I finally got around to stripping down, gutting, and well actually just re-writing the WVURL.com code from scratch. I added a more visually pleasing interface, faster more simple code, all while keeping the existing url’s in the database.
I plan to add a few things in the coming days to make it super easy to send out the URL’s once shortened via various methods (twitter, facebook, email, clipboard, etc).
I just got moved in to a new place. I had been there all weekend with just telephone and cable, no internet. I called on Monday morning, to check if suddenlink had completed their site survey so they could transfer my cable/internet services over. I had my digital box, remote, modem, all standing by. When I got the rep on the phone, i was a little surprised to hear…they didnt know what house/account i was calling about.
The previous friday i made the call to transfer. I gave them the address of the new place, and they confirmed that the surrounding two houses had service so it wouldnt be an issue. They told me they were going to do a site survey and it would take 2-4 days. Turns out they had/have no idea what they were talking about.
The house is my grandmother’s house. She has Alzheimers and is living with my parents, so my wife, myself, and my son moved in. Like i said before, it has cable now, being paid for by my dad.
I was surprised to hear monday morning that they couldnt find the address. I went back and forth with the rep, and they said to call back tuesday.
Tuesday morning i call back. They found the house. The account is in my dead grandfather’s name (dead 15 some years now) and they would need a death certificate, in order to terminate service and transfer my account. Seriously? I call my dad and he makes a stop at the court house to get a death certificate. I call them back and am now told they once again cannot locate the account. Searched by name, address, nothing. Who’s death certificate did i just get then, and why? I told the rep, if they cant find the address, why cant we just start a new account here, just as if it never had service before, even though it did. I held the phone to the TV while watching comedy central to illustrate that i had cable currently. They said, that if they placed the order, it would be canceled when they found the account. Wait…i thought they couldnt find it. If they can or would find it, why cant they find it now, and disconnect. They said its not coming up in the search. Well i told them to send a truck then. They argued again that it would have to be canceled. I had a prepaid walmart visa with $130 to pay my balance to start the transfer of my services, which i VERY WISELY did not pay until they could get a grasp on what was going on. This went on for about 45 minutes back and forth until i just had enough arguing with them.
I made 1 call to verizon, and within 10 minutes, had a DSL order put out, had my starter kit shipped, and only have to pay $29 a month, and not even until the end of the first month of service.
Id love to have suddenlink at my house, but they apparently refuse to give me service.
To Suddenlink; i will gladly cancel my verizon DSL order and go with suddenlink if you can remedy this before they come out on the 7th of may. However i expect to have my balance waved (even in part) in lieu of my incredible inconvenience. Ive been without internet for going on 5 days, unable to work (i work from home) had to trouble my relatives for information, and seriously, get a death certificate? If not, dont worry, cause verizon appears to be rolling out FIOS soon, and i will be the first to upgrade, and recommend to all that i know, to do the same.
The 3 virtues of a programmer as defined by Larry Wall, Randal L. Schwartz and Tom Christiansen (in Programming Perl).
Im asking you the public if i should release my auto tweeter program. Its a php script that you can do alot of different things with but first and formost it allows you to post to a twitter account, many twitter accounts, one message, different messages, random messages, and a multitude of other things.
Ill decide on how to proceed as the reples pour in.
Ran into a unique problem when i switched servers from innohost back to hostgator(more on that later). Aparently, for some reason passing a full url to wvurl’s api (wvurl.com/api-create.php) caused the server to return index.php and its subsequent headers.
After much time spent with support finding out if it was something server side to blame, I found a workaround by using str_replace to replace the colon in the url, with %3A and then pass the URL to the script.
This was a problem because three autotweet programs (beckleyrt, wvjobs, and wvurl twitter) all rely on the wvurl api to generate their URL’s.
The site is now updated and the API examples reflect the changes.
Did i miss something? Did i sleep in and wake up in a time where google wasnt enough? I think that microsoft’s bing.com “decision engine”, ITS NOT A SEARCH ENGINE! (i bet MS people get repremanded for calling it that). Microsoft is not competing to compete. The classic “the contest is hopeless, lets change the terms and act snooty” strategy that so many immature children play on a day to day basis has been adopted by one of the most influencial companies of the modern era. All the venting aside…I need to take a look at this thing.
Well ill be a son of a bitch. It works! It knew before i even got to the site that i was curious about charles de gualle’s thoughts on cheese and government. Now, if i remember correctly, their commercials feature people going crazy with “information overload”. Nah, its completely different. Its bing!
