Tag: Technology

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Well, That was fun!

I answered an invitation from a friend to Join Google+ today.

It looks like a pretty neat service and I figured what the heck?

<Sigh>

As it turns out the privacy settings on some elements of the service are MORE than touchy.

To Googles credit, they warned that changes here could ripple across all my Google accounts. After all was said and done… about 1/2 the photos linked in the blog were gone. Oooops!

I just finished relinking everything (I think) and the exercise was a good one for me.

On the one hand I can’t beat the simple convenience of this blog. It’s free, it’s easy to work with and has a decent enough tool set that I can actually create a blog entry from my phone.

On the other side of the coin, is the issue of privacy. While I intend for photos to be linked to the blog, I don’t necessarily want those photos to be sitting in an “Album” that’s accessible out of context to my friends, associates, business contacts, Mother, etc.

Just looking at the photos in an album like that… well it looks like you’re one SICK puppy! (The fact that I am notwithstanding!)

This has made me wonder if I can create a Web / Blog Site on my local system that I can publish to the web without actually having to upload text & images to servers out on the web.

If I maintained the files on my local storage platform I’d have a slightly better chance of making sure that my stuff, remained my stuff.

It’s an interesting line of thought.  Perhaps another project for me to work on in the future.

In the mean time I’m going to be using a much more logical method to make entries and post photographs. Just in the event that I choose to move the blog to another location in the future.

I would like to make the blog far more “picture rich” using my own photos.  However, since some of those photos I’d like to be able to sell or publish down the road I’ve been reluctant to just place them here in the public domain with no control at all.

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Just watched the last Shuttle Launch.

I’m sitting here teary eyed with pride and sadness at the end of an era.
I hope to hell that this doesn’t herald the complete end of the American Space Program.
So much of the innovation and technological advances of the last 50 years can be directly traced to our space program. If we fold, I suspect we’ll be taking yet another step down the path to being a third world cesspool.
I’m cynical about the Tag line CNN has been using describing the Shuttle launch.
It’s like they’re trying to get us to believe something by saying it over and over again. Something about blasting into the future or some such drivel.
I’m not sure how they figure that but obviously it’s the PC thing to say.
it is the end of an era to be sure. Lets hope and pray it’s not the end of Americas innovation as well.

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I’ve got a bad case of Phone-itus

A couple of weeks ago my cell phone just blanked out. No rhyme or reason, it was working fine one moment and bang the next it was completely useless.

Oh it did manage to annoy the hell out of me be telling me it was receiving messages and phone calls but wouldn’t let me actually see the messages or answer the calls or in fact control it at all.

I pulled the battery, I pulled the sim card, I rebooted it, nothing worked. The next day finds me in my local cell phone store. They confirmed that yep the phone wasn’t working right. So we start the process where the phone insurance sends me a new phone and we’re good.

While I’m there I see this beautiful new smartphone. Wow! nifty display, cameras front and back, 4G THE WORKS! (Yeah I’m a techno whore! SO What?) I’m drooling and I’m thinking hey maybe I should just upgrade to this beautiful baby and keep the phone the insurance is going to send me as a backup.

Mind you we’re talking about a 400.00 upgrade here.

The internal justification was all that more reasonable when I was told that I wouldn’t have a working phone for at least 4 days in large part thanks to a Google mapping mistake.

A lot of  companies  are using Google to verify shipping addresses. In my case, Google has my address in the wrong city. This has on more than one occasion  prevented products from being sent to my house.

This time the insurance / cell phone company couldn’t verify the address and categorically refused to send the replacement phone. This means that I’m going to have the phone sent to the other halfs workplace, because after all the house that I’ve lived in for 20 years is suddenly non-existent! Google says so, it must be true!

The whole time, the little voice is saying “Dude, you gotta have a phone… This one is freakin beautiful and you KNOW you’ll be happier with it than your old phone.”

I’m weakening in my resolve to do the right thing, and frankly PISSED off that Google has refused to correct the mistake that is now impacting my life on a fairly regular basis.

After a lot of back & forth in my head, I’ve finally beaten the fuck out of that little “Angelic guy on my shoulder” and decided to go for it.

The new phone, and an assortment of accessories is sitting on the counter. The clerk is scanning the bar codes and the total isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I’m starting to get excited “Oh boy a new top of the line phone… goodie, goodie”, it’s like Christmas.

Shut up, I know it sounds insane. You should see me with a new car…

Just sayin…

The clerk asks me for the sim card out of my messed up phone. I pop the back off, pull the battery, pull the sim and hand it to her.  Because I’ve now got pieces of phone filling both hands I pop the battery back in the phone, and snap the back cover in place. After all I want to caress, hold, and watch the new phone as it powers up.

“Oh goodie, goodie, almost there. New phone! this is gonna be so cool!”

Out of the corner of my eye I see a light that I shouldn’t see. I try to ignore it, then I hear a start up tone and bigger than shit my “broken” phone is powering up normally. It’s sitting in my hand with a bright crisp clear display asking where the hell the sim card is.

DAMN!!!! I MEAN DAMN!!!

The “Angelic guy on my shoulder jumps up and says I told you so!”, The “Devil guy is stomping around screaming fuck, fuck!, fuckity, fuck!” The techno whore in me is whining in a most un-masculine fashion “But I waaaaannntttt it!”

I look at the clerk, Hoping that she’s gonna pull an I dream of Jeanie blink and my old phone will be dead again. She doesn’t.

Ever so reluctantly I tell her that we have to cancel the deal.

I can’t justify it anymore, I’ve got a working phone in my hands, that unconsciously I’m trying to strangle… Nope, the paper thin justification is gone. I can’t do it. It’s a chunk of change that I don’t need to be spending right now.

The clerk hands me back the sim card. I put it back in my old phone hoping against all reason that the damn thing doesn’t power up again. Nope, there’s the start-up tone, and the display is working right… Well SHIT!

I leave the store bummed, annoyed and feeling like a kid that got socks instead of a new bike for his birthday.

I had to do the adult thing. I know it was the right thing. Doesn’t make it any easier….

I will say this… the Next time my phone screws up… It’s outta here! And the latest new beautiful smart phone is going to be in my greedy techno whore hands!