Scamwagon

Today, both my desktop (Windows 8 Home Premium) and my laptop (Windows 7 Home Premium) shutdown and rebooted to install Windows updates WHILE I WAS USING them.  Yes, sitting there, typing, not idle, not at 3 AM when I have supposedly configure updates to auto install, and not with any warning or chance to postpone or override...  Just, boom!  Programs start closing, Windows logs me out, and "Windows is configuring updates".  Then computer completely reboots, Windows starts back up, and resumes "configuring updates". My question is, how is this acceptable?  This is the default behavior of Windows.  I have not modified it in anyway, I simply chose "install Windows updates automatically for me (recommended)" during the initial setup of Windows.  Last I knew, that should not sign me up to have my computer randomly shut down while I am using it for something, possibly in the middle of typing a very LONG post on a forum or website. And what of the only c...

It had to have been within 10 minutes of my staring at the odometer, marveling at the nearly 199,000 miles I had wracked up on my VW Golf and thinking how trouble-free the car had lately been, when my cruise control disengaged, and the car started to do the all-too-familiar "death coast".  Without thinking or trying anything else, I immediately turned on my four-way flashers and started moving into the breakdown lane -scoping the distance to the next rest area.

Comcast keeps calling me and leaving messages (I don't answer) saying that my modem "is not capable of receiving the full range of their speeds".  This has been going on for months.  I upgraded to a Motorola SB6121, a DOCSIS 3.0 modem, about 6 months ago.  Everything has been working fine, speeds are around 30 Mb/s download.  So I finally decided to call Comcast and... pretty much just see what they had to say.  I figured at best I could get them to stop calling me. After almost 3 minutes of menu surfing, I finally was on my way to speak to a human.  The person I talked to verified my identity and had a look at my account.  She asked me if I had 2 modems.  (Wondering why this matters): "I only have one connected..."  Apparently the reason why she asked is that the other modem was shown as a Comcast rental.  I have ALWAYS owned all of my modems.  She put me through to the "Internet department" (haha) and I spoke to someone else, wh...

Apparently my bike felt left out, and wanted to get in the game of things that are failing.  Riding home from downtown last night, very late, hit a sewer cover pretty hard (it was hard to tell how uneven it was at night) and busted my battery rack.  It was not a catastrophic failure, but the rack lowered down to the tire and started dragging.  Enough that I had to stop and figure it out.  So I was sitting on the ground in the parking lot of the Jolly, with the bike almost completely disassembled. Bike rack, sans busted lower brackets. Busted aluminum lower brackets. The bottom part of the rack attaches to the frame via a tapped tab, and an L shaped, aluminum bracket with graduated tapped holes.  The aluminum obviously saw quite a bit of impact load when the 30 lbs. battery came slamming down. This is the second rack I've bought, and I'm really not interested in spending more money to deal with this issue.  (But I probably will have to). ...

One of my ongoing battles with my Gnex is the charging port.  In the past, it has stopped working, and after lots of Google searches, I found out that a common issue is the little inner tab not making contact with the cable (fixed by bending it up slightly). After a recent vacation, I found once again that my phone wouldn't charge.  This time, it seemed that the charging port was somehow mutilated, and the cord didn't seem to go in correctly.  The contacts were bent inside the phone.  I don't have the insurance, and I'm kind of used to being on my own warranty after rooting, ROMing, etc.  After researching, I promptly ordered this replacement USB flex board , for about $50 w/ shipping, and replaced the board following this i Fixit how-to . The procedure was a little tricky, but not too bad. In general everything felt like it went smoothly, and I expected no issues.   However, after putting the phone back together, the phone still wouldn't charge....

A couple of days ago, a new, large Verizon Store sprung up down the road.  At about the same time, Verizon finally announced the availability of the new and long awaited Samsung  Galaxy Nexus  phone - The phone that was hyped by Google and Samsung in early October , announced in Late October , promised to be released in November , and then delayed and delayed until the middle of December.  It's been all over the news and in people's faces. I figured the timing was no accident, and sauntered in to see if I might be able to have a look at this  Ice Cream Sandwich  laiden beast.  To be honest, I was half expecting them to tell me they didn't have one.  As a Verizon Wireless customer in Vermont for over 15 years, I've gotten used to being a second-class citizen.  We are the usually the last to get network upgrades, good stores with good phones, or sales people who can handle technical questions. I walked in and quickly surveyed the store, ...

