Diary of a Wolfeman

Good: I have the urge to write.

Bad: I can’t think of a damn thing to write about.

Indifferent: You get stuck reading this tripe. ;)

Good: Was asked to interview for a job that pays alot more than what I’m getting now. (Yay!)

Bad: Spent 2 1/2 hours piddling around doing other stuff while waiting for Micro$haft to fix their activation servers today so I could finish rebuilding a client’s PC.

Indifferent: We’re only 1 for 2 on the SpySweeper Enterprise install for that client – seems it won’t run on Server2000, but runs fine on Server2003. Now I have to monkey with the router settings to add the 2003 server to both networks. *shrug*

I am now greatly familiar with every single bump on the road from Beaverton to La Center.

We have a client there with an aging NT 4 domain controller we’ve been having some difficulty replacing – seems the security settings are bolloxed somehow, and it won’t give up control to another server, no matter how we try to coax it. I went up an hour after our lead tech to deliver the replacement.

I got there, and we found out the plan he had concocted would require a copy of Windows Server 2000 – you can’t upgrade straight from NT 4 to 2003. Wouldn’t you know that is the ONE cd he did not have with him. Back on the highway to Beaverton.

Got the cd, got some lunch, back on the highway to La Center. Arrived only to get a call from the manager, asking if my presence was strictly necessary, since the shop is short-handed. Well, not necessary as such…

Back on the highway to Beaverton.

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Things my clients have learned over the past week or so:

1. When a tech tells you your three-year-old laptop is behaving strangely and you should budget for a replacement and do something about backing up your data, do so. Don’t bitch at us 6 months later when it goes tits-up and you have no backup whatsoever of your company’s financial data. You were warned.
2. When you pay over $200 for someone to re-install Windows for you due to spyware / virus damage, sit the kids down and talk to them about safe surfing habits before you let them get back on the internet. (No shit, that computer came back the very next day, completely un-usable.)
3. Do not yank on the cables connected to your computer in an attempt to remove them, or you will – complete with the connectors they are screwed down to.
4. The purpose of a UPS unit is to keep your servers powered-up long enough during an outtage for you to shut them down safely after saving your data – not so you can blithely continue working. Had your brand-new, less than two-week-old server been powered down and had your UPS not been completely drained when the spike came back up the line, it probably would have survived. Now I have to replace almost the whole thing.
5. No, that is not covered by the warranty.

Ok, Greyduck got me thinking it was time to upgrade to the WordPress version 2.0, so I have done so. As a part of this, I am trying a new and (what appears to be) better spam killer. Please email me if your comments disappear.

*Update*

Well, for those of you who have been thinking about trying out the new version, I can tell you this is pretty damn cool! There are a number of improvements in the writing interface, most notable a mini rich-text editor that allows you to write posts without worrying about all the tags. Simple keyboard shortcuts turn bold, italics and strikethrough on and off. (There is no longer an underline option, but in web-text, I suppose that makes sense.) Should you need it, there is a button that launches a sub-window with all the bare HTML for direct editing.

Other text-formatting tools include easy bullet-points and lists, an undo/redo option, and text justification. Not so easy are the new hyperlink tools, which only become available after you have highlighted the text you want to link. It does now give you the option of specifying a new window for the link, however. I think I liked the old one better.

The “more” tag still links to the single-page-post view, but there is a plugin to make it simply expand the post in the current page – I’ll play with that later. Another plugin I will be playing with is an automated acronym-replacement widget. Very handy for those of us using acronyms to refer to people. Not so handy …

For those who are more aesthetically-inclined, one of the final and cooler features of the new writing interface is the “live preview”. Previously, in the advenced edit mode, you could see the basic paragraphical layout at the bottom of the writing page; in V2, the preview pane displays it with your theme, so you get a better idea of what the finished product will be. Very handy when you are trying to get images lined up.

Well, that’s about it for now. Maybe more next post if stuff blows up.

Link purloined from Slasdot:
Scotsman.com News – Sci-Tech – Welcome to Mars express: only a three hour trip

AN EXTRAORDINARY “hyperspace” engine that could make interstellar space travel a reality by flying into other dimensions is being investigated by the United States government.

The hypothetical device, which has been outlined in principle but is based on a controversial theory about the fabric of the universe, could potentially allow a spacecraft to travel to Mars in three hours and journey to a star 11 light years away in just 80 days, according to a report in today’s New Scientist magazine.

Considering how much sci-fi we watch, read and play around here, you can bet that a discussion has cropped up on several occasions regarding the possibility of Faster-Than-Light travel. Also considering that at least two of our regulars have spent serious amounts of time and effort understanding theoretical physics, you can guess that these have been extensive. Current ‘theory’, as applied to a role-playing game, is that FTL is possible, but the craft in question would need to come to a complete halt before engaging these drives, as the “hyperspace” it jumps into is extremely volotile, and momentum adds tons of uncertainty to initial navigation.

