Unfortunately, it was littered with links to things like World of Warcraft Burning Crusade CD keys and stuff, and it was posted as a comment on a blog entry that had nothing to do with World of Warcraft, so it was definitely still spam. It was so different from most of the comment spam I see, though, so I couldn’t bring myself to delete it. I wanted to share it! It’s actually been sitting in my moderation queue for about 9 months, because I didn’t want to mark it as spam, delete it, or approve it.I finally went through and stripped the links out, keeping just the link text, which is now [enclosed in square brackets].

Here is the comment, for your amusement:

Posted by Inonnaoradiaf on Jun 20, 2008, at 1:11 AM.

you friends always helped me level up and told me what to do

If i start this game, i will be the biggest NOOB. I wont know jack about the game. Iv’e played [burning crusade key] frozen thrown and all that, but i barely got that too.[veoh] My friends always helped me level up and told me what to do, i never really fully understood what was going on but jsut wanted to level up. I also played silkroad and got up to level 42 ? and ofcourse with help the whole way. So right now im planning to buy world of warcraft and it looks really fun and all, but the thing is that i dont know what i would do in the game and im not too familiar with these games. Should i even by buying the game ? would it be too hard for me ?

in case you didnt see it, there was a episode of south park when they were playing world of [game card code wow], anyway ever since they made that episode i’ve been seeing alot of world of warcraft things,[deviantart] like the new expansion set with more characters to choose, or the commercial, i even heared that there will be a world of warcraft movie…before the south park episode i dont think anyone ever cared about world of warcraft, and say had they done another game like city of heroes, do you think every one would start to play that?

Im going to get a laptop, maybe a desktop, to play World of [pre-paid game card wow] on. Which of the following would be better to play it on. MacBook(apple) or The official World of Warcraft laptop(Dell)

I also might get a desktop, and if i do, im going to get a Mac, so tell me which you think i should get, desktop or laptop(even if you think i should get a desktop, still tell me which laptop would be better) OK, also, here is some pro’s and con’s of a laptop or desktop( tell me which is smarter based off of these things) With a laptop,[deviantart] i could use it anywhere,(car, grandparents,shore house) A desktop would probably provide for a better gaming experiance) If i get a laptop i can still my moms kind of suckish computer to play on also OK, please answer both questions(which laptop, and laptop or desktop)

Okay so i thought it be nice if my boyfriend played world of [world of warcraft burning crusade cd key] and all, because that would mean he be at home more and able to help out with our baby. But now it has completley overtaken his life. he goes to work, comes home kisses both of us. and then off to the computer, up til 4 am.. goes to bed and wakes at 6 am.. leaves for work and same over and over and over… and its like even after sex its like i gotta get on World of Warcraft. He never wants to spend time together. It takes a lot of bitching and nagging just to get him off for an hour or so, so he would watcha movie with me.How can i get my guy to understand he is pushing me further and further away…?[about] What should i do about him not wanting much time with me anymore? should i be worried? Help me

My brother wants to get his own PC to play world of [world of warcraft burning crusade key]. We currently have a pc with 512 mb or something (i’m not the best with computer things) the computer my brother wants to get has 1GB…He says it’s better to have the 1G in his room, for world of warcraft to work the best, even if the other computer was the server.my dad says that it would be better for him to have the 512mb hard drive in his room, with the 1G hard drive/computer as the server.[google] Hopefully you’ll be able to understand what i’ve written… Thanks so much, help very much appreciated!

I managed to get an awesome phone number that is easy to remember (almost as easy as the National Capital Poison Center’s Hotline, 1-800-222-1222), and I’ve slowly been giving my GrandCentral number out to more and more people and companies over the years.

One thing my GrandCentral number was not good for, though, was text messaging. For people to send an SMS to my cell phone, they still had to use my cell phone number directly. This went against the whole principle of having 1 phone number to give out to people (although I generally only text with a small, select group of people).

A couple weeks ago, I read that Google (who purchased GrandCentral back in 2007) was relaunching and rebranding GrandCentral as Google Voice (see News Links at the bottom of this post). One of the new features that Google Voice promises is SMS support, which I was excited about.

The Google Voice Blog said that existing GrandCentral users would be notified when their accounts were ready to be upgraded, so I’ve been anxiously awaiting that notification. Finally, two weeks later, I got this email:

Hello spugbrap

 

We’re happy to announce that your GrandCentral account can now be upgraded to Google Voice. In addition to the great GrandCentral features you already know, Google Voice gives you free transcription of all your voicemail, conference calling, and more. You can also use your Google Voice account to make low cost international calls and free calls to anywhere in the United States.

