iDessicate update

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Randy G

I’ve updated the iDesiccate program.

Thanks to Chris for bringing some bugs to my attention. I’ve fixed a situation where the program gets stuck on file and the Cancel button didn’t work.

Also thanks to Dan for providing some .m4A files to play with. I haven’t implemented any cleaning of those file types yet. Perhaps this winter when I have more time. Up here summer is so short, I try to make the most of it by being outside.

iDesiccate should update itself. It checks for a newer version when you open it, but doesn’t update until the next time you open it. So you’ll have to open it, wait about 5 seconds, close it, then open again. In the latest version it will only check for updates once a month.

iDesiccate can be downloaded and installed from here.

[5+ years later]

The source code can be downloaded here. As far as I am concerned, it’s public domain. It is written in C# for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.

Technology in the hands of the corporate addled-brained

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Randy G

Databases.

Dumbasses.

There are aspects of my life that are in probably hundreds of different databases. There is no way for me to know which databases I’m in and there is no way to correct errors when they’re discovered.

I live a in small town. Over the past six months or so, fewer and fewer companies will ship anything to me (including Amazon.com).

Why?

Because my street address is not in the United States Postal Service (USPS) database.

For some unknown reason, in many small mountain towns, the post office won’t deliver mail to our street addresses. They force everyone use a PO Box at the post office. (At first I thought it had to do with our harsh winters, but I noticed that people who lived outside of town get their mail delivered to their roadside mailboxes.) So according the USPS, my PO Box is correct and my street address is invalid.

The shipping companies like UPS, FedEx, DHL, etc. are just the opposite. They won’t deliver to a PO Box, but will deliver to the street address.

But some idiots at UPS and Amazon decided to use the USPS database to verify shipping addresses. Way to go! You’ve just knocked a whole town off the map. In the idiots’ small-minded world, everybody lives in the ‘burbs and everybody has a mailman and the lawns are mowed.

Why isn’t there an override button? Why can’t I go to the UPS website and create an address record that is correct? It’s like I can’t be trusted to know my own address.

No. The orders from just about anywhere on-line just get kicked backed in my face.

I’ve tried to contact UPS, but I don’t expect the effort to go far. The response so far is “I’m sorry your address isn’t in the database.” My reply was that an apology doesn’t fix the problem and to escalate this to someone who can fix it.

I guess the only alternative is to have the order shipped to a friend, an hour away in the city.

Reach Out and Touch a Cloud

Posted on July 21, 2011 by Randy G

I climbed a mountain today.

It wasn’t the first time I climbed a mountain, but it was the most euphoric.

It started off as a gorgeous day in paradise. I was on the trail by 7:30 am. Two hours later it was sprinkling. I had studied the weather. It wasn’t supposed to do that. I looked at the clouds; looked at the sky. I decided that there was no chance of lightning. The clouds weren’t tall enough. I wasn’t stopping. By the time I reached the top of the mountain, it was sunny again with white fluffy clouds. Perfect.

It was on the way down the euphoria set in. I wished I could have shared it, but finally decided that this was a personal euphoria that couldn’t be shared. If someone else had been with me, I probably wouldn’t have experienced it.

Here are the photos from the hike. Click for the larger versions.