"Xbox.com

Dear Mark Jackson-Brown,

Xbox Customer Support Service Request ID#: [some numbers]

Good news, we have received your Xbox console at our Service Center.

You can track the status of your order online by accessing http://service.xbox.com/servicesignin.aspx. You will also receive an e-mail notification when your repair has been completed.

Register your console Repair your console or check your repair status

Thank you for your patience."


Come home soon!

Running / going-to a LAN party tomorrow.

It may be epic fail.

It may be epic win.

I think that these are not mutually-exclusive.

So Alicia I are looking for place for us to live.

It should be a one or two bedroom apartment under $1000/month located in Waterloo (or Kitchener). It needs to be near transit (if it's in Kitchener - the iExpress) since neither of us has a car.

If you know of a good place, please suggest!

Thanks!

In full disclosure, this post was mostly written by Alicia. I am not pulling my weight!

Legend:
+ Good news
- Bad news


+ Going to Ottawa today and I get to see my family!
- But Alicia is already missing me before I've even left...
+ I get a lift to Toronto, and save on bus fare!
- And by the time I get to the bus station it's 5:30, and the next bus is at 6:30
+ But this gives me time to get some good downtown Toronto eats! Chicken Shwarma win!
- The bus is a Local bus, stopping in Trenton and Belleville and I hope no where else. And of course, it will be direct to downtown Ottawa, 15 minutes further than I need...
+ The bus leaves nice and on time at 6:30. I even have 2 seats all to myself!
- The bus drives all of 5 minutes before sideswiping an illegally parked car.
- We get delayed for 70 minutes in front of Old City Hall.
+ The bus has wi-fi, so I can entertain myself!
- The power outlets aren't working, so I have 2.5 hours of battery life that will have to last me until I get to Ottawa, which at this rate will be a bus ride of 7 hours.
- Someone just dropped a can of pop, and it rolled right under my feet and spilled directly under me.
+ I just happened to have a disposable cloth with me! Sticky mess vanquished!
+ Sweet merciful christ, we have our rest stop at a Tim Horton's, and not the god-awful Log Cabin "Resturant".
- We just left Belleville at 10:15, and it'll be another 2.5 hours, and I'm down to 30% battery already.
+ Hey, my DS can play music, and it's got lots of battery!
- I don't have a microSD card reader though, so I can't transfer anything to it.
....
- My battery just hit 20%. I need to save it because it powers my cell phone which I need to get a timely ride home.

Options:

1) Go to Ottawa (to work) this friday, catching a lift in Toronto. But miss Warrior Weekends, where 2 of my groups are volunteering.
2) Stick around and bus (yuck yuck yuck) this weekend.
3) Just not even go to Ottawa until after the 28th.

Star Trek

It was The Doomsday Machine and Nemesis rolled into one and put through A.D.D. and kaleidoscopic filters.

Not Star Trek, but an enjoyable yet dumb (very, very dumb) action sci-fi flick. As long as it remains non-canon, I don't have to kill anyone.

Red Shirt needed to live a bit longer.
It actually pulled off what Nemesis was trying to do. This is because Nemesis was a dumb plot idea in a smart franchise. When the franchise dumbed itself down enough, the plot works.

Rocky Horror Picture Show

Tim Curry is a very attractive man.
I'm glad I went to the 7pm show, where I had a chance to actually hear/see the movie sometimes.
The audience participation was actually kind of awesome sometimes. Kinda make it like a 4D movie or something.
That one cosplayer (yes I went there) did not have the figure to be wearing that. He was no Tim Curry.

I haven't seen it yet.

I am going to see it tonight at 9:10 at The Original Princess.

If other people aren't otherwise occupied, I would enjoy company. However, I will be going regardless!

I will get there for ~8:45, and depending on what it's like, maybe grab a coffee from the Huether before the show.

I am a big Star Trek fan. However, I am told that this is not Star Trek. Knowing this, I will attempt to enjoy "J.J. Abrams' sci-fi action movie featuring the character names from Star Trek"

Oh man.
The first one (D2L) was 20 minutes.
The second one (MKS) was 45.

