Introverted

Digg recently brought this article to my attention. It's about people who tend to keep to themselves. People who are introverted. I liked it.

the cost of support

Holy crap!

For lack of a better exclamation. Yeah! Holy crap! The kind of holy crap that's brown and sticky, like a stick. What have I been learning during my training at work? Well, I'm not sure I can say too much. But I've learned that in the first half of a work day there easily 400 calls placed for tech support. 400 people in the first half of the day (and I've heard it can get up to 8000 in a single day) willing to pay $39 to $69 for someone to uninstall and reinstall a freaking piece of software! And that isn't even the business rate! That's the personal home-computer rate for regular people. I understand not everyone has a daughter's boyfriend who can troubleshoot their computer for them. But get this, I'm paid to search through the product websites support page. Yes, that is right. Most everything available to me is available to the public through the product support page. Look here, I've done a search for "blue screen" and come up with lines I can feed the customer over the phone. For $39~$69 per troubleshoot I think I'd look into fixing the problem myself.


-I'm fine with helping people, I just don't agree with the outrageous fees

More flair

Like Jennifer Aniston's character in the movie Office Space

I don't have enough flair. I mean this in regard to how I write my blog posts. I don't even want to read them myself. Regardless, I begin my training tomorrow as awesome expert-tech support for Symantec's Anti-Virus software. I will keep you posted. And maybe have a little flair. If I make fun of the customers who call then that might bring a little something extra [Edit: I meant if I make fun of them here in my blog. Not on the phone!]. T-Minus 6 hours 30 minutes until I need to wake up (yes, 5am) to get ready for work.

-Totally wicked awesome phone answering guy

how to ace an interview

How to ace a job interview.

I'd been looking for work this last week and a half. Usually I'd be working with my professor at the University I attend, continuing the research I've been working on since summer 2004. My professor didn't get the funding she was expecting this year so I've had to look for work elsewhere.

I thought I'd try my luck with emailed resumes this year. It's worked. Monday morning I email a cover letter (forgetting to attach the email) at 9:30am (mere moments after waking up ~ my laptop is set up beside my bed). I get a phone call at 10:25am to set up my assessment and interviews for Wednesday.

How do you ace your interview? Apply somewhere you will be comfortable working. I'd applied at a technical support call center. I'll be working on a computer and telephone speaking with people about something I (for the moment) am interested in. So I showed up at 10:55am and was calm. I smiled and shook hands and dressed to impress. I had written my application and 45 minute assessment and had my first interview within the first half hour. I was asked to come back for a second interview at 3pm and unofficially I had the job. The 3pm interview lasted less than 5 minutes and I was off back with the first interviewer congratulating me on my new employment.

Apply somewhere you will be comfortable working. You'll come across naturally in your interview and make a lasting impression (at least I hope so, I'd like a raise already) on the people you meet.

-Will be looking for a real job for January 2008.

sea monkeys

Raising countless little creatures

I had a great weekend. Most notably, I'd like to reminisce over Saturday. My girlfriend and I visited every single pet store in town. We were hunting. We were looking for artemia salina and we found them! $10 for a 6 gram bottle of suspended brine-shrimp cysts (eggs). $3 for a hefty box of sea (aquarium/rock) salt. $3 for micro-food (egg powder), all found at your local aquaria store. I can only estimate how many brine-shrimp (Sea-Monkey) eggs are contained in 6 grams but I'd guess it is well above the 100,000 mark.

Of course I didn't drop them all in at once. No! Here's what I did.

1. Measure out 1 litre of room temperature distilled or stale water.
2. Fill glass container with the 1 litre of water.
   
3. Mix in at least 2 teaspoons of aquarium salt until diluted.
4. Since the eggs stick to the lid of the egg bottle because of static I did the following:
1. Close lid, shake bottle. This gets eggs stuck to the inside of the lid of the bottle.
2. Open bottle, hold lid over the water and flick the lid, knocking the eggs into the water.
5. Do step 4 one or two more times.
6. Poke at the eggs floating on the surface so they stop floating and start sinking (use a clean spoon or something).
7. Wait 24 hours before you start seeing little white things (countless white things if you flicked eggs in 3 times) swimming around.

