Random Ideas, Comments & Thoughts, Sometimes Political, Sometimes Adult… Hope you don't choke.
I just got a box from Amazon!
Whoo Hoo!!!!
Season Four and Five of TrueBlood.
And Cinemax Season One of Strikeback.
And the very cool parts are that They include Digital copies, and DVD copies!!!!
Alright… so I’m a little excited. I’ve really gotten into watching programs that I like on my iPad or over the Apple TV.
I really like being able to Buy Once and watch on whatever the hell device I decide to watch on when I’m damn good and ready.
It’s been a day of software woes in this household.
It started with my partner handing me their cell phone which was clearly in a loop. Every 15 seconds a message was displayed that said Genius has stopped responding press OK to close the application.
So you’d press the helpful OK button and the message would disappear then come back 15 seconds later. After fiddling about I managed to get deep enough into the layer upon layer of menus till I finally could clear the cache for the application that was misbehaving.
Problem Solved.
Mind you this was before my first cup of coffee. It’s nice to know that my digital interfaces appear to come online before the rest of my brain.
On the other hand it’s kind of scary that my computer related information is at that low a level in my brain. I mean what happens if someone asks me a question while I’m sleeping? Do I start spouting free technical support information?
Humm gotta change the programming so that tech support information is only available after sex… I’d get laid a lot more often!
Then my partner said they’d been trying to fix it on their own for 3 days. So I felt guilty for making it look so damn easy.
You’d have thought that someone would have encountered this in testing and had the programming folks build in an automatic clear of the cache.
I’ve been dealing with software issues of various types for the past couple of days but all those issues came to a head today.
In general dealing with musicians, composition software, mixing software, or simple recording software, is absolutely nothing like dealing with normal software.
Imagine if you will the annoyance factor of someone like myself who sits down at a piece of software and is presented with a button that looks like a waveform.
When I press that button instead of a nice waveform graph that I can edit, the volume goes up.
But that makes no sense because right next to the waveform button is the master volume slider but moving that does nothing.
Because by “volume” the creators of the software actually meant Input level.
And so on until I’m pulling my hair out because absolute nothing is intuitive except that what I would intuit is completely incorrect every single time.
So I decide this software is not for me…
I download another manufacturers demo version. Before they allow me to download their software they want me to create an account. Then they allow me to download the DEMO.
I could understand it if I’d purchased the software, but it’s a DEMO.
That’s like having to fill out, and have a credit application approved before you go on a test drive.
After jumping through their hoops, I have the software downloaded. I install it. Guess what? It doesn’t install.
It goes through the motions, it modifies the shit out of my computer, but the installer of the main application throws an exception ON INSTALLATION and my system shuts down the extraction of the file.
After fiddling with it for an hour I gave up, then spent another hour painstakingly removing bits of their software and backing out their changes out of my system.
Next manufacturer… Was a completely no way in hell. They wanted 1000.00 for their application and there was no demo available. This manufacturer ended up doubly on my personal shit list because of what was going on in the next room.
My partner had been trying to upgrade a version of composition software. From the same company that wanted a grand for their mixing software. 12 hours later my partner successfully completed the upgrade.
First, their system wouldn’t acknowledge the email address. The serial number was fine but the email address wasn’t in their system. Then phone calls to their offices resulted in conversations like:
“Hi could you give me the number to your sales office? Thanks. Did you know that your web site has the wrong number listed?“
Their answer: “Yes” CLICK!
“Hi I’m trying to upgrade my notation software Sibelius First Note… It’s notation / composition software… Yes I’m sure you sell this… I’m looking at your web site… Well that’s the problem… your web site won’t process the purchase… Hello? Hello?” They hung up.
“Hi I’m calling from California, is this the corporate office of AVID Technologies? Good, could I speak to someone in customer service? Yes, I’m having trouble completing a transaction. Yes I’m trying to upgrade some software I own.
Customer service? Hello I’m having trouble upgrading some software. Yes I know I should be calling your California office that’s part of the problem. They’re not answering their phone. I’ve tried your web site, it’s not processing the transaction.
Look, I’ve been on the phone and on your web site looking for assistance for the past 6 hours, isn’t there some way you could just take the $40 and send me a link to download the software?
No, I’m not trying to be rude, I’m just trying to complete this business so that I can get on with my day. Hello? Hello?” GRRRRRRRRRR!
After spending most of the day talking with these people and getting nowhere my partner tried the website again and this time the serial number and the email address worked.
My recommendation at about the 4 hour mark was to just go to the competition.
The point of all of this is to highlight the ever increasing frustration caused by arrogant attitudes, and frankly shitty software testing.
Android applications that are part of the CORE Android OS and can’t be removed that obviously weren’t tested with corrupted caches.