Unfortunately, there is a group of about 891 phone numbers for which we are not able to enable the new SMS feature. Your phone numbers is one of these that won’t support SMS, so we would like to offer you two upgrade options:

1. You can upgrade your current GrandCentral number to Google Voice. You will get all new Google Voice features, except SMS.
2. You can select a brand new Google Voice number that will support SMS. You can also keep your existing GrandCentral number working for the next 3 months while you tell people your new number, and you can still check voicemails to that number in your GrandCentral account.

Let us know which option you prefer here and we will upgrade your account accordingly.

Thanks,

The Google Voice Team

This morning, on the way to work, I heard an ad for each candidate in the course of about 5 minutes. I actually paid attention this time, because there was a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that there was a discrepancy between ads I’d recently heard from both of them.

Sure enough:

- Obama’s ad said that McCain’s plan will cause 20 million Americans to lose their health insurance coverage.

- McCain’s ad said that Obama’s plan will cause 50 million Americans to lose their health insurance coverage.

Going by the “lesser of two evils” approach, it seems like I should vote for McCain, because 30 million fewer Americans will lose their health insurance coverage. That’s a significant number, representing roughly 10% of the U.S. population!

However, I’ll still feel guilty for being somewhat responsible for that unfortunate 20 million Americans that will lose their coverage under McCain’s plan (around 6.7% of the U.S. population).

I’ve created some 10×10 grids to graphically represent the number of Americans without health insurance as of 2007 (about 15%, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities), and the numbers if McCain and Obama are both giving realistic estimates (highly unlikely) in their ads attacking each other’s health care reform plans.

The shaded regions in the grids indicate the number of Americans without health insurance in each of these cases.

15% without health insurance in 2007	22% without health insurance under McCain’s plan	32% without health insurance under Obama’s plan

Aren’t infographics fun? Ideally, there would be no shaded regions, or a candidate would offer a health care reform plan that would result in fewer shaded regions (i.e. fewer uninsured Americans).

So, how many Americans are you going to help screw out of health insurance in this election? I’d love to hear what you think about these numbers, about my infographics, or anything else you might want to share with regard to the 2008 presidential election!

ALTER TABLE [table_name] RENAME [old_column_name] TO [new_column_name]

But that did not work for me. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that those two pages were for Sybase ASA, not ASE. I refined my search terms a bit, and found this:

sp_rename ‘[table_name].[old_column_name]’,'[new_column_name]’

Thanks to Rob Verschoor for posting this on dbforums.com!

Here’s a small screenshot showing this question (click it to see a larger screenshot with more context):

As you can see, it shows the question that I chose to use, but for the answer it shows “xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx”, and says “Your challenge answer has been hidden for security reasons.” Then, it asks me to check a box saying “Yes, the information above is correct.” How can I confirm that my challenge answer is correct, if I can’t see it? The number of x’s does not even correspond to the number of characters in my first pet’s name.

While I appreciate that they do not display this relatively-sensitive information (since it’s almost like a password), I feel like it’s silly to ask me to verify something that I can’t see. I refused to accept that the answer was correct, and went ahead and selected/entered a new Challenge Question/Challenge Answer combination.

Usually, I put thought into it, and try to answer the questions honestly, based on my experience. Depending on your answers to each question, the number of questions can vary. If you answer anything negatively, they want to know more about what the problems were, which leads to more questions, including some where you speak and it records your comments.

When I have any complaints about a particular visit, I voice them, and that’s fine. This is what the survey is for, and I like to think that my negative comments cause the store to be held accountable.

Sometimes, I just don’t have time, but still want my $2 coupon. So, here’s how to get through these surveys quickly and easily:

1. Press 1 for English
2. Enter your 13-digit Survey Pass Code (don’t follow with pound sign)
3. Press 5 (to say your experience was excellent)
4. Write down the 4-digit validation code on your coupon

That’s it, and it takes less than a minute!

My at&t wireless service has been horrible for the past 3 days, and I am not alone. My wife and several friends in my neighborhood (in Bristow, VA) have been having the same issues. We are not able to reliably make or receive calls or text messages. Details on the problems we’ve been having are below in the My Story section.

I finally called 611 for at&t customer service, this evening, and the Customer Service Representative (CSR) told me that this issue is affecting quite a few customers. She rattled off a list of states that were reporting these issues, and although the list may not have included every state in the Northeastern United States, it definitely included most of them. I can say, for sure, that DC, Maryland, and Virginia were on the list, since those are the ones I was listening for.

The CSR found as much information as she could, for me, from her computer and from other reps. As of 5:25pm EDT on 4/13/2008, 3200-something minutes had passed since they first learned of the issue (note: There are 1440 minutes in one day). Although she couldn’t tell me when the problem might be resolved, she said that it’s a “priority” and they’re working on it. For what it’s worth, she told me that our 911 service was still fully functional.

