FUNctional
Posted by narkeeso | Filed under Miscellaneous
I love my bike and I love writing about it. I realized over the weekend and tonight that my bike has been more than just some fun toy. It’s actually allowed me to get around Long Beach in a fun and inexpensive way.
I got home today very hungry and was thinking about where to eat but tomorrow was street sweeping and once I parked I couldn’t move it. That’s when my bike comes in to save the day! I happily get on my bike and pedal on down to my restaurant of choice. Normally, I would have driven wherever I needed to eat in Long Beach but my bike is basically replacing all my local transportation needs and it’s fulfilling my daily workout.
Tags: bike, fun, functional, inexpensive, restaurant, road, transportation
Another Successful Ride
Posted by narkeeso | Filed under Miscellaneous
Starting to realize that riding a road bike is really easy but the upside is that it allows me to go longer distances and to ride for longer. I think it’s a good balance of being able to get a decent workout and being able to get to where you want to go. I think I’ve realized on this trip that I need to bring a real camera and perhaps my camcorder. There were many photo opportunities where I wish I had my little point and shoot. Next time…
A Healthy Trade-Off
Posted by narkeeso | Filed under Miscellaneous
Q: What do you do when you stop playing video games?
A: You buy a road bike.
This is exactly what I did yesterday. I put my PS3 up for sale on Craigslist and it was sold immediately. With the money from the PS3 I drove straight to REI and bought my heavily researched Novara Divano 2008 Road Bike. You must be thinking I’m pretty crazy but tonight I confirmed my trade was definitely justified.
Don’t Use Wikipedia to Sound Smart
Posted by narkeeso | Filed under Internet, Miscellaneous
Courtney [2:07 PM]:
internet meme?
Michael [2:08 PM]:
The term Internet meme is a neologism used to describe a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet.
Courtney [2:09 PM]:
did you just copy n paste the wiki def?
Michael [2:09 PM]:
of course not….
…..
….
okay so I did okay!? sue me
Courtney [2:12 PM]:
remember… i’m kinda sharp
So, the moral of the story. Don’t copy and paste wikipedia definitions.
Professions and Music
Posted by narkeeso | Filed under Miscellaneous
Just had an interesting conversation with a co-worker. We were talking about music we listened to while on a deadline. I happily told him, “Definitely, Daft Punk… I totally get a rush off them.” A few seconds later he says, “Sometimes, I listen to Spy Games or the Enemy of the State soundtrack. Like I’m on some crazy mission.”
At this point I laugh out loud and spit out my water all over my monitor. Don’t ask why I found that funny. I guess only because I know what those soundtracks sound like and I imagine my co-worker staring at his screen and getting his work done like the world depended on it or it would explode in X amount of minutes. Actually, in Master Planning, what I just described is pretty accurate. The world really does blow up if something doesn’t get done.
So then I began to wonder… if a profession were associated with a band or song what would it be? What would Architects be? What would Graphic Designers be? What would the unemployed be? Perhaps a better question is if you could describe your work day with a song what would it be?
Today… for me… that song is Right Said Fred - I’m Too Sexy no thanks to a certain someone at the office. Apparently, I was told that I was strutting my struttin stuff across the crosswalk today. So not true…
Word of the Day
Posted by narkeeso | Filed under Miscellaneous
Defenestrate: is the act of throwing someone or something out of a window.
Okay, if you cannot think of many cool ways to use this word then please leave my blog now or I’ll defenestrate you. Hahahaha… I’m so witty… okay no I’m not.
Anyway, I discovered this word having a little chat with my good friend Mike. We decided we would look up a new word everyday so we can “sound smarter”. Now, the only thing left to do is to find the right time to use the word. I shall wait patiently during a conversation or argument and strike at the right moment only to have my audience give me a puzzled look.
“Michael, your vocabulary is stunning… whatever does that mean?”
Twitter Made Me Do It
Posted by narkeeso | Filed under Internet
My very first post I wrote about my annoyance with newcomer identi.ca. Another Twitter clone with almost the same exact features, and I thought to myself “why bother?” Yesterday, is why I bothered. Twitter has had a major failure with their database with regards to follower counts. Not a very big deal for me since I don’t have many followers but it makes you wonder what the heck is going on over there? Twitter always seems to fail when you really want to use it. Some friends couldn’t send replies or direct messages today and the overall number of updates seemed smaller.
