Archive for the 'Geek' Category

I Should Be In Bed

Published
by
Justin
on Friday April 25, 2008
in Geek and General
. 3 Comments

Sometimes the only way to find an answer to a problem is to talk to other people. Even if you don’t get a definite solution, sometimes I think commiseration is it’s own solution. It feels better to know your feelings aren’t coming from your own imagination and that something that makes you unhappy makes someone else unhappy– it doesn’t fix the problem, it’s just nice to know it’s not just you.

I think I just said the same thing three times. Ah, redundancy.

* * *

I need a funky drummer, stat. I’ve got a great guitarist with excellent taste. I’d like for it to be a JB’s meets Gov’t Mule kind of sound.

* * *

I’d like to write more (as in words, not music), but I have no idea where to begin. Someone give me an assignment.

* * *

Kim’s friend John and his wife Diedre were trying to get pregnant a while back after they discovered she has MS. The idea was that she wanted to have children while she was healthy (not knowing how severely or when her disease would affect her in the future). They succeeded but soon after lost the pregnancy. It was really though for them in ways I don’t even understand.

Well, in an unrelated attempt to enact a change in their lives I guess John was applying to jobs out of the area and suddenly got an offer from Blue Cross / Blue Shield (right.. a health insurance company) so he found out that he has to relocate to Savannah, GA next week. Well apparently he’d already known but didn’t tell anyone that Diedre was pregnant again. So baby on the way plus new job (and apparently considerable benefits and discounts for Diedre’s meds).

This was all great news for us, albeit sad to see them go, but then they discovered just the other day that they are having twins!

What’s an appropriate saying for the opposite of what “When it rains it pours” means?

* * *

It’s also likely that Kim and I have a very awesome apartment to move into soon, but we haven’t signed the lease yet (they are doing the credit check stuff) and we found out there are no cats allowed (dangit.)

We really wanted kitties but I guess we’ll be ok.

Leech Block Firefox Plugin

Published
by
Justin
on Tuesday April 15, 2008
in Geek
. 0 Comments

I’ve been using this on my home machine so I don’t dick around on the internet first thing when I come home from work. So far it works. You can block specific domains and the times of day you want them blocked. You can also be really strict and make it so you can’t access the options tab during the designated hours (so you can’t unblock them). I’ve added my usual time wasters: flickr, youtube, fark and myspace between the hours of 5 and 7. I figure if I can find something better to do when I get home for two hours then I might not ever find my back to the internet for the rest of the night, but if I do, no big deal.

Helpdesk Tale

Published
by
Justin
on Tuesday March 11, 2008
in Geek
. 3 Comments

This lady upstairs called me and said that her computer was “making this crazy noise.” I can actually hear the noise over the phone and it sounds like a loud CPU fan (but it would have to be super loud to be heard over the phone). I connect to the machine via dameware and the noise stops completely.
She says she has an email that keeps opening on her every time she closes it, but I am able to close it.. nothing happens. I tell her to call me back if it happens again. Not even two seconds later she calls me back and tells me she DIDN’T DO ANYTHING and it just started up again.

I can hear the noise over the phone and the email is open again.

I connect once again and the noise stops and I log her out and I can see the little black and white instruction animation telling you how to press Ctrl + Alt + Delete to log in to Windows, but it’s flickering.

Lightbulb.

I ask her “is there anything on your keyboard?”

She says “Wha? No… Ohhhh.. yeah. I’m sorry.”

She had a stack of papers on resting on the Enter key on the keypad. It was making the low clicking noise from the key being held down ad nauseum (I am used to the higher-pitched beep which I would have recognized more easily over the phone), it was re-opening the selected email in Outlook every time she closed it and, because my Dameware is configured to lock her keyboard when I connect, it wasn’t affecting anything once I connected.