If it’s affecting people in that many different states, I figure that means potentially millions of customers may be without reliable voice and SMS service. The outage does not seem to affect all areas, though, but I know it at least covers about a 5 mile radius around my house. So, the actual number of at&t customers affected may be a lot smaller, if it’s just a bunch of small areas that are experiencing these problems.

My Story:

My cell phone started having issues late Friday night (4/11/2008), but at first I thought it was just my phone acting up. I just upgraded the OS on my AT&T 8525 (HTC Hermes) to Windows Mobile 6 last week, and it’s had a few minor issues every day.So, when a friend of mine IMed me and said they kept getting sent straight to voicemail when calling my mobile number, I figured my phone was just being stupid. So, I tried making an outgoing call, but it just kept saying “Dialing” and could not seem to connect.

I checked my signal strength, and saw that I had only 1 bar. Usually, in my house, I have 3-4 bars and my cell phone works just as well as the landline. So I went outside, to see if my signal would improve. I think it went up to 2 bars or something, and after a couple tries, I was able to call out. But, the call was very broken up and staticky–pretty much useless.

Still thinking it could be my phone’s fault, I went back inside, turned off the phone, and removed the battery and SIM card. I left it that way for a few minutes, since that was one of the troubleshooting steps that a Cingular CSR had be perform when I had some kind of problem last year

After about 5 minutes, I blew the visible dust out of the back of my phone, put it back together, and turned it on. When it was done booting, I still had only 1 signal bar, but I tried to make a call anyways. As expected, it was still not able to connect, and when I told my friend to try calling me again, they said it was still going straight to voicemail.

Oh well, it was late at night, and I needed to go to bed anyways. I didn’t really need to use my phone, so I just hoped it would work better in the morning.

On Saturday, my family and I planned to go out and have a pretty busy day with some friends. I ended up having the kids at home while Lacey went out with her friends Jena and Anne. It was a beautiful day out, so my kids and I went outside and planted some flowers (I tried to call Lacey to find out where, exactly, to plant them, but could not get a call through, so the kids and I just kinda used our best judgement for planting locations.), then took care of some long-overdue outside work (cleaning plant debris off the deck and treehouse).

We were expecting Dallin and Xander to come over eventually, to hang out while the wives were out shopping. I could not seem to get ahold of Dallin, though. When I tried to call him (from my landline), it went straight to voicemail. When I tried to send a text message, the message stayed in the Outbox for longer than usual, then popped up an error saying that it was unable to send.

I retried it a few times, and eventually got it to send, after about 10 minutes or so. I didn’t get a reply, though. About a half hour later, I tried to text him again, but had the same difficulties. A few minutes later, though, I received 2-3 messages from Dallin. Apparently he didn’t receive any of my messages when I sent them, but they had just come through all at once. Along with those messages from Dallin, I also received one from Lacey, which had a timestamp of about 45 minutes before. I tried to reply to Dallin and Lacey, but still could not get messages to go out without several retry attempts.

By this time, my kids were bored out of their minds, and we were all wondering what we should do. I eventually managed to get a voice call to Dallin, and by talking fast and repeating ourselves, we were able to have a short conversation, despite the fact that the call quality was horrible and static dominated the conversation. The gist of the conversation was that they were at their house, and we were going to come over.

So, the kids and I went over to Dallin’s house. We wanted to go out and do something fun, like go to the park and/or Chuck E Cheese’s. The girls had been out for quite a while, though, so we wanted to coordinate with them before going out anywhere. Of course, we were not able to effectively communicate with them. Thankfully, they arrived at Dallin’s house shortly after we did.

We had more trouble communicating with one another that evening (from the park, Burger King in Gainesville, etc.), and still more on Sunday. It’s been quite frustrating for all of us. We take our cell phone service for granted, since it’s usually pretty reliable. Jena and Dallin don’t actually have a landline, anymore, so they are pretty much cut off from the world right now when they’re at home (or anywhere near home).

I noticed that when we took the kids to their swim lessons in Manasass, Sunday evening, our phones worked just fine. We still couldn’t talk/message with Jena and Dallin, though, since they were at home. This is the point when I realized that the service problem seemed to be confined to a 5 mile radius around our neighborhood.

While the kids were swimming, I went ahead and called at&t, which brings me back to where this post started: Widespread outage, no ETA for a fix.

I’ll post updates when I find out anything more. Hopefully this entry is useful for some of those at&t customers that have been having similar frustrations. I was surprised that when I Google searched the web, news, and blogs, I did not find anything about this outage, even though it covers a wide area and has been happening for about 3 days now.