The Scrolls

Posts Tagged ‘technology’

Let’s Use QR Codes Right

I am a fan of QR codes — partly because I have a smartphone that can scan them, woo. Also, I am lazy and anything that saves me effort is awesome. So the fact that everyone who seems to use them does it wrong is super frustrating.

The way I see it, QR codes make it extremely easy to import data to a phone so putting a QR code on any source that people would want to see on their phone is a smart idea. Using the QR code to access data that is not phone friendly is a pretty big fail. People have commented before how it’s bad marketing to use a QR code that directs the user to a website that’s non-mobile friendly. I cannot understand why anyone wouldn’t have the forethought to avoid such a useless effort. In fact, I once scanned a code that was part of a sweepstakes or other contest that led me to a Flash-based form that wanted me to register for the content. Um, hello? Why not just code your website so that each code links to a unique, dynamic URL that notifies winners of their status before making them register?

But it also bothers me that the only thing people seem to use QR codes for is URLs. Do people not realize that QR codes work with several types of data? I mean, you can use the code for an entire contact card. This is why using the QR code as part of a business card a great idea. Allow your associates to scan your information directly into their phone rather than having to remember it or keep another card in their wallet. Brilliant.

Other uses of QR codes include

• Phone Numbers
• SMS (text) Messages
• YouTube videos
• Google Map locations
• Social media links
• iTunes links
• Events (vcalendar format)
• WiFi logins
• PayPal buy now links

What a convenient way to invite people to your event or let them know where you live without giving directions than including a QR code on your poster or even as a part of your company or family calendar? Plus, anyone who creates and sells anything that they debut in person can include QR tags on products to facilitate sales directly from PayPal. Awesome, am I right?

But, no, what I see is the use of QR codes leading to websites that won’t work on my phone or catalogs that lead to the same same ad on a store’s site. Why?!?

And, unless you’re being facetious, there’s pretty much no use to use QR codes on a website that someone is only accessing from a computer. It makes no sense for me to have to break out my phone to read something on my computer.

Whatever. Stop pissing me off.

Can You See Me Now?

Apparently, something went wrong with some Windows/Windows Live component the other day. I assume it happened when my display adapter last crashed because Windows Live Messenger also crashed. Unfortunately, nothing appeared too wrong on my end. MSN would open and I’d click to sign in and it would simply tell me it was unavailable. Super helpful, right?

The specific error message was 80040154 and a quick search brought up all sorts of pages that told me to register a specific DLL. However, the instructions didn’t work. Luckily, I’m a smart cookie so I went straight to fixing Windows Live Essentials from the Control Panel. This isn’t rocket science but, considering that almost 100,000 people found the recommended solution not helpful, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to write up a quick post about it.

What am I doing up?

I’m just testing this WordPress app is all.

Tech Lust: Nokia N8

So, the other day Nokia announced an upcoming touch screen phone called the N8. Twitter, like the rest of the internet, exploded which chatter and I caught a whiff only to fall in love. I mean, I’ve had my phone almost two years now. I’ve been curios about all those fancy new gadgets but phones don’t really catch my interest.

Except the N8 did. I think it could be that the design is similar-ish to my phone, a Nokia model which is no longer current. They’re both slim, with handy “external” buttons and a slightly feminine design.

But the N8 blows my phone out of the water with its new Symbian technology, 12MP camera, 720p resolution and HDMI connections. I mean, it’s pretty much an entire media solution unto itself. But if you’re not into movies and music, it also integrates social networking options like Twitter and Facebook.

Plus, it’s got an app store, which other Nokia phones can use but I suspect the Ovi store will definitely rise in popularity and usefulness with the N8. Nokia says the app store will provide access to Web TV channels and lists NatGeo and CNN as examples (although, I couldn’t find a listing in the current store).

It’s not out until the third quarter of this year and I don’t know yet who will be carrying it but this might be one gadget I have to have.

The Things You Love to Hate

In my case it’s technology and, sometimes, my kitty Phantom.

Not too long ago I asked for ideas for keeping him out of places and one response was to use double sided tape. Apparently cats don’t like the feeling of it on their paws and if you put it over the entrance to a place you want to keep them out of, it should help. Well, I went to the extreme when I used some double sided tape; I put a grid of the tape over our entire fireplace.

