supporters have been falsely accused of “spamming” or “hacking” (I’m not saying that Paul supporters don’t organize themselves and vote in the polls, but organized voting does not equate to “spamming” or “hacking”).

Considering that Paul has raised around $18.9 million this quarter, an amount that has been widely reported to exceed any other GOP candidate (and I’m tempted to believe the reports since no other candidate has claimed a higher number thus far), it would seem that the contention of Paul supporters that the “real” polls don’t reflect his actual strength on the ground is correct. Sure, Paul’s supporters are more energetic, and I certainly believe that a higher percentage of them have been motivated to donate compared to the supporters of other candidates, but I don’t think that it would be a stretch to say that there are probably nine Paul supporters who didn’t donate for every one that did. In my case, I did donate on the last “money bomb” day, and I know of at least four Paul supporters who did not, and I haven’t even gone out and intentionally quizzed all the Paul supporters I know (and there are > 240 in our meetup group here in Chattanooga).

Since Paul is polling above at least one of the other candidates involved in this forum (Thompson) and has in two instances polled as well as another (Huckabee) … and a good argument can be made that his actual strength is better than reported … why is Paul being excluded? Hopefully we’ll find out soon.

In the mean time, Paul supporters are suggesting we boycott FOX News. As if I watch FOX News anyway. Puh-leese. Others have suggested picketing local FOX affiliates. Personally, I’m planning on writing to some FOX advertisers complaining.

Note: Since I initially posted this, I’ve posted the following additional articles about the FOX News exclusion, as well as the ABC News/WMUR exclusions:

“Ron Paul NOT Excluded After All?” (Was based on an erroneous article that was later retracted)
“Ron Paul & the FOX News Forum Exclusion - Part III“
“Further Clarification on the Ron Paul/FOX Forum Mess“
“More Debate Exclusion in New Hampshire“
“New Hampshire Debate Exclusion Update & My Open Letter to WMUR and ABC News“
“Senator John Sununu (R-NH) Weighs in on FOX Forum/ABC Debate Exclusions“

Super Karate Monkey Death Car

Published
by
Jeremy Clifton
on December 29, 2007
in Humor
. 0 Comments

Newsradio was, I think, one of the best television shows to ever grace the airwaves. I was able to enjoy seeing the last half of the third season and the entirety of the fourth and fifth season earlier this year after we got a DVR … but once whatever station was showing it finished the fifth season, they didn’t start back over. So, now I have to content myself with finding clips of shows on Youtube. The following clip is from one of my favorite episodes ever …

The iTunes Music Store has all of the first season available. If I’m lucky, they’ll eventually get the last four as well … it would definitely mean I’d buy them all.

Facebook & Self Portraits

Published
by
Jeremy Clifton
on December 29, 2007
in Photographs
. 0 Comments

So, I finally signed up for an account of Facebook. As a result, I found it necessary to create a self-portrait to use as my profile picture. After a good bit of monkeying around with the camera on my BlackBerry Pearl, and then some post-processing in Photoshop, I ended up with this …

portrait_wp.jpg

I like it.

Now it’s time for bed.

Wireless Routers? Sporting Goods? Come Again?

Published
by
Jeremy Clifton
on December 29, 2007
in Twitter Updates
. 0 Comments

I can’t say that Dick’s Sporting Goods is the first place I’d go looking for a new Linksys Router … and the price isn’t even competitive! I paid less than that for mine a year and a half ago.

Ron Paul, Grass Farming, and Global Warming (and Organic Farming Too!)

Published
by
Jeremy Clifton
on December 29, 2007
in Freedom, Liberty, and Justice and Ron Paul
. 0 Comments

I just read a thoroughly fascinating letter (”Ron Paul, Grass Farming, and Global Warming: An Open Letter to Those Concerned With Global Warming” by Chris Masterjohn) posted on Lew Rockwell’s web site.

Like everybody else who has even remotely paid attention the last few years, I’ve heard about global warming, and while I’m skeptical of the claims that are made, I try to keep an open mind since it stands to reason that pollution caused by industrial processes would have some sort of effect on the environment as a whole, so a gradual increase in average temperatures is not out of the question.