I did okay on each of them.
My interview inexperience would have shown.
But I think that I managed to put out best foot for "I might not know everything, but I do like finding out".

So the MKS one was actually the real deal interview. The "we would have had you in person, but you said you couldn't be here". I was not entirely expecting this. Thankfully, the interview opened with technical questions that I was able to answer without difficulty. It transitioned to technical questions that I'm no good at, but the confidence had already been boosted. I would need to learn more about SQL, and figure out what the heck this LDAP thing is. On the bright side, at least this lets me know what I'd be likely to see in the next D2L interview (assuming I get one).

So right now, I am:

A) Glad that it's over
B) Anxious that my fate is sealed
C) Awaiting the rejections!

Also, in re-briefing myself with the job descriptions:

For the D2L job, "Product Support Specialist", I can't help but feel that this is totally what I already do a whole bunch of. Basically, this last visit to Ottawa has been doing this exact job for the last week, in the context of my dad's company. My previous trips up here have also had this to a lesser extent.

This is the sort of semi-technical position that I'm pretty cut out for. I've seen the danger of putting too technically minded people in these jobs, where they can forget about the client and run off to solve the problems their own way. You have to work with the client and make sure that the solution proposed is something that works within the client's existing habits and/or needs. If the solution requires any effort on the client's part, they have to be informed regarding what will change, and, more importantly, engaged in the process so that they can recommend alternatives that may be less disruptive.

My trips to Ottawa have been about implementing a Network Storage device, and generally improving my dad's computer systems and habits. As, frankly, an older man, he's modestly stuck in his ways, and I've been acutely aware of that through this whole process. I've had to consult with him throughout this process to make sure that any proposed changes don't radically alter the way he handles his documents, because that could lead to his making errors, and spending far more time trying to retrace steps. I've also been educating him on new techniques (email search in Outlook 2007 is finally not garbage) and proposed streamlined solutions to existing problems (testing and setting up a synchronization task on his laptop to keep its files current, and to accommodate the ability to optionally synch the files back to the main server).

And hey, the job is a nice step above "Did you plug the computer in?"

I just have to get past the HR interview first.

My first-pass interviews are today.
D2L at 2pm, and MKS at 4pm.

Anyone know what I should expect?

Earlier today, I checked my e-mail, and I got interviews for 2 jobs.

MKS and Desire2Learn.

Holy snap.

Huh, I wonder what they'll think of me replying to those e-mails at 2am.

yay!

PS:
a computer running a Phenom II X4 955 is much faster than an Athlon 3000+

With all my LJ posts of horrible overnight computer troubleshooting woes, maybe the problem isn't the computers, maybe I'm just terrible with them!

[spoiler]</fishing-for-compliments>[/spoiler]

(yes, I just used BBcode)

Except not.

After swapping out the mobo/cpu in my dad's computer, windows refuses to give me the option "press R to repair Windows XP" which is the necessary next step in getting the computer up and running again.

Doing a fresh install is not an option.

Next strategy is to swap back in the old mobo, and then follow this, then hope and pray that it works.

Most mind crushing 100m hurdles of the day:
1) machine has 4 IDE (2HD, 2CD) devices, new mobo only supports 2
2) any combination of a single HD + CD drive does not give "repair" option.
2a) this makes sense, in a way, due to MBR being on one drive, and XP install being on another.
3) now need 3 IDE devices to do install.
4) IDE controller card purchased earlier in the day does not allow for devices to be recognized at bootup.
5) learn how to transfer Windows XP install disc onto a bootable USB key.
6) boot off USB, run setup, "press R to repair Windows XP" does not exist.
7) will now spend 2-3 hours tomorrow swapping back hardware, and attempting new strategy.

I'm in Ottawa until Thursday of next week!

Oh man, today I get to rebuild a computer. FUN TIMES!

