Sunday, February 26, 2006

Mardis Gras Is Here!!

In the spirit of the festival I wanted to post the link to the best show around.

Bourbo Cam

You can sit and watch the crowd down on Bourbon Street, right in the middle of the French Quarter, from the comfort of your own home. Can't make it to the "Big Easy" this year? Now you don't have any excuse that you couldn't see tourists puking their guts up.

Usually I sit with a few beers and watch the crowds walking by the cams. Laughing at the guy that just peeked into the all male show thinking he was looking at girls, or laughing at the girl that just puked down her boyfriend's back while he was holding her up from falling into the filth all over the streets.

Happy Mardis Gras!!

`Troll

Friday, February 17, 2006

Geocaching

A long time ago a friend put a bug in my ear to read up on this hobby. I read some about it and visited some websites. It seemed like a great outdoors hobby and even can become a family type outting. I had been a surveyor for along time and even have some GPS handelds. I enjoy working from maps and coordinates as well. Now that I am a Sys Admin for a surveying company and stay indoors all day long I am wanting to find a new hobby to get me and the family outside on the better days that mother nature hands us.

I will be starting a new blog dealing with my findings and adventures during this new hobby of ours. I will link this blog and the geocaching blog together so it will be easy to find. Not that anyone reads this blog anyway. I just thought it would be a nice way to tell the adventures without cluttering this blog. Which is really for no particular subject. I should have the new blog up and running by the end of the weekend with some posts from this weekend.

Battery life of the Scala 500

Just wanted to chime in again about my newly aquired BT headset. I charged it fully when I bought it, like I said earlier. I left it off the charger all night and turned off. Turning it back on at 6:30am and heading to work. I did my usual talking on it for the day and I have to tell you, I am very impressed. The Scala never died out or got fuzzy, even toward the end of the day.

As far as the hp6515 is concerned with BT running all day. I only noticed a slight increase in battery drain. I would have to guess at about 2-3 percent. I am extremely happy with the performance of these two technologies.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Blue Tooth: Scala 500 Headset on HP 6515

I bought the Scala 500 today and was a little worried that I wouldn't like it. I read the reviews between the Scala 500 and the Motorola HS850 and decided I was going to get the HS850. The resons behind this was not only the price being lower, but my boss has one and he hasn't had one complaint with his. He had it paired to his Razr and now his HP6515.

I was all set to get the HS850 but the store near work had already sold out of them. I opted for my other choice, the Scala 500. Well I read the quick start manual to find out I had to charge it for 4 hours on the first charging then 2-3 hours every charge after that. 4 hours?? It was going to take me four hours to find out if I really would like it.

Well, four hours later I get it paired in less than a minute, so setup was a breeze. I called a buddy of mine who is as picky about quality as I am when it comes to electronics. He said that it actually sounded better, more mellow, and smoother than the built in mic on the phone. This pleased me alot to hear that from him. I got home and called the wife to see if it would work while the HP was in the craddle, Badda-bing, it worked!! Then I walked around the house and got to the other end and it never lost contact with the Pocket pc. It did how-ever start getting crackly about 35 feet away. I haven't figured out why some reviews I read had said there is alot of static in the ear piece. I haven't found that to be true yet.

When a call comes in, there is a little beeping type tone that I hear instead of the ringtone of my phone. I will be curious if this still works like this if I turn my phone on silent. I will have to edit in the answer later.

//edit// Yes it does work while the 6515 is on silent. The wife called me the other night and the earpiece tone was the only thing that sounded off.//

All-in-all, I am very satisfied with the performance of the Scala 500 paired to my HP6515. I think they were a match made in electronic bliss.

Later,
Troll

Monday, February 13, 2006

Wife's picture

This is the wife getting ready for a shower. She said I can post this one.

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Sent from my HP6515

Where in the world is Sam Walton??

I know the man passed away years ago, and I also know that his children have been running the company for as many years. It's time we all stand up and reclaim the respect we deserve as Walmart customers. For years the Stores have been laying cheaply made crap on their shelves and we drones just walk in, put it in our basket, and go anxiously to pay for it. Why?
Well, Walmart does have the better deals in town. Why? 'Cause they have no compitition really. All the little stores that used to get our business when I was a young child, are now long gone by the way side. Do you really know why this happened? Of course you do. You have just forgot. Let me remind you.

Sam Walton made his business huge knowing that the customer was the one paying his bills. He gave the best product for the price. A very simple thing done in business. He would only give you American products made by Americans people. He would treat his customers as if they had been long time friends. I am sure you now remember. Paul Harvey always talked about Sam and his stores on his radio commentary show. Well Sam and Paul, I have got some bad news for you all this time.

