It Gets Better

Ever since moving to the new building, it’s been a constant stream of challenges. I had an awesome start to my date today:

1. Tried a new bus route this morning. Bus was 15 minutes late.
2. I must have forgotten to recharge my Zune… No music or videos while I wait.
3. Got in to find that someone broke the connection for my computer’s ethernet.
4. Had to scramble to take the experimental shuttle for a meeting where the old building was.
5. Got to building 15 minutes early, so I waited downstairs.
6. Person I was meeting with arrives 150 minutes late.
7. Shuttle back is 15 minutes late and sits at the spot for another 15 minutes.
8. Come back to find ethernet wiring is still not fixed.

The best part is that after all that time I spent sitting around waiting, I come back to find that the fire alarms are being tested all morning long. Every 5 minutes, the sirens pulse once. So somehow, the day has actually gotten worse! If only it was Friday…

First Time

I voted for the first time today. It was a fairly painless experience, and we didn’t really have “booths” to vote in. The voting machines looked like they could fold up and be wheeled out, and I’m not sure the interface was that great. I only voted for the presidential election, since I didn’t know any of the other candidates and I didn’t know anything about the sewer law they were trying to get votes on. In previous years I was a resident in clearcut states, but this year it’s pretty close in PA.

In completely unrelated news, last week in my Financial Accounting class the professor let class out 20 minutes early because he said he really wasn’t feeling well. His wife has been in the hospital for a while, so I just assumed he was upset about her and literally worried sick. However, today we got an email that he had gone to the hospital after class and was diagnosed with a TIA (”mini stroke”). He even got a pacemaker. Still, he’s coming in to teach today, which is admirable (although I still don’t like his class).

Full Moon Sway

Happy Halloween everyone. Last week I finally upgraded my cell phone from the venerable RAZR to a Samsung Sway. I’d been considering some other phones but all ended up being too expensive for me because I don’t use any of the special phone features that much. I was just looking for small form factor, a decent UI, and a pleasant appearance at a reasonable price.

So far I really like the Sway, especially the slim form-factor. Obviously at the lower price levels you have to give up some things, so the phone is not perfect. The major knocks against the Sway are the lack of 3G EV-DO support and the proprietary jacks. I don’t browse or download anything on the phone so the lack of 3G EV-DO doesn’t bother me at all. Maybe once that stuff is free and/or faster I will care. As for the jacks issue, I agree that the adaptor for 3.5mm jack is really lame, but I never use headphones with my phone anyway. Plus, you can’t really download songs quickly to the phone (ah ha, so the lack of 3G EV-DO is a feature!) so you won’t be listening to much music on the Sway anyway.

Good:

• At a trim 4.15″ x 1.96″ x 0.47″ and 3.56 oz, the Sway is narrower and thinner than the RAZR (3.9″ x 2.1″ x 0.54″ and 4.41 oz).
• I like having the big screen on the front, and I can check most of my messages and such without having to open the phone.
• The vibrate is quieter, and yet more effective somehow. Perhaps the Sway vibrates more evenly? All I know is that I notice the Sway’s vibrate more often than I do the RAZR’s, and yet the Sway’s vibrate makes a fraction of the noise.
• The UI is so much better, and there are a lot more options.
• Battery life is much better, though the RAZR’s short battery life could be because the battery was over 2 years old.

Bad:

• Some people have told me the Sway picks up more background noise on calls.
• Opening the phone takes some getting used to, as there is no grip. You are best off putting your thumb right on the nice screen and sliding it open, since using the buttons usually accidentally brings up a menu/feature.
• You cannot set the phone on vibrate and still have a sound alarm. This is not the biggest deal, but I have to remember to turn my ringtone volume up to high every night since I use my phone as my alarm clock.
• Charger doesn’t fold up, although it is smaller than the RAZR’s charger.
• Re-entering contacts is so annoying.
• Default ringtones are surprisingly crappy and strange (then again my phone is on vibrate most of the time (that I am awake).
• I like the skinning options, but I wish there were more.

