So today was just one of those days, never could seem to get going, but a cruise out to the new gym for my first “offical” workout at the new facility, was just what I needed to wakeup - but top it off with my monitor showing up 3 days early, and just a mellow day in general, it was a good one.
I called the gym from the office to ask about Gift Certificates, and they were busy so I told em to take care of the front desk, I’d just stop in after work, well Brenda (the owner, well her and her husband own it, but well.. okay im rambling) called me about a music issue, which was just a tiny fact the music wasn’t playing, apparently it got unplugged, so I had her reboot the PC, tada - worked great.
So I talked with her about the gift certificates, basically she and I agreed to my usual with them it seems, trade - got Rosie a month of membership (probably still cover her afterwards if she wants it) and got my mom the mondo membership, 5mnths, 2 training sessions - all for setting up a media rig with music to play in the gym. Good times.
So it’s going well, got my new monitor now setup, swapped out my old 17 for my mom and dad’s 15inch, and the 15inch goes to Rosie for use with her computer I built her out of spare parts - so life is good - got my 2 LCD’s a running, a LOT more desk space vs. having my old clunky CRT.
And for the last of this post goes back to Brenda, I went in to discuss the joys of gift certificates and get the ball rolling - and she yet again mentioned the people wanting computer training, and that they were not afraid to pay for it. So that leaves me in a interesting place - in technicality my job for the last 5 years has been webhosting, web devlopment, and most things that go in that category, but now since I have done a lot of computer work there is a option to do computer training of sorts with older/younger folks to teach basics of PC’s, heck I could do Mac too - but just a gambit of training, which could glean anywhere from $25-$45 an hour to teach people in a class-like setting how to use their computers.
So now it leaves me with a “what-if” in my head, what to do, I priced out 15 PC’s … kinda pricy, even bargin basement of Dell, the reason it’s still expensive is Dell’s $299 pc’s are rebated, and in the order the rebate only applys to 1 customer, 1 computer, 1 address - so the real price is $400ish after tax and such, so it add’s up quickly. So I am lookin again at places to see if anyone has any decent deals on P4/AMD XP prefab systems, and maybe a decent deal on some 15inch LCD’s - but it could definately give me a boost to my income, and give me a higher/steadier income long term - you know the kind that supports a family, house, yada yada. 
Anywhoo that’s it - prayers are definately appriciated, but this week is a meeting fest galore, and some ocasional fun here and there 
but things are going well, and getting back on track after last weeks customer server… fart.. yeah that’s what im gonna call it! Night.
On loan… My buddy didn’t like the sound quality too much so he said “Give it a whirl, see if you like it.” It ain’t to shabby - definately needs some palm tweaking, was a tad sad at the quality of the cam, so used to the greatness of my moto’s camera, see Flickr for 2 photos, shot of Treo600 is from the MotoV551 - the shot of the moto in pices is from the Treo600.
The most awesomest of awesome is the GPRS - I love having the browser, and unlike the phone or doing BT -> T3 - when someone calls (used my mom’s phone) it bump’d me off GPRS to look at it - never did that before, if I was online I missed calls, but the 600 fixed that it seems - but I really really really want the 650 now, but if I can get a free Treo600 or 3 out of T-mobile (since they are having problems with my credits or something… long story) I may just go for a free 600 if I haven’t already gave in and done NewEgg’s 90days same as cash to break it up over 3 months
Anywhoo - gonna try to crash soon as I have a day of networking, and computer moving ahead of me, and I am just getting home for good now lol. Good times, busy … but good.
Hung out with Rosie this evening here at the office she needed to bum a computer and internet access - so she sat here on the laptop for a bit, we chatted talked, looked at my assorted gadgets, twas fun - but now it’s time for me to go onto the next call - got 5 minutes till I have to leave, so I am packing up the hardware and getting ready to head over to the parking structure.
Tis tons of fun, but Rosie’s computer is nearly done, see pre-production photos on Flickr or the moblog, fine uses of the computer
Not a bad one, just not as I planned - Monday I went into a office to get one thing, and one thing only, in turn I left at 8pm. LoL Things done, worked on a Treo600 & Powermac G5 1.6ghz Pro-Tools Rig - was fun, but not what I had planned for the day, but I am getting a check for my time, so that’s a plus
All in all though had some good times so far this week, working on Rosie’s computer right now - linux boot record doesn’t want to let go of the partition lol - so I am doing some stuff with the Maxtor disk tools trying to get it truly ‘formatted’ back to stock with a low-level format, but starting with the full disk tests to be sure I am not giving her a drive that’s on it’s way out (well at least very obviously on it’s way out).
But so far so good - and it’s only tuesday, who knows what I’ll get done tonight - it’s a code night, working on some projects for clients, and some projects not on the books but need to be really finished before I can do XYZ for the client - ain’t work grand
And tottally aside from all the above, I went to my old Jr. High, the staff still knew me! They asked how my brother was, and let me walk straight to Dan’s room - lol apparently I am well known more than I knew - but got to see Dan’s class, and he introduced me to the kids they all said “Hi Chuck” and he let them know I graduated from Edison, lol good times.
