PhotoStory 3 for Windows

I have been playing with PhotoStory 3 a bit. To see my results you can follow the link below and look for the videos.

State Budget Passed by the Senate

The State Budget was passed by the Senate yesterday and now goes to conference.

Beware of the Typo.

Noticed the article "Beware How You Google" on e-Week. Just thought I would pass it on in case you missed it.

Bill Tracking

I had not noticed before that the Missouri Senate had a bill tracking application that you could sign up for. If interested follow the link below.

Survived the meeting

The meeting basically stated that we will keep doing what we are doing, for now anyway. It turns out we will not have a new CIO, we will have a Director of Information Technology, which will fill a different role than the CIO did.

New Adventure

As my boss for much of my past 18 years is retiring at the end of the week, next week could prove to be a whole new adventure. All of us that have reported to her are not sure if her position will be filled with the current budget situation. We meet tomorrow with the Deputy Director to discuss the layout of our area. We also have a new CIO starting next week. As always, things should be interesting.

How ironic.

One of the gubernatorial appointees being considered this week is Thomas Robert Forget, Jr., M.D., as a member of the Missouri Head Injury Advisory Council.

Forget and Head Injury. It kind of sounds like the two would go together. :-)

I am not sure if the name pronunciation is the same as the word to which I am referring, but since they are spelled the same, that is what I am going with.

Ford Service Part 7 - It went back today

I dropped the car off again this morning.

Why, why, why? It is about like the phone systems that have you put in your phone number and then when you finally get to speak to a human, the first thing they do is ask for your phone number.

I went into the service area and told the guy I was there to drop off my car. He asked if I had an appointmnent. Once I told him that I did, he asked what was wrong with the car. Let's see, it is the same thing that it was when I called and A.J. setup the appointment and it is the same thing that I keep bringing it back for. Why keep asking me? If you are going to ask me when I make the appointment then have it in the computer so that you have a clue. I would prefer to have you tell me what you have in the computer, so I could clarify things for you if you got it down wrong the first time, than to simply take the time to tell you the same thing over and over and over again.

Update 1: I got a call from A.J. They took the car out twice and could not reproduce the the squeak/creak. No kidding. I said it wasn't happening all of the time, I wanted them to be aware of it and see if they wanted to wait until it was more frequent just for this very reason. UGH!!!!!!!!

Update 2: Well another morning and lunch hour of inconvenience that I could have done without. The van to pick me up was here within 10 minutes of when it was suppose to be, so I don't have a problem with that at all. When I got to the dealership and walked in to the service area they asked if they could help me and I said I was there to pick up my car. A.J. was sitting in a convertible Mustang working on the mechanism that latches the top closed. He called my name as he heard my voice. I think it would be nicer if the guy over the service department had a harder time putting my name with my voice. I guess that lets you know how much I have been in there lately.

He stated that the owner of the Mustang had slammed the top down and not closed it right, thus busting the mechanism. Hmm, seems like one might have taught them how to do that when they bought the car (I know it is possible that a spouse/family member/friend, etc.. could have been driving it and done it.). Needless to say the convertible Mustangs are new enough that the supposedly cannot get the $10 part that they need as a result of the newness and parts not being available. Supposedly a part is being pulled from the line and being sent. It took or is taking two weeks. Not real sure on that whole story.

Anyway, A.J. got the key and I took him for a ride and just as it doesn't do it all of the time, it did not do it as I took him for a ride. He said that I probably just need to bring it back when it does it more consistently. I stated that is why I called and mentioned that it doesn't do it all of the time and should I simply wait to bring it in until it is more consistent. He stated that they wanted to check it out and make sure that it wasn't a safety issue. If you can't totally figure out what it is, how can you really determine that it isn't a safety issue. When they originally thought they knew what it was they ordered the parts and sent me on my way with the car to simply bring back when the parts came in. Double UGH!!!

Maybe I'll have to put it on e-Bay as a haunted car and end up getting enough money out of it to pay all of my bills and buy a GT.