Windows Vista SP3, I Mean Windows 7

I read about the pre-beta (isn’t that usually called… “alpha”?) details for Windows 7, and I like the direction of this OS. Basically it sounds like Vista with a smaller footprint and a few UI tweaks (most of which you can already simulate on Vista). Vista was truly a botched release combined with poor PR, so the decision to drop the name and just call it Windows 7 is a good one. I also like what I hear about all Vista-compatible programs running well under Windows 7. I wonder if I will be getting the 64-bit version for my next OS; I figure I will be due for a new computer by the time the next OS ships and gets the initial bugs ironed out!

New Old Laptop

I just can’t get enough of sloppy seconds when it comes to laptops. Bunky’s 4-year old laptop seems to have kicked the bucket, as it has developed a problem where it does not even turn on half the time. Prior to this death, the laptop was agonizingly slow, although the addition of some RAM and the installation of Google Chrome did help a little (Firefox took over 2 minutes to load…). I only use the laptop for about 6 hours each week (my two 3-hour classes), so I really didn’t want to buy a new laptop. However, since my brother got a MacBook a few months ago, I took his old laptop (I think it is just under 2 years old).

Apparently my brother likes to treat his electronics the same way Bunky does. The laptop is all beat up, and the plastic covers on the hinges are busted off so you can see some of the wires. Also, the Asus F3JM laptop I got had some kind of maddening 2/55/33 partition split and I didn’t have the manual to know which button entered Setup. I (foolishly) tried to use the XP disc in Windows itself to delete the partitions and tried to resize the main partition, but of course this did not work. Finally, after much searching I found that F2 enters Setup (thanks for not having a prompt, Asus) and so I was able to boot from the XP disc and reformat the HD as one large partition.

The laptop only has 1GB RAM, but I think I will hold off on adding more in the near future. It took me a while to figure out that there was a switch to turn on the wireless (it was Off when I received the laptop), but the laptop is now working. I managed to get almost all the drivers, although I have not figured out what driver the SM Bus Controller needs. The descriptions of most of the hardware were completely unhelpful, and quite a few were labeled as Other Device (turned out to be mostly RealTek drivers and cardreader drivers). Because the latches are busted up, the monitor tends to sway a bit when moved, but this isn’t a big deal because the laptop is almost always on a table in class. This laptop only has to last about 1.5-2 years, and for now I’m hopeful it will be up to the challenge.

Mirror Image

PITTSBURGH – A McCain campaign volunteer made up a story of being robbed, pinned to the ground and having the letter “B” scratched on her face in a politically inspired attack, police said Friday.

Ashley Todd, 20-year-old college student from College Station, Texas, admitted Friday that the story was false and was being charged with making a false report to police, said Maurita Bryant, the assistant chief of the police department’s investigations division. Police doubted her story from the start, Bryant said.

I had serious doubts about this story when it first came out, although it was exciting that it happened in a nearby neighborhood. Why would someone beat her up and give her a backwards B on her face? The area she was in is not super-safe, so you would expect her to have either been shot or just robbed. Sometimes robbers will force you to get into the trunk of your car around here, but that is neither here nor there.

Todd, who is white, told police she was attacked by a 6-foot-4 black man Wednesday night. She now can’t explain why she invented the story, Bryant said.

Why 6 foot 4? That’s pretty tall… Oh, I see what you did there.

She said he continued to punch and kick her while threatening “to teach her a lesson for being a McCain supporter,” police said. She said he then sat on her chest, pinned her hands down with his knees and scratched a backward letter “B” into her face with a dull knife.

I always worry about tall, dyslexic Obama supporters when I am roaming around Pittsburgh. Fortunately, they don’t have any sharp weapons. It’s interesting that in the story the guy didn’t just want to rob her, but he also wanted to make a political statement (and yet he didn’t slash her tires, perhaps because the knife was so dull). I bet everyone at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette and KDKA was also loving this story.