My Thoughts 2013-05-21T00:31:14Z tag:www.ertyu.org,2013:/steven_nikkel/blog//1 Movable Type Copyright (c) 2013, ertyu It happened to me... 2013-05-21T00:31:14Z 2013-05-21T00:17:37Z tag:www.ertyu.org,2013:/steven_nikkel/blog//1.157 2013-05-21T00:17:37Z DRM has stopped me from doing something I was entitled to and is entirely legal. I rented a blu-ray movie, popped it in my player and up pops an error. The DRM keys have expired and must be updated. Argh,... ertyu http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/ steven_nikkel@ertyu.org DRM has stopped me from doing something I was entitled to and is entirely legal. I rented a blu-ray movie, popped it in my player and up pops an error. The DRM keys have expired and must be updated. Argh, ok, whatever, update them then. But no, the entire system must be updated to update the keys. Well now I'm stuck, in it's infinite wisdom the manufacturer of the player has decided it should remove features from the system in subsequent updates. I'm using those features, I paid for them, I'm not letting them take them away. So I basically can't play movies on it now. Frustrated, money is staying in my pocket now, good job industry, you've successfully protected your market by making it smaller.

]]> GPS vs Phone 2013-03-23T17:05:28Z 2013-03-23T15:49:48Z tag:www.ertyu.org,2013:/steven_nikkel/blog//1.156 2013-03-23T15:49:48Z I use GPS extensively for finding geocaches and navigating along roads and trails to get near them (and a few other things of course). I own quite a few different dedicated GPS units, from computer attached to handheld to car... ertyu http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/ steven_nikkel@ertyu.org I use GPS extensively for finding geocaches and navigating along roads and trails to get near them (and a few other things of course). I own quite a few different dedicated GPS units, from computer attached to handheld to car mount and I also own a smartphone that includes full GPS functionality. Typically I'm carrying both my handheld GPS and my phone when I'm traveling about and normally I'll use my handheld GPS for navigation tasks. Why? Because it works well, I know how it works, I've got it setup well for the tasks I need and it does a good job of navigating. My car mount unit will do a bit better job when driving, especially in new areas I've never visited before, but when geocaching I'd have to preload all the data beforehand, so it's yet another unit to prep and manage. Normally it doesn't get called out for duty as the handheld is more than capable of handling the task and I have a mount for it also in the car. As for off the road usage, I've not even tried with the car mount unit, it really isn't suited for that task, limited battery life and mapping and I've not even bothered to determine how or if its software navigates off road.

There are times when I don't want to carry my handheld GPS around (because it's heavy and bulky) and I've used my smartphone instead. For geocaching in urban and wooded areas I've found the GPS in the phone to be accurate, I'd say as accurate as my handheld GPS. I do find that the software on the phone does not update the position as frequently however, so a little more wandering around occurs while you try to zero in. This all makes sense since a modern phone has a state of the art GPS receiver built in, it's big deficiency being a tiny weak performing antenna. The draw back with the phone I find is that with the plethora of waypoints now available, narrowing them down in real time is difficult, even with the filtering options available in software. My handheld is somewhat worse and better at this, it can't really filter at all, but it still seems easier to peruse the list and pick out what is desired. Both are basically really good at finding a waypoint that you are currently near, so for a successful outing some preparation is in order to get to the right spot and determine the size of the area you plan to cover.

For road navigation I haven't used my phone much since I have dedicated units to rely on instead. I have some apps loaded for it and used them on occasion when my other GPS was unavailable or malfunctioning. I've not really spent much time finding the best app or learning how they work, so it was a bit clumsy and I had to pull over and park a few times to review the map but it eventually got the job done. I'm sure there are apps that do it better or as good as my GPS, they're probably not free though and the free ones are sufficient for my use in a pinch. And there's the rub, while the dedicated GPS units are pretty much fully functional out of the box, the smartphone starts out with minimal functionality but is highly reconfigurable over time.