NXTbook media

I saw another electronic publishing tool which looks similar to Olive Software's solutions (ActiveMagazine, etc.). It is NXTbook media. You can view some of their samples here. Like Olive's solution you don't have to download a client to the desktop as you do with Zinio's electronic publishing solution. It looks like the players not requiring the additional client are coming up with some of the full client software's features as well. Olive has Search capability and NXTbook has Note capability, each allows you to also save a copy. Of course, I have no idea of costs, but if you were looking for ways to distribute your published media, such as magazines, these look to be real competition for the old .pdf file.

EContent's list of 100 companies that matter the most in the digital content industry includes NXTbook media and is in NXTbook format, but does not mention Olive or Zinio.

Breadboard - I mean Tortilla-Board

I saw a little tidbit in the Last Mile section of a recent Network Computing. I found it to be interesting even though it is from 1998. A Self-Powered Tortilla-Board.

Ford Service Part 6 - It goes back next week

Darn. The old suspension noise is growing back to what it was. I called A.J. and let him know that it is growing, but is not consistent, and asked if they wanted to try to look at it or just wait a bit longer. He said to bring it in. It will go back next Tuesday 4/26/05. We'll see what happens.

Updates, Updates

I did some Monday morning updates on my work machine. Firefox to v1.0.3 and Adobe Reader to v7.0.1. You may find that you need to update too.

Adobe acquisition

Adobe Media, Macrobe, whatever you want to call it Adobe announced today that it will acquire Macromedia. In their words:

"Combined Company to Deliver Industry-Defining Technology Platform for Rich, Interactive Content"

I still wish Adobe had the v7 Reader for Windows 98.

Adobe Press Release
Macromedia Press Release

Looking for a Good Missouri Wine

You might try Adam Puchta Winery. I have not tasted all of their wines, but in the white I would recommend the semi-sweet Vignoles and if you like sweet red wine go with the Riefenstahler.

2006 Chevy HHR

What do you get when you throw a Chrysler PT Cruiser, a Dodge Durango, a Chevy SSR, and a Jeep Liberty into a blender? It looks like Chevy has the answer. The 2006 Chevy HHR.

VB

What you ask does the VB stand for? Volleyball. Both of the teams I am on have had a string of losses lately, although we have played fairly well. My team had a bye tonight, but I subbed for another team and things were just clicking tonight. We won all three games (which is an added bonus as you hate to lose when you sub as you don't want to be the one that brings the team down), but we really played rather well. That can make one feel really good!

Ugh!

Moments later it loaded fine.

Firefox 1.0.2

Did you see that Firefox 1.0.2 is out now?

Ford Service Part 5 - The Saga Continues

Well, the car is home again, but after driving it a bit today I did hear the same old squeak a few times. Not as pronounced as before, but it is definitely the same squeak. I hate to even thing about it, but I guess I'll be calling Ford back again.

4-13-05 Update: As the suspension has not made anymore noise, since the few times that it did on Saturday, I am hoping that the new bushings or whatever have basically been broken in and it has actually fixed the issue, so I am just going to leave it as it is for now and watch it.

I was also reminded of another incident today as I received a satisfaction survey in the mail. It was in regards to service my wife had done on her Ford Explorer. I had to think back to what it was, but there was a recall on the fasteners for the glass in the back hatch. I had called and scheduled a time to have the service done. As I took it in one morning before work they told me that they didn't have any of the parts to do the work. Then why wait for me to come in to tell me. Call me beforehand. I would be much happier. Anyway, they took my contact info, which they take every time, and already have in the computer, and stated that they would call me when the parts came in. It shouldn't be to long, probably a week or two. Well a month plus later when my wife was hearing a rubbing noise and called to have it looked at she asked about the recall work and they told her they had plenty of the parts to do that. Hello, you were going to call! Ugh.

Network World Newsletters

Did you know that you can sign up for Network World Newsletters? Follow the link at the bottom of this post to see what they offer.

Yesterday in one of the newsletters, Dave Kearns talked to Jason Matusow about Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative (SSI) and Microsoft's version of the open source Python, called IronPython.

