talking 'bout my generation...and my grandmother's

Our latest big "life event" is the decision to sell our home and try to build a new one. I'm not exactly a crafty handyman, and I know that it is going to be difficult, but i also know that it isn't rocket science, and there are *tons* of useful resources available on the subject (not to mention the opportunity to do volunteer construction work for organizations like Habitat for Humanity, which may enhance some basic skills). So we're moving full steam ahead. Our current home is for sale, and we've already found a vacant lot that we like. Local contacts for survey, water and other utilities have been dragging their feet, but that's to be expected in any construction project - particularly in a small town.

The only real snag thus far has been the verbal backlash that we've been suffering from some of our relatives. My mother-in-law has been throwing every horror story at us that she can cook up. My parents seem to think that I won't be able to figure it out. That's irritating. Since I was a kid, I had been fed that line that "if you can dream it, you can do it" from our parents, but I guess the real impetus for their support was so that we did well in school. But who can blame us for taking it seriously?

My generation (somewhere between Generation X and Y) is a motley crew of vivid dreamers. Our parents don't get it, and neither do our younger siblings, but my grandmother seems to agree with us on most of our views. I guess that it skips a generation. Or it could have something to do with our upbringing - the boomer influence, the yuppie craze, the hair-do's, and those strange wooden diagonal panels that permeated most of the architecture. I could also try and blame it on the television shows that we grew up on. Rainbows were all the rage, and weren't a symbol for diversity just yet. We watched fictional creatures like the Smurfs and Fraggles. We had bizarre TV personalities like Mr. T, and that kooky "bodyman" with the airbrushed bodystockings made to look like human muscle and sinew. (The same effect was revived with slightly more gruesome details for the film Hellraisers.) It was all about ultra-creative post-hippie learning techniques, but with a duochromatic beige and mauve hue. And then there was Reaganomics, the Berlin Wall, the space shuttle explosion (and the jokes in bad taste that followed), and we had a strange fascination with the olympics and its stocky winning gymnasts.

As children, we weren't aware of most of the negative impacts of these times, such as the unbelievable mortgage interest rates. But with such a bizarre smattering of seemingly unrelated but equally lofty offerings, who can blame us for keeping our heads in the clouds - when we've got kids of our own?

My 600th post!!

'Nuff said.

:)

birth of the internet = death of all media

I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that the internet is slowly killing of all media. Music was the first thing to go - MP3 has replaced the CD. Movies were next, and as more people shell out top dollar for super-highspeed internet, they'll be downloading their full movies via the net instead of stopping at Blockbuster on the way home. Television and cable are on the way out, replaced by popular on-demand video sites like YouTube. Some argue that the quality of video on these free sites isn't good enough to convince people to ditch their televisions, but if MP3s are any indicator of the horrible digital media quality that the average consumer is willing to endure, I suspect that television stations will die with their oldest viewers. Online books are now the rage, although I personally can't stand reading books on screen.

If you're feeling squirmish and uncomfortable with all of these changes, you must be "old" like myself. Adding insult to injury is the fact that these new media developments have more-or-less killed my hopes of running my all-time dream business - that of a brick-and-mortar independent record store. I used to practically live in record stores. As a teen, any remaining part-time job income after paying my car insurance and gas usually went to the local record store. Seeing as I only recently turned thirty, I thought I could still be part of the "young" and "hip" crowd, but there's no such thing as a "young" or "hip" dying breed, is there? (David Bowie may be the exception here.)

When I was a teen, my media obsession consisted of cassettes, vinyl, newly introduced CDs, VHS and (gasp!) old Beta videos. I'd frequently blow additional cash on blank cassettes, fresh jewelcases, milk crates (for the vinyl), sorting cards and Dymo labels for my display shelving so that I could find the exact album or movie I was looking for. When you've got thousands of discs to thumb through, alphabetization and organization is paramount. It's nothing like today, where some kid can just plug a wildcard into his iPod and every song and album shows up in the mini-browser.

Don't get me wrong. I definitely understand the advantage to being able to carry your entire music collection in your pocket. Trust me...after moving my collection a dozen times or so, I REALLY see the benefit. I'm probably going to migrate my entire collection to digital at some point, as soon as they've perfected the conversion process so that I don't have to worry about digital artifacts, slushy over-compressed hi-hat sounds, and those obnoxious ripping skips and pops. But I don't know if I'll ever be as excited about new acquirements as I used to be, and I lament the fact that my son and daughter will never get their fingertips dirty thumbing through used vinyl at their favorite record shop.

