Tech consultant for Olympia, Lacey, And Tumwater
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010
by Mark Carras
Here is my interview with Matt Inman of The Oatmeal. Please spread this video to as many places as you can. Feel free to embed it into your site and post a link in the comments.
The interview was conducted at Gnomedex 2010.
For info on the cancer benefit please CLICK HERE
Sunday, August 22nd, 2010
by Mark Carras
Seattle Marriott Waterfront Hotel review
Marriott Chef delivering bun
So another weekend of Gnomedex and another weekend at the Seattle Marriott Waterfront Hotel. This may have been the last year of Gnomedex but another tech conference had it’s first year at the exact same conference center. For some reason they thought PII was a good name despite everyone already pronouncing it like Pee. So even though I won’t be going up for Gnomedex next year, I do hope to go up for Seattle Geek week and Pee…er, I mean Pii. So I figured why not review this years stay at the Seattle Marriott Waterfront Hotel?
The staff as always was great. I’ve never seen a group of people work so hard to make little ol’ me feel as comfortable as possible. It was nice to see Nicole (I’m starting to learn names, how sad is that?) at the front desk again. She has a pleasant laugh and a relaxing smile. Even though I know she is paid to have that laugh and smile she does it so well I am led to believe there is some sincerity to it. I’m as cynical as it gets, but she seems to actually give a crap and have fun with her job.
The chef made me laugh this year though. Last year Ciabatta buns were all the rage, so I understood why they had one of those nasty things on the burger I ordered. This year however it was a freakin’ pancake! No joke. I was told it was some sort of flat bread, but if it looked like a pancake, smelled like a pancake, and sure as heck tasted like a pancake, I think it is safe to say that was a damn pancake! It reminded me of those images of a rabbit with a pancake on it’s head. “I have no idea what you are saying so here’s a bunny with a pancake on it’s head.” So I felt like the chef was telling me, “I have no idea what you are saying, so here’s a burger with a pancake on it’s head.” To be clear, the burger tasted great otherwise. It would have been better with a real (traditional) bun, but the pancake made me laugh more than anything. It was more goofy and silly than anything that would have ruined the meal. The omelet I had on Sunday morning was way better than the one I had on the Sunday morning last year. Not sure why. Maybe it was cooked more thoroughly? Maybe I ordered different ingredients? Maybe they changed cooks, methods, recipes, equipment, or something else. All I know is that It was pretty packed with awesome.
The maid service was great of course. I think the maids got used to me leaving at 8 am for the conference. So when I slept in until about ten and was still getting stuff ready for check out at 11:00 a very polite and apologetic lady came in to change the bed sheets. If I was forced to find one complaint it would be that they kept moving the program schedule and remote to the tv. Who needs it there? I need it on the nightstand! But if that is the biggest complaint I can think of, that is some awesome work! Let me also say the guys out in front are always jumping on any excuse they can to serve you. It kind of threw a guy like me for a loop to be honest. I’m just not used to that sort of thing. I heard that the hotel was packed all weekend, but yet it just didn’t seem like it. Everything was nice and quiet. Sure there was people, but it still maintained a very relaxing vibe to me. I have heard about hotels that are about half the price just a block or two up the street, but the staff at the Seattle Marriott Waterfront Hotel treat me so well that I am afraid to try anywhere else next year. Now everyone, let me hear you scream, “Pee, Pee, Pee, Pee, Pee!” Oh, right. It’s Pii. Sorry, I keep forgetting.
Friday, August 13th, 2010
by Mark Carras
The Cheaper Price Is A Rip Off!
Cheap
Free Gets Rid Of The Riff Raff
So this weekend National Parks in the U.S. will wave their fees. So our parks will now be wall to wall with no room to fart if you need to. Yet you will be able to smell the methane of the camper next to you. How can you enjoy nature when your head is in the armpit of the family camping “next” to you? You would get way more value by paying the entrance fee the following weekend. However, the fools that go during the “free” weekend are the reason. When you pay they won’t be there! With all of them going the weekend before, they make things extremely more enjoyable for you the next weekend when you pay. The cheaper price is a rip off! Unless you like being ass to mouth with the stranger camping next to you? This free weekend clears out everyone else so you can enjoy the experience.