So I decided to just eat my words and give indenti.ca a try. The colors and layout have grown on me and it seems snappier than Twitter. No complaints about stability from what I’ve seen but I guess that’s only a matter of time when more people start joining. Guess I thought I’d hop on the indenti.ca train just in case. I don’t think I’ll be using it much since Twitter will probably blow right pass this… or not.
Tags: fail, indenti.ca, social, stability, twitter, whale
Flash CS3 Root Timeline Control Within Movie Clips
Posted by narkeeso | Filed under Actionscript 3, Flash
So I decided I would use the blog to talk about some things I’ve learned about Flash CS3. It’s been a lot of fun learning Actionscript 3 but there are some things that aren’t so intuitive or obvious. One of those things I struggled with tonight was controlling the root timeline from within a Movie Clip. It’s actually very simple once I found the solution.
MovieClip(root).gotoAndPlay(10);
That will move the playhead to frame 10 and play onward. Simple right? You can attach any timeline control you want.
MovieClip(root).gotoAndStop(10);
That will go to frame 10 and stop.
I looked for this solution for 30 minutes and smacked my head when I found it. Googling the right words is key.
Tags: Actionscript 3, as3, control, cs3, Flash, movie clip, nested, root, timeline
Waiting For The iPhone 3G (In Line)
Posted by narkeeso | Filed under Technology
Yesterday was the release of the new iPhone 3G. All of my friends and family who know me well, knew I was going to be upgrading even though I denied I was going to. I ended up getting the white 16GB version and love the new look, the fast 3G speeds, more natural looking screen and A-GPS. I have been dreaming about the release of the iPhone 3G ever since Steve Jobs announced it. I patiently waited for the release and in the mean time I read any blog that muttered iPhone 3G. My day came yesterday but what I thought would be a quick buy turned out to be more waiting.
Nytra and I decided to wake up at 5:30 A.M. Friday and drive over to the Irvine Spectrum Apple Store. I thought it was the perfect plan to be able to get enough sleep, get a decent place in line, and get back to work on time. The previous day I had told my boss that I wouldn’t be in till 10 A.M. or 11 P.M. thinking it would be sufficient time. By the time we got there we saw about 150+ people in front of us. I had read a couple days ago that they were reporting there would be 30-40 employees activating phones at 10-15 minutes per customer and I thought that was a worse case scenario.
I found my co-worker Chris was in line 50 people ahead of us. He came over and we both spoke excitedly about the new iPhones until it was time to start moving. I got excited as I heard cheering in front of the line as the doors opened only to realize 15 minutes later that cheering turned into people impatiently waiting to get their hands on one. 30 minutes passed and only 1 person walked out with one. What is going on? The explanation passed down from the front of the line down to me. Apparently, the AT&T activation servers were down and my heart sunk a little as I knew I’d be in line a little longer than I anticipated but I didn’t really think that it would be that much longer.
1 hour had passed and my friend Chris got frustrated and decided to go back to work selling his place in line to the kid at the back for a measly $20. In the meantime Apple was trying to be understanding and comforting by coming around to everyone with “Smart” Waters, coffee and doughnuts. I happily took a doughnut knowing I would be standing in line for awhile. Nytra started to get frustrated and tired from standing and all I could think about was how I wish I had my phone already.
At 10 A.M. my co-worker called me asking what time I thought I would be in. I could see the Apple Store right there in front of me about 50 feet away so I guessed another hour. That was me saying 1 hour in denial. At around 11 A.M. we were so close to the store that we could feel the air conditioning coming out of the store. It was getting hot and the shopping plaza was getting crowded. Apple employees were nice enough to run to a nearby Target and buy everyone at the front of the line popsicles. 30 minutes later someone sells their spot in line for $280! That was quite the talk for awhile.
Finally at around noon Nytra and I were right at the door. “We did it!” I was thinking to myself as we were a greeted by an Apple representative. We sat down near the genius bar and happily told the rep exactly what we wanted. “2 white iPhone 3G phones please.” As the guy punched in all the information via the portable register we were told that we were not eligible to buy the phones at all because I had a business discount attached to my plan. I panicked and thought he would kick us out of the store but said he would wait patiently while I called AT&T to detach the business account from my plan. I dialed 611 and was surprised to see there was no wait time at all for a customer service rep. I told the rep what I wanted and she did it within 1 minute for a total wait time of 4 minutes.