Side note; call me what you will, i like looking at other people’s photography about as much as i like smelling other people’s gross cooking. There is a reason that i frequent flickr about as much as i like using dirty public restrooms. Not just because everyone who got a digital camera for christmas is suddenly a “photographer”, but because i might just not be in the mood to look at two grown men scurrying cheese about some foreign country getting dysyntary all over everything. (the guy has on a watch. AKA jewelery. AKA inappropropriate food handling attire). Also, why should he have been a cook? Is bing poking fun at Mr De Gualle’s position on dairy products and the government thereof? Rude.
Lets put bing.com to the test against google. Now i dont give enough of a shit to do some big important write up on how bing sucks, you can visit it yourself and find this out, lets just take a single search and compare.
Search Term: Pickled Eggs
Google Review:
Fair enough. I see lots of pickled eggs, jars of pickled eggs, and a man eating a pickled egg. I would go as far as to say that my search has been satisfied and that i have found my pickled eggs.
Bing Review:
What the fuck? DVD’s? Aparently, bing has made a judgement call on my behalf and instead of finding me a picture of pickled eggs, it has found something more desireable. Also a mug.
In conclusion, i want to say that the only way bing.com would even be able to be competitive with google would be to offer the SAME results, with a better enviroment/response/experience. Since none of those things matter due to the fact that its fucking retarded, it will ammount to nothing and soon join vista, windows ME, and the paper clip in the halls of who gives a shit.
I dont get it. Sometimes im on top of the world, others im on the bottom. I was sitting in the car last night after coming back from a drive, and i was listening to the baseball game going on across the street in the park. I said to heather “listen to that. Those people are off of work, enjoying themselves, watching their kids play, no worries”. Seems like i cant wake up in the morning without being dragged down by some kind of ongoing thing that i cant seem to overcome ot get off my back. The worst part is, i cant seem to let go of the things that bother me. Its as if im set up as a person, to see things through until they are a success, no matter how much of a failure they are.
Solutions? Ive debated taking a hiedus. Putting down the computer, perhaps taking a job in management somewhere. Spending more time on the weights, play games, relax. Spend time with my kids and try to forget about the problems and hangups. Then it hits me. I cant. I know why i cant. I cant because this is my job. This is how i make money, and i cant afford to let a possible chance go by. Or can i?
If someone told you, that the next winning lottery ticket was one in the next 10,000, how long would you spend your money for food or living expenses buying up all the lottery tickets to get the winning one? The analogy isnt sound, but the point remains. How long do i keep going?
A week ago I drove to Charleston to meet up with some other like minded people from Twitter, at a coffee shop in town. I parked, went in, sat down, and was right at home in the discussions. One of the guys there, Jason Keeling, who runs A Better West Virginia, asked me to write a blog post about what i feel hinders the advancement of our state of West Virginia.
Ive thought about this and came to a conclusion. The tweetup. Thats whats wrong with West Virginia. Now, dont think I mean that having tweetup’s is bad for the state. What I mean, is that in order for me to have an intelligent discussion with people in my state about technology and culture, i had to drive 50 miles. Were there people in my home town (beckley, btw) who are up on internet trends and technology? Sure. Where are they? Thats the issue.
West Virginia suffers from a big little city complex in most regions ive visited. There is a certain feeling of being disconnected from the rest of the world once you step outside or turn off the TV. Ive lived in Beckley my whole life and dont know the vast majority of the people in this city let alone and who share common interests. I bet nobody in this town knows my history on the internet or what i do for a living. At the same time, im just as uninformed about what other people in the area do or are capable of.
All of this relates to culture too. Not just e-culture, but any kind of culture. Large parts of West Virginia lack public outlets for creativity and thus are losing first dibs on talent to the internet or larger cities with a cultural scene.
I am taking steps to try to get a handle on the area’s talent atleast online. I have launched the website wvurl as a free service to everyone in hopes that people will have a tool to help share what they want to share. I do want to say that i am very proud of the state’s adoption of twitter. I was just telling a friend how West Virginia seems to miss out on all big things but it was our time, we were due for a kick in the pants and when we stepped up to the plate, we swung and knocked twitter out of the park.
In closing i just want to say that communication and networking are key. I have no doubt that we are on the right track to overcoming the problems i mentioned above, time is the only factor at play. How long do we want to wait for change? Personally, i dont want to wait. I try every day to make my own world a better place. I suggest we all start doing the same.
