One Byte at a Time

When I Email

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:22:00 PST

I have a weird obsession with statistics, and Xobni (inbox spelled backwards) gives me some cool graphs to help feed this obsession.

Here is my average mail traffic based on day of week and time of day:

For Your Listening Pleasure

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 22:44:00 PST

I have had multiple times that I have been asked what podcasts I subscribe to, so here goes:

*I love 'em all, but these are the ones I will listen to above all of the others!

Suggestions? Comment!

Suddenlink Changes its Pricing

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 19:27:00 PST

While we constantly strive to keep our costs low and maintain
reasonable prices, a number of factors require price
adjustments on certain services, including the high cost of fuel
for our vehicles; the rising cost of cable TV programming
(especially sports programming); the costs incurred to prepare
for the government-mandated digital broadcast transition; plus
increases in what we pay for equipment, insurance, and more.
As a result, starting with your November 2008 bills, high-speed
Internet service will increase $3.00 per month; and taxes, fees,
and surcharges will be adjusted to reflect current assessment
rates.

Does anyone see something funny about this?

First of all, the government-mandated digital broadcast transition has little to do with SuddenLink. If I understand the transition correctly, it ONLY effects over the air signals. Cable companies can still broadcast standard definition signals over their lines. If they are picking up the signal for station over the air and then re-broadcasting on their lines it could have a slight effect on them. But this would be VERY minimal.In fact, here is a quote from their web site:

The digital transition in February 2009 applies only to TV signals that are broadcast and received over the air. In contrast, TV signals that are transmitted over cable lines — namely, the channels on Suddenlink’s basic and expanded basic line ups — will continue to be delivered, from us to you, in a format that works with your current TV sets.

Rising Costs of cable TV programming, ok fair enough.

BUT, wait, both of those items are very specifically pointed towards Cable TV, in which I do not have any Cable TV service... The increase is on Cable Internet. Hmm...

I guess the bright side is they informed everyone through a paragraph of text on the October bill... Guess I should read that stuff.

DC Trip

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 16:44:00 PST

I recently went to Washington DC for an interview.

My session had about 8 people at it including students of all engineering disciplines. The morning session had about 20 people at it.

They had us watch an about the company video, then went into a series of interviews with different groups from within the company. Each group read through the resumes before hand and decided who they wanted to have an interview with. I had 2 groups pick me to interview with.

The first interview was a little rough. Not really any specific questions that I struggled with, I just didn’t feel at ease when I was talking to her which I think showed.
After the first interview I got a bit of a break while I got a security questioning, which was just going over the paper work I had filled out. They just had to make sure the answers were accurate as well as making sure I am who I said I am.

My second interview went much better than the first. It felt much more like a conversation than an interview.

After that, they had a quick exit interview asking me just some basic (fact) questions, like how many hours I will have at the end of the spring semester, and items like that.
They said I should hear back with a response with in a week.

As far as how my vacation portion of the trip went…. It was lots of fun. My legs are killing me from so much walking, but I hope to be able to go back some time soon.

Pictures from my trip are posted at http://flickr.com/kellenjb

Quick look at Zune 3.0

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:40:00 PDT

Microsoft has done a great deal of work for their Zune software, version 3. They added automatic recommendations. For those of us who have a Zune Pass, a play list can be downloaded and automatically updated weekly with music that fits your tastes. This does seem a bit buggy as it has recommended songs to me that I had previously marked us "Don't Like".

One of the other improvements comes with the visualizations that have been added for song play.

Determining when Daylight Saving Time starts in ends while programing

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 13:12:00 PDT

I recently ran into a situation where I was required to determine if a certain date was during DST or not. I looked around on Google for a bit trying to find anyone who has already done this, but most of the stuff I found did not work for me.

I ended up writing my own code, and thought I would share it for the world. It is amazingly simple, but caused me to think a bit before I got to it.

Keep in mind that I am not a computer science major, nor do I claim to be great at programming. If you have any suggestions on a more efficient way of determining this, please let me know.

//Kellen Butler

//July 27, 2008

//Find the day in which DST starts or ends.

//Code can be modified to find any situation where you are looking for a date for the "Second Tuesday of the month" situation.

//This code sample will work for DST End as well, it just needs to have its variables adjusted.