“You got lucky!” exclaimed Dave the Apple rep. He told us that several people were not able to detach their business discounts and walked out with no iPhone. However, we walked out of the store with 2 iPhones but with several problems. What problems? I was late for work, didn’t have time to play with my new toy, and Nytra’s iPhone somehow got added as a new line instead of replacing her current phone number. The wait was not over.
I went back to work and rushed to catch up for all the missed time. While doing work I called AT&T to try and fix the problem only to be told they can’t do anything and I had to return the phone to Apple. At this point I’m so tired and frustrated that I felt like throwing out my phone. I remain calm and call the local Apple Store only to be greeted by one of the best acts of customer service I’ve ever witnessed.
I was transferred to a guy name Freddie and I told him the problem. Freddie took down my information and noted all my problems and told me he would call me back soon. I didn’t think he would but the man treated me as if I were a family member or a friend. He called AT&T to try and fix my problems and constantly called me back to tell me the status. He finally told me that I would have to bring the phone in and return it and buy a new one. He put a brand new white iPhone 3G aside just for me. You’d think due to the demand that they wouldn’t be putting anything on hold. Not trusting Freddie I called in an hour later to ask another Apple rep to see if the phone was indeed on hold. “Is your name Michael Narisko?” she asks. No one ever says my last name right by the way (hence the name of the blog). So I found out Freddie is the real deal and indeed put the phone on hold for me.
We arrived at the Apple Store at 9 P.M. only to still see just as long a line. This time they had barricades up and it looked like they were figuring out how to handle this new system. I went up to the girl in orange Apple shirt and told her I needed to see Freddie. She asked “Are you Michael?”. I happily said yes and passed through the orange Apple bouncer. Freddie came up and greeted us a few minutes after waiting and he was still just as friendly in person as he was on the phone. He got me first priority service and had another cool guy named Joshua to help us. Nytra bought her new phone, MobileMe and we were out. We weren’t exactly in and out of the store due to fixing the problems but it was done so well that I could not believe that even though there’s a huge mob of impatient customers out there, they still treated each and every customer with speed and respect.
I then finally realized why it took so long for a customer to get activated. It’s because Apple’s customer service is so above the rest that they would walk every customer through the process of activating their phone or answer any of their questions. They did not simply ring customers up and let them go. They gave each customer that walked into that store 1st class service. After seeing that display of service, the wait for the iPhone didn’t seem so bad after all.
Tags: 3G, Apple, AT&T, Cellphone, Customer Service, iPhone, Mobile, Phone
Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Plurk, and now Identi.ca
Posted by narkeeso | Filed under Internet
I hope I’m not the only one to rant about this but I feel it’s time that I finally write in my blog and whine about the amount of Twitter clones coming out. Don’t get me wrong I am a fan of Twitter and the idea behind it but when there are literally all these start ups trying to copy the idea with “features that will blow Twitter away.” You kind sit back and get sick of the whole idea.
My guess for the surge of clones being released is start ups who think they can do it better. I’m sure there are plenty of companies/people who think they can do Twitter better but it’s not going to matter. Just like how AOL Instant Messenger is still the most used IM service used today even though it has less feature than newer IM services. Twitter was there first and has a large user base. Most people are not going leave Twitter just for it’s current faults and instability. Those who have large networks of friends will find it hard to transfer everyone to new services.
This is where I bring up FriendFeed, a site that is not trying to fight Twitter but leverages the power of several (currently 41) services. With FriendFeed, I am able to aggregate data from Twitter, YouTube, Pownce, Flickr, RSS Feeds/Blogs, and Digg just to name a few. On FriendFeed I am able to see my friends Tweets, Flickr updates, blog updates, and more. I can do all that without pestering my friends to join. Now that is powerful and unique. FriendFeed did the smart thing and played nicely with many popular services.
Michael Arrington of TechCrunch wrote about an article titled “Twitter Conversations Come To A Screaming Halt; Users Simply Move To Friendfeed” and suggests that Twitter should be afraid of FriendFeed. I don’t think Twitter has anything to worry about because FriendFeed is not even in direct competition with Twitter. I do like new sites but when I found out about Identi.ca and how it has the same restrictions of 140 characters you kind of scratch your head and wonder what this Identi.ca has on any other site. When I see more of these clones come out, it just reminds me how FriendFeed was so well thought out. If you are getting sick of all these new clones, you owe it yourself to try out FriendFeed. It won’t even require you to move your friends over.
