Off to play with robots
After days of being glued to the keyboard writing as much of my new ebook as I could, I’m finally taking a few days off. But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to be a slacker…
Every year at this time, I volunteer to work at the FIRST Robotics Colorado Regional. FIRST is an organization founded by Segway inventor Dean Kamen to get high schoolers interested in robotics, science and technology. The students get a few months to build, program and test a robot to participate in a game, then they see how it works at the regional. If they place high at the regional, they’re invited to the national competition in Atlanta, GA.
This year I’ll be reprising my role as the head referee for the competition, something I really enjoy doing. I’ll have a team of refs working with me and we’ll have to interpret the rules, make judgement calls, and put up with cranky coaches, but it’s all worthwhile in the end.
If you’re in the Denver area, visit us Friday or Saturday at the
Every year at this time, I volunteer to work at the FIRST Robotics Colorado Regional. FIRST is an organization founded by Segway inventor Dean Kamen to get high schoolers interested in robotics, science and technology. The students get a few months to build, program and test a robot to participate in a game, then they see how it works at the regional. If they place high at the regional, they’re invited to the national competition in Atlanta, GA.
This year I’ll be reprising my role as the head referee for the competition, something I really enjoy doing. I’ll have a team of refs working with me and we’ll have to interpret the rules, make judgement calls, and put up with cranky coaches, but it’s all worthwhile in the end.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=2240+Buchtel+Blvd,+Denver,+CO+80210″ rel=”external”>Magness Arena at the Ritchie Center, University of Denver. And be sure to say hi to that guy in the referee shirt!
Windows Vista - Can you say Windows '07?
This little gem of information crossed my computer desktop today:
“Microsoft Corp. today confirmed that Windows Vista, the next generation of the Windows client operating system, is on target to go into broad consumer beta to approximately 2 million users in the second quarter of 2006. Microsoft is on track to complete the product this year, with business availability in November 2006 and broad consumer availability in January 2007.”
It’s fascinating that the much smaller, faster and time-tested Mac OS X will be available in a new version (10.5, AKA Leopard) by that time. Windows Vista copies many of the features first made popular with Mac OS X, but requires much more robust hardware to operate.
Bored with PDAs
OK, I’ll admit it.
I’m really quite bored with the entire PDA / Smartphone thing right now. Seriously, I haven’t touched my “old” iPaq 4150 in months, I use my Palm Treo 650 on a daily basis but I find myself getting irritated with its shortcomings, and I just wish I could carry a laptop with me all the time (maybe I will).
What’s wrong with the Treo? Well, I’m tired of it going to sleep right in the middle of trying to call someone or check something on the web. And yes, I have changed the setting for sleep time MANY times, but it doesn’t seem to work. The call quality isn’t the greatest and for the first time in years, I’m getting dropped calls. Part of the problem is probably that I moved from T-Mobile (great service) to Cingular (lousy service) so that I could take advantage of their EDGE network.
Now the Treo IS giving me the ability to check my email easily from multiple accounts wherever I am, and I’m adding an AIM client to it so I can chat with my customers from anywhere. But I’m just tired of the shortcomings. Let’s name a few:
1) A web browser that is pretty good, but just can’t handle most “modern” sites.
2) Inconsistent ability to be used as a wireless modem over Bluetooth for my Powerbook.
3) Continued problems with duplicate contacts entries.
4) Voice dialing app just goes dead on occasion and locks up the Treo.
I know that some readers out there are going to say “why didn’t you get a Pocket PC Phone or Smartphone”? Well, I’ve used ‘em and they have shortcomings as well - some are even worse that what I see on this Treo. And unfortunately I can’t just waltz into my local Cingular store and swap my Treo 650 for a Treo 700w.
What I really think I want is a PDA that works like a Mac. I spend probably 16 hours a day working with Macs and I love the way they operate. I don’t want a Newton - I just want a Mac that I can stick in my pocket. Don’t expect weekly updates from me on the latest new device coming from Dell, HTC, i-mate or any of the other usual suspects. There are plenty of other sites that are going to give you the news on those PDAs and phones, but I think my new direction may be away from pocket devices that don’t fulfill a need.