How many betas can they have?

Incorrect Guildelines for Publishers on MSN

I think this post turned out better on my MSN Space, so I have replaced it here with this link to it.

MyMSN Feed Reader

Did you also know that you can add feeds to your MyMSN? MyMSN is a feed reader as well. I tried my Atom feed and Ed's RSS feed. My ATOM feed did not work real well, but not sure if that is a reflection of the feed from blogger or if it is a reflection on MyMSN. I am sure the MSN RSS feeds work best, but went with Ed's RSS feed for demonstation purposes. Your results may vary.

I simply added a page to MyMSN to throw the feed on. One might put many feeds on a single page to be able to follow them in a central place. It appears you currently only have the two basic options of links or links with summaries. I find this limiting as one has to follow the link to read the whole post. It would be much nicer if one could simply expand the summary on the page rather than have to load the post on the original page. It is still in Beta so hopefully they'll add some more features. Definitely not good enough to get me to give up my current feed reader of choice, Bloglines.

Demonstration views for subscribing simply shown via MSN Explorer. View of added page with add content box. Typed in address of blog (could simply put in address of feed).


Hit the little green arrow for it to search and it pops up a window and displays feed options if found.


One simply clicks next to the feed and clicks ok.


Feed is added to the page.


One can then change options for the feed.


Changed options.


Resulting view of feed based on selections.


Clicking on heading (title) simply loads the whole post on the original site.


View of feed on MyMSN via Internet Explorer.


View of feed on MyMSN via Firefox.

Interested in MSN syndicated content?

If you are interested in content syndicated by MSN, check out the MSN Syndicated Content page.

Microsoft Technical Resources

Are you looking for some Microsoft Resources. You might check out the Microsoft Technical Communities page.

Blogs
Technical Chats
Newsgroups
Webcasts
Find a Community Web Site
User Groups
Forums.

Bass Pro Shops in Columbia, MO

Went to check out the Bass Pro Shops in Columbia, MO.

It was a decent place. Not as nice as the Headquarters in Springfield, but nice nonetheless. They have started building stores in many areas, from as far east as Las Vegas, NV, as far west as Hampton, VA, as far south as Islamorada, FL, to as far north as Toronto, Ontario. I was once an employee at Bass Pro Shops back when they had all of the phone operators, both wholesale and retail in the headquarters at 1935 S. Campbell along with the main showroom. Yes I worked there back before the large addition with the waterfall and worked there long enough to see it completed.

I believe in my day the actual employee id number was simply a number incremented by one for each new employee. It would give you a quick idea of where you fell versus others simply by knowing their number. I was employee number 3229. I worked with a lot of great people at Bass Pro Shops and they were good to me, although Bass Pro didn't pay all that well, at least at that time.

I started on phones on the retail side. I worked late afternoon into evening. The phone lines were actually open 24 hours a day. One of my supervisors recommended me to be a lead at one point, but one had to be a full time employee, which I was simply working part-time while going to school at Missouri State (or as we called it in my day, Southwest Missouri State University - SMSU).

It seemed that we were always breaking records for the number of phone calls we were taking in an hour. I believe we were getting upwards of 4,550 calls an hour. I wonder what that number is today, with the additional accessibility via the Internet I wonder if the call volume is actually more or less.

Bass Pro Shops used a lot of source codes. I believe this was mostly used to track their advertising dollars. If you called in to place an order you would be asked for the source code from the flyer, catalog, etc.. Not only did the source code tell you what the item was being ordered from, but based on the code you would be given the pricing associated with the flyer, etc. it came from.

Operator numbers were also used as a source code. For example if you called me and said you wanted to speak to Operator 6, then I knew you had watched the commercial to get your free flyer while watching Bill Dance. That is all the operator number was used for. So, I was operator 1-5 (or however many) as well. It was funny how many people were surprised that they happened to get the right operator right off when they called in.

The most frustrating part at times was getting the individual to follow your instructions. Please give me the quantity, followed by the item number, and then the color or size number. This is the way that it had to be keyed in at the time, thus telling me color first slowed the process down and telling me the actual color and not the number associated with that color did me no good.

