Random Giant

SendStation…a little disappointed

TheGiant — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:36:52 +0000

SendStation went ahead and sent the Dock Extender but it won’t fit through my Otterbox case far enough to make a connection. Based on an assumption looking at the picture and the product’s web page I thought it might work with my iPhone case. It will still work with my iPod case which is what I originally wanted one for, but still, drat, back to the drawing board.

New iPhone and Thanks to SendStation

TheGiant — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:15:56 +0000

As quite the massive Valentines day gift from my mom I got a new iPhone, now it’s only an 8gig 3G not a 3GS but it’s fine for me, It also has a screen protector and it’s in an OtterBox which means this phone will last me, well until I decide I want something better, but since mostly I’m only putting apps on there (because I already have a 160gig Classic) it’s no big deal.

There is one small little problem with the OtterBox, the dock connector cover will only fit the smaller size iPhone plugs, not the larger iPod ones, so half my accessories won’t attach….but hey, SendStation to the rescue.

I’ve been curious about their accessories for years, They make the PocketDock adapters (with line-out) and DockExtender…perfect, I’ve been wanting both for sometime now, and they just came out with a mini-usb PocketDock in the smaller plug size, and they have a Black DockExtender now as well, perfect, now I can use the DockExtender, not just in docks, but to adapt the iPhone in my OtterBox to my larger plug cables without pulling it out of the OtterBox.

Order has been placed we’ll see how it goes…

UBDATE: Apparently according to the email I just read, I will have to wait a month…ok I can do that I guess.

Triple posting, TuneUp, and corrupted iTunes

TheGiant — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 16:04:11 +0000

Looks like when I had a Wi Fi hiccup ScribeFire wound up posting the last post three times..yikes

Looks like I found just the thing to not only find the missing album art, and also fill in the gaps in my meta data. That would be TuneUp it seems to be finding most of my albums and identifying them correctly, my favorite part about it is I can chose which data to fill in or replace, which is nice, since it corrects the funkyness like a Beach Boys album I have that Jaikoz retitled “Made in the U.S.a”. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not replacing Jaikoz, nothing will. Now to get my copy of Funduc Duplicate File Deleter installed so I can clean out the many duplicate files in my iTunes Media folder from restoring my library when it got corrupted the other day. I hate when that happens, thanks Apple for the XML file, it helps.

More MP3 Tagging stuff…

TheGiant — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:14:12 +0000

Right now I am messing with beaTunes. Looks quite cool for detecting BPM and playlist creation for iTunes. So far so good, right now I’m not using it for the tagging, just for the BPM detection, lyrics and stuff right now, looks like it’s going to take a while. It uses the same database and everything as Jaikoz which is my preferred tagger, that’s how I found it, through the AmpliFIND website, though I think I’ve taken a look at beaTunes once before. I paid for it this time. We’ll see how it goes as far as playlist creation. I still need to do something about the album art, haven’t found anything quite as accurate enough, or at least not annoying. I kinda like iArt but everytime I reinstall it, I have to send an email asking for a new code, too annoying.

Star Trek Online…seriously?

TheGiant — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:34:17 +0000

So the other day, I decided, what the heck, I will try Star Trek Online, I actually have several serial numbers unlocked on the same account, one of them is Steam’s deluxe edition.

That took a day, to download and install (plus a few hours at night). Then when that was done, it had some updating to do. Then I finally get it to open, after it installed DirectX or whatever, which I already HAVE. Then the Launcher needed to update, fine, then it opens up and I login, and it starts patching the game. Fine, but on my occasionally wonky wi-fi at home and at work it fails a few times, and it doesn’t fail gracefully, the whole thing closes out. Then just now I tried to open it, so it can finish and now Steam is patching it. So now I have to wait like an hour, or so, to open the launcher to let it finish. Seriously? Are you kidding me?

This is worse than Windows.
(insert sarcastic emoticon or whatever you chose)

Capital One…STOP IT!

