Exstatica

This whole post started from the iPhone VS HTC EVO debate.

I’m frankly kind of sick and tired of comparing these phones, there is one huge issue with every comparison.

We’re going to start with types of users.

Heavy User: A user who knows how to abuse their phone, hacks/cracks, or even listens to streaming Pandora all day long, maybe watches youtube for a few hours. They sync with their networks constantly. Usually 6-8 hours on their phone a day.

Power User: A user who syncs with multiple services, has multiple email accounts, social networking, phone usually set to the default of an hour or 2, most email set as items arrive. Has lots of applications installed, and plays about 3-4 hours a day on their phone.

Common User: A user who uses their phone to check facebook, sms, take a few pictures. A pretty common user spends an average 1-2 hours a day on their phone.

Lets compare that per platform.

I’m going to put some very good educated guesses on what this data is. I’ve done some research, and I think its mostly accurate.

First up is Android Users;

So what we have here is a chart showing the breakdown of data for an Android Handset. As you can see Power users are set the highest. The reason is more of a catch 22. Google, and HTC build these phones for Power users. The issue is everyone is becoming a Power user. So when a common user picks up this phone, they are prompted to input all of their logins and networks, and everything. Next thing you know the device is syncing with half the world. That user now becomes a power user by default. I don’t care if you stopped using your phone, you’re phone has now made you a Power User.

How does this effect battery life?  We’ll get to that in just a minute.

Now iOS (iPhone) Users.

Left chart is Pre iOS 4 users.

Right are users who are Post iOS

See the huge difference? iOS users are going to change. Welcome to the club.

The new OS is just like Android. its user friendly, and wants to you connect to all of your happy places. So instead of users becoming common users by default on an Apple Phone, they now automatically upgrade to a Power user. I call this Natural Progression of Technology VS Industry Progression of Technology. People want more, but need it faster.

Technology is a great thing, but there has always been an issue of user demands vs technological development. We have finally reached that point where Technology cannot keep up with our Natural need of information, and connectivity.

So lets talk about importance here. Battery life, its the pinnacle of our downfall in the technology world. This has created a smartphone war.

Lets put aside the app stores, OSes, features, and who has the biggest megapixel. Lets talk about something that effects everyone regardless of platform. Battery life effects us all. iPhone is no exception… well at least not yet. You don’t think the iOS 4 is going to effect battery life? Multitasking brings on a huge amount of change. It changes the behavior of users. It changes how you will use your phone, you will become a power user no matter how hard you try not to.

So just be warned, that while companies are improving battery life, the technology just doesn’t exist yet. No matter how bad you want it.

So complain all you want about my HTC EVO’s battery life, its fine, I get 10+ hours on a charge, but I know what to run and not what to run. Hopefully, Foyo will solve a lot of those issues.

Seriously? Do people have nothing else to do?

ok backstory…

The Mojave Cross is a memorial that was created in 1934, put there by the Veterans of Foreign Wars as a memorial to World War I dead. It was originally made out of wood, but is now currently made out of painted metal. It was situated in public land until about 1994, it then became part of the 1.6 million acres known as the Mojave Land Preserve. In 1999 some Douchey Mc Douche named Frank Buono from the ALCU decided that his life wasn’t already worthless enough, and decided to complain. His complaint is that the cross is a symbol of Christians, and as a war memorial it wasn’t equal rights because not all people who went to war were Christian.

So they want the cross removed. Who f-ing cares? I mean seriously. Its a cross in the middle of the desert, that serves as a reminder to some people who went to war and sacrificed their lives for our country.  Its not about religion, it was about freedom. Who cares if there was a Jew, a Muslim, or any other religion. They fought not for any of those things, they fought for our freedom.

Just leave it, its not hurting anyone, if it is get over it. Its not like my neighbors wind chimes that offend my Audiology, make me want to call the ACLU. They are just wind chimes.

So let me get this right. Were broke, the economy sucks, natural disasters everywhere, war, and all the other crap going on in this country, we are complaining about a cross in the middle of the fucking desert.