It was also interesting how many people don't know their own address. I had people say hold on as they did not remember their house number and you know that they actually ran outside to look.

We use to have phone specials that we could offer. At the end of the call you would ask the individual if they would like to here about your phone special. They were actually phone specials. You could not get them anywhere else. Some people would call in just to ask what the phone special was and then order it. Those working the phones would get a commission for each one they sold. I believe it was a quarter for each one we sold. The commission checks were a nice bonus and Bass Pro was able to get rid of some good merchandise that was being discontinued, etc..

Later on I moved on to the Wholesale Division in the evening. It use to be called the Dealers section, but they were not actually franchises, so it was made clear that we did not call them Dealers. I believe Bass Pro Shops would have had some additional taxes to deal with and probably wouldn't be where they are today in rolling out the big stores they are if they would have franchised. I am guessing Bass Pro is still a privately held company of Johnny Morris, but I am not sure.

It was often easier to take orders in the Wholesale area as those ordering used an account number, which was already associated with their address, etc.. They tell you the number and you were off and running. As long as the computer could keep up, sometimes they would simply say their account number and start firing the numbers off at you. You would interrupt to let them know if something was out of stock or if the system was to slow to keep up.

In Wholesale we had phone specials, but were usually limited to a nickel or dime, with only the occasional quarter on an item. The reasoning of course was that we could potentially have a wholesale buyer buying multiples. What was the most commission I made on one phone call. It was a dime item and I made fifteen dollars. Not bad. It ended up that the buyer recently opened their account and was ordering their initial stock for their store. It just so happened they ordered one hundred and fifty of the ProComp rods that we had on special. COOL! I eventually quit school and started working full time. Shortly before leaving the job and moving to Jefferson City I was promoted to a position they created, called Sales Assistant in the Wholesale Division. This changed things to where I worked up in the front office area (not actually in an office, but more of a cubicle type area) and was not tied to the phones taking orders anymore. It was a nice opportunity, although the pay was still not that great. My wife wanted to move closer to her family and I had no problem with that so we moved back to Jefferson City, otherwise I would probably still be working there today.

I'll try to get some more pics of Bass Pro in Columbia on my photoblog later.

Blogger Help : Can I recover a lost post?

This is a nice added feature as spending time typing a post simply to see it vanish before your eyes when you hit publish post and the next page fails to load.

A Sad Day

I just saw that e-Pro is no longer (Libby, Duffbert, e-Pro). A sad day for many in the Notes community. Just a quick not to say thanks to all those that worked on it and I wish you all the best of luck at whatever endeavors you pursue.

Note on website:

To Our e-Pro Readers:
Effective April 7, 2005, Penton Media has ceased publication of the e-Pro Web site, including the Lotus Informer Blog and related e-mail newsletters. Clippings, our joint project with IBM/Lotus, is currently not affected by this decision. From Domino Pro to Group Computing to e-Pro Magazine, we have been a part of the Lotus/Domino community for more than six years and have shared your passion for the technology. We wish you much success! We will keep this site up and the archives open for your use through April 30, 2005.

Buick, I mean Pontiac Customer Assistance Center

I used the e-mail us page on the Pontiac site and received an automated response that said:

Email Confirmation of Receipt - Do not reply to this email

Thank you for contacting Pontiac. We welcome the opportunity to individually review your e-mail and we will have a response to you very shortly. Every effort will be made to respond to your email within 1 business day.

If this is an urgent matter, please call us at 1-800-762-2737 Monday through Friday from 8am to 11pm Eastern Standard Time.

It was from a gmexperts e-mail adddress.

I was a bit surprised at the next response. It came from a pontiac address, but the signature said:

Customer Relationship Manager
Buick Customer Assistance Center

I know it falls under GM. I am not sure what they use, but it has a routing number in it so some software like e-Gain or something I would presume. I commented about the signature as I thought they might want to know. I got a response from someone else that said they would let the person that originally responded to me know.

