Auto hackery

Trying out the flickr posting option. Get a load of this car that I caught outside the office.

Thought I’d post a follow up to my previous post about my network speeds at the new house.

For comparison here’s what I have to live with at work:

VS At Home:

So we may be broke and my knee may be blown out but we find time to stop by the Apple store and post from the iPhone.

Oh well, next month. Still need to see what new iPods apple comes up with next month, too.

Well, after a grueling weekend we’re finally moved into our new place in Seattle. It’s a pretty nice 4 bedroom house from the 1930’s dead smack in the middle of Seattle. It’s nice to be around pe… well.. culture and convenience.. again.

Of course I tried to make sure that high speed was hooked up as quickly as possible. We moved on Saturday (and technically Sunday since we were unloading the truck till 2am) and Comcast sent folks out to hook up the cable box the next day.

I was out with the kids picking up some more things from the old house because I figured they weren’t really going to show up. That left Stacia at home. When I got back she was standing on the lawn and two big guys were leaving. She had a fairly sour look on her face as she came up to talk to me in the car. I was preparing to be annoyed because they didn’t put the jack in the downstairs closet like I’d wanted when the guys drove away and she started to lay this story on me.

Apparently the first guy showed up and he was cool. Asked where we wanted the jack and where the cable modem was - we brought ours down from the old place. So she shows him to the basement and goes back to unpacking up stairs. He goes back and forth between the basement and then to outside.

About a half our later she hears the cable guy come in the front door and goes into the living room and there’s this BIG ASS Samoan guy filling in the door and the other guys in front of him. He says “Oh.. my buddy is here.” (Edit: She said he didn’t speak english very well.. fragmented.. so I don’t know if he was samoan *shrug*) And then they start to ask her all the same questions again. The guy has already been there a half hour or more and asked all these guestions. So she starts to kinda get worried cause they’re acting dumb and kind of moving in towards her.

They’re asking her were she wants the cable modem hooked up and basically the gist of it is “show us where down in the basement.” So at this point she just freaks and points to the basement door and then just puts keeps her head low and pushes way around the big guy at the door and into the front yard. She stays out there for another 45 minutes pretending to pull weeds.

Just before I got home they finally came up out of the basement and told her that it was all hooked up and that the battery on her laptop had died. Ermm… when had they asked to use that.. it was in my office on the other side of the basement. So they big guy gets in his truck and the other guy has her sign the work order and kind of awkwardly talks about drilling holes through the foundation and if that’s what we wanted to do. Then he just kinda walks away and gets in his truck… which is where I came in.

So that was all kinds of freaky. I tried to comfort her with the idea that these guys are there with a company van and they’re out on a job so if they tried anything their names would be all over it. I didn’t try to down play her fear or concern - hell, fear is nature’s way of trying to keep you alive. But… I have to hope that’s the case.

Once she was calm I went inside to check out what they’d done. Her laptop was in the corner of the basement all hooked up to a rats nest of wires and I went into my office to find my laptop “tossed” onto the desk and hanging off. I’ve got a password on mine so I imagine they were annoyed, put it back, and grabbed hers.

All and all the kind of experience to leave a bad taste in your mouth.

So… I took apart what they’d done. Pulled my vonage box out of the closet and all the spurious other devices and slapped the network together. Wireless is pretty nice. Here I am in the middle of Seattle and I’ve got 2 real signals. Mine and an open linksys which I think is my neighbors but has a poor signal strength.

This is good. Trust me. I was living out in bum fuck egypt and I had no less than a dozen APs all crammed in there on all channels. I shit you not. It was terrible. Not to mention the entire neighborhoods signal dropping for minutes at a time randomly. Thank you Everett Naval Station… Oh yeah… I know it’s you.

So for giggles I ran speedtest.net on our connection:

Works for me.

Oh well.. I’ve got more stuff coming now that we’re settling in. I’ve had a new laptop bag for a while and I’ve been waiting to do a writeup on it until I see how I like it. It’s a Crumpler “The Horseman” model. I’ve got some likes and some dislikes. You’ll see.

Laters

Apparently I’m doing something right. The spammers are starting to try posting on my blog again. WooP!

Be back in a week.

It’s our little guy’s birthday today! The big 2. Isn’t he just the cutest little bug?

Happy birthday little buddy!

“Choo choo go!”

My father, on my recommendation of course, finally ordered himself a Mac Book Pro. After months of building and rebuilding the system in his shopping cart he finally clicked through to the finish when I gave him the high sign. He’s got a new Santa Rosa chipset MBP with the 17″ glossy high res screen and all the bells and whistles.

While he waited for his new machine to arrive he ran out and grabbed all sorts of accessories. One of which was this sweet bit of mousieness, the Logitech VX. He already had is new camera and he was ready to jump into the Apple world and Aperture.

So the MBP finally arrives we get everything setup… Firefox, adium, skype, etc etc etc. And then… Kernel Panic. Within the first 24 hours the system grays out on him and prompts him to reboot.

Now, my father isn’t the most patient. So needless to say he’s upset. But he reboots and keeps using it. Then it happens 2 more times over the next couple hours. ACK! Gives a call to Support and they tell him to just send it in.

(Time to shorten this up a bit)

So he packages up his new $3.5k machine and sends it back. He gets a new one. Sets it up and BAM! Kernel Panics again.

Drives it to the apple store… many miles away… to take it back and get his money… pissed now… They of course tell him they can’t take back an online order. But the manager offers him $200 to package it back up and send it back for another one. To keep the order alive. He’s pissed… says no.

After much hemming and hawing he comes around… sends the machine back with the thought that.. hell.. how could it happen 3 times?!

Gets the new machine… sets it up and…. (say it with me) Kernel Panic!!

At this point he’s achieved that kind of Zen.. that calm quiet that happens just before said zen master makes someones head explode with shear rage. Of course I’m scampering thing.. Jesus.. how is this possible? Gotta fix this.

This is awfully long perhaps I should just get to the point…. The mouse… it was the logitech drivers. For what ever reason… the drivers give OS X fits. Just google it and see.

So we removed the drivers - he went so far as restoring it to make sure they were completely gone - and he’s been running perfectly ever since. Still using the mouse. But without the drivers from Logitech. Phew…

In a way.. I’m glad this happened. Considering I’d been thinking about the same mouse. But anywho… if your Mac is freaking out and you have a logitech mouse, try removing the drivers and see if that takes care of the problem.

I’m not sure how deep the install goes. Not sure if the reimage/restore is needed or not.

I got a spam today with the topic “SuSE TeamLatest release”. But it was from WikiStub and started with “Letter shown due technical built. Webserver listening external….” So it was obviously spam.. that and gmail marked it as such, helps.

Getting craftier.. they’re actually starting to send emails that I might actually look at. Or at least on topic.

Ever been walking along and you think of something totally obscure from your past.. like an old tv show or something… and then suddenly everyone you know is talking about it? And suddenly it’s going to be rereleased to DVD and the latest movie to be remade.

Isn’t it odd how we all seem to think the same things at around the same time. I don’t know whether it’s a product of carefully implemented marketing or what. But it’s a creepy feeling.

So, here’s my idea. Let’s start our own Meme. A MoonPie Meme.

Everyone reading this. Make it a point to go out and get some MoonPies. Then eat it were someone can see you. At work.. on the bus. Maybe even comment how good it is. But don’t let on anymore beside that.

Let’s see how long it takes for MoonPies to suddenly become a national hit again.

Interesting. No?

Mmmmm this is a good MoonPie