So, my AC stopped working last night. I live in Central Florida, and it’s August, which means I was in hell. Melissa and I tried to fix the issue, but eventually accepted that we needed a professional to repair the system. A mechanical engineering friend of mine recommended Gembecki Mechanical, so I gave them a call. I was quite pleased.

Melissa had called me yesterday morning to let me know something was up with the AC system. I was really busy at work, and hoped she was just crazy. I forgot about the problem, went to the CoLab Orlando open house and came home. When I got home, I learned quite quickly, that Melissa was not crazy at all.

I opened up the air handler, and found the coil encased in a large block of ice. Quite naturally, I figured that the refrigerant was low, and I might have to go to Home Depot to get some more (apparently not, since HVAC refrigerant isn’t sold without a license). In the interim, I thought it best to try to melt the block of ice obstructing airflow to the cooling fins of the handler.

Melissa and I stood there for about an hour, with hair driers and screw drivers trying to melt / chisel away the ice that had built up on the coil. After we decided that we had sufficiently melted all of the ice away from the coil, we put the AC back on, albeit at a much higher temperature ( 80 degress :/). 

Well apparently it was still too much for the unit to handle, and it quickly refroze. I slept on the tile floor for the night and called my buddy (the mechanical engineer) immediately the next morning.  He quickly listed a possibility of options (including letting me know I wasn’t going to pick up freon at Home Depot). After knocking down the possible DIY solutions, he mentioned that the refrigerant might need to be charged, and I would have to call a company to do that. He quickly recommended Gembecki, based on previous experience (personal and professional).

So, I called Gembecki Mechanical to put in a service request. Within an hour I had talked to a few people, who were all very professional, and very upfront about what to expect (service time ETA, pricing, etc …). Around 11:30am, I got a call from someone at their office that Tony was going to be at my house within a half hour.

About 30 minute later, Tony showed up. I followed him around a lot (I have an insatiable curiosity about things) to see what was wrong, and how to fix it. After a bit of basic investigation, Tony was able to confirm that the refrigerant was low. 

Usually, when refrigerant is low, it’s because there’s a leak. My case is no different. I undoubtedly have a leak in the line between my air compressor (the big fan outside) and the air handler (the noisy thing inside). Rather than jump the gun on leak detection and repair, Tony asked me what I was comfortable with right now. 

My options were: pay now to try to fix the refrigerant line, that had a leak small enough to only become obvious after 2 years of use, or wait a little while longer to see if the refill holds for a while. Gembecki has a 30 day warranty on that sort of work, so if the leak becomes a problem quickly, they can send someone back out within a month for no charge. 

What’s more, the repair to the line (provided it’s not in a terribly obscure location) is relatively cheap. Given that Melissa is going out of town this weekend, and she’s been looking forward to her fun time; I elected with the more irresponsible option. I’m gonna wait it out. Money is still a little tight right now, and I don’t want Melissa to miss her chance to have a lot of fun with her friends this weekend over this.

Tony’s clear layout of my options were great. He was done within an hour and the house is cooling of quite nicely now. My total cost was $150, which considering everything they did for me, I couldn’t be happier about. I cant thank him and Gembecki Mechanical for everything they’ve done for me!!!

Yeah, so UCF Insider rocks, and you should check it out.

For those of you who don’t immediately see what I’m talking about, look at the lines on the screen ‘command.com’, ‘config.sys’, ‘bio.com’, ‘comspec.exe’, and ‘memory.dat’. Those are all very MS-DOS like files that run under typically Windows operating systems.

Seems appropriate, I suppose. Just think about it: “Police states of the future choose Microsoft!”

The boss’s computer would immediately log off after he tried to logon. While this might sound funny (in other circumstances, it really is), the client (who is a really cool guy, whom I respect a lot) did not think it was funny at all.

So, I dived into the Google to find out the issue. The short version; there was a bad registry setting. Basically, when this sort of thing happens, the first thing you should check is the registry. Now, you can’t connect to the registry locally, since you can’t logon to the computer with this issue.

So, the first thing you need to do, is logon to a computer on the same network as a user who has administrative rights on the computer concerned. Once you’ve gotten that far, you’ll need to open regedit. Something like this:

After that, you’ll need to connect to the computer in question. That’s easy, check the following pics:

then… 

The following key is what you should be looking for:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

That key should contain a string value for ‘Userinit’. If you’re confused, you should see something like the following:

Well, you probably shouldn’t see the green box, but you should see the string value for Userinit. If you don’t see that value in the root of key Winlogon, then you’ll need to create it. 

That’s not too bad either. First, right click the right hand pane of the registry editor:

Select the ‘String Value’ item in the right click menu. Once you’ve gotten that done, you’ll have a new string value in the right hand pane, awaiting you to name it. It’ll look something like: 

Name the string Userinit. After you’ve done that, right click the entry and select ‘Modify’. Make sure that the value for the key is:

c:\windows\system32\userinit.exe

Again, here’s a picture:

And that’s it. If you have any issues after you’ve gotten this done, I recommend an ERD disk or formatting your HD. Those are extreme options, I know. However, I don’t think you want to tool around with your computer for hours on end ( or maybe you do ).

