Dan's Randomness

So I’m sure by this point in time, you have all had an experience with SPAM, usually in the form of emails in your inbox. Having had the same email address for a good number of years now (not to mention the 50+ email addresses that are forwarded to my main inbox), I get a very large amount of SPAM (it’s not uncommon for me to see 70+ SPAM messages a day). But some new(er) SPAM methods have come into light recently, that are immensely more annoying than simple email SPAM.

1) Comment SPAM – This spam is posted to guestbooks, forums, comments on articles, and virtually any place that allows for an “open post” of information. This has caused the CAPTCHA revolution, decreasing usability and frustrating many users across the web.
2) Vehicle SPAM – This is something that seems relatively new, though it could just be this area. There is nothing I love more then walking out of the store, only to find a small, colored sticky note telling me that I can work from home and make thousands of dollars a week.
3) SMS SPAM – This is the most annoying of all. It’s one thing to SPAM my email inbox, at least I don’t pay for each email you send me, but SPAM to my cell phone?!?! It’s really annoying to be woken up in the middle of the night, grab your cell phone, then be greeted by a SPAM message. What more, if you have a limited number of text messages per month, or no text message plan at all, then these messages have the potential of costing upwards of $0.20 PER MESSAGE.

I swear, there are truly a lot of people in this world with no morals at all. It really pisses me off that they can, and do get away with this. Not to mention that it’s not uncommon for a SPAMMER to make over a quarter million per year. You guys are a bunch of assholes, with no respect for anyone or anything, and I truly hope that you get what’s coming to you.

For all of you out there afflicted by SPAM, who think you can’t do anything to fight back, just remember. Myspace recently won $230 million dollars after they sued a pair of spammers who where using the Myspace messaging system to send SPAM messages.

There is also, what I would call, my favorite site of all time, Project Honey Pot. This site is dedicated to the tracking, logging, and prosecuting of SPAMMERS worldwide. If you own a domain, run a website, or simply post on blogs and forums, then you too can help out in the fight against SPAM!

So I’ve said this before, though never here so I thought that it would be a good rant since I haven’t had one in a while.

Anyways, MySpace has been around for some time now, and it still boggles my mind to think that people actually like and use it! I mean, almost once a week now, I hear a story of someone getting their computer infected with a virus, that the got from MySpace! And if that weren’t enough of a reason to stop using MySpace, it also turns out that it’s home to a rather larger number of “online predators” and the like.

I realize that MySpace has been seen as a way to stay “connected” with friends, but seriously now, there are many many MUCH better ways of of doing this. I just can’t possible comprehend what people see in MySpace. Not only are the above point true, but SOOO many people just go so overboard on their profiles, that even on my high-speed internet connection, hell even the “super connection” that we have at work, I have seen profile pages that take over a MINUTE to load. You have to be freaking insane to actually want to sit there and WAIT for it!!!!

Then there is all the crap music, videos, and stupid flashing gif images that people embed into the pages, and post in each others comments. The single most annoying thing about ANY web site, is having a poor-quality, outrageously stupid, FAR to loud song that plays BY ITSELF when you visit the page. So there I am, surfing the net and listening to music off my computer, all the sudden I hit this page that starts BLASTING music, I don’t care what the hell the site is, I don’t ever stay there any long than it takes for me to close the tab.

But back to MySpace, and the flashing gif images that EVERYONE on there uses. I mean, what in the hell is up with those?! Do people really think that it’s cool to post them all over the place? “Hey look, I can post this shiny shit all over this place then suddenly I will be cool!” I swear…..it’s just, well I don’t think there is even I word that I can think of to describe how stupid it is.

So remember kids, there is no faster way to look like a moron, that to create a MySpace page that will cause others to grow old and die while they wait for it to load!

I’ve said it for years, and I’ll say it again, Ohio drivers flat out suck!!! Nobody in this fricken state knows how to drive! It’s terrible! You may think the New York, or LA has the worst drivers, but they don’t, Ohio does!

