Category Archive: technology

Thoughts on nerd-dom

Categories:

Thu. July 2, 2009

There was a moment today where I found myself in what I’d call a nerd hive. There are a couple of places that tend to attract the stereotypical nerd-types. Certainly, computer part stores are among those places. I wonder what it says about me being in such a place. Hmm. Well, I was actually there with a colleague who was actually going in for parts. The inside of the store was stuffy and poorly ventilated with so many machines pumping hot air into the room. That only accented the body odours of the people the room. There was an overweight guy in glasses and an ill-fitting tee sipping on a diet Coke while browsing the motherboards. There was a pair of guys obviously from the university with backpacks looking pretty shabby while discussing what kind of system to build. In came in this young guy who was entirely ripe smelling. When he passed by, I had to hold my breath. Whatever melange of unwashed body juices that I didn’t manage to stop actually reminded me of the fact that Toronto was in a strike situation and that garbage wasn’t being collected. Perhaps I’m just exaggerating his smell. Maybe I’m not. He managed to converse with a store minder about computer parts by listing off a mix of letters and numbers such that there seemed to be this understanding that I was not privy to.

OK, so certainly a computer parts place isn’t the most glamourous of places. I’ve had to go into my share of such stores to get parts. Still, why did that store at that time seem to cause people fitting the stereotypical nerd profile to congregate? I’m all for celebrating nerd-dom when it’s done positively, but if it continues to promote negative stereotypes among the general population, is it really that great? Have some self-respect, man! *sigh*

This post has no tag

4 comments

Repeat repairs

Categories:

Mon. May 18, 2009

For the fourth time in a year, our refrigerator broke down. Yeah, no shit, eh? My mother opened the freezer compartment to find that the ice dispenser was leaking water. Obviously, that’s abnormal for the freezer part. When I took the ice dispenser out we quickly noticed that the collected ice was starting to melt. It was at that point that we knew that we were heading for some trouble yet again. Yeah, we were all pissed.

Sure, I mean, the fridge broke down just 1-2 months ago. We called in a repair guy that replaced a part, after which all was well again. Thing is, the repair didn’t seem to have a lasting effect. Sure, things were colder again, but ice cream in the freezer wasn’t stiffening up at all; it was way too soft and pliable for the cooling system to be perfect. So, we got another repairman who replaced the motor. After that, all has been great up until today. Once again, we migrated all of the perishables to the freezer and small fridge in the basement. That in itself is time consuming because it involves having to play some form of food-based Tetris just to get things to fit. Heck, I can even hear the Tetris theme song playing in my head when I think about it.

We’re calling in a new repair guy tomorrow because, really, I don’t trust any of the previous guys at all. Maybe we can get someone with some sort of fridge certification. Does that even exist? Hmm.

Aaaaand, just because I mentioned it, here’s a video of a guy playing Korobeiniki (Tetris Theme A) on a marimba. Purely awesome!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvmxL1gtrDo

Tags: , , ,

3 comments

Car repair tipping point

Categories:

Mon. December 22, 2008

Well, if you’ve been following along lately, you’ll know about all of the car issues I’ve been having. I’ve been really patient with it because, really, I can manage. As long as I’ve been the only one affected, I’ve been cool with it. Lights go off? No worries: the daytime headlights usually come on in it’s place. The wipers stop working? I wouldn’t be driving out in a storm in the first place! So, driving around has been a bit of an adventure for the last few months.

I’ve taken it to three different mechanics–two of them being mechanics at the dealerships. None of them have been able to figure it out. With the last one, I’ve patiently brought it in multiple times to allow him to test out different theories. Still no luck. I still had hope that it would eventually a solution would be found, and that’s what’s kept me going. All of a sudden though, my patience was very quickly drained as something regrettable happened.

