mocktech.com

new site

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 20:40:33 -0400

i have created a new blog for mocktech. browse over to mocktech.com/blog to check it out. (if you aggregate my site, point your reader to either mockteck.com/blog/feed/rss or mocktech.com/blog/feed/atom.)

whose voice do you hear?

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 08:00:00 -0400

some voices have a signature sound to them, like james earl jones (who my college roommate tagged "the voice of God") and gilbert gottfried (his voice can be annoying). the trick is trying to figure out whose voices you can recognize in more recent commericals. try your hand at these and see how many you know off the cuff:

lowe's "let's build something together"
dunkin donuts "america runs on dunkin"
the latest visa commercials
last one (or two) year's taco bell commercials
old hamburger helper commercials (they found a replacement who sounds much like the original)
female voice for old aol commericals (a friend of mine didn't believe me on this one)
florida orange juice

click the "read more" link below when you have your guesses.

here are the answers:

gene hackman
john goodman, if he hasn't been replaced too
morgan freeman
ricardo montalban (remember the talking lions?)
james garner (hard to prove since he's been replaced, but listen to the voice of the new guy; james also did chevy tahoe commercials)
julia roberts
tom sellick

k1's spring concert

Tue, 20 May 2008 07:41:13 -0400

my niece played second violin in one of several concerts this spring. i was able to attend one of them. the vid below is of her in her orchestra. you can hear that her grade orchestra really sounded good.

good job, kiddo!

mags4cheap finally answers (and the saga ends)

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:30:00 -0400

on monday, april 8, after my last post about this, i went through the same channels as i did the first time i tried to contact mags4cheap: contact seller via google checkout interface, go to mags4cheap website and find the order, call mags4cheap at their suggested phone number. when i had finished this routine, i started looking around google checkout for some feedback on the service. i thought google should know about this whole episode with one of their sellers.

the digging paid off when i found a place to give feedback for this app. i sent a note over to google explaining my situation, giving them reference information, and letting them know i wanted a refund and had no plans to use these guys again. by bedtime that evening, i got a reply from google. they told me they would contact the seller and to let them know how things progressed.

the next morning, i was surprised to find a note in my inbox from mags4cheap letting me know what had happened. apparently mags4cheap has middle men of their own. the group they outsource the actual orders for people had gone out of business and the order was never processed. they told me they could not refund my money because they had put the order in and that the first issue should show up within one to three weeks.

i sent back a reply stating specifics: "so, the first issue of a yearly subscription should arrive in one to three weeks, sometime in april 2008 and would run for a full year ending in april 2009?"

a reply confirmed this statement.

i've waited to post this update until the magazine was actually in the hands of my friend. i was still skeptical. oh, the mags4cheap rep did offer a free yearly subscription to another mag in lieu of the failure to refund. i figured it's best not to confuse this matter any further by adding another periodical to the pot.

google checkout has responded superiorly. i was out of town the weekend following my first email from their feedback/support group and found another email from the same guys keeping up with the progress of this whole matter. i was impressed with that.

normally, i'm a guy who would do the crazy thing of giving mags4cheap another chance after they've made an attempt to fix things. however, what bothers me the most is that my first triple blitz of letting them know there was a problem went completely unanswered. their voicemail indicates a next business day response. that never happened. no email from their own site. i did, however, continue to get their spam/marketing email during the gap of complaints. their customer disservice gets them removed from my use-again list.

four weeks pass...

i just received a note in my google inbox informing me that google checkout has issued a refund from mags4cheap since i had requested it. (didn't mags4cheap tell me it couldn't happen?) i immediately went over to people's own site and ordered a gift subscription. sure it's a little more, but after all this, i consider it well worth the cash.

merry christmas, g-dog!

ok, i'm in too [for memes]

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 15:42:00 -0400

mock@sidestep:$ history|awk '{a[$2]++} END{for(i in a){printf "%5dt%sn",a[i],i}}'|sort -rn|head
108 ll
60 cd
53 ssh
47 vim
34 sudo
27 svn
24 python
14 scp
12 pwd
11 rm
and others...
blog.michaeltrier.com
eric.themoritzfamily.com
news.e-scribe.com
bethesignal.org

mags4cheap? no mags4money!

