very simple

So, the entire blog appears to be moved over and cleaned up at this point.  Unfortunately, it’s too difficult to import comments at the moment (it would require me to recode every entry in order to get the comments imported into the correct entry), so I’m probably going to avoid carrying those over.  My apologies to the twelve or so people who have left thought-provoking comments on my old site!

…deleting half of your website, and damaging the database that contains all of your blog posts, only days after you’ve converted the entire damn thing to a new system, because you hit the wrong delete button on your FTP upload software.  Yeah.  That was fun.

Luckily, I had "accidentally" made a backup of the blog on my laptop when I was updating the other blog files that I keep stored on there, so it wasn’t a complete disaster, and I just figured out how to reinstall the databases.  So, hopefully, this post should show up. 

Oy.  In theory this was supposed to make it easier!

I actually ended up in one of these taxis the other night (mine was the NBC version), and I really liked it – not the news feed/commercials so much (but you could turn the volume down or turn it off, unlike the old version), but you can actually follow your progress on a GPS map.  Since I love maps, this was pretty awesome.  Also, while the meter up front divides up your fare between the basics and the extras (rush hour surcharge, night surcharge, etc.), there’s a second box on the screen that actually gives the “real” total of your cab ride so far.  Very neat.  Particularly useful when you’re, say, drunk at 3am and no longer have the capacity to add $1 + $1 + tip to make sure you’ve got enough cash (which, as the article points out, you no longer need because they take credit cards).

I’d still prefer to pay cabs with cash though, as the credit card companies presumably take a bite out of whatever transactions they’re a part of.  But it’s nice to have the option not to spend 20 minutes wandering around the east village looking for an ATM that won’t charge me $3.

Ah, the joys of a new blog.  I’m having a little trouble with my rss feed – something’s not parsing right, and since I know less than nothing about php editing (going to buy a book today!), I can’t fix it at the moment.

However, at least some rss readers “fix” the problem themselves – if you use Google Reader (like me), and hit the “subscribe” button that they tell you to put in your toolbar, the feed shows up fine.  you just can’t access it directly from my website.

Look for this to be fixed in about…10 years.

For a while now, I’ve been contemplating moving my blog over to a more dynamic type of software. iblog was great, but it’s got some pretty severe limitations, the most significant being that it’s a computer-based program rather than a web-based one. Needless to say, it was a pain “coordinating” the blog between my two computers so that nothing was lost, not to mention the fact that I couldn’t blog remotely.

The conversion is going to take some time – I have to figure out how to get over 500 posts from there to here, AND how to modify wordpress to look how I want it to look (although I do really like the Hemingway template, so I may just start modifying in the other direction). For now, my iblog blog is still the right place to go. I’ll make an announcement when it’s time to actually change.

Talk about delayed gratification though…

Too bad that it’s only available on Cingular and my Verizon contract doesn’t even run out for at least another year after I get back to NY.

There’s almost nothing that would tempt me to switch providers – Verizon uses antiquated CDMA (which is the primary reason why nobody makes cool phones for them), but it’s the most extensive network in the US. I have a separate prepaid GSM phone that I can use in Europe, so that’s not an issue either. The big thing for me though, is that almost everyone I know (from my dad to most of my friends) uses Verizon, and with their “in” plan, that means that we never run out of minutes talking to one another. Not to mention the fact that my phone docking system in my apartment is tied to the use of a Motorola handset.

But this is sooooo pretty. I seriously want to go out right now and buy one, even though they won’t even be available until June. And then there’s that pesky contract.

Maybe this is a good thing. In the year and a half until my contract runs out, I’m thinking that all of the kinks will get worked out, they’ll figure out a way to upgrade the hard drive size (seriously? 8 gigs is the largest? that’ll barely hold my photo library, much less my music and TV collection), improve battery life some more, perhaps open up to other carriers, and on and on. Until then, this is going to have to be the proverbial puppy in the pet shop window for me.

In the meantime, I know what I want for my birthday…

And just in time for me to get back to NY in March!

First, obviously, let me apologize for not updating for the past two months. Keeping up with a blog can be a bit difficult when the home internet access you insisted on as a condition of moving to another friggin’ country has yet to be installed.