My Mom’s dog, Chopper. He’s a slobbery stinky dog, that I love to death. Anyways, I thought I’d share.

[Networks - The places online for social media]

 

1. Twitter - Probably not a surprise to most tech folks out there. For those of you who don’t know (geez), twitter offers a sort of ‘micro-blogging’ platform. It’s kinda like blogging for people who don’t have time to blog. With a max post length of 140 characters (not words), you can’t say too much. However, it’s a great way to keep up to date with your friends, or important people, like Tim O’Reilly. 

1.a. Pownce - For all the same as Twitter, but a different network (with more features too). This is Kevin Rose’s (Founder of Digg) Twitter Clone. 

 

2. Delicious - I can’t begin to say how much I like Delicious. The actual site (again, for those of you who are scratching your heads right now) is del.icio.us. The idea is to have a place online where you can store your bookmarks. That way, you never have to worry about not being able to find that one video online, when you’re at your mom’s house or something.

2.a. Magnolia. - For all the same reasons as Delicious. Magnolia is just a different interface to the same idea as Delicious. 

 

 

3. Flickr - Hands down, nobody has online photo sharing down like Flickr. The amount of things you can do to your photos with Flickr is nothing short of obscene. To top it off, the developers are a pretty eclectic group of characters. Call me an idealist, but I like the idea of nutty dudes (and dudettes) writing software that really does something for the world.

[Software - The stuff on your computer that helps _you_ out]

 

1. Twhirl - I use Twhirl pretty much exclusively for ‘tweeting’ these days. Twhirl runs off of Adobe AIR, a sort of intermediary between a program, and it’s operating system. This means that if you’re running Windows (XP, or whatever Vista variant), Linux (within reason), or OSX; you will be running the same program. That makes for easy support. Anyways, Twhirl is awesome because it doesn’t always give me the ‘too many requests’ errors of twitteriffic, AND it posts to Pownce for me too.

 

2. Flock - Flock is a browser that’s built on top of Firefox. It makes keeping up with Social Media sites pretty easy. Some of the features of flock (like the top media bar, displaying photos and videos) are equally awesome, and cumbersome. Despite some of it’s shortcomings, Flock is still a really cool app that does a good job of combining a web browser with a social media dashboard.

 

3. Adium - Now, some of you might not think of instant messaging as a type of social network. No websites, no pictures, no birthdays, no etc… However, IM was really the first type of social network, and it was well beyond it’s time. These days, if you’re not on IM, you don’t talk much to me. Seriously, my wife has to get on IM to chat with me, when we’re in the house together. IM is king, and Adium makes using IM a breeze.

I was scrolling through Twitter & Google Reader today, and something occurred to me: There are way too many social networks ‘out there’. It’s funny too, ’cause all of them want you and all your friends. It’s an obvious pitch (what business doesn’t want as many consumers as possible). The thing that’s interesting though, is to what length many social networks will go to get your friends.

I forget who’s blog I was reading, but someone made a really good point about handing out passwords in a social network signup process. Join LinkedIn or Facebook, and you’ll be prompted with a message asking for your Gmail, Yahoo, MSN, etc.. email and password. The idea, is to get all of your existing friends immediately on this new social network. The point? That’s probably akin to handing out your social security number over the internet.

How preposterous is it to think it’s a good idea to hand out your email and password to a 3rd party? Your email, and it’s associated password are likely the most important passwords you have on the internet. So for someone to ask you to hand that out, is like a salesman asking for your house keys. Do you really trust someone you don’t know to be judicious with your most personal of internet information?

Add to that, Facebook Apps. A preface to all my friends, I like you, and I treasure your friendship. However, I never ever ever add Facebook Apps. Why? I don’t give out my personal info to 3rd party apps, just because my friend got roped into it. Just because all of your friends jump off the Brooklyn Bridge …

Facebook applications are a subset of social networks. Those applications, just like Bebo and Orkut, are looking for a larger and larger base of users, to justify some sort of buyout by a VC firm, or Ad revenue from someone else looking to tap into their publishing reach.

It may sound so obvious that it’s stupid. That’s fair, but really think about that the next time you want to send a ‘How Much Do You Think I’m worth’ invitation to me. The same way a stripper acts like she likes you, is the same way these apps pretend to provide something you might care about.

Remember, the underlying motivation is to reach as many people as possible. That’s very different than trying to help as many people as possible.

And that brings me to the point:

What are all these networks about? Really. After a while; I’ve connected with enough old friends, I’ve shared enough fun facts, and I’ve wasted enough of my life. What now? Where’s the value? If some network is going to ask for some of the most important information you have, then shouldn’t it be really worth it?

That’s the point. The way most social networks are written now, to reach the broadest base possible, there simply isn’t any real value provided. Granted, some folks will probably use them incessantly. For the rest of us, there’s a world out there waiting for us. 

So, the challenge:

To all you Social Network Entrepreneurs out there, how about a social network that actually provides something worthwhile? The next big thing is social networks isn’t just being in a network that has a refined set of the same features as everyone else. The next big thing must have more than that, like a social network that raises the average users credit score or something. 