Well, my phone is finally biting the dust.

After a night of a strange inability to charge, the morning after which I opened it up and discovered the ballooning form factor of the battery, it now refuses to stay booted up regardless of technique. Even without the battery, and simply plugged into the-wall/a-computer, it does not stay booted. It just power cycles.

Okay, so does anyone have an old, unlocked GSM phone they'd be willing to sell me?

Oh boy, hit up the job fair.
Didn't give out as many resumes as i would like.
Had some hopes and dreams crushed through lack of experience.
But, there are glimmers of hope.

So, I've been using Windows Media Player 11 for my music playing needs for the last year.

It's been a "good enough" measure, only really lacking a sane queueing mechanism. (there is no "queue next", what the hell!)

But now that WMP has decided to forget that it has a library of music, and refuses to add one back in, I'm contemplating moving to a new program.

I've tried Winamp5 before, but it wasn't very... elegant. It was like Winamp2 with a lot of half-done playlist management garbage.

Any other suggestions?

woo

so

fun.

My dad's computer has had a chronic network problem.

Symptom:
When transferring large files over the network, within 5-10 minutes, he will lose the file transfer.
After this happens, all connectivity is lost, despite the connection ostensibly claiming to still exist.

Consequences:
He cannot reliably transfer large files.
When preparing his laptop for business trips, this involves the transfer of his Outlook .pst file so he can maintain a copy of his emails and appointments while on the road. This .pst file is over 2GB, and has a roughly even chance of failing when copied through the network. The workaround has been to copy to a portable HD, and copy again to the laptop from the portable HD.

Observations:
Other computers on the network do not exhibit this fault. They can copy without problem.

Hardware related
The problem still occurs despite numerous physical network configurations. (including a simple crossover cable setup)
The onboard LAN as well as two separate PCI LAN cards have all exhibited this behaviour.

Software related
After the file transfer fails, connectivity to the network disappears, despite the connection remaining "connected".
Only outgoing packets are sent. No incoming packets are received.
Other computers can see these sent packets, but their replies are not registered by the borked machine.
The problem was first observed when he was running Win2K, and persists even though he is now running a fresh (not an upgrade) install of WinXP on the same hardware.
Attempting to check network adapter logs has failed, as the network adapter utility fails to open.

Analysis:
Doing an end-to-end analysis seems to imply that:
1) The external network hardware (switch, router) is not to blame, as they have been eliminated from the environment and the problem remains.
2) The network hardware of the problem machine is unlikely to be at fault as the same symptom is registered despite 3 different network cards.
3) The internal hardware of the machine is untested.
4) The operating system is not likely at direct fault as two different OSes feature the same problem.
5) Similar environments are on the old OS as are on the new OS, though they consist(ed) of mostly non-network-related TSRs.

Continuing Theories:
Could low-level memory be a problem? Motherboard incompatibility or age? Network buffer overflow? A TSR that interferes? An IRQ conflict?

I just cleared out my EEE PC's list of default preferred networks for the first time.

Was that ever a trip down memory lane.

By default, whenever you connect to a new unrecognized network, it puts that as your most preferred network, and it goes to the top of the list. From there, the order never changes, unless you change it manually. So for the most part, it's a reverse-chronological list of all the networks you've ever connected to.

So I'm killing off networks (leaving in the good standbys of "default", "linksys", and "dlink" because if some non-techie wants to be a wi-fi hotspot, then I'm all for it) and I get to one called "Athens wifi". Wow, yeah, I must have connected to that back in Athens last year.

As I continue to kill the networks, I start seeing other memories pass by.
"beppu", "sakusaku" from hostels in Japan
"funkhouse" my hostel in Sydney
"coffeeculture", a place where I bought an overpriced lunch to get an hour of internet
"aucklandairport", a place I transited three times
"euclid" my friend's co-operative lodging house in San Fran
and many many more inbetween.

There were a lot of networks. I'm such a wardriver. If only I had WEP-cracking software, it would have probably been an even bigger list.