It didn’t work.

That’s right. When faced with this barrier, Phantom simply chewed through it and made a hole big enough for himself. Since then, we have resorted to zip tying the chain link metal “curtain” over the fireplace. This seems to have worked. But, it renders the fireplace completely useless. Pah!

I also needed suggestions for how to get the kitty to stop going places we don’t want him, like near the computer, behind the TV and on counters, tables and dressers. Ashe suggested I get a can of compressed air and this has actually worked really well. I’ve only had the air a few days and Phantom already knows not to fuck with me. If I even grab the can, he scrambles.

Still, if the cat can’t be kind of naughty, he tries to be really naughty. He is now spending time on top of the fridge. He originally went up there because he could smell a ziploc bag of treats I had. He proceeded to chew open the bag. Now, I tihnk he just likes being up that high and he reaches down to play with the magnets and papers on the freezer door. This is especially problematic because I can’t spray him very well up there and we moved everything to the freezer door because he was jumping to get everything on the bottom door from the floor. I guess no magnet is safe.

When it comes to technology, I really like my computer and my MP3 player and the internet but when it goes wrong, it’s so costly. I caught a trojan (W32.Renos) the other day which was redirecting my search results and slowed down my internet as well as blocking potentially helpful sites and webpages. It took over 2 days to finally find a trojan scanner which fixed it. I am very grateful to Dez for finding, downloading and sending me the program since I couldn’t fully utilize my internet.

A lot of people had the same trouble with Renos and similar trojans which fall into the family of Smitfraud. I downloaded/used at least a dozen programs and only 1 of them detected it. I even used tools specifically for these type of infections like SmitFraudFix which did not help. The program which finally did the trick is Simply Super Software’s Trojan Remover and I highly recommend it to anyone with Renos or a similar invasion.

I hope that anyone with this problem stumbles across my site and finds a solution that works for them.

There you have it, the things I love to hate.

Frustrations Abound

To start: if you read any of this post, this is it!

After we shipped off my computer. I signed onto AIM on the laptop and was met with an empty buddylist. Not just 1 in fact, but all of my linked lists were empty. Gone. This was not of any doing of my own as I certainly would not have the patience to delete around 200 buddies and I don’t really have the desire to.

I had the same issue with every other computer I used and resigned myself to hoping that once I was back on my computer, my buddylist would be intact or I would somehow be able to get it back.

Well, it wasn’t and I couldn’t. So, if you were on my AIM list or even if you just want to be now, let me know your name.

My second frustration is something which has been solved to a point: my bathroom. I thought the tub was leaking because there was always a huge puddle on the floor after we showered. It appeared to be coming from under the tub which was alarming and strange. I called the office and they put in a call for maintenance.

A few days later maintenance shows up and the guy says it’s coming not from under the tub, but from the side of the tub (near the faucet) and water was dripping down onto the side and dripping onto the floor from there. I was dubious but he went ahead and put in a little bracket thing on the side of the tub to stop it, told e to wait 4 hour before I used the tub and I did.

Now, we have been putting up with the worst-shower-head-ever! EVER! Instead of water shooting out as a reasonable speed and distance, it simply falls straight down from the head. This resulted in us having to stand no more than 6 inches away from the shower wall. This only furthered our puddle because the water from the shower was basically going right onto the side of the tub and down onto the floor, creating our big puddle.

So the bracket does seem to help, a bit. Even though I waited over 5 hours, when I took a shower the water that got on the bracket made the sealant leak in a little white puddle. So I have been wrapping the shower liner around into the shower and using water suction to stick it to the shower wall which seems to work more than the bracket itself.

The one saving grace of the bathroom is that we have now purchased a new showed head with more pressure that shoots out much straighter and further than the old one. It also has different settings which I don’t much care for but it’s a plus anyway.

Sadly, there’s still 1 more thing wrong with the bathroom: lately the chain inside the toilet tank keeps falling off so you can’t flush. Now, the toilet tank itself isn’t as dirty as the bowl but I’d still prefer not to have to stick my arm in there if I don’t have to. In fact, I even dreamt about it the other night. Ugh.

MY last frustration is certainly the biggest. Remember my new phone? Stylish? Cute? Small? Mine? Yea, well I’ve had some issues.

