Old man, old cars, and old whisky
go home….
All the joys of dealing with big companies and the fine print. I’m old enough to remember when AT&T had a monopoly and you could get your phone any any color as long as it was black. Anyway, my cell phone contract has been complete for over a year so every so often I think, maybe I’ll renew the contract and see if I can get a better phone in the process. You know, thinking that maybe the phone company would give me a little incentive to stay as their customer.
My sister’s contract is also up, so we went looking.
The first thing you have to understand is that both of us use our phones as, gasp…. PHONES! And not that much either. We are on the minimum plan and neither of us come close to the monthly limit on minutes. We don’t browse the web with our phones. We don’t text with our phones. We don’t play games on our phones. We pretty much talk on our phones. Call us dinosaurs. In fact the only two things I wanted as part of upgrading was a bigger screen that was a touch screen, and a nicer camera in the phone.
So we went out looking. We stopped at an AT&T store in a local mall. The salesperson was very helpful. We explained that we were pretty much happy with the phones we had. That we did not text or need internet access, etc. I told him the couple of features I wanted. He beamed and said wait a minute. He went into the back, and then emerged with a box containing a Samsung Eternity. It was a refurbished phone that he could let us have for only $50.00 with a renewal of the contract.
Well it is a beatiful phone. Tactile feedback, three megapixel camera, video, nice screen. But he only had one. I wanted two, one for myself and one for my sister. Also being a refurbished phone, it only had a 30 day warrenty. So we passed.
A couple of days later I was in another AT&T store. I went through my spiel explaining what I wanted. Just a phone, no data, no TV, no texting. I told the salesperson that I had seen the Samsung Eternity and had liked it. The Eternity was a discontinued model so I had hopes that I could get two. Well this salesman beamed and said he could get two from the other stores in the area. But they would be new and cost $100.00 apiece with a $50 dollar rebate each. Well as much as I hate mail in rebates I said sure go ahead and get them. I also had a premonition, so I said I would pay for them when I picked them up.
So a couple of days later I go back to the store to get them. My sister met me there. A different salesman is there (a store manager). The phones are not there and he doesn’t know where they are. I explain everything to him. He calls the salesman. He calls other stores trying to find two phones that he can get run over to the store asap. He finds one near by and it is sent over. But while he is doing this he mentions that, oh by the way, I knew that I would have to purchase a $20 a month data plan on each phone.
Ok, now remember that I have explained to each salesperson that I did not want data, text or anything else. I wanted a phone! So to make a long story just a few seconds shorter, I said thanks but no thanks and my sister and I left.
At this point I’m considering my options. I liked the phone. But I am not paying for a data plan. And in this economy, $50.00 is more that we wanted to pay anyway. We are happy with the phones we have. I have both a car charger and a data cable on the phone I have. So I’m ready to live with what I have. But I decide to google the Samsung Eternity phone to see what customers think about it.
Whoa…. there is the phone at amazonwireless.com for $000.01. Free shipping! Yes! You read that right. One cent. Okay I think. Whats the catch? Do I need to pay for every conceivable plan (data, TV, texting) to qualify for buying it. I can’t find any hidden "fine print". No, no, that isn’t quite true. I finally see that there is an $18.00 activation fee. Wow! That is a good deal. But I still think there has to be some catch. Maybe when I try to activate the phone. I ask myself do I want to deal with the hassle of it if when I activate the phone AT&T insists that I have to buy an add-on plan. I finally decide to give it a go. I press the "buy" button.
About a week later the phone arrives. I carefully unpack it (expecting to have to return it). I charge the phone and dial the number they tell me to dial in order to activate the phone. It gets activated. Nothing about having to buy other plans. Great…. but wait. I better wait a day or two and check my account on line to make certain that nothing was added "automatically".
I check a day later and surprise. No other plans added. I got a beautiful touch screen phone, with a three megapixel camera and video, that also can take a microSD memory card and plays music for under $19.00.
I love the phone. It is easy to use. Nice features. Everything I wanted. Of course, I still need to buy a data cable and car chargers. And a protective "skin" would be nice. So I go online looking for those. I’m expecting to pay about $25.00 for a charger. They soak you for the data cable so I’m thinking about $40.00 for that. And a protective silicon cover would be at least $10.00. I find a site will all of that on sale. So with shipping it all costs $15.00.
I love the internet. But for those of you who know me, I still hate computers.
ps. I went back online to see if I could get the same phone for my sister, but it was no longer up on the amazonwireless site. Oh well
Like the following post, this video was done by Chris Foleen and myself in 1988. It was for sales to give to customers. I make a cameo appearance at about 8:04.
The following video was done in 1988 by Chris Foleen and myself. Our boss at the time, Larry Wade tasked us with coming up with a better video than the one the company had commissioned for about $50,000. Neither of us had done anything like this before. We researched what could be done “in-house” and ended up buying a IBM PC with a Targa video card. We rented a Sony A/B roll tape deck. Chris did the computer graphics using Lumina software. I went down to California to a military base that held archived movie footage going back to WWI. Chris, do you remember where the music came from? Be sure to check out the tank and missile scene at about 1 minute and 18 seconds. This video was continuously run on a stack of four televisions at trade shows and was quite successful.
I just upgraded Drupal with a security fix. With WordPress, the upgrade process is so painless and automatic. You click a link and WordPress takes care of just about everything. With Drupal I thought I was back in the dark ages. First I had to find the update instructions. Buried in the Tar/Zip file is a file named UPGRADE.txt. There the instructions started off with an enthusiatic "Let’s begin!" Whew… I’m glad they had that exclaimation mark….