The other benefit to the death of these types of media is the fact that overall we are left with less physical "tings" in our lives. Granted, we are only replacing them with digital and "virtual" things, but I guess that is a step in the right direction...

choose your own adventure

Remember those books? I used to half a few of them as a kid. I enjoyed reading them, but found that I often ended up with the same ending. I'd have to intentionally make decisions that I wouldn't normally make in order for the "adventure" to change. But it was fiction, and there weren't any real ramifications, so why not?

The other day, I was reminded of those books a little. I saw a photo essay online titled "American Vagabonds". The photos hovered (mostly) around a group of punkish bohemian youth living in abandoned buildings and railcars. They were dirty, wore tattered clothing, and carried sacks of vegetables on their backs as they traveled. It's hard to believe that anyone would choose to live that way. But the bleeding heart liberal edge would say that these are outcasts of society and that their fate was served to them unjustly. For some, this could be true. But when I see them smoking cigarettes, drinking booze, and weather high fashion clothing like studded belts and designer tees, I have to wonder if they didn't actually choose this lifestyle. After all, you can add up the cost of booze and tobacco addictions and it would set you pretty close to sharing rent in a cheap part of town.

I had a friend who also felt as thought he had been continually served with bad luck, when in fact most of his bad luck was due to bad choices on his part. For example, when he let his credit card spending get out of hand, he headed straight for bankruptcy, without even considering any kind of credit counseling or debt relief. He's doing okay now, although he's bitten off more of a mortgage than he could really afford and now he's feeling the pinch each month. He's gone from expensive-hobby and bad-decision poor to house-poor.

So I must conclude that, aside from the occasional job, medical, or lawsuit-based financial tragedy, we are still in fact choosing our own adventures. It's all about how we choose to spend our money (or not).

myspace to take on itunes?

I was just reading that myspace is going to be revamping their music service to offer musicians a chance to sell music via their profiles. Industry gurus are predicting that this move could help them to rival iTunes in their digital sales. Some are applauding this decision, and have high hopes that it will be very successful. After all, the myspace user base is so large that some of it has to payoff, right?

Unfortunately, I fall into the more jaded camp myself. Myspace already tried the digital distribution widget deal with Sno-cap and that has left a bad taste in the mouths of many musicians. I personally believe that artists would do best to create their own direct sale widget and add it to their profile. Cut out as many of the middlemen as possible. Album sales are suffering so badly these days that the least we can do is to try and get more per sale. Selling it yourself results in more accountability and on-time royalties, too. The only downside is that you're still going to need some sort of credit card processing service which will charge a fee. I personally use a Drupal-based storefront on my music website, with PayPal processing [payments on the back-end. The only real problem is that PayPal charges a flat fee and then a percentage. That flat fee really eats into your profit when you're talking about pay-per-track costs.

It will be interesting to see what happens with this new myspace music service. I suspect that the artists who will most benefit are those who aren't web savvy enough to explore other options. And in their case, they will be paying (myspace) for the convenience of (hopefully) an easy setup configuration. I just hope that myspace doesn't decide to outlaw any other forms of digital sales from their profiles. Only time will tell.

filing taxes online?

Am I the only person who feels like submitting all your personal tax and income information online is asking for a swift case of identity theft? It just seems like a little too much information to be left floating around in cyberspace, what with all of the Russian hackers out there.

I've had my credit card number stolen twice now, both thanks to online businesses with less-than-perfect security strategies. Although both cases were covered by the credit card company without any financial loss to me, they did involve several days of talking on the phone and filling out fraud reports. And to me, time is money. One guy at the credit card company told me that online credit card fraud is no different than having some brick-and-mortar store clerk writing down your card number. But I'm not really convinced. So there are certain things that I still shy away from doing online.

Filing my taxes are top of the list. Mortgage applications and online auto insurance are next in line, although it really depends on how much info they request. Some only require you to submit less sensitive information as a preliminary application, and then allow you to follow up via snail mail or telephone. The phone and utility companies are pushing online payment processing really hard these days. Most offer incentives, and a few even require it. But what if you don't have email or an internet connection (or don't want it)?