I have returned it twice because, eventually, the instant messaging feature has stopped working. While it certainly won’t kill me, I think I should be able to use all the features the phone has. The first two times it took about a week to stop working, even though it worked fine directly out of the store. Yesterday I called tech support for my second phone, tried to reset and when that didn’t help, they told me to return it which I did.

Last night, already, the IM feature stopped working on my third phone. T-Mobile’s policy is that I can do an alternative exchange or upgrade after 3 returns for the issue but, honestly, there’s no other phone I like as much, so I don’t really want to do an alternative exchange.

Unfortunately, since the software was put on it by T-Mobile, Nokia can be of no help. Even worse, TMobile tech support and store associates have no idea what’s going on. To add insult to injury, Ryan has the exact same phone and has not had any of the problems I have.

Instead of exchanging, I thought I would find an application online to use instead of the one provided by TMobile. Unfortunately, the TMobile settings block all third party applications so I can’t even do that, it seems. I think I am stuck trying to debrand the phone myself and, if that fails, paying them to unlock it to see if that will help.

Ugh. I really enjoy the phone besides this one issue which I keep running into and it only frustrates me that it just seems to be me having it. What am I doing wrong?

The Thin Red Line

Recently, I was reading Joana’s thoughts about how we, as a country, need to stop ignoring our own internal problems while we throw resources at others’ problems around the globe. I felt conflicted emotions about this issue. On the one hand, I believe there should be a way to be a good neighbour and help others in their times of need but, on the other hand, I do not think that out own unfortunate populations should be forsaken to do do. The comment I left reflected this, I hope.

Well, I can’t say abandoning the world is going to help but you know, maybe international relations can be on a hold a while when we figure out our own shit. I’m sure there’s some sort of a balance to working at home and helping out the neighbours and even those across the globe. But it’s probably a pretty difficult balance.

Afterall, being friendly isn’t a bad thing and we can’t exactly wait until all our problems are solved as anything with people will always have problems.

Still, completely ignoring the homefront just to impress president or PM of country X is pretty lame. I think it does have a lot do with the fact that much of the national issues are “supposed” to be taken care of at the state level (or are pushed down to that level so the federal government doesn’t have to do anything, maybe?) whereas international efforts are federal.

I thought it would be left at that but, as luck would have it, my aunt forwarded me a link to JK Rowling’s Harvard Commencement speech and I also took the time to read the speeches of other prominent figures, such as Bill Gates and President Bill Clinton (during last year’s commencement).

Many of these speeches focused on the fact that Harvard graduates have a unique opportunity given them by their education, that perhaps they will be more qualified to solved the ills of the world. Many of these speeches focused on the problems abroad that we, as a modern nation, are more equipped to deal with than those experiencing such pains. This was a strong theme when Bill Clinton discussed his work with AIDS, especially in Africa.

I find this work to be admirable and selfless. I know that millions of people will see another day or another 20 years because of it, sometimes because of simple medicines that Americans and others in modern countries take for granted. I absolutely think someone has to do it and why not you or me?

But where do you draw the line when it comes to giving a helping hand at home or extending that hand outside your domestic boundaries? How do you even begin to go about deciding where to draw the line when it’s so easy to slip to either side; focus too much on home and you’re selfish to the point of self-detriment, focus too much on the outside and you’re selfless to the point of self-detriment.

I absolutely believe that if you have the power, the resources and the technology to help, you should help. We should help. In Africa, in China, in India. I also believe these efforts go a long way toward global relations and respect and, of course, peace.

But why does international effort seem so much more heroic, more noble? Indeed, there are issues on the home front that need our attention: obesity, education. government spending/funding, education, homelessness, unemployment, the economy in general. Is it perhaps that even an American most afflicted by these controversial issues is still so much better off than someone in a third world country with AIDs? That, perhaps, the most unfortunate American is still better off than the most pampered non-American?

Or perhaps selflessness is simply expected of America because she is the world’s last standing super power regardless of the nobility of the acts themselves. And why not lead the way for others to follow, to be inspired by our selfless acts? Surely by doing and teaching this, we are only helping our own citizens.

The balance is a delicate one and while there are decisions made by my government with which I do not agree, I cannot condemn the efforts because of solely those arguments. Society is, afterall, an evolving process.