Installers for DEMO software that don’t work. Really? do you think I’m going to BUY your software after such an obvious failure?
Overpriced software which might work but that I can’t even try before buying. ( I notice today that there are demo downloads available)
Nasty people on the phone who think nothing of hanging up on an existing customer?
I’ve gone back to the irrational piece of software that I’d decided to abandon in the first place.
Maybe it isn’t so bad after all.
I’ve been watching with considerable amusement Twitter feeds about the spate of scandals rocking Washington.
The folks on Twitter are coming up was some witty comments and in an epic demonstration of freedom of speech many of these comments are directed squarely at the White House, and various representatives.
I’ve added my 2 cents from time to time but for the most part I’ve just been reading the comments.
On the one hand nothing happening in Washington is anything new. Abuse of power comes with the territory. Kennedy, Nixon, Clinton, Roosevelt, Bush, all of them abused power to greater or lesser degrees. I suspect that part of the sitting Presidents problem is that regardless of political affiliation.
We All HOPED it would be different.
In that regard, even those who have axes to grind with President Obama were hoping they were wrong. For them now I’d bet that they feel doubly betrayed even though they’ve been proven correct.
That dichotomy really pisses some people off.
The IRS has in my opinion been an abusive, hostile organization from it’s inception.
“PAY UP! You don’t have money? We’ll put a lean on your home, YOUR WHOLE FAMILY WILL SUFFER!”
“Your wife works? We’ll garnish Her paycheck too. Your kids are going hungry? Not our problem, pay your taxes!”
“Oh your company made a mistake in your W2 reporting. We owe you money? Yeah… Uh we’ll get around to that refund in 6 -9 months.”
“Interest? HAHAHAHA NO Dumbass! YOU pay US Interest… We don’t pay you interest!”
That people are just NOW realizing the IRS is a corrupt entity who uses strong arm Mafia collection tactics is astounding to me.
Wiretaps on AP phones?
That surprises anyone?
Did you bother to even skim The Patriot Act? You know… The act that should have expired but that President Obama signed the extension on?
When you have laws on the books that allow wiretaps without warrant if any remote case can be made that national security is threatened, are you really surprised that power was abused?
Really folks?
If the President calls you a terrorist YOU’RE a TERRORIST! If you spoke with or worked with someone from the MiddleEast you meet the national security requirement to have your phone records monitored.
Monitoring isn’t necessarily listening to your conversations… it appears this is more like being able to see the numbers you’ve dialed and received calls from on your phone bill. It’s still a violation of privacy. My concern isn’t that the government can do this.
My concern is that the bar that allows this kind of monitoring is set way too low.
Of greater concern is that it’s just now an issue to our lawmakers.
Benghazi?
Uh Hello?
All you had to do was listen to the news coverage during the event. The story changed before our eyes. It was obvious some kind of spin was being applied. The question is WHY?
Why was it somehow inappropriate to say terrorists attacked the embassy? Who cares if those terrorists were motivated by a dumb, poorly acted, less than complimentary film about Muhammed, or as Hillary said “They just wanted to kill Americans?” Terrorists they were, are and will remain.
So why not use the word? It’s descriptive and accurate.
More importantly are little issues;
An attack on an embassy and the murder of an Ambassador has traditionally been an act of war.
We should have treated this attack as such. Yes we’re spread thin, but move special forces in immediately if they’re available. Start hunting the perpetrators down and leave them dead in the streets as an example to others. The Libyan government was doing all in it’s power to assist us until we publicly humiliated that government with our UN ambassador telling the world a fiction about a movie.
It made the Libyan government appear to have no control over their population and further, bringing worldwide attention to the movie sparked riots all over the place.
The truth was a better more stabilizing and compelling story. Ambassador Rice could have said something like;
“This was a terrorist attack, the Libyan government has provided us with excellent intelligence and while the information is still coming in, we are impressed with and appreciate the assistance the Libyan government has give to us in this matter.”
That simple acknowledgement would have opened many doors and allowed everyone to do their jobs.
That the State Department didn’t get it worries me more than the apparent obfuscation.
I find myself wondering what else the State Department has overlooked or misinterpreted.
Fast & Furious?
Why the hell does Holder still have his job?
Really? In what universe does it make any sense to sell guns to known criminals to find out where those guns go?
How about a simpler method? collect all the serial numbers of guns stolen from law aiding citizens and then compare how many of those stolen weapons end up being used in crimes… The percentage that end up in Mexican Drug Cartel hands will tell you how much of a problem gun trafficking is.
You’re still having to track the serial number of the gun(s)… RIGHT?
The Obama administration is a world wide joke.
It’s time for the President to get his ducks in a row, put and end to rogue elements in his administration and get to the business of being The President.
The first step is prosecuting every single person that’s been involved in wrong doing.