So get this, there has been 2 (yes 2) fatal accidents on the same 15 mile stretch of freeway in the past 3 days!?!? Both occurred during clear conditions, sunny, dry pavement, minimal wind, etc. Both also shut the freeway down for a few hours….

I swear, the drives in Ohio are morons!! The cut in and out of traffic, yacking on their cell phones, drinking coffee, or whatever the hell they all do.

I recently took a trip to Tennessee. While I was there, I had some of the nicest driving I’ve had in a good long while. On my way home, I came up through Cincinnati. I hadn’t been in the state more then 10 minutes, and some stupid bitch nearly ran me into the concrete barrier!!! I mean, are these people trying to be stupid?!?! Cause they are all doing a damn good job at it!!

Another good example, not far from my apartment, coming off an exit ramp, there is a YIELD sign. I swear, 97% of the people that come to it, regardless of traffic conditions, come to a COMPLETE stop!!!! The few people I’ve actually seen roll through it, have all been from out of the state!!!

And don’t even get me started on people cutting other people off! These assholes fly around in their Mercedes’ and Jaguars and think that they own the road. Wake up call, you don’t own the fricken road!!!! The last guy that tried to cut me off (he was driving a Mercedes by the way) I ran into oncoming traffic!

So to all the morons, idiots, and assholes out there, I would like to say one thing: Learn how to drive, and stop being a dick!!!

For whatever reason this week, I’ve take a bit of an interest in IPv6. For all your non-techies out there, this likely won’t mean all that much, so you’ll just have to bear with me. I hate to put two tech articles back to back but this is just the way it will be…

Now before I begin, I want to make one thing perfectly clear, I am NOT an expert on this matter and just because I say something, that doesn’t mean that it’s true. Granted I have studied a good number of hours this week on the matter, but that still does not make me an expert.

Let start with the basics, IPv4 (the current IP scheme) uses 4 blocks of 3 numbers each, separated by a period. An example of this would be 192.168.125.241. IPv6 however uses 8 blocks of 4 HEXADECIMAL characters each separated by a colon. And example of this would be 3ffe:1900:4545:0003:0200:f8ff:fe21:67cf. Now I have a hard enough time remembering an IPv4 address….how in the world could I be expected to memorize something like that?!?!

Now the reason for trying to move to IPv6 is quite obvious, MANY more addresses. The problem with this, however, is that IPv6 is NOT backwards compatible with IPv4. So in order for this change to occur, all the computers in the world need to switch over to IPv6 at roughly the same time. And for those that argue that they can run both, one along side another, the cost to do so is quite high. And sure, there are a number of sites that have started to do that, but is everyone really going to follow suit? I’ll let you make your own call on that one….

The final point that I want to make here, is that yes, at SOME point we are going to run out of IPv4 addresses, I’m just not convinced that IPv6 is really the answer here. I mean, it’s COMPLETELY different and for the most part, NOT backwards compatible. Backwards compatibility has been the backbone of technological growth in the past, and more then likely will continue to be in the future. By making things backwards compatible, you give time for people to transition over to the new technology. You can’t possibly expect them all to switch all at once….. And I will admit, backwards compatibility has caused problems in the past, but it’s something that MUST be included as we push forward technologically….

I would invite anyone to do their own research into this. Google’s always a good place to start. 

Being the techie guy that I am, it’s only logical that there are some, more technical rants on here. Vista seemed to be the logical place to start, seeing as though there is still lots of talk about it, some good, and some bad.

Where to begin…..I guess we will start with what I do like about Vista since it’s a very short list:
1. It looks pretty.
2. It has lots of drivers.
3. It has DirectX 10.
That’s about all….

Now, onto the rant. Some of you may remember the previous Microsoft disaster of an OS know as Windows ME. Windows ME will forever go down in history for the most unstable OS ever created. It attempted to maintain support for Windows 3.1 hardware and software while still providing the latest technology. The result was, to say the least, a disaster.

