Category: Miscellaneous

If at first they refuse – harass, harass, harass, and threaten! [Updated 07/11/19]

Business, Miscellaneous, Rants

Brick WallIt has been roughly 10 weeks since “The Professor” sent a Cease and Desist letter to the company I work for concerning content on one of our client’s sites. We refused to bow to this individual’s demands and that was the beginning of the harassment.  At this point I count no less than 20 individual messages in my inbox.  The Professor has called the company I worked for numerous times and asked the same questions and received the same answers.

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Don’t post it to Twitter if you don’t want it used… [Updated 05/12/15]

Business, Miscellaneous, Rants

FacepalmAt the company where I work an individual that claims to be a Professor has sent us a ‘Cease and Desist’ letter.  In the letter the individual claims that one of our customers is using their their Twitter messages without their permission.  They demand we delete the customer’s data immediately and provide them all of the customer’s contact information.  I’m not sure what the laws say over in the UK where this individual is based but we will obviously not violate our Privacy Policy and reveal client information to a third party just because they demand it.

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The “right” to use a hosting service and vindictivity.

Miscellaneous

Anybody who has looked at having a web site has likely found that there are thousands if not tens of thousands of hosting providers they can choose from.  It’s common knowledge as well that a customer can end the service whenever they wish should they simply no longer need it, outgrow it, or simply find a better deal elsewhere.  Don’t get me wrong, there are some providers that make it difficult at best and impossible at worse to leave and one that comes to mind is 1&1 Hosting (look it up, you will see).

The inverse of a customer leaving a provider is a provider discontinuing the service of a customer.  This can happen for a lot of reasons from terms of service violations (i.e. doing something your provider clearly states you cannot do) to the user’s account using too much resources (i.e. hosting a site that needs a dedicated server on a $5/month shared account) and everything in between.  There are situations where a provider may also feel that they are not the proper fit for the particular customer’s needs, and that is what causes me to write this tonight.

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Camera+ Bug Resolved, Took longer than expected but happy to see it happen!

Miscellaneous

If you use an iPhone then chances are you’ve used Camera+ by Tap Tap Tap.  Camera+ is an excellent application that provides more information and allows additional features above and beyond what the basic camera application provides.  Burst Mode, Flashlight Mode, Displaying ISO, Aperture, and Shutter time, in-application photo editing and touchup, etc…  The biggest issue and disappointment for me when it comes to the iPhone and it’s built in camera application is low-light performance.

In many situations, with steady light, the iPhone camera works beautifully but in situations where the phone flashes the LED once to get exposure, then once again to actually take the picture I’ve found pictures are often washed and way over-exposed or very under-exposed.  Only about 1 in 20 images I’ve ever taken with the default application in low-light that required the LED flash came out decent.

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If you ever make Kraft EasyMac, you should not walk away while it cooks in the microwave

Miscellaneous

Kraft EasyMac Meltdown My wife and myself have enjoyed Kraft’s EasyMac for a while now, popping one in the microwave when we wanted some macaroni and cheese but didn’t feel like going through the trouble of cooking some on the stove.  We’ve probably cooked several hundred of these little containers over the last few years and never have we experienced the issue that we experienced tonight.  I’m not writing this to give Kraft a bad name, but simply to make anybody who enjoys this food aware of this very serious potential issue.

We opened this container, filled it to the line with cool water, and placed it in the microwave for 3 minutes and 30 seconds just as we always have.  I watched the countdown of the microwave for about the first 20 seconds so I know for sure beyond any shadow of doubt that the microwave was set appropriately.  With about 60 seconds left to go on the microwave I walked back into the room to get ready to pull it out and mix in the cheese when I noticed that I could not see the EasyMac container within the microwave.  I opened the microwave door and was essentially ‘hit in the face’ by smoke and was shocked to see this melted container. Continue reading

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Apple Retina MacBook Pro 15″ – Manufacturing Defects, Popping, and Creaking – Resolved October 31, 2012

Miscellaneous, Reviews, Technology

As of October 31st, 2012 I officially consider this issue resolved positively. Apple replaced the MacBook Pro on the spot after identifying the issue as the adhesive between the battery and the upper case. Do please read the updates at the bottom of this post for full details. Thanks!