Everyone assumes that the only people that are left without an internet connection are the nearly-departed generations of yesteryear. But there are still certain businesses that lend themselves to a more face-to-face business model and no amount of money saved is gong to change our desire for personal interaction - regardless of our age. Of course, with the "virtualizing" of nearly every aspect of our lives, it is only a matter of time before people forget how to interact in person. I hope that we have some sort of real life unwired renaissance prior to that.

reappraising the registry

Yesterday, we received a wedding invitation in the mail for a friend that lives many miles away. Although we won't be attending, we of course will have to hop online and pick something out for them from their wedding registry. I like ordering gifts online - it's easier than driving out to stores and then having it shipped. I have even grown to appreciate the bridal registry process,although at first I thought it was really cheesy - like a Xmas wishlist for grown-ups. It still has it's flaws...

For one, unless you register with several different stores, you are stuck selecting from a single store catalog. And of course, if you wait until the last minute, you're stuck buying things like $35 cooking spatulas and one-off Riedel wine glasses. So, we opted to send a gift certificate this time. We saved $5 on gift wrap and another $5 on shipping, so more of our money actually goes to the bride and groom. Best of all, they get to walk away feeling ridiculous for spending that $35 on a spatula, instead of me.

when kids are no longer kids

The parent-child relationship is confusing, especially when you get to the point where you feel that you may be more mentally acute than your aging parents. We're in our thirties now, and yet our parents still feel the need to preach to us regularly about our finances and life decisions. I don't mind the advice or their supposed "wisdom of ages", but I'm starting to wonder when we cross that pivotal point when we know better than they do. I suppose that with each parent it will be different. Some lose their mental capacity quicker than others. Some hit ninety and are still sharp as tacks.

So how do we deal with this? How do we take off their rose-tinted glasses so that they can see that we aren't little children anymore - that we are parents ourselves now, and have the capability to make sound decisions on our own. Apparently, our past decisions aren't enough to convince them that we know what we're doing. It's ridiculous, actually. I ask myself why I even deal with it, or (better yet) why I let it get to me. I suppose that there are books on the subject to help cope.

My mother-in-law grilled me yesterday over the phone over a home-buying decision, for no real reason other than the fact that it would scare the pants off of her to undertake such an adventure. She's stuck where she is - comfortable, numb even. I try to put myself into her shoes to better understand why she feels the need to impose her sense of "doom" on everyone else, but I'm left wondering why we haven't quit talking to her by now. They say that family is forever, but with her it is a forever headache, and it shouldn't be. We shouldn't have to be verbally accosted for every decision we make in life just so that our children can grow up knowing their grandparents. Sorry...just venting.

not really attached, anyways

The truth is that I've never been very attached to my "things". I do tend to be a pack rat - not because I am attached, though. Rather, I see the usefulness in certain objects and allow them to hang around if I think I can use them for something in the future. I am especially aware of the potential reuse of objects for tasks that they may not have originally been designed for. I'm also a sucker for a "deal". My wife and I have been known to pick up gifts on clearance from retail shops nine months before someone's birthday - because we know that it will *eventually* make a great gift.

At first I thought that my non-interest in material objects had to do with my lack of sentimental value in them. But that theory didn't fly when I realized that I never hung on to things like Birthday cards, awards, or certain photographs. In fact, I distinctly remember disassembling some of my childhood soccer trophies just so that I could reuse the marble block base.

Of course, my only real concern at this point is that many of the items that I would like to sell second-hand of are now worth next-to nothing. And although I can handle not having them anymore, I have a hard time giving them away for free (especially when I remember what I paid for them). I know that I should probably just rationalize it by remembering how much use I got out of them, but when I see something like a professional keyboard synthesizer that I paid $1600 for ten years ago sell for $150, it makes me a little ill. It also makes me feel like I should just go ahead and hang on to it, in case I ever feel the need to use it again.

spring cleaning!

I'm in the mood for another ration of simplification. Every time I think we've simplified our lives to a point where we can't go any further, I re-evaluate something that is taking up space in the house that we don't use very often.

Right now, I'm eyeballing our media collections - CDs, DVDs, VHS, vinyl, and even cassettes. I am a HUGE music fan, so it goes without saying that the idea of living without a music collection is a tragedy, but I've begin investigating the whole iPod phenomenon. I even downloaded iTunes and started backing up some of my discs to the hard drive. I've got two major snags right now, though. First, my PC is having trouble starting up, so I am leery about moving my entire music collection to the digital domain when the hard drive could take a dive. Second, some of the tracks that I tried to rip from CD came out with skips and other digital artifacts that I can't accept. I have heard of better success using a different encoder than the one that is built into iTunes, but the instructions for adding the Lame encoder to iTunes are about as clear as mud.