Beat Up The Deaf Guy?
Recently some security guards ended up tackling a deaf guy coming out of a store and choking him until his face turned all kinds of pretty colors (click here). The reason they tackled him? He didn’t stop when the alarm went off. The mall probably went for the cheaper security company. Now they will end up being sued to the tune of millions of dollars and end up with a crippling PR nightmare. If they would have spent a little more money they would have ended up with a highly trained security staff that would be able to figure out why the man didn’t stop before just tackling him. Maybe his friend frantically throwing sign language at them could have been a sign? That cheaper price is going to cost them dearly.
It’s Not Just HFCS That Is Making You Fat
If you buy high quality food for your family their bodies will feel nourished with less food than if you feed them junk. This will cause them to eat less, not get sick as often, and just offer a higher quality of life over all. The children will be able to focus in school better, get better grades, learn more from the experience, and end up with way better jobs in the end. The family that eats the cheaper food will spend more time at the doctors, always feel more lethargic, not be as focused, and not get near as far in life. The cheaper price is a rip off!
Go Big Or Go Home Wussy
If I buy a computer, I always like to get the best computer I can possibly afford. I want the fastest processor, the biggest hard drive, the most memory, and the highest quality parts. Because of this my stuff lasts for years and years. I edit hi rez images that are thousands of pixels wide. I edit video that looks great on a widescreen tv. I do all kinds of very processor intensive stuff for several years without a problem. My computers last with very few repairs. It’s when I bought a cheaper computer that I ended up with endless repair bills, breakdowns that cost me days of productivity, and an overall more expensive experience. The cheaper price is a rip off!
Short Term Thining Or Long Term Thinking?
So why does the United States always look so hard for the cheaper price? They fail to see the big picture. They think they need to pay the cheaper price because they “don’t make a lot of money.” The problem is that they don’t have enough money because it is spent on the costs of always going for the cheaper price. It’s short term thinking instead of long term thinking. Always ask yourself why that bag of vegetables is cheaper than the other bag of vegetables? Maybe it’s because the cheaper vegetables were grown on a massive corporate farm with tons of pesticides. The more expensive farm was grown organically without tons of chemicals. It was a smaller farm with a family of farmers that have grown up generation after generation passing down the knowledge of how to grow the highest quality vegetables possible. How do you make sure that your vegetables have the most nutrition it possibly can? The big corporate farm only cares about whatever the cheapest method is. It has nothing to do with quality of the product or making sure your family get a healthy meal. The cheaper price is a rip off…even when they both seem like the same exact product on the surface.
A Cheap Widget Vs A Quality Widget
A Widget for the record is a non specific product. It is used in situations where you want to discuss something without someone missing the point because of the example. So fill in whatever you want when I say widget. If you have the choice to buy a widget for $10 or buy a widget for $1 which is the better deal? Most would go right to the $1 widget without a thought. Of course the key part ot that sentence is “without a thought”. What if you end up replacing that cheap $1 widget every week. But the person who bought the $10 version of the widget has to replace it once a year? Who saves more money? What is the better deal?
Almost always the cheaper price is a rip off! Look for quality instead.
Friday, August 13th, 2010
by Mark Carras
Demotivator: Invisible Ice
Please everyone. I know you think summer is all full of fun, but please watch out for invisible ice. It may not be safe.
Credit for the original image goes to Adam from the band Mongrel. I stole it from his Facebook wall. He said I could. I said you could go check out their tunes because they are one kick ass band. Go to http://www.myspace.com/mongrel to do that.
Friday, August 13th, 2010
by Mark Carras
What SquareSpace is getting wrong!
