Comment Spam

July 7, 2006

A couple of days ago I upgraded to the latest version of Badbehavior to deal with comment spam. Later the same day a friend asked if I'd upgraded and I said yes, wondering why the question. Of course it turned out there was a new version out in the hours between my upgrade and his question. So it goes....So far Badbehavior 2 doesn't work with Drupal 4.7 (or any version for that matter). I've yet to put in any cycles trying to figure it out. Today I did downoad the Drupal spam module again and we'll give it a spin. Having been hit with comment spam the last few days it will be good to see if the spam module works. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming...

Livestrong

July 4, 2006

Almost enough to make one consider using Windows. Almost.Actually it does bring to mind what I'd love to see. Livestrong and Nike already partner on the Wear Yellow campaign. We've also seen Nike and Apple team up to make some pretty cool running products. And of course there's also the U2 iPod. So what we need now is for Apple to team up with Nike, Livestrong and Shimano or one of the other bicycle computer manufacturers in order to create the Livestrong iPod. In addition to being great music for your workout it will communicate with sensors placed on the bicycle to act as a bike computer as well. Plus when you get home from your ride it will upload the stats to your computer and a special website.

A light at the end of the tunnel

June 27, 2006

In the past I've written about the darkness otherwise known as contact management on Mac OS X. Really I've been looking for something beyond contact management in a good personal information management system that would do more than just list contacts but keep coordinated calendars for several people and allow me to coordinate the various roles I play in different organizations. The great product has arrived in the form of Daylite 3. For all those disappointed by the abismal SOHO products there really is light at the end of the tunnel, or Daylite that is.

When will the geniuses get it?

June 6, 2006

At the end of the year I wrote about problems with Apple Store service. So six months later I took the plunge and bought Pro Care. Since I live so far away from a store the promise of first-in service appeals. Just under a week ago I took a machine in with a problem that required ordering a part. "We'll call you when the part comes in," the Genius told me. Yeah right, I thought.Sure enough I call today to see what the delay might be (since the Apple website was unable to show anything but an error for the service status). The parts are in. Great. Now I explain my situation to the Genius and ask whether I have even a chance of same-day service today. Not a definitive answer but a sense of what the odds might be. I explained further that "If there's no chance today I'll wait and bring it in first thing in the morning." You'd have thought I was asking for the key's to Steve Jobs' secret product development lab with a video camera in hand.Twenty minutes later I walk in the store and wait another ten minutes as there are no Geniuses in sight. The store is not busy but they're somewhere in the back. After I drop the machine off I'm told it will likely be tomorrow as they're really backed up. This leads to the question of what self-respecting service organization doesn't have visibility to the queue while talking on the phone but does half an hour later in person. The simpler answer is likely that the Geniuses have undergone extensive training on customer stonewalling. Now this might seem a bit over the top but it got me thinking.

Communications Conundrum

June 1, 2006

Not long ago the communications plan seemed simple. At the house there is only one cellular carrier that has  a signal. DirecWay satellite is increasingly poor and the time has come to do something different for interent connectivity. For several months we tried, unsuccessfully, to get the local wireless co-op to hook us up. Terribly long story short they're not a serious contender. It all seemed so simple. EvDO on the Sprint connection and we're good to go. Sprint has the best-in-class price for EvDO at $15 a month on a cell phone or $50 for a standalone wireless card. Then the plan goes to pieces. Cingular goes and puts up a tower in town. Now there are other options and yet fewer options at the same time. The problem now is the waiting game. Do we wait for Cingular to get their permanent tower up? What about Cingular not having EvDO.Then out of the blue comes another option. Looking around the net WildBlue seems to have a pretty good reputation and not have all the same problems as DirecWay. Seemingly overnight the problem has gone from too few options to too many. The problem being that each of the options requires a contract to make the up-front price palatable. Which way to jump?

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