I should have thrown a “boring!” warning in at the front of this, eh?

Anyway, me being the fiendish fan of Space Opera that I am, this goes completely against my instincts. The idea of outrunning your pursuers long enough to get a good exit vector before applying that extra bit of thrust and kicking in the hyperdrives to escape pursuit is a long-standing tactic. Having to somehow get enough time together to drag the ship to a standstill is just…just wrong, you know?

“Ensign! Park this bucket so we can get the hell out of here!”
“Sorry, Sir – it’s lunch hour and the only space I can find is a loading zone!”

Okay, back to the article. How does the thing work?

The theoretical engine works by creating an intense magnetic field that, according to ideas first developed by the late scientist Burkhard Heim in the 1950s, would produce a gravitational field and result in thrust for a spacecraft.

Basically, (as I understand it – B will probably correct me) you project a magnetic field large enough and powerful enough to ‘attract’ your ship. Since the ship is projecting the field, though, it remains a constant distance, and you accelerate perpetually. You put out a big enough field, and you can eventually get moving right along.

Make that field even larger, and you may be able to ‘warp’ space-time enough to slip into another dimension – one where the speed of light is much higher than in our own. Einstein’s theories state that as an object approaches the speed of light, it’s mass will increase proportionally – so much so that it would take nearly all the available energy of the universe to accelerate a truck to c. Well, if light travelled faster, that would give you more legroom on the speedometer, right?

Well, however the theory goes, if it works I will dance a frigging jig. Good luck, boys!

About a week ago the denizens of Chez Wolfie received a letter from our property management informing us that we owed them an extra $150, and that the sum was 90 days past due.

This came as kind of a surprise – it was the first we’d heard anything of the sort. So, I called and left a message on their machine that night. Two days later, I called them on my lunch hour and got the machine again. Today, I finally got a response in the mail

It seems that, unlike every other property management I have had, the rent is considered late if paid on the 5th, and we paid on that day twice over the past year, incurring two late fees of $75 each.

Now, I have known many people in different industries who got paid on the 5th, and the 5th as last day to pay rent came about to facilitate this common pay schedule. Yet our prop mgr seems to think the 4th is the better day.

You’d think this may be in an effort to extort more late fees, but they never told us about these until they were 90 days past due, and they probably would have let it go longer if it hadn’t been for the end-of-year paperwork. Hell, the first charge was from july!

Considering that they have not made any effort whatsoever in the entire year to contact us for anything other than a notice of inspection, I think I make a pretty good case. When they took over, we got no calls, no letters, no notices of policy at all. I even went in to talk to them about signing a new lease, and they never said a thing.

So, I wrote them a nicely legalese-filled letter explaining my point of view in the situtation – basically that they are full of it, and I would rather not pay a late fee (but much nicer). Especially one they felt so strongly about that they could let it go for 6 months before even mentioning it.

If I screw up, I’ll bite the bullet and pay the fees – but you have to tell me the rules of the game first.

In a mad rush to get a bus pass for the Ratboy and get back on the road to pick up the Pookinator, I swung into the local Safeway, and came to a grinding halt as the customer service line was 10 deep. Here’s a little do’s-and-don’ts of fashion from me:

Do: Purple hair, lip piercings, tattered denim jacket over equally tattered tank-top / t-shirt combo. Mostly intact stripey leggings and Doc Martens. Rock on, punky girl!

Don’t: Shapeless jacket over shapeless t-shirt covering up shapeless beer gut. Baggy pants bunched up on the thighs due to the kneepads, bright red leather mules. Dude, get an f’ing grip, willya? The last time you saw a lady’s pink bits in person, they were your mom’s on your birthday.

Do:Sneaks, jeans, solid-color t-shirt, nice jacket. So far, so good…
Don’t:…but get that damn pocket comb out of your f’ing afro, girl!

This is a fashion statement I have never been able to translate. What are you saying? “I started combing my hair, but got bored and just left the comb there in case I find inspiration to start over.” Do you have any idea how idiotic that looks? And it’s bad enough when guys do it – you should know better!

Do: Black leather tennies, black Levi’s, logo polo shirt, nice black leather jacket…hey wait, that was me! :)

In what appears to be a typical misunderstanding of the correct way to apply money to programs, there will be no New Year’s Eve celebration in Pioneer Squeare tonight for the first time in many years. Why? The city couldn’t decide how they were going to pay for it. Now, of course, it’s too late.

So, what do we have this year to celebrate with? A three-mile charity run.

Okay, I’m all for charity, but…Whee.

It’s rant time again, folks! You’ve been warned.

For Xmas I bought myself a data cable so I can get the pictures out of my phone without having to pay my celco fifty cents for the priviledge of emailing it to myself. When it arrived, I realized why I got such a cheap deal on it: no bloody software, just the USB drivers.

