LaserBlog.com

and how am I spending my Saturday night?

It all started when I figured I’d make a photoblog for certain photos. Most of my photography can be seen by going through the category links on the right sidebar. But I wanted to make a photoblog-style photoblog for certain types of photos: photos entered in contests or themed photo projects.

I really like some of the photoblogs I’ve seen, and the best are MT generated.

I thought of just using a textamerica moblog, but I just paid money to make my main moblog ad-free, and so now if I make a seperate one for just a photoblog, it’ll have ads. And that just seems dumb since I just paid good money to remove ads, so why add a section to my site that has ads?

So I figured I’d try my hand at an MT (moveable type) photoblog here at laserblog.com. MT gives me a headache (all those tags and they don’t always do what I want them to) and as Christine says, “ CSS makes my eyes bleed“.

I searched google for some guildes and they all talk about stuff I’m not sure about like MT extras, and then alot of the photoblogs that I like seem to use PHP.

So when faced w/ a technical challenge, I like to tackle it, so here I am w/ my CSS book and my new PHP book.

Tired (again).
Up late (again).
What’s new….

Z is great, audible sux, went for indian w/ friends, saw a UFO last night, saw a tongue WAY worse than Sasha’s the other day.

TechTV was talking about this software called FairPlay which allowed people to play iTunes music on non-ipod mp3 players. It got shut down but now you can get it offshore.

There’s a program that does the same thing for audible’s aa files (makes them into mp3′s and other formats), it’s called GoldWave.

Companies shouldn’t dictate what PLAYER you play your PAID FOR files on. And besides that, what happens when the stupid companies can’t even write their software properly and the paying customer can’t even play the files they paid for ON the DESIGNATED device?

Hmmm.

An ethernet-enabled pet bowl:
http://www.techtv.com/freshgear/products/story/0,23008,3522601,00.html

iseepet is a pet feeder w/ a webcam built in, ethernet, and you remotely control it from any internet computer. It plays a tune (think Pavlov’s dog) when you dispense food and you can watch poochie come running and chow down.

I swear. Guess how much time I spent on the phone today w/ customer support? An hour and 50 minutes! My ass was numb, my elbow was numb, my arm was sore. In the end, did they fix anything?

Well, they SORT OF got thir software talking to my palm, but it would not recognize all the room on my memory card (this was at the END of the almost 2-hour long phone call). Then they said “reformat that card and if that fixes it great, and if that doesn’t fix it then you need a new card”. So I hung up cuz my ass was numb and my arm was about to fall off. I reformatted the memory card and that did not fix anything. I put in a NEW memory card and that did not fix anything. Obviously this place can’t write software to save their lives. Then it stopped communicating w/ the palm. Then it started giving me awful errors. Then all I could do was reset reset reset to use my palm at all. It said there were files on the new blank card when the new card was blank.

It’s nuts. All this work because they’re SO afraid to give their customers flexible files once they have their money.

Oh yeah, and since they gave me a discount code to buy my ipod mini, I CANNOT CANCEL my 12-month subscription to the service. I pay them, they give me nothing, I have no recourse.

You know…

Companies work so hard to enforce DRM that they force honest paying customers to hack.

These companies can’t write software to save their lives, causing the PAYING customer to, a) not be able to use what they PAID for, and b) go f*cking crazy.

So these honest and paying customers have to resort to third-party software written by hackers just to access and playback the files that they paid for, that they rightfully own.

It’s rediculous. If companies would just stop treating their customers like potential criminals, the world would be a better place.

Now the fucking hotsync is locked up. There are no words that can express my anger that would not land me either in jail or an asylum.

Mad at technology today. I’ve had SO much trouble w/ audible.com. It totally froze up my palm pilot (clie), lost ALL my data. Luckily I’d just hot-synced. But I wrestled w/ sony tech support’s VOICE PROMT SYSTEM (read: NO HUMAN HELP) for over an hour, cursing and screaming into the phone (some systems are programmed to pick up on profanity and volume, no, seriously, they are. Yes, they are.) because if I didn’t get help NOW (it’s almost 4am) my batteries would die overnight and before that I’d get screen burn-in because it was frozen.