I've done sea-monkeys in the past, but at $10 a shot every time you want to follow their steps 1-2-3 isn't economical. Now I've got sea-monkeys possibly for life and for only$16 too!

Wii!

We also went hunting around for a Nintendo Wii. Tough luck with that. I've seen Playstation 3 consoles for sale but I have never found a Nintendo Wii available for purchase. Everywhere in a 70km radius sells out their shipment of Nintendo Wii in less than an hour of shelving the units. So I'm on the lookout for them. I've got a keen eye set out and I'm ready. I'll leave school early to get one. Yeah, we're really looking forward to some kinetic fun.

DS Homebrew

Tonight I also purchased a Nintendo DS kit for some extra fun with my DS. Just thought I'd point that out. I need more entertainment like I need... Well at this point I really don't need anything. I should be focusing extra effort into finishing up the last 2 weeks of class and last week of exams before summer starts.

-Hoping to finish my research this summer

Late-Winter fun

So the bars and clubs people my age go to are usually pretty quiet around this time of year. So I haven't been out dancing/drinking in a while. Last night, however, my girlfriend and I decided to change that. We went out with another couple, first bowling then wandering around WalMart and then out the a local pub, Monashees. We drank, we danced, we went for icecream afterward. It was good fun. Here's a particular quote I remember at the end of the night as Mark, of the other couple, was scooping some icecream from a container his girlfriend Deanne was holding:

M: Ack! I was going for it and you made me pull out and now I've got it all over myself.
All: Hahaha
M: Now I've got a sticky hand.
All: Crying from laughing so hard.

-Reading/Spring break coming up soon

The Watchmen

w00t! Here's to another awesome episode of Heroes

My girlfriend and I love that show. People with super powers coming together to save the day. But what about the people with mediocre powers?

You never hear about the person who never has to sleep or the person who can go without ever having to eat. "Hey, Bob. What's your power? Want to know mine? I'm totally immune to warts."

I suppose the story is where the super powers are. What's so exciting about the mediocre power to stop the growth of your hair and finger nails? The power to sprout zits all over your body. Hey, in a universe populated with people who have special abilities, any of these are possibilities.

-I think there's a graphic novel related to this called 'The Watchmen'

Sleep versus Eating

My girlfriend and I at times debate what would be the preferred power: To never have to sleep or to never have to eat. These are the situations; you can choose to sleep if you like, but you can go without it and still feel like it's the afternoon after a night of 8 hours sleep. Likewise, when you have the power to not eat you never starve. You can eat if you like, but if you go without you still have the satisfied feeling in your stomach like you at a healthy lunch only half an hour before.

With the power to go without sleep, your body never tires. You are never exhausted and are probably in a better mood because of it. You are awake at all hours of the day unless you choose to sleep (even though you don't have to, but it might make your significant other feel better if you do). In being awake you can get so much more accomplished. You'd have so much more time to spend learning that you'd probably become a genius. You can spend your knowledge working from your own home on things in the information technology path. Granted, in being awake all the time you'd probably have to eat more due to a higher metabolism but the money made from your personal home business could offset that.

You might be able to tell I really like the idea of not needing to sleep (though having the option to sleep at any time if I like). The power to go without food, in my opinion, has only the benefit that I'd save that much money in not having to buy groceries or go shopping for food. I'd never have to stop to eat which at times is an inconvenience. I could still choose to eat if I like, and enjoy social time eating with friends, but it doesn't grant me the extra time in the day that going without sleep could provide.

-I had a train of thought but it derailed

with the ex in laws

The more things change, the more they stay the same

As readers of this blog know, I was involved with someone for a long time. That someone can be referred to as my ex-girlfriend.

