CafeChatNoir

OK, so over on the trading forum I follow, it seems there have been some folks that have had problems getting to their online brokerages (mainly TD Ameritrade it seems) and they are understandably ticked off over the situation.  (It’s not like today’s volume in the markets is unprecendented, and one would reasonably expect that the site could handle it.)

Here is someone’s comment on all this:

Do people not understand volume that has hit the markets today? It is not necessarily the company you trade with, but more than likely your computer or router. The amount of data streaming into a personal computer will close certain ports if it exceeds what the computer sees as safe. The problem is on you, and your equipment, and your connection….not the multimillion dollar broker systems. Try using some common sense, and blame your mistakes and lost profits on the user.

Why on earth would E*Trade be sending me any more data when I log in today than it would any other day?  OK, there is that one extra hyperlink on the home page so I can read the list of financial companies that can’t be shorted for a while (pdf), but somehow I don’t think that is enough to shut down the ports on my computer and keep me from the website.

If a site is overloaded, it’s overloaded.

I wonder if he’s trying to justify upgrading his computer and buying a T1 line to his wife…

STILL having the issue with the posts, despite the upgrade.

Consider this a test to see what happens next…

Just got a news email that Gustav is now a Cat 5.

Still absorbing McCain’s VP pick. I know Palin is very well regarded among her constituents and it doesn’t appear that Alaska is about to fall into the ocean so I assume she’s not done too badly there. But, she’s pretty conservative and McCain didn’t really need that, cause the hard core conservatives weren’t going to be crossing over to the democrats anyway. Hate to think it was nothing more than a pandering move, but maybe it was.

Upgraded WP again and went ahead and blew away all my customizations and theme, which should take care of the disappearing posts issue, because it was something in the comment form, I just never figured out what - but now that I’ve got a shiny new untouched form, that should do it. Unfortunately, I’m having a hard time finding a theme that I like, so I’m going to give some of the theme generators a try and see if I can get things back to looking somewhat like they were before, if not better.

…

Anyone out there know what a reasonable lifespan for a very heavily used laptop would be?

Mine is 3 years old and starting to overheat again on occasion, and I’m trying to figure out if this is the beginning of the end or if taking it to the shop would make sense.  (Even if it is a huge pain in the ass and I’m not sure I want to shell out a lot of money on repairs if it’s just going to be a band-aid fix.)

Despite the fact that it took a while to get the router setup with the cable modem last night - it *was* working just fine.

This morning, I come downstairs, fire up my laptop, and get a connection.  I can get to my email, but not anything via browser…  ??!?

So, I’m working off my aircard for the moment and will figure out later what has already gone wrong with the router.

Or, unwired as the case may be. After a couple missteps, and many, many reboots, the server is setup in the basement, and the wireless router is on the cable modem, providing wireless access to:

2 laptops
2 TiVos
1 XBox
and possibly 1 DS

and even with all that going on, it’s still zippy fast.

And the timing couldn’t be better since we just got the cable upgraded and fully functioning and ready for internet.

The DSL has been down all day and currently I’m dialed in at an impressive 26.4 Kbps.

They just called and said there is a short in the line and they want to send a Covad tech out. Sorry, I’ve already put in my order with Cox and I’ll be picking up my modem and connect kit in the next day or so. I’m not monkeying around with techs and $200 service calls for a service that I won’t be continuing to use.

If you’re a troll with a VERY DISTINCT writing style and you have been banned from a site and keep coming back under different pseudonyms and don’t bother to change said writing style, don’t expect people to actually believe you aren’t the same moron.

Just sayin’.

Why, oh why must you puke all over me when I am trying to get things done? Why must my CD drive decide to be incredibly cranky today - when I really need to burn a CD today. When I will be heading out of town and won’t be able to have it fixed (if it won’t fix itself here soon) anytime in the immediate future? Why? WHY? Especially when I just had this drive replaced last spring?!?

Please, oh please, burn this CD. And actually let it read properly when it’s done. Is that really too much to ask?

ETA: And the cable just crapped out, too.

Nope, no iPhone for me. Not that it doesn’t look INCREDIBLY COOL, because it does, but I am just not going to pony up $600 for a phone and switch to AT&T’s service, especially when I already have a perfectly good phone and iPod. (Plus my alarming tendency to be incredibly rough on phones of late.)