I am SO mad. I mean, we can put men on the moon and robots on mars but we can’t make audio book software that WORKS RIGHT?

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I HATE SONY’S STUPID USELESS FUCKING AWFUL STUPID USELESS NON-FUNCTIONAL VOICE-PROMT SYSTEM THAT MAKES IT SO THAT YOU CANNOT TALK TO A LIVE PERSON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I DID NOT PAY HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS FOR A UX50 JUST TO BE BENT OVER AND FUCKED UP THE ASS BY CORPORATE ASSHOLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Man. I joined audible.com to get $100 of an ipod mini. I like audio books, so it was a great deal for me.

But the damn system just doesn’t work right. I download a book which sounds fine online, and when it plays back on my Clie it’s too slow. The author/narrator sounds drunk. They sent me an email to re-download but re-downloading doesn’t work (I mean, it won’t download). They sent me another email to update the software but it still won’t re-download. I figure I’ll burn a cd, cuz that should sound ok no matter what. But it’ll only download on my laptop where I have no burner. It won’t download on the pc where I have two burners. THIS SUCKS! All this for an ipod mini which is backordered for over a month. I like audio books but jesus, nothing is worth this much trouble!

Last night we had terrible weather, with wind gusts up to 60 miles per hour! A plane at the international airport blew into a jet bridge.

We had to take everything in off the porch, the wind was scary. I laid in bed and listened to the house CREAK! It was so creepy. I don’t know if it was the house itself (the outer walls) or the roof. I could not sleep. Creak. Pop. Creak. And that horrible whistling of the wind in the screens. Really really creepy.

Then I go to a local news website to read more this morning, and there’s this assinine headline:
” Teen fails to save brother from drowning”
I mean, what IS the news here? Is it that some poor boy drowned and died? Or is the news that his brother ‘failed to save’ his brother? I mean, the poor kid! He’s going to be haunted for life as it is that his brother died in front of him and that he could not save him, but now the news is running a front page headline rubbing it in? I mean, the headline should be “boy drowns” or whatever, and they could say in the article that his brother tried to save him. But to run a front page headline about his failure, that is just WRONG.

Man oh man. I wonder what’s wrong w/ my moblog? It’s still down and so far nobody has answered my message board question. I know they are busy and so I’m not mad. I’m just anxious: I’m so afraid that I’ll lose my entries. It’s not the images, I have all the images. You can back up the images, but not the entries, not the html. It’s just that since it’s like a diary, w/ all my own commentary, I can replace the images, but not the notes. I can’t find a way to back up the entries themselves. I’m afraid to mess w/ the temmplate for fear of erasing the moblog.

Waaaa!

Dreary rainy day. Was gonna go for sushi but it’s raining and people forget how to drive in the rain and so I figured I’d better stay home. I have a heap of laundry to do and just can’t face it. It’s TOO daunting. I can’t stand it, I can’t keep up w/ it.

And now my moblog‘s down. I have no idea why. The error page says I left off a tag, but I have not touched my html in over a month and the tag WAS there. Now when I log in to look at my html, all the html is gone. I posted to the “bug report” forum and I hope someone can help. I love my moblog and will be very very very sad if the data is lost. The pictures are replaceable since I save every photo, but it’s the associated descriptions and comments that I never found out how to back up. Man, I hope they can help me with it!

Today is so dreary. It makes me just want to sit on the couch in front of TechTV or sit on the computer. I should also go through some old stuff I brought home from our storage garage.

Why is it that rain makes me lazy?

Breakfast: Chick-Fil-A spicy wrap w/ side salad.
Lunch: Sabrett’s hot dog out front of Home Depot

Last song/album downloaded off iTunes:
William Hung’s new album “Inspiration” (the whole album)
“* Amazon.com Sales Rank: 5″!!!

Doing: Surfing. Worked on cleaning the storage garage. May go biking. M is putting a grounding kit in the new Z.

Last movie watched: Kal Ho Naa Ho (imdb || review)

Netflix DVD’s sitting on the coffee table waiting to be watched:
House of Sand and Fog
Bend it like Beckham
Saving Private Ryan
Buffy the Vampire Slayer

So I’m tired and bored and I should be in bed…
I’m surfing images and I find this:

… which leads me to a page that the most disGUSting images on it, one of brains, one of a guy who’s tongue is split down the middle (like, just cut), sick!
[if you must: link (warning: disturbing!)] Really, don’t look.