I suppose it’ll happen about the same time we get WYTIWYG editing

** UPDATE ** I’d be completely remiss if I didn’t thank Chris Scott, a local Orlando developer for showing me the following video. Dude, you are the man. Thanks again.

So, below I’ve attached a video of me playing the guitar. If you’re into Death Metal, and you also play, hit me up.

thx

And another video..

 

The Drive There.

Did I mention, we decided to rent an E-150 8 passenger van to get us up there? Well, that was the transportation idea. It seemed like a good idea at the time. There were 6 of us going up there from Melissa’s immediate family (parents, sister, sister’s boyfriend, and us). 

We left Thursday evening, around 6:30 from Altamonte Springs, heading to Savannah, GA for an overnight stay on the way up to NC. That was probably the most fun the drive was the entire time. We played the alphabet game on the way, and that’s always awesome (Thanks Molly for introducing me to it). 

Friday morning, we were up bright and early. We gassed up the van, to the tune of $90+ for three quarters a tank. The price of gas right now is a real bummer. I’m not waiting on our irresponsible government to figure that out. I’m staying home ;).

 

So, we got back on I-95 and headed north. We had the occasional pit-stop along the way, but we made decent time to NC. All was great until we got near where we were supposed to exit. I’d been relying on Mike (Melissa’s dad) for directions. Mike and Gail (Melissa’s mom) had been to our destination a lot. It’s one of Gail’s childhood homes. So I figured relying on them for directions was a sound idea.

Well, maybe …

 

First of all, Mike is a brilliant man. He can talk in depth about topics with the best of folks. He’s a really smart guy, who I have a lot of respect for (even if he does vote for democrats). However, when it comes to directions, locations, and driving; not so much. It’s weird too, since Mike’s been all over the world. If anyone should have a good idea on how to get around, you’d think it’d be him. Nope.

 

So, after we got turned around a little bit on our way to where some of Melissa’s family was staying in NC, outside of our final destination, we stopped for a late lunch. While they were eating, I did the sensible thing: I bought a map. After a bit of researching, I’d figured out the how and where of what we needed to do.

The First Stop

 

So, we showed up at where Glenn & Judie were staying, just outside of Bath, NC. It’s a small town along part of the innumerable miles of interior coastline of NC. The place itself was pretty awesome, built up on stilts with huge panel windows overlooking the sound. It’s the kind of place a writer or artist (or me) would go for months to work on some masterpiece.

 

When we got there, I noticed something wrong with my stomach. I had emergency surgery a few years back to repair my intestines, and because of that I have a pretty large scar on my abdomen, which crosses my belly-button. Well, I noticed a large inflammation of scar tissue surrounding my belly-button. It hurt pretty bad, and I chalked it up to the long hours inside of the van.

The entire Clausing side of Melissa’s family was there. The Clausings are a branch of the Raburns, for whom the reunion is dedicated. It’s a lot to explain, so just follow me here.

 

Gordon (the patriarch of the Clausings) & Carmen, Gary & Maria, Jeff & Gina, Glenn & Judie, Joe & Gloria, and of course Mike & Gail and all of their associated kids, Jenna & Evan, CJ & Austin & Cassidy, Brian & Allison, Sara & Josh, Melissa & Megan, were all there. It turns out it was Allison’s birthday too. I think she turned 14. She also freakin grew up a whole lot. The last I remember seeing her, she was 4′-6″. She’s about 5′-7″ now. Geez…

 

As the day faded to night, and the mosquitos started to begin their assault, we all got back the van and followed the caravan of cars to our final destination. We were staying in a double-wide trailer in Fairfield, NC. 

Now, I’m sure the sound of a double-wide doesn’t sound appealing, especially in such a remote area of the world. However, I grew up pretty honky, so I’m generally cool with stuff like that. 

Until I got there …

The Living Quarters.

 

We showed up at the Hyde-Away Motel around 10:00pm that night. We’d had a pretty long day, leaving from Savannah that morning, staying around Bath, NC for a few hours, and after a 90 minute additional drive, we were at our lodging location. When we finally got inside of the trailer, it was a quick disappointment. The trailer itself was muggy, and everything seemed generally dirty. Not dirty like grime everywhere, but dirty like, this stuff probably had more residual human skin lying around that I care to think of.

 

 

Melissa and I had the option to sleep in separate twin beds, or share one. Since she’s pretty squeamish, she made the decision we’d share a twin bed. We picked the one against a corner in the room, so I wouldn’t have to worry about falling off in the middle of the night. 

 

One of the other things keeping us up at night, was gunfire. It wasn’t hunting season, so I didn’t understand why we’d hear the sound of shotguns about every minute or two. It turns out, that a local farmer had the idea to build a contraption that fires blank gunshots when anything gets close to his crop. The idea is to scare away geese and deer. The result, is that it sounds like your in a war zone.

We woke up the next morning, after a very bad night’s sleep, we got up and got ready for the actual family reunion. My stomach was hurting pretty bad, and it looked like the inflammation I noticed the day before had gotten significantly worse. I don’t have health insurance, so a mysterious medical problem while out in the middle of nowhere seemed pretty unnerving. 