Windows Vista takes this concept to a whole new level. The only thing that Vista does better then ME, is stay running.
For starters, Vista requires more resources then any other system I’ve ever seen. The amount of RAM required just to keep Vista running is more then what came standard in many computers just a few short years ago. And if you want to actually run programs along with Vista, you need much, much more. The install size is also extremely large requiring that you install from a DVD. This bloats the size of Windows out to somewhere around 20GB, well beyond the 7GB used by XP.

While Vista has made everything “look” good, almost everything is actually HARDER to do. For instance, to get to a simple “run” dialog, you have to dig very deeply into the start menu to be able to find it. Vista also floods the user with endless yes/no permission questions and security warnings making even the savviest of computer users’ head spin. Microsoft has also managed to take anything in the way of useful features and options and hide them deep into the “new and improved” control panel. Those that have been using a Windows-based computer will find Vista very hard to navigate and even harder to actually do anything with.

Vista’s bloated OS is farther “complimented” by its lack of support for a large number of both software and hardware products. Many users have found that devices they bought even a year ago fail to work properly (or not at all) with Vista. Also a large number of software products either fail to install at all, or simply don’t run right. Vista also takes a painfully long time to both start up, and shut down. This has prompted Microsoft to, instead of actually fixing the problem, make the “power” button on the start menu to actually put the computer to sleep giving the illusion that it’s actually starting up and shutting down faster.

And if all the still isn’t enough to make you believe that a terrible product Vista is, consider this finial observation. Windows XP was originally slated to reach End Of Life (EOL) here at the end of 2007. This means no more XP systems would be sold after this point. Due to the problems with Vista, Microsoft has pushed the EOL of XP out until the end of 2008!!!

Vista is a poorly designed, poorly implemented, overpriced, unusable operating system to date. I can’t possible believe how Microsoft could charge $400 dollars for it….

Every year it gets worse and worse. Everywhere you go, Christmas music is playing, but not only in December, all the way back into November and before Thanksgiving. I mean, the Christmas “season” has gotten so large, it’s now stretched across TWO seasons! Before long, it will just be Christmas all year round, with nothing in between.

It’s gotten so bad over the years, that by the time December (let alone Christmas) comes, I’m already so fed up with it that I’m praying for January. It drives me crazy! Plus half of the radio stations I listen to, are playing Christmas music!!!

Even waiting until December would help things out, I mean, do we really need to be hearing Christmas music for TWO straight months!?!? I know that I most certainly do not! It’s bad enough to hear it for one month, let alone two!!!

I don’t get what people are gaining by this….is just doesn’t make any sense to me. You can only push the season so far, I mean, by starting earlier are they really making more money??? I find it very hard to believe that they are, I think that they just like doing it.

Regardless of the reason, here I sit, the beginning of December, and I already wish that Christmas was over….

I’ve decided to kick things off here with a story I wrote some time ago about my encounter with Time Warner’s technical support. Enjoy!!!
(This story was originally posted 11/11/2005 on my web site).

“So I have a great story for all of you. I think you will like it especially if you hate Time Warner and Road Runner. So I’ve lived here for 2+ months. From day one the cable internet didn’t work right. It would drop out every 48 hours. This started to increase to the point that it would drop out up to 3 times a day. They only way to fix it was unplug the adapter, wait a minute or two, then plug it back in and wait for it to re-connect. I called Time Warner and they ASSURED me that it was a signal problem and came out and put a booster on the line. HA! This did nothing. I called them about 3 weeks later and they sent another guy out. This time he ASSURED me that replacing a splitter would correct the problem, it didn’t. I called again last night to set up yet a third appointment. They need to replace the cable adapter and just refuse to do so. In the mean time, I’m not paying for service at all. They won’t replace the cable adapter since the cost something like $265 but I bet they’ve already spent the much sending guys out and crediting my bill. This is insane. Nobody there has even half a brain. The refuse to even acknowledge that I may possible even know what I’m talking about and would rather keep sending guys out to do nothing. I would be more amused by this if it weren’t for that fact that everyone at Time Warner IS A COMPLETE IDIOT! They keep coming up with BS fixes to avoid the real problem, the incompatibilities with our current cable adapter and their system”