You ever just type random stuff into google images? weird words or even just numbers?

Random links of really random pages that I found (in case you didn’t already think I was weird):

CLICK BELOW TO READ MORE…
(more…)

I came across my brother‘s nickname in my ICQ list today. Made me sad. Very sad. I sent him an “offline message” that said:
I miss you.
I don’t know if he’ll get it.

Cranky tired day. Overslept. Went out, day was bad. Stupid sales clerk pissed me off then some bitch almost hit me w/ her car (I was on foot) and THEN had the nerve to give ME hell. I’d'a stood on her fucking hood, but my “you got a problem?!?!?” rant staved her down.

Very tired today. M, it’s all your fault! (love ya babe!) It’s the snoring. I have not really slept in forever.

Anyway, so today was non-eventful. Computer keeps freezing up. I joined Audible.com and the software, both on the PC and the CLIE, freeze up constantly. It took most of the night to get the damn book I purchased onto my clie.

Here’s a funny website for you: Guess My Name

What the fuck is that!?!?

Chat with me goddammit!
http://laserblog.com/im.html

I joined Audible.com and am surfing the site to find books I want to maybe read (hear) later. I find that ALL the pages have the SAME title at the top (browser window). All sections of the website, and all books. So every time I try to bookmark a book, I have to go into my bookmarks and modify the bookmark to reflect which book I just bookmarked.

Well, NOW I go back and find that each bookmarks brings up a TIMED OUT page, even though I am still logged in.

I guess they want you to use their “wishlist” of “books I want to purchase later” INSTEAD of bookmarks.

Who gave them permission to CONTROL my surfing behavior? I did not grant them permission to control me, I did not grant them permission to BAN me from my own bookmarks list. This REALLY irritates me.

I REALLY HATE when websites either do stuff WRONG or try to control their viewers. Cookies are bad enough, and now this!

Yesterday I saw 2 Sandhill Cranes w/ their tiny baby, so cute! Today I saw a Hawk having a conversation w/ a Blackbird on a wire. That struck me as cute, too.

I’m @ the Tofee Coffee place having green tea (blech!!!!!), blogging in my Clie. I drink green tea cuz it’s good 4 u but it’s nasty.

re. previous post

Well, I signed up for Audible.com for one year and got my promo code for amazon.com to get $100 off the player (pda, ipod, etc.) of my choice. I guess I am a slave to fashion cuz I got the Pink Ipod Mini. I coulda got tons more space if I’d have gotten a regular Ipod, but the mini is smaller, and that counts for alot. I got rid of my clie nz90 cuz it was too big and heavy. The ipod is backordered of course, and should ship in mid-May. Ack! But in the meantime I can play the audio books on my UX50 or other device.

So I’ll probably quit TSO, although I want to log in a few more times to be sure. The game frustrates me and I have no TSO friends, I see no reason to keep paying for it.

A bracelet that lights up when u get a call. Usefull, I guess, if your phone is on silent.

More Info

(see below for update)

I own a few domain names. One is for my blog and one is my main domain which is the email address I use for most contacts.

I also have a small web-design business which is a different domain name. When I email my clients I have to change the From field to the domain name of my business.

I have other domains, such as one that I use for secondary emails for stuff like online shopping, email newsletters, etc.

I use Mozilla mail, and I set up different accounts in Mozilla Mail for each From address that I’d need and when I send mail, I use the drop-down box in the Compose window to select what the From field will say.

I have a legitimate need for using different From fields.

But now Earthlink (my DSL ISP) seems to be blocking any mail that I send because my from field is never @earthlink.com I NEVER use the earthlink mail, I have no need for it since I have my own domains. But now I can’t send mail unless my from field is my real Earthlink domain.

This sux. How can I send email to my clients and family and blog friends? I don’t want to have to use various webmail interfaces. It’s been so nice to use pop mail w/ Mozilla mail: all the different domain emails forward to my main email account so I only have to check one email pop account, and w/ Mozilla Mail’s ealy drop-down box for selecting the From account, it’s all so easy.