I just had lunch with her Dad. They always did treat me well, her parents. I hadn't seen him since March of last year. In fact, he handed me $40 saying he'd missed my birthday and Christmas and that was to make up for it. He said he was proud of me for what I was doing with my life. He said I was always a good guy. He said he'd really like to see me graduate and be there for the ceremony and then I cried. I think it was the bit about being at my ceremony. I hadn't realized how cool he was with me and that brought back the memory of just how much I was welcomed into his family. To be fair, his eyes teared up a bit, too.

Of course that is over now. Both he and his wife are great people. I'll give them a call when it comes time for me to graduate. Maybe I'll get around to going for a bike ride with him some time in the summer.

I've got another great family welcoming me in right now. I've got a great girl who replies to my I love you's. I don't think I could be in a better place right now. My time is being invested in the future I have going this very moment. I love my girl. We have a great future together and that can get even better now after making peace with another part of my past.

-Here's to a bright future, Crystal!

digg ringtone

w00t! DiggNation ringtone!

Using Audacity I 'trimmed' the excess podcast off the latest episode of DiggNation (episode 79) leaving only the introductory music. I have a Motorola RAZR v3c through Canada's Telus Mobility which kind of sucks ass.
It sucks ass not due to the phone itself because I'm having a great time playing with it. The situation Telus puts you in sucks ass.

The idea behind getting a new cell phone is that you want to put your own custom ringtones and wallpapers on there and be able to transfer off the images you snap with the digital camera. The idea Telus has is that they want to make that as difficult for you as possible. Using the tools mentioned in the next paragraph you are able to upload the "ringtones" you like (but Telus makes sure they go to the "audio" folder and not the ringtone folder). But when you go to assign the uploaded audio file as a ringtone, you can only play it! There's no option to set it as a ringtone.

Well! Thanks to the forward-thinking people at Motorola (Phone Tools) and the beautiful minds behind BitPIM we can finally stick it to Telus.

Want to know how to get those audio files out of the audio folder and instead being read as a ringtone? I found these instructions (1, 2) which I will paraphrase here:

Note)) The following instructions can be followed with the phone plugged in to the computer via a USB cable the entire time, until specifically stated. The USB cable I used was the same cable that came with my SanDisk Sansa m240 1gb MP3 player. The following are instructions for WindowsXP when using Motorola Phone Tools and either Windows or Linux for BitPIM (though I tested on my windows partition).

1))
Using the Motorola Phone Tools (MPT for short) that you purchased from Motorola you can upload as many mp3 or wav (possibly midi but I haven't tested that) as you like. This is done from the "Multimedia Studio" tab, and then inside there from within the "Melody Studio" tab.

2))
After you have transferred the audio files you want to eventually use as ringtones, close the MPT.

3))
Open up BitPIM and follow these very important steps for the Motorola RAZR v3c.

4))
You may have noticed your phone was auto-recognized. Forget that. Open up the phone profile settings "Edit -> Settings" and change the phone type from v3c to "Other CDMA phone".

5))
Click the Com Port "Browse ..." button from within the "Edit -> Settings" menu and select the "(*) Motorola USB Modem" (which should have been installed when you plugged your v3c into your computer the first time. The Motorola USB Modem drivers install off the MPT install cd. The warnings from WinXP during that install are normal).

6))
Click "OK" to finish the manual setup of the v3c in BitPIM. You should now be back at the BitPIM screen.

7))
Select that you want to view the file system on the phone by clicking "View -> View Filesystem" or hot-keys "Alt-V F".

8))
Click "Filesystem" in the very left browse window and expand the root directory "+/" in the second browse window by clicking the plus beside the directory. (As a reminder, we are still inside BitPIM. We closed MPT long ago).

9))
Another directory will appear under the root directory that says "retrieving". This will happen for a few seconds while BitPIM reads the content on the v3c.

10))
In the last browse window on the very right of the BitPIM screen will be a long list of files. You want to locate "MyToneDB.db" and "TmpTneDB.db" and delete them. Yes, delete them. This worked for me when following the instructions on the previously mentioned site. If you are sceptical, I'll note my phone's firmware version right now. It worked for me when using firmware version GATW_06.08.00R and you can find your firmware version by clicking "Edit -> Phone Info".

