Posts filed under 'Rants'
Windows – he installs it. ‘Nuff said.
…
Alright, I haven’t said enough, and here goes: It pains me to see people cashing in on something that has been originally constructed as a simple and user-friendly few-step process which takes only a few key presses to configure. It pains me even more that someone is willing to call himself an IT professional while noting “Windows setup” as a primary capability. To all the guys and gals working their asses off to upgrade their customers’ hardware in a budget conscious manner, hunt down missing drivers, carefully load their PCs with software, setup the surrounding network and train the end user accordingly – I salute you. To all the idiots only doing a complete HDD format and installing Windows XP over a preinstalled Windows 7 system because it “runs better” – may Cthulhu have your soul.
If you are reading this, then it is obvious that somebody pissed me off with the above mentioned actions and asked for my help on how to install a dial-up modem. Attached picture is only mildly related.
/rant
May 29th, 2010
Recently I had the privilege to visit a “friend of a friend of a friend” in order to sort out his local home network. His name will remain undisclosed, and I can shamefully admit that I don’t even remember it, so I will refer to him as “HE” or “Big Kahuna” 
Moving on… As with every networking problem, small talk is compulsory, but this guy talked BIG, and I mean really big. If I may quote - “Sure will be glad to get this fixed. Every time my network acts up, I lose about 400$ daily.” It really was strange for someone to be revealing his daily earnings in a country with an average monthly salary of 200-400$, but I just kept on moving my head in an up-down acknowledging motion, confirming his claims and letting him have his daily shot of satisfaction, since he obviously liked the idea of being a rich yuppie.
Soon after, boredom kicked in and he quickly tried to sell me 5$ VoIP prepaid cards while I was meddling with his cabling. As a pathetic pleasant person I am, I mumbled quietly that I don’t have a need for VoIP services although I proceeded to give praise to his prepaid card distribution business, calling it “innovative” and “it’s what people want, compared to the current high long distance prices” just to get him off my back, and completely ignoring the fact that a “400$ per day big kahuna” just tried to sell me a 5$ product.
As I was finishing up with all the cables, I sat down with his 300$ laptop to configure everything (trust me, I know it’s value). As if I wasn’t surprised already, the keyboard did not work. Noticing that, mr. Big Shot quickly pulled up an already connected USB keyboard for me to type on, while claiming boldly that he accidentally spilled coffee on his laptop keyboard and was unable to fix it. (ugh) By the way, here is the keyboard I was using, the keys had to be literally stomped on to work properly.
Finally, everything was done. His home network started working properly, and he was online again. Before uttering anything related to “thanks” or “how much?”, he quickly sat down and said “There’s something I quickly have to do, I’ll be with you in a moment.” From the other end of the room, my fairly decent vision came into play… I saw him opening several WordPress and Blogger blogs, scrolling down to the comments section and pasting 3-5 links with a message below - “Hi! I saw your website, and I thought you would be interested in some of my links too!”… He carefully entered some required captcha information, and pushed “Submit”.
Now that I knew he was a die-hard spammer, I asked innocently - “What do you do for a living?”… “Advertising and promotion” – he replied fairly quickly. “Here, here’s my card!”, he said with a retarded grin, and invited me to a promotion of a new DVD in a local town hall (that is usually rented for low-grade book promotions and cult gatherings).
Needless to say, he never saw me again.
So, what do I know about one spammer that may have even visited my own blog? Not much, except that he has a family, that he “earns 400$ per day” and still lives in his mother’s apartment with his wife and kid, and that he is an annoying, cheating, lying, conning bastard with no values whatsoever. That should cover it. Good riddance.
February 20th, 2009
It’s been a while since I’ve visited a few HTML/flash template stores online… Since I’m obviously posting this, that means I just did. Why? Just plain curiosity. The routine is pretty straight and dull - just browsing through the usual items and thinking about people who buy these things. If it’s not “uniquely” bought (means that as soon as it is purchased, for a 10x bigger price than usual, it is removed from the store, leaving the customer as the only remaining owner of the said template, thus actually owning an original design), then it’s not worth it. Being a serious online business while having a design that somebody else already has does not emit a very professional image, but clearly the numbers say otherwise.
Now, here’s the thing… I found a massive bunch of flash/html/switch/whatever templates available with the following theme: *wait for it* – WEB DESIGN and DESIGN STUDIO!
Um… Oh… Why?! I have to mention that the purchase rates for these are even bigger than other categories! Why the heck would a web design studio, who’s business is *duh* – web design, purchase a template like that? It’s the same comparison to a sugar factory buying sugar! (and we all know how often that happens)
There is one reason I could quickly whip up in my head… Fraud. The other one is a bunch of kids playing a pretend game of “web developer”. The third one (after some thinking) is overhauling the overall design and removing it’s “web design” aspect (but I personally think that’s a rare case).
Still, my advice for anybody seeking web design services is to check out the web designer’s portfolio (not the main website itself) thoroughly before making a decision, as the numbers clearly state that more and more “studios” are trying to look professional, even though their services are awful, or non existent. Be very careful, or end up loosing your money and using MSPaint and Word for creating your online presentation.