I was recently traveling in the city and needed to find a bank and a gas station in the area. I wasn't familiar with where the locations were or which was nearest in the area. I am somewhat prepared for this, as I've taken the time to preload my GPS (both the handheld and the car mount -- the car mount even has custom icons :)) with all the locations of my desired gas station so I can always find the nearest one. But I pulled out my phone instead and used the gas station's app to find the nearest locations. Why? Well I had forgotten if or how I could filter and make it easy to find those gas station waypoints amongst all the others on my handheld GPS (it turns out I can and it's easy). I also knew it would take a minute or two for my GPS to lock on satellites before it could do anything useful. Meanwhile my phone can use assisted GPS from the cell network to get a lock in seconds. Plus my other need, I don't have the bank locations loaded on my GPS, there might be some preloaded into the map data, but those are known not to be up to date or accurate all the time. (They are still quite useful for finding stuff though) So once I found my gas station, I just fired up the bank app and found the nearest location, verified that it was still open from hours in the app and I was good to go. (I did the routing in my head without GPS since I knew the major roads well enough)

And that's basically the impression I've settled on these days for many things. The hardware is uniformly awesome and it's gets even better and more amazing with every iteration, it's really hard to pick anything that won't be good. But it's really down to the software to make or break the product (and by software I mean the various bits of code that runs on any and every device these days, everything has some software running). It's been many years since I got my handheld GPS and while there have been numerous new products released in that time, with incrementally better hardware (although the increments have been quite small since GPS has hit a ceiling plateau on performance) and incrementally better software, the modern units are almost worse and it all boils down to the software. Every new unit released so far that I'm aware of has come with a "bug" in GPS accuracy or performance. Some of these bugs are shared amongst units and some have been fixed or minimized. Even though the GPS hardware performance has improved, once the software has processed and presented it, the overall end user result gets worse. The functionality of the software has also significantly increased with some highly useful features added. Unfortunately many of those have also come with bugs. The biggest issue has become the user interface. What was already a complex user interface has become very confusing and bloated with all these features added in. My GPS already exhibits this complexity even with a much simpler feature set, luckily most of the complexity resides in features that are rarely or never used and the most often used features operate in a simple manor. That has unfortunately been lost in newer units, with each feature adding to the layers of complexity. Overall I find the software to be lacking in design and refinement, performance and quality. I really wish there was some better software to show off and take advantage of the new hardware.

]]> The History of This 2012-12-19T22:04:16Z 2012-12-07T20:08:41Z tag:www.ertyu.org,2012:/steven_nikkel/blog//1.155 2012-12-07T20:08:41Z It's been a little over 15 years since I first threw up a web page on the internet, pretty much because I could and wanted to try it out and see what it would entail. It's since grown into a... ertyu http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/ steven_nikkel@ertyu.org It's been a little over 15 years since I first threw up a web page on the internet, pretty much because I could and wanted to try it out and see what it would entail. It's since grown into a useful hobby and seems to have produced content that other people actually value.

It all started at university. Being in a technical program we were given access to the university computer system years earlier than other students were. With access to the computer system came access to the internet, email, printing and other computing resources. There was even a dial in modem pool and DATAPAC access so you could use all that from home. Of course we all jumped at the chance to get an account as soon as we could, standing in line outside the administrators office to get our log in credentials. I don't recall if we had access to web space hosting immediately, but I didn't take advantage of it until the next year. Since I'd never done it before, and the web was still rather a spartan place, I jumped at the chance to claim my spot and put something in place, while learning about the technology and syntax. I believe I just started with a page of links, mostly just a copy of my bookmarks. Little by little a page here or there was added as I found something useful to share or host online. Maybe something a little more elaborate like some dynamic content, an image or something else new, interesting and useful would get added.

Eventually university ended and my computer account with it. Since my page was somewhat useful to me I dragged it along and put it on the free web space hosting offered by my dial-up ISP. Continued adding pages with information which was mostly for my reference and a little to share with whoever cared to read it. A little bit of maintenance was periodically required to keep things up to date and functioning. I kept tinkering a little bit with embellishments, but there wasn't too much change going on. Timed progressed along, my ISP got bought by another and I eventually upgraded to "high-speed" internet from dial up with the same ISP when it became available at a nice enough price. These ISP changes required a bit of fiddling to keep things working, but were pretty straightforward. With stable hosting, I kept adding reference content for things I was looking for or spent some time researching so I could find it, making it available for anyone else who was looking for the same. I also started adding a little of my own personal commentary, stories and experiences. I still kept the basic main page a link of common links I used, like a bookmark list of those things I would often look at. I also was keeping of abreast of any technical issues and fixing those back end things as well.