Spirit of Service, My Ass…
Well, if you think that getting off of MSN Direct was a total pain in the arse, getting rid of Qwest’s DSL service with MSN as the ISP is really a pain. First, visiting the Qwest website showed no visible way of shutting down the account online. Nice. I did try to log into the online customer service system, but they had changed the naming and password convention since the last time I visited a few months ago, so I couldn’t log in.
I finally found a phone number for Qwest DSL, only to find out after going through about 16 voice prompts and waiting on hold that they had to transfer me to another department. Big surprise there… Poor John Denver must be spinning in his grave, since his song “Follow Me” has been prostituted by Qwest to promote their “spirit of service”. They play the song over and over, each time in a slightly different style. When I finally got to talk to someone from the Qwest “loyalty department”, I was asked why I wanted to drop off their DSL service. After explaining to the gentleman that I had talked to various Qwest reps over the last two years trying with no success to get my account bumped up to a 1.5 MBPS DSL system and that I had changed to Comcast’s system (see my post from 2/14/06) at over 12 times the speed, he began to go through various screens to shut down my account. At one point the rep started referring to a wireless account. Of course, I was thinking that he meant a DSL modem with a WiFi router, but he meant a cellular account. I haven’t had a cellular account with them since the mid-90’s when they were still US West!
The next fun came when he started talking about doing a “complete shutoff” of the DSL line. This set off alarm bells in my brain, so I asked if he was also shutting off our land line. There was a moment of silence, at which time he came back and said “You have a land line on this account?”. Duh. Yeah, we’ve had it for 22 freakin’ years! Apparently, they were showing our home phone number as a wireless line but it was being charged as a land line. Next, the rep had to go to another department because he could not just shut off the DSL service without cutting off our phone service - we apparently didn’t have the proper “code” in some field in their database. He also brought up another telephone number that we used to have back in the days that I was running a dial-up BBS; we haven’t had that line since 1995!
Next, I got to listen to about five minutes of annoying 70’s style “wakka-wakka” guitar with lots of organ playing in the background. Arrrrrgggghhhh. At least it wasn’t “Follow Me” being played by a mariachi band (I am not making this up…). Finally the customer service rep returned to tell me the good news - it is going to take them 30 days to change our account and get the DSL off of there, but they won’t charge us for the service. He will call me back in a month to verify that the service has been shut off. Some other “good news” is that they will also shut off the MSN service for us and that since we still have an original Cisco 675 DSL modem that we purchased, I can keep the modem and even sell it on eBay. All of this painful BS took about 40 minutes to accomplish. I ought to invoice Qwest at my normal consultant rate.
Now, if I can just get my wife to agree to dump our Qwest phone service, I’ll be a very happy man! 
You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave…
Well, my favorite company did it again. I decided to finally cancel my MSN Direct service, mainly because I didn’t want to keep paying for something I’m not using. If you remember, MSN Direct is the wildly successful and popular service that sends all sorts of information to your watch… What? You don’t remember that? It’s because MSN Direct has been a dismal failure.
I have two of the MSN Direct Smart Watches and I can’t GIVE the things away. The service is redundant, considering that I can get more information from the browser on my Treo. I got sick and tired of having to take along a huge recharging brick on trips so I could recharge my watch and finally just bought myself a combo digital / analog watch from Timex. So today, after seeing a renewal notice for the MSN Direct service in my email inbox, I decided to cancel the service.
You know how most services work - if you want to cancel your account you simply pull up an onscreen form, click a button, and get verification that your account has been cancelled. Not so with Microsoft. They want to make it as difficult as possible for you to cancel, probably in the hopes that you’ll give up and continue sending them money. I finally found a page that had a little “cancel my account” link on it. Do you think that would actually cancel the account? Hell, no. Instead, it sends me to a generic support form where I have to fill out information about my account name, phone number, last 4 digits of the credit card that I used to sign up for the account, and several other things. You think after doing all of that work I would actually be able to cancel? NOPE? They basically just say that “someone will be in contact with you regarding your issue”.
I’m also going to be dumping our home Qwest DSL + “MSN Premium” account this week. I hope it’s easier than canceling MSN Direct.
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Joy of Tech!
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MacLevelTen