Their response had:

Customer Relationship Manager
Pontiac Customer Assistance Center

I subsequently received an e-mail from the first person that said they simply hit the wrong button. This time below their name it had:

Customer Relationship Manager
Pontiac Customer Assistance Center

I guess the group that answers the e-mails are all Customer Relationship Managers and they simply pick the appropriate GM Brand (at least most of the time) whenever they respond.

Ford GT

Okay, enough about the service at our local Ford Dealership, Mike Kehoe Ford. You can draw your own conclusions as to whether you think the service is good and if you want to take your car there. I will say the thing that was most appreciated is that they did tell the truth when the service technician messed up the steering.

I must say that in regards to purchasing vehicles I have had very good experiences at the dealership. I like my Focus and really like our Explorer.

I do have another gripe about my Focus. Within the last month I had to put new brake pads on all around and rotors on the front. There was no warning just a sudden grind and that was it, ruined front rotors. Only 26,000 miles. I took it to a local shop that I usually go to for brake work and got it taken care of. I quickly took my Explorer in to have the brakes checked as it has 36,000 miles. I was told the front pads had 40% of life left and the rear 50%. Cool, except I am still displeased that there was no sign that I was about to toast my rotors on the Focus until it was to late.

Our local Ford dealer does have a nice red Ford GT on the showroom floor. Ford has some wallpaper of the GT online.

Ford Service - Final Post - I hope!

Well A.J. actually called at 3:59pm. Bruce, Drum roll please. My car is actually ready. I dropped the Explorer off at their Enterprise Office. She went out and checked the mileage and then came back in. She asked my name and then started looking for the paperwork. She could not find it. She asked if I still had my pink copy, which I did. I let her look at it. It appeared that she brought some information up on the computer and then wrote down some numbers on the sheet. She then proceeded to tell me that I owed her $22 and the dealership would pay the rest. I asked what I owed $22 for. She said for going over the mileage limit. I sternly said that I did not owe anything and asked what the mileage limit is per day. She said that I did not need to yell. I was not yelling, I was just making it known without question that I was not paying for it. She said it was 150 miles a day. Hello. It had approximately 870 miles on it when I picked it up. It had 919 miles when I turned it in. She did come out when I took it and stick her head in to look at the mileage. I am guessing that she wrote it on the white sheet of paper that she couldn't find. The manager, who was not around, was the last one driving it. Not sure if he put the miles on it or if someone else had rented it and put the miles on and then they did not get it updated in the computer. She said that she would update the computer. She asked that I take my pink copy over to the cashier at the dealership and let them know that she did not have the white copy and they could call her if they had questions.

As I got over to the service department the cashier handed me a receipt and my keys. A.J. said everything should be good to go. I asked if they wanted the paperwork on the rental and they said yes, but stated they were suppose to get the white copy, so I had to fill them in about the pink sheet. They said they would take care of it.

I drove the few blocks home. I did not notice any problems. I'll probably take it out for a longer drive tomorrow to see how it goes. I hope good as I don't want to go back.

Ford Service Part 3

I got a call from A.J. at 10:33am. He stated that the shop manager pulled some strings and got a steering assembly in this morning (hopefully it is one for my car - maybe I need to check the police reports to see if any S2's in the area are missing any parts this morning - it does make one wonder a bit what strings were pulled). He thought that he would be calling me around 4pm today to tell me that my car is ready. I was getting use to having the Explorer. They must have known that I put gas in the Explorer last night. It had less than a quarter of a tank when they gave it to me. My Focus doesn't get all that close to the EPA rating it showed on it's sticker, but it is better than the 14.1 mpg that the Explorer's little computer is telling me that it is getting. Maybe I need to take off this afternoon, so I can go run some of the gas out of it.

I did mention to A.J. that it did not have much gas in it when I got it and he stated that I needed to bring it back with the amount of gas that it had in it and said that he would fill my tank up for the inconvenience. We'll see if that has happened when I pick it up.

I really hope that when I do take possession of my car again that I find out that the original problem that I took it in for is fixed. :-)

Blogger

Blogger performance has been somewhat sporadic lately. Posting may be broken on one visit and then next thing you know they are flying then you end up with something like this simply when trying to view the Knowledge area.

