Brian Lang, Abbotsford, BC, Canada
My observations of the world and news from my life
| April 1st, 2009 | Comments Off | Miscellaneous
Twenty one of the Sunflowers and 3 of the Morning Glories are so tall that I had to remove them from the plastic dome of my seedling greenhouse. I also have at least two tomatoes peeking out, and a bunch of marigolds.
| August 14th, 2008 | Comments Off | Miscellaneous
Over on TreeHugger, Sami Grover has suggested a new term: micro-hypermiling. Micro-hypermiling is hypermiling on a pre-defined route with which the drive is intimately familiar.
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| June 30th, 2008 | Comments Off | Miscellaneous
If you believe that Rogers pricing plan for the iPhone has ruined the iPhone experience for you, and you live in Canada, please check out www.ruinediphone.com and sign the petition.
The lowest cost voice and data plan for the iPhone is $60 and it is feature poor. I’m not going to go into details right now, but I’m completely disgusted with Rogers, and after being a customer of theirs for over 7 years, I’m sorely tempted to cancel my plan. Unfortunately, I’m in a contract for another 4 months and I’m not willing to pay the cancellation fees…Otherwise I would.
| May 1st, 2008 | Comments Off | Miscellaneous
Apple announced today the ability to purchase movies from iTunes in the US (I’m sure it will spread worldwide in time). Now, the news release doesn’t mention what file size the movie downloads are, but I think it’s ridiculous that anyone would consider this for standard viewing. Here’s why.
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| March 28th, 2008 | 4 Comments » | Miscellaneous
My XBox 360 died a while back – unplayable disc errors – basically the DVD drive stopped working.
The unit is still under warranty, so microsoft offered a free repair.
Microsoft sent me a box (coffin) to ship the box along with a return shipping label. The first red flag! It was from Purolator.
“Uh oh”, I thought.
Anyway, Purolator did their thing, and the XBox did get to Toronto (or wherever) and got fixed or replaced. I don’t know which yet.
Then Microsoft shipped it back to me. Purolator attempted to deliver it today around lunch time, but no one was home. That’s fine. But the stupid driver was unable to drive across Abbotsford (about a five minute drive) to drop my package off at the local depot. So now I am forced to wait until Monday afternoon to pick up my parcel because the driver was too lazy to do his/her job.
Once Again, I am asking you to not use Purolator for any reason. They are lazy and incompetent. Again.
| March 12th, 2008 | Comments Off | Miscellaneous
This is a sample blog post created and edited using Google Docs.
Once I’m done typing this message I will attempt to post it to my blog at http://www.brianlang.ca.
I’m including a photo of my son Joseph picking what he wants to eat for supper. Just to see how Google Docs handles it.
Update: Well, Google did it’s job – kind of. Missing from the Publish to blog feature is the Blog Post Title. Something Needs To Be Done! Otherwise I will have to come here and edit every post anyway. What’s the point in using an external editor if I have to come here and edit after the fact. Why not just start here and write the post here in the first place. Or in me email software which is – oh – Gmail? I could post a blog post via email with a title, why not from Google Docs?
Other than that, it looks OK. Google Docs will even let me un-publish a post, edit it and publish it again. There’s also a re-publish option, but I didn’t try that today.
| February 24th, 2008 | Comments Off | Miscellaneous
Well, my glasses finally arrived, one month to the day I ordered them. Seemed more than a little slow to me. The package was postmarked Pakistan!! Of the two pair I ordered, one is not going to last long as it is very flimsy. The other pair, the one with the chromatic lenses, seems fine, except that the ear pieces are not what I expected. At first, I didn’t notice that they changed color depending on (I think) the intensity of the UV. But after spending most of Saturday outdoors or in the car, I finally noticed that they were darker when the sun was brighter.
Given the speed of the service from Goggles4U, I may not order from them again. Next time I might just try a different supplier.
On to the fitting experience. I took the glasses to the same place I had my eyes tested to have them adjusted. They did the adjustments for me but then asked why I needed the adjustments. I offered to pay a fee to have the glasses adjusted, but they turned me down. I told them where I got the glasses, and they tried to scare me with some of these stories:
So it remains to be seen whether or not this is a successful experiment or not. At $30/pair though, I will be ordering again at some point. From Goggles4U? That remains to be seen. I’ll post again if anything changes.
| February 12th, 2008 | Comments Off | Miscellaneous
I’m testing a new plugin called PicLens. It looks promising, if I can get it working. The PicLens Plugin for WordPress takes all the images in a post and makes a slideshow from them. Could be very useful. It also includes a Slide-show widget, which you can see to the side. The widget, unfortunately, seems to be drawing images from some Stock Photo feed on Flickr, so a good many of the images in it are NOT mine. I’ll be working with the PicLens staff to figure this one out.
[piclens-lite-link]
Update: Well, originally, the plugin failed to work. Now, I’ve removed it, and re-installed it, and it’s working fine. Go figure.
Update 2: It seems that anytime I want to refresh the plugin, I have to deactivate it and reactivate it. Hopefully the slideshow widget works the same way. I won’t be reactivating the slideshow one for a while yet as I’m refreshing my older posts with photos.
| January 19th, 2008 | Comments Off | Miscellaneous
Hmm….long time no post. Oh well. Maybe I’ll try and get to this more often.
Anyway, I decided that the time had come to get some new glasses. Went to the doctor today and got my new prescription. Then I came home and ordered my glasses on the internet.
I can hear some of you saying “What the heck are you thinking?!”
I first heard about online opticians from a post on 43folders.com back in early December and that got me thinking. So I did some research and some reading and decided to go for it.
I started out at GlassyEyes, which was linked from the 43folders article. There was a list of five stores on that website, and I decided to try Goggles4U. They have a pretty decent selection and very good instructions on what you need to do to get your glasses. (ie. Measuring your existing glasses as a baseline, etc…)
Going to Wal-Mart would’ve cost me a minimum of $140 for one pair of single vision glasses. Going anywhere else would’ve been a lot more. My benefits at work give me $200 for glasses every two years. That would’ve meant getting only one pair per two years that was fully paid for. I might have found a “special” somewhere with 2-for-1 glasses, but in my experience, that usually only covers the frames and lenses. No coatings or anything else. And I really find I need the anti-glare and anti-scratch coatings.
Guess how much I spent on 2 pair of glasses from Goggle4U. C’mon, guess. No idea? I’ll tell you. The total came to $56.98 after a five percent discount coupon code from Glassy Eyes. That’s TWO pair for $60. Including shipping.
Now the wait begins to see what I end up with and the quality and so on. Hopefully it’s worth it!
| August 21st, 2006 | Comments Off | Miscellaneous
I just tried to fill out the Message to City Council (City of Edmonton) form at
http://www.edmonton.ca/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_0_2_360_251_0_43/http%3B/CMSServer/COEWeb/mayor+and+city+council/message+to+city+council.htm
and when I finished I got an Error 404 page at
http://www.edmonton.ca/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_0_2_360_251_0_43/http%3B/CMSServer/COEWeb/mayor%2520and%2520city%2520council/InteractiveForm_ContactCouncil.aspx?NRMODE=Published&NRNODEGUID=%7b72509C32-CEC6-469D-A9A8-B856A6BBEC9C%7d&NRORIGINALURL=%2fCOEWeb%2fmayor%2520and%2520city%2520council%2fmessage%2520to%2520city%2520council%2ehtm&NRCACHEHINT=NoModifyGuest
Did my message get to City Council or is this just a layer of protection for the councillors so they are not bothered by the public?
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