But, I really would like to see one up close & personal. However, let’s face it, by the time the riots die down for it, it’s going to be like every other cell phone on display in an AT&T store. The battery will be dead, the screen will be cracked and the video will be in the form of a colored sticker on the screen and a disgruntled clerk telling you to “use your imagination.”

So, if anyone out there braves the whackos waiting in line to see one of these this weekend and gets to see it before it just becomes a battered piece of non-functioning metal chained to a display case, do tell if it seems to live up to the commercials.

Wordpress automatically comes with Akismet for comment spam catching, and it does a very good job.

What I don’t understand is the point of comment spamming… Most blogs I’ve run across automatically moderate the first comment from a particular person, and/or have something along the lines of Akismet. Now, when I get these, it’s not like I am going to actually click any of the links in them and they get deleted. So - what is the point of putting a bot out there to do this when the comments aren’t ever going to see the light of day?

Yeah, new and improved, my ass. Google reader has made some damn modification to that my keyboard is damn near useless when I have that page opened - can’t use the keyboard to get to the browser menu, it just starts activating crap on the page that I don’t use anyway.

Second, Starbucks is supposedly phasing out whole milk in it’s shops for 2%. If I wanted 2% milk, I’d ask for it. Don’t force someone else’s damn diet plan on me, thankyouverymuch.

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ has a free watermark program today - Watermark Factory 2 - only “catch” is that you have to download and install/activate it before midnight pacific time.

Thanks to Paperpath for passing on the link.

Many, many thanks to mendel for his help on this and providing a mod on ljxp to solve the post ID problem and the bit of code to put in the control panel to make it work.

Woohoo!!!!!!

I’ve almost got things the way I want them… I’ve finally gotten the ljxp crossposter to work - seems I had a bad/old version of it when I started out.

The comment count image is going in the posts…except that from what I can tell from what is displaying (-1) and reading the code, it seems to be deciding that the post ID is invalid and as such, tagging it w/the -1… I really like the idea of getting the comments on the site vs. LJ, especially since I found the “subscribe to comments” plugin so folks can get replies and I really want this to work.

There must be a way to fix it, just gotta figure it out…

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Or something. They’re calling for snow on Tuesday. They have no idea how much but are saying it could be “significant” - which means, “we have no freakin’ idea.”

What this means is get everything you need to hold you through Wednesday at the market tomorrow, cause on Monday, the locusts will be swarming in and the aisles will be cleared of milk, toilet paper, bread and boneless chicken breasts. I on the other hand, will be purchasing beef, tortillas, and porkchops if they have ones that look good.

Oh, , I found the plug-in that lets you subscribe to comments over on the WP side so you can get replies! And it seems to actually work! (I may eventually just turn off the LJ comment side so I can have everything in one place.) Unfortunately, I still don’t seem to be able to get the comment count thing working - it works in the RSS feed, but not in the crossposted stuff, which is frustrating, because it seems to be working for . It’s not the end of the world by any means, but annoying nonetheless.

Testing comment count plugin, and Open ID plugin.

(Neither of which seems to want to work…)

And no, I don’t mean that nifty concoction that comes in a can and if sliced thinly and fried up, is actually pretty good in it’s own weird way.

Nah, just talking about the seemingly unending crap that keeps ending up in my inbox. Now, the obvious solution is to just cancel all my email accounts and get a new one. But, it’s not the most practical way to handle it.

The worst offender is my Speakeasy email account, which I’ve had for at least 6 years. There is a server side filter, don’t know who they specifically use, but it at least tags emails and they get dumped to the “Who the fuck are you?” folder in Outlook. My domain emails aren’t quite as bad, but there is still enough to be annoying. LaughingSquid uses SpamAssassin, and again, it’s a server side app.

Now, the Speakeasy account will be going away as we’ll be switching ISP’s in the near future, and I’m thinking I’m just going to stick with my domain email and not use whatever the new ISP email has.

Now, what I’d really like (and the problem is I am not sure it exists) is an email app that can “talk” to SpamAssassin and I can blacklist items from within the app. I can do this in the webmail program LaughingSquid provides, but as a general rule, I don’t much like webmail and much prefer POP3 access.

