Monthly Archives: January 2010

Snow Storm VA 2010

Published Saturday, January 30, 2010 | By Denver Fowler

In what our local media is sure to call the worst snow storm in Virginia’s history… (pft, I’m from Michigan Bitches) But it is cool when you know that yesterday was in the 40′s and not a flake in sight. This is what today is:

Posted in News | Tagged Snow, USA, Virginia

Treadquarters Williamsburg Virginia

Published Wednesday, January 27, 2010 | By Denver Fowler

I don’t like being lied too just to get a sale on something more expensive. The weekend before last, I happened to be on my way to make a donation of used computer parts and old video games to the local thrift store. As I passed I noticed the Treadquarters was open in Williamsburg where I live. So on my way back, I decided to stop by and see if they can get me fixed up with new tires.

Now, I’m an online shopper. So I had already gone to www.mrtire.com (Treadquarters main site), and had priced out tires for $67 per tire “on the rim and out the door” price. I already knew what I wanted. Captain goatee behind the counter was not only short with me as if I had ruined his Sunday, but then proceeded to tell me the following: “We don’t have any in stock, (1 click of the keyboard button and no pause for breath) and we don’t carry any in the local warehouse so none of our stores have them.” As I live in HamptonRoads, I can go to one of many locations, this was his way of saving me the effort, or in this case, to discourage me from bothering. Then he said, “But if you buy today, I can get you some Yokohama’s, buy 3 get 1 free even though they sale ended yesterday.”. Of course this means a hundred and some dollars more than I had budgeted for. I said “no thanks” and walked out disappointed.

Last weekend after months of dealing with bald tires, I was determined to find some somewhere. My wife worked in Newport News that day, so I started there. I went to Sam’s Club and they had some for about the right price, but they don’t take credit cards. WTF? Who doesn’t take credit cards?

Then I went to Pepboys and just about shit my pants at the quote they gave me. Never did like Pepboys anyways. So with a resounding “hell no”, I left.

Next was Treadquarters in Newport News. Why? Because Captain Goatee boy pissed me off. I didn’t like his attitude and being I work in computers, I know that there was no way he even bothered with the warehouse that fast. He just wanted to fuck me over for a sale. Don’t mistake me for a dumbass, I will call you out. Sure enough, they not only carried them, the gentleman who helped me was also kind enough to get them on in a few minutes and had me new wiperblades to boot. All for my target price. Hmm.. Guess Williamsburg Treadquarters are not anyone I would recommend dealing with, but Newport News has great service.

Posted in News | Tagged Bad Service, Tires

Unnecessary Millionaires

Published Friday, January 22, 2010 | By Denver Fowler

This country is loaded with them. People who are unnecessarily rich. Either from self publishing on how they got so rich schemes, Sport Stars, Actors, Musicians, Politicians, and more. What do these people really do for our society as a whole? Not much.

Sports Stars, Actors, Musicians all provide a level of entertainment. But should they really get paid so much for a few minutes of entertainment? Sure I love a good movie or song, but don’t think it’s worth the millions they make. I really don’t think the industries that support them should be so filthy rich either. These bastards get rich for having a good time, while every day people like me bust our asses to make 25K a year and wonder how we will make the next day.

Politicians are even worse. They promise us such great things, jobs, pay, etc.. While they tax the piss out of us and put it in their pockets.

You know who I admire? Bill Gates. Say what you want about the guy, but he’s made computers popular for the every day person. Affordable, and fun. He’s done more for our society than most of these others I’ve jabbered on about.

Tell ya what, I’ll tell you if it works. You send me $10 and I’ll send you how I managed to create such an idea. I’ll even tell you if it’s working or not. I won’t promise however that it will make you rich.

Posted in News | Tagged Money, Poor, Poverty, Rich

I’m sick of email

Published Friday, January 15, 2010 | By Denver Fowler

I’m so sick of email. Not sick of me personally using it, but troubleshooting it for customers. For me, email is simple to use and if you follow some simple instructions, you can pretty much avoid spam all together.

I would be very afraid to find out what the average Joe User does to his/her computer to have so many different problems with email.

I sincerely miss being a regular computer tech, working on format reloads, hardware replacement, troubleshooting Windows issues and drivers. It’s all I really had to know. If a customer had a problem with a software, I just had to know how to uninstall and reinstall it. If that didn’t fix the problem, they had to contact their software manufacturer or their ISP.

