Year: 2010

Kudos to Flushmate

About 3 years ago I had all 3 toilets in my house replaced by with new ones powered by Flushmate’s pressure assist systems (the actual toilets are made by Gerber).

A few days ago one of them stopped working so I started pulling it apart to figure out what the problem was. I ended up on Flushmate’s website and found a wealth of information, most useful were a series of videos showing how to test and replace various components of their system. I was originally a little hesitant to go for the new technology since I *knew* that I could always get parts for conventional toilets at my local hardware store but was not sure what would happen should I have issues with these new units.

After watching the videos I could tell right away what was not obvious from reading the install manual, the actuator shaft of the flush cartridge was sheared through, but the break was smooth enough I did not initially recognize that it was not *supposed* to be in two pieces. I called their 1-800 number and, as it was a Saturday, I ended up leaving them a voicemail with the particulars of my situation.

Come Monday morning, Dawn from flushmate called me back and we determined that the flush cartridge was indeed broken and covered under their 10 year warranty. Even though the toilet had not originally be registered with them they honored the warranty and immediately shipped out a replacement cartridge.

Thursday the part arrived by regular mail and half an hour later the toilet was right as rain.

So I wanted to toss up my story of an easy to work with company that honors its stated commitment to its product without a lot of fuss and bother.

And these are still the best toilets we have ever owned. Three years and I’m sure they can flush anything Consumer Reports can throw at them. Exactly what our sewage system needs!

Battle of the Chocolate Milks – The Fresh Market

This battle pits The Fresh Market’s “Grade A Chocolate Milk from Jersey Cows” against my last post’s winner, “Mayfield Whole Chocolate Milk”.

The Fresh Market’s foods are very often my favorites. They make some great cakes and brownies  and I expected their chocolate milk to be a strong contender.

They did not disappoint, their chocolate milk offering has a great color and is smooth and flavorful but… misses for me on one crucial element. The taste tends more toward the bittersweet end of the spectrum than does the Mayfield offering.

If you know me, you know I’m not a fan of bittersweet chocolate. I’d say that, if you prefer your chocolate a little less sweet than I do, then I think I’d give The Fresh Market’s chocolate milk the edge. But, for me, I have to say that Mayfield Chocolate milk is still the one to beat.

Battle of the Chocolate Milks

As you know, I like my chocolate milk. And with the end of my supply of Hershey’s Chocolate Milk Powder I’ve begun searching for the pre-made chocolate milk brand that is best of breed and is easily available to me.

My other criteria are that it should have a smooth texture (not granular or “sugary”) and it should be something that I would look forward to drinking rather than merely be a utilitarian aspect of my meal.

I was in a Publix store yesterday and all that they had available were “Publix Chocolate Grade A Milk”  and “Mayfield Whole Chocolate Milk“. I’ve elected to skip the skim or fat-reduced versions of these because, really, what would be the point? If I were concerned about calories I really shouldn’t be drinking chocolate milk at all.

The Publix offering was, to put it kindly, subtle. Even looking at the drink you could tell it was not going the be the richest chocolate milk out there. It was certainly not objectionable, it was simply not outstanding.

The Mayfield offering, on the other hand, was a dark brown in color and was much richer and flavorful. Until I have the chance to try some others, this one will be my “favorite”.

Replacing Task Manager with Process Explorer in Windows 7 (64-Bit)

*** Updated June 14, 2010 ***

It turns out that the Procexp64.exe exists ONLY while Process explorer is running. Don’t ask me why. So my registry entry instead now shows:

C:\Bin\Procexp.exe.

Otherwise you still get the “cannot find” message.

*** End June 14, 2010 Update ***

I recently was introduced to Windows’ Process Explorer and liked it enough to want to replace Window’s native task manager with it.

It *should* be as simple as clicking “Options > Replace Task Manager” in the Process Explorer window but then, when you try to invoke the Task Manager (now supposedly Process Explorer) you get a message indicating that

“Windows cannot find ‘C:\Window\System32\taskmgr.exe’. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again.”

For me, going back in Process Explorer to uncheck the above option shows that it’s not checked, and clicking it again doesn’t do anything at all.

Not sure exactly why but what’s happened is that a registry key for task manager has now been created with a debugger key that has a garbage value. Mine showed something like ” ^ $ ^”.

Check it out under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\taskmgr.exe

To go back the way things were you just need to remove the “Debugger” key. Or, if you want to go forward and actually replace the task manager, then set the value of the debug key with the location of your process explorer executable. In my case it looks like “C:\bin\Procexp64.exe” “C:\bin\Procexp.exe”.

