Google’s new IM service is already live. All you need is a Jabber-compatible Instant Messaging client (such as Apple’s iChat, or gaim), and a GMail address.
– Slashdot | Google Talk Available Early
Ok, pretty cool.
I’m online as ‘fallingrock’ if anyone cares to chat.
We went to see “A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum” yesterday at Marriott Lincolnshire Theater.
It was very good. Lots of energy, good singing, and dancing.
The actor who played Pseudolus was hilarious. He played with the audience, mugged with the other players, and was generally fun to watch.
I highly recommend this play.
As a side note … I finally found out where the tune “A Comedy Tonight” came from. The only time I had previously heard it was when I was a kid on WGN Channel 9. They ran commercials for a block of sit-coms that included Hogans Hero’s and the Dick Van Dyke show. “A Comedy Tonight” ran on the commercial as the theme.
[tags]Theater, Comedy, Musicals[/tags]
I gotta hand it to the United States Post Office … they are very efficient.
Yesterday we received an envelope, from a bank or insurance company, addressed to one of the previous owners of our house. The envelope indicated that the sender wanted return service, so I put a sticker OVER the address window that say “RETURN TO SENDER — ADDRESSEE UNKNOWN” and dropped it in the mail slot at my office.
Today the same envelope arrived, with the sticker still covering the address window, back in our mailbox.
I gotta hand it to the post office … it only took them one day to COMPLETELY IGNORE the sticker that COVERED the address window and deliver the envelope back to the wrong address.
I mean please, give me a break … the postal worker who sorted that letter had to move the envelope around to find out our address … because the sticker I put on it was deliberately obscuring the address window.
[tags]USPS, Post Office[/tags]
Found a new online service that looks pretty cool.
It’s called GVisit. It uses Google Maps to track where people, who visit your website, are coming from.
Click here to see where visitors to Geeky Ramblings are coming from.
[tags]Google, maps, cool[/tags]
As previously posted, I had jury duty today … luckily the court I had to go to was at the Daley Center in downtown Chicago. Easy to get to by train and less than a miles walk.
One of the best things about going downtown is people watching … and at the Daley Center, there is plenty of opportunity.
Here’s a quick synopsis of what I saw …
[tags]Chicago, People, Downtown[/tags]
Yes, I got summoned … kind of a pain, but it’s the price you pay for our form of government.
On the bright side … they have a wireless network in the jury room … so at least I can use my laptop.
I’m on panel #1 … so that probably means I’ll be one of the first to be called. Much as I understand the need for jury duty, I really hope I don’t get en-paneled … it would really screw things up at work.
Update 5pm: Didn’t get en-paneled … we waited a while in the courtroom, then they sent us out for lunch (very nice day in downtown Chicago, so I enjoyed lunch) and returned at 2pm. We stayed near the courtroom for about 30 minutes and then the judge came out and thanked us for comming down for the day and that we were excused. The balif was back about 5 minutes later with our ‘pay’ for jury duty.
[tags]Jury Duty, Court[/tags]
We had our friend Jill’s dog, Katie, stay with us this weekend … Jill went out of town and we volunteered to take care of her.
Katie was, of course, quite well behaved and fun to have around. She even put up with Ginny and I taking a lot of photos of her.
This picture was taken of her on our dark brown leather couch … she really loved the red pillows. Using my external flash I was able to bounce the light nicely off the ceiling to get the rich, warm, tones I was looking for.
Have I mentioned that Ginny and I are contemplating finding a new four legged friend … perhaps of the canine variety? We need a fence around the back yard first, however.
[tags]Dogs, Animal, Photography[/tags]
Boycott IE. It’s a cancer on the Web that must be stopped. IE isn’t secure and isn’t standards-compliant, which makes it unworkable both for end users and Web content creators.
I’m all for it.
I haven’t used IE for anything serious in months.
I think I worried my dad once, when he wanted to show me a remote access system he uses that’s browser based … but it wouldn’t work with Firefox. He wanted to launch IE but I wouldn’t let him. Especially when it would install an activex component. I was quite adamant.
Yeah … Dell Support again.
A few days ago I ordered a new laptop … Inspiron 600m. It’s very similar to my current Inspiron 8600, but has a smaller display (I don’t like the wide display on the 8600), and it has wireless a, b, & g.
I placed the order on July 28th … and the order status hasn’t changed since going to “In Production”.
I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t a problem with the order, so I went to the Dell website and navigated to “Chat with order support”.
The order support rep I chatted with had a very very tenuous grasp of english … and didn’t really understand the concept of ‘shipping date’ and ‘delivery date’.
The rep I chatted with told me that the system was going to “SHIP” sometime between August 16th and 18th. The online order status page indicated that the system would ship on the 11th.
We went back and forth a few times … he couldn’t figure out where I was getting a shipping date of the 11th. I couldn’t find a status page that indicated anything other than the 11th.
Turns out, when he was referring to the word “SHIP”, he meant “DELIVERY”.
The system would still SHIP on the 11th … and would probably be delivered sometime between the 16th and 18th.
I sure wish Dell would bring their customer service and support back to the states. Problems like this would probably go away.
Update a litte later:
I found a useful site that provided a better way of getting order status. If you call 1-800-433-9014 and “speak” your order number, you can get a more up-to-date status. In my case, even though the official order status is “In Production”, the phone system indicates that my order is in the “Build” phase.
Oh, did I mention that I hate VRU’s that require that you speak and do not accept input from the telephone keypad?
[tags]Dell, Support[/tags]
As you might suspect, I’m subscribed to a large number of mailing lists (most of which I host myself).
One of the problems with mailing lists is that, if you use a singe email address for all your list subscriptions, there isn’t an easy way to file individual list messages based on the list name.
The other day, however, I found a rather handy procmail recipe that helps with that work…
Continue reading