Okay - back to it.
It just blows my mind sometimes - got fwd’d a email tonight from a client from a random visitor more or less threatening to turn the customer’s site over to the wolves as a “unsecure website” - while I don’t keep up on all sites this customer manages on their server (as my contract is to keep the server itself safe, I am not contracted to manage and secure each site & application they have - but this email was kind of in my opinion a tad out of line.
While I am all for security, educating web users to do things safely on the internet, going and saying “Do this or I am going to be FORCED to report you to XYZ.COM” is just plain sad. I have done my best to encourage others to use anti-virus, even though I personally do not, Spyware Scanners, Alternative Browsers, Email Clients, smart things like not opening attachments, etc. etc. but never, ever, would I go and say “Do this or your gonna be tattled on” it’s not my place - sites who don’t comply with my desire for security like SSL login’s I am smart enough to swap out non-SSL url’s and add in the S to “http” since most apps simply use a relative URL and do a post to something like:
../application.php
So when you type in say “http://www.coolsite.com” it makes the above code look like this to your browser:
http://www.coolsite.com/application.php
So when you add in s to http making it https - tada - your secure, not in all cases, but in a majority. Just blows that one person who feels the desire to spout off helpful information does it without offering any real solutions, assistance, or even say “For $125 an hour I can help re-work.. blah blah blah” - information is power, and some sites would be more than willing to offer a few bucks to make sure their visitors are safe and secure.
Ah but such is life I suppose - some people just have a different way of trying to protect their own, and ensuring their loved ones are safe and secure online - but badgering businesses, and being forceful vs. helpful is not the way to do it.
ANYWAY - this week some apps to write, one off the bat this week, for HAF reporting of donations, not only for quick review on the web, but also for exporting to a CSV format for using in Excel for review on the desktop - and a few other continual tweaks as we find a few other mini-glitches people report, and some functions I am trying to write to capture errors from their payment processor so it displays how we want vs throwing them to another site which tottally breaks the donation process - and a few other tweaks on CMC things, but my own projects are evening projects for FH for starters, making great headway on the testing new “Support Center” which will offer a support forum, new spot to report tickets, how-to’s, resources, software, etc. going to be a all inclusive area to offer greater support to my clients. If it floats well, same will be done on TN.
Well that’s my rant - my status - my week oh and I’m famous - I’m listed on a upcoming album in the thanks. I’ll steal the pic from Linz sooner or later Night.
Well for a short window ( as it seems is always around this time ) I am online lol. Some fun updates, got some updates on HAFAA today, updated the map with the most current “route” and did some tweaks thanks to some new code from the newsgroup - got IE compatiblity, some Firefox compatiblity speed-ups - but I think it came out nicely [ linkage ] - Internet Explorer users now have the route line, and their windows will center - still some tweaks long term in my code to come, things like fixing the image display issues, maybe make it more dynamic, but all in due time.
The internet issue is still not resolved here at home, but the office is still operational - but one down side, downtown is once again ticketing for parking violations starting tommorow - so I got me a parking pass to the nearby parking garage, very spiffy, easy to use, and easy to get in and out as I did this evening - so that’s a definate plus that I don’t have to park on surface streets anymore and worry a TON about my car, the parking garage has survalince so thats a plus.
Got to work with K-Man tonight and get his PowerMac G5 supe’d up - got his 200GB drive all setup and ready for use in backing things up - and we are going to take him to 10.4 tommorow after he snags it from CompUSA - so we can get his recording studio suped up as he is running OOOOLLLLLDDDD OSX 10.1 - so a few updates are in order
Anywhoo, later today I am going to see whats the plan with T-Mobile, and at least get a firm on if I get the credits or not - but either way, I am going to purchase the Treo650 and LCD - then that evening, I am going to do some more work on Rosie’s computer taking it down to Kynan’s for OS loading and such - thats my update, MySpace is interesting lol only a matter of time before I have the entire Chamber Chorus from highschool joined on my profile lol.
Well I am still online… at 10pm like clockwork started getting drops again, things would cut out, then come back, then after a short bit of high latency - not dropped packets, but rather just high response times, so like 140ms+ responces - the last batch of ping testing though was promising:
--- public.yahoo.com ping statistics ---
1116 packets transmitted, 1114 received, 0% packet loss, time 2009210ms
So who knows how long it’ll last, but I think I need some grub soon - this movie is interesting (Darkness) it’s storyline is still building, but its just the usual horror movie craziness.
Anywhoo - in work realted news, tomorrow I am going to be off and running I hope on a new support area for FH - the long term goal is to make it a great smooth, system, then build up something similar for TN - but this map in my head, is looking awesome, and the new design sketches keep evolving - so hopefully in the next 2 weeks I can get something from paper to page. Good times.
Off I go.