After a couple years of hosting my site and also my email with my ISP I started to have a lot of issues. Emails outgoing and incoming would get lost or dropped by their spam filter without notification. Already delivered emails would disappear from my inbox due to their backup issues. Those same backup issues affected my website, with pages going missing and getting corrupted. I fixed it up for a little bit, but was soon frustrated and decided to host the website myself at home. During the dotcom boom someone was handing out free domain names and of course I picked one up even though I had no idea what to do with it. I kept it in my back pocket. With these ISP issues, I suddenly had a use for it. I don't remember if I moved my email or my website first, but both eventually moved to my own hosting on equipment at home. Nice to have control over it and not have worry about changing either address ever again. Things continued on much the same, adding little bits of reference information, a little bit of things I want to share and fixing those technical issues, while responding to the rapidly changing technology.

It would be another couple years before another significant change. It seemed I had actually produced valuable content that people were viewing. I hadn't really been paying attention to who the visitors were if there were any. But soon there were enough people visiting my site that hosting my pages at home was actually becoming a burden and making it difficult to use my internet connection. I asked around friends and peers for recommendations on companies to host with and was referred to a friend who had a dedicated computer hosted in a data centre doing just that. So I packed it all up and moved it over there. It took a bit of work, but with a little effort it was all good to go. With the added cost of hosting the web site now I decided I would put up a few ads to see if I could recoup some of the cost. That turned out surprising well, bringing in more revenue than I expected. Along with the realization that many people were viewing my site I also added and monitored statistics to keep track of it. Otherwise most things were the same, add some more reference content, update things, keep it technically up to date. I also had an eye towards making things work better and look nicer for all those people I now knew were reading my content. I started adding some of the new technology like CSS and started trying some of these other things that were rapidly churning out of the booming internet. I started with a blog software package which I added to make it easier to add little items like stories or experiences I had been collecting manually in other ways previous on my site. Like always I liked to put up reference material that I was interested in. I also liked to explore the technology that was available and tinker with using it. It was one such moment that I decided to take Google Maps API and combine it with data I found at a government website. I wanted to find the location of cell towers to answer a question about my own cell coverage at home. It was a bit of work at first but quite rewarding to see a nice presentation of the data. I answered my question and left the map there for others to explore. I eventually did a couple major overhauls to the map to add cross Canada data, improve performance and adapt to changes in the API. It was easy to leverage that existing map technology and create another map to show all the locations I enjoyed visiting with my geocaching hobby as well. I also started adapting my website with my own mini Content Management System (CMS) to keep from having to edit every page in a growing collection when I wanted to make a change.

While the pace of added material on the site slowing, much of the time I spent was focused on improved the web site for display, presentation or performance. Somewhere along the lines I decided I wanted to explore another new technology and developed a smartphone app that utilized a lot of web back end to bring my cell map experience to an application. Keeping up the maintenance and monitoring was most of what I spent time on, although whenever I felt the urge, I'd dig in and try to improve or add something. A little while ago the last major changed was put in motion. The hosting at a friends dedicated spot, which had served well for many years experienced a significant outage. I had somewhat expected this to happen for some time, but it wasn't directly announced. It was out long enough that I decided to put up a backup copy of the website in the meantime while it was down. When it came back up, not quite everything was as it should be. After a bunch of work, the vast majority of it was restored to the way it should be. But there were a few lingering issues and it was clear that this wasn't going to be a long term supported solution as that friends hosting hobby wasn't of much interest to them anymore. Since I had expected some changes in this hosting already I had researched where I should move my website to. I had short listed some companies, looking for particular features and technologies in shared hosting that would although me to do a better job serving my website. I picked the top one from the list and made a go at it. It always takes a bit of work to adapt an existing website to be served by a different host and this was no exception. There are always things that need to be edited, parameters that need to change and sometimes significant changes need to be made because features don't exist or are implemented differently. All in all, I got it mostly working, but there were a few significant hold outs. Those issues along with some disappointment in the actual service made me re think my decision and go back to look for another host. I've always found it to be a really hard task to shop for shared hosting and this was no different. I was hitting a lot of dead ends and not really coming up with something that I was really behind. I'm sure I could find one that worked, but wouldn't be exactly what I wanted.

