Gimp is Gimp
I am using Gimp to resize some images for a presentation. After I finished, I tried to rename the images folder but no luck. Okay, time to fire up handy-dandy Unlocker 1.8 to see which application has a strong arm hold on the directory.
Wanna take a wild guess? I found one instance of PowerPoint and over 50 instances of Gimp with locks to the image folder. Nice job! If I save an image and close the editing window, it should release the lock. Is that too difficult? Am I doing something wrong here? Damn.
Chrome and GoDaddy
As mentioned a few weeks ago, I'm pimping Google's latest version of Chrome. For the most part, I like Chrome now versus the early clunkers. However, one MAJOR annoyance is that I cannot reply to GoDaddy Webmail via Chrome.
There are other quirks, but the main one is not being able to reply to "G" mail. Haha, had to sneak that one in, nice! Anyway, I found a couple of posts which describe similar issues with no apparent resolution. Which "G" is going to fix this? Anyone have the same issue?
Flakey Photographers
I am ready to drop a couple of "F" bombs, but will wait until I get this post out of the way. If you have been reading the sexy feet posts, you know that I am trying to launch a site for our readers. I dropped the ball a couple months ago, but continue to work on it.
The website stuff is ready, so I placed ads for the sexy feet models and met with a couple of photographers. The sexy feet models are eager and ready to shoot for the site, but the "professional" photographers have disappeared or changed their minds.
WellPoint Fee Increase
Has anyone read or following the WellPoint health insurance fee news? I am not an Anthem Blue Cross member, yet I am outraged that these reckless mofos are proposing increases up to 39%. Un-fucking believable or should I say, "business as usual"?
Apparently, U.S. Health Secretary Sebelius asked the company to justify the rate increase. Yes, I want to know the damn reason too. Squeeze your ass cheeks together, because you might just shit when you read their lame ass excuse. WTF?
"These rate increases are unfortunate but necessary to reflect the costs of paying for the medical services for our members in the current challenging environment," wrote Brian Sassi, head of WellPoint's Consumer Business Unit.
I am so pissed that I am speechless! Go figure. Keep an eye on this shit, because I am SURE others will follow. "Since WellPoint stuffed its members with a 39% increase, we can justify our hikes too!" Members need to kick these assholes to the curb.
Remove HPZ12 Drivers
I am going to refrain from throwing another SOB! out there, but do want to state that this is another one of those moments. I installed the HP Officejet J5700 Drivers on a notebook, because I had to print several documents.
Easy enough, I downloaded the driver, extracted the files, and ran the setup program. The notebook felt sluggish after the install, what is up now? The installer installed two services, which were not playing nicely with XP (resource hogs).
Car Rental Rates
Its time for another rant. As long as I can remember, car rental rates have been all over the board. Weekday and holiday daily rates are usually through the roof with weekends being a bit more realistic. Reserving a car weeks in advance can score you lower rates too.
I have not rented a car since I stopped traveling for work, so I was blown away when I tried to rent a car and saw the bend over daily rates. I need a car for Friday (not last minute, so the rates should not require a second mortgage right?), so I checked out Dollar.
Okay Dollar, are you going to hook me up with a deal or do me dry? SOB! This is twice in 2 days that I have had to yell out, "Son of a bitch!" Check out the screenshots below to see why I was pissed off. Oh, other agencies have/had higher daily rates. Go figure.
Damn Lowballers
Are you ready? Okay, I received an email from a recruiter inquiring about my availability and interest in two Sr. level positions. Nothing new, until I read the rates. The rates are $45.00 and $50.00 per hour respectively. Are you kidding me?
In addition to being insulted, I am blown away that rates have dropped so much. Let me tell you what I think. I am convinced that employers and recruiters are (ab)using unemployment and the recession as a crutch to lowball rates. Do not agree?
Another T-Mobile Scam
The following has occurred twice now, so I am going to assume it is NOT a coincidence. If I am using a lot of voice time and plan on going over the plan minutes, I will call T-Mobile and upgrade the voice plan versus risk paying overage charges.
Simple process and the representative will back date the plan, so I have immediate access to the additional plan minutes. Gee, that is great service. Wait one T-Bagger minute. What happens if I want to downgrade? The scammers will post date the downgrade.
Yup! You got it; one has to ride out their current plan until the end of the billing period. I called 5 days into a new billing period and had used less than 30 minutes. WTF! There is NO reason I cannot be downgraded immediately, right? Another scam alert!
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-eight is the number of OZ Galbi pieces served for two orders. I am over the damn flu and wanted to get my Korean BBQ on, so I headed over to our favorite grill off Bradshaw. I ordered two orders of OZ Galbi, one order of Pot Stickers, and two soft drinks. $80.00!
I think I received a couple more pieces this time, but cannot help feeling that $1.18 each is too expensive. The price is probably based on total weight, but averaged out per piece the price sucks. It is time to try Seoul Restaurant.
Hmm, I should mention that our waitress forgot to turn on the overhead fan and the smoke from the grill burned the crap out of my eyes. I had to wave her down and ask her to turn the fan on, because I felt like I was driving behind an oil burning beater.
Useless Error Messages
Time and time again, I encounter web sites that display useless error messages. Damn! Is it really that difficult to catch the exception and display a friendly error message? I guess the sites do not give a crap about user experience.
I visited the instructables.com site, executed a simple search, and was presented with the below. The error message is useless to "ALL" site visitors. I finally got past the lame search, but had to point out the lame behavior. Fail!
org.apache.solr.client.solrj.SolrServerException: Bad Gateway
Caused by:
Server side exception, status = 502: Bad Gateway
at org.apache.solr.client.solrj.impl.CommonsHttpSolrServer.request(CommonsHttpSolrServer.java:175)
at org.apache.solr.client.solrj.query.SolrQuery.process(SolrQuery.java:297)
at com.instructables.solr.SolrSearchServlet.doGet(SolrSearchServlet.java:494)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:115)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:92)
at com.caucho.server.dispatch.ServletFilterChain.doFilter(ServletFilterChain.java:106)
at com.caucho.filters.GzipFilter.doFilter(GzipFilter.java:208)
at com.instructables.filter.FilterWrapperFilter.doFilter(FilterWrapperFilter.java:47)
at com.caucho.server.dispatch.FilterFilterChain.doFilter(FilterFilterChain.java:70)
at com.instructables.filter.HibernateSessionRequestFilter.doFilter(HibernateSessionRequestFilter.java:48)
at com.caucho.server.dispatch.FilterFilterChain.doFilter(FilterFilterChain.java:70)
at com.instructables.filter.TemporaryProFilter.doFilter(TemporaryProFilter.java:77)
at com.caucho.server.dispatch.FilterFilterChain.doFilter(FilterFilterChain.java:70)
at com.instructables.filter.SecurityFilter.doFilter(SecurityFilter.java:140)
at com.caucho.server.dispatch.FilterFilterChain.doFilter(FilterFilterChain.java:70)
at com.instructables.filter.SetupFilter.doFilter(SetupFilter.java:68)
at com.caucho.server.dispatch.FilterFilterChain.doFilter(FilterFilterChain.java:70)
at com.caucho.server.webapp.WebAppFilterChain.doFilter(WebAppFilterChain.java:173)
at com.caucho.server.dispatch.ServletInvocation.service(ServletInvocation.java:229)
at com.caucho.server.http.HttpRequest.handleRequest(HttpRequest.java:274)
at com.caucho.server.port.TcpConnection.run(TcpConnection.java:514)
at com.caucho.util.ThreadPool.runTasks(ThreadPool.java:527)
at com.caucho.util.ThreadPool.run(ThreadPool.java:449)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:595)