On Sunday morning, I woke up early to go with my parents to the novena mass at 5:30. We were beginning to get some snow at the beginning of a snow storm. The streets were covered because the plows still hadn’t gone through at such an early hour. My wipers were going, clearing snow and giving me clear vision. All of a sudden, the moment that I’d been absolutely dreading came to pass. The lights shut off, the wipers stopped working and the door unlocked. No one else in the car noticed, but I started freaking out on the inside. The first few moments were OK because the snow was just melting as soon as it hit the heated glass. Eventually though, the glare of the street lights were making it difficult to see. Mom started chiding me for not turning on the wipers. I didn’t want to cause a commotion so I just said, “I’m fine. I can see.” I figured it was best that I didn’t qualify that statement with the word “barely” (as much as I wanted to). She was really getting angry with me though for not clearing the windshield. In a moment of exasperation I just yelled, “I can’t!” At that point I had to explain my situation.

I wasn’t happy about that at all. I mean, I was putting my family in danger with this issue. Luckily, due to the hour there really wasn’t anyone else to compete with on the road. Let’s just say though that the situation could have been even worse. Anyway, that was my tipping point for this car. I am now officially at a point where I’m needing to search for another vehicle. I really wish it didn’t have to come to this, but I seriously don’t have a choice anymore. I cannot put myself and other people in danger with this problem anymore. There’s been a lot of heated discussion over what to do/what to buy. I’m very much glad that we can engage in this type of conversation. It really is quite interesting. I’ve sort of narrowed my choices down to a short list. Worst case scenario, the car I’m thinking about will set me back $26K after freight, taxes, etc. God, this all became interesting hasn’t it? I will elaborate on what I’m thinking about in a different entry. Meanwhile, I just want to say that I’m very much thankful that we all made it back home without incident. This is a type of problem that shouldn’t happen at all. The fact that I’m stressing about it is really disgusting.

Tags: , ,

1 comment

I want that shit fried, yo!

Categories:

Mon. December 15, 2008

We’re in a period of monitoring again, leading up to Christmas. For evening shifts, we’re required to carry the rotating BlackBerry, be online, and check the performance graphs every now and then. The BlackBerry has and MSN client on it, so prior to leaving work I attempted to sign in. When I did, it told me that I was signed in with the following name: “I want that shit fried, yo!”

No shit.

Just moments after I popped online I got a message from someone on the client side: “Excuse me?” Heh. I had to scramble to change my name to something a little less offensive. Maaan.

So, I admit that the name didn’t come out of thin air. There was a point when I proudly had that name up. Of course, all of my work and client contacts were blocked at the time. It was after a night of wandering the Dōtonbori area in Ōsaka. My friend and I had just come out of eating poisonous blowfish in sashimi and fried forms. While on a gondola in the discount store Don Quixote we were talking about how just about everything tastes better fried. That’s when I proclaimed in the deepest, loudest, gravelly voice I could muster: “I want that shit fried, yo!” When we got to the hotel room I went online and that was my MSN name. What I don’t particularly understand though is why that name has stuck around, especially since I’ve had a couple of other names–especially “citizen of the planet”–as my MSN name for a long while. If all worked as expected, I wouldn’t have embarrassed myself with the client. Luckily the person who contacted me was pretty cool about it, but still.

Well, now that I’m in a more sober state, I question the wisdom of everything tasting better fried. I remember the deep fried Mars bar I had at the CNE. That was pretty nasty. Although, it wasn’t so much the taste that was nasty but the greasiness of the surrounding corn dog batter. So wait, what if the chocolate bar was more lightly fried in a lighter batter? Think: tempura. I’m sure that would be a little bit better, eh? I say the all-you-can-eat sushi places around here have a new product to add to their menus. It’ll sell! Seriously! I want to be able to head in and say, “I want that shit fried, yo!”

Except…not.

Tags:

2 comments

Router woes

Categories:

Tue. September 2, 2008

Over the weekend, my router finally gave up on me and died a natural death. I mean, I was just using my laptop through a wired connection (as usual) when all of a sudden connectivity dropped out. I tried to fiddle around with the router for a while, but I couldn’t even connect to it directly. I switched on my laptop’s wireless connection and that wasn’t getting anything either. I tried unplugging and plugging it back in a few times, but that wasn’t doing anything. Finally, I took the connection directly from my modem and plugged it into my laptop. Bingo! Connection! So, that told me that the issue was with the router. I really can’t complain because that Linksys router gave me about 3 years of good service.