There were fourteen manual steps to follow. At the end of the fourteen steps there was a reference to see more information on upgrading at the Drupal site. Boy I could hardly wait to read more information. Instead they gave some minimal information about what releases are supported and then told me I could find more information in… what for it…. UPGRADE.txt in the file packaged with my Drupal files.
So I went and read the UPGRADE.txt file and at the bottom was a reference to see more information on upgrading at the Drupal site. Boy I could hardly wait to read more information. Instead they gave some minimal information about what releases are supported and then told me I could find more information in… what for it…. UPGRADE.txt in the file packaged with my Drupal files.
Repeat the above two paragraphs indefinitely.
I had a need to learn Drupal, the open source content management system. This post is to capture some comments about the experience. To do the experience justice would require writing a book. Anyway…
The server I had access to runs windows XP. All early indications was that while not optimal, Drupal does run under XP. This is accurate, but I discovered that to use friendly urls requires the apache web server re-write mod which is not a part of Windows IIS. There are versions of a re-write mod available to install on windows but who wants to mess with the Windows IIS system. Since this is a test system I can live without the friendly URLs.
The server already had PHP and MySql installed so the installation of Drupal went fairly smoothly although I have on the administer page the following:
One or more problems were detected with your Drupal installation. Check the status report for more information.
which tells me directory permissions are set wrong. This message persists regardless of what I do with permissions and does not seem to affect the installation. I’ll live with this until I get a chance to track down the issue (ISS permissions vs NTFS permissions perhaps?)
I managed to get this site converted from the original hardcoded html to Drupal based. But then I found one of the modules I was using (the book module) had a bug. This of course was discovered by first noticing a that I could not delete a book, then googling around, wading through postings etc. Finally finding a thread of patches, each one followed by "patch failed" message. Finally at the bottom of the thread was a "patch passed" message.
Great! I now have a patch, but no instructions on how to apply it. Back to google. Search "drupal patching". What… download Cygwin? Crap…. I don’t want to install more software on the server. Especially an entire Unix emulation system. (Note I like Unix, have used Unix, have installed Cygwin on other systems etc. )
More googling…. what about GNU patch.exe. Ok I’ll try that. Hey am I having fun yet? Well I am really appreciating WordPress and its automatic update feature on its modules. If a module in WordPress has an update available I’m notified and by clicking a link it will automatically apply the update. Nice. With Drupal… No I’m not having fun yet. Now I’m trying to figure out how to get the patch program to run under Vista (my desktop machine).
Ok, I’m going for the easy fix…. Open MySql Admin, find the catalog, open the book table and delete the record… Done!
I have had three father figures in my life. My dad, my sister’s significant other, and a surrogate father. They all have something in common. They grew up during the Great Depression and they served in World War two. Two of them in the Pacific Theater and one in the Italian Theater.
They also all displayed similar characteristics. Fugality and self reliance. They did not feel they were entitled to anything. What they had they earned. I think that this is the great difference between the "Greatest Generation" and today. Today people think they are entitled to free health care, housing and education. Today people feel that someone else is responsible for whatever situation they are in. They are the last ones responsible, if at all.
I think the Jefferson had it right. We have the right to pursue happiness. Happiness is not an entitlement. We have the right to find a job, work hard to pay for an education, take our earnings and buy a home we can afford. But the bottom line is that our condition is, and should be, our responsibility. Government aid should be applied in a manner that helps us, if needed, in our pursuit. Rather than trying to guarentee the goal of our pursuit.
Neither my mother or father graduated from college. I was the first. I worked, I briefly had food stamps, I got help from my mother. I went to a state school, and one of the less expensive ones at that. I graduated and went to work. I saved money. When I was laid off from my job I had saved enough money to go to grad school and get an MBA. It was my responsibility, not yours or the government.
I think if more people took personal responsibility for their life we could once again talk about a "greatest generation". As long as we believe we are entitled I don’t think we can.
I find it incredible that
Point 1. Content management systems don’t manage content, people manage content. People may use a content management system to help them, but the system does not manage the content. The CMS is a tool that people wield. Content can be managed without a CMS. Content can be edited without a CMS. Does a CMS make it easier? Well it depends. You can learn to manage/edit content using a filesystem and a text editor. Basic HTML is not difficult to learn. Using an ftp client is not difficult. If you are managing a small site and making all edits yourself, this can be a very simple solution.
Or you can use a content management system. But if you are working by yourself, you have to learn the CMS. Including how to install it, install additional modules you might need, administer it, use it’s editor, create templates, etc.
Point 2. Editing in a WYSIWYG editor in a CMS looks easy. I have heard people describe it as "just like editing in MS Word". Well, yes, if you are doing simple text editing. But if you are uploading images, building tables, inserting flash and other useful things that people want to do on the web, then understanding HTML and other web technology is important.
Point 3. When I’m talking with clients about what they want to do, invariable the response is "I just want to make simple updates to some pages". Content management systems do so much more than that. So if that is all you want to do, what are you going to do will all of the baggage that comes with a CMS? Are you going to apply security updates when they are released? Are you going to learn how to efficiently upload images? Are you going to learn the administrative interface?
Content management systems are powerful tools. In fact, a useful analogy might be to carpentry power tools. They can be very powerful and make your life easier. But to use them you have to first be trained as a carpenter. You have to understand which tool is used for which task. To many users think that if the just have a CMS installed they can build and maintain web sites. I would not want to live in a house someone built if all they did was buy some power tools.
I developed and taught this class in 2003. I was a substitute instructor for an instructor who was temporarily unavailble.
For those who are interested in computers and computer programming the following books may be of interest.