Now before I go into what they are doing wrong, I want to talk about what they do right. First off I love that there is no way to download the CMS and use it on another server. Why? Because they take care of all the software patches and security updates behind the scenes. Stuff just works. I want to focus on content, not some security patch. They also respond very quickly to Twitter questions and their support tickets. The site looks very modern with very little work. Posting updates is at least as easy as it is on Word Press. In many cases it is even easier because no one has to worry if they installed something wrong. I have to use a hack to get images to work on this site. Never could figure out what setting is wrong, but the internal image upload has never worked. It’s part of the reason I wanted Squarespace to work. This Word Press isn’t working as well as I would like. I wanted to replace it. I wanted Squarespace to be that replacement.
Squarespace
Now For The Negative
So here I am trying out Squarespace. I am trying to figure out their really horrid interface so I can explain it to my client. So far it is driving me nuts! It is nowhere near intuitive. I feel like I need to take a week of classes to figure out what the heck they mean on these tutorials. No wonder this place is only being used by the hardest core geeks. You have to be a super nerd to even fight through this freakin mess! Unless Squarespace improves quickly I predict they will go under in a few years. This is as intuitive as brain surgery!
Not Intuitive at all!
There is a spot where it said to edit site name. I clicked on the link and it just kept refreshing the page. Why would it do that? Why not send me to the page where I can edit the site name instead? Why else would someone click on that? Just an idea SquareSpace folks. Make it work like people would guess it would work. Now I figured out how to get this to work eventually, but that is my problem with Squarespace. It is not at all intuitive. There is a major learning curve to their system. Most will get frustrated before they get that far and just keep putting up with Word Press.
Video Tutorials Good. No Full Screen bad!
So I go to watch the video tutorial they have available. I love video tutorials and find them to be the best method of showing people something like this. So they earn points for having those available. Problem is they don’t let me watch it full screen! I have a feeling they are using Vimeo to host their video. I use Vimeo as well so I know Vimeo has a square button to the bottom right that let’s me watch the video in full screen mode. For some reason SquareSpace has that blocked. Why would they do that? I tried watching the video. It looks like I could learn a ton from it if I could see what is going on better. Without going fullscreen things were too small and I found it only left me more frustrated.
Support Ticket?
Although they do respond very quickly to the support tickets, they sometimes fall into the tech support trap of coming off like a bot. . On my first question I thought it was a bot! Either that or their support is outsourced to India and the person was just giving me what the book told him was the standard answer. It was almost as if my question was ignored. A very quick phone call could have solved this. They don’t have phone support.
What Could Save Squarespace
Phone support. Plain and simple. Their CMS is great once you get the hang of it, but most will get frustrated with the learning curve and go back to putting up with the evil they are used to (Word Press). Charge $60 a week for phone support. I would pay that without hesitation. I understand good phone support is expensive for a start up like theirs, so charge extra. The customers that are serious will pay it.
Serious Design Still Goes To The Pros
Just as with Word Press, if you are really serious about your site you will want to hire a pro designer. Just like with Word Press you can get a site that looks ok without one. In fact, as far as design goes it is pretty much even. That is why Support is where Squarespace can beat them. If only they had phone support.
Please take my money Squarespace…I beg you! Let me pay for phone support!
Thursday, August 12th, 2010
by Mark Carras
Anyone know how to delete icons on a Droid? The directions I was given do not work. Watch the video and tell me what I am doing wrong.
Thursday, August 12th, 2010
by Mark Carras
Who Makes What On Tv?
Money
For the record-I despise copy and paste journalism. This is a very rare occasion where I am doing it though. I would give credit, but I stole it from a copy and paste website that has the most spammy ads of any site I’ve seen on the internet. If you know of the original source I will remove everything from this post and replace it with a link to that site instead. Until then enjoy. I found this VERY interesting.
