Monthly Archives: July 2012

Life’s Little Evil Grins

Published Tuesday, July 31, 2012 | By Denver Fowler

Sometimes I get just enough satisfaction out of the stupid decisions people make. Take today’s case. A customer who has had their website hosted with us for many years, but decided a few years ago they wanted someone else to handle the email. Due too their lack of making themselves aware of their decisions then, the decision they made today has interrupted their business. All because they didn’t think through the consequences of their actions. This is especially satisfying when they send me a snarky email from the domain in which we happen to control.

I’ll try to help explain what happened using a simplified chart (click for larger image), as many of you also don’t know how web hosting works either. However, I want you to see why my grin is so evil. See, the customer bought a domain name and got hosting with us some time ago. A few years ago, they decided they wanted a different company to host their domain email, but keep their website with us. In order to do this they did the following:

First they pointed their domain to our servers. This makes it so our servers answer for any requests for a website or email.
When they wanted to have another company handle their email, they asked us to point all mail to a different server. This means all email requests come to us, but are redirected to a different server that we don’t control.

Today I get a nasty little email stating they stopped using us nearly a month ago and that they insist we cancel their service. The email came from their domain.

Doing my job as I do. I check to see if their domain is still pointed to our servers. It is. So once I stop the service, all services will stop as well. Which means I can’t reply to their email as it won’t work. Even though their email is with a different company, all requests have to go through us to get to the other company. So now, none of their email works. I’m sitting here waiting for the call asking why their email doesn’t work. When they do, I will simply refer to the nasty email stating that they stopped using us nearly a month ago, and then point out I guess they still were using our services after all. I’ll also ask if they would like to continue service, or give them the option to go to wherever they got their domain from, and work out the DNS there. However, that option will take a few hours for it to fix their broken email. All because they didn’t think before they got snotty with me.

Ah.. Justice

Posted in News | Tagged Customers, Dumasaphobia, Internet, Responsibility, Website

Awesome Birthday Present

Published Sunday, July 22, 2012 | By Denver Fowler

If you didn’t happen to remember, earlier this month it was my birthday. As normal, it wasn’t any kind of spectacular day. It was nice that 3 people at least remembered it and wished me a Happy Birthday.

A couple of months ago, I ended up in need of a car. The one I had needed almost the whole front end steering replaced (struts, mounts, ball-joints, control arms, etc…). It was going to cost me over $2000 to fix, and that was just what was needed to get it back on the road. It also needed brakes, tires, tune-up and a few other things. After gnawing it over in my head for weeks (and driving the company van instead), I finally sold the car for a few hundred dollars and set out to find me a new set of wheels.

Yesterday, thanks to Amber and her boyfriend Robert, I have a nice enough vehicle that should get me by for a couple more years

I’m beside myself as to how happy this has made me and how it’s helping me get through my rough patch

~ Thank you both!!

Posted in News | Tagged Blog, Family, Life

Fuk Ku Panda

Published Saturday, July 14, 2012 | By Denver Fowler

No, this is not a rage quit. I’m not uploading some prepubescent video on YouTube of me deleting my Warcraft characters. It’s more or less a semi-pun on Kung Fu Panda. Which is what I keep saying in reference to World of Warcraft’s new expansion Mists of Pandaria. It could also go along with a pun/statement to another situation, but that’s not what I’m talking about in this post.

When I first heard the announcement about this latest expansion. I kept saying to myself, “it’s an April Fool’s Day joke”. Sadly, this is not the case. They are near releasing it and between the idea of playable Panda toons and they complete redo of the talent tree system. I’m just over it. If any game company ever wondered why they keep losing players, it’s because of the major overhauls to the core system. World of Warcraft isn’t the only game that is guilty of this. I mean, as a gamer, I love new content, normally. Panda’s not so much. However, I was considering being forgiving of that issue. But the overhaul to the talent tree system and changing of many existing core skills and characters. It would be pretty much starting over again. Re-learning everything … again… I’ve done this in other games. It makes the magic that I fell in love with simply go away. It’s like coming home to find your son is a daughter now. Or your dog has become a cat. It’s not the same thing you fell in love with. May as well come home to find out that you’ve been forcibly moved to a new home 30 miles away. Frankly speaking, fuck that!

