April 28, 2005
VoIP & Why can't I buy a movie online RIGHT NOW?
Well it's about time the FCC put their foot down. Considering how new this technology is I am impressed, things are moving along quickly.
For a while now I have been wanting to try the VoIP service from Sub Rocket. I found their service named in an article on Clark Howard’s website. I called "Vongage" and everyone I spoke to did not have English as a first language. It was very frustrating because I wasn't asking your average questions. I had called BellSouth (my DSL and landline) and asked if I could get VoIP, they said yes, another company could indeed give my VoIP as long as BellSouth was allowed to piggyback on the phone number with the DSL line, but the trick is not to cut off my phone line with BellSouth at first, because it would then kill the DSL. So I would have to get the new service, confirm that they can piggyback, and then call BellSouth back and have them cancel the phone and use the new phone number from the VoIP service.
I don't completely understand it but I knew enough to explain it to Vonage. The people where idiots. Complete idiots.
So then I called SunRocket, and I got an AMERICAN!! OH OH!! YAY! And better yet you can pre-pay for the whole year ($200) and if within the first 30 days or so you don't like it, you can get a full refund. Like if for example 911 doesn't work. So the dude went and talked to his manager and came back and told me yes we could do it.
I haven’t actually tried yet. I still have to have an electrician come, get the air conditioner fixed, and have someone put pine straw down on our hill ($ CHA CHING) so we don't get yelled at by our neighbors.
So speaking of technology and our future; on my way home yesterday a song came on the radio. I can't for the life of me remember what it's called but it is in the end of the movie "Cruel Intentions" when Reece Witherspoon is driving in the guys car and has journal in the car with her right after he dies. Well I had an urge to watch that movie at that moment. So the first thought that entered my mind was, I wonder if I can just buy it online?
Yes this is a paradigm shift, it was actually my first thought. So I went online looking for the movie. With older movies I don't particularly care if it's a super high quality MPEG. So I did several searches in google, and the only thing I came up with was "Starz" on "Real".
So I get all signed up, 14 free days or something like that. I get to the website, get Real all downloaded (Jesse told me he was going to divorce me if I did it! hehe).
So I go to the website, and crap on me. It has 300 movies TOTAL. Yes, total. No Cruel Intentions, in fact very few old classics excluding Dead Poets Society. So I downloaded Freaky Friday out of desperation and then I watched it, and then canceled my service! One free movie and a lot of frustration later, I realize Hollywood hasn't got a clue.
Posted by brandy at 10:09 AM | Comments (1)
March 16, 2005
The Acid2 challenge to Microsoft
The first beta of IE 7.0 isn't expected for a few more months. But information on Microsoft's security, standards and interface plans are trickling out now.
"To the Web community I want to say: Microsoft has now been challenged. They will respond, if enough people remind them of the challenge. Please remind them. And, when IE 7 is released, make sure this is the first thing you type into it."
The Acid2 challenge to Microsoft
Posted by brandy at 01:05 PM | Comments (0)
March 15, 2005
Shuffle Replication
This is just crazy - a total and complete rip-off of the iPod Shuffle, and they even have the nerve to put the word shuffle in the title.
I hope apple sue's the heck out of them.
Posted by brandy at 01:11 PM | Comments (2)
March 14, 2005
Do you design stuff?
Fantastic article, I reccomend you read it.
During a trip to visit ODMs in Asia, one executive told securities analyst Jim Grossman of Thrivent Investment Management about Steve Jobs's insistence that no screws be visible on the laptop his company was manufacturing for Apple. The executive said his company had no idea how to handle the job and had to invent a new tooling process for the job. "They had to learn new ways to do things just to meet Apple's design," says Grossman.