One of those light bulb moments sent me down a different track. I checked out what would be involved with and what the costs would be of hosting in the cloud. That seemed to be all the rage. It actually looked quite feasible, but the costs were just a little beyond what I would like. In researching what cloud hosting was all about and what was involved, it actually boiled down to a concept I understood and had seen before, the virtual private server. I'd always avoided them due to the cost and actual issues in creating, deploying and selling such a service, along with the perceived complexity in setting up and maintaining a computer server remotely. But things have changed. The hosting technology has progressed massively with the cloud rage, the costs have shrunk and most importantly I'd been running servers at home for years and understood what was involved. So hosting in the cloud, but not the really big clouds, was actually an idea that I really liked and would add the features I was looking for. I dug around a little more and found a reliable place with lower cost and a good feature set that would host FreeBSD. I was sold and so I set up my own computer instance in a virtual machine floating around the "cloud". I took my time and set things up right, keeping the documentation to recreate it later. Within about the same amount of time as it took to move between hosting providers, I had a whole server setup and my web site moved and running perfectly. Performance was that little bit better than before and it turned out to be simple and easy to get things working. In hindsight I don't know why I hadn't done this sooner, it makes so much sense to have all the control, to be able to set things as I wish and install what I need.

So that's where this is today. I'm happy with the new stable platform I've got things standing on now and hope to leverage that to keep adding valuable content, new features, better performance and keep learning new technologies, software and ideas.

]]> Package Tracking 2013-03-07T19:18:23Z 2012-10-18T21:55:14Z tag:www.ertyu.org,2012:/steven_nikkel/blog//1.154 2012-10-18T21:55:14Z Years ago I was happy to get a tracking number for a package and merrily monitor is movements around the world as it progressed towards me. It was often surprising to see that it's status was thoroughly logged and updated... ertyu http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/ steven_nikkel@ertyu.org Years ago I was happy to get a tracking number for a package and merrily monitor is movements around the world as it progressed towards me. It was often surprising to see that it's status was thoroughly logged and updated within seconds or minutes of being moved or handled. Now, several years later, the process seems to have regressed. Details of movements are sparse, lacking and often missing, tracking status events much less frequent and updates often hours behind real time. It should be easier to provide tracking status these days than years ago with an assortment of cost effective mobile devices and ubiquitous wireless networks, so why the down turn? The info that is provided is often unclear, for example "The package has been delivered to (depot|retail location)" with no indication of which location they are actually referring to, it could be almost anywhere. The tracking status information has often become useless as the data either isn't ever presented or is presented too late to mater. It's not uncommon for a tracking entry to only contain a record of the shipper creating the shipment, no pickup information, no transit information and no delivery information. It's really not tracking anything other than a shipping request exists at that point. It also means it becomes more difficult to coordinate receiving or picking up a package and tends to increase the shipping latency.

]]> Geocaching, the 2012 Edition 2012-10-28T03:33:53Z 2012-06-20T20:25:40Z tag:www.ertyu.org,2012:/steven_nikkel/blog//1.153 2012-06-20T20:25:40Z Time for more thoughts on geocaching to be dumped to "paper", virtual as it might be, to get them out of my head. 2010 turned out to be a tipping point in my geocaching hobby as I've previously written. I... ertyu http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/ steven_nikkel@ertyu.org Time for more thoughts on geocaching to be dumped to "paper", virtual as it might be, to get them out of my head.

2010 turned out to be a tipping point in my geocaching hobby as I've previously written. I hit the proverbial wall and had lost interest. I thought about it and evaluated for a long while, before deciding on my course of action. I changed my internal rules to make the activity more enjoyable: participate when it's fun, give up the goal of finding every cache, ignore many hides or hiders which follow patterns I don't enjoy, and ignore the numbers. With those thoughts in mind, I've continued on. For the most part it has meant I've been caching less, even if the stats don't always tell that tale. I wait till the weather is right, or a friend wants to go find a few caches, or things line up that I can combine the caching with a nice walk or drive in the country. Sometimes it's taken a few minutes thought to figure out if it is the best time to go find something and often it's easy to talk myself out of going for it. Probably for the best in the end most times.

In 2011, things continued along with me trying to follow my rules and not always being successful. I started noticing I was logging a larger number of DNF logs. Not so much that I couldn't find it, but that I just didn't care to find it any more as it was uncomfortable or frustrating. But I also noticed that I didn't really mind logging those "failures", in fact I almost enjoyed some of them. It didn't really sink in for a while that I was enjoying the "journey" to get to the cache and the experience of the find. For the most part that didn't really change whether I found or it not, with the "numbers" taken out of the equation, it no longer mattered. As the year continued on, the wall was looming large again, I tweaked my rules and the opportunities to find that enjoyable caching experience dried right up.

