Wagahai’s corner

Discussion of operating systems and platform are as bad as discussions about religion or politics. There are reasons behind someone’s choice to back one over another and 99% of the time you won’t change someone’s mind.

An example.. I’m a PC guy and use RH Linux for my servers and Windows for my workstations. I’m comfortable with Linux as my server choice because that’s what I started on. I know how to make it do what I want. Why RedHat? I tried them after slackware buggered up the glib support back on slak 4.0 and never went back. I really haven’t given the other distros a try recently since I’m comfortable with what I have. Likewise, with Windows.. I have XP pro on all of my workstations. I know how to keep it running in a way I’m comfortable with and I like certain software that only runs on Windows.

Better choices? Sure - my RedHat 9 machine won’t do a simple 2 command upgrade like fbsd and upgrade every program. It’s not as handy as other Linux flavors either. I’d love to have the support from OpenBSD to place firewall rules based on remote OS detection, that’s just plain cool. As for Windows “security”.. I’ve not had a virus, spyware or anything since moving to XP. Windows runs the programs I want to run.. for better or worse. Only time I’ve had the blue screen of death in recent years has been due to a hardware failure (power supply which also corrupted the drive)..

..so why would I want to change?

Sure, I like playing with technology.. so I will probably have a Mac someday. I really want to play with quicktime editing at some point.. so far that’s the 1 application I need a Mac to use (for specialized purpose). Chances are, once I go to virtual machines more, I will have a few virtual machines to try out other OSs.. but for my day to day work, I can’t see changing.

..and for those of you reading, I don’t expect that what works for me would work for you either.

A review/editorial/commentary of “Second Life”..

For those who don’t know, “Second Life” is an online world created by Linden Labs. It’s a virtual environment where you can do many of the things you can do in the real world and more. The environment is built by users.. each chair, building, outfit is created in-world.

I’ve been using SecondLife for a year now.. Tashie was the first to take a step with opening a store. She was tired of finding duplicate “free” items everywhere and wanted to make a one stop shop to find as many as possible without the duplicates. We decided we liked hanging with people and opened a club.. and this continued to grow. Currently we have our own “island” which we control. We have a 3-story mall, a club, the freebie store, amusement rides and tons more. We don’t make money on it, but it’s something fun to do. We’ve met some great people and we’ve enjoyed most of our time making this island our home away from home.

The concept of having a “second life” where you can be whoever you want, live in a different world and do things you can’t (or would never) do in real life is not new.. but making it happen is a challenge. When you give people the ability to do “anything” and make “anything” it can create technical problems.. how do you prepare for things you’ve not thought of.. and how do you add limits without stopping people’s ability to create? ..and it’s this major “flaw” that makes you feel like you’re using beta software. Every couple weeks they roll out more bugfixes and a few new features. Each new feature adds more bugs. The technology is simply not tested well enough before rolling it out to the users. There is a “preview” grid which is open to people and where you can test and report bugs.. but that’s not why most of us play. Linden Labs seems unwilling to create/develop a decent testing system. Most days with major rollouts currently have additional downtime as they find bugs and add quick-fixes.

Many see SecondLife as a “game” so they expect to come in world with some funding, they expect to go around, hang out, chat, listen to music and play games. The intended use by Linden Labs is a bit different. They’ve changed the economy to try to “preserve” the value of in-world currency but don’t seem to understand that the average user just wants to unwind online after a day at work, not to have to get a job in SecondLife or use real life money to buy additional in-game currency. For those who run things in-game, we also get to compete with Linden Lab sponsored events or sponsored venues (as an exmaple we had a staff member leave to a Linden-funded education venue because we could not compete with the pay). I feel the Linden’s choice to try to say some things in-game are more important and worth paying for than others to be a flaw in the system. If residents are happy to build/create/teach/whatever, they should find their own ways to make funds or just do it for the joy of doing it.. Lindens should leave the playing field alone to keep things enjoyable for all.

I have mixed reviews of the helpers (Linden employees) in Second Life. There are some who are the “front smiling face” of the company who seem to not have the technical understanding when you try to talk to them about problems, but they’re most commonly the ones answering the public questions from users. There’s some that seem technical but would like us to believe that our video drivers can crash 40 other people including the sim we’re on. There’s a few overly technical who are a pleasure to deal with.. thanks Jack, Cyn, Steve and Kenny.

Probably the best trick that Linden Labs did with SecondLife is make it addicting.. despite the flaws, the money, the excessive computer requirements to play.. you’re still willing to spend your time and often your money on this addicting waste of time. I completely admit I’m unable to just “walk away” even on days like today where I feel like I *PAY* them to beta-test their software, report bugs and watch the island crash.

Ok, so was looking to grab a few items and I’ve heard everyone talk about Tiger Direct and decided to try them.. Most tech people seem happy to recommend them.