Oh, they’ve been trying. Poor Alessandro, the IT guy in our Milan office, has quietly been losing his mind while trying to deal with the amount of red tape involved in getting internet into someone’s apartment. First, we had a contract with provider A, and we were told that it could take “up to a month” for the activation and the equipment. Now, a month seems a ridiculously long time to wait for me, but I was told by several people that this was pretty standard over there. So, a month goes by, and provider A never activates anything, and when Alessandro tries to find out where the modem is, it turns out that “they never ordered it.”

Needless to say, he cancelled the service contract. So then we decide to go with provider B. Now, provider B is actually a subsidiary of the incumbent telephone operator, so activation shouldn’t be a problem (cable TV infrastructure doesn’t exist in italy – everything is either run through satellite or the phone lines). Except, provider B screws up the contract, so they need to start over. Unfortunately, it takes at least a week to “cancel” the old contract and enter into a new one, even though the mistake was basically some data-entry lackey’s typo. So, we finally got the right “contract” about two weeks ago, meaning that activation should happen any day now. Alessandro was actually trying to get it done before I left, but that was probably wishful thinking on his part, so maybe (maybe!) when I get back it’ll be ready to hook up.

In the meantime I have some very funny e-mails from Alessandro, in broken english, that consist of him just not understanding why they don’t want to take our money.

Of course, I can’t actually deal with anything myself, because you need a codice fiscale to enter into any sort of agreement in Italy (it’s basically the Italian equivalent of a social security number, but it’s used for everything), and since I’m only technically a tourist, I can’t really qualify to get one.

So.

I actually wrote a bunch of posts on my computer, even knowing that I couldn’t post them, just to keep myself a bit current. But since they all basically consist of me bitching about the fact that I have no internet, and that I haven’t really done a whole lot other than work, I’ll try to summarize a bit.

I have no internet. I’ve been working too much. Milan is quite beautiful. The food is good. I’m really happy about the US election. I’ll be home for Thanksgiving.

So. The election. Needless to say I did a little dance in my chair at work on Wednesday morning. My dad (my dad!) sent me an e-mail that was practically giddy with excitement.

I actually wrote an entire post about this one right in the aftermath, so I’ll try to get that one up later, but I will say it’s been really interesting to see the reaction from an international perspective in particular. People in Italy normally don’t talk about politics. It’s considered rude. But I went to a meeting with a client on the Friday after the election, and when I mentioned that I was coming home for two weeks, he said, with a smile, “it’s like you’re going home to a different country now!” And I think that captures it pretty darn well. People here in the US can argue back and forth about the “meaning” of this election, but overseas, they all just think that we’ve finally come to our senses and given GWB the giant “fuck you” that he’s deserved for so long. More later.

But back to me…

I’m still jetlagged. I woke up yesterday to go to the airport at 5:30 in the morning, Italian time. then spent over 9 hours on a plane, with a crazy woman sitting behind me. No joke – she didn’t like her seat, so she threatened to get off the plane unless the stewardess forced someone else to move so that she could have the seat she wanted. Someone from ground crew and the pilot had to get involved. They were apparently about three seconds away from just letting her get off the plane when the girl behind me agreed to move. This woman tried to claim that they wouldn’t let her pick her seat when she booked the ticket, which is complete bullshit because everyone else pointed out, we all check the internet seat locater thing obsessively. Which means that she either booked her ticket at the last minute, or on something like priceline, where she thought she could have it both ways – book a super cheapskate restricted fare and then throw a fit until she got a premium economy seat.

(now, premium economy is exactly the same seat/same legroom as regular economy, except that it’s at the very front behind business class, meaning that you can get off the plane faster – you have to either pay a bit extra or be be a premium/elite flyer to get one).

So. that was self-absorbed bitch number one. The couple across the aisle from myself and I spent the entire flight pretty much making fun of her. really quietly. The flight attendants, needless to say, loved us (I’m not being sarcastic there – they actually gave us additional gossip about the whole situation when they got the chance).

Ordinarily, I would have been perfectly happy to see her get escorted off the flight, but these days, with the stepped up security, that would have meant also digging her bags out and getting them off the plane. Since we were about 10 minutes from our scheduled departure when this all started happening, it would have caused some pretty serious delays.

