For whatever reason, the little voice in my head thought it would be a good idea to call DirecTV and ask what they could do for me. Sure enough, by just asking the question they lowered my monthly bill to below what they advertise on the web site. I’ve been with them for two years and have no desire to change my service, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.
I’m going to try this more often. I’ve read that in this economy that vendors are more than willing to bend over backwards to keep good customers. I’ve had that experience at work and thought I’d try it at home. It worked.
If you’re a DirecTV customer, it might be worth five minutes of your time (that is all it took) to save some money.
A few particular web sites only seem to work in Firefox 3. A game breaker is the web site that I use to submit my Flex Spending and Dependent Care reimbursements only works in Firefox. It does not work in Chrome or IE8 on Windows 7 and thus I am back to Firefox.
I have a minimal number of extensions installed (Ad Block Plus and FoxMarks) and I must say even with those two my browsing experience is improved. I miss the speed with which Chrome works but the gap between it and Firefox is a lot less than it used to be. IE8 just flat out is terrible along every measurable dimension – performance, how it handles tabs (it doesn’t), and how to configure it.
So Google has a new toy out … called Wave. I thought Google already had Orkut for their social networking?
Anyhow, I signed up. My haiku that was submitted as part of the submission:
Wave, It Calls To Me
Like A Wife To A Husband
When He Comes Home Late
I’ve rebuilt my gaming rig with Windows 7 RC1 64 bit version. The installation was fairly easy and the install was quick. I’ve re-installed all of my critical applications and the only things I think I’ve failed to back up are my Call of Duty 4 character (doing the progression again is fun actually) and apparently some kind of iTunes configuration data. It’s like starting over from the beginning. I won’t even go into it again as I’ve complained about this crapplication before.
I’ve also abandoned IE8 and have moved back to Chrome. Too many little things in Chrome that make it a preferable browser. IE8 is also dog slow. IE8 also opens everything in a new Window; I’m not sure what the point of tabs are for IE8 if it permits everything in new windows.
I’m also trying something called “TuneUp” which is supposed to help clean up an iTunes library. What is not clear to me is whether it fixes the source media or whether it simply cleans up the data within iTunes. Not sure yet. I simply aspire to have a very clean music library and I’m not there yet.
So I’m in the beta for Google Voice. The best feature is that I can send and receive text messages from a web page. Oh, it also has visual voice mail in where it transcribes voice mails into email automatically.
I am calling my home phone provider and simplifying my calling plan tremendously and migrating my number to this new number. It’s that awesome.
Apologies in advance for text message spam …
So what is the appeal of Latitude? In theory, your friends (or, alternatively, children) could be signed up with this service and you could se where they’re at. Want to grab lunch but not sure who’s around? Check out Latitude and see that one of your friends is in the same shopping mall. Or, want to know where your kids are on Saturday night? Latitude lets you know.
Would I sign up if it was an MS service? Yes. At this point MS has gotten such an undeserved bad rap that I’m tempted to start playing more with Live services. I still prefer gmail’s interface but there are other parts of Live Mesh that might be worth checking out.
For now Latitude is a neat toy and I can see how it would be useful. It definitely appeals to the geek in me more than the practical side.
So I signed up for Google Latitude to check it out. It seems very Big Brother-ish, knowing that I’m broadcasting where I’m at 24/7. The reality is that Google likely already knew where I was at all times and now has finished building the UI for the information.
“Don’t be evil” is their mantra. It should be interesting to see how this is received by the public.
I’m a social gamer, it’s how I describe myself and it defines what it is that is important to me in my computer gaming. If I am not gaming with someone else, I find that it is not as rewarding, as funny, or as memorable.
It started when I set up my Flickr account. I’ve been very good about uploading pictures in part because I have a compelling and unique story to tell – my son. Family and friends know to go to that page to see the latest family exploits and stages of his development. I’ve recently started using Twitter more and more. I’ve got a Facebook page and whil I never go there a number of long lost friends have reconnected with me on that site. I find instant messaging as indispensible as email.
I’m beginning to find those tools useful and educational. It also causes me to wonder what the internet will be like in another ten years. I remember the first time I used ICQ and it was like magic.
I have installed the Windows 7 Beta on my laptop and have been using my laptop almost exclusively since the upgrade. Some of that is thanks to my desire to stay focused (i.e., stop gaming when I’m not really enjoying the game but am just passing the time relaxing) and part of that is to genuinely give this OS a whirl.
I have to say that while it’s not a radical departure from Vista, it’s a nice step. While I’m evidently attempting to tempt fate, I’ve also installed the latest beta build of Chrome on the Windows 7 laptop. I figured this thing could blow up at any minute so let’s go for it all.
And despite that, it is working. I like Chrome, I just wish that it more easily could integrate the add ons that I love so much (Forecast Fox, Ad Block Plus) but for the moment I’m taking the performance increase over the creature comforts. In the past few days I noticed the changes to little things like Calculator and Paint. While the changes are not huge, and probably not worth the cost of the upgrade, they’re welcome changes to stale pieces of the overall package.
Here’s what the laptop looks like right now:
I stopped by the car dealer on the way home. My thought was that by showing up at the sales lot, as opposed to calling, if they refused to be helpful in repairing the damaged bumper I could get snotty in front of potential customers. Luckily it didn’t come close to that and they agree to repair it with minimal heartache. I was pleasantly surprised.
I also forced myself to stair master today after work. I only did 50 flights of stairs and then did five minutes on the treadmill. It was a little step for me to get back into the gym. I have a feeling my legs are going to be sore tomorrow but that was more or less the point.
I’m going to be living on the road for two weeks at a nice hotel. My plan is to go to the gym every day while I’m there. The amount of work I have to get done while I’m there is tremendous but other than work I have nothing that will be filling my time. I don’t look forward to being gone but I might as well make the most of it.
I think for once I’m going to go to bed early.
