Desultory Thoughts

I came across a blog [Lifehacker.com] tonight that posted an article that clued me into yet another reason why I love Google Earth!

I love maps and I’m not afraid to admit it. I once made fun of a guy in my MTC District for saying that he loved maps, and now I feel really bad about it. (That was obviously before I discovered my own love of maps. It does sound geeky, you have to admit.)

Ever since Google released Google Earth, I’ve been a huge fan of finding new ways to have fun with it, from creating my own map overlays for mountain bike trails that I ride (download my Goosebury Mesa overlay [kmz file for Google Earth], Southern Utah), to using it to scope out and map the networks in my neighborhood (commonly known as wardriving), now I can track my parents flight from Houston to Salt Lake in 3D with the help of Google Earth and a new feature on Aroseek’s website [aeroseek.com]. This new tool allows you to download a kmz that opens in Google Earth and then updates the flight path of the flight that you are tracking once per minute.

I may have to add a “Map” category if I keep blogging about maps and stuff!

I liked seeing the things that people came up with on the new series (the American Idol spinoff…or should I say “ripoff”), American Inventor [abc.go.com]. However, they really milked it. CRYING by three of four judges when they were presented with a one-man sandbag filler was ridiculous. Heather and I thought they must be joking! When they cried over the “EZ-Ex”, we weren’t crying with them either. (Funny thing is, if my Mom watched this show, she was probably choking up with them.)

Here are some things that you shouldn’t try to invent because they already failed:

• Walking Buddy (A wand that wards off bears and attackers)
• An amp plug in the back of the guitar (amp plugs are normally in the front)
• Boot tree (holds boots)
• Pee Buddy (A suit holder that you wear while you pee in public)
• Space Beetle Farm (Spin-off from the ant farm)
• “Clothes” for your car
• Smoking Gun (For flavoring meat & potato chips with hickory smoke)
• Social Training on DVD for 3-5 year olds*
• Fresh End (a soap dispenser for your butt)
• Tizzy Tube (children can “express themselves” in an air-filled tube)
• Beddie Pouch & Beddie Sham (already on the market by a different name)
• Air Conditioner Suit Case (for a dog in a hot car)

Inventions that made it on to the next round:

• One-man Sandbag Filler (mentioned above)*
• A bicycle that pedals in the front for a handlebar rider
• Edible Snow Globe Cookie Kit
• Two-piece Bowl (to conceal your spent olive pits and pistachio shells)
• EZX (travel weight system that you put together)*
• Diaper Bag (they didn’t give us details on this episode)
• Solar Powered Generator
• Hook-n-Pull Branch Cutter

It seemed to me like they (the producers) were worried more about creating the same ingredients as American Idol contains (fighting judges, angry contestants) that they should have called the show “Angry Contestants & Fighting Judges”. Hopefully the next episodes will focus more on good inventions and not the pitch to the judges.

* Indicates that one or more judges cried.

Early this year I received a shiny, new SanDisk 1GB Titanium Cruzer USB Flash Drive for use at work. Synonyms for USB Flash Drive include “pen drives”, “chip sticks”, “thumb drives”, “USB drives” and “jump drives”, but in the case of the Titanium Cruzer it’s “defective piece of dung”. Mine worked for about a day and then stopped working.

Ok, no biggy, right? There’s probably a fix out there somewhere and if not then I was the unlucky one and I’ll get a new one. Afterall, they come with a 5 year warranty! (Nothing says stability like a 5 year warranty.) So I go a googling looking for something that will bring my flash drive back to life. Here are just a few of the encouraging comments I found about the SanDisk 1GB Titanium Cruzer:

“flip a coin”, 2006-01-23
“My workplace has been using these for a year or so, and we’ve had about a 50% failure rate within a year of use. One day the little blue light just decides not to illuminate and the key is not recognized by any PC. The things are simply not reliable.”

“Plug & Play?? HARDLY!!”, February 17, 2005
“Pros: NONE….can’t get the thing to be recognized by any PC….Windows XP or 2000. We followed all the troubleshooting guidelines and contacted tech support, but to no avail.
Cons: PC won’t recognize the drive. The PC knows the drive is there, but nothing shows up in Windows Explorer when you want to use the thing. Taking it back!! What a pain!”

“I’ve had 2 that failed”, November 29, 2004
Pros: looks good, fast, neat access to connection
Cons: My first one broke so that the exposed connector would not ‘lock’ open and took 2 hands to insert, my second one is so loose fitting that the connection is rarely established (=not recognized). Don’t recommend this usb at all!

