I went into Radio Shack today to ask about the price of a new battery for my Compaq laptop (although, I suspect that it may not actually be the battery). The person I spoke with said he recognised me; asked if I went to UBC; asked if I was in the faculty of arts. I don’t want to lead you to believe that I was offended. I was just surprised. Don’t I look science-esque? Picture me with my black wool coat, my nice scarf, my hair all over the place. Is that what “artsy” looks like?
Back sometime in 2000 — I don’t really remember when exactly — I wanted to blog. But I didn’t know what blogging was then.
You see, having recently purchased a Palm m100, I wanted to something fun and somewhat nerdy. Of course, back then, wireless on Palm Pilots were far beyond my reach. But that didn’t stop me from doing things using AvantGo and syncing.
What I wanted to do was at various points in the day write bits and pieces about what was happening on my Palm. I would also have some sort of a point-system for mood or something or another like that. I would submit it via the “web” in AvantGo, and upon the next synchronisation with my deskotp, the conduit would post it to a web server and it would all become catalogued on my web site. It would have become some sort of mood journal with bits about my day and such, as they were happening (though my comments didn’t get published until slightly later).
Unfortunately I never bothered to finish implementing it. I’m sure provincials and other such things got in the way to some extent. But that’s the way it goes.
But in any case — I claim this was a blog, of sorts, conceived by my creative nerdyness without knowing that it was already starting to catch on.
When will LiveJournal finally implement a trackback system? It’s been talked about for over a year now. And trackbacks are starting to become more popular. It’s starting to catch on, which is great because it’s a pretty funky little system. Some folks running the LiveJournal code at plogs.net have implemented trackbacks. What’s taking the rest of LJ so long?
I have been a Telus Mobility customer since April 2002. I originally signed a 1-year contract which ended, amazingly, in April this year. When that happened, Telus phoned me with a few offers, such as some free minutes or a phone upgrade if I wanted to sign a new contact.
Less than a year later, Telus is at it again. This time by mail. By signing a 1-year contract, I can get an additional 50 minutes for the next 12 months free, or voicemail (which is already included), call forwarding (again, included) and caller ID (something I pay $3/month for) free for the next 12 months. The same options exist, but for 24 months, or $100 off the purchase of a new phone should I decide to sign a 2-year contract. Same goes for a 3-year contract, except I would get $150 off the purchase of a new phone.
50 extra minutes a month isn’t that bad of a deal. Except, I never use the time I have (which is only 50 itself), because I never use my phone during the day. I currently have free lunchtimes (12-1pm), evenings (7pm-7am) and weekends. I could choose to save $36 a year and get caller ID for free. But frankly, I’d rather be contract-free and pay it. $3 a month doesn’t really do much for me.
Part of the deal is that they want (or at least suggesting) I switch to a different monthly rate plan package. After analysing my usage, they are recommending I switch to the Talk 40 Plus plan. This would cost me $15 more per month. While I would gain a whole lot of minutes, I certainly wouldn’t ever use all 350 daytime minutes in a month. And I lose an hour of evenings as their new “evening and weekend clock” doesn’t start until 8pm. This is supposed to be better?
I find the whole thing confusing. Am I allowed to keep my current package? It was discontinued more than a year ago. The most comparable package now is the Free Time 30 package, which is $5 more and loses an hour of evening/weekend usage. Great.
Oh, did I mention that the new packages do billing by the minute rather than by the second? I don’t even know which I get right now. But the fine print indicates this.
Now let’s say I wanted to take advantage of signing a 2-year contract and get a new PCS phone. Telus is offering me a “$100 phone discount, based on retail price of a new phoone.” After looking at the phones on their web site, I’m wondering, which price does this give me a discount on? The was price? Most of the phones are in the $200-300 range. But now they’re listed with significant discounts. But why would I trust Telus Mobility to ever give me a good deal?
Did I mention that the package they sent came from their customer loyalty division? If this is how they treat a customer that is still with them just after his contract ends, how do they treat customers that have been lingering (loitering, if you will) forever without a contract? Do they send two big bouncers to your house with a vice and a pen to sign a new contract, offering you a free calling feature with a value of $2/month?
I’m not really impressed. But I haven’t come to expect much of wireless providers. My experience with Rogers was no better.
Hotmail is really starting to make me mad.
Did you know that typical e-mail clients, when composing HTML-formatted e-mail, include two copies of the message: one that is HTML-formatted (mime type text/html), and one that has all HTML-formatting stripped away (mime type text/plain)? Whether this is a standard or not, I’m not sure; given the number of mail clients that actually do this correctly, I would expect that it should just be common practice. It’s just common sense, right — not everyone has a mail client capable of reading HTML-formatted messages.
Hotmail is the exception, of course. We already know that it defies common sense and practically every other standard in existance. It’s flakey and bounces messages randomly. Yeah, we already know this. But unlike other mail clients (including Outlook Express, I might add, which is the only mail client “officially” able to communicate with Hotmail accounts), the Hotmail web interface does not include two copies of HTML-composed mail. Not at all. In fact, it only includes the original HTML-formatted message in the body and sets the Content-type header as text/html. What the heck?
So boycott Hotmail. Go get a real e-mail account.
