Insulating my house with Wilson Insulation Pt 3

As promised, here is my final entry for my insulation experience with Wilson Insulation. January 12 they arrived as promised (this entry is a little delayed… hey I’ve been busy). They didn’t have an official dam to protect my master bedroom attic hatch access so they constructed one out of some kind of insulation board.

I’m not exactly sure how I’ll be getting into and out of the attic but I presume I’ll figure out the required technique when the time comes.

Overall I have to say I’m satisfied. There were some miscues between the sales and the install folks. These could be related to the time of year, vacations and other seasonal thoughts keeping folks from being as focused as they maybe could be. But they made the effort to ensure that my concerns were addressed and they were prompt and courteous. I would use them again if I had to start all over.

So Wilson Insulation gets a “Thumbs up” from me!

Related Posts:

Posted under Retail Experiences

This post was written by Marc
on February 8, 2010 at 8:40 am

30 views
No Comments

Suggestions to makers of Drive Safe.ly

I have been playing with this software for a while now. But I have found no channels for sending them feedback. So today I left the following comment in their blog post regarding their upcoming 2.0 release:

I don’t see any way to find what new features will be released with the newer version.

There does not seem to be any way to send you feedback on the product? I’ve been through the website a couple of times. Am I just missing your feedback arena?

It has excellent potential but major shortcomings:

- Need to be able to shut it up (the same way I can get my ringer to be silent by hitting the volume key) for situations where it starts reading a message and I’m focused on something else. Or if I leave the status announcement on. I’ve had it interrupt conversations in stores announcing that it’s figured out that I’m not driving anymore. This would be fine if I could just shut it up for that one announcement.

- Need to be able to discriminate between messages. I’d like to have the option to ONLY read Level 1 email messages and all texts. If you want to create a separate filter system or allow more granular discrimination, that would be great too. Allowing profiles to control this would make sense.

- Licensing is unclear – It implies that purchase applies only for life of device. Most products you pay one fee for all minor version upgrades regardless of devices. I’m a BES admin and go through devices rather too frequently to have to re-purchase all my software on a per device basis.

- Would be nice if it could parse canonicalized names and just read out the common name for folks on a corporate BES.

- Would be nice if there could be option where it won’t read non words (those with numbers? Those in blacklist?). I receive plenty of important automated notifications and would love to not have to listen to the Lotus Notes generated monitor numbers – they take a while to read out.

I think there is tremendous potential for the product but I also need it to be a bit more friendly to my needs before I invest in it.

Thanks!

Marc

Related Posts:

Posted under Tech Stuff

This post was written by Marc
on February 7, 2010 at 12:30 pm

44 views
No Comments

Do NOT try to protect yourself from Credit Card Fraud

This past Saturday I purchased some software over the Internet (yes, I actually *do* pay for my software..). As part of the transaction I elected to use my VISA card.

Once I had entered the credit card information and clicked “Submit” a curious screen came up purporting to be some kind of confirmation screen. Among other details that it wanted to collect were the last 4 digits of my social security number. Being a reasonably aware netizen I decided that this was too hokey for me and elected to cancel the transaction. I knew that it was *probably* legitimate, but quite frankly I was not feeling too comfortable giving out additional info like that for a simple $30 purchase. I finished the transaction using paypal instead.

Well, fast forward to yesterday (Thursday) and my wife calls me. She was trying to make a purchase for yet more greeting cards and the $5 transaction had been declined by the credit card company. I checked online and my account wouldn’t show up on it’s secured web site so I called Chase (my VISA card brand owner) and found that the decision to cancel out of the transaction had flagged my account 5 days later as a potential fraud risk. I spoke with the fraud rep and they cleared everything up and I was able to use the card to buy gas on the way home an hour or so later.

Checking my online status this morning finds that the account is still missing from the Chase web site. So I called them up and they tell me that the account likely won’t show up for a few more days due to it’s “fraud status”. They ever so kindly offered me a new card that I could use right away (preapproved for a whole $500!) that I could cancel once my other card was up and running. Not sure how they’d get it to me in any kind of relevant time frame.

Anyway, the lessons learned from this:

  • If anyone asks for any amount of information regarding your credit card online, just give it to them
  • If your card information is stolen online, apparently the thieves have nearly a week to use it
  • As fast as the fraud alert is at being set on your account, it’s apparently just as fast at being removed.

This isn’t crippling, just annoying. I use the online credit card information regularly to verify that no weird purchases are being made and to confirm that expected purchases have been made successfully. It’s odd that it takes SO long for a fraud alert to be triggered and then, once that happens, the best tool at my disposal for reviewing and validating purchases is disabled.