The Reunion

 

We packed up everyone and headed out to Raburn family house. It’s located just outside of downtown Swan Quarter. Don’t get the wrong idea though, the house was also surrounded by corn fields, and not much else. It’s a very old house, dating back to 1840. The front of the house is an addition added sometime in the early 1900’s. It has that old house smell that’s both charming and unsettling. There’s a lot of history there, and it felt pretty good to see a little bit of it.

 

 

After everyone else arrived at the house, we spent the afternoon getting to know each other, catch up with those we already knew, and play a few games. 

 

One of those games was kickball. 

I’m a pretty big dude. I used to work out all the time, so I’m also a marginally athletic guy too. Playing kickball with the family seemed like something I could do pretty well, even if my stomach was hurting like hell. There was about 70 people there for the reunion, so the teams were split up into 4 different teams of generally equal caliber members.

I was the pitcher for our team, as well as a home-run kicker too. 

And then I got hurt. 

 

There’s not a lot of dignity in a family kickball injury. I’m not gonna mis-represent the incredible lameness of landing on an ankle and screwing it up. However, when I fell on my ankle, and head snaps, pops, and crackles, I was not amused. It hurt like hell. Compounded with an already bad abdomen infection, I was pretty much worthless. Brian and John were able to carry me to a chair, where I stayed for the rest of the time we were there. It sucked a lot.

 

We left after a few more hours and headed to the church for dinner. The dinner was catered by a local woman, who apparently knew how to cook very very well. I stayed in a chair the whole time, collecting pictures from people for use on the family website. It was a pretty good time.

Afterwards, we went back to the trailer. Melissa was pretty upset about staying there again. Because of this, she did the best thing she could think of, to get over it: She got hammered. After a while, she convinced me to hobble over to one of the family’s rooms there so we could play Taboo. 

If you’ve never played Taboo before, you ARE missing out. A drunken game of Taboo is about the best value fun you can possible imagine with your friends. 

 

The next morning, I woke up to considerable ankle and abdomen pain. I checked my stomach out, and the inflammation was black and blue, and leaking infection. I managed to drain a little of it, which was completely horrible. It was blood and infection mixed together, and it smelled horrible. Definitely an infection.

 

 

I was able to collect myself enough to make it to church though. We sat towards the back, and I didn’t stand for the hymns. I think some of the folks there took offense to that. To them: I’m very sorry. 

 

The Beach

Afterwards we drove out towards Nag’s Head, NC. I guess it’s customary for the family to go out there during a get together in Swan Quarter. Well, this time it was just the 6 of us in the van that made it out there. We stayed in a hotel on the beach, which was an amazing step up from the previous place we’d been sleeping at.

When we got there, everyone else went out to the sand dunes around the area. There are sand dunes out there, that are probably 50 to 60 feet high. They’re huge, so everyone drove out there to walk around. 

I didn’t go. I stayed behind, to drain the rest of the infection from my belly. This time, there was no smell (thank god), and much less to drain. I used a heaping amount of hydrogen peroxide to clean it. That turned into a routine which seems to have paid off.

The Drive to South Carolina

The next day we drove to Charleston, SC as a pit-stop on our way back home. The drive to I-95 from Nag’s head is down 64, a 2 lane road though the middle of nowhere. Mike had been driving, on account of my injuries, so it took about 4 hours to get to I-95. We stopped shortly after reaching the interstate for a bathroom break. I was feeling car-sick, so I took over the driving responsibilities.

Downtown Best Western - Charleston, SC

We got to Charleston pretty early, about 4:30pm. We checked in and carried our stuff to our hotel rooms. When we got in our hotel rooms, I think Melissa wanted to cry. They were awesome. It became apparent then, how bad our stay in Fairfield had really been. We were in a Best Western, which shouldn’t raise any eyebrows for quality of lodging. Still, it was the kind of room you’d be stoked to sleep in anytime. They even had granite countertops in the bathroom. 

After re-cleaning the infection and a shower, we headed out to downtown Charleston to do a little sight-seeing. Charleston is a pretty cool place. It’s not the type of downtown I’m used to living near Orlando. Still it’s a cool place, with a lot of history.  

I hobbled around with everyone for as long as I could. Toward the end of the night my ankle was really killing me. It started to rain, and that was the catalyst to get us off the streets and back to the hotel.

The Drive Home

The next day, we packed up and headed home. By this time, we’d all had enough of each other. That’s not to say we were yelling at each other, or rude at all. However, it was apparent that all of our individual personality quirks were starting to stretch thin with each other. Megan’s constant insisting we have the radio on, Mike’s constant direction giving, everyone’s insisting we listen to the lamest music imaginable; I was ready to be done.

We got back to Megan’s house around 3:00pm. It didn’t take long to unpack her’s and Mickey’s stuff. Afterwards, we headed to my place and unpacked Melissa and my stuff, in the rain. Mike and Gail couldn’t stay long, since they needed to return the rental van before 4:45pm that day or be charged an additional day’s worth of rental. 

The left our house around 3:30pm and headed to the Thrifty Rental Car by the airport. It’s about a 45 minute drive out there, so we figured they’d be fine.

