Category Archives: Gnrl Bckt

24/7 IT Support

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As a dude who makes his living in the software-as-a-solution CRM software world, I appreciate the subtleties of Application Hosting when it is done right. I am in SaaS engineering, or as every “tech” reporter likes to spew, cloud-based services. It is what it is…and often times it is helpful.

One good thing about the whole notion is the upside of not dealing, physically with servers…

24 7 it support

servers schmervers

Hosting, IT support, consulting, troubleshooting, guaranteed uptime…the whole thing becomes a mess when you are attempting to serve basic business needs. Serve some pages, offer some interfaces, transact. It all adds complexity by the bucket-load when taken from a concept to an implementation.

There are serious gains to be had with cloud hosting…take that complexity off of your books. To the cloud!!!!

ComputerSupport.com does what its name implies…namely offer computer support. Instead of paying a team to maintain your back-end, you focus on your interface design and workflows, and let them mash out the details. Guaranteed, and supported. Best of both worlds.

The Bozeman Bear Incident

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Sunday morning, I popped around the side of our house and entered a crime scene…

bear in garbage

mmm

…

bear tracks in bozeman

bear tracker

…

bear paw print

lil guy

…after careful deliberation, I concluded that the garbage perpetrator was a bear.

That was sort of a cool story and the end of the road, until the Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported that “hunters [were] cited for killing [a] black bear with bow on South 3rd Avenue” on the same night our trash was raided.

They were ‘hunting’ two blocks from our fucking house. Our house is about a five iron away from campus.

Fortunately, they caught the ‘hunters,’ and the Chronicle found someone less idiotic to write the follow-up article.

At the end of it all, two MSU students stuck four arrows via compound bow into a black bear that most likely weighed less than they do, at a less-than-intimidating 150 lbs. They both pleaded guilty, and were each sentenced to eight days in jail. One was fined $2700, the other $2500…hunting privileges revoked for 5 and 3.5 years respectively.

At least the guys didn’t fight the charges. It was a dangerous, asshole maneuver to pull the stunt in the first place, but they pleaded guilty and got it over with. The worst part of the whole thing may have been the bear’s choice of last meal. If he would have gone with our other dumpster, he would have found himself neck-deep in leftover Chinese, Mexican, and spare ribs. Could have gone out with a bang…

MSU Satellite Spoiler

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Ten years and a few months ago, I became a licensed HAM operator…

HAM Radio License

I'm going HAM

That means, without any doubt, that the satellite that MSU stuck in orbit last week has indeed been a long time coming.

I’m running up to campus for the mission statement and a possible down-link tomorrow afternoon…stay tuned for this one. We have entered full-on geek mode.

Repair Center in U.S.A.

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We have notebooks all over our house. Not notebooks in the traditional sense, but notebooks in the sense of ‘the future of computing’ notebooks. You know, laptop computers. The future is upon us…especially how even notebooks seem too bulky for everyday use. Tablets and Androids man. Tablets and Androids.

That was the longest, least-sensical lead into a post ever. Probably. It is like I am trying to avoid writing about a topic like finding a Repair Center around Bozeman. Which I surely am not…

I found a good site that I have been using to research service centers…

service center

services galore

The bad thing about sites of this nature is over-saturation. Most locator sites have a gaudy front-end, and zero results. On the other end of the spectrum, service-center-locator.com has focused on the results, which is what I value in a site.

Case in point…

bozeman ftw

bozeman ftw

I was searching for a repair site for Katie’s Toshiba notebook. Guess what…Toshiba has a certified repair shop in Bozeman. I would not have come to that conclusion without contacting Toshiba directly, or bringing the unit back in for a warranty claim at Office Depot. Unexpectedly cool.

So hit that link above to see for yourself. I am a tech guy, so I stuck mostly with computers and phone stuff, but the site will let you track down services as widespread as you can imagine. Take a look…

Online Tech Auctions

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I spend too much time online…I’ll fully admit it. It is absolutely necessary, however; I test SaaS for a living. My physical computing projects do not lend themselves to non-online research. Non-online…holy smokes. I think I just coined a new term: nonline. I should trademark that.

Anyhow, I spend a ton of time staring at screens. That has changed the way I conduct myself, in general. One of the fall-out things I have noticed is in shopping. Where I used to do product research at brick and mortar stores, now I do all of my research online. Most of my purchases are now done online too. I never thought I would buy jeans online, for example, but now I do, without fail.

Certain items are foolish to buy at a physical storefront… especially anything tech related. There are the conventional online stores, but if you have some patience and a good eye, online auctions can be the best source of deals.

My favorite auction site is DealFun…case in point:

deal fun auction tech site

!!!

A super cheap PS3 is par for the course. DealFun has all sorts of screaming low prices that end up winning auctions, but they also have the customer service aspect to boot. As the dealfun.com reviews indicate, they are reputable in addition to providing good deals. You want that…trust me.

Another cool thing about that site, is the notion of beginner’s auctions. You can learn the ropes without spending a fortune on bids. Pretty cool.

Take a look…holler if you see a Kinect.