Color me not impressed.

Related Posts:

Posted under Retail Experiences

This post was written by Marc
on February 5, 2010 at 7:59 am

90 views
3 Comments

New Computer coming to Bourassa central

I’ve been chafing for a little while now to upgrade my machine to 64 bit and to take advantage of the new Windows 7 64-bit operating system.

I’ve used Vista for a couple of years and really had no complaints. Once I had the UAC disabled (took all of about 15 minutes before I tired of its intrusive confirmations) the OS was pretty solid and didn’t present me with the pains that I’ve heard described by other folks. Of course I also wasn’t trying to use it in a corporate environment.

I had some particular requirements in looking for my new box. Alienware nudged out the competition by offering a factory overclocked i7-920 cpu. They also had a deal where I was able to get the 2nd video card for no extra cost.

I thought about saving some money and putting together the computer myself with individually purchased parts but the price tag for those was going to be about 75% of the cost of having the machine assembled, tested and warranteed. I figured I’d have spent quite a few hours exchanging things that were the wrong shape or that my limited understanding of todays components led me to spec incorrectly not to mention the prospect of various dud components what I would need to troubleshoot to ensure that it wasn’t a configuration issue on my part.

No, the additional cost of having them make it for me will be money well spent.

Here’s what I’ll be picking up if you’re interested:

BASE,PHOBOS,ANW-DT,AREA 51
Overclocked Intel Core i7 920 (3.2GHz, 8MB Cache)
12GB Triple Channel 1333MHz DDR3
No Keyboard
No Monitor
Dual ATI Radeon HD 5770, 1GB GDDR5
1.2TB RAID 0 (2x 640GB SATA-II, 7,200 RPM, 16MB Cache HDDs)
Cosmic Black, Alienware Area-51 Chassis, 1KW PSU
19-in-1 Media Card Reader
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
Alienware Optical Mouse, MG100
AlienFX Color, Plasma Purple
24X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW)
Alienhead Glow
Alienware High-Performance Liquid Cooling

Related Posts:

Posted under Tech Stuff

This post was written by Marc
on January 29, 2010 at 7:06 am

67 views
2 Comments

It’s no wonder the banks are in trouble

As you may be aware from some of my other blog posts, I refinanced my mortgage with Suntrust earlier this year.

At the end of the process I received an offer for $150 if I signed up with their Surepay system. Basically just an automated drafting service to ensure that your mortgage is paid promptly each month.

I just received my 1099-INT from them a few days ago. From my checking account I received a *whopping* $1.81 in interest (I’m still trying to decide how to spend it). But there was this item, listed as “Premium” under Account Type that showed $150 in interest income.

It took me several moments to realize where that entry was coming from. After all, at the sorry .1% interest rate that the banks are paying these days I’m sure I would have noticed the extra $150,000 hanging around in my checking account. (BTW I had to calculate that interest rate since they’re so ashamed that you can’t get it off their web site, the little rate window just blanks out after you put in your state).

I must say that this is the first time I’m going to be nailed for taxes for receiving this kind of incentive. Probably to the tune of around $35.

I just bought an alienware computer and managed to score a $300-off deal for it. I wonder if I need to look out for my 1099 form for *that* next year…

BTW, if you’re reading this as a facebook note, click through to my blog in order to see any pictures/links that I refer to.

Related Posts:

Posted under Opinions, Retail Experiences

This post was written by Marc
on January 28, 2010 at 7:38 am

66 views
No Comments

Lotusphere 2010 – Knowledge from Concentrate!

I just got back from this year’s Lotusphere held in Orlando, Florida. As usual, it is a great opportunity to immerse myself in the world of Lotus Notes / Domino.

There is always so much available to do that you have to pick and choose what’s most important to you and some stuff you just won’t get to see. In my case, I focus on the presentations rather than the product showcase primarily since I’m not in a position to get any of those products into my organization and secondarily I develop most of my own utilities and applications anyway. I spread my attention between the developer and the Admin tracks.

Hits and Misses

As with any event there are good and bad things. In my opinion:

The Hits:

- an unexpected highlight of the conference was having Dr. Brian Cox speak at the closing session. Absolutely brilliant!

- The JumpStart sessions held on Sunday (January 17) every one of these 2 hour sessions that I attended was great. Well prepared presenters disseminating highly relevant information.

- The Show-’n-tell sessions. A deep dive involving some end-to-end process that was like one long (1 hr 45 min) demo. I loved experiencing all the gory details of installs that I’ll implementing myself later this year first hand like this.

- The Swan and Dolphin hotel. These folks know how to manage people flow. Meals had legions of staff directing people and ensuring that food stations were kept stocked. Cleanup of tables was unobtrusive and thorough and staff were always pleasant.