As a result, the following few paragraphs really caught my attention:

Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide can be reduced in two ways: the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere can be reduced, and the amount of carbon dioxide sequestered from the atmosphere in oceans, soils, plant and animal life, and other “carbon sinks” can be increased. Reducing carbon emissions only slows the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 while increasing carbon sequestration causes reductions in atmospheric CO2 that take effect immediately.

According to the organization Carbon Farmers of America (CFA), the most promising method of carbon sequestration and thus the most immediate and effective solution to global warming is to increase topsoil formation with pasture-based farming.

According to CFA, the amount of topsoil lost in the Great Plains over the last 150 years can sequester the same amount of carbon that has been released into the atmosphere by human industry since the Industrial Revolution. By restoring the same amount of topsoil, we could reduce atmospheric CO2 to pre-industrial levels. On a global scale, we could achieve the same result by merely increasing the level of topsoil by 1.6%!

This is very interesting … we hear a lot about the supposed ill effects of pollution on the environment, and people make a lot of noise about extinction of species and reduction of the native habitats of species, but I can’t say I’ve ever heard anybody discuss the effects of the loss of topsoil on the environment.

And, if that wasn’t enough, the whole idea dovetails with the consumption of organically-raised foods … an idea that just seems to make sense. After all, as we in the computer world say, “Garbage In - Garbage Out” … so why should it surprise us that foods enhanced or fed with all sorts of strange artificial chemicals and hormones might not be so healthy for humans.

So … now that this whole concept has been brought to my attention, I have two plans of action. First, I’m going to support CFA monetarily. Second, I will continue to work towards my dream of having a farm of some variety. Yes, friends and family … on those days when I tell you that I wish I was farming and never had to see a computer again … I’m serious. :-)

Architectural Malefactor Randall Stout Strikes Again!

Published
by
Jeremy Clifton
on December 29, 2007
in Chattanooga and Just Plain Random
. 0 Comments

Randall Stout, who was responsible for the bizarre addition to Chattanooga’s own Hunter Museum of Art, has defaced the city of Roanoke, VA, which also happens to be home to the O. Winston Link Museum and the Virginia Museum of Transportation. Given the railroading history of Roanoke and the railroad focus of the previously mentioned museums, the inscrutable new Art Museum of Western Virginia building might actually be appropriate for the town in a strange way. After all, it does look something like the awful aftermath of a head-on collision between two locomotives.

Hat Tip: Will Adair (for the NY Times link)

Ron Paul and Free Competition in Currency

Published
by
Jeremy Clifton
on December 28, 2007
in Economics, Ron Paul and Small Business
. 1 Comment

Whew. The hustle and bustle of the holidays is starting to end, and boy do I have a passel of things to post about (though we’ll have to see if many of them ever see the light of day).

Most interesting to me is the news that Ron Paul has introduced a bill called the “Free Competition in Currency Act” (and let me tell you … finding the actual text of the bill, as opposed to just Paul’s speech introducing it, took a bit of Google digging).

It will be interesting to see just what happens with this particular bill. I can think of absolutely no good reason that the government should not allow competing currencies. I suspect that if people started exchanging actual gold and silver it might well further destabilize the dollar, but I count that as a positive thing since the Federal Reserve’s meddling with the money supply has essentially been defrauding people of the fruits of their labor for some time now anyway.

That defrauding is the exact reason that I’ve started to track the gold and silver markets and invest there. In fact, I’m even considering pegging the rates I charge for my business based on something like a 30-day moving average of the price of gold in USD. We’ll see where that goes, though …

Chick-Fil-A + Wi-Fi = Nirvana

Published
by
Jeremy Clifton
on December 21, 2007
in Geeky Stuff and Twitter Updates
. 0 Comments

Yesterday, on the way to Raleigh, we stopped off at a Chick-Fil-A in Morganton, NC to eat. This particular Chick-Fil-A was offering free wi-fi, and from the looks of the stickers on the doors and windows, it’s a corporate thing, not just something this one was doing. So, maybe we’ll have wi-fi at the locations in Chattanooga soon …