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:00:00 -0400

a friend of mine is very into the whole hollywood scene. so for christmas, i thought i'd get him a year subscription to people magazine. since this is a weekly periodical, i did some shopping online to find the best price.
the winner: mags4cheap.com.
the loser: me (and my friend).
as it turns out, depsite the fact that they charge my card for the full amount less than twenty-four hours after purchase, i have yet to see a magazine. or more specifically, my friend has yet to see an issue. and now i have issue with mags4cheap for not dealing with this.
my attempts to contact at first through google checkout, which is how i made the purchase, went unanswered. i also called and left a message along with two numbers where to contact me. i didn't hear a thing. my next attempt was through their own site. in fact, when i put my order number into the field, it found it and reported to me the same thing the email said: "allow eight to ten weeks for processing. you should receive your first issues between 1/30/2008 and 2/19/2008."
the only catch i have is this: i did email mags4cheap when i first purchased because the shipping address was mine, not my friend's. this is something they would pass onto people mag. but even if they missed that, i should be getting those magazines at my place. i got no people.
i need to alert google to these guys since they failed to delivery but were quick to take the money. i think what i want at this point is my money back. i don't trust them to correct the situation since they have been so hard to reach. i'm going to give them a few more days to correct this. after that, i need to find a way to get them to refund perhaps with some legal assistance.

no linux love from geek source

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 07:00:00 -0400

i was a techtv (the screensavers) fan way back in the day and remained one until the day g4 killed it. so naturally, i followed digg and diggnation along with other shows that revision3 has been producing. it kept the interest alive.
however, one thing i have seen them do for the past several years to is treat the linux community as the proverbal red-headed stepchild. when digg released pownce, the standalone app was uses adobe's air, a good technology, but is only available for windows and mac. revision3 just announced their custom branded version of the miro player, again available for windows and mac but no linux. the problem with this miro launch is that miro already has a linux source. they didn't bother to compile it one more time?
to be honest, i would probably use pownce more if there were a client app available for linux. and i would install the revision3 of miro were there one for linux. (i do already use the original miro from its source.) there are workarounds. no big deal. but my point is this: there is a large community that is a linux-only crowd who have been and continue to be fans of the techtv graduates, and in both cases this community is being left out of development efforts. they are treating their own like red-headed stepchildren. each time they release another product without a linux version is one more shove toward the door.
yes, you can blame adobe for not yet developing much for linux in the way of their tools and players--specfically air--when you consider my pownce argument. digg development didn't really have a choice there. i mean, there really is nothing else available for this type of development.
i wouldn't have posted this had it been any other group. i guess sometimes it just feels like getting the shaft from the ones you've supported all your life, "real geeks"? and like i said, i'll still participate and enjoy in digg, pownce, revision3, etc. i just wish there was more linux love.

endeavour launched!

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 12:00:47 -0400

space shuttle endeavour launched early this morning in florida. night launches are rather cool to watch with engine blast lighting up the sky. had the need for sleep meant nothing to me, i'd have stayed up to watch the event as it happened.
the mission specs are found at nasa's mission page on their site. and of course, you can find the awesome pictures and video footage including a live feed from the orbiting vehicle online. the internet makes nasa's endeavors (pun not intended) much more fun to keep up with.
this is a seventeen day mission. they should return planet-side about march 28. their mission: to deliver a japanese contribution to the iss.

where are the seeds?

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 21:30:00 -0400

i'm shopping at kroger tonight, and i am looking for some blackberry jam/preserves that i can use for biscuits sometime. i love a good blackberry preserve. my mom found some for me on a travel she and dad made. it was good quality, tasted great!
tonight, however, i was staring at the choices before me and all of the blackberry jams were seedless. seedless? i guess i would have not even decided to blog about this except that the raspberry jams were seeded. i scanned the shelves a few times to see if i couldn't find at least one brand of blackberry with seeds. none. if i wanted seeds, there were more than enough raspberry options.
discrimination.

bellvis blitz day

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:40:37 -0500

one of my colleagues has refused to join facebook despite many of us at the office have been facebooking for a time now. in an event to get him to join, i have created a group devoted to the campaign to get him to join.
today has been designated the first several bellvis blitz days as a way for many people to provide a concentrated effort to probe and prod him in facebook direction. several, you ask? we'll have as many as it takes for him to join.
if you are on facebook, you can join the group as it open to all. just search for "bellvis" in the groups and jump in. pictures and videos including discussions and the wall are there for viewing or contributing.