//Written for PHP

function dststart($year){
    //Daylight Savings Time starts on the second Sunday in March.
    //So $day = 0; for Sunday
    //$month = 3; for March
    //$week = 2; for the "second" (Sunday in March)
    $dayofweek = 0;
    $month = 3;
    $week = 2;

    //The following determines what day of week the ith day of the month is.
    //Once the first $dayofweek desired is found, the for loop will end.
    for($i=1, $dow=999; $dow != $dayofweek; $i++){
        $dow = date(w, mktime(0,0,0,$month,$i,$year));
        }

    $i--; //adjusts for extra increment not desired

    $date = ($i + 7*($week-1)); //$date is that day of month that DST starts in. For 2008 this would return 9
    return $date;
    }

IBM Support v2

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 06:38:00 PDT

If you have already read the first part of this post, you can skip down to the section heading "Part 2".

Where it all started

For the last several months my laptop (a Lenovo tablet) has been giving me a weird issue with my screen. Depending on what position the screen was in, the screen would show some weird horizontal lines.

May 27th: Called to get my laptop screen fixed

May 28th: Received the box to send my machine to the depot, got the machine sent back out

May 30th: Machine Left the repair depot to come back to me

June 2nd and 3rd: Attempt to deliver my machine, but I was not home

June 4th: Got my machine back

When I first started up my laptop I noticed that the resolution was larger... or smaller depending on how you want to look at it. The text was larger while the resolution size was smaller numbers. I figured it was an easy enough fix. Once I got logged into the computer I was given a "Found new hardware message". I figured this was also an easy fix; except that the device was an unknown device and couldn't install any drivers. Moved on to fix the resolution and found that it was already at his max.

At this point I started to feel like IBM's service was lacking. I also noticed in the midst of everything, that my indication lights (power, battery, caps...) weren't all working. I decided it was about time to give IBM a call. When I went to go look for the number to call, I also found that they had replaced my keyboard. I have never been told why, but I am assuming it had been broken.

June 5th: I got my box and sent it back in

June 11th: I called to check on the status of my repair. I was told they were waiting on some parts to come in so that they could repair it; however, they did not have an estimated time on when they would receive those dates. The recommended I call back the next day to see if the numbers had been updated.

June 12th: Called to check the status. I was pretty much told the same thing about no ETA and to check back the next day.

June 13th: Same deal. This time I complained just a bit. I was put on hold and was told he was going to talk with the escalation department. After a little while Larry came back and told me they had worked it out such that my machine would be repaired to me over the weekend and I would have it on Monday. I was somewhat skeptical about this as that would require same day shipping, but there was nothing I could complain about.

June 16th: No laptop. Called, I was told by this rep that the previous rep must have been mistaken in reading the notes wrong because there was no way for that to happen. I asked if I could receive a loner machine as I was coming up on 3 weeks without a machine. I was told IBM does not send out loner machines; however, I could call the escalation department directly and see if I could get anything worked out. After calling the number he gave me, I was confronted with a lady who seemed confused as to why I had been redirected to her. She gave me no new information.

June 18th: Called in the morning. This lady put me on hold for at least 5 to 10 minutes. When she came back she told me there was a possibility of them sending me my machine and then getting it repaired once the item came in. However, she was unclear as to what item it was they were waiting on and it would require contact with the members on the floor (presumably the techs). She said she would give me a call back with more information. After requesting a time in which she would get back to me, she told me 4pm today. After I got back from work around 5:30 I decided I would give them a call to see what was up. The guy I talked with said he didn't think the previous person was being straight with me about them being able to send the machine out to me without it being fixed. Either way, he said he could file a complaint with the escalation department on my behalf. He noted that I would be requesting a new laptop sent to me. This is after he told me that IBM does not have the ability to give me a refurbished or a new laptop. After asking why he said because this was a repair. Lots of back and forth with that one, but I was getting nowhere. I also asked for the number of the escalation department. I was told that I would call the number I called him at and they can direct me. So what exactly was that other number I was given by someone else?

At any rate, he told me it would take 24 to 48 hours for my complaint to be processed.

Part 2

June 20^th: No Call… After I called them I was told my machine would be repaired over the weekend and sent out on Monday. This sounds familiar, but whatever.

June 24^th: I received my laptop, except still broken, same issues as before. IBM decided to make a request to Lenovo for an onsite repair.