So, this past Sunday I headed over to Best Buy to see if I could get another router. After some phone calls I settled on a Linksys WRT160N router. Why? Well, frankly the only reasons were that I have had good a good experience with Linksys, and the darn thing was aesthetically pleasing. Yeah, I know it’s not a good reason, but whatever.

Anyway, I took it home and spent a good hour setting the thing up. It came with this bloated piece of software that attempts to make setting up your network easier for you. I regretted installing the thing because it slowed my system down pretty horribly. So, about an hour into use, my connection dropped out. I thought it might be my modem, so I unplugged it, waited 30 seconds or so, then plugged it back in. That didn’t do it. I did the same thing with the router. Upon doing so the connection was restored so I thought nothing of it. Another hour or two later though, the connection dropped out again. I tried logging into the router from my laptop and I wasn’t even able to connect to that. The connection, for all intents and purposes, was essentially dead. Again, I tried connecting the modem directly to my laptop and that worked just fine. I cycled the power on my router and things were back to normal. At that time, I was starting to suspect shenanigans.

Upon the third time that the connection dropped, I assumed that the router was just a piece of crap. I was not impressed with it at all. I plan on returning it sometime this week. Upon a colleague’s suggestion, I’m trying out a D-Link router right now. So far, so good, but it’s still to early to make any solid judgements. All I wants is a working Internet connection. That too much to ask? Silly Linksys.

Tags:

3 comments

The big thaw

Categories:

Sat. August 16, 2008

Before I left for work on Friday, I went to the kitchen and found a pool of water covering the floor. I opened the freezer only to find all of the contents defrosted. Something must have caused the freezer to lose its cooling ability. I assumed that somehow the oor had been left ajar. I was already running late and couldn’t spend the time to clean up. So I shut the door firmly and went to work. When I got to the station I called home and told dad about what happened, and asked him to clean up the puddle. I was hoping it was just a temporary thing and that shutting the door firmly would cause it to cool down again. At the same time I was afraid of playing that dangerous game of “is it safe” with all of the freezer contents. I don’t think anyone was in a mood to throw absolutely everything out, and since the melt was only a few hours old I was hoping for the best. I mean, that night I had a ladle of melted ice cream goop, and I didn’t get sick from that, so I didn’t think much of it. I

This morning, when I went down to the freezer, I opened it up and saw another pool of water. It had a lot of mixed in liquids from various things that had thawed out. So, the freezer didn’t refreeze. By that time everything was thoroughly melted. Ooh crap. I called mom downstairs and we examined the damage. We decided that it would be best to start cleaning the contents out and tossing most of it. Man, that was a completely unpleasant task. I mean, it’s just disheartening to see so much food go to waste. Our compost bin was filled up pretty quickly. There were some items that we knew were bound to be all right. So, we cooked them up and tried to eat them for breakfast. I cooked a heck of a lot of hot dogs and breakfast sausage. I also did a whole package of hash browns. Oh man, so much food–there was no desire to even attempt to finish it all. So sad.

At some point my mom went to fetch something from the fridge and she noticed that it too was feeling particularly warm. She told me about it, so I started pawing around the fridge in order to find some cool spots, but no–there were none. So, apparently the whole fridge broke down and it was only then that we realized it. Oh man. So, we had to double our efforts to clean things up and transfer essentials to the fridge in the basement. I guess this was a good opportunity to get rid of leftovers that have long overstayed their welcome. I spent a large amount of time at the sink just cleaning out storage containers. It was ridiculous.

About four hours after we started this operation, we got to a point where we just couldn’t do anymore. The kitchen’s in a bit of a sorry state right now. We’re going to call in a repairman on Monday. Hopefully we’ll have a working fridge very soon.

Having had to do what was done, it really makes me pause to think about just how much I’m consuming. Are we buying too much? If we were more sensible about our purchases, would we have thrown out so much? I mean, some of the stuff we chucked has been sitting there for ages. I’m sure the stuff was originally purchased with the best intentions, but it was all eventually forgotten. At the same time, having a fridge means that this shouldn’t be an issue under normal circumstances. Once we get things going, I’m sure we’re going to change our spending habits. However, I’m unconvinced that the changes will be long-lasting. I recognize though that it’s not a commentary on whether we’re greedy or incorrigible. It’s just that…this is the nature of the society we’re in, isn’t it? We’re all about convenience. And I think that having a stocked fridge is just part of living at this level in society.

