This is the pricing information from ZoneAlarm’s web site for their ZoneAlarm Pro firewall software. Be sure to get the 2 year deal if you hate money!
No, it’s not September, the title of the post is what sucks. Last month, for me at least, was one of the worst months ever. It wasn’t the worst month in the sense that my children were run over by buses or my wife was killed in an auto crash it was the worst in the sense of a huge number of moments and events during the month that yielded the key phrase “are you fucking kidding me?”
Some examples? Ok let’s take a look at money. I work as a consultant/contract programmer and also have some side income from some poker strategy websites I run. Last month every single income source was either late or non-existent. Normally I rely on certain things happening fairly consistently and getting paid is one of them. Yes, for the last year or so I’ve been living paycheck to paycheck and during September “living” became equal to dieting (not that I couldn’t use it!).
I blame the people in third world countries for eating my fat American food. No, not really.
Having the income problems during September wasn’t what made it the worst month, though, that’s merely the canvas onto which the image of WTFs was painted.
Ok here’s one. A few months ago we had a new stereo installed in the car from Best Buy. It’s one of the ones that you hook your iPod into so you can listen to music instead of keeping a classy looking visor full of CDs on the passenger side of your car (oh it’s still there as a backup). Now there are a lot of “Are you fucking kidding me” things about this device in the first place even without the energy sucking month of September involved—for example all functions are controlled by the worst possible controller (a dial that you can also push straight down or click in one of the four cardinal directions to select things… without labels… and instructions written by a non-native English speaker… that feels like it’s going to snap off when you use it… that sometimes registers a ‘straight down’ click as one of the other kind of clicks… that moves between the 5000 songs on the iPod when using the dial at about 1 per second per song… you get the picture. ANYHOW, this month this piece of digital feces managed to come up with something worse than breaking! It now starts playing music for a little while, then turns off and starts beeping and then a few seconds later turns on and repeats. AND THERE’S NO WAY TO STOP IT. Believe me, this makes any trip a special trip.
My fiancé's cap fell off of one of her teeth and started aching in a serious way on the weekend when we had no money or for that matter insurance. She slept for a week on a cold can of soda and looked like a chipmunk storing nuts for the winter.
My sister who has been gainfully employed as a nurse for 8 years lost her job, got another and then lost that job as well. This story is long and I won’t get into the details here but will just leave you with the suggestion that you not put your parents in nursing homes and instead shoot them with salt covered bullets instead. Believe me you’ll be doing them a favor.
A swarm of bees decided to make their home in the backyard, and in typical September 2009 fashion inserted an unlubricated are you fucking kidding me into the first are you fucking kidding me when large numbers of them just started dying without any intervention from me littering dozens of bee corpses all over the back porch area so we have the worst of both worlds: the trouble of having a million bees around and the reminder that our planet is doomed.
There’s much more but just writing about it is stressing me out and I don’t want irony overload when the actual writing of the post about September sucking is what pushes me over the edge. The strange thing is I get the impression that September sucked more than other months for a lot of people. If you’re one of them I’d love to hear your story.
Dell warranty service finally repaired my PC (for details see the Dell Sucks blog entry). The issue turned out to be a burnt out capacitor on the motherboard and the motherboard took THREE WEEKS to arrive. That’s three weeks without access to a critical PC and that’s after suffering at least an hour of disassembling my PC for the Indian tech support person over the phone.
This really is the definition of total suckage and for me at least is a reason to consider other PCs when it is next time to upgrade. In the past Dell’s superb warranty service was the reason I chose the computer and why 75% of the PCs that I own are Dells. Unfortunately the past is the last and in the present their service is the pits, and that is no gift.
Yes it’s suckage that it’s taken this long but at least at the end of this month you’ll be able to shoot those pictures, etc. to your friends. In case you didn’t see the hint, AT&T MMS support for iPhone will happen September 25th, 2009.