Funny, I deleted the debug key and then went back to process explorer and try “Options > Replace Task Manager” again and it works just fine now. Must be an initialization issue.

Can’t Fathom why Kindle versions would cost more than Physical

** Update June 27, 2010 **

Amusingly, the day after I posted this, the Amazon price for the physical book jumped up to $10.19 and has remained there ever since.

Not saying it’s related to *my* post, but amusing nonetheless. Just saying to anybody at Amazon who happens across this, the thrust of my post was that the Kindle price should come *down*, not the other way around…

** End Update June 27, 2010 **
I was hankering for a new book to read yesterday so I went to pick up Peter F. Hamilton’s “Fallen Dragon” from Amazon.com.  I see that the current price for the Kindle download is $9.99. But I can purchase a brand new physical copy of the book from Amazon for only $8.24. In fact fully 7 of the 22 retailers offering the book are doing so for less than the $9.99 kindle price.

Most of those are also charging shipping fees which will put them over the Kindle price. I use Amazon so much that I’m experimenting with their “Prime” service which means that I’ve already paid a flat fee for my shipping for the year so there is no additional cost to me when I purchase anything that is sold BY Amazon. It will arrive two days later for exactly the purchase price that I see listed.

With the iPad coming on the scene I’m a little surprised to see that Amazon has chosen to go this path. The price difference is trivial, only $1.75, but it certainly rankles to pay *more* for something that requires far less overhead to print, store, handle and ship than its physical counterpart. I’m sure that the price is being driven by some odd publisher-determined model.

Companies have always been in business to make money. But am I mistaken in that, in this era, they are so much more brazenly about squeezing every last penny out of you and being completely blatant about it?

Heck, I understand that both AT&T and Verizon Wireless, instead of continuing to offer a somewhat reasonable value with their unlimited plans, are looking to move BACK to forcing you to purchase buckets of minutes / data and then gleefully charging you overage fees again.

I’m personally looking for companies that I can partner with – someone that I can pay a fair price to and expect fair service from them. They make a reasonable profit and I get value for my investment. It seems many businesses today are intent only on adversarial relationships with their customers and spend a tremendous effort on extracting every last cent from you for their services. It’s no wonder that brand loyalty and customer satisfaction are so low these days. If you are squeezing your customers so hard, it does not take much to push them over the edge to find another provider or to become upset with your services. People are a lot more tolerant of companies that work with them rather than against them.

Children of Dune

Children of Dune by Frank Herbert. Yeah, yeah I know I’m *decades* behind the curve in only reading this now. I watched the Sci-Fi (now syfy – *groan*) Network’s version of this book (and “Dune Messiah”) while I was still reading the book. I recall really enjoying the movie years ago when it first aired. This time I saw the incredible gaps in the movie for those who hadn’t read the books. This seems to be the fate of Dune. Far too much detail and too many plots to translate to the screen in any but the most scant of ways.

Of course I enjoyed the book more than the movie but not as much as the original “Dune”. I see that there are plenty more books out there now in this universe (Paul of Dune, Sandworms of Dune, etc.) that I’m going to have to consider. What a great universe to take advantage of and to continue to honor long after its original creator can no longer do so!

Tidying up the songs in my Music Library

I woke up this morning with this song in my head but wanted to have a version of it that I could listen to any time either on my home stereo (via iTunes through SoundBridge) or on my iPod.

A quick search turned up ListenToYouTube.com where all I needed to do was provide the YouTube URL for the video and they’ll rip it and provide you with an MP3 file of it, no charge(!). The resulting file is encoded at 128 bps but, for the quality on the YouTube video that’s more than enough for my purposes.

But there was a lead-in section explaining the purpose for the video which is nice in the video context but was a bit distracting for just straight listening. So another search yielded MP3Trim which is a freeware version of the software that can handle files of up to about 9.7 MBytes. The software nicely trims leading and trailing stuff off of MP3s and so was perfect for removing the distracting piece.

Using iTunes’ seek bar I figure out at what point I want the trim to take place, decide if I need it to be abrupt or a fast or slow fade in/out and *presto*. New MP3 with only the parts that I want.

So I’m walking through my collection now removing annoying guitar solos, that annoying guy at the end of the Fugee’s “Killing Me Softly” song and Dolly Parton (yes I have a couple of Dolly Parton songs) yakking away at the end of “Star Spangled Banner”.

I’ve only stumbled so far trying to trim Guns N’ Roses “Knockin’ on Heavean’s Door”. At 10.2 MBytes it’s about 5% too big for the Freeware MP3Trim to handle. Registering the software would resolve this for me. But it’s a little pricey for the use that I would make of it. I’ll just get something that can split the file grossly near where I want to trim and *then* trim it. And if that doesn’t work I don’t think I’ll worry about it.