The dry streak continued into 2012, but there were bursts of caching here and there. The surprising part was how pockets of really good caches would appear somewhere and would happen to be stumbled upon. It's always been one of those ideas stuck at the back of one's mind on how to find and identify these caches. Groundspeak introduced the notion of favourites more recently to try and add ratings to cache listings and point out the more quality caches. So one of those trains of thought to tweak my rules this year has been to try and figure out how to find the quality. I've tried a few things, but nothing has been greatly successful yet. I think it may need a more complicated formula which really can't be applied yet since those favourites and related properties don't appear in a pocket query for automated processing.

Since the 2010 tipping point I've also noticed my behaviour and thoughts mirror many others I've encountered over the years in the geocaching world. Some of those I never really understood previously as I'd had a pretty unique environment based on my approach to the hobby. Even with hundreds of caches around, there aren't really any that pique my interest to a degree that I want to run out and find them. I routinely drive or walk by dozens of caches without even bothering to find them. Often I don't really remember or recall where all those unfound caches even are or realize I am going by them. I've added several caches to a list that I will never consider or bother to find for various reasons. I leave most caches for another day, I don't need to find them all.

]]> Digital Music 2012-02-04T22:45:51Z 2012-02-04T22:37:16Z tag:www.ertyu.org,2012:/steven_nikkel/blog//1.152 2012-02-04T22:37:16Z It's taken a long time, but I think downloadable digital music has hit an acceptable point now. iTunes dropped DRM in 2009 and in a somewhat quiet way made a subtle change in the middle of last year that has... ertyu http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/ steven_nikkel@ertyu.org It's taken a long time, but I think downloadable digital music has hit an acceptable point now. iTunes dropped DRM in 2009 and in a somewhat quiet way made a subtle change in the middle of last year that has a significant impact. As of June 2011, iTunes now allows you to redownload anything you've previously purchased. With all the little tweaks and changes along the way and the size and staying power of iTunes, paying for a song there is an acceptable version to a hard copy on CD. Good thing too as compact discs will likely cease new production within a years time from now.

]]> Feedback 2012-01-30T20:31:59Z 2012-01-30T20:24:22Z tag:www.ertyu.org,2012:/steven_nikkel/blog//1.151 2012-01-30T20:24:22Z I've run into an annoying trend lately. If I provide non-customer service feedback, such as a suggestion or a bug report, it still gets handled as a customer service request. An agent attempts to appease me and make this report... ertyu http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/ steven_nikkel@ertyu.org I've run into an annoying trend lately. If I provide non-customer service feedback, such as a suggestion or a bug report, it still gets handled as a customer service request. An agent attempts to appease me and make this report go away. Suggestions are reviewed and closed with no action taken, bug reports are dismissed by answering the root question of why it happened without fixing the actual problem. If I just wanted my hand held to explain why I'm seeing something I shouldn't or missing a feature I want, I wouldn't be sending these reports through specific suggestion or bug report mechanisms. You might as well delete these mechanisms if you treat them like any other customer service trouble ticket. Although this still beats the other trend of not being able to make contact at all.

]]> Cashless 2011-09-04T00:49:33Z 2011-09-04T00:41:40Z tag:www.ertyu.org,2011:/steven_nikkel/blog//1.150 2011-09-04T00:41:40Z A couple months ago I stopped spending cash on any transaction. I found constantly fetching cash from the ATM (it started spewing useless $50s too), getting rid of change and restocking my wallet to be a waste of time. It's... ertyu http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/ steven_nikkel@ertyu.org A couple months ago I stopped spending cash on any transaction. I found constantly fetching cash from the ATM (it started spewing useless $50s too), getting rid of change and restocking my wallet to be a waste of time. It's also a reflection on the times as nearly everything and everywhere has changed to accommodate plastic transactions. The laundry system in my apartment was one of the last regular transactions that required cash, but has since switched to a smart card restocked by plastic. While I'm giving up some anonymity, I'm simplifying my life a bit. It makes tracking transactions a little easier and I don't have to deal with monitoring my cash supply anymore. I can also rack up a few more rewards points on my credit cards. In the months since I've stopped, I can recall only one or two occasions where I still used cash and only because that appeared to be the only supported payment method.