I’m going to build a super high tech, crazy fast rocket engine, build me a space ship, and find me planet Common Sense.

So this super douche Frank, who used to work for the park service by the way, and is now retired and hates his pension, decides its a great idea to sue the government.  He took it to court, won, and they ordered it removed. In 2003 the Congress ($$$$$) decided to move land private. So now the big bad SUPREME COURT steps in and eventually refused to order the removal of a congressionally endorsed war memorial cross by a vote of 5 to 4.

I just don’t see the point, leave it be. Its called preserving history. If there was a penis carved in cement for 75 years on my front porch. I’d leave it. History is our lives, its how the world changed, and it changes by people, nature, moments, and things that actually matter like how we take care of the present.

Anyway the Supreme Court judges all made speeches on their person opinion. Which I think is very fair, at least we know they are still people. One particular Judge I found spot on. His name, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, and he said:

“A Latin cross is not merely a reaffirmation of Christian beliefs. It is a symbol often used to honor and respect those whose heroic acts, notable contributions and patient striving help secure an honored place in history for this nation and its people”

Lets just stop wasting time on political correctness and focus on real issues.

company A just enforced signatures to be standard. While I agree there should be some standardization across the company, the way they are requiring them to be formated is complete insanity.

For example, this is the signature they are requiring.

FirstName LastName | Position
Company X, Inc.
123 Place St, Suite 1,  City, ST, 12345
Office: 310-555-1212 | Toll Free: 800-555-1212
Direct: 310-555-1222 | Fax: 310-555-1234

Email: n...@company.net    Web: http://www.company.net

Business Grade Voice & Data Solutions
VoIP | Broadband | Co-location | Professional Services

- Notice: Please use “Reply to All” when responding to this email.
- For general support please call 800-555-1234or email supp...@company.net.
- For billing, sales or the general office please call 310-555-1234.

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail transmission, and any documents, files or previous e-mail messages attached to it may contain confidential information that is legally privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, or a person responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of any of the information contained in or attached to this transmission is STRICTLY PROHIBITED. If you have received this transmission in error, please immediately notify the sender. Please destroy the original transmission and its attachments without reading or saving in any manner. Thank you.

Alright, so lets make an signature that takes up an entire page. Here is an alternative

FirstName LastName | Sr. Network Engineer
Company Inc.
123 Place St, Suite 1,  City, ST, 12345
Main: 310-555-1212, x123| Fax: 310-555-1222
n...@company.net | http://www.company.net

Notice: Use “Reply To All” when responding.
For general support please call 800-555-1212 or email supp...@company.net. For billing, sales or the general office please call 310-555-1212.

I would make the company name a little bigger, but disclaimers don’t really do anything, granted they might have some purpose in court but for the most part they are going to be looking at the content of the email. If it is the intended recpient taking you to court the content has no value, if its someone else, someone that the email wasn’t intended for then it might serve a purpose. However employees shouldn’t be sending email that could put the company at risk to people in the first place. We provide support and sales stuff. I’m not sending medical records, the whitehouse blueprints.

Also in the first example the numbers are duplicated, why would we put such information twice in an email? why do we need to put all this office stuff and then in a notice put it again? I can’t really imagine why.

Anyway thats my rant for the day.

In recent communications with a consultant doing some work for us, I find myself more and more frustrated every day.

First some base rules.

1. If you have my IM, it means its ok to talk to me. You do not need to preface every start of the conversation with Drew? I know my name, yes, you can call me that.

2. Get to the point, putting a whole back story to it, when all you really have is a single question then just ask that single question, if I don’t understand your question then I’ll ask you the right questions.

3. short sentences = BAD. Do not send me one word at a time. If you have something to say, spend a little time writing in a longer message. I’m not going anywhere, and if I am, my conversation is stored somewhere, I’ll be able to go back and read it. Its not lost forever.

4. If I’m away or you know I’m mobile do not blow up my IM. If I don’t respond its because either I don’t like you, or I’m busy. Either way give me some time to respond to you.

