I have found Picasa 3 (and the online storage of Google Picasa) very useful for editing, organizing, and uploading my photos. It does have its limitations and I have used Photoshop in the past to make up for those limitations. But Photoshop is expensive and I’ve more recently started using GIMP in the hopes that it can replace Photoshop as my advanced tool of choice. Picasa 3 lets you export images to a folder and resize them, but you can also easily resize images on the fly with the Image Resizer for Windows.

And now to quote one of my favorite movies (Serenity – I even watched the series while I was in labor):

WASH (0.S.): Mal! You up? Got a wave. I’m a bounce it down to you.

MAL: Inara.

INARA: Mal. I uh, is this a bad time

MAL: Good as any.

INARA: Please tell me you’re wearing pants.

MAL: Naked as the day I come cryin’. How’s your world?

INARA: Cold. It’s autumn here.

MAL: Still at the Training House?

INARA: Right where you left me.

MAL: I remember it as nice enough. picturesque.

INARA: It is that. What about you?

MAL: Still flying. So what occasi the wave? Not that to see you ain’t… well you look very

INARA: Oh. Thank you, I… I guess we have something of a problem here. With the locals, I thought maybe…

MAL: You could use a gun hand?

INARA: I’m hoping not. But if you were close at all, you — the crew — could take your ease here a while… and there’d be payment…

MAL: Payment is never not a factor. I could sound out the crew… This pot like to boil over soon?

INARA: Soon. Not right away.

MAL: Well, it would be, I mean I would like to… Kaylee’s been missing you something fierce –

INARA: I miss her too. I even miss my shuttle, occasionally.

MAL: Yeah, you left a… got some of your stuff in a trunk, never did get a chance to drop it off.

INARA: Oh.

MAL: I didn’t look through the… stuff… just sundries I expect. Well, it’s kind of late where I’m at. I’ll send a wave as soon as I can.

INARA:  Thank you.

Internet Explorer 6 Usage as of Oct 2009

• W3Counter: 13%
• W3Schools: 11%
• MarketShare: 23%

From my one iGoogle page, I can easily see:

• My last five Gmail messages
• New Facebook posts
• The weather (for multiple locations)

I also have a few minimized widgets that allow me to access them with one click. These include:

• Google Calender which I also print out monthly and put on the fridge
• Google Docs which I find myself using more since it allows me to work on the document regardless of what computer I am on
• Google notebook where I jot down quick notes such as websites to visit later or grocery lists

Technology has been moving off the computer and online.  Your pictures and files will be online; your applications will be online; everything you do will be online.

Check out iGoogle, especially if you’re already using Google applications. And even if you’re not, iGoogle has a widget for that (such as Yahoo mail). Set it as your homepage and you can have a quick overview of everything important as soon as you open a browser.

I have iGoogle as my homepage in Chrome.

It was time to switch or buy new phones. My and Victor’s phones were old and my mom had lost hers. I figured it would be an easy thing to accomplish while I was on maternity leave.

Inquiry
I called Sprint one Wednesday in August to find out about their plans. Yes, I called because calling while feeding the baby was easy. Going on the Internet was not. I spoke to CJ from Sales. She helped me figure out what plans would be best and what the cost would be. She even told me about this great deal where I would get $100 per line for switching from TMobile. I wasn’t ready to select phones, so she was going to call back on Friday.  Friday came and went and no call from CJ.

Order
On Saturday I called Sprint back and asked for CJ. Apparently there are too many Sales people to find her, despite the fact that she said I could call and ask for her. That was okay. I was able to get the same deal from this Sales person. I set up my plan, selected my phones, gave them my information (including email) and placed the order. It was more expensive than I originally planned, because the data plan we had selected didn’t work with Victor’s phone and we needed a more expensive one. I expected to receive the phones sometime between Tuesday and Friday. Our phones were going to be automatically transferred from TMobile on Friday.

Delay
So far, the process was easy enough, but that was not to last long. By Thursday I still hadn’t received the phones. I decided to call Sprint. Apparently our phones were backordered for 2 weeks, but our numbers were still going to be transferred from TMobile the following day. How did that make any sense? I quickly cancelled the transfer. I was very disappointed that a) they didn’t let me know the phones were going to be delayed and b) they didn’t cancel the transfer once they realized there was going to be a delay.

Activation
When the phones finally arrived, I was eager to activate them and have our numbers switched over from TMobile. I called Sprint. Unfortunately, the first person I spoke to wasn’t able to activate the phones. Neither was the second. I spoke to six people over two hours (all Indian and most with limited English understanding) before I was able to activate the phones and transfer the lines. It was ridiculous.

Rebate
All of our phones came with a rebate. The rebate slip was supposed to have been shipped to us with the phones, but it wasn’t.  I called into Sprint to get the correct form. It took the lady on the other end fifteen minutes to figure out what the correct form was, but we eventually got it.

First Bill
We were going to get a great deal for switching from TMobile to Sprint, $100 credit per line. I asked about it numerous times because I wanted to make sure we would get it.

The first bill came as quite a surprise. Not only was there no credit, but it was double the monthly amount. Sprint had forgotten to let me know that I would be paying ahead, so the first bill was for the previous month and the next.

They also completely forgot about the credit. I called in and no one knew anything about it. It was like mass amnesia. I was able to talk to a supervisor, Michelle, and fortunately I stopped getting bounced around. But she could not find any record of there ever being such an offer. I wasn’t about to stay with Sprint if they weren’t going to honor their promise and she finally said I would have the first half of the credit the next day.

The next day I got a credit, for $5. It was very disappointing to see that they hadn’t followed through. I emailed Michelle and she called me within a few minutes. Her responsiveness was very nice. Unfortunately, it still took 5 days for me to receive the full credit. It didn’t come in any amount that made sense either. There were four additional credits for random amounts that were $3.16 over the amount promised. It didn’t make any sense, but I finally had my credit.

Conclusion
If I had know the amount of frustration I was going to go through, I would never have switched to Sprint. It was incredibly annoying and I wasn’t happy with all the hours I spent on the phone. I have no respect for their Customer Service; they have none. I am not planning on staying with them beyond my contract and would never recommend them to anyone. To put it bluntly: they are idiots.

Dear Jeremy,

     I tried to reproduce the same error you are explaining, and I was unable to do so.  I would advise that you download and use FireFox (www.firefox.com).  It is a web browser that, in my opinion and many others, is better than Internet Explorer.  I am very confident that this will resolve your issue.  If you have anymore questions or concerns, feel free to call us at …

 Brandon K.
Ecommerce Technical Support Representative

We figured out the problem on our own and it was not even remotely related to the browser.

Victor ran off to the hardware store (the first of multiple trips) and then called two friends for help. Being the kind-hearted Minnesotans they are, they brought themselves, their tools, their kids, and their inflatable football man. They weren’t sure how to fix it either, but they worked with Victor to get our water problem fixed.

After the problem was fixed, the guys watched football, drank beer, and ate pizza for the afternoon. I didn’t mind since I got to finally take a shower.