A long time ago, I posted The Trouble With Greylisting .  My latest rant is brought to you by the current state of e-mail server blacklisting .  I'll relate to you the following anecdote, to help with the specifics: My client recently purchased a new internet pipe from their ISP - (I won't specify, but let's just say they're "Vermont's largest wireline provider.")  Along with this new connection came a new block of public IP addresses.  This has been standard fare - they have switched connections 3 times in the last 2 years, and for a variety of reasons, each time it's been a fiasco to get everything migrated to the new block. This time it almost went incredibly smoothly (without question, this was at least partly due to the help of an  Astaro Security Gateway , and its almost infinite flexibility).  The only snag was when I moved the mail server over to the new IP block.  Within 20 minutes, people were reporting bounces (undeliverable me...

A Letter From the Sound Crew  Dear Indie Rock Musician, It has come to our attention that we will be working your show at our venue.  This letter is to identify the  preparations we have made, in order to minimize any responsibilities on your part.

The dumb things people will do for war. I just read about this 1963 experiment , where the US launched a package of 480 million tiny needles into space, in order to create an artificial ionosphere that we could bounce radio signals off. The idea was to provide a backup method of communications in case our undersea cables were taken out by the enemy. It "worked" for a couple of months, and then scattered to the point that it would no longer provide any effect, other than to obscure communications attempts beyond the orbit altitude of these needles, which it probably still does to some extent today. On top of that, this blanket of space junk is one of the many things that modern spacecraft have to avoid when doing, for example, real advancement for mankind.

Ok, here's another scam to watch out for. "Reward" debit cards. These are becoming all the rage. If you haven't seen one yet, rest assured you will. They may eventually replace all offer checks sent to you by companies (things like rebates, rewards, gifts, etc.) Popular amounts are $25 - $100. They are basically debit cards with a fixed limit for the amount the company is giving you. If you have used one, here's a familiar scenario. Joe has a $50 debit card he got from a cell phone rebate. He used it to buy dinner last night, and has $35.42 left on it. Today Joe finishes pumping his gas. The total comes up to $38.42. Joe inserts / hands the clerk his offer debit card and attempts to pay. Uh oh, transaction denied . No big deal, Joe can use it to buy something cheaper. Except, HOW MANY THINGS CAN YOU BUY WITH A DEBIT CARD UNDER $35.00? Here's the short list of reasons why these cards suck: Transactions for more than the balance of the card are den...

Not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but since last night, I am unable to call any Vermont landline (a.k.a. FAIRPOINT) phone numbers from my Broadvoice line. Message is: "I'm sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed." The same issue also exists at work, where we also use Broadvoice. I called Broadvoice tech support, and they said the problem is on Fairpoint's end. They've reported it several times. On an interesting and semi-related note, I have experienced (twice in the past) a problem where people with Verizon Wireless couldn't dial my Broadvoice line (similar message). I got through to someone at Verizon Wireless, and they were able to confirm and fix the problem. They said the issue was with routing tables (the dialing kind, not the IP kind). Of course, being a Verizon Wireless customer also, it was a lot easier for me to get them to listen.

I finally had the chance to play around with xtranormal.com . It's pretty addictive. You can make a machinima movie very quickly (once you learn how to deal with a few idiosyncrasies). I would recommend steering clear of the "Take 5" button, as it pretty much ought to be relabeled "trash my video". If you aren't familiar, there is a subculture of "premise technicians" (technicians that go on site to make repairs), for certain well known cable and telephone companies. It's not a rewarding job. There is a raft load of satirical videos on Youtube, using xtranormal machinima, in the format of sort of "a day in the life" of a prem tech. So, with that as my inspiration, here's my first piece. Yes, this is based on a true story. Some liberties were taken, and the names were changed to protect the guilty. Audio track is NSFW.

I'm sure everyone has thought about trying this at some point, right? Come on, it seemed like a good idea at the time.