]]> Out of the Box 2011-09-04T00:41:24Z 2011-09-04T00:33:48Z tag:www.ertyu.org,2011:/steven_nikkel/blog//1.149 2011-09-04T00:33:48Z In an effort to simplify, I changed my requirements for buying something new. One of my friends says: buy what you need when you need it. I added to it that it has to do what I want out of... ertyu http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/ steven_nikkel@ertyu.org In an effort to simplify, I changed my requirements for buying something new. One of my friends says: buy what you need when you need it. I added to it that it has to do what I want out of the box. No future updates, no alterations, no 3rd party additions. What is the point in spending money on something that needs extra effort just to make it work. Plus, future updates may never arrive, alterations may not work now or in the future, same goes for 3rd party stuff. Future-proofing, as it goes, is some what of a good idea, but all too often, things move so fast that any upgrade room is quickly obsoleted by rapid progress. While these general rules don't always work, in hindsight, following them wouldn't really ever lead you wrong. But sometimes you might want to ignore them if there is a value argument and you are willing to sacrifice to meet it.

]]> The Final Solution 2011-08-23T21:40:46Z 2011-08-23T21:04:54Z tag:www.ertyu.org,2011:/steven_nikkel/blog//1.148 2011-08-23T21:04:54Z Years ago I bought a very fancy universal remote control from the aptly but blandly named Universal Remote Control Inc.. It is computer programmable and controls absolutely every device I have that has infrared input. From the TV to air... ertyu http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/ steven_nikkel@ertyu.org Years ago I bought a very fancy universal remote control from the aptly but blandly named Universal Remote Control Inc.. It is computer programmable and controls absolutely every device I have that has infrared input. From the TV to air conditioner, vacuum to lights and everything in between. It works perfectly and I've never found anything that does what it does better. The only down side is that it eats batteries for breakfast, lunch, dinner and several snacks in between. It requires four of those tiny AAA batteries that I've come to hate. An average pair of alkaline batteries might last for about 3 months until the performance was unbearable. Feed it the most expensive Lithium style batteries and it might be happy for 6 months if you push it. Rechargeables you say, well I tried that. You might get a day or two out of a regular set of rechargeable batteries. An Eneloop style battery with a more stable voltage level might get you a week or two, same goes for a rechargeable alkaline. I tried every battery type I could find, nothing improved on buying expensive sets of disposable batteries every few months.

That is until I happened upon a radio control helicopter forum. Not sure why there particularly but someone had mentioned converting some R/C device from AAA batteries to Li-Ion rechargeables. You can actually find Li-Ion batteries in about the same form factor as a standard AAA battery, the only difference being the voltage. Your standard alkaline runs at 1.5V, while the Li-Ion is about 3.7V so you can't just plug in 4 of these Li-Ion in place of the regular alkaline batteries the remote expects. (Well you probably can't, depending on the internal circuitry you might be able to run such a high voltage and it will just work. But without pulling the remote apart to check or risking permanent damage with a test to determine I didn't want to go down that route.) Instead, based on the information I found, I bundled the Li-Ion cells with a "dummy cell". Simply a conductive battery shaped device that has no voltage or really anything and does nothing other than fill the space of a battery. Those dummy cells proved to be the hardest thing to find, it took a couple months to locate some. So I paired up one Li-Ion battery at 3.7V with a spacer, that combination replaces two alkaline batteries at 1.5V so instead of 3V, I have 3.7V. I took a risk on the little extra voltage assuming this wouldn't be harmful and would likely be beneficial since this remote appears to like to operate on higher voltages. Took a bit of a guess on the pairing of the batteries also since it might be possible to end up with 7.4V in place of 3V. But my educated guess said that the remote was likely trying to run off a series of 4 alkaline at 6V so it probably wouldn't matter the ordering. The only issue I encountered was the nub on the Li-Ion battery was bigger than an alkaline and didn't fit in every location, which was easily resolved with some juggling of positions. Well, success! I now have rechargeable batteries working in my remote. They last for months on a charge and work great. Cost worked out to around two times the cost of a single set of non-rechargeable batteries.