Compounding the urge to purge is the fact that we are contemplating putting our home up for sale. Every time that we move, I reassess what I really want to pack up and what i want someone else to pack up and take away. Unlike most people, I don't plan on replacing these items, though. Anything that goes will be gone for good.

the self-employment shuffle

I recently came up with a new approach at scheduling my time as a self-employed web geek - sticking to a schedule! I know, I know. It's a novel idea, right? But all of the extra time I was spending at night and on weekends was really taking its toll and I had to establish a set schedule to get things back in order. I'm still not 100% sure that self-employment is going to work for me for the long term, though. I still keep my eyes on the classifieds and help wanted ads in our local newspaper, just in case the "perfect job" appears. And I will admit that when I saw this tagline for a new job search website:

Jump Start Your Day & Career with itzbig

I went ahead and checked it out. It was quick and painless; reminds me a bit of the popular job search sites, but enhanced with a social networking type of interface. I gave them a unique email address so as to watch out for affiliated spam - nothing yet. The site has lots of flash and dynamic data entry, as opposed to the grueling "edit and submit" loopback that I seemed to be stuck in with most job profile sites. What I really like about it is the fact that it does a percentage match for the type of job you are looking for, based on your experience, location and education. Which is better than the tens of other sites that simply ask where you live and make you search through pages and pages of irrelevant positions and all of those "self-starter" pyramid model scams.

Of course, it didn't find the "perfect job" for me, but that's not likely to happen anytime soon, regardless of where I am looking. And that's my own fault, because I still haven't figured out what it is that I really want to do when I grow up. ;)

the disconnected webgeek?

My PC has been giving me problem lately. I built this thing myself, so you would think that I would be able to fix it. Unfortunately, I've narrowed it down to a problem with the motherboard, CPU, or video card - none of which is an easy fix. The video card would be first choice for replacement, but what if that isn't the problem? At what point do we say, "hey, I only spent $300 on this thing so if it lasted me a few years, I should be able to trash it without a sour conscience."

I've actually been thinking about moving my setup to a flash USB drive. Yes, as a web designer, this is a bold step. Instead of carrying a laptop bag to the library for example, I will carry a keyfob. When it comes to benefits, there are many. Among them - cost, maintenance, upgrades, tech support, virus protection, etc, etc. Potential problems include incompatible software, scheduling conflicts, other users hosing up the computers at the library, and the idea of depending on a government entity for my income. Not to mention how lame it might look to clients if I show up with a keyfob and ask, Can I plug into your PC?

testing the ashop shopping cart

I just signed up for a test account at ashopcommerce.com, which offers a free 10-day shopping cart trial. I plugged in some generic ghost info into the sign-up form, with a new email address at Yahoo. (Don't need to get signed up to a mailing list.) After submitting the form, it just redirected me back to the homepage, with no indication of whether my submission was successful. Did it go through? Did it get rejected? Who knows...

Checking my email at Yahoo, I did find a welcome message with my shopping cart details. It provided me with a demo URL, login and password to maintain it. At signup, the form indicated that payment functionality, domain pointing and email accounts are not active. But once you pay to activate, these functions go live.

I clicked on the admin link, and quickly discovered that I could not login. Unfortunately, they require that you use Internet Explorer to access the admin panel. This is a sticking point for me, and I believe it is the same reason to why I hadn't tried them out in the past.



If you're looking for an e-commerce software solution, and want immediate access to a 10-day trial, check them out. The Internet Explorer requirement is, unfortunately, a deal breaker for me.

why is shopping so hard for me?

or, rather, why is setting up a shopping cart so hard?

I've toyed around with shopping cart extensions for Drupal for several of my websites now, and while I have gotten several to work, it has been a real pain. The quickfile payment module works well, but is strictly limited in its abilities. There is no cart functionality, so your customers will have to purchase each item individually. If you're only selling one product, say an e-book, that's no big deal. But if you're selling multiple files like mp3's, it just isn't optimum.

I've tried the Drupal e-commerce module, which does serve up a configurable shopping cart, but it is very confusing to skin the shopping cart and order flow. The ubercart module was easier to work with, and includes integration with the workflow_ng module, which together allows one to sell membership or assign user roles on payment.

My biggest complaint about every Drupal cart module that I have tried thus far, is that there are too many checkout steps. With no module do we get the option to send a user directly to PayPal for payment upon clicking on a button. This is a basic functionality that you can build manually using PayPal code, but it would be so much nicer if we could have it ported into one of these modules so that we can track orders internally, and dynamically create product purchase links from within the Drupal interface.