TheGiant — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:04:46 +0000

Seriously, like every week I get some junk in the mail from Capital One, for one, I even mailed it back one week, with a note asking them to “stop sending this crap” I am literally about to waste their postage and use their return envelopes to mail their garbage back to them. For one If I do not respond ONCE, then I will not respond the following week. For another thing the “What’s in your wallet” crap, it’s none of their business what’s in my wallet, sorry. Just leave me alone PLEASE. I do not want a Capital One card ever. Stop wasting paper!

Online geek stereotypes…

TheGiant — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 18:06:25 +0000

I was looking recently at the “I’m a Geek” video again and glanced at the comments. It irritates me to no end, that people think all geeks are the same, that all of us sit at home all day, play games and have no social life, well, for your information I just spent the last two nights at bars until closing thank you very much, I was with friends, and drinking, because I am over 21 and it is completely legal to do so, plus it’s social, yes,. SOCIAL not anti-social.

This is why I hate stereotypes, even though there ARE people who fit stereotypes, which is why I hate to be labeled a gamer, because it is my personal experience, that most of the gamers I have encountered online, honestly make me not want to game at all, because they are extremely rude and unkind, and they think they are better than everyone else, which I guarantee I can prove is not the case, I know people that are way WAY more skilled than these people.

I don’t like to just call myself a geek, it is only part of me, I’m not just a Catholic, a geek, gamer, son, brother, friend, nephew, grandson, cousin, choir member, blogger, FCC licensed amateur radio operator, IT guy, tech support for friends and family, courier, chauffeur, audiobook fan, podcast listener, music fan, web surfer, and then some, and all these are part of me, part of who I am, NOT WHO I am. Oh, and Sorry Kevin Rose, the Internet is not my identity, only PART of it.

Strange Organization

TheGiant — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:15:54 +0000

Recently I was having to move a co-worker to another computer, and I was reminded of something.

For me, a limited number of desktop shortcuts if possible and alphabetical order is the only way I can find anything I need, however this coworker, apparently likes to save like everything important to her desktop, and has icons grouped in various parts of her screen. Funny how that’s the only way she can get her work done, but for me that’s way too much mess.

In fact, the computers that our real estate agents coming into the office are allowed to use, the desktop folders are set to read only and there’s a note on the machine that they must save everything to the My Documents folder, because I do not want them putting anything on the desktop that I will have to delete, and the MyDocs folders on those machines are synced to a single folder on the server, just to make my work easier, because apparently they don’t delete anything when they are done with it, my old college had a solution for that, everyone had to save their files on a disk or ZIP disk, yes, they still used those, and probably still do now.

Comcast & AT&T Stop blocking ports please!

TheGiant — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 18:00:36 +0000

I recently ran into a little problem, that I had to come up with a workaround for. See my mom takes her notebook to a few places pretty regularly, one has Comcast, one has AT&T. Comcast apparently blocks our server’s SMTP SSL port, and AT&T blocks our normal SMTP port, and that’s not something we can change, it’s our hosting company.

You can see how this could be a problem, unless she either had her own SMTP server running on her machine, or used a different outgoing server altogether. Enter Gmail, and it’s SMTP server using TLS instead of SSL. Problem supposedly solved, but I might not know for sure until next week.

Ugh, seriously, just stop it. I get that it might put a stop to SPAM, but it causes problem for legitimate users, just like copy protection on game discs does, the ones you are trying to stop, are the ones that find a way around it, it’s pointless, and makes no difference.

Jacksonville Beach Balloon Girl

TheGiant — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 21:28:53 +0000

Earlier today as I walked outside my house, I found this odd little folded up note attached to a popped balloon, I walked in the house and cut the string and opened the note to see if I could read it even though it had been rained on, sure enough, even though the lines on the paper leaked the print was still legible, and this is what the note dated 12/18/09 said.

Dear, Whoever finds this balloon,
Whoever finds this balloon, I will
fall madly in love with. I am
a girl who lives in Jacksonville Beach, Florida.
I like playing football, playing on the beach with
friends, and spending time with family.
I hope whoever finds this is a
boy, is single, and likes adventures. (there was a smiley face here)

Sincerely,
Balloon Girl
(a heart drawn on here)

It is however just my luck that this Balloon Girl left no way to reach her or anything, it would also be just my luck that if she found this she was too young for me, heh not that 31 is old, yeah, I just turned 31. Still it is pretty cool huh?