]]> Adventures in Walking 2011-08-23T21:43:14Z 2011-08-23T21:02:55Z tag:www.ertyu.org,2011:/steven_nikkel/blog//1.147 2011-08-23T21:02:55Z I've been out walking a lot these days. It has many benefits, like exercise and being outdoors, exploring new areas and having some time free from other distractions. This year I took it upon myself to improve the experience a... ertyu http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/ steven_nikkel@ertyu.org I've been out walking a lot these days. It has many benefits, like exercise and being outdoors, exploring new areas and having some time free from other distractions. This year I took it upon myself to improve the experience a little. Last year I noted that as my walks got longer, my feet were often the first thing to give up and would be sore after a long walk. So I went out and got a new pair of shoes and invested in some nice wool blend socks. That seems to have solved things, my feet are happy for whatever distance I want to walk now. The wool blend socks seem to do the most good over a cotton blend. The bigger problem these days is finding good places to go for a walk. Finding a mix of a long enough route, that is still interesting, away from traffic, perhaps some shade/shelter, plowed in winter and open is getting to be a challenge. I find I repeat the same areas a lot, although I try never to walk the exact same route, but it ends up detracting from the enjoyment some with repetition and no discovery.

]]> Work Left To Do 2012-09-24T22:43:18Z 2011-06-12T17:16:13Z tag:www.ertyu.org,2011:/steven_nikkel/blog//1.146 2011-06-12T17:16:13Z A number of oddities that diminish the functionality of eBay and PayPal have hit me lately. PayPal has the honour of the biggest set and worst errors. First, I noticed that PayPal sends me notifications in the language of the... ertyu http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/ steven_nikkel@ertyu.org A number of oddities that diminish the functionality of eBay and PayPal have hit me lately. PayPal has the honour of the biggest set and worst errors.

First, I noticed that PayPal sends me notifications in the language of the originating party, not in my language of choice. I've received emails in languages I don't understand at all and have nearly confused them as spam. Emails directly originated from PayPal, like a terms of service change notification, often arrive in French or French then English. None of this really makes sense, my account is set for English and that is the language all notifications should be sent to me in.

The next set of issues is all about the differences between the website, the emails and the iPhone app, all of which I look at. Between these interfaces there are some pretty substantial differences that add confusion and misunderstanding. The name of the sender or recipient listed is not uniform, bouncing between what I believe is the "Display Name", a contact name or a contact email. It can be pretty confusing and alarming when seeing some of the names and even more confusing as they change as you switch interfaces. Not only do the names change, but so do the amount of transactions, selectively including or excluding fees and extras. Further to that, the account balance also is presented differently depending on the interface. In some cases the balance is the sum total of all currency balances converted to your default currency, sometimes it is just the balance of your default currency.

Now in the iPhone app, add another layer of confusion, the app will frequently present stale, cached information and not the current list of transactions, even though it appears it has refreshed or you have re-logged in. It is especially confusing as you receive a notification but then can't find the transaction in the app.

I just found another transaction to add to the pile. I got notification of a payment, the email tells me it's there and I've received it. Doubling checking on the website, it says the payment is "pending". That is nice and misleading. Long ago I made it a point to double check everything I get from Paypal to make sure that I'm getting the right amount and that I don't have a spoofed email.

Now for eBay. I've long maintained that eBay keeps changing their website for the worse, each time it changes. From an end user point of view, it often seems untested and non-functional. Stuff gets removed, moved, broken and just gets more complex. eBay also suffers from similar issues maintaining dissimilar interfaces, namely the standard website, the mobile website and the iPhone app. It seems that because I use ebay.ca by default as I'm from Canada, I'm not allowed to actually make payments on auctions I win from the iPhone app. Ok fine, over to the website, and it defaults to showing the mobile version. No problem, proceed into payments and I'm scratching my head as it is showing me the wrong total and about to charge me more than is owed. On other auctions it leads to an endless string of errors. So I force it back to the full website and I'm off again.

Now eBay and PayPal aren't alone in issues like this. It seems like standard business practice now and one Google has long used. Get to market first with 80% functionality. It gets customers up and running fast and grows rapidly. But as time goes on, if you don't fix the remaining issues and add the missing functionality, it alienates the users and does nothing to support loyalty.