Walmart is going to hell in a hand basket, and we are all going with it. We don't care, we are drones. Little mindless monkeys at the mercy of the Walmart tag on every item in the store. We don't care that the product in that store is second best or even third best. We bought it at Walmart and we got it cheap. We don't care if we get treated badly by a Walmart associate, we got it cheap. A cheap price for a cheaply made product. We don't care that it doesn't work after six weeks, we got it cheap. We don't care if it's not in stock, we will get it when it comes in. Why? 'Cause we are going to get it cheap.

I remember a story on Paul Harvey's show about how the elderly gentleman needed his car tire repaired. He was on a long journey and had started having problems with this tire and finally pulled in to a Walmart at the time they were about to close the service center. Guess what? The service center fixed his tire, with a smile, and the man made it to his destination writing back to Sam how wonderful his store and associates were.

Now flash forward to my experience tonight. Right here in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. At the Cortana Mall Walmart. I was on my way to pick my wife up at work when my van started to pull to the right. I had felt this before and knew it was a flat tire forming on the front-right side of the vehicle. I pulled over and called the one guy I knew could make it to come save my butt as he had done all my life, my Dad. After he put the roadside plug into my tire and filling it up with air, he followed me to the closest Walmart. Why? 'Cause things there are cheap, remember? Besides their service centers are opened late just incase someone is in need after everyone else has closed for the night.

I pulled into the parking lot to find about one-thousand drones flurrying in and out of the store. They weren't even looking to see if cars were coming because they were in a hurry to buy something cheap, or get their cheaply bought gadgets to the house. There were droves (driving drones) letting other drones out of their cars parked right in front of the doors and right in the "No Parking" zones right in front of the parked cop car. If you watched this behavior you could tell, as I did, drones cannot read. It's true. Check out most of the signs in a Walmart, the important ones have pictures.

I finally get through the "drone parade" when I come around to the service center. Dad is right behind me and we park. There is a woman in a vehicle in front of me who seems to be looking around. I take a quick look around also to find there is no "ticket writer" to be seen. Dad, suggests that we just go inside and ask someone. A few steps in the right direction and we are inside the service area looking at all the drones that have huddled into this small area. I couldn't really tell, but it didn't look like anyone was buying anything from that area of the store. I think they had just wondered into that niche of the store by accident and could't find their way out.
The lady that had been waiting in her vehicle came in just then and declared there wasn't a ticket writer out in the parking lot. Just then an associate chimed in as he was buying some lug nuts on, I believe, company time. Pointed to another ASSociate who then asked what we wanted. I think she was upset that we disturb her cell phone conversation while she was sitting on her butt. The lady infront of me said she needed her oil changed and the ASSociate said they "ain't taking no more tickets." This brought the attention from the cashier, who in turn told the ASSociate that they were in fact still taking tickets for oil changes. I, in turn, said that would be great 'cause I was affraid you would be closing and that I needed a tire. I was then told that they were doing oil changes, not tires. No more tires for the night. I thought it was because they were closing and the ASSociate informed me that they were opened till no more tickets came in, but they weren't taking tire tickets.

So, I had to drive home hoping the plug in the tire wouldn't give out. In the morning I have to drive my family on this very tire, I just hope it makes it through morning rush hour traffic till I can get it fixed before heading on my 50 mile drive to my job.

To end this rant on Walmart I ask the question again. Where in the world is Sam Walton?? Where are his beliefs that made his company one of the best known world over? I for one are not going to take this lightly and will be making some major complaints about everything that we customers put up with in this era of buy really cheap, sell cheap, and treat the customer even cheaper.

Friday, February 10, 2006

HP iPaq 6515 Pocket PC

About two weeks ago I finally got the type of geek device I have been wanting for along time. The almighty hw6515 from HP. I thought it was going to take a long time to trouble shoot the things I didn't understand about this new toy, Boy was I all wrong. My boss decided he liked it also and got one of his own. This started the flurry of questions that I had to learn answers for in a quick way. Today I learned something that you all should know, that I knew already. That I forgot and didn't even think about.

I set my PPC up to work with our mail service from our hosting company. All worked well and I didn't give it a second thought. Untill I tried sending email to my Gmail account or a short mail to one of our clients (Big government firm). I called our wireless provider a few days ago to see if they could help me but what was suggested was something trivial like sending me an email to see if I could recieve it. This I had no problem with so I blew it off and finished lunch. This morning the boss calls and said that he couldn't send email to our client and I told him I was in the middle of trouble shooting this very problem.

*Call wireless provider again*
This time I got a very knowledgable person that reminded me that I needed to use their outgoing mail server. I hadn't even given that a thought because everything was working so far except for a few email addresses. Well I made the changes and, Badda-Bing! Worls like a charm.

The moral is this, with all that we learn and all that we know. We tend to forget the simplest things. Especially when trouble shooting new stuff.

If you find yourself with this same problem I hope this will help in some way.

Till next time,