Random

Random thoughts today. 0200 is probably the best time to do this.

Music is good. Grabbing a bunch of new stuff (eat me RIAA).

People need to respond to my poll. Jerks.

Being unemployed blows ass. Everyone who says 'treat it like a vacation' needs to have their head examined. With a sledge. And some fire. Yeah, fire.

Car stereo install is easy work. I don't know why people pay others $80 to do it. Only problem I had was a) GM (and apparently every other car manufacturer now...) likes to tie EVERYTHING on the dashboard to the back of the radio. Spend the $100 for the advanced harness if you need it. b) Buy the Scosche harness if you can. The Axess is a piece of garbage. c) Test BEFORE you put your dash back together. Then you don't have to tear it apart again (yes, I had a DF moment).

DF of the moment: AT&T
From The Blog of Helios
First, everyone who's in to Linux should at least look through Paul's blog to see if it's something they'd like to read on a regular basis. I like to.

AT&T is telling people Linux isn't a supported operating system. I'd like to attack this issue two ways. First they DO NOT support it. I don't know of any ISP that really does. Their people are trained for either Windows or Mac. Yes, you're calling support. But calling them support may be a bit of a stretch. For the most part they're morons off the street who know how to use their iPod so they get the job, some basic training, a script and directions to be as condescending to users as possible (yes, I'm more than a bit jaded).

Second this is a larger problem than just AT&T, as I've stated above. This is an issue with virtually all computer companies who provide any kind of 'computer' service. I guarantee that if you take your system to Best Buy for anything and it has Linux they'll tell you they don't support the entire system. That's the way they're trained. Part of the reason for this is there's no software company that provides Linux that pays them (the supporting companies) to support the product. It's money people and I've said that for years. And yes, it's bullshit.

I actually had to get support for my Linksys router a few years ago. This took three months and talking to a developer (no, I don't recall the name, but he was a dev responsible for some of the firmware available on their now defunct FTP site). Their T1 and T2 people responded to me like I was insane because only Windows or Mac exists in the world. They didn't bat an eye when I told them I had my BS. I had to escalate (as always when I call anywhere) to a supervisor and request someone who actually knew the TCP stack.

So, here's my solution to all of you: fake it. When you're on the phone and they ask you to open run ask them if they want you to get your IP address or ping something. When they ask you to go to the device manager ask if they want the status of the device (NIC in this case) then go get it. I won't even presume to tell you what utility to use because we all use different utilities. In general if you're working on a Linux system you know what you're doing or you call the person who installed Linux for you. That's the best place to start. You need to be or have someone be the translator for support. That's just the only way to go, trust me.