But now I’m dead in the water.

I wonder if I can easly set up my own smtp server at home? I have several spare PC’s and can use one as a linux gateway.

Here’s a question for you all: Is there a free or cheap smtp server service I can subscribe to that will give me flexibility?

I need help, I can’t send any email! Fuck! And no, I don’t want to use various web-mai interfaces. And because most of my domains are actually sub-domains, I CAN’T use webmail for them.

F*************ck!

UPDATE: I’m pretty sure now that it’s not Earthlink, my DSL ISP, but rather the ISP of one of my email recipients that’s causing the problems. Other people whom I thought didn’t get my emails did get them, but had their own problems re. answersing (lost email, crashed outlook, etc.). My mom uses a small independant ISP who I believe is blocking all email whose from field is not matching the isp, so I will either have to email the owner or just send mail to her yahoo account (which is stupid). Anyway, looks like Earthlink is treating me just fine.

Funny public moblog:
In The Can; Bathroom Self Portrait: http://inthecan.textamerica.com/

Here I sit at my old post at the planetarium where I worked for 10 years. We’re here for an astronomy club meeting and I was bored (astronomy is not boring but these meeting are) so I came to the lobby to pick up a GPRS signal (IN the planetarium theatre u r inside a metal dome which blocks it) and am blogging on my palm pilot (sony clie ux50).

I used to sit in this lobby before laser shows every single weekend. Now the place is dead: rare laser shows, A/C doesn’t work well, place smells like mold, one employee instead of 10. Sad. It’s weird to sit here and not have Joe or Brian in the next room turning on the lasers. The good ol’ days of this place are long gone.

Cheap TinyCam:
TechTv reviewed this tinycam and for $45 it seems you can’t beat it (FOR A TINYCAM),
the Argus DC1730. It’s VGA but it has an LCD! I dont’ know where to
get it, but here’s the link to the cam:

http://www.arguscamera.com/digital/stat_DC1730.htm

UPDATE: It’s the Argus DC 1730, NOT the DC1730. It makes a difference when searching for it online.
Googled

I’m thinking of quitting The Sims Online (TSO) and joining Audible.com. TSO is pissing me off. It’s impossible to make friends, there are alot of scams in there, I have to read a magazine to entertain myself while my Sim earns skill points, and now there’s some “illness” going around making sims sprout monkey heads and in order to heal you have to interact w/ others, doing dumb shit like farting etc. Maybe it’s an April Fool’s joke, but I just don’t have time for that crap.

Also, if you sign up for audible.com for a year, you save $100 on an IPOD MINI!!! (or regular ipod or any of a whole list of other players, everything from MP3 players to Sony Clie PDAs!!! Yes, the UX50 just like I have! http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/darktips/story/0,24330,3657243,00.html

So, sims in $10 a month, audible is $15 a month and I rarely play it cuz it pisses me off. So, maybe I’ll quit TSO and join audible and get a deal on an ipod mini!

UPDATE: Yes, I just logged into TSO and yes, I have a fucking MONKEY HEAD! If this thing does not go away I will be so pissed. All these ploys to force you to interact w/ other sims. I hate interacting. I’d like it more of it was more productive, but all my feeble attempts to get sims to interact w/ me is fruitless. People are so busy upping their skills and greening, that you can’t really have any real fun interacting. The game is so flawed. WHY they just didn’t make it the same as the sims offline, I’ll never know.

I should go biking. It’s beautiful out. But there is no internet on my bike and no internet cafe to bike to. I’m a net addict. Yeah, I have my clie and bluetooth intnernet enabled cell phone, but I just want to sit here in front of TechTV and suf on the big screen. I’m sick.

Something’s up w/ Fark.com today. M tipped me off… “go to fark.com and keep hitting reload”. I did and after a few times the page changed to something else. I don’t know if it’s been hacked or if it’s an april fool’s joke.

UPDATE: from M:
“It’s April Fools! He’s putting up different front pages for Fark. If you click on any of the links, they all go to the real Fark web page.

Also, they have the dialectizer running in the discussion threads, so when you post a comment, it will get converted into any number of dialects (e.g. Jive, L33t speek, pansy, etc). “