I use Apple hardware for almost everything these days for a few reasons including but not limited to: build quality, operating system and features, ease of use, fit and finish, and support.  When you buy a $2,200 laptop from Apple, a $800 iPad, or anything else – you generally expect it to be the utmost of quality and to ‘just work.’  This has been my experience with every Apple product I’ve owned so far until now.

I purchased a base-model Apple Retina MacBook Pro 15″ from the Keystone Apple Store on the north side of Indianapolis on October 6th, 2012.  I was very happy with the machine, that is, until I was sitting in my quiet hotel room during the cPanel Conference in Houston, Texas on October 8th, 2012.  I found that the space bar was making such an unbearably loud ‘screech’ when pressed that there was no way I could possibly continue using the machine.  I called AppleCare and they directed me to take the machine to the Apple Store in the Houston Galleria Mall, which I did.

I walked up to the Genius Bar for my appointment and explained the issue to the technician.  He said that he could not hear it in the store, as Apple stores are almost always loud, and wanted to take it into the back to see if he could hear it, which I said was fine.  After a minute or two in the back the tech re-appeared and agreed that the noise was unbearably loud and he said that he could understand why I was unhappy.  He actually removed the key to see what was wrong, and found that when removed the key was nearly translucent.  He explained that the key was simply a manufacturing defect.  In trying to put the key back on, it even chipped. Continue reading

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WHMCS Version 5.1 Fixes for “Sticky Client Notes”

Miscellaneous

WHMCS Version 5.1 contains a couple of simple administration template bugs that make using the “Sticky Notes” difficult at best.  I just downloaded a fresh copy of WHMCS 5.1 to make sure that this wasn’t already fixed, and it’s not.  I’m creating this post so that you can apply the fix yourself and make use of the sticky notes if you wish.

As it stands on the “V4” template, which I prefer, any ticket viewed with a sticky note will push all contents of the ticket down below the end of the left side-bar.  If you use the “V4” administration template and have tried sticky notes, you’ve surely seen this yourself.  The second issue with the templates affects the “V4”, “Blend”, and “Original” administration templates.  When viewing a ticket with a “Sticky Note” the edit button does not link to the proper location as it does not contain the client ID. Continue reading

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BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee [rant]

Miscellaneous, Rants

A lot has been changing in my life over the last 12 months, and it has been a while since I have written a post.  I have been staying pretty busy with work and family, the business has been growing and I’m about to hire a new full-time employee.  My family is also growing, as I my wife and I will be having our first son come August.  Having a growing family means that health coverage has become a new priority for me, where I have been without health insurance for the last ten years or so.  While I can’t say that I know anybody who loves insurance companies or their practices, I can certainly say that of all I have worked with BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee is the worst so far.

I’ll have to give a bit of a preface and I’ll start by saying that my wife has had health insurance through BlueCross BlueShield of Arkansas for a couple of years.  We had no issues with them when it came to doctors visits, prescriptions such as Nexium for my wife’s chronic heartburn, Advair for her asthma, or anything else that she needed medically.  My wife does have terrible acid reflux to the point of her aspirating acid into her lungs resulting in damage and regular asthma flareups.  She has been on Nexium for about two years and over those two years her asthma has gone from putting her in the hospital almost every few months to almost non-existent.  That is, until we changed to BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee…

My wife went to refill her Nexium prescription at CVS and was told that BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee was requiring prior authorization for the prescription.  They claim that without a “level 3 esophagus erosion” that Nexium is not necessary and that over the counter Prilosec, which is effectively half the effectiveness and twice the out of pocket price, is all that she needs.  Keep in mind that she already had chronic acid reflux resulting in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD for short, and now she is pregnant which is known to cause acid reflux in those who have never had heartburn in their lives.

Taking this all a step further with my wife being pregnant, having chronic acid reflux, and asthma she now also has gestational diabetes.  Gestational diabetes is essentially, as the doctor explained it to us, where her body cannot quite keep up with the insulin demand of her and the baby and, as such, she is effectively diabetic for the duration of the pregnancy.  The doctor wrote my wife a prescription for a meter, test strips, etc…  When we went to CVS Pharmacy to fill these prescriptions as they are required to monitor her blood sugar to avoid serious complications such as diabetic coma, damage to her and the baby, and a long list of other side effects of diabetes CVS informed us that BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee is rejecting the prescriptions and that BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee requires “prior authorization.”