Now I’m the ISP tech. I can troubleshoot connection issues all day long. No problem. I can deal with hosting without too much trouble. Email, is a true pain to deal with any way you look at it.

People have all sorts of odd issues. Can’t send, can’t receive or both. They can’t read the error messages when I ask for them. Or just say it isn’t working and the dramatic pause waiting for a miracle answer.

Some of the common issues:

Incorrect POP or SMTP server
Incorrect username/password
Filtering out friends email address (so they never see it)
Friends have them filtered
Corrupt mail boxes
Viruses
They “never had a password” why would they need one now
They have been blacklisted so their friends don’t get their emails

This list can go on forever. It’s almost as if every customer has a unique issue with email. And it’s scary to know how many don’t have any antivirus on their systems.

The worst part is customer is dead set on it being our fault they have things incorrect and get very very nasty if I don’t have an instant magical answer. More over, when I find out it’s not our problem (99.9% of the time it isn’t), but it’s with their receiving party’s ISP or they have been blacklisted, they go on a long rant of how it can’t be, as their friend knows all about computers (but works as a refuge technician for a local disposal company). It’s as if they just refuse to listen to reason. It’s frustrating. I wish all these blackberry, iPhone, email popping people would just use Gmail. This way it’s not my problem and they can do their email from anywhere at all. (don’t get me started on people who love to check email on 10 different devices)

~ “We the unwilling are doing the impossible for the ungrateful.” (and trust me, this current issue, this woman is not only ungrateful, she’s malicious)

Posted in News | Tagged Email, ISP, Support, Technology

New Year, New Look

Published Friday, January 8, 2010 | By Denver Fowler

It’s the beginning of a new decade. I figured since I’ve honed my website design/theme making skills, I’d go for an overhaul of all my sites starting with my home.

Interested in my doing some work for you? Take a look and get in touch with me.

Posted in News | Tagged Custom, Theme, Website

Time to go 64!

Published Monday, January 4, 2010 | By Denver Fowler

I’m all about technology and computers. My budget doesn’t always allow me to get the latest and greatest of toys. I was late on the DVD revolution and I’m still not going to Blu-ray just yet.

Due to an unfortunate schmelting accident (no my privates are not gold), my main desktop PC was suffering a painful death. A.k.a. my VIA raid controller started to die, and was causing wonderful syncing effects and lockups. After hours of testing and not having any fun over the New Years holiday, it was time to perform surgery to my digital baby.

This included a new motherboard (as buying a new controller wasn’t cost effective and would only buy a couple of months before the whole mobo died), new processor (sadly not as fast GHz wise, but certainly more efficient) and a nicer case to put them into as my old one has front-side usb issues (and was disconnected). Also since my RC1 of Windows 7 was going to expire in March, I decided to get a copy of Windows 7 Pro x64.

Yes, I finally jumped on the x64 bandwagon. Hell Linux and Mac have been doing it for years, and Microsoft has been doing it since April 25, 2005. It is high time I did too! Though this means I kept my original Video Card, Memory, Hard Drives, DVD-RW Drive and even my 80Plus Power Supply. So not much has changed. I even went from 3.0GHz to 2.6GHz due to cost restrictions.

Low and behold to my wondrous eyes, my performance shot through the roof in comparison to the PC of old. My Windows Experience Index went from a 4.8 to 5.5. Sure, not top of the line, but the best is yet to come. I played my Runes of Magic and in instances where I’d have to lower my graphics just to get 15 FPS (Frames per second), I was now able to do with the graphics cranked to full and not drop below 24 FPS (normal is 30 FPS) and averaged 45 FPS most everywhere else. All my other games were in the hundreds which was extremely nice. So.. a slower processor, but using x64 Windows I was able to almost double all my performance? How is that possible? Wow, does that happen in every program?

Well.. It’s going to be a while before I can find out, as most of the software I use is even more behind the times than I am. Most still don’t support x64 architecture. (yes, I’m writing this as if I didn’t already know about x64, bare with me but I actually consider my readers who aren’t uber-geeks like me) So what gives? Why don’t all software makers support x64? It’s certainly the way to go. I’m a fan that’s for sure. I’ve updated my freeware list to show links to x64 freeware that I now use.

Though I plead for all software makers to get on the ball and in game with x64!!

Posted in News | Tagged Microsoft, Software, Windows, x64