Josh-Kerr.com

It really shouldn’t have been that complicated.  I mean, seriously, it’s “hello world”?!  I downloaded Eclipse the other day and have been playing around with it in an effort to know the software.  At work we use Rational which is pretty much the same thing.  Having spent the last couple of years doing .NET work I decided to check out Java’s GUI capabilities.  SWT and JFace is the thing that everyone is using now so why not follow suit.  The code is simple enough but getting it to compile was a nightmare.  Granted, I really haven’t used Eclipse for anything but class libraries and small apps but this was ridiculous.  After hours, and I mean HOURS, of searching, I finally found a site that told me how to add a reference to the JAR files and was able to compile my program.  Go figure I couldn’t run it.  Main method was defined but couldn’t be found.  After an hour, just one this time, I finally found a forum where another programmer was having the same frustrations.  So, to get my hello world app to run I had to add even more references.  Needless to say I was and still am disappointed in the documentation so far.  Hello World should not be this difficult.

Today Stephanie and I booted up our Dell 5150 for the last time. The screen flashed white while booting up and then blacked out completely. I’m honestly surprised it’s lasted this long with its heating problems and the all the “abuse” I’ve done to it. So to honor the life of Dell 5150 I’ve written a eulogy.

Dell 5150, better known to his loved ones as Lappy, was brought into the world in December of 2003. Lappy was always full of life and always ready for his next challenge. Despite his rather large size and over-heating issues, Lappy found his way into the hearts of the Kerr family. Running not only Windows but Gentoo Linux and Ubuntu Linux, Lappy truly had a diverse life.

In the spring of 2006, Lappy was sent to the emergency room due to a bad hard drive. Though the times were tough, Lappy managed to pull through with flying colors. Regrettably though, Lappy’s heating problem worsen. He lived a fruitful life for another year until the Good Lord called him home. Lappy was not just ’some laptop’ he was a ‘big-lug’ that you grew to love. Lappy, you will be missed *though probably replaced by a Macbook Pro*.

Love

Josh and Steph

Since I’ve pretty much stopped playing video games I’ve been tinkering around with Ruby On Rails and other development platforms/languages. While tinkering I stumbled across Aptana which is a web-developer IDE built off of the Eclipse project. So far, I’ve been impressed with Aptana as a web-developer IDE however it’s lacking in some areas. Mainly, it’s a HTML, CSS, and Javascript IDE with RoR support available as a plug-in and PHP support in the works. Not bad considering it’s still in beta :) Aptana is everything I could want in an IDE except for the lack of ASP support. My current company programs solely in ASP despite how old it is and my numerous attempts to move to .NET. Which brings me to my next project, and ASP editor for Aptana. I don’t know how long it will take or how much time I’ll be able to put into it but it should be fun. Not just because I have a new project but also because it will be nice to get back into Java again.

The Dell and Ubuntu deal was announced a while back and to be honest I’m pumped about it yet a little scared at the same time. I’ve been using Ubuntu for some time now and I’ve said many in the past it’s the most user-friendly Linux distribution out there. My sentiment is shared by a lot of other people too so that it’s a comforting to know that an easy to use Linux distribution will be the guinea pig.

To better understand my fear we have to break down users into categories. While there is no official break down, these are mine:

• Grandma
• Teenager
• Adult
• Geek

The Grandma knows what a computer is but if she has to spend more than 5 minutes doing something she’s going to get flustered and give up. Grandmas check their email, write a document, and like to see photos of their kids via the “interweb”. Grandmas will go to the “not so” Best Buy or Dell and get the biggest piece of crap that is way too much computer for them. Ask them how big their hard drive is and they’ll give you a blank stare and eventually make a shape of an ‘L’ with both hands and hold them up to make a rectangle.

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Yeah… so after I stopped playing World Of Warcraft I decided to redo my setup at home. The long and the short of it, I backed up all my files and installed Ubuntu Linux. I’ve used Ubuntu in the past and loved it so much more than most other Linux distros and it’s nice to see that it has only gotten better with time. The LiveCD installer works so much better than others that I’ve used and it’s just so easy to use. If you ever wanted to try Linux, go with Ubuntu.

I also installed Gentoo Linux on a second computer. I’ve run Gentoo in the past, much like Ubuntu, however Gentoo has always been more of an in depth distro.  Even now as I write this I cry as I get yet “library cannot be linked” error when I know that the library is in fact there.  Thankfully, Gentoo’s forums and wiki are the best I’ve seen with their in depth and up-to-date information which makes just about any problem easy enough to fix.  Now if Ubuntu’s wiki and forums were this good they would rule the world but it’s not.  So while it doesn’t rule the world, its still the most user-friendly distro out there.