A couple of days ago one of the Dell PCs here stopped working abruptly with a brief blue screen and then a full instant power down and the absolute refusal to power up again. After checking the usual suspects (opening the case clearing dust and letting the system cool down) the problem persisted so it was time to give Dell Technical support a call.
The first step, of course, is to get the phone number to call. A trip over to support.dell.com reveals a website that looks like it should be quite helpful, yet in reality tries to make it difficult to find something as simple as the phone number to call for technical support.
If you fall into the trap of clicking on Technical Support here they will try to get you to do anything except talk to a live person. The first step is to find your “Service Tag Number” which is attached to my Dell account (I have two Dell PCs under warranty). When you enter the Technical Support section the first thing they do is ask for your Service Tag Number. They could just provide a dropdown field with your existing systems and their service tag numbers but where is the sport in that? Instead you have to either find the small tag on your system or find the spot on the Dell website that shows your service tag numbers. I chose to find my tag number on the web site (hint: not the correct choice).
The technical support page offers to find your service tag number but that only works 1. If you are using Internet Explorer (and not Firefox as I do) and 2. If you are using the computer that you need technical support for (which, when you think about, isn’t likely) I’ve put a big red arrow on the image below showing you the actual choice you should make to determine the Service Tag number of your system.
Once I had the service tag number I copied it into the box and went on hoping I could talk to someone at tech support. However I was instead lead to a troubleshooting wizard. See if this intro doesn’t make you pee your pants:
Hand Tools? Removing and Replacing Parts? Reinstalling Windows and Drivers? That’s right Grandma now stop complaining and get out your soldering iron! To actually talk to someone (which is what I wanted to do in the first place) you can click on the “Contact Us” link. Well to be fair you won’t quite get to talk to someone yet but this is the correct next step.
After you click on “Contact Technical Support” above you are taking to this screen:
Did you think I was exaggerating that they make it as difficult as possible to talk to a technical support person (and spoiler alert: once you do talk to them you’ll wish you hadn’t)? After you click on Call Technical Support (shouldn’t this be on the FIRST PAGE?). You’ll need to enter your Service Tag again. You did write it down didn’t you (I hadn’t). Well you do remember what page to go to to get the list of service tags again don’t you (I didn’t):
After you’ve entered your Service Tag again you will be shown a simple 11 digit number. Memorize this number because the tech person you are about to speak to will want it (not really)
You’ve done it my good man! You are now ready to talk to technical support! Simply call their technical support phone number (keep that express service code available!) which is:
Dell Technical Support:
1-866-243-9297
and you’ll be speaking to someone in India very shortly (that’s not a joke). And what’s the first thing they ask you? If you answered express service code then you are wrong. Try your Service Tag which is of course not re-displayed on the final contact screen from the website (hahaha!) so you must go back and find it again. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Once I got someone on the phone and described the situation with my PC to them they started having me slowly disassemble my computer. Now you may misunderstand that to mean “open my computer case” but that was merely the beginning of me taking every component out of the PC (at their request, one by one) trying to make the computer turn the solid yellow light on the power button into some other color light (presumably green). After about 30 minutes I had two SLI video cards, a soundblaster card, 4 sticks of RAM and three ribbon cables sitting randomly around me. That’s right, the only thing left attached to the motherboard was the power supply and the CPU and the symptoms were still the same.
The last step for her was to have me remove the ribbon cable from a daughterboard that connected to the power button (as if the power button was somehow the culprit). I suggested that it looked like this would cause the light to go out completely when we tried again. It did. Five more minutes on hold and she “dispatched” a tech person to come onsite (because I have one of those 7 days a week onsite warrantees) and gave me this dispatch number. This was at about 7 or 8pm on August 18th. When the 20th rolled around and I hadn’t heard anything I called support again and asked. The person there said that the tech hadn’t received the part (in this case the motherboard and power supply) and expected it Friday night (yes, she said he expected it at night which I did think was strange) and that because I had Saturday/Sunday coverage that he’d call on Friday and come out on Saturday.