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /knowledge/ on this server.

It does seem to be performing a bit better in Firefox than in IE, but IE is a bit handier when posting as it allows me to search within the editing box and doesn't lose focus of what it is on when creating a link on text within the Edit HTML window.

Considering that it is free it is kind of hard to complain at times, yet it does get old. I really don't want to mess with moving my blog somewhere else. It wouldn't be as bad if I had a registered domain and simply redirected to a new location, but it would still be a hassle.

Ford Service Part 2

I received a call at work a few minutes after 1pm. It was A.J.

He stated that the part they ordered arrived from Kansas City, but it turned out that it was not the right part. As my Focus ZX3 is actually the limited edition S2 model it has some different items, like suspension and steering. A.J. said it was basically a 50 cent part but you could not get it by itself. Ford Engineering told them they would have to get the whole steering assembly (from what A.J. said it is $1,000). He was nice enough to say that it would not cost me anything. Duh, you broke it. Anyway they could not find one anywhere close, so one is being sent from Michigan and will take two days to ship. I was now told that my car will be ready Tuesday. I told them I would just trade them the 2005 Explorer for my 2001 Focus. He didn't go for that.

He did say that he would call me around noon each day just to update me on the progress.

Hmm, am I receiving service? (Definitions from Merriam Webster Online):

A facility providing maintenance and repair.

Or am I being serviced?

The act of copulating with a female animal - Of course, the Merriam Webster definition is using much nicer language, but I think you get the meaning.

On another note, I am guessing that the Explorer was last rented by Oliver North because the 3rd row seat is folded down and laying on top of it is a tall kitchen type trash can with shredded documents and a shredder on the floor.

Paperless Office

Kind of funny. I saw a presentation today where the presenter actually mentioned the paperless office.

Don Fluckinger comments on the paperless office in his PDFzone article, "Despite PDF, Paperless Office Remains a Mirage".

I think the .pdf capture bodes well for routing the data, but I know a lot of people that will still print out the .pdf to read, thus this simply diverts the printing cost to the end points, hence not a paperless process.

Some people get a warm fuzzy from their paper copy. Although you have to admit there are instances where if a system were down having a paper copy of something could be priceless.

Notes.Net

Even though I already have it, I thought I would take a look at the 6.5.4 release status page and see what it was stating.

Oops. This is what I get when checking on 6.5.4.

OpenDocument
HTTP Web Server: Lotus Notes Exception - Entry not found in index

As far as the next update in the release 6 series it shows that 6.5.5 is in Step 1 SPR Triage and the expected release date is August 2005.

Ford Service. Ugh! One of those days.

I am afraid that I have not had the best of luck with my Zippy 2001 Ford Focus ZX3 S2 lately.

The chimes have not worked for a while. No big deal to me, I would just assume not hear them, but as there may come a day when I would want to trade/sell it, it would probably be a good idea to have it fixed. I missed my 3/36,000 bumper to bumper warranty timeframe to have it done. I was caught off guard. I am still under the 36,000 mile mark (27,000 miles at this point), but the time had past. I do have an extended warranty and needed to take it in for a squeaky suspension. Sounds about like squeaky old bed springs. I took it in a couple of weeks ago on a Monday. I had marked on the form asking that they give me a call and let me know how much it was going to be.

They said they had to order the chime module and a control arm and that the parts would be in on Thursday of that week. Thursday came and I dropped the car off before they opened. Once again I marked on the Early Bird form for them to call me and underlined it as I wanted to know what the cost would be. Did they call, no. They did replace the module (for the chimes) and replaced the control arm for the suspension. Cost: $25 (deductible on extended warranty).