At the moment, it seems the only thing I can do is blacklist/delete via webmail and then download the rest of the mail into Outlook. I’d really love a somewhat more automated/coordinated solution. If anyone knows of one, I’d love to hear about it.

Got my laptop back this afternoon, in almost working order. They neglected to actually activate the new drive, so 30 seconds of cussing and clicking and now I have a fully functioning system. It’s funny how you get completely used to a particular computer and then when you get stuck with another one, you’re just stumbling around in the dark for a while.

And I’m celebrating having a working CD/DVD drive again by ripping mp3’s off a bunch of CD’s. :)

Steve - I’m totally with you on this one. Trash DRM. Consumers want true portability, and DRM doesn’t help that. And shouldn’t it be about who is listening to the music?

Via the feed - tons and tons of kitties on the internet!

My del.icio.us account has been very, very handy this week with the laptop being in the shop. Just realized I’ve got over 300 links over there… Kinda crazy, but it’s nice to have it all in one place and accessible from anywhere.

Talked w/the service manager over at the shop, the DVD drive is on order and should be here in a day or so and he apologized for no one getting back to me, so here’s hoping it’s not much longer until I have my laptop again.

I’m getting a touch annoyed with the computer situation at the moment. I called again this afternoon to get a status and the tech working on my system was supposed to call me back. No call. If I don’t hear something in the next 30 minutes I’ll be shooting off an email to the service manager to find out WTF is going on with my machine.

I was OK with the initial delays in getting started on it, as I could see they were quite busy when I dropped it off, but not being able to get a status on it is ridiculous.

They have an online status, which in theory is great, but it requires the claim # (which I have) and the unit serial number… Which, no, I don’t have on hand.

I want MY laptop back with all of MY apps on it - I’m sick of webmail.

Called the shop to get a status on my laptop - they’d called earlier in the week letting me know how long the data backup would take (because it’s charged by the hour) and then said they’d call again once they had the estimate for the actual repair. And then I heard nothing.

So, I call in, give them the ticket number and the guy on the phone says, “I think that is the one they’re fighting with, let me check something.” Ummm, OK. Comes back, “Yeah, they’re definitely fighting with it, I can have one of the techs call you Monday and give you the full details.” OK. Sure. Crap.

Honestly, I didn’t see this as a particularly complicated situation. The CD/DVD drive is deasd and needs to be replaced. The laptop overheats, which to me says, take the back off, get out all the damn dust that I am sure is in there and double check the fans, heatsinks and thermal paste. Fighting with it should not be part of the equation.

And they wondered why I insisted on the data backup before they got started on things.

Know of any particular reason why sometimes the lj tags on my imported entries work and sometimes they don’t? Can’t find a rhyme or reason to it just yet - some imported months the tags look fine, others it just shows a blank space in the entry - if anyone has any grand insight, it would be greatly appreciated!

Edit: Nevermind, I think I just figured it out - seems to be if the LivePress plugin is activated, it converts the tags, and if not, it hates them.

The import of the older entries is moving along, if a bit slowly. Have to import, review for security and then tag everything. The tagging is the slowest part, but it will be worth it to have all the entries tagged and be able to pull them all up. (I think LJ’s limit is that it only picks up the last 100 entries on a tag.) At least the more recent items should already be tagged when they come in.

It’s interesting to re-read the older entries - been going through some items from when I was working at a Very Large Farked Up Corporation and a lot of the quotes I am pretty sure came from my brother, as he was also working at a Very Farked Up Corporation at the time as well and was always emailing me assorted pearls of wisdom.

The dishwasher is also now completely fixed, which is a very good thing. The last missing part was the grinder, so now I don’t have to obsess about making sure there isn’t any gunk on the dishes before they go in.

Have already had to contact support @ Laughing Squid over something minor, got a quick response back and I loved the signoff. “support ninja” Classic.

I like having something that is actually in the same domain in my site, so this is nice. Still haven’t been able to find an lj-crosspost plugin that works yet - , if you happen to see this, can you let me know what you’re using for your cross-posting?

Also haven’t been able to locate a working plug-in that provides post security.

But, there are quite literally hundreds of plug-ins, so I think I should be able to find something.