]]> Online Billing, 2011 Edition 2011-08-13T04:21:51Z 2011-03-05T02:56:30Z tag:www.ertyu.org,2011:/steven_nikkel/blog//1.145 2011-03-05T02:56:30Z In 2008 I discussed Online Billing, since then there hasn't been much movement, but a little something to discuss today. While I still find that several of my accounts that offer online billing/statements only allow paper OR online versions, I'm... ertyu http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/ steven_nikkel@ertyu.org In 2008 I discussed Online Billing, since then there hasn't been much movement, but a little something to discuss today. While I still find that several of my accounts that offer online billing/statements only allow paper OR online versions, I'm pleasantly surprised that several of them now allow me to get both simultaneously. Unfortunately what I feared has proved true anyway. The online versions of my statements suffer from errors in amounts, problems with rendering making them unreadable and one thing I hadn't thought of previously, they have less detail than my paper versions. Another of my thoughts has also proven true. While at the bank making a transaction lately the teller suggested I convert my accounts to online billing. I read back my list of reasons why not and she countered with the correct arguments. While I trust my bank more than others to maintain correct and detailed records, the sticking point is their maximum retention of 7 years of data. In the past month I have had to go searching for records from 2000 and 2001 for two different reasons. If I had been using online billing, I may not have any records at all. There is a counter argument here that I have overlooked though, some of my services allow you to easily download your online records as PDF statements or even transaction records in various formats. Although these often suffer from the same errors and rendering problems, they also become another set of digital bits that need to be filed away and retained, as well as not being universally available or formatted. All in all, I still prefer the paper versions, but like the flexibility to refer to the online versions when they are available.

]]> Ticket Fees 2011-01-24T17:35:03Z 2011-01-24T17:30:40Z tag:www.ertyu.org,2011:/steven_nikkel/blog//1.144 2011-01-24T17:30:40Z This is just getting ridiculous! I know to expect to, but purchasing tickets from Ticket Master seems to incur far more fees than an airline flight now and they are all nonsensical and meaningless money grabs. Here's my latest example:... ertyu http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/ steven_nikkel@ertyu.org This is just getting ridiculous! I know to expect to, but purchasing tickets from Ticket Master seems to incur far more fees than an airline flight now and they are all nonsensical and meaningless money grabs. Here's my latest example:
Ticket Price: $29.50
Facility Charge: $0.75
Convenience Charge: $3.25
Order Processing Fee: $2.50
Mandatory Coat Check: $2.00

Total Extra Fees: $8.50 or nearly 30% markup on the base ticket price.

]]> Eyeglasses Online, the Second Order 2013-04-16T16:17:43Z 2011-01-10T22:59:10Z tag:www.ertyu.org,2011:/steven_nikkel/blog//1.143 2011-01-10T22:59:10Z So I got this strange package in the mail... After the successful purchase of my first pair of glasses online (Eyeglasses Online) I was looking for a set of prescription sunglasses. Unfortunately Clearly Contacts doesn't offer tinting on any lenses... ertyu http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/ steven_nikkel@ertyu.org So I got this strange package in the mail...

After the successful purchase of my first pair of glasses online (Eyeglasses Online) I was looking for a set of prescription sunglasses. Unfortunately Clearly Contacts doesn't offer tinting on any lenses required for my prescription so I was looking elsewhere. After my initial research Zenni Optical seemed like the place to go for a prescription tint, but I just never pulled the trigger on a purchase there for some reason. Then one day an email dropped into my inbox from Goggles4U with an interesting sale (PS: when I'm shopping online I often find it useful to sign up for all the newsletters at places I'm interested in so I'm alerted to coupons and sales). Goggles4U wasn't on my list of vendors offering prescription tint, as in my research I couldn't find information on getting tint on the lenses required for my prescription. The website has an annoying pop-up live chat window, so what the heck I ask and sure enough I can order tint as required. The stumbling blocks continue though. The "Express Checkout" won't let me select my prescription and the "Wizard Checkout" won't find lenses tinted in my prescription. No bother says the support rep, just order and put all the info in a note and they will make it happen. With the sale coupon the total came out to $42. Zenni was in the $60 range and Clearly Contacts was about $160 for non-tinted. Note that I didn't get as high end a lens for Goggles4U or Zenni as compared to Clearly Contacts. I only ended up getting the emailed Paypal receipt and no other order information, which I dislike as I would like to have a copy of the invoice to store. About 12 days later I got this strange package in the mail. It was a cloth covered hunk of styrofoam, stitched shut and then sealed with wax. I had been waiting for some gadget doohickeys I had ordered from Hong Kong and I thought this was the package, but upon looking closer I noticed it had been sent from Pakistan. So I open it up and it's the glasses I had ordered from Goggles4U. Oddly they have an American address and are billed as American Eye Vision Inc. Oh well, the glasses work great and were just what I ordered, not at all bad for $42.

]]>