Posted by brandy at 01:24 PM | Comments (0)
March 13, 2005
Tic Tac's and iPod Shiffle's
So I woke up at a wonderful 11am (been a while sense I was able to sleep in that late) and of course Jesse is moaning and groaning because if he could he would sleep till 3pm. I come into my office to check email and I have a little container of Tic Tac's on my desk. They are warm from sitting next to the computer. So I put a few in my hand an go to eat them when I realize they are white.
You see the container is actually colored a bright orange, thats how they were in australia, so you can't see the true color of the candy. So I'm thinking, wow did the computer heat somehow react with the color?
So then I read the back and it says "Artificial orange flavor added, without colourings. Of course it also says "Made in Australia".
Pretty wild huh? Australia seems to be a lot "healthier" then the states on a few levels, so I wonder if not putting dyes in the Tic Tac's is another level into the cultural differences.
Onto the iPod, the other night after getting my shuffle I went to the CD store, and I had in my hands $80 in CD's. Right when I got into line, after spending like half an hour picking which ones I wanted I realized, um duh I could get this on itunes for less. I walked out feeling weird. I went home and bought that $80 in CD's and only spent around $40 or $50. It was such a strange feeling, knowing I will probably never buy a CD again. Paradigm shift. So weird.
Posted by brandy at 11:29 AM | Comments (0)
March 10, 2005
Why Women Leave I.T.
This article is silly.
For male workers, the challenges inherent in I.T. jobs create a feedback loop -- a balance that must be maintained and managed, but that has basically one dimension. For women, however, the very job qualities that strong I.T. employees crave -- challenging projects and rapid, successive skill acquisition -- are causing even more stress.
A woman wrote this article, I'm not sure what she means by the above. If she means it is "more stressful" for a women to keep up with the latest technology then she is very mistaken. I was using XHTML before most people were, and Cingular Wireless was one of the FIRST websites using a CSS-P driven design. Why did I get this opportunity? Because it just worked out that way. I happen to have a project that I got to work on, where someone had decided to do it in XHTML and it worked out well and I got to learn something cutting edge that most people had still not started using. To me what she is saying is very circumstantial.
"But those very characteristics of I.T. jobs may be the ones that finally push them out of the field -- and they are leaving, voluntarily, in droves."
Excuse me? I don't think so, not this girl. I have left jobs in the past BECAUSE I wasn't getting to learn new things, and moved onto new jobs that would let me learn new things. Again it's all about the circumstances. If you want to keep growing you would need to work somewhere that allows you to.
"For example, women tend to take maternity leaves when their children are born. Even if that leave is only a couple of months long, much could have changed by the time the woman returns to her desk. Imagine the increased stress for her if an enterprise software update occurs in her absence, for instance."
This is true of ANY profession, if your a plastic surgeon and take a year off to have a baby and you miss learning and training on the newest type of breast implants (yeah I watch Dr. 90210 and they change those surgeries about as often as Macromedia releases new versions of flash) or a new type of surgery for it. It's all the same; as SO MANY jobs are relying more heavily on computers (including non-IT related jobs) there is a need to keep up. The WORLD is changing, and I think a lot more women are opting to stay at home with their children then in the last 10 years or so.
When I have a child I would like to stay at home with it as well. Women have babies, it affects their career path, it always had, it always will until men can give birth. Get over it!
Posted by brandy at 10:40 AM | Comments (0)
March 09, 2005
We Need Spy Blogs
Durring lunch I went surfing (eating a lovely bean burrito from our awsume cafeteria - though overpriced) and I visited an old favorite, wired.com, I also realized wow ya know I've been visiting this site for like 5 years and it still delivers!
So yeah, onto the article - We Need Spy Blogs;
Unfortunately, the intelligence community has not kept up with the Army. The 15 agencies of the community - ranging from the armed services to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency - maintain separate portals, separate data, and separate people. The bad guys exploit the gaps, and your safety is on the line. So if all us knuckle-draggers in the Army can use technology to make ourselves better, why can't all the big brains at Langley and Foggy Bottom do the same?
Posted by brandy at 12:16 PM | Comments (0)