Thoughts and Ramblings

General things I find of interest.

Incorrect Podcast Order on my iPod

One of these days I will learn not to grab the latest and “greatest” software the moment it comes out. Yesterday, I upgraded my iTunes to version 9 and my iPod Touch’s firmware to 3.1.1. Then, I noticed that one of my podcasts was out of order, and furthermore, the release date was no longer showing up on the iPod itself. Strangely, only one podcast was having this issue. I started to suspect that this was my fault, since this one podcast, Escape Pod was a podcast I was listening by going through its archives.

Posted by Thoughts and Ramblings on Thursday, September 10, 2009

New Car

Well, after much hassle, I now have a new car. Here are some pictures: New Car Front New Car Side The whole ordeal was mostly due to the CARS program, which is often known by “Cash for Clunkers”. Anyway, I finally got that resolved and got a lot more for my old truck than I would have ever gotten in trade-in value. So now I have a VW Jetta, and so far I’m happy with it.

Posted by Thoughts and Ramblings on Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Why I Hate Microsoft Software

So, I occasionally get asked why I hate Microsoft software so much, and today was a great example of my rationale. I was working with a tremendous amount of data within Excel. Due to how the data was generated, I actually needed the transpose of the data in the spreadsheet. I spent nearly an hour trying to find the transpose function which used to be in the “Paste Special” function, but now appears to have been removed.

Posted by Thoughts and Ramblings on Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Bad DVD Packaging

The Simpsons has packaged their season DVDs in unusual ways before, but the eleventh season takes the cake in being both cheap and destructive to the media. The DVDs are wedged in between two pieces of cardboard so tightly that one has to pinch it with two fingers to pull it out, scratching the disk’s surface in the process. What possessed these people to be so callous with delicate media? Do they secretly hope you destroy the disk and have to buy a new one?

Posted by Thoughts and Ramblings on Monday, January 5, 2009

Fighting with Sync by Microsoft

My Grandfather just bought a new pickup, which he enjoyed showing to the rest of the family. Since Ford spent months trying to fulfill his order, he was about to give up when the dealership found a vehicle similar to what he wanted, but included several features he did not want, and thus didn’t pay for. (With behavior like this, no wonder the auto companies are failing, but that’s another discussion).

Posted by Thoughts and Ramblings on Sunday, December 28, 2008