11))
After you have right clicked the two .db files mentioned above and selected "delete" for each of them, you can then close BitPIM and then unplug your phone.

12))
Before browsing to look for your ringtones, turn off your phone (press and hold the red phone button on the right side of the v3c's keypad).

13))
Turn on your phone by pressing and holding the red phone button on your v3c. The phone will restart and generate new "MyToneDB" and "TmpTneDB" .db files which will include your audio files as ringtones.

14))
Now you can browse to assign your ringtones. If you look in the "Media Gallery -> Sounds" you'll notice there is still no option to assign the audio file as a ringtone. Instead, go to "Settings -> Ring Styles" and then "-> {whatever} Detail" and from there you can change the ringtone to your own audio files.

Note)) Your ringtones can be found at the bottom of the list, regardless of alphabetization. They are easily found by immediately browsing "up" the list rather than scanning down through the entire list.

Enjoy your new ringtones!

-Hopefully helping the community

christmas time presents

Christmas and the meaning

I just deleted a post about the various presents I unwrapped (early) for Christmas. I had an early Christmas with family and friends as I am away for the holidays. I'm in Calgary, Alberta, Canada right now. I deleted the description of the cool gifts I got because that is not what Christmas is about. I was spoiled this Christmas, and to those who spoiled me (everyone who got me a present, honestly!) I thank you very much. I know you didn't gift me with the expectation to be gifted back this year or any time in the future when I can afford it. My Dad told me so, it's not about expecting in return. And he's right. But I really do want to make it up to you guys whenever I can. Be it giving my girlfriend 75 massages over the course of the next year (and not just sissy ones because that's just a waste of 5 minutes and don't count) or even getting my Mom and Dad a killer entertainment system 5 years from now or buying my Dad a remote vehicle starter when I can finally afford presents greater than $30 in value. I appreciate that you all put so much effort into making these holidays great. Dinner was awesome. The time spent together afterward was memorable. Christmas is about relationships and giving.

-I thank each of you. Merry Christmas

sexy geeks

I found this site listing the person's top 10 sexiest geeks

I didn't make the list. Not even an honourable mention.

-Maybe next year

gamestuff

Good times

I have finished writing my exams for the semester, 12:30pm Saturday was my last exam. My grades are in, I'm pleased to announce I have passed all my courses this semester. Saturday's exam was a redo, because I'd taken and failed that class last year. My final grade was a 22% increase over my final grade for that class last year. I exceeded my expectations for the course and the others as well.

So now I have time for games. I've been playing Bookworm Adventures which consumed two hours of my life tonight. It's a great game that will easily distract you from the other things in your life that you might want to do, such as working out kinks in your website or playing Neverwinter Nights or Paper Mario for the Gamecube.

To relax, after my last final, I went to a christmas play on ice. It was a figure skating thinger, whatever those are called... ballet on ice? titled "If you just believe" which consisted of 200+ figure skaters dressed up in costumes telling a story. It was pretty cool, and an awesome christmas present to my girlfriend and I from my Dad. So I took them out for dinner afterward. My girlfriend and I spent the night at friends' house in Sicamous (a town an hour from here). That was a good night, I hadn't hung out with them in almost a year. The next day consisted of bowling with those friends, and shopping at the Vernon mall. Good times.

Now it's 2:37am and I've got to get myself to sleep. How am I going to wake up early enough to work on my website before the primal urge to entertain myself sets into motion?

-Hoping this made sense as I'm getting pretty tired here

exam time crunch time

Much ado about nothing?

Here's to hoping so. In 80 minutes I write my second of three exams for this semester's course load. I'm going into it with 61.36 out of 75 (which is 81.81%) for the course, currently. That 61.36% is my current grade for the course, meaning even without writing the exam (which is worth 25% of the total grade) I've already passed the course. But in the pit of my stomach I'm still getting that eerie feeling of dread and stress. I passed my first exam, I had 70.71% and after writing the exam I finished the course with 67.32% (the exam brought me down because I scored 58.5% on it).