Apparently not…

The Rental Car Debacle

It turns out there was a fairly serious accident on I-4, so it took them twice as long to get to the rental location. What’s worse, they waited to get gas until they were close to the drop off. The local gas station there charges $5.49 a gallon for gas. I guess the gas station has been the subject of a lot of controversy, since it’s basically akin to price gouging. Regardless, Mike and Gail paid the extra for gas, then got robbed the additional hundred bucks for not getting the van back in time.

For all of my character differences with Mike, my heart really goes out to him and Gail. They did their best to have a family vacation everyone could remember. I can’t thank them enough for all they did, even if I’m going to remember the trip largely, by how much of a pain in the ass it was. I don’t care, I love you guys.

Also a million thanks to the greater Raburns family. I’ve always been made to feel welcome among them, and I appreciate it a lot.

:/

I’ve done some massive modifications of some of the older sites I’ve built in the past. Those sites, oconnorandtaylor.com, socons.com, and tradeproconstructionservices.com (go ahead and catch your breath), have taken up a substantial part of my life in the last couple weeks.

There’s not much coding going on in those sites. I built them on Drupal, so most of my work revolved around configuring the CMS, and getting everything setup in remote subversion. The task consuming all my time though, is the designing.

When I design a site, especially one that I’m getting paid a nominal fee for, I usually base the design off of some template, or theme to one of the more popular CMS packages. I know Drupal pretty well, so It’s not too much to hack a Wordpress or Joomla theme and make it work for Drupal.

The interesting thing about all of this however, is my keen interest in Flash. It’s funny to me, since I’ve been pretty anti-flash for a while. Actionscript 3 really provides a framework that I can get comfy in. I’ve yet to actually put anything out there that uses some of the more OO type patterns (observer being a quite common implementation). I suspect I will in the coming months though.

Anyways, I’m not a designer, so I’d like any feedback on the sites mentioned above. Some of y’all are pretty good at that kind of thing, and I could use the advice.

Thanks in advance.

Dr. Doom.

That’s not to take away from the incredible significance of what July 4th is to everyone else. I suppose it’s easy to forget, or take for granted, the awesome opportunities we have in the United States. The bravery and commitment it must have taken, to violently break from from an oppressive government, is awe-inspiring.

But that’s exactly what is inspiring me to go ‘indie’ …

While I certainly don’t have to resort to war, or worry about death as a consequence of my own ‘liberation’, I do have a mortgage, and all the other associated bills that so many Americans struggle with every day. By leaving a steady job, I leave the security of steady income. The consequences of that, often feel like impending death. I’ve had a hard time sleeping lately. I wake up in the night, with pain in my chest, from the stress of it all.

But with consequence, comes the potential for great reward …

When the US declared it’s independence, and successfully fought to keep it, we opened the door of opportunity to become the most amazing country in modern times, possibly ever. Despite what you might hear on CNN tonight, or what the regulars on Digg like to say about this country, there truly is no better place to live in the world. The reason? Opportunity. There simply is no other government in the world that provides opportunity on a silver platter like this country. It may sound cliche, but if you can dream it, this country won’t stop you from doing it.

So, with my own departure from a stable job, at an up-and-coming startup, I’ve opened the door to a level of opportunities that I simply wouldn’t have otherwise. I don’t know what’s in store for me, but I do know I’ve met some amazing folks, who I hope to work with on projects that will change the world (hopefully).

I’ve no illusions about what this means for me. The rewards that may come my way, aren’t without stupendous amounts of work due to realize them. That’s fine with me. I’ve come from a family of working types, and I’ve done more than mine (and your) fair share of work. The difference between before, and now, is that I’ll be the one deciding how I’ll get it done.

I’ve leaned on a few folks for advice in making the decisions I’ve made lately. You know who you are, and I’ll never be able to repay all of you for all the help you’ve been to me.

The way it happened, a bolt of lightning hit a tree behind my house. The saturated soil acted as a conductor and the voltage from the strike traveled to my irrigation system, causing severe damage to the irrigation system, as well as my cable and power.

The current blew up my sprinkler control panel, sending pieces of the device into my roof. I was just on the other side of the wall when that happened (in the bathroom, sick) , so the noise I heard was probably the scariest thing I’d ever heard.

I was screaming “OH SHIT!”

How ironic …..

Immediately the power went out. Given that it was still down-pouring, I had no way to know what had actually happened to the house. I cleaned myself up, and comforted the dog, who was justifiably terrified. I waited about an hour before walking outside, to try to trip the main breaker outside the house.

When I got there, I noticed that more was wrong, than a simple fuse trip. I don’t have a cell phone, so I went to a neighbor’s house to call my wife, and ask her to start calling the insurance company, as well as the power company.

It turns out she was super-busy at work so she couldn’t take either of my calls. She did see the call, but didn’t recognize the number.

Since I wasn’t having luck reaching her, I found Progress Energy’s number from my neighbor and called them myself. When I finally reached someone, I was promptly warned that they were quite busy. It was going to take some time before my power was restored.

Melissa came home, and we called Progress Energy again, for a status update:

“Your service time is scheduled for .. 11:59pm

That was bad news, especially since it was so hot that night. So we made backup plans to stay at a friends house, if nobody showed up to get our power back on.