June 26^th: Tech was supposed to be onsite, but unable to work in the 1500 to 1700 (3:00pm – 5:00pm) time frame that I had to work under.

June 27^th: Tech onsite from 1300 to 1700. That is 1pm to 5pm for you people who don’t understand 24 hour time. About 4:30 he determined he must have damaged something on the machine because the system had become worse than before.

After some calls with IBM support, what they call a Hot Call was created for me. Not entirely sure what that meant, but I was instructed that a specialized tech would be onsite Monday.

June 30^th: No tech Onsite. After talking with Mike, my case supervisor with IBM, I was informed that another request had to be made to Lenovo in order to get another tech onsite. This took an extra day. I won’t go into the complaints I made here.

July 1^st: I received no call to verify any ETA of my tech. After leaving a message with Mike, my case supervisor, I received calls back from both Mike and Billy (my new tech) telling me that an incorrect part had been delivered and they would be unable to repair my machine. Placed a call back to Mike to follow up, but have not heard back as of yet.

July 2^nd: Tech onsite for 3 hours, replaced the motherboard, lcd screen, lcd cable, micro sensor, and inverter. The machine still did not work. I am led to believe the motherboard was bad, but the tech attempts to use the old motherboard on the new items causing it to kill the new items. The case became escalated once again with the request for a new laptop.

After the tech left, I also found that the hinge had been broken, a few screws were missing, and many screws were striped.

July 3^rd: Left a message for Jeffery, my new case manager, asking to call me back and get me some information.

July 7^th: I received a call from the tech who had been out on Friday asking to setup a time for him to come repair my laptop. Hmmm, something got lost in translation. Gave a call to IBM who left a note for my case manager to give me a call back ASAP.

Received a Call from Tom, my old case manager who was on vacation a week. He was submitting the request for a new laptop and should hear back in 24-48 hours.

July 8^th: Told I would be receiving a new laptop with equal or greater specs in 1-3 weeks. Finally! Now I just have to wait :-(.

Laptop photo used under Creative Commons, photo by SNAFU.mv.

IBM Support

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:18:00 PDT

Where it all started

Not really the easiest thing to read while in class trying to take notes.

Case 1

May 27th: Called to get my laptop screen fixed

May 28th: Received the box to send my machine to the the depot, got the machine sent back out

May 30th: Machine Left the repair depot to come back to me

June 2nd and 3rd: Attempt to deliver my machine, but I was not home

June 4th: Got my machine back

I am very impressed with IBM support at this point in time. Very fast repair, all shipping was overnight Very minimal down time for me.

Case 2

After talking to an IBM rep, they said they would send me out another box to send my machine back in with. Also I was told that my machine was being marked as an escalated case and my machine would be well taken care of. I think IBM should raise their standard of their lower level techs. It might cost them some in salary, but it saves them in shipping and a higher level tech from having to fix it a second time.

Back to the timeline:

June 5th: I got my box and sent it back in

(after such a great return time on the last laptop, I was expecting a fast return on it)

June 11th: I called to check on the status of my repair. I was told they were waiting on some parts to come in so that they could repair it; however, they did not have an estimated time on when they would receive those dates. The recommended I call back the next day to see if the numbers had been updated.

June 12th: Called to check the status. I was pretty much told the same thing about no ETA and to check back the next day.

June 13th: Same deal. This time I complained just a bit. I was put on hold and was told he was going to talk with the escalation department. After a little while he came back and told me they had worked it out such that my machine would be repaired to me over the weekend and I would have it on Monday. I was some what skeptical about this as that would require same day shipping, but there was nothing I could complain about.

June 16th: No laptop. Called, I was told by this rep that the previous rep must have been mistaken in reading the notes wrong because there was no way for that to happen. I asked if I could receive a loner machine as I was coming up on 3 weeks with out a machine. I was told IBM does not send out loner machines; however, I could call the escalation department directly and see if I could get anything worked out. After calling the number he gave me, I was confronted with a lady who seemed confused as to why I had been redirected to her. She gave me no new information

June 17th: I took a day off from them :-)