It's Saturday's exam that has me worried most. I failed that course last year. I ended up with 42% (magical number, w00t). But there is a glimmer of hope, I'm at 36 out of 60 at the moment, being 60% for the current grade. I need only 14 out of 40 on the final exam to pass the course. I think I can do it this time around, I had 52% the first midterm, 62% the second midterm... maybe this time around I can get 72% on the final exam :) Ok, it's time for me to go. It'll take an hour to drive there and I now only have 72 minutes until the exam starts.

What a pointless post... I suppose it has helped a little to get it off my chest.

-Two days to go and I'm all done this semester

Dentistry

Dentistry

So I finally visited the dentist. I haven't been there since before I had my tongue pierced (last visit was December 2004, the piercing was at the end of that December).

I asked the hygienist a few questions.

1) Who requires flossing more often: tightly spaced teeth or those with gaps? The answer, people with no gaps between their teeth should be using floss on a more regular basis (though it's recommended everyone flosses daily. [Editor: But who does anyway?])

2) Plaque, what is it? I'll try not to bastardize what she told me... The answer is that it is calcified sediment. Loose food particles are floating around in your mouth and stick to your teeth. The food calcifies within 10 to 48 hours, which is why it is recommended you brush at least twice a day. Your tooth brush can rub off the sediment that is soft and not yet calcified, but when it finally hardens then odds are it's not coming off until you visit a dentist.

3) What does mouthwash do for you? Is it just for the prevention of bad breath? The answer, the hygienist says it's mostly for making your breath smell pretty. She recommends "anti-bacterial" mouthwash which helps to kill bacteria and prevent disease in your mouth. Gingevitis being one of those things it kills.

So there you have it. Brush your teeth and floss. Use mouthwash if you like, it makes your breath stink less.

-An apple a day keeps the doctor away. What keeps dentists away? Bad breath.

snowing snowing like a dwarf

So it's snowing outside

It has been snowing since yesterday. There's some 6 inches on the ground right now and more coming. On the way out from my house this morning I saw a car in a ditch rested up against a fence. My girlfriend asked that I spend the night at her place tonight so I don't have to drive home in the snow.

Here's to hoping the roads are clear enough tomorrow so I can drive to school. It's already a 50 minute drive from my place and I'll be in grandma mode tomorrow I'm sure.

Only 5 days of school left before the end of the semester! 5 days in which 3 projects are due and 2 homework assignments as well. Oh what fun! I'm looking forward to a nice break. A break in which I can finally find time to finish "Paper Mario 64" and start and finish "Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door" and play through "Metroid Prime" again and possibly buy and play through "Metroid Prime Hunters". And, you know, keep working on my website a little bit, too.

-Not enough hours in this week

my site

Oh!

Have I mentioned my website WaggSoft ?

-I almost forgot

Find some aspect that is your own

Find some aspect that is your own

That is the message I got from my professor tonight. I'm one part of two 7 person teams working on a weather/radar system for some researchers in Iowa. I haven't yet found my niche in my group, where I belong. The 6 other people all seem to know what it is they want to do with it and they do just that. They do their part. I guess I'm just not as excited about this project as other people are.

I'm a Computer Science student. This is my 5th year in University. I've attended a total of 43 months of instruction within everything from English and Japanese to Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, Philosophy and yes, Computer Science. I've spent no more than 3 weeks away from this institution in the last 3 and a half years of the 4 years and three months I've been attending.

I'm not a great student. In fact, my grades haven't really mattered to me all too much the whole time I've attended. I've failed 3 courses. Since then, I've successfully completed two of those three my second time around. The third course I'm currently taking again and doing well enough. Why do my grades not matter? I feel I'm getting as much from my post secondary education that I could hope for. Which brings me back to my lack of interest in this weather/radar project...