The closest that I have been able to get it is to use the ubercart module and have it auto-submit through the checkout forms until it gets to PayPal. In IE, the page stays white with no content while it is auto-forwarding to PayPal. In Firefox, you can see each checkout page as it is bypassed. This isn't the best solution, but for now it will have to do.

I've also been looking at some of the third party shopping cart software solutions, but none of them integrate into Drupal like the above modules. Zencart, osCommerce and Magento look promising for opensource programs. I'm sure there are decent paid solutions, too.

making kids with weird names happy

My daughter has a unique name. Some would say it was strange, but it's actually a name that I discovered while doing genealogy research. So it's not a weird, hippie name - it's a family name. And it suits her perfectly. We all love the fact that she's the only person we know with her name. She's a special kid...with a special name. It's actually the name of a flower, too, so it's not like we named her "stardust" or "dotcom" or "kewl" or some other fad-based moniker.

Occasionally, we have trouble with strangers over her name. Although it is a word that is very common in the English language, they forget how to pronounce it for some reason when it is attached to a real person. Either that, or they think that she is a boy based on her name. (Probably due to all of those boys out there that are named after flowers...ahem.) The only other problem that we've had is when we have tried to get anything personalized for her. In most cases, you can only select from a list of the most popular names. While this works fine for people like my sister, who chose to name her daughter with the most popular girl's name of that year, it does occasionally cause some disappointment for my daughter.

So when I had the chance to review a new service specializing in children's personalized books, toys and DVDs, I jumped at the chance. Instead of picking from a list of predetermined children's names, they allowed me to enter her name into a blank field. So I figured there would be no problem. I uploaded my daughter's photo, and placed the order for a personalized Care Bears DVD. (The Care Bears have actually been experiencing a revival over the last few years, which is funny because I remember seeing them on TV when I was a kid.)



A couple of days after I ordered, I received a voicemail indicating that there was a problem with my order, and that I needed to call them about it. "Crap! I bet it's her name," I thought to myself. Foiled again. As it turned out, it was her name that was the problem. But instead of canceling the order, the customer service rep asked if I would be willing to wait an extra week or two for them to custom record her name. Awesome!

A short week later, the DVD arrived in the mail. Anxious to see how it worked out, I popped it into the player for my kids to watch. I hadn't told my daughter that it was personalized - just that it was a surprise for her. Soon enough, there's my daughter's face on an animated body, skiing down a mountain with the Care Bears. Both kids got a kick out of it. It was hilarious. The voice didn't always match with the characters voice when they said her name, and at times the Bears' mouths seemed to move without any audio (almost like an old Kung Fu movie), but overall it's a great gift for younger children who haven't grown old and crotchety enough to let such minor inconsistencies bother them. I'd order it again and definitely recommend it to other parents, especially those who may have trouble finding personalized gifts for their children due to unusual names.



The site is called Kids Personally and they offer personalized books, DVDs, and toys featuring Disney, Looney Tunes, comic book characters, and of course the Care Bears.

hey HP, where's my ink credit?

I'd like to take a moment to rant about printer ink. This has got to be one of the biggest scams on the market right now. My printer just ran out of both ink cartridges and it is going to cost me $60 to replace them. What's even worse is that I could buy a new comparable printer (complete with new ink cartridges) for about $80. So, do I spend the $60 on new ink for my old printer with yesterday's technology and outdated warranty, or do I get a new printer with new features, fresh ink, and better drivers for a little more?

From an environmental perspective, it makes sense to keep using my existing printer, since is isn't broken, and just shell out the cash for the replacement ink. But the stick-it-to-the-man rebel inside me says not to fall into that trap, and that I should just consider dropping the extra $20 for the new printer.

Or, I could try one of those refurbished ink companies and cross my fingers that I won't have any of the problems that I see listed in the product reviews. (Don't even get me started on the mess we made with one of those refill-your-own ink kits.)

Regardless of which option I choose, this dilemma begs several questions...

1) If the two ink cartridges come bundled with the new printer for a total of only $80, are we paying like 800% markup on replacement ink or is the printer only worth $20?

2) How is it that every computer technology has continually dropped in price over the years except for printer ink?

3) Why can't I get a credit for the empty ink cartridge that I send back to them in their little recycling envelope? Aren't they going to sell it to those refurb companies and turn a profit?

Perhaps if the printer manufacturers were willing to share the credit with us, I'd be more willing to cooperate. Until then, I guess I'll be damned to hell for filling the landfills with outmoded printer technology.