Folks did show up however, and after a few hours, and a few ideas, our power was restored. The ‘Pot’ that was sitting atop a power pole outside of our house was destroyed. Apparently, the voltage from the lightning strike managed to climb the service line to my house, and destroy the stepping mechanism 20 feet in the air.

The work it takes to replace those things is impressive. The existing pot weight 575 lbs, while the new one tips the scales at a leaner 295lbs. Why so much weight? There’s a huge copper coil in those things, and it’s all encased in oil. The oil acts as a coolant to the coils in the box. So, if oil really starts getting expensive, just remember: there’s some right around the corner!

My irrigation system is severely damaged. 3 solenoids are destroyed, there’s a break in a 1″ line in the middle of the yard, and my controller box is completely gone (I found pieces of it over 100 feet away). I got an estimate to repair today, which came in around $1,000. I really hope my insurance premium is less than that…

I had to wait around all day for Brighthouse to replace my cable service, which was also fried. The tech finally showed up around 3:30 today, and it took him about 2 hours to complete his work. When he was done, I still had no internet. Turns out, the power surge had fried my cable box, cable modem, and traveled through cat5e cable to destroy my wireless router as well.

I pride myself on having a good sense of humor. This is a great example of that. As horrible as the situation was, it’s something that I’ll be able to laugh at for a long time to come.

Melissa and I went on a date last Saturday night in downtown Sanford. For those of you who don’t know Sanford, it’s a small town about a half hour north of Orlando, situated at the south end of Lake Monroe. As you might have figured, not very much happens in Sanford on a regular basis. The big news lately: 

On March 24, 2008, the City Commission adopted a temporary noise amnesty ordinance which suspends Section 38-63 (b)(1) of the current ordinance for a period of 90 calendar days from March 24, 2008 in the special commercial zoning district (SC-3). The SC-3 

So Melissa and I went there for a date. We first stopped to make reservations at our restaurant of choice for the evening, Hollerbach’s Willow Tree Cafe. There was a wait, so we passed the time at a local wine bar, The Sanford Wine Company. If we had already eaten dinner, we could have stayed there all night. 

We didn’t however. The Hollerbach has an ingenious way of letting you know your table is ready: they call your cell phone. I can’t believe that nobody has though of this amazing idea before. It doesn’t tie you down to the restaurant, and management saves a ton of money. That’s how Melissa and were able to go to the wine bar while we waited for a table to open up. 

So, they called us and we went in for dinner. 

The Hollerbach (I can hear Gwen Stefani right now), is pretty typical of most German restaurants. Well, it’s pretty typical of most, that are actually IN Germany. The food was awesome, management has the good sense to keep a lot of people working there, and there’s live German music too.

The beer selection is pretty kick-ass there as well. When I went to Germany with some of the team at NFi last October, I was pretty disappointed with the beer there. I’m a stout kinda guy, and most beers I could find at the time were either a lager or a pilsner. Well, in Sanford, FL I found a really good German beer. It’s more of a porter, but it was awesome. Now, if I could just remember the name of it…

We intend on heading back there soon. We have friends in Deland and Deltona (not Daytona), so Sanford is a good meeting place for us. If you get the chance to go up there, I really recommend it. The folks out there were really nice, and we had a really good time.

This guy had some intial transition issues, and turned it into an excuse to write about the ‘flaws’ of switching to Mac. His company uses lame software that was specifically designed for windows, and complains about Mac not working for it. It’s a weird argument, ’cause he prefixes all of this by saying he’s been a Mac user for years. The issues he complains about are largely encountered by newbs. Either he’s a liar, or he’s playing ‘Devils Advocate’ for the inevitable issues new Mac converts will face.

While it is mega-lame, it does give some validity to his argument. Many small business ARE using terrible software, and would be faced with serious costs if they chose to change software and hardware at the same time. Remember, most business users don’t like computers. They’re a tool for doing a job they don’t want to do.

So the issue here really is, ‘Do you like your job’? because if you do, then you would want to use the best possible equipment to get it done. You would want to be as efficient at your job as you possibly could. If your job sucks however, then you probably just want to get it done and get out.

That’s sort of the “State Of Business” for much of corporate America. There’s a reason why everyone you meet loves ‘Office-Space’. It’s because most people have shitty jobs. It might seem like a stretch, but I think there’s a real correlation between Mac / PC users and folks with good / bad jobs.

Figure it like this: if your employer doesn’t want to fork an extra thousand bucks on a computer that works more efficiently for you, do you think they’re gonna provide any other incentives?

Doubt it.

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There will be a test…

Florida Drivers Handbook

We almost didn’t go. It took us about 2 hours to get to the area, where we quickly got lost. After about a half hour figuring out where we were supposed to go, we made another 15 minute trip to the campgrounds. When we got there, we were alarmed by a massive line to get into the campgrounds.

A local field was filling up with campers in a modern-day Woodstock type of outdoor free-for-all. A young staff member walked by claiming that nobody else would get inside. We waited anyways, and were rewarded with entry. The dilemma was taxing on us though. Melissa and I were quite grumpy when we finally got in.