Unfortunately, couldn’t have been a worse experience.. and this is only day 1, the day I placed the order.. and I think I succeeded in killing my order, but here’s the blunder list:

* Website screwed up and left 1/2 of my order off
* Phone sales screwed me into buying 2 of 1 of my items and tells me
to just “rerfuse delivery” of the first (assuming I am here to do that)
* Phone sales AGAIN causes the order to not make it thanks to warrenty
problem
* E-mail response to my complaint about website tells me to call in to
credit but gives no special # and doesn’t bother mentioning that the
department is already closed for the day.
* Called back in to try to talk to the credit department, am told they’re
closed
* Called back to try to cancel the order and am told the account is frozen
by the credit department. Meanwhile person I spoke with hears the story
and is confused as to why I was asked to order a SECOND of the same item
just to put it on the same order.. (as am I) They were also unable to
verify if the order has gone out, if there is actually a hold or if the
order will be shipped tomorrow.

Will update later, but I have to say, this company does NOT make ordering items easy.. or any part of the order process for that matter. Most places I order from online I place an order with, item ships next day, I have it after that based on which shipping I asked for.. it’s as easy as can be.

Sometimes, as a geek, I forget that other people don’t do things the same way I do.. friend of mine was mentioning how annoyed they were that they weren’t at home to reset something on their computer for a few days. The solution to this problem is somehting I do anyway, but figured I’d mention some of the standard things here for whoever was reading and wanted some tech inspiration.

* I have a version of VNC installed on all of my systems. This allows me to remote control any of the systems. Sometimes I’m just too lazy to grab the laptop in the other room and it’s handy to VNC to it. Other times I can be in Australia or UK and connect in to do whatever I need.

* I have 2 VPNs installed on my machines. One connects to the hamachi network and allows me to connect to most of my machines regardless if a machine of mine is behind a router at a friend’s house or on a normal ‘net connection. The other VPN I have installed goes to my server. Anytime I need to visit an odd site, want an extra step of security when on an odd network, or need a different route to get to a site I login to the alternate VPN and it solves a lot of problems.

* Have a shell box handy and configured with goodies. You never know when you need an end-point for a VPN, a place to have mail w/fun filtering, ability to try out toys, have a shoutcast relay or any number of other things.

* Dynamic DNS - always handy to have some form of this so you can find your machines when you leave them on a remote network.. although that alternate VPN util mentioned above is handy for that too.

May post more later, but yah.. anyway.. was overdue for a blog post so there it was.

..and I do mean crap..

Apple..
Earlier today watched a conversation about Apple. A few people were talking about their ipods and ibooks and were slamming microsoft. The slams about stability were definately worth it with 95/98/ME.. but in reality, I’ve had very few OS level problems with 2k/XP that weren’t caused by another program. The main item that amused me was the part when they spoke about the evil Microsoft company.. and it wasn’t so much about the business practices about forcing companies to bundle windows, but was just “anti-large-company” which amuses me since Apple isn’t exactly run out of someone’s garage anymore.. but hey, there’s always an underdog to cheer for.. and I admit that I may someday purchase an ibook for myself, not because of Apple making it, but because it runs unix and hopefully will do everything I want and do it well.

Bank one and their annoying calls.
While on the phone overseas with my woman earlier, I got one of those annoying calls where they gloss over the part of the call where they’re selling something and get to the “we’d like to confirm your address” part.. then they alert you that they’re going to record the call to confirm the spelling of your name and that you’ll get the special gift… for allowing them to add purchase protection to your account. I *HATE* that BS and the way they phrase it. As with any offer, the wording is important.. and they do their trick well. I just hate that as an existing customer they call and bug me and ended up causing a dropped call. *grumble*

Police yearbook fund…
Ok, so my home number is listed as a business number.. was the only way to get the correct people dealing with my account. Unfortunately it also makes it possible for people to call the business since there’s no “business” do no call list.. so the other day, the police call regarding a yearbook fund - no matter how many times I tried to explain this isn’t a business and I don’t have a window to put their “we support the police” sticker in, they continue their sales.. finally I gave in, it wasn’t worth it.. this does give me some concerns about the law enforcement’s ability to listen though.. I just got my stickers for my business window today.. no idea where I’m gonna stick ‘em

Plucked bird…
Ok, so last weekend I was at the parent’s place and we were talking about my parrot with the feather plucking problem. He found a website kings cages which had a formula that you add to the water and it helps reduce the bird’s plucking. I’ve ordered some.. should get here in a couple weeks (they’re backordered).. and then should take 5 weeks to see major changes.. we’ll see how it goes. I plan to document the changes. Probably will be a post here after it’s done.

Jack FM
I liked it at first, but having many styles of music on random gets old quickly. Personally the Clear Channel ownership doesn’t change my listening to the station.. but it all comes down to the type of music and the DJ. Unfortunately many of my favorite stations over time have all gone away.. the best ever was 98.1 in St Louis which had NO TALK RADIO in the mornings.. and just played good music with your standard commercial breaks and occasionally a comment or two from the DJs, but mainly there was music.. good music. Something tells me that mp3 players in cars will become more common in the future, especially as the main generations that drive become more tech-friendly. Now if they’d start selling music collections on MP3 CDs in the store I’d be a happy guy.