Sadly because I did the year of Warcraft so I could get Diablo III for free, I’m stuck with paying for my account until October. I’m bored with Diablo III already. Just started the second act and already uninstalled it from my PC. Never made it back to the UK servers of WoW like I planned. Just never could wrap my head around the changes about to come. It hasn’t even happened yet, but I’ve already felt the magic leave me.

I’ve spent a few days now trying out new games. None of which I seem to like. As well as I refuse to play any “free 2 play” games as previously documented.

Tera – while beautiful, I can’t stand the movement / interaction setup of the keyboard / mouse.
Darkfall – too much PVP. Not a pvp fan.
Guild Wars 2? – Didn’t like Guild Wars, so I’m not having much hope to that yet.
Rift – depresses me. The environment alone depresses me.

There is a possibility that I can get my hands on an Xbox 360 for free. As much as I’m not a console gamer, perhaps it’s time to try the new Halo coming out…. Or perhaps it’s time to find new things to do. I know, I could go hang out in bars! Yeah OK not… Although it appears that I’ve got time now to play Designated Driver

~ hint hint

Posted in News | Tagged Expansion, Games, Mists of Pandaria, MMORPG, World of Warcraft

Why do people pay to watch ads?

Published Thursday, July 5, 2012 | By Denver Fowler

You can’t turn your head these days without having advertising in your face. As I’ve said before, “I can only imagine that someday ads will be forcefully beamed directly into our brains like they show in the cartoon Futurama. You can’t escape ads for products and information no matter where you turn your head or hear just about every moment of everyday. Through radio, billboards, print, T.V., internet banners and so much more. It’s terribly difficult to escape it.”

I understand that ads help cover the cost of the content you are trying to view/use when that content is free. I get that. I want to watch a video on the internet, there may be an ad I have to view first or click to close to enjoy that. If I want to have a free app on my smartphone, I have to deal with advertising. I get that. If I don’t want the ads, you pay for the content. Plain and simple. Same goes for radio, wanna listen free? There’s going to be ads to listen too. Want ad free radio? Pay for a Sirius unit and subscription.

What I don’t get is when you pay for the content and there are still ads you are forced to put up with. Loads of them. Why anyone pays any amount for cable TV, satellite or any other means to watch TV and have to deal with ads is beyond me. I stopped paying for TV subscriptions some time ago because I just can’t wrap my head around why I would pay $50 – $80 a month just so I can watch ads! Advertising on TV is expensive. So if these advertisers are paying so much for their ads, why do we pay for TV at all? Or if I’m paying for TV, why should I see ads at all?

The movies are just as bad. You pay $7 to $14 for a ticket, pay $8 for popcorn and $5 for a soda, sit down and watch ads, ads and more ads before the movie starts. As Foamy put it, it’s not saving me anything why must I watch ads? How about more trivia or previews for upcoming movies instead?

I’ve since gone to using Netflix for watching TV. No ads! Granted, I can’t see the latest episode of The Big Bang Theory, Merlin or Skins this way. Unless I watch it on the network’s website, which has ads. I find my system works fine for me. Not too mention it’s considerably cheaper! Plus I can pause and re-watch to my hearts content. If Netflix were ever to decide to show ads, I’ll get very angry.

Something I’ve noticed using Netflix. Older shows that ran in 1 hour slots, were up to 52 minutes in length. Newer shows that are in the same 1 hour slot, are only 42 to 48 minutes in length. So as cable/satellite prices went up, so did the amount of ads. Can you say, “What the fuck? Over!?!”.

In all, I understand ads for free content, but I refuse to pay for content and have to deal with ads!!!