Once we did get in, we made a bee-line through the open field mayhem. People stood in the middle of roads, while others (cops even) walked right in front of us. It was like being around a swarm of mindless zombies. When we finally were parked we quickly poured ourselves a well-deserved beverage.

Cell phone reception in Ginnie Springs is practically non-existent. So when we parked (and drank), we didn’t know how to find her sister and company. Me being me though, I figured “walk first, think later”. That worked out pretty well for us. Within 15 minutes, we’d found Megan and the gang. Mickey helped me get some of our stuff from our car that we’d left behind.

We tried to setup our tent once we got our stuff settled. This proved to be an issue. We borrowed the tent from Melissa’s parents for the trip. Nobody had used the tent in 15 years. It turns out, the tent was missing vital components. Enter Dan. A huge thanks goes out to Dan for having a big spare tent for us. Dan, I really owe you.

We hung out for while, before we all made the trip to the head of the springs. The standard procedure is to get to the head of the springs, where you float on a tube to the end of the park. So piled into a large pickup truck with a cartoon-like amount of tubes spilling over the sides of it.

The trip to the head of the river was like being on a roller-coaster ride. The roads at the campground aren’t paved. They’re also only big enough for 2 compact cars to be on at the same time. So, you can imagine what it was like to have multitudes of big trucks driving on it, over loaded with rafts and tubes and drunken people.

Once we got to the top, we made our way into the water. There were 10 of us, with rafts tied togher with cheap twine. One of the larger rafts held a cooler filled with beer. The water was pretty cold too. The whole trip down the river takes about two and a half hours.

After our trip, we made it back to our campsite. I went back to our car to get more of our stuff, which was a reasonable distance away with a barb wire fence, and a chicken wire fence in the way. Melissa helped me out with some stuff a little later in the evening.

We cooked bratwursts for dinner on a grill that Brian brought with him. Everyone had brought something to cook, so there was a sizable sampling of food to go around.

After dinner, the reality of our environment really started to dawn on me. We were surrounded by thousands of kids, probably no more than 21, camping in a place that had public restrooms nearby. Car after car blared gangster rap, which was hilarious given the surroundings. Folks used fog horns, and sirens in off road golf carts. Others lit off fireworks.

The friends we were with were getting super hammered. It was cool, but a little unnerving. The sheer volume of liquor that our friends were drinking was reason enough to be concerned. Add to that however, that we were camping, and the whole thing was a little terrifying. Don’t get me wrong: we had a good time. But the craziness of the event was amazing.

We fell asleep (I don’t know how, it was super loud outside) around midnight. Every so often we’d wake up to some crashing sound, or cluster of fireworks, or fog horn. Around 5am, we woke up to some of our buddies outside trying to get one of our friends to his tent.

The story goes: he was incredibly drunk, and they were helping him walk to his tent. He whipped out his pecker, and started peeing. He was inadvertently peeing on them. They let go of him. He stumbled into my tent. I put my foot up to prevent him from falling into me. He bounced off of my foot, and fell to the ground beside my tent.

Melissa and I heard a few things while that was going on. Quotes that we’ll remember forever. Things like:

• ” … dude, you pissin’ on my leg … “
• ” … shit, his dick is hangin’ out …”
• ” … yo, get his leg … “

So when we woke up the next morning, it was quite interesting to see the rest of the gang crawl out of their tents. One of the couples argued about the previous night’s insanity. Other folks rested late. Around noon, we all piled up in the truck again for another trip down the river.

It’s funny, the kind of things that go on there. We watched one girl take her pants off to pee in front of us, while another group of people threw water balloons at us. That’s pretty much normal at Ginnie Springs on a holiday weekend.

After our second time down the river, we packed up and left. It was a fun time, but exhausting. If any one wants to head out there, let me know. I’d love to go back.

Regardless, the first thing I always do, is check that the email address is valid. It might sound funny, but just like that hot girl might have given you a phony number, you might have the wrong email address. This happens a lot more often then you might think.

So, how do you check the email? Enter Telnet to the rescue. Don’t worry, Telnet is cross platform. If you have Linux, Mac, or Windows (geez), you can use Telnet to figure out if the e-mail address you’re trying to reach is valid. It’s one of the few things that seem to work on damn near any operating system you can think of.

Sooo go ahead and fire up Terminal (or Command Prompt). Once you’ve gotten that done, you’ll need to type in ‘telnet’. You’ll see a window, something similar to the one below:

Now, you’ll need to get the domain name of the mail server you’re trying to check the email address against. This is not as easy as just checking the domain name itself. Nearly always, the mail server for a domain is mail.domain.com. So, if you’re checking the valid email address for JoeBalls@physics.org, then the mail server is probably mail.physics.org. It’s a much bigger topic than I’ve got to cover here. I’ll get to that later. So let’s just say the right email server is mail.physics.org. 

So, type in ‘open mail.physics.org smtp’ in the command prompt. In case you’re a little confused, it should look like the following:

So, after you enter this, you’ll see the telnet program try to connect to an IP address. If it works, then you’ll get a message about an escape character, as well as the mail server’s welcome message. If you’ve gotten here, then pat yourself on the back. You’ve at least gotten a valid mail server. We’ll assume for now, it’s the right one.