Joel Spolsky had an interesting article about choices and I couldn’t help but think of it when I saw this.  Seriously, what were they thinking?

When I last spoke about my internet speed and the wonderful customer service I said,

Mark my words though, if I have to put up with another incompetent tech there will be hell to pay.

Well guess what? There’s hell to pay. The Time Warner tech came out, asked me the usual questions and didn’t do squat. In fact he was more interested in my rig than my problem?! Here are some of his best comments and questions that he asked me.

What seems to be the problem?

First off, don’t you people read your case notes? You’re the second tech to come out, don’t you think it would be in your best interest to know why you came out?

I see you play Warcraft. Do you know where I can get a cracked copy of Frozen Throne?

Focus on the problem, not on my wallpaper and games. Also, why would you ask a client for something illegal when your in uniform?

Yes sir I did bring a new modem. But I’m not going to waist the time to install it. You’re getting 800KB/s which is below our minimum server but I’m not going to do it?

So why did you come out? What am I paying you people for? Replace the modem. Try it out. Make me, the customer, happy. All residential lines are setup on 7Megs down and 1 Meg up. I’m not even getting a Meg down!  What do you have to loose?

There are a lot of houses in the neighborhood and with that many people, you’re going to have slow service.

It’s 2:00 in the afternoon on a weekday?! I seriously doubt that my service is getting bottlenecked by all the stay at home moms! Yes I know that when a lot of people in the neighborhood are on my speed will drop some but think before you try to pass this one by.

You know, a slow computer can be the cause of your connection speed.

Excuse me?

What do you have in your computer?

OK, I’ll bite. AMD 2600+ on an Asus NForce2 mobo, 1GB PC3200, Nvidia 660GT Zalman cooled, and a 74GB Raptor. It’s not bleeding edge but it can more than handle the games that I play. Next question?

Wow, nice rig. Can you help me build one? Where do you get your hardware?

Newegg, it’s your friend. And no, we’re focusing on the client’s horrible service, not your future machine. Focus man, focus!

Well sir, you’re getting bad packet loss and there is nothing I can do.

This is why I begged the “almighty” level III tech support not to send out another tech. Needless to say, I called the billing department and had a nice long talk with them. Now my case has been “elevated” to a supervisor whom I’m still waiting for his/her call. Thanks Time Warner. Thanks for sending out two techs to do nothing but tell me that I having problems with your service. Thanks for the long holds and even longer transfer times. Thanks.

You have to watch this…now!

In my neighborhood we have Time Warner, it’s the only thing available. I have no real “beef” with TW except for the usual overpriced argument that you can apply to any cable company. Let’s face it, charging customers $45+ a month for internet access when you’ve already covered the cost of the lines and making 100% profit is annoying, however capitalism works. What I cannot stand for is paying full price for slow speed and poor service.

Recently I noticed that my speed was crawling (2 hours to download a 120MB file when you’re supposed to have 10MB down and 3MB up is a good sign) and called TW. I spent an hour and a half on the phone with their national help desk. And yes, it was painful. After letting them run their “mandatory” tests on my router they finally came to the conculsion that my speed was not up to par. I’m getting 800KB when I’m paying for 10MB service. You think!

A few days latter the TW tech comes out, asking “what’s the problem?” What’s the problem? Don’t you people ever read your case notes? After I filled him in we did the same battery of tests. My favorite part was when the tech told me that the speed looked fine.

Sir, you’re getting 6784 Kbs so where’s the problem?

Yes this is true, but Kb is not KB. The glazed look on his face said it all. He goes to check the lines and performs yet another battery of tests only to come back and tell me that they’ll have to send someone else out. On the positive side the tech now knows the difference between bits and bytes :)

A few more days go by and nothing, haven’t heard anything or noticed any changes.  So I call TW again to see where we stand.  Wouldn’t you know they said that they already fixed the problem.  However there was no difference in my speed.  Begin yet another hour on the phone with their tech support.  Though, this time they finally transferred me to a level III tech support (something I had been requesting since the start).  After going through the normal tests, rinse-lather-repeat, the guy comes to the same conclusion, packet loss.  What gets better is that they “need to send someone out again.”  For the love of God no.  I literally begged the guy not to send someone else out.  I didn’t want to have to deal with their incompetent techs again.  Alas, I have no choice and they’re coming out at the end of the week.

As you may recall I said that I will not pay full price for bad service.  When I was off the phone with their level III tech support “guru” I called the billing department.  Lets just say that I got $20 bucks knocked off (would have been more however the TV and phone are fine) and 18 movie channels free for a year.  The movie channels are nothing but bribery however I’ll take what I can get.  Mark my words though, if I have to put up with another incompetent tech there will be hell to pay.