Geeky Ramblings

Mar 04 2012

I Do Not Believe in Evolution!

Categories:

Rants and Raves

Yes, you read that right.

I do not BELIEVE in Evolution.

Why?

It’s simple … you CANNOT believe in evolution.

Popularity: 4%

Tags: belief, education, evolution

Feb 24 2012

Renting Glass

Categories:

Shutterbug

As many of you probably know … I’m a shutterbug … I put myself in the ‘serious amateur’ category.

My camera of choice is a Canon 7D … and I have two lenses currently. A Canon 70-300 zoom and the lens that came with the camera and a Canon 28-135 “kit” lens. Both have in lens image stabilization and are quite adequate for my uses.

That said … I’ve heard great things about Canon’s “L” line of lenses. These are higher end lenses that have better quality optics.

For my current trip to Hawaii, I planned on taking a lot of pictures of surfers and whales (it is whale season in Maui). In the past, I’ve had reasonably good results with my current lenses, but wanted to try out some a higher end lens.

A bit of digging around on the internet and I found LensRentals.com … they had a wide range of lenses available and, as an added bonus, they would ship the lens you rented direct to your destination.

Popularity: 4%

Tags: canon, hawaii, lenses, maui, photography

Jan 05 2012

A1C

Categories:

Diabetes, Health

As someone who has type 2 diabetes, tracking my blood glucose levels is very important.

The problem is … tracking your glucose levels on a daily basis isn’t really enough … at least it’s not enough for me.

Everyone who has diabetes should be getting their A1C tested on a periodic basis. The A1C value represents a 3 month running average of your blood glucose levels. People with well controlled diabetes have an A1C level under 7%. Non-diabetic levels are below 6%. The American Diabetes Association has a good writeup on A1C.

Getting your A1C tested usually means going to your doctors office and having it tested. Sometimes this can be done with a simple finger stick blood test but, often, it requires a full blown blood draw (nobody likes those).

Popularity: 3%

Tags: a1c, diabetes, health

Rants and Raves, Security

Jan 02 2012

Spontaneous Security

Categories:

Over the holiday weekend, I experienced the ultimate computer security mechanism:

“Spontaneous Security”

I was using my new Dell Latitude E6420 to do some network reconfiguration when the machine started acting weird with regard to the network.

Since this machine runs Windows 7, I decided to just reboot it to clear the network configuration.

After I restarted the machine I was asked for a password by the BIOS.

The odd thing was … I never set a BIOS password.

Popularity: 3%

Tags: bios, dell, e6420, latitude, password, Security

Dec 30 2011

GoDaddy is getting desperate

Categories:

Give me a break!

OK, it’s kind of obvious that GoDaddy is getting desperate … after the whole SOPA flap, and their rather abrupt back tracking, I decided that enough was enough … it’s time to move domain registrars.

The first step in moving registrar’s is to remove the transfer lock on the domains … this lock prevents the domain from being transfered to another registrar without your permissions.

When I tried to do this at Go Daddy, I noticed a new bit of text on the dialog …

“Go Daddy opposes SOPA”.

Um … yeah … right.

Sorry guys, but you can’t change your positions that fast.

Dec 20 2011

Employment History

Categories:

Work

A lot of my peers are getting active on ‘Professional’ social networking sites … like LinkedIn.

The question I have is: If you worked at a company that went through a number of acquisitions (like I do) … do you list the employment at each company individually from the date of the aquisition … or do you use the date that you started with the first company, but still list the new company?

2 comments

Dec 20 2011

Discover Card Fail, then Win

Categories:

Life

This is a case of Discover card FAIL followed by a Discover card WIN.

In early December, Bally Fitness sold the bulk of it’s health clubs to LA Fitness.

As you might have heard in local business news, the transfer was not handled very well by Bally or LA Fitness.

Well, to add insult to injury, Bally almost screwed me over.

In late November, they charged my Discover card $240 for my annual renewal … unfortunately, I had never approved the charge.

Dec 11 2011

AT&T Microcell and Routers

Categories:

Technical Tidbits

Our area has never gotten good cell phone coverage. Doesn’t really mater what carrier we used … AT&T or Verizon.

When AT&T announced that it was going to be making “MicroCells” available, I decided to get one … as it would help our cell phone coverage.

The MicroCell has been working fine for more than a year … but, all of a sudden (or so it seemed), it stopped working correctly.

I contacted AT&T and they tried a few things and asked me to try cycling power (unplugging it and plugging it back in). Nothing worked. I asked them to check to see if it was still under warranty … it wasn’t.

Popularity: 3%

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Nov 07 2011

My NEW Favorite Quote

Categories:

General

The Illini Secular Student Alliance responds to the notorious Brother Jed …

We will oppose your hate and venom with love and laughter, and we will win

Brother Jed is a frequent visitor to many college campuses where he preaches fire & brimstone to students on the public areas.

I actually saw Jed when I was attending (albeit briefly) Illinois State University back in the mid 80′s.

Is strategy was pretty simple … if you weren’t as devout as he was, you were going to hell. He simply yelled and screamed the same mantra ad nauseam.

In my opinion, Brother Jed has a serious psychiatric problem that needs treatment. But I pretty much think the same about most religious extremists.

You can find more information about Brother Jed on Wikipedia.

Popularity: 3%

Tags: college, crazies, religion