Not reliable at all I bought and own 10 of these things.
5 of them are already death after less than 6 months of use. They were working properly and then for no apparent reason stopped working. Fortunately I had most of my date backed up, but I still lost some valuable info.
The company has changed 2 already and I Hope they replace the remaining 3. Dealing with them takes a looong time.

I guess this is the reason why they have become cheaper, they are just a pile of trash into a nice titanium case. So, avoid these things by all means.

So it is for me as it is with these reviews. I just shipped back my second flash drive today, so we’ll see if third times a charm.

The thing that really set me off today about SanDisk was their trash support. I was using their online request system to add comments to the RMA and report problems, but they never responded which forced the dreaded phone call. So I press the number corresponding to the “Check on RMA Status” option.  I talk to some guy who trys to read my comments from the online system on the fly, but it sounds more like he’s trying to wing it on a palm reading.  He’s also reading comments from the first return and not the second so I try to get him on the right track.  But he doesn’t see the comments relating to the second RMA.  He suddenly decides that my problem is one that Technical Support needs to hear, so he transfers me.

After a long wait I hear, “Thank you for calling SanDisk, my name is Jay.  And before we get started today, let me just say that we have a very bad cold today so your patience with us would be greatly appreciated as we continue this call, OK?”

WHAT THE????  We?  Us?  As in SanDisk has a very bad cold?  Or you and your multiple personalities have a very bad cold?  I said, “Ok.”

He continues, “Ok, so with that in mind, what can we do for you today.”

I explain my problem and he immediately tells me that I shouldn’t have called technical support and that I should have called the RMA people.  That’s when I just about reached through the phone, but luckily for him I was at work so I had to keep my cool.  I explained to him that I was transferred to him and that I was just on the line with the RMA people and that they are the people that transferred me to him!  I couldn’t believe it.

So after some more extreme control of my temper, I finally endured the call and received an email with a prepaid FedEx label to return the second defective Cruzer.  I’ll keep you all informed of the outcome in the comments.  Maybe I’ll get another defective one.  I’m counting on it!

Last weekend a friend of mine and I went wardriving [wikipedia.org], although we didn’t actually access the open networks we found and we won’t be publishing our findings as others who do this do. The reason we did it is so that we could test out the cool GPS Visualizer [gpsvisualizer.com] website that allows you to upload a text file with GPS coordinates and convert it to a KML file that can be opened in Google Earth [earth.google.com].

We hooked up a GPS to a laptop and used NetStumbler [stumbler.net] to collect the data. The final result was a file that when opened in Google Earth gave us a detailed visual map of all the networks that we detected in our neighborhood. We could see which ones were protected and which were unprotected. Just as a point of interest, we discovered 64 access points on our short drive and 31 of them were open, meaning they had no apparent security in place. It’s possible that some were securing their network by only allowing specific MAC addresses access to their network, but I doubt that’s the case for too many.

As a side note, Google Earth made a brief appearance on Fox’s “24” [fox.com/24] TV series tonight.

WHY? That’s the question I have. It’s ironic really. You go to a biannual meeting to receive counsel from the Stake Presidency and to feel the Spirit, but when you add kids into the mix, it becomes nearly impossible! What’s even more ironic is the counsel we received today was that we put emphasis on reverence. Stake Conference meetings are anything but reverent, what with all the kids trying to endure a two hour meeting on seats that make noise when you kick them. Ooh, cool! How fun! These seats make noise when I pound my toys on them, too!

Heather and I went to the Temple night and the Adult Session and really enjoyed that. When it came to going to the Sunday session, we discussed not going but we decided to “do the right thing” and go. I came home from the meeting more stressed than before I left. I took Griffin out of the meeting once and Heather took him out at least twice. All the while the speakers’ main subject matter is “reverence”.

On the way out of the meeting, Heather had to stop by the primary room to get something out of the closet. I took Griffin and Sami to the car, but upon Heather’s departure from us Griffin started to scream and cry. He’s been doing that lately, I suppose it’s just a phase, but it added to the stress of the day.

One good thing that came of the meeting was the wonderful song that was sung by a mother and daughter. The daughter did so well! I was really impressed with her voice and pitch. It was only when her mother sang along that the daughter’s pitch was forced flat. But I really enjoyed the song and I was taken by the voice of the little girl. They sang “Mother, Tell Me the Story” from the Children’s Song Book.