Futuristic Looking Sinks

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What is the term? Form follows function? Not sure; I’m not a classically trained sink designer. I can tell you what I look for in Undermount Sinks… they should vaguely resemble robot eyes:

robotic sync sink sinc

robotic-looking sink looks robotic

Amazing. Katie and I rent. We cook a lot, and intend to buy or build before too long…mix that up and it is no stretch to think that we are into sinks. Mr. Direct sinks are great, functional, and have the added bonus of being cool to boot. When we make a move, suffice to say we will have an Undermount Sink like the bad guy pictured above. Cool looking, big, and easy to clean…the price is actually lower than the boring guys from Lowe’s and Home Depot as well…pretty much a done deal.

Stock Control System Info

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< disclaimer > I am not clarivoyant < / disclaimer >
I’ll make a bold prediction. You are reading this post on a web-connected device!

Cunning, righf?

I will do you all a favor and cut to the point. We all have access to the internet, nearly always. Why not put that to use for difficult problems, in general? Like stock control. Pretend, if it helps, that the stock management software is the robotic overlord, and your staff constitutes the minions…

robot manager

-1 jacked up robot

The take away in my whole rambling post lies in a centralized control system for hard goods. A system such as OrderWise allows you to handle arguably the most fundamental business need, inventory, in a convenient digital manner. When you have the same system in place for inventory, order processing, web integration, etc., you will know what your snagging points are.

Manage your physical goods, intelligently. That just might be part of business 101. I would have zero idea…I studied math.

Anyhow, hit that link and take a look. Computers really pay for themselves in managed applications like inventory…I do know that much for a fact.

Online Mind Fitness

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Fun fact: math guys find math stuffs in non-math stuffs

Fun tip: don’t study number theory

Fun tip bonus aside: If you think of numbers as things instead of numbers, they will take on funny little characteristics.

Fun anecdote: I was taking a look at a sweet site about Mind health, and noticed they had an awesome number on the page…

prime number 353

is prime (yes)

I have no idea whether or not Cognifit was trying to slap that particular number on their site on purpose, but it is a good math number. Do explain…okay.

353 is both prime, and a palindrome. Remember “Madam, I’m Adam.” from school? Take that, make it a number, and moreover make it a number that is only divisible by one and itself… you have a crazy little thing like 353.

How do I pick that up? Mental fitness. How does one pick that up? Practice. Plain and simple.

Your brain works much the same way that any other of your body systems work. Want big swollen biceps? Grab some dumbbells, do some curls. Want a big, awesome brain? Grab some mental dumbbells, do some brain curls. Curls get the girls…be them brain or biceps.

Joking aside, it is proven that you must keep your memory and problem solving skills working in order to fend off getting old, slow, sluggish, etc. That link above is of some serious value…fun brain fitness activities are the best type. Stay sharp, readers.

Holler with any palindromic primes…I’m on the hunt.

Managing Multiple WiFi Access Points

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So, every once in a while, my home WiFi connection will drop an error bomb on me. It always seems to be at a horribly inopportune moment; I am trying to do some actual work at home, and all of a sudden my wireless router is showing itself to be frozen. I will admit wholly: I find ethernet cables to be creepy reminders of horrible computing times past. Long story short, when my WiFi decides to dump out, I find myself digging through the ghetto tupperware containers in the garage, in search of a physical cable with which to connect.

Hard lines are for the birds.

It is easy to take wireless tech for granted. Between 3G/4G and WiFi, we can be connected pretty much wherever. The mobile companies bear the burden of maintaining the cellular connections…what about the WiFi? A single access point can be troublesome…what about multiple WiFi points?

bunch of routers

multiple routers are multiple

It doesn’t take much to create a messy situation. Put yourself in the shoes of an IT manager for a second. Say you have a few hundred users, and a dozen access points. Chances are pretty good that all of your WiFi routers are not the same version…chances are also good that you are tasked to juggle multiple companies’ routers. Easier said than done.

Take my word as truth…you need a management system. More particularly, you need something like Tanaza Cloud WiFi Management SaaS. I work in the SaaS game…this is a solution for which you are better off buying software for. Your lack of headaches will signal the significance of said purchase.

Take my word or take a look at that link. If it saves someone a wasted weekend on the phone with Netgear, I’ll consider this post a success.

Output Lull

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Not sure where this picture came from exactly…trying to get video working via Cheese on Ubuntu is my best guess.

bad lab

bad lab

It has been sitting on my desktop for a while, ready for something. There it is ^

My new job has kept me busy for the last three weeks. FWIW, RightNow Technologies is a great place to be…check them out by all means. I have been putting together baby furniture like a boss, expect a post on that soon. Had a few gotchas to share. Katie is still doing well, and things are falling into place; we may have a daycare picked out, which will be nice to have in the books. Exciting stuff…ready for this little girl to show up.

Project wise, I’m going either one of two ways. I still have a boat-load of white LEDs to put to use. I am either thinking of banging out a quick Arduino (sorry for the neglect, little guy) project on that front, or trying to do some metering with the IOIO. I thought about doing a quick Ping sensor project for the IOIO as well, but figured that may turn into another multi-month ordeal. Might tackle some LEDs…debugging LEDs is pretty much a binary process. Works or does not work.

Time will tell. But until then.