He didn’t call, he didn’t come and after a call today the parts are still out. The hollow shell of my Dell computer (which used to be my sole work computer) sits near its cards and cables and waits for some dude to come over and do major (replace the motherboard in someone’s house? This I have to see….) work on my kitchen table or something. I’ll post an update when this issue is finally resolved but even now it’s clear that their service is pretty poor and that’s definitely disappointing considering the fact that it used to be pretty good.
People who write public blogs often want to promote them. I’m not 100% certain but I am guessing that often times one of the things these people do (ok it’s me!) is search for promote blog in Google. There are a number of interesting results in the free section but one real eye-catcher in the paid advertising section:
Distribute my blog posts for free AND it’s free as well?! Holy shiznit I wonder if it’s free?
The idea behind their site is that you can sign up your blogs and then your posts are sucked up and placed on otherwise empty domain names owned by clients of whypark.com along with links (even better ONE WAY links) back to your actual blog. The people who provide whypark with all these websiteless domains get money somehow, presumably from advertising that is placed along with all those blog posts. Content on the sites gets indexed by search engines and your empty domain name is suddenly an actual domain with actual content getting actual hits from search engines.
Sounds like a win-win scenario so far. The total suckage part is that whypark has almost no support for their content promotion site. That means, for example, that there is no help on the website and if your feeds are turned down (as this blog was) they simply mark your submission “declined, must revise” which might leave some people wondering what exactly they should revise and how exactly they should resubmit after they make such a revision.
The general contact email for the site is support@whypark.com so I emailed them and asked them what I should actually revise on the blogs I submitted to them. A person named Kelly Urquhart responded that “Most declines are because the posts are commonly too short or provide very little text content. We like syndicate (sic) text with over 250 words per posting on average”. Well Ok I said, this blog and others should generally fall within the 250 word rule and asked her if there was something else going on?
Kelly Replied:
I am not a part of the approval department for Content Promote, but I know the common reasons for a feed being declined include:
- You are not offering a full-text RSS or XML feed. Summaries are not accepted as we can only syndicate full text content through our network.
- Posts are commonly too short or provide little text content. We like to syndicate text with over 250 words per posting on average.
- The content is inappropriate for syndication
First I have to wonder why if she’s not part of the approval department she replied to my question about approval. Notice that there is no reference to who (if anyone) actually IS in the approval department. The RSS feed is fine for this blog and the post length should be about right so we’re left with content that is inappropriate for syndication without any known rules for what is appropriate and what isn’t.
Because whypark.com is a company that depends on blogger’s posts to exist I would think they would have a more blogger-friendly system in place. Since they don’t I am personally done with them. If you have a blog I’d consider avoiding them as well.
Once place that does seem to work as advertised is Zimbio which adds your blog posts to its own wikizines and provides the same one way linkbacks to your actual blog. For the most part they have a very decent interface and picking and choosing blog posts to publish is simple. And no, I’m not being paid to say that.
You know, I honestly had wanted to use this blog for the technical things that frustrated me but the world keeps throwing other things at me that frustrate me even more. Sarah Palin recently made a post on Facebook suggesting that the proposed healthcare reform would create what she called death panels which would determine who is worth of health care.
There are no death panels in the healthcare reform package.
MoveOn.org has released a list of the “Top 5 Health Care Lies” and the truths behind them. Here’s the scoop (and note there are actual factual sources you can actually check to verify these—unlike ex-governors who just like to spit vitriol):
Lie #1: President Obama wants to euthanize your grandma!!!
The truth: These accusations—of "death panels" and forced euthanasia—are, of course, flatly untrue. As an article from the Associated Press puts it: "No 'death panel' in health care bill."1 What's the real deal? Reform legislation includes a provision, supported by the AARP, to offer senior citizens access to a professional medical counselor who will provide them with information on preparing a living will and other issues facing older Americans.2
If you'd like to read the actual section of the legislation that spawned these outrageous claims (Section 1233 of H.R. 3200) for yourself, here it is. It's pretty boring stuff, which is why the accusations that it creates "death panels" is so absurd. But don't take our word for it, read it yourself.