Self-absorbed bitch number two showed up when I arrived home and decided to go to the grocery store. At this point, I’ve been awake for at least 20 hours. I have a freshdirect delivery coming Sunday morning, but I still needed some real basics, like milk. So I dragged myself to the food emporium, bought the six things I needed, and got on the express line. where I waited patiently, and put my stuff on the conveyor belt when I got the chance. Then (and only then), the woman behind me on line, who is clutching a bag of goldfish crackers, pipes up in this super sweet voice to “request” that I let her go in front of me, seeing as she only has the one item. Now, on any other day, I probably would have let her without thinking about it, but I was pretty damn tired. and I thought for a second, and finally said back “you know, I don’t understand why you can’t just wait in line like everyone else.” It’s not like I had 100 items to ring up and she would have to wait very long, but she then starts responding, in this totally faux-sweet voice, about how she “really appreciates my kindness.” You know, trying to make me feel guilty because I wouldn’t let her cut the fucking line. I just ignored her at that point, but what I wanted to do was turn around and tell her to go fuck herself. Did I mention that I had been awake for, like, 20 hours at that point, and most of those had been spent in an airplane or Newark, New Jersey?

She didn’t know who I was, or whether I was actually in a hurry to get anywhere, or whether I was exhausted. She just assumed that her needs were somehow superior to mine and entitled her to special treatment, where she didn’t need to behave like everyone else at the damn supermarket. Now, if she had been holding, say, baby formula, or tampons, I might have assumed that she had some sort of emergency situation, but she could damn well wait 30 more seconds for her crackers (and don’t anyone tell me that maybe she was going into diabetic shock – if that were the case, no one would have objected to her eating some damn crackers in line and then paying for them after).

I know this pissed me off more than it should have, and I certainly have my own moments of selfishness, but yesterday I just seemed to encounter more than my usual share of people who seemed to think that the rules that apply to everyone else don’t apply to them. Maybe exhaustion and jet lag give me some sort of 6th sense for these things.

OK. A real entry later. I promise. Plus, I’ve read about 10 new books!

Actual conversation (with a co-worker/friend) at work today:

co-worker: You’re going to hate me. After all of that talk about getting a mac, I bought an HP.
Me: I don’t hate you. I love my mac, but I get that they’re not for everyone (particularly someone who works on a windows computer all day).
co-worker: So, are you ready to go to Italy?
me: Just about. I haven’t started packing yet, but I have lists, I’ve ordered boxes, and I took a trip to the apple store on 5th avenue last night and picked up a few things.
co-worker: Like what?
me: oh, just some power adaptors, a travel backup drive for my laptop, and a set of speakers for my iPod. Oh, and a wireless mighty mouse. All stuff I sorta needed for six months away. I needed more power adaptors so that I can plug my airport in full time.
co-worker: you have wifi at home?
me: of course. Besides my two computers, I’ve also set up a wireless receiver on my TiVo so that I don’t need a phone line for it to update. Oh, and this way I can stream all of my music from my computer to my stereo system.
co-worker: …….wow. you really are a dork.
me: (laughing) yeah. you should have seen me in high school.

(Conversation then devolves into just how much of a dork I was in high school, with the academic league, math league, new jersey science competition (where we, yes, spent our saturdays travelling around the region in order to take competitive tests. Voluntarily).

Of course, the conversation made me think about this little essay by Sars the other day.

This is what happens when I’m not busy at work. Funny how they stop giving you new deals to work on when you’re a week away from leaving the country for six months!!

I don’t know whether this is a Microsoft problem or an Apple problem, but this sucks. You all know how I got my new G5 this summer to replace the utterly, completely, totally dead and buried G4. Well, on that G4 I happened to have Microsoft Virtual PC. I don’t often have a need for Windows, but since my office runs on it, Virtual PC can sometimes be a useful add on when I need to spend a lot of time networked into my job. With the renovating and moving and spending most of the fall in Europe, I never got around to reinstalling VPC on my new machine…until tonight.

But…then there’s this…

Virtual PC for Mac Is Not Compatible with the Apple Power Mac G5 Processor

SYMPTOMS
When you try to run Microsoft Virtual PC for Mac Version 6.1 on an Apple Power Mac G5 you will receive an error message that informs you that Virtual PC does not support the CPU in your Macintosh computer.

CAUSE
Virtual PC for Mac Version 6.1 and earlier use a feature that is present in the PowerPC G3 and the PowerPC G4 named "pseudo little-endian mode". Virtual PC for Mac uses pseudo little-endian mode for increased performance when it emulates a Pentium processor. Virtual PC for Mac 6.1 must use pseudo little-endian mode to function.

