FINALLY! We’re back online! It was touch-and-go today, however… We’ve had our appointment scheduled for about a week now—sometime between 1pm and 5pm today. So Tom made sure he was home (he has lots of errands to do now that he’s home—that honey do list, you know). He called me at 4:58 to say “THEY HAVEN’T COME YET. And guess what? They were at our neighbor’s house earlier today!” Oh, we were FURIOUS. If our neighbors got their cable a day after moving in and we’ve been calling and waiting for two weeks and didn’t get ours… But by the time I got home at 5:20, the cable guy was here…and by about 6:30 we had our six cable outlets hooked up! We had to make a trip to town to get the necessary connector for the Tivo ethernet cable (high importance, believe me!) and now we’re back to normal…we’re both sitting in front of our respective computers. (Now we just have to clean the office and add more conducive light for working.)
Category Archives: Computers
I hate spammers!
Last week, I started receiving loads of spam that appears to come from me. It’s horrible! I get about 10-15 a day, and they all have viruses and worms and nasty things attached, and they’re all addressed from hudson2001.com—either from admin@ or webmaster@ or administration@ or support@. And they’re all addressed to various names, from john to pedro to frank to sandra to kevin. And I can’t block them since they appear to come from my own address. My domain host was going to try and block the incoming ISP but it apparently hasn’t done any good. I HATE SPAMMERS.
Online poker sucks!
I’ve been playing a little online poker but I really don’t like it because people bid stupid (not like you’re supposed to, according to the rules) and I can’t play with that. Why? I’m still learning, and it’s so much harder to learn when people don’t play according to the rules. Of course, I just had a horrible experience on a hand…
I was last to bet.
Pre-flop (before any cards are shown, so you’re just bidding on the strength of your two cards)—Everyone checked, I raised 200, then everyone called. O-kay. In a real game, it’s unlikely everyone would check then the same people would all call.
Flop (the first three community cards are turned over)—Check, check, a guy bets 600, then everyone calls (including the checkers). O-kay. Again, in a real game, it’s unlikely everyone would check then the same people would all call 600.
Turn (the next community card is turned over)—Check, check, a guy bets 10 – 10! So after having just bet 600, he drops to 10. What the hell kind of bidding is that? Everyone calls his measly 10 and I raise 200. Then everyone calls my 200. WHAT? So no one has a hand good enough to raise themselves (the past three rounds) but again they will call my 200?
River (the last of the community cards)—Check, check, check, checks all around of course, so I go all-in for almost 1300 with 2-pair and…guess what? Everyone calls! ARGH!! THIS ISN’T HOW YOU PLAY POKER!!!
I ended up losing to 3-kind, which I don’t care, but I CANNOT PLAY WITH PEOPLE WHO BID LIKE THAT! IT MAKES ME NUTS!
FINALLY, OUR HONEYMOON!
http://www.hollandamerica.com/
WE JUST BOOKED OUR HONEYMOON CRUISE!!!
Of course, I’ve been researching cruises the entire time Tom was gone but I got overwhelmed very easily…so he finally did his own research and narrowed it down to five cruises for me to choose from…and I was still having a hard time deciding! It was either cruise from Ft. Lauderdale before October (in order to use my free US Air ticket—-that I got for taking a bump last year—-before it expired)…or go from Charleston, SC, during Christmas, when cruises were a bit cheaper (and also so we might not miss being at home so much).
Another part of the decision was when to visit Kathryn, Marcus, and the girls. We had talked about going this spring or summer, but it could also be combined with the cruise… Another part of the decision was whether to get a balcony or not. Some ships had them, some didn’t. And we didn’t want to spend a TON of money…but we really wanted a balcony. So, I was trying to decide, wavering back and forth, back and forth, back and forth…when I got an email from Orbitz with some cruise deals. (I had searched Orbitz before, but when Tom was looking, we were using USAA because they had previously had the best prices.) I clicked on it just for the heck of it and—-what? $721 for a 7-day cruise with a balcony? At that moment, we knew we were booking a cruise that night! Here’s what the room looks like:
Deluxe Verandah Outside Staterooms
2 lower beds convertible to 1 queen-size bed, bath & shower, sitting area, private verandah, floor-to-ceiling windows. Approx. 249 sq. ft.
We are cruising to the Caribbean on Holland America from Ft. Lauderdale. We haven’t researched the ports much yet—-and honestly, they weren’t much of a consideration when choosing a cruise (especially when we found the good deal). Our main concerns were taking a cruise for 5-9 days for a good price and hopefully getting a balcony. I’m more interested in the whole cruise ship experience, with the ports just being an added bonus.
- Day 1: Ft. Lauderdale, FL
- Day 2: Half Moon Cay, Bahamas (HAL’s Private Island)
- Day 3: At Sea
- Day 4: Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas
- Day 5: Road Town, Tortola, B.V.I.
- Day 6: At Sea
- Day 7: Nassau, Bahamas
- Day 8: Ft. Lauderdale, FL
So, we’re totally geeked! Now we just have to finalize travel plans (i.e. when we will arrive ahead of time, in order to visit with the Filipek clan) and get our passports! (We had debated not getting passports, since they’re about $100 each, but it’s much easier than carrying around a handful of documents…I’d need three: my driver’s license, my birth certificate, and my marriage license!) Now I’m just hoping I have my birth certificate in the safe…
Non-Support Support Rant
Long story short, I used to use this program I loved for making DVD slideshows. I say USED TO USE because I can no longer use it. Why? No idea! My best guess is that upgrading XP to SP2 screwed something up—that’s the only thing I can possibly think of (my computer crashed so when I reinstalled Windows, I upgraded to SP2—that’s the ONLY difference).
So I do what any normal person would do, and check the site to see if they mention anything (most sites will tell you if their program has issues with SP2). Nope, no mention. So I email tech support. They tell me it shouldn’t be an issue, but to check umpteen million other things on my system. So I check ALL umpteen million:
- DVD writer software is current
- slideshow program is current
- slideshow CD/DVD support is current
- all Windows updates are done
- no other CD/DVD writing programs are running
- slideshow software recognizes my DVD writer
- slideshow software says on their site that my specific DVD writer is recognized
- test DVD burn with another program
Everything checks out. I take detailed notes of what exactly happens during the creation/burn process (right up until the software fails) and send that info in. What response do I get? “Make sure everything is updated.” ARE YOU KIDDING ME? That’s what we started with before I spent an hour messing with it to give you all the gory details.
Okay, granted. I am not a paying customer—I am only using the trial version—but you’d think they’d want to help me so I would BECOME a paying customer, right? In the meantime, I think “Maybe I should purchase the software officially on the OFF chance that might make a difference” but then if it doesn’t, I’m out $70.
The most frustrating thing is that this program worked perfectly before. PERFECTLY. And now it doesn’t and I don’t have any idea why. And I love this program!!!
Sometimes I hate computers.