5. If its going to be a really long IM, and you don’t have a question, or you need to explain something in detail. I have email. I know I know its crazy, I mean who has email, its just so expensive and challenging to use. I’ve overcome that feat, I took 8 years of email understanding classes, but I have it down.

6. Do not use IM to send me pictures or songs, or any sort of file transfering. I don’t want your crap in a folder that I’ll probably forget about in 10 minutes anyway. There are services, its called Image hosting. Infact let me google that for you. Or if you are so compelled use mine. img.exstatica.net

7. Pasting huge amounts of text. I’m going to just block you. Stop pasting me huge conversations of crap, I don’t care, use email, hey I even have a paste area.

8. If you know its the middle of the night for me, try to see if I’m around before you start to just spam my IM client with crap. I use my phone alot, I don’t need to wake up to random conversations.

Overall please don’t abuse peoples IM and get right to the point. Thats the biggest gripe. Giving me all this info that I don’t need just to ask me a question that has nothing to do with the previous messages pisses me off.

FYI most of these rules don’t apply to general conversations. If you’re one of my friends, and you want to just chat, its a little different. I have this thing that I really pride myself in. Its called Common sense. I know its rare, and you may not even know what it is.

Common Sense – Washing your hands on a certain basis to avoid illness.

No Common Sense – Walking across the street in the face of oncoming traffic during a green light.

I’ve been kinda sorta playing wow for almost 4 years now. I’ve worked my way up and up into the hardcore raiding and then well burnt out. I have only one 80, its my Druid. I haven’t really played another character much, just my druid. I went Resto, and became the best healer in my guild. I enjoy healing, I’m good at it, and I’m fast. But raiding 4-5 nights a week is overkill. I have a real life, it keeps me way to busy and I just can’t find the time to play anymore.

Sister and myself used to be in the same guild, we raided together, we pretty much always played together. I got burn’t out before her, but she was not far behind. She recently began playing again on an alt. She rolled a Druid on another server to kind of enjoy the fun parts of playing wow. She is around 25. I have a 31 priest on a server that I never play so I moved that character over so we could all just screw around again.

Not 24 hours later did I move my 80 . You see as my low 31′ness, I helped a guild sign a charter (if you have no idea what I’m talking about you can just ignore this whole post) Became a “founding” member of a guild and noticed that everyone in this guild was transferring from other servers, it was kind of a fresh start for everyone. So why not me? Its a local server, great raid times, and I don’t have to be all hardcore raid. Since I have great gear, and I can heal like Sushi heals my soul. Why not.

So we’ll see how it plays out. I’m kind of excited, but I’m a little weary as I have a pretty busy life as it is. Between work, and general life. I don’t want to be sucked all the way back into this fictitious world. Although PVP is always a great way to get some stress out, I mean who doesn’t feel good to just go and kill something with some friends? I know I do.

Screenshot of my UI

WoW UI

Ok so Look at this picture to the left. This was a post titled…

If My Brain Ran Windows, This Would Be How My Task Manager Looks

So this is a great image, however the order is all messed up for me. Food and Drinks are usually important, sex is great. If I had to reorder this it would be as follows

Drink
Play
Sex
Food
Work

So ok, Well there is an issue here, sadly work tends to be first. I love playtime. It doesn’t have to be sexual, just has to be fun, random, and probably a little crazy. Only because if you can’t enjoy life, than what is the point. While I can be the responsible adult that I forced myself to become due to the way I grew up. I am still a kid at heart, and while some people don’t get my sense of humor, I frankly don’t care. If you don’t like me… well I hate you too.

Alright, so i decided that I’d do this whole blog thing and not use aboutmylife. Its still in development, and my blog will probably be eventually moved back over there. but its still got a lot of work to make it a competing product. So it will be back soon I promise.

Besides that I’ve been pretty busy with a ton of work, and its been eating my life up.

Yes I hate SalesLogix, I wish they could make a software package that doesn’t crash.

Gonna go get some lunch now, i’ll finish customizing this a lot later.