Lie #2: Democrats are going to outlaw private insurance and force you into a government plan!!!
The truth: With reform, choices will increase, not decrease. Obama's reform plans will create a health insurance exchange, a one-stop shopping marketplace for affordable, high-quality insurance options.3 Included in the exchange is the public health insurance option—a nationwide plan with a broad network of providers—that will operate alongside private insurance companies, injecting competition into the market to drive quality up and costs down.4 If you're happy with your coverage and doctors, you can keep them.5 But the new public plan will expand choices to millions of businesses or individuals who choose to opt into it, including many who simply can't afford health care now.
Lie #3: President Obama wants to implement Soviet-style rationing!!!
The truth: Health care reform will expand access to high-quality health insurance, and give individuals, families, and businesses more choices for coverage. Right now, big corporations decide whether to give you coverage, what doctors you get to see, and whether a particular procedure or medicine is covered—that is rationed care. And a big part of reform is to stop that.
Health care reform will do away with some of the most nefarious aspects of this rationing: discrimination for pre-existing conditions, insurers that cancel coverage when you get sick, gender discrimination, and lifetime and yearly limits on coverage.6 And outside of that, as noted above, reform will increase insurance options, not force anyone into a rationed situation.
Lie #4: Obama is secretly plotting to cut senior citizens' Medicare benefits!!!
The truth: Health care reform plans will not reduce Medicare benefits.7 Reform includes savings from Medicare that are unrelated to patient care—in fact, the savings comes from cutting billions of dollars in overpayments to insurance companies and eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.8
Lie #5: Obama's health care plan will bankrupt America!!!
The truth: We need health care reform now in order to prevent bankruptcy—to control spiraling costs that affect individuals, families, small businesses, and the American economy. Right now, we spend more than $2 trillion dollars a year on health care.9 The average family premium is projected to rise to over $22,000 in the next decade10—and each year, nearly a million people face bankruptcy because of medical expenses.11 Reform, with an affordable, high-quality public option that can spur competition, is necessary to bring down skyrocketing costs. Also, President Obama's reform plans would be fully paid for over 10 years and not add a penny to the deficit.12
P.S. Want more? Check out this great new White House "Reality Check" website: http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/ or this excellent piece from Health Care for America Now on some of the most outrageous lies: http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51729
Sources:
1. "No 'death panel' in health care bill," Associated Press, August 10, 2009. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51747
2. "Stop Distorting the Truth about End of Life Care," Huffington Post, July 24, 2009. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51730
3. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 11, 2009. http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#i1
4. "Why We Need a Public Health-Care Plan," Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2009. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51737
5. "Obama: 'If You Like Your Doctor, You Can Keep Your Doctor,'" Wall Street Journal, 15, 2009. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51736
6. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009. http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#r1
7. "Obama: No reduced Medicare benefits in health care reform," CNN, July 28, 2009. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51748
8. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009. http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#s1
9. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009. http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#c1
10. "Premiums Run Amok," Center for American Progress, July 24, 2009. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51667
11. "Medical bills prompt more than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies," CNN, June 5, 2009. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51735
12. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009. http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#c1Sources for the Five Lies:
#1: "A euthanasia mandate," The Washington Times, July 29, 2009. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51732
#2: "It's Not An Option," Investor's Business Daily, July 15, 2009. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51743
#3: "Rationing Health Care," The Washington Times, April 21, 2009. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51742
#4: "60 Plus Ad Is Chock Full Of Misinformation," Media Matters for America, August 8, 2009. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51734
#5: "Obama's 'Public' Health Plan Will Bankrupt the Nation," The National Review, May 13, 2009. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51744