June 18th: 3 weeks ago I sent in my laptop. Called in the morning. This lady put me on hold for at least 5 minutes if not 10. When she came back she told me their was a possibility of them sending me my machine and then getting it repaired once the item came in. However, she was unclear as to what item it was they were waiting on and it would require contact with the members on the floor (presumably the techs). She said she would give me a call back with more information. After requesting a time in which she would get back to me, she told me 4pm today. After I got back from work around 5:30 I decided I would give them a call to see what was up. The guy I talked with said he didn't think the previous person was being straight with me about them being able to send the machine out to me with out it being fixed. Either way, he said he could file a complaint with the escalation department on my behalf. He noted that I would be requesting a new laptop sent to me. This is after he told me that IBM does not have the ability to give me a refurbished or a new laptop. After asking why he said because this was a repair. Lots of back and forth with that one, but I was getting no where. I also asked for the number of the escalation department. I was told that I would call the number I called him at and they can direct me. So what exactly was that other number I was given by someone else?

At any rate, he told me it would take 24 to 48 hours for my complaint to be processed by this mystical escalation department. In this time they will call me to follow up on it. I guess I will just have to wait any see, but nothing I have seen yet leads me to believe I will be hearing from them. You better expect that Friday afternoon if I haven't heard anything from them, I will be giving them a call.

Where did they go wrong?

I don't want to call them lies, but rather "mistaken words"... lets just count them.

WOW

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:59:00 PDT

It was almost 2 months in there with no blog posts. If you want to find out what has been keeping me busy, check out the pictures at http://flickr.com/photos/kellenjb

Alright Apple, You have pissed me Off

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:55:00 PDT

I am sure all of you have heard and/or seen Apple's move to get Safari on the PC, but I have noticed for a long time Apple trying to push iTunes on to computers also. On my laptop I had to install Quicktime to watch some video a while back. Now they want me to install iTunes+QuickTime as an update to QuickTime. Then to add to it, the Apple Software Update app would try to install both and update the QuickTime as well as the combined pack. That process doesn't seem like it would work correctly.

Now on another note, I decided to read through the License for use of Safari. I pulled out two bits:

Updates: If an Apple Software update completely replaces (full install) a previously licensed version of the Apple Software, you may not use both versions of the Apple Software at the same time nor may you transfer them separately.

THE APPLE SOFTWARE IS NOT INTENDED FOR USE IN THE OPERATION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES, AIRCRAFT NAVIGATION OR COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS, LIFE SUPPORT MACHINES OR OTHER EQUIPMENT IN WHICH THE FAILURE OF THE APPLE SOFTWARE COULD LEAD TO DEATH, PERSONAL INJURY, OR SEVERE PHYSICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE.

Alright, the second one I am sure is just in there to protect them, but I find it very funny. Now for the first one... are they saying that it is against their license to have two versions of a web browser on my machine? They must not realize that there are some web designers out there that like to test their site on every version possible.

As for me, I just bought a Zune, that is all I have to say.

Procrastination

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 21:00:00 PST

This is what I SHOULD be working on... not taking pictures of.

Points to ZDNet

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:46:00 PST

Some companies sue their readers for blogging content that they found from someone else's website. I like ZDNet's approach to allowing others to use their content. Rather than coming down hard they give a method for anyone to easily post about an article while still having the article point back to ZDNet. Here are some screen shoots of how it looks:

Others should learn how to please their customers, not sue them.

Windows Live Writer

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:37:00 PST

I have heard many people praise Windows Live Writer for its easy to use blogging interface. I find it very easy to use to upload images... like so:

All that took me was clicking and dragging the image into the window, after taking the screen shot of course. There are many other options that are very cool looking, but I tend to keep my blogging fairly simple.

One complaint I do have deals with the Web layout option. This option looks very cool. Basically the idea is it pulls down the style from your blog so you can see just exactly how your blog will look when you publish it; however, it seems to choked on my blog theme such that it doesn't understand the heading on my page. As you can see from this screen shot:

If anyone knows why this is happening to me, let me know. A while back I created a temporary format not including the header to use; however, I accidentally told it to pull my style down again which overwrote the old settings.

Google / Outlook Calendar

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 09:46:00 PST

Google now gives you 2 way sync ability with your Outlook Calendar. This is something I wish I had a year ago. I might end up using this with my work calendar though.

There is also more new features such as better iPhone support. You can check it out here.

Gmail to a new level

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 08:13:00 PST

Well Maybe. I don't know I word of what they are saying, but I think this is a funny video.