Of course, if I were only listening to this music on my iTunes or my iPod platforms I could just alter the properties so that the portions of the song that I don’t want are simply not played, but this ONLY works on those platforms. Playing through my Soundbridge or directly off of an SD card on my BlackBerry or car stereo would still have the annoying bits.

The little things in life – Hershey’s Chocolate Milk Mix

It’s been getting harder and harder lately to find Hershey’s Chocolate Milk Mix. I could wax all poetic about how it is the best out there but this blog entry does a great job of it.

So, as I approach the mid-point of my current container, I put on the grocery list to pick up some more. Michelle came home yesterday and mentioned that our local Publix does not have any. “No Worries”  I say, “I’ll just check on line to see where it can be found or maybe even ordered.”.

These folks kind of describe my feelings here. Only since this was over a year ago, I think my own quest will be in vain. I’m going to put out a feeler to my friends in Canada in case Hershey’s up there is not quite so cruel, but you can only carry so much of this stuff on a plane.

One of the great things about living in this day and age is that you can see new wonders appear on virtually a daily basis. I remember when Sony Walkmans were a groundbreaking idea and now we have solid state devices that can hold many orders of magnitude more entertainment and last many times longer on a charge (or set of batteries back then).

The downside of this is that, where folks of the previous generation may have been able to rely on products and institutions remaining virtually unchanged for their entire lives, I find that I have to continue to rethink things that I heretofore regarded as sacrosanct.

Something as innocuous as chocolate milk mix is only unimportant if you’re satisfied with it. There are plenty of options out there that I tried in years gone by. Quik was more sugar than chocolate, the syrups just don’t seem to blend all that well so you end up with gobs and hunks floating around in your cup. Only the finely powdered Hershey’s Mix with it’s pleasing chocolate-to-sugar ratio made the cut.

So, I have a can of ovaltine here – what I regard as “The Shawshank Redemption” of chocolate powders since, like the move, the product name does nothing to enlighten you as to it’s purpose – that I will be sampling shortly.

Can you think of a product that you use regularly that you don’t even think about that would cause you to stumble and have to rethink and reevaluate a bunch of different options before you were comfortable again? It can be anything from toothpaste to a brand of flour or detergent to that motor oil that you use whenever you overhaul your motorcycle engine.

RosaMia Restaurant Alpharetta

I’ve been to RosaMia 3 times now and each time have been very pleasantly impressed.

A little on the large side, their lasagna is spectacular. Gastronomic athletes may be willing to finish it but I find it much more satisfying to share it or take some home with me. Equally good has been their pizza and their Panini sandwiches (with a salad) which are exactly the right size and surprisingly tasty.

The service has always been pleasant, timely and efficient and the price is exactly in line with what I am willing to pay for a lunch trek to a restaurant.

Definitely a keeper, I have yet to be disappointed here.

Cabernet Restaurant Alpharetta

I’ve been to Cabernet Restaurant for lunch a few times in my 5 plus years working in Alpharetta and it’s usually been just OK. That atmosphere  and pricing has always been a little higher-end than I tend to favor. But it seemed like it should be worthwhile as a treat.

Today I suggested to the group I was with that we should try Cabernet to see how it’s doing these days.

I have to say I was somewhat disappointed.

The service was just slow. From arriving at the front and waiting for someone to show up to seat us to every interaction with the waiter it just all took too long.  I think the situation was, even though the dining room was not even half full, there were simply not enough wait staff to host even that small a lunch crowd.

I was going to order their Filet mignon but waiting for the waiter to show up to take our order made me rethink trusting them to cook a steak. I figure that a restaurant that cannot manage its dining room probably isn’t doing so well managing the kitchen either.

I ended up ordering a Turkey Wrap which was the best thing on my plate but still pretty bland. It came with “hand cut potato chips” that were among the most tasteless I’ve ever come across. If I had been able to find a server I’d have asked for ketchup to at least give them some semblance of vitality. Also included was coleslaw – I’m more a fan of vinegar rather than creamy coleslaw – this had the distinction of being neither one nor the other and still retaining its ability to be unappetizing.

For the occasions when my drink glass was not empty it was half the time filled with the wrong drink.

One of my party did comment that the waiter knew how to deliver the menu recitation and, when he had made his way to our table I must admit he was effective at making choice items on the menu sound appealing. But that, alas, had to be the only really good thing I can say.

I will not be returning.