Soft Serve Direct

.. rdavies@ssdirect.com .. the computer guy .. 388-4332 Box 152 Magrath, AB T0K 1J0

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Dear Canada Post

How to influence people and lose customers ..

Just got back from the post office. 'Great' service, eh?

Our little town only has a Postal Station - no house delivery. I have a Post Office Box Number, which generates a nasty note (if they put it in my box) if anyone forgets to put on the sacred number.

When I moved to Magrath, we found it easier to just piggyback on my Mother's post box we just all had a key. Meanwhile, 15 years later, the Lions Club needed a box so that they could receive mail at a common location. Mr Canada Post said no. I said why not? They said because the club has no street address. So I said, what about mine (unused for the past 15 years). They reluctantly said maybe .. reluctantly .. ok and gave me my requested new box number.

So now I am using two box numbers. My spouse is used to the old number and does not wish to change. I am slowly switching much of my business mail over to the new one.

The problem? Today I received a package in the mail (new passports, but that is another long sad story) that required a signature and a piece of government issued photo id. Since I had requested it be sent to my new box number, Mr Canada Post employee must see my ID with my picture and current 'address' (box number not street number). In the past, since we have lived here most of my life, this step was never necessary. So .. my ID has the old number .. not the new one and they 'cannot' release my package. Hmmm. Thanks for the service. There solution? Go to the other government office and pay for a change of address which should show up in about two weeks. So, how do I pick up that piece of mail (since it would be my new ID)? Sad times for Mr Canada Post.

Result: I am doing ALL I can to move ALL my mail to alternative means - email, courier, homing pigeon .. whatever works .. since Mr CPC does not work for me.

Arrrggg

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Vista not getting Dynamic IP address

Client came in complaining that her Windows Vista laptop had stopped connecting to her wireless router. After clean up and updates, it still refused to connect. I mean, it connects fine, but does not end up with an automatically assigned IP address. Internet connection by wired cable worked fine. The Wireless Internet just draws a blank. Mr Google tells us that many other fine users have experienced this fun situation, but unfortunately, none of their solutions seemed to help at all. We initially ended up just disabling the "Obtain an IP address Automatically" checkbox and manually assigning an appropriate IP (ie for router in 192.168.1.x range we chose an IP like 192.168.1.111). Once the IP is set, the the wireless internet works as expected. What would Mr Gates say?

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OpenDNS vs DynDNS Conflict Resolved

I knew something was wacky .. but it sure took a long time to figure out just what. I use an ancient Dell computer with WinXP on my network to run the OpenDNS and DynDNS updater clients. Everything else on my system is running Linux but these programs only work under XP, so .. whine. Their job is to monitor my current IP address and send updates to OpenDNS and DynDNS for me if they ever change so that you can find me on the internet and so I can find only good stuff on my connections.

So one day the OpenDNS client started reporting a different IP address for my network than the DynDNS client did. Running http://whatismyip.com showed that the OpenDNS one was wrong and the corresponding error message linked to a short article stating that the DNS IP vs the HTTP IP were not the same and that is why my IP address was hooped. Hmm.

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Lost on the Net ..

Lost on the Net ..

I can’t settle on a favorite platform to post my insights on. I like Joomla but all my Joomla websites enjoy the almost exact look and feel. OK for ‘my’ sites, but not everyone wants to look just like me (he he). I am also testing out tumblr and twitter and facebook and google+ and even wordpress and weebly and google sites.This post was originally on tumblr which should have forwarded to twitter which should be passed on my 3 friends at facebook, but getting that content back from those sites to links on my websites is unnecessarily awkward. I usually end up double posting the content back where it should end up .. like here .. when I get time. Joomla is a CMS that I never use as one, because I really only have those 3 friends. So most of my sites end up like a large personal blog. Setting up a Joomla site for others to use has been less than successful due to the need to train users in entering passwords and basic html code. Their eyes start crossing and I have to back them slowly away from the computer screen.

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JPEG 2000 file print

Client came in with a JP2 file that Windows would not open. He had scanned and emailed the original document to his son. Son had printed and filled out the form, and then scanned and emailed it back. Unfortunately the resulting file was received as a JPEG 2000 format JP2 file. Son used some kind of Mac software .. and the client needed it to be printed. So, what is JP2 and why is Windows unable to open or view it? JP2 is just an updated version of JPEG images, proposed way back in 2000 to replace standard JPEG 1 format files .. It's just that very few programs support the proposed update because it is proprietary and those programs must pay a sizable licencing fee to incorporate it in their software.  Newer versions of Photoshop support it, for example, but I for one do not feel inclined to spend $650 on a piece of software that can be easily replaced by free and open source software like GIMP.

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