- The Audio visual folks. Not sure if they are Disney or were brought in by Lotusphere but there were no glitches at any of the sessions that I could detect. When there was a question or a presenter made a comment about something that they couldn’t figure out, someone would unobtrusively show up and do what was needed.

- On Time. Sessions started on time and ended on time. Period. This is a consistent theme and one that respects both attendees and presenter’s commitments alike.

The Misses:

- The Information and assistance folks were particularly impotent. They had no idea how to escalate questions and seemed intent on just getting rid of you. My biggest peeve was that my registration never came off pending status and so my Lotus Online account was never activated. Three trips to those yahoos failed to resolve the issue.

- The BOF (Birds of a Feather) sessions were a big disappointment for me this year. The first one I tried to attend, the facilitator was detained (but sent word so we could perhaps try to find another session of interest) and the session was rescheduled for some time in the future. The second one the facilitator didn’t bother to show or send word. This was vexing as it was an early morning session that I’d dragged my not-a-morning-person butt out of bed for at 5:30 am to be there on time.  Also, the sessions exactly overlapped with breakfast – well if you were serious about attending the following normal morning sessions. I think it’s time these ceased being an afterthought and perhaps gained some more prominence in both the schedule and maybe in the minds of the hosts? Last time I was here I attended one or two of these and found them pretty valuable.

- No use of mobile device access to session evaluation. Having attended WES 2009 and seen what can be done in terms of integrating the nearly ubiquitous smartphones into the scheduling and evaluation process, it was kind of a let down to see that these technologies were not being exploited (indeed *showcased*) as part of this event.

My Sessions

Sunday:

BOOT103 Running with Scissors: Sharpen Your Skills for a Pain-free IBM Lotus Domino 8.5 Upgrade

Boot 101 8.5 dom admin

BOOT104 IBM Lotus Sametime 8.5 Deployment Workshop

SHOW102 Using IBM Lotus Domino 8.5 Policies to Manage Your Clients

Monday:

BP108 Worst Practices

AD206 Filthy Rich User Interfaces

SHOW113 Integrating IBM Lotus Domino Data and Applications on Smartphones, Blackberry

BP306 How to Sell IBM Lotus Notes

BOF316 Managing your IBM Lotus Domino Environment with Lotus Domino (Facilitator no show)

Tuesday:

BOF314 How to Tune Your IBM Lotus Domino Server for Maximum Performance (Facilitator no show)

AD102 Extreme Makeover — LotusScript and Java Editor Edition

AD107 Enhance Your Existing Applications with XPages

BP106 The Top 11 Tips for Keeping Your Servers Healthy

ID102 Enterprise IBM Lotus Notes Client Deployments

BP212 Delivering IBM Lotus Domino to Mobile Devices: Top 10 Mobile Browser Dev Tricks – and More!

ID615 Best Practices for Upgrading to IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5x

Wednesday:

BP107 Real World Examples: Upgrading to IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5

SHOW201 Installation and Setup of IBM Lotus Sametime 8.5: From “Zero to Hero” in Just Two Hours

BP206 Let’s Give Your LotusScript a Tune-Up

ID604 IBM Lotus Notes and Domino in the Cloud – IBM LotusLive Notes

Thursday:

SHOW103 Roaming in IBM Lotus Domino 8.5: Configure the Best Choice for You

ID611 The Best-Laid Plans: Networking That Can Hurt Your Applications

GURU101 GURUpalooza!

ASK101 Ask the Developers

Related Posts:

Posted under Lotus Domino

This post was written by Marc
on January 22, 2010 at 8:29 pm

Tags:
94 views
4 Comments

The Temporal Void

The Temporal VoidThe Temporal Void by Peter F. Hamilton continues his tradition of fine multi-book series. My only regret is that I read this one now rather than waiting so that I could begin the last book in this particular trilogy immediately.
Picking up right where “The Dreaming Void” left off, this book maintained the established pace and kept going. Human civilization is hundreds of years older than in Mr. Hamilton’s earlier offerings but many of the established characters are still participating due to the technological advances already established for lengthening human life AND due to the ability folks have of essentially uploading themselves into a vast network and living a non-physical (or “post physical”) existence.
As always, the characters are front and center and the absurdities and realities of human existence no matter what the level of civilization are always interestingly portrayed in this universe.
An enjoyable read and I am on tenterhooks waiting for the next installment.

Related Posts:

Posted under Books

This post was written by Marc
on January 13, 2010 at 7:07 am

68 views
No Comments

Page 1 of 1001234567...Last »

Search