The new Power Mac G5 processor does not support pseudo little-endian mode. Therefore, the current versions of the Virtual PC for Mac program do not run on the Power Mac G5.

MORE INFORMATION The following versions of Virtual PC for Mac do not run on an Apple Power Mac G5 computer:

• Microsoft Virtual PC for Mac Version 6.1
• Connectix Virtual PC for Mac Version 6.0.x
• Connectix Virtual PC for Mac Version 5.0.x
• Connectix Virtual PC for Mac Version 4.x.x

Because the Macintosh G5 processor does not support pseudo little-endian mode, Microsoft is rewriting and carefully testing portions of Virtual PC for Mac. Microsoft expects to deliver G5 compatibility in the next full version of Virtual PC for Mac. Microsoft will announce the timing of that release later. For more information about Virtual PC for Mac 6.1 system requirements, visit the following Microsoft Web site: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/howtobuy.aspx?pid=sysreq#vpc

So this sucks. It’s one thing to upgrade an operating system and discover that certain software isn’t forward-compatible. but it’s the same damn OS. Now I have to go out and spend money on software that I already own.

A while ago, I did a sideblog post on the RCA docking station, and how I wanted one, since I wasn’t getting a real landline in my new place. At the time, it wasn’t more than a thought in the back of my head, because I had a completely incompatible cellphone. But a few weeks ago, I finally decide to upgrade to a new Motorola (and no, I ultimately didn’t get the RAZR – I actually found it to be a tad bit uncomfortable against my ear).

Unfortunately, my phone wasn’t on the list of supported phones, which doesn’t appear to have been updated since the site was launched.

However.

The Motorola V710 is on the list. And my phone is a Motorola E815. Which is essentially the same phone, right down to taking all of the same accessories (including chargers). Since I think that the docking system connects through the charger, I think, hey! maybe my phone is compatible.

So a few weeks ago, I call the customer service number at the RCA website, where the following conversation ensues…

Customer Service Rep (CSR): Hello, may I have your model and serial number?
Me: I’m sorry, I don’t have a model and serial number – I’m calling because I’m interested in purchasing the cell docking system, but I have a question.
CSR: (Long pause, I’m on hold)…I’m sorry, but I need a serial number before I can help you
Me: But I haven’t purchased a product – I’m trying to determine whether I can purchase this product
CSR: (another long wait on hold)…Well then you’ll need to go to our website (gives name of website)
Me: Yes thank you, but I’ve already been to your website, which is where I got this phone number
CSR: I’m sorry, but I can’t help you unless you have a serial number.
Me: Umm. OK. I guess I can’t give you money then?

I mean, I was just trying to find out how the phone hooks up to the docking system, because if it’s the way I think it works (which isn’t detailed anywhere on the website), then I’d be able to hook my shiny new phone up to it. But I’m certainly not going to drop several hundred dollars on a phone system when I can’t get a clear answer on whether it’ll even work…

You’d think that customer service people would be trained to not actually hinder potential customers from purchasing their products, but apparently not…

And then, about two weeks ago, I wander into The Sharper Image near my office. Where they’re selling the things – I think, "hey, maybe I can get someone to open the box, or maybe they have an updated list!". So I wander around trying to get someone to help me for a while, and finally, a salesgirl appears. Unfortunately, the list on the back of this box is even shorter than the RCA website. But again, I point out the similarity between my phone…blah blah blah. She won’t open the box, or do anything to help my buy this product.

But she does point out in this horribly annoying chirpy way while perusing the list that her cellphone is compatible. And I just look at her, and actually say "how exactly is that going to help me?" Because that’s probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard from a person who I’m trying to buy several hundred dollars of electronics equipment from! Oh, well sucks for you that you don’t have the right phone, but I can use it to my heart’s content!?

Seriously.

But in the tried and true tradition of good things coming to those who wait, I get my weekly NYTimes Circuits e-mail today, with a big, fat, centrally placed ad from Motorola for this. That’s right. Motorola has come up with a fully compatible, motorola specific, much nicer looking, and much less expensive version of the same thing. Which I’m obviously buying.

Heh. I guess that sucks for RCA. Maybe they should train their salespeople that when someone calls up, practically begging to spend money on their products, they should really try to not actually turn that person away.