Aww, but anyway.

Cleaning everything out isn’t the greatest feeling in the world, but at least it’s a chance to start over.

Tags:

Leave comment

Loss of connectivity

Categories:

Tue. August 5, 2008

About a week ago, my mother was getting really pissed off at her computer. She wasn’t getting any Internet connectivity and that was preventing her from getting to her e-mail and paying off a few bills. Jay to the rescue, right? Well, I gave it a go. I tried the usual suspects but after a good hour or two I couldn’t get IE to connect. I was able to connect to the router itself, so I knew that that wasn’t the issue. I unplugged the network connection from the box and plugged it into the back of my laptop. It seemed that the connection was perfectly fine. What the hell? That made absolutely no sense.

By the end of that session I was right pissed and didn’t want to deal with it anymore. I told her that the computer was probably completely messed. Since my desktop has just been lying around my room for a few months I thought that I could just lend it out to my parents so that they can get their business done. I was reluctant to do so because I’d have to spend a heck of a lot of time getting it ready. I mean, first there’s the physical aspect of actually relocating the system. Secondly, I wanted to scrub the system of anything incriminating before lending it out to them. Despite all of this though, I thought that it’d be best.

The next day, my frustration levels had eased a bit and I had some time to think the situation through. I realized that I didn’t even try pinging any sites. So, I switched the box on, opened up a command prompt and pinged a few sites. I was able to ping sites without any problem. There was hope! I thought that the issue might be something spyware or virus related. So I installed Ad-Aware and brought Norton up-to-date with the latest definitions. I spent several hours running scans with both but came up empty.

Well, I was on my last ideas at that point. I thought that perhaps the firewall was just blocking everything. My parents computer has an older version of ZoneAlarm installed. I thought I’d try fiddling around with the settings. I opened up ZA and turned the protection down to medium level. To my shock, that worked! Internet traffic started flowing through once more. Now, I didn’t want to leave their firewall at medium, so I thought that I’d give upgrading the version of ZA a try. When I went to their site, I found out that this whole connectivity thing is a known issue:

Microsoft Update KB951748 – Workaround to Sudden Loss of Internet Access Problem

So, as it turns out, one of those MS updates that it pushes out to Windows users caused the firewall to break. When I installed the upgrade for ZA, everything was back to normal. I didn’t even need to go through those steps of uninstalling the MS update and then reapplying it.

God, all of that was frustrating. I mean, I spent hours trying to fix something that I had no reason to suspect. I thought all of my computer skills had left me. I guess I’m glad that I’m still not completely inept. I’m also glad that I don’t have to give up my desktop. Even though I don’t use the sucker anymore (my laptop has become my primary) I still don’t feel like parting with it.

All is well.

Tags:

2 comments

Beating the table into submission

Categories:

Thu. July 31, 2008

I was working on an HTML issue earlier today. One of our pages had a table with set column widths. Some of the cells contained other another table in order to align some information. That all seemed simple enough, however, when a bug was reported to us where Internet Explorer was sort of doing some strange things with those nested tables.

For example, I’d set a columb to be 200 pixels wide and the table within to be 196 pixels wide. The inside table was the right width, but the column stretched out to 240 pixels or so. As a result, the layout became messed up. I tried all of the usual suspects in terms of solving this sort of thing: margin, padding, setting column widths, etc etc. None of them really solved the issue in IE. After two hours of fiddling around, I was pissed off. I mean, I was telling the column to be a certain width: why the hell wouldn’t IE behave?

Well, after all that I figured I’d give W3Schools a look. Seriously, all web devs need to have that site bookmarked. It’s a handy reference, for sure. On the CSS 2.0 reference page, under Tables, I spotted the table-layout property. I thought I’d give it a go. In the opening table tag, I set the style: “table-layout:fixed“. Well what do you know? The table columns behaved and were exactly as wide as I wanted them. Whoo! I’d beaten that freakin’ table into submission!

Well, all right. Even after all this time I’m still learning new things to add to be bag of tricks. That kind of makes me happy.

Tags:

2 comments

Older posts «

» Newer posts

Switch to our mobile site