Passing of a Loved One

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:10:00 PST

At 4:04 a.m. Central Time my grandmother on my mom's side passed away. This has been a long time coming between the combination of diabetes and Alzheimer's disease.

She fought the whole time - her heart would stop and they thought she was gone but then it would start again. Her husband could not handle it anymore so he went home. Three of her four daughters were with her when she passed away.

Pakistan removed from the Internet

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 21:22:00 PST

Pakistan removed from the Internet

by ZDNet's Richard Stiennon

4:30 PM Eastern (US). The telecom company that carries most of Pakistan's traffic, PCCW, has found it necessary to shut Pakistan off from the Internet while they filter out the malicious routes that a Pakistani ISP, PieNet, announced earlier today. Evidently PieNet took this step to enforce a decree from the Pakistani government that ISP's [...]

Frozen Grand Central

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 18:12:00 PST

Improv Everywhere did an amazing job on the stunt if you would like to call it that. Watch the video, no better way to explain what happened.

SSL Google

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 03:28:00 PST

Jim Edwards at itchurch.com pointed me to a Greasemonkey script that forces Firefox to use https:// instead of the default http://. This script is called SSLGoogle. I quickly found that this script will cause any Google search containing the word(s) calendar, docs, or mail to fail. This is because Google does not offer any secure connections while using their basic search engine.

I can tell the author was trying to make it such that any place that you can click on a link (Such as the Google navbar) to go to mail, docs, or calendar it will be secure even on the initial page load.

If you don't plan on ever having a search with those terms you might be alright, but it just isn't an option for me. There is a few approaches to take to fix this; you might find another way to be best suited to you. I found that limiting the include pages works best for me. The include pages that I am using now are: *mail.google.com*, *docs.google.com*, and *google.com/calendar*.

You can also use the Excluded Pages to exclude search pages such as *google.com/search*; however, I soon found that I would have to make an exclude also for images.google.com as well as every other Google page that has a search box on it. Incase you didn't notice, Google is a search company... they have a search box on practically every page they own.

The only other option I can see is to rewrite the script to be aware of the fact that someone could be doing a search for one of those keywords. This might be something I do down the road, but for now I am happy with how this is setup for me.

30 Minutes Later

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 02:22:00 PST

Windows Vista Ultimate now with Service Pack 1. Version 6.0.6001 Service Pack 1 Build 6001.

I will just have to wait and see if I get any performance enhancements on SP1.

Windows Vista SP1

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 01:44:00 PST

Windows Vista Service Pack 1... Here I come!

...I have been noticing recently that screen shots are really hard to take with Aero Glass turned on...I guess I could take a screen shot with the window sitting on top of a white page, but that is to much work!

Another Hot Date...

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:58:00 PST

...with my networks homework.

Yeah, maybe not as exciting as I would hope for, but I haven't been on a real date for awhile now nor do I have any plans to. But rather it is looking towards being another late night working on homework for my Network Analysis class.

There is something with our air system that causes it to get really hot in the rooms randomly on some nights. We usually keep our rooms about 68 (according to my clock thermostat) in the winter and my room has risen to 74.5 over the last hour. Hopefully it stops its upward rise soon.

Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:12:00 PST

Over the last month or so I have started increasing my web presence once again. I am not sure how long this will last, but I will try to not burn myself out too fast.

Just recently I decided I would pick my Twitter back up. Now, I was really never a huge fan of Twitter, but I decided I would embed my Twitter comments in my blog. Now for those of you reading the RSS feed, you will probably never see this, but for everyone else they are just in that blue box near the top of the page.

I was also surprised to find 51 people following me on Twitter. Anyone want to explain what is so intriguing about following me?

Spiceworks Webinar

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 23:18:00 PST

In case you missed the Spiceworks Webinar awhile back... Here is a link to catch you up:

http://www.spiceworks.com/video/index.php?video=WebinarPart1

Micaiah Noel West

noreply@blogger.com (Kellen Butler) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:14:00 PST

A pastor from my church back home is a proud new father of an 8lb 21" long baby girl. Him and his wife, Erin, were very involved with the college ministry a couple years back when he was an intern. Now he is with us full time focusing on ministering to those in Downtown Houston.

You can find pictures located on their blog, Where Jesus Leads.

http://wherejesusleads.blogspot.com/2008/02/micaiah-noel-west.html