January 25th, 2009
I remember the old days when NiMH batteries powered my, now obsolete, devices... Proper battery care was essential, and even the most non-tech savvy users were quite knowlidgeable about this topic. The rules were simple - charge a new battery for 12 hours, drain completely, and make sure that any future charging was done only when the battery was nearly depleted. Simple. Even my old Siemens C35 mobile had a "battery care" option that depleted it completely and recharged it back.
And then "it" happened... Even though 6-8 hours was pretty much an adeqate time for the battery to charge and fully form, phone & gadget dealers kept increasing that period to 12 and up to 24 hours - freakishly insane! The fact that I had to wait that long when I was eager to engage in some gadget clicking with my new device was very frustrating, and yet the bar was still being raised...
Soon after LiIon battery packs were introduced, I thought that this waiting nightmare and memory effect problems were destined to get pushed in the history books. Unfortunately, even with today's LiIon batteries, that can be charged at any time and at any charge level, every store in my surrounding area almost orders me to pre-charge my gadgets for at least 12hrs before use. As an old Spartan used to say - "this is madness!"
What got me to write this thing is my friend's recent notebook purchase. Even if the battery that came with it is an Lithium one, the store clerk assured him that it is absolutely mandatory to charge the whole thing for 12hrs... THREE TIMES!
Pathetic. The pain won't obviously end soon...
October 13th, 2008
Tis' just a tiny rant... As much as I like to ocasionally play a game or two of Counter Strike (usually the Source version), I just can't help to emphasize on how much the dedicated server software for this thing sucks genitalia... I am unfortunate enough to administer one, and it's one heck of an aspirin-immune headache.
For some reason, the whole thing likes to crash in the middle of a game with a witty "C++ runtime error"... Not only that, but everybody ends up flying around the map with huge pings if someone makes the cpu usage go above 10-20% on the host machine. Why is that so? I have no idea, but obviously SRCDS is so awfully designed, that it's a surprise that so many dedicated servers exist online. To run this thing on a typical Windows system, you need a 2-3GHz machine that is completely stripped off any unnecessary services, and *maybe* then you can run a server that can handle 7vs7 players. Don't even think about copying a file, or running any other app except SRCDS, otherwise your players will give you the "glowing red eye" routine...
In a nutshell, go to hell, Valve...
August 28th, 2008
"What you're doing is illegal, and what we're doing is not - because we will make it legal." - That's the official hymn, slogan or whatever of the RIAA, or at least that's what I think it is. I just came accross a YouTube video and actually listened to it in the background instead of watching it... That was a first. In a nutshell, it was horrifying. When watching a plain ol' spokesperson in the form of a president of a huge "sueing you for money is our business" organization such as the RIAA, it's kind of encouraging not seeing any vampire fangs on him... But listening to him actually brings shivers down my back, really.
I came down to a conclusion that Mr. Sherman is obviously a bad man (I'll just use that attribute, since people all around the world have already used "bastard", "ballsucker", "disgusting freak" and so on...). All his thesis on anti-piracy activity rely on "internet filters", or as I would like to put it - the Internet in chains (bye bye internet neutrality). And if those don't work due to widely present simple encryption methods, we'll just spew out some specialized software that the user HAS TO INSTALL or WON'T KNOW IF IT IS INSTALLED to monitor the decrypted data and see if any downloads are illegal to use. NEWSFLASH: Spyware is illegal! People don't like being spied on! Being able to play "big brother" with any PC in the world is very, VERY dangerous. Sony tried to do that once ( click me ), but miserably failed. No lessons learned from this? Why so?
The best thing to do when fighting music piracy is to just shut the hell up. The more people listen to it, the more it is likely they will buy the artists CD, concert ticket or any other form of merchandise.
Music piracy is not stealing. (that's why it's called piracy, not "music theft") Stealing a car is stealing, because the other side does not own the car anymore, right? Stealing an audio CD is stealing, because the other side does not own the audio CD anymore, right? But what about downloading music? Both sides have their Mp3 files on their media, and both of them are pretty much satisfied. There's no theft here, only copyright infringement, and that's not theft. Period.
Here's the video, try not to barf:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxYGZ7Z6joQ[/youtube]
July 26th, 2008
I'm just so freakin' glad to live in a free and prosperous country such as this one... In fact, Serbia is so great and righteous, that it has to remain the last on the list for all things good, and at the very top for all things bad, just for the sake of feeling important while pouring sacks of 10 day old manure on the head of every normal person that resides within.
If you haven't noticed yet, I'm pissed. Very much so.
What I tried to do today looked too good to be true (needless to say, it was) - I tried using Microsoft DreamSpark to download some free software for students (for educational purposes). The process includes a verification procedure that confirms that you are truly a valid student of any listed university. Allot of countries in Europe are supported, but not mine, nor does it look like it will be any time soon. It sucks not having an unified student filing system, like that's so hard to accomplish. Although loads more laws, decrees, important people, general democracy realizations in Serbia are on my "I will slice your spine in two" list, this made my stomack do a 360 degree spin. Thank you, oh so great country of mine...
July 4th, 2008
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Windows – he installs it. ‘Nuff said.