After several hours of searching, downloading and installing I think 7 different programs to get shit outta my sammy, only two actually worked with my phone. One was pure crippled trialware (look at all the things you could do if you paid for this!) and the other could only access the phone book and text messages.

Suddenly, a ray of light shone out from my browser: deep down in a dark user forum were the words “go to the Samsung support page, and check the downloads.”

*Whackwhackwhack*

That’s right, Mr. Big Bad Techie forgot to look beyond the accessories page to the support pages. And I only spend about two hours a day surfing support pages for my customers.

So now I can gleefully download all of the pictures out of my camera, where I can see…that they really look alot better in the camera’s tiny screen than on my 19″ monitor.

Crap. I may have to get a digicam soon after all. With rechargeable batteries. (I carry a power inverter in the car, so I always have 110V power at hand.)

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A while back, the Boss and I got this great idea for implementing SugarCRM at the shop to take the place of our lousy scheduling and contact management routine. I studied the install procedure for days before I finally got a couple of days set aside so I could implement the silly thing.

Once I got started, I ran into the joys of Open-Source software: there’s more than one way to do anything, and much tweaking may be needed. I kept running into stupid little problems that would take an hour or two of research and bashing before I could get to the next problem. The Boss wanted it done before the end of the year, so I was all prepped to take it home over the weekend to bash the thing together and get it working…

Only to find out at the last minute he was pulling me off the project and handing it to our “Lead Tech”. Now, LT lost a couple days worth of pay last week due to illness and wanted a way to make it up, so the Boss was just helping him out by letting him have the project, and he understands my feelings on the subject, but damnit! This was my chance to do something really cool, and it got yanked out from under me. Not only that, now I’m left with no closure because I don’t get to actually get it working.

It’s to the point where I’m tempted to bash together a box out of the spare kit lying around the garage just so I can beat the damn thing.

It’s been a busy house this past weekend. Let’s start at the top:

Friday, I used the Xmas cash me old man sent to take The WBGF out to dinner. Mmmmm, steak and coconut shrimp! Round out the evening by watching a silly movie (National Treasure) while she knitted madly trying to finish up a scarf for her nephew.

Saturday Slept in late, then off for a leisurely brekke at our favorite dive. A little grocery shopping, then we split up to take care of the last-minute preparations. Back together again at Chez Wolfie later for a tasty Xmas Eve mini-feast. Mmmm…teriyaki pork loin with stuffing and taters.

After that, we jetted off again to her sister’s house for a quick get-together with some of her family, where we discovered that the Niece had spent the last week baking cookies much the same as my lady had.

Once we left there, it was off to the EMC’s for a little while, which turned into a long while. We were having fun, and it took a while for Pookie to get to sleep so we could haul out the Santa gifts and get them under the tree.

Sunday Up early to run back over to the EMC’s place to watch my daughter try to bury herself in wrapping paper. The girl has 5 sets of grandparents, at least 7 aunt/uncle sets and cousins out the waz. We need a shovel to find her under all that loot – and this year was lighter than last.

After a happy morning of paper-tearing and playing with new toys, it was down the highway to Salem to pick up the Ratboy, who wasn’t having much fun with his mom. Really, it was his half-sister down there that was driving him insane, but still. Once I got him back home, I nipped over to The WBGF’s place to exchange our gifts, where she spoiled me rotten. She really is too good for me.

Incidentaly, I may change her alias here in the Wofie-blog. She changed the from / to names on each of the gifts she gave me, and one of the ones that seemed truly appropriate was To: Smart Ass, From: Tolerant. That one seems to peg it pretty well, so you may see Tolerant in place of The WBGF in the future.

Right about here there was a couple of hours of quiet restfulness…then it was off to the EMC’s again so Ratty could collect the loot the EMC’s family had sent up. They’re a good bunch, and still make a point to include Ratty, which is really cool. Yes, I’m lucky enough to even have likeable ex-in-laws. Again, stayed up late playing games (The Simpson’s Edition of Life), got home and crashed.

Today? Slept in late. Went to Schuck’s to spend a gift card, then back for groceries, then back to the house to fire up the new Crock-pot. (Chicken & dumpling-type-thingies, which turned out good.) Watched Bewitched while dinner was cooking (TERRIBLE! A train wreck I couldn’t stop watching), then we cracked open my new copy of Mr. & Mrs. Smith for desert. (It was a close call between that and Serenity, but the Roomie hadn’t seen it yet.)

Truly, it was one of the happiest Christmases I’ve had in a while. Lots of family and friends, no major disasters, and I was able to get good gifts for those I love. My cup runneth over.

Merry Christmas, one and all!

I hereby formally apologize for bending my girlfriend in half and making her kick the headboard. If she doesn’t finish her x-mas baking, it’s all my fault.

The Cyberwolfe