Well it turns out the control arm did not fix the squeak problem. I called back, made an appointment, and today was the day. I took it in at 7:25am this morning. Asked to be called, the kid said that I would be. I called at 12:05pm as I had not received a call. I was told that the service guy was out test driving it to try to determine the problem and that he would be back shortly and they would give me a call back. At 2:15pm, I finally called back. I was told that my car would probably be done in about 15 minutes and they would call me back. Hmm, no call before the work, I didn't even sign anything this time, not sure if they figured they were covered from last time (I would doubt they keep the old early bird drop off form). My wife was off at 3:30pm today, so I took an hour and half of vacation and just left with her, figuring that I would simply go by and pick up my car.

When I got to the dealership I went to the window and said that I was there to pick up my car. She said that she didn't have a ticket on it, so I mentioned that when talking to them at 2:15pm they said it would be done in about 15 minutes. The service guy heard and said that after putting in the grommets that Ford recommended via a call they put in, they realized that did not actually fix the problem. They got busy trying to diagnose it further and didn't happen to call me back. He showed me where they found the problem and all they had to do was hook the suspension back up and I would be good to go. It wouldn't take very long. It is close to work and we got there about 3:40pm. As he said it wouldn't be long at all I had my wife go on to pick up my youngest son from school. It was about 4:00pm when the service department guy came out again, apologized for not calling and gave me a card for a free oil change and tire rotation (he said about a $40 value). Another 15 minutes and he said they would bring it around front momentarily. Well about 20 minutes later he came out and said that he was sorry, but they were going to have to keep my car overnight and that they would have it ready tomorrow. As they were putting it all back together they somehow messed up a bushing that the steering shaft runs through and they did not have a replacement on hand. I asked when it would be ready tomorrow and he guaranteed that it would be ready before noon. He stated that he had arranged a car for me at no charge and not to worry there would not be a charge on the service either. I told him that was fine, I just needed the car quickly as I had to pick my son up from track practice across town at 5pm.

He said the girl at their Enterprise Car Leasing area would have the car for me when I got over there. I got over there (across the street), and she asked what kind of car I had in for service and asked if an Alero would be okay (Ford dealership and you are giving me an Oldsmobile.). I said fine that I just needed it quickly as I needed to pick my son up at 5pm. She said it would be just a few minutes. About 10 minutes later I was about ready to say something when she told her boss that I needed to get out of there and she switched me to a vehicle sitting right in front of the place. Cool, it was better than an Alero. It is a 2005 Ford Explorer with 870 miles on it. That will work. As my wife drives a 2002 Ford Explorer I was able to jump in and take off without having to familiarize myself with the vehicle (finding the wipers, etc.. - it was raining). I wasn't sure what she was doing as the vehicle wasn't but 15 feet away from the door, but she asked her boss if there was an umbrella around, he gave her one and then she proceeded to walk me to the Explorer (I had an umbrella, but oh well). Much of the time that I was there she was trying to hold a conversation on her cell phone. As I walked in she simply sat it down having them wait for her, and then repeated this several times while I was there to answer the work phone, print some paperwork, etc..

I was a bit late getting my son, but they also had their pictures taken today, so he was running a bit late. He was surprised to see me in a new Explorer, I think he was hoping that I had bought it. The girl mentioned that I needed to fill it up with as much gas as it had when I took before I bring it back tomorrow and I politely said no. It had less than a quarter of a tank. She said if I chose not to put gas in it that was up to me.

Well, we'll see how tomorrow goes. I won't hold my breath, but the Explorer won't be going back until my car is ready either.





Update 4/6/05 12:27pm: Even though he guaranteed that it would be ready by noon, I figured a phone call confirming it was done would be in order. Did I receive one? No. I called on my walk out to the parking lot. I told the service agent that I was calling to check on my car that A.J. guaranteed would be done at noon. The service agent said that as far as he could tell on the computer that it was not done, but said that A.J., who is working my case was out to lunch until 12:30. He said that he would have him call. I said good and to let A.J. know that I would be keeping the rental. We'll see if I have a voicemail when I get back to work or not.

6.5.4 Successfully Downloaded

I tried downloading 6.5.4 again around 1:45pm today and it downloaded fine. Installed before I left the office at 2:30pm to head north to my son's track meet.