My professor last week presented a lecture on the aspect of a human resource person within a company. One of his questions was something of the following: Who would you rather hire...

a) A veteran professional in the industry who has zero knowledge of the system he would be responsible for working on and the programming language it is maintained in.
b) A new graduate who may not have the best grades. He does have some idea of what the system does and has dabbled with the programming language the system is written in. His grades are lower than nominal but only because he spent his class and free time working on his own projects. He educated himself.
c) A new graduate who may or may not know what your company or your product does and who may or may not have any previous experience with the programming language the system uses. But he had top grades in his class.

I think it went something like that. If I can't recall correctly it's because my nose was buried in my laptop while I was teaching myself PHP and JSP. When posed with the question of who I would hire as an HR manager I chose the second guy. I guess the consensus of the class (and the professor) say the grad with the top marks is the best choice. I suppose I might be in trouble if that's the case.

I digress again. Back to the project at hand and my lack of enthusiasm for it. I've spent no more than three weeks (Christmas break) away from this University since the beginning of my second year here. Why? I'm not only a student. I'm also a research assistant. I know what it's like to work on a big project and I know the difficulties in managing time. And frankly, to quote one of my Professors, Dr Alan Paeth, "The smart programmer is a lazy programmer". So I've adopted that philosophy but replaced "programmer" with "student". I don't want to write myself into a corner here for the off-chance a future employer might find this blog and query me on it. I have two other class projects (an Amazon.com clone and a web-based multi (2+) player battleship game) to take care of. I'm not the only one who's getting burnt out with the sheer volume of project time that must be dedicated to the projects.

I wish I had a conclusion to put in here. As I write this I imagine I'm writing for Wired magazine and thousands of people would read this. I'm just tired. I have to find my place in this group and show the professor I can do something when it comes to working with a team. On the bright side, I'm developing a pretty kick-ass website for a first time around. Here it is at waggy.is-a-geek.org for all to see. I develope it Monday through Friday between the hours of 8am and 4pm. Always more to come...

-Educating myself

Lurv

I love you

I have said it and it has been said in return. Wow, that's an awesome thing to hear. To think, in a previous relationship I put up with not hearing a mutual "I love you" for three and a half years. To be fair, I heard it twice before this relationship, but she played it off like it was a joke I tricked her into. This time it just feels right, like I'm not the only one who's making an attempt. She's sweet! An awesome girl.

-Not just a computer virus any more

Ghetto

Broken glass

That's what I had waiting for me Wednesday morning as I went to my car to drive to school. The night before, someone had smashed my drivers-side window. There was still a lot of glass hanging from the frame, evidence that they were not attempting to break in. Nothing was taken, the door was still locked. Someone must have decided it would be fun to smash some glass and disappear.

-Boo-urns

Alternate Reality

On a lighter note, I've been messing around with an old computer that was given to me this summer. I've turned it into a webserver which can be found HERE, complete with a blog and forums. I'm still working on it, my next goal is to get the mailserver set up so I can operate emails out of it from addresses such as kyle@waggy.is-a-geek.org

-Wouldn't that be fun

two months later

Two months later...

Yes, there's been a temporary hiatus. I finished up my summer research (at least for the year) and took a little vacation. My girlfriend, her sister, and I went to Edmonton where I visited with my sister and her husband. It was nice to see the two of them again. While we were in Edmonton we made a visit to the West Edmonton Mall. Unfortunately while I was there I did not stop in at the BioWare studio. Most of the vacation was spent in Lloydminster, a city that exists on the border of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

School's been going well. I failed a class last year, Algorithm Analysis. Thus far I have passed the midterm and done very well on the homework. The other classes are going great, too. But wow! I get a lot of homework this year, I've never been so busy. I do have plenty to keep me occupied outside of school.

My girlfriend is great. We're going to a gym together to work out. I'll attempt to get buff, she'll look even hotter.

I bought a Nintendo DS and a couple games. "New Super Mario Bros" is a great game. Since I've beaten it I can't say I've felt like replaying it. "Super Mario 64 DS" is a whole different game in itself. There are enough things changed between the Nintendo 64 version and the DS for even experts of the 64 version to want to play.

And I've been messing with an old computer I was given. You can find it at waggy.is-a-geek.org where I've got another blog going there. Not much in it though.

-Busy computer scientist