For whatever reason BlueCross BlueShield in what appears to be every attempt they can make to keep every penny they are paid, seems to require prior authorization for every prescription my wife has been written.  I am beginning to wonder what the point of having insurance is, if they are going to reject all claims while continuing to accept payments for the insurance coverage.  We never faced this issue with BlueCross BlueShield of Arkansas, so it’s obvious the administrators in Tennessee are, at the least, greedier.  If a doctor writes a patient a prescription for a blood sugar meter and test strips, what does the insurance company think?   Do they think that we are making this up so that we can get one over on them when it comes to a $110 prescription of blood glucose test strips?

Why is BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee requiring prior authorization from the doctor for a brand new treatment on a brand new medical issue, especially gestational diabetes?  None of this makes any sense at all to me.  I thought it was in the best interest of the insurance provider to make sure issues such as these are taken care of to avoid other, bigger issues down the road that result from lack of treatment.

At the end of the day, if you are looking for a health insurance company and BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee is on your list, you may want to look at alternative options.

Disclaimer: All information contained within is factual to the best of my knowledge.  Any information that is not purely factual is my opinion.  In the event that information is presented as factual when in reality it is not, there is no malice intent and I will be happy to make an update or correction when it is brought to my attention.

Update 1 – 06/13/2012 2:30 PM

The blood glucose meter that my wife was provided by her OBGYN was a OneTouch Ultra Mini, however, the insurance company is absolutely refusing to pay for the test strips for this meter.  They have informed us that our only option is to choose a testing strip that they will pay for (read: cheap) and then to go buy a matching meter out of pocket although we already have a perfectly functional blood glucose tester.

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WordPress “Yet Another Related Post Plugin” or “YARPP”…

Miscellaneous

# Query_time: 9 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 0 Rows_examined: 4281017

Now if you’re not a webmaster, server administrator, or developer the above line may not mean too much to you.  I understand that many people who install WordPress and dozens or more plugins really have no idea what it takes for that to all “work”.  In this particular case the above line is one single query made by the “Yet Another Related Post Plugin” on a WordPress database.  The query took 9 seconds and examined over 4.2 MILLION rows of data – and this was done on a shared web hosting server. Continue reading

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Samsung High Efficiency Front Loading Washer & Dryer

Miscellaneous, Technology

So my wife and I just moved into a new apartment and either our old washer got damaged during the move or it just decided to give up the ghost.  We hooked the old set up and woke up the next morning to a huge pool of water in the laundry room!  Needless to say that the wife was not very happy with the situation and we began perusing craigslist.com looking for a replacement set.

We ended up buying a used washer and dryer that turned out to be a not-so-great purchase.  The set appeared to work fine however once we got them home and tried using them we quickly found out that the washer didn’t pump any cold water even on the “cold” setting but instead only used hot water.  The dryer also did a good job of drying but it sounded almost as if the drum was hitting the side of the dryer as it was running… Needless to say that I decided that buying a used washer and dryer wasn’t a good idea so I went to my local HHGregg store to look at a new set.

It’s been a long time since I’ve looked at major home appliances, at least several years, and I expected them to be around $1,000 or more per unit and was surprised to find this unit MSRP’d at $799 listed at $649 each at HHGregg!  I negotiated the price down with the salesman to $580 per unit and I feel I got a pretty good deal on the set.  I had to drive to the north side of Indianapolis, which is around a 45 minute drive from our apartment, to pick up the set.  I could have waited for the local store to get the units in stock however we had laundry that needed done and I really just wanted to bring them home that day.

I have to say that Samsung packed the appliances quite well!  The washer’s drum was supported from below on molded Styrofoam and the drum was held in place by four shipping bolts and spacers.  After getting the set fully unpacked and installed I ran them through an empty cycle to make sure that they were working as they should and then I got to washing laundry!

The washer uses an extremely low amount of water, so little that I was almost worried it wouldn’t get anything cleaned.  I quickly ran a full load through the washer and was amazed as it spun the drum up to 1,300 RPM during the spin cycle in perfect balanced harmony due to the Vibration Reduction Technology.  The washer is nearly completely silent as it does it’s job and the dryer is similar in that it’s extremely quiet.

At the end of the day – if you’re looking for a new washer and drier I can highly recommend Samsung appliances.  The estimated yearly operating cost of the washer is $14 if you’re using an electric water heater and $8 if using a gas powered heater.

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