The next thing to do, is type in the following command: ‘HELO mail.example.com’. It’s probably more effective to use a valid mail server for this, but this is supposed to be a simple tutorial. So anyways, after you type in ‘HELO …’, you’ll see something similar to the following:

This is kinda like saying ‘Hi, I’m Cory’. Ehh, don’t worry about it. Now, you’ll have to enter who this test email is from. Usually can use anything that looks like a valid email address. I usually use dude@example.com. So, here it is:

 

So, the way to check the validity of the email (That’s right, we’re at the climax …. drumroll please ….), is to type ‘RCPT TO:’ and the email address you want to check. I’m using Gmail as a mail proxy these days, so I don’t mind handing out my email address: corycollier@corycollier.com. Go ahead and spam me, I dare you.

Yeah, so go ahead and test that email. So, it looks like ‘RCPT TO: corycollier@corycoller.com’, and a visual representation looks like:

Wait, it didn’t tell me anything??!?

Ahhh, but yes it did. This mail server returned a number, before it returned anything else. That number, is ALWAYS a three digit number. 2xx, 3xx, 4xx, or 5xx. 2xx indicates success. So, the 250 blah blah blah, basically means that the email address is valid. Sorta anti-climatic? Maybe, but what’s the end result? You’ve just made sure that an email address is valid. Give yourself another pat on the back.

So, just in case you were wondering, I wrote this tutorial on Melissa’s MacBook. Thanks honey for volunteering your computer long enough for me to write this. Then again, you’re watching American Idol, so I doubt you need the computer right now. And, since this is a tech tutorial, I doubt you’ve read this far.

Sound too good to be true? It’s available to you right now. Thanks god, errr…. google…..

Get Google To Store All Your Email

First, login to gmail (yeah, you have to login first :/ ). Next, find the ‘Settings’ link in the top right of your browser.

Once you’ve clicked on that, you’ll see the settings page, with some options in the top. You’ll want to click the ‘Accounts’ link in the top left

After you’ve gotten there, notice the region (towards the bottom of the page) that says ‘Get mail from other accounts’.

This is where you’ll add email accounts from. Go ahead and click the ‘Add account’ link. After you do this, you should be presented with a pop-up window that will ask you for the email address you wish to replicate on google. It looks like this:

Go ahead and enter whatever email address you want to use, and click ‘Next Step’. After you’ve gotten that accomplished, you’ll be presented with something slightly more involved. Don’t worry it’s not too tough to get through.

So, the first thing you enter is your username. Most of the time, that will be your full email address. Your password is, well, your password. The POP server is something for you to figure out. Usually, it’s mail.your-domain.com. So, if your email address is joeballs@physics.org, then the POP server is probably mail.physics.org. Sometimes it’s pop.physics.org, or pop3.physics.org.

Anyways, once you figure that out, and get it in there, you have a few choices to make.

The checkbox that allows you to leave a copy of the retrieved message on the server can be important. I think I speak for sys admins accross the internet when I say ‘Dont check this box!’. The reason: if you leave this box unchecked, google will remove a message from your server once google downloads it. That’s great for disk space, and since google seems to be growing hard drives on trees, they might as well do all the storing.

The next option you have, is to use SSL when connecting to your POP server. If your POP server supports this option, do it. While it’s not likely, it is possible for someone to see your emails as Google downloads them from your mail server. Since e-mail is usually personal, you probably don’t want this to happen.

After that, there’s the option to label incoming messages. I really recommend you do this, especially if you’re using more than one email account here. It really helps to distinguish which email was sent to which address.

Finally, you have the option to Archive incoming messages, so they never hit your inbox. I never use this option, so I can’t really speak to why you’d want to. I’m sure some of you have a reason, so try that one at your own leisure.

Get Google To Send Mail For You

Having Google store all of your mail is only half the battle. The next part, is having google send mail for you too. Back in the ‘Accounts’ tab of the ‘Settings’ page, find the area for ‘Send mail as:’

You have the option to add an email address here. Go ahead and click this. Once you do, another pop-up window will appear that will look like this:

You’ll be prompted for your name and email address. You even have the option to specifiy a different reply-to email address. Go ahead and fill those 2 fields out, then click ‘Next Step’. Then, you’ll be presented with another window :

This is a prompt to let you know an email will be sent to the email address you’re trying to send as. This helps prevent other people from sending mail on your behalf without you knowing about it. Go ahead and click the ‘Send Verification’ button. Google will now send you an email verifying that you actually have a right to send mail as that email. When you get the email, click the link in it, and you’re done.

Wrapping Up …

Google has an awesome ability to filter spam and viruses from email. Using Gmail as a proxy for your email cuts down on the spam you recieve, and the likelyhood you’ll get a virus from your buddy. Even better, you get to use gmail’s awesome web interface for all of your email.

Currently Gmail supports IMAP integration as well, so your email client (or iPhone) can use IMAP to replicate folders (labels) in GMail. I’ve heard that’s a little buggy right now, but I’m sure fixes are on the way.