Response on Downloading 6.5.4

I got a response from Passport Advanatage online regarding the download issue I mentioned. At least I am not alone. Or possibly, unfortunate for you, I am not alone.

Subject: IBM's Reply...Errors trying to download 6.5.4


Hi Bonj,

We are aware that the software listed below is unavailable to download and we apologize for the inconvenience caused due to that. Our Level 2 is getting the issue fixed and it will be available for download as soon as possible. Please note that this issue is faced by all the customer's with Lotus 6.5.4

Domino Access for Microsoft Outlook V6.5.4 for WINDOWS 2000 AND NT English (C82BWNA) 25-Mar-2005
Domino Server 6.5.4 AIX English (C82BRNA) 25-Mar-2005
Domino Server 6.5.4 Linux on Intel English (C82BTNA) 25-Mar-2005
Domino Server 6.5.4 Linux on zSeries English (C82BUNA) 25-Mar-2005
Domino Server 6.5.4 Solaris/Sparc English (C82BSNA) 25-Mar-2005
Domino Server 6.5.4 WIN2000/NT/03 English (C82BQNA) 25-Mar-2005
DOMINO SERVER 6.5.4 for iSERIES ENGLISH (C82BVNA) 25-Mar-2005
Notes Client 6.5.4 MAC English (C82BNNA) 25-Mar-2005
Notes Client 6.5.4 WIN95/98/2K/NT/XP English (C82BMNA) 25-Mar-2005
Notes, Designer and Adminstrator Client 6.5.4 WIN95/98/2K/NT/XP English (C82BPNA) 25-Mar-2005

Regards

PA Online

Roy Williams

It may not be the case for KU fans, but I would say tonight Roy Williams is definitely glad that he made the move to North Carolina. Congratulations Roy and UNC. Good try by our neighboring state Illinois.

Pontiac Solstice

I like the looks of the new Pontiac Solstice. As long as the mechanicals measure up I think it could take the market about like the Miata did when it first came out. A fun (relatively) inexpensive sports car. Pontiac has to feel good to have such a good looking offering. (The GTO is a bit of a disappointment in the looks department). A bit Miata, a bit Z4, a bit Z8, a bit XK, a bit S2000, a bit Boxster, a bit SLK all roled into an American offering. If it looks as good in person it should be a winner.

Hey Pontiac, if you want to send one my way, I'd be more than happy to put it through a long term test.

I'd post about my experiences. If they turned out to be good experiences it would be some cheap advertising. :-)

This could be a real pain

Article from Internetweek.com, "Company Bypasses Cookie-Deleting Consumers".

Notes/Domino 6.5.4 Available (Maybe)

The web shows 6.5.4 in Gold Build, but as of today "NOTES/DOMINO MULTI O/S 6.5.4 ESD ASSY ENGLISH(CR2KINA)" shows in the list of items available for download via my Passport Advantage account. The overall ESD has a post date of 4/4/05, each of the individual files associated with it show a post date of 3/25/05.

As of right now the page is giving an error when I actually try to download. I'll try again a bit later.

Gambling Problem?

I missed posting about National Problem Gambling Awareness Week. It was March 6th thru 12th. I bet it was a success though. You can find out more info at the National Council on Problem Gambling.

Missouri's Gaming Commission also has some info on problem gambling.

2 GBs of Mail - Gmail ups storage

Did you notice that GMail is now up to 2GB of storage? No April Fools here.

From Gmail New Features page:

G is for growth
Storage is an important part of email, but that doesn't mean you should have to worry about it. To celebrate our one-year birthday, we're giving everyone one more gigabyte. But why stop the party there? Our plan is to continue growing your storage beyond 2GBs by giving you more space as we are able. We know that email will only become more important in people's lives, and we want Gmail to keep up with our users and their needs. From Gmail, you can expect more.

source

If you haven't tried it yet, let me know. I have some invites.

Lotus Notes Is Dead

Did you see Ed Brill's post today? He states that after long consideration IBM has decided to go ahead and drop Lotus Notes and simply concentrate on IBM Workplace. Further info and migration strategies are to be posted soon. Read Ed's post here.