Drama (per episode)
Hugh Laurie (House) $400,000+
Christopher Meloni & Mariska Hargitay (Law & Order : SVU) $395,000 (each)
David Caruso (CSI : Miami) $375,000
Marg Helgenberger (CSI) $375,000
Mark Harmon (NCIS) $375,000
Laurence Fishburne (CSI) $350,000
Kyra Sedgwick (The Closer) $350,000
Denis Leary (Rescue Me) $350,000
Gary Sinise (CSI : NY ) $275,000
Patrick Dempsey (Grey’s Anatomy) $250,000
David Boreanaz (Bones) $200,000
Jeffrey Donovan (Burn Notice) $200,000
Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife ) $175,000
Dana Delany (Body of Proof ) $150,000
Lauren Graham (Parenthood) $150,000
Jada Pinkett Smith (HawthoRNe) $150,000
Jimmy Smits (Outlaw) $150,000
LL Cool J (NCIS : Los Angeles) $125,000
Chris O’Donnell (NCIS : Los Angeles) $125,000
Mark Feuerstein (Royal Pains) $125,000
Jason Lee (Memphis Beat) $125,000
Joe Mantegna (Criminal Minds) $125,000
Tom Selleck (Blue Bloods) $125,000
Michael Weatherly (NCIS) $125,000
Matt Bomer (White Collar) $100,000
Nathan Fillion (Castle) $100,000
Thomas Gibson (Criminal Minds) $100,000
Jon Hamm (Mad Men) $100,000
Cole Hauser (Chase) $100,000
Alex O’Loughlin (Hawaii Five-0) $100,000
Timothy Olyphant (Justified ) $100,000
Scott Caan (Hawaii Five-0) $80,000
Angie Harmon (Rizzoli & Isles) $75,000
Anna Paquin (True Blood) $75,000
Blair Underwood (The Event) $75,000
Zachary Levi (Chuck) $60,000
Ian Somerhalder (The Vampire Diaries) $40,000
Shailene Woodley (The Secret Life of the American Teenager) $40,000
Ashley Tisdale (Hellcats) $30,000
Thursday, August 12th, 2010
by Mark Carras
One of the biggest issues I have with Emo is that so many can’t tell the difference between Emo and Goth. Emo is when you cry like a little bitch about your girlfriend leaving you. Goth is when you have sex with your girlfriend at the local graveyard. Oh, and if you confuse Twilight fans with Goth you just need to be shot.
FTR: I’m not Goth. Never have been. My friend in this photo however has always leaned to that side just enough to let us all mock him a small bit. As he gets older he is also picking up the hobby of fishing, so hilarity ensues. The scary part is how much he loves this Demotivator I made of him.
This one in a series of demotivators I myself created. Feel free to share.
Thursday, August 12th, 2010
by Mark Carras
Verizon Droid 2 Unboxing
Well I now have my Droid 2 in my fat little fingers. Keep watching this site for more videos as I learn all that can be done with the Droid 2. Yes, i am a Droid noob! I have had a “dumb phone” for the past two years because last time I bought a phone I was extremely disappointed in what phones were out there. So I have owned smartphones before, but this is my frist Droid phone.
Tons of Droid tutorial videos will be posted on this site, so make sure and subscribe. Feel free to ask me questions and i will do my best to answer them as best as I can. Questions will only be answered on the show though. You have to watch my videos to see your answer. So subscribe, subscribe, subscribe!
Happy Droid 2 day everyone!
Thursday, August 12th, 2010
by Mark Carras
Top Ten Reasons I Block Everyone From Posting On My Facebook Wall
10. Posting REALLY old internet jokes
Yes I know about Rick Rolling and no you are not funny. You are several years behind in fact. Get with the times.
9. Bored People With Nothing To Say
Oh these types are the worst. They have nothing to say but yet they keep typing. Why? Because they don’t want to admit that their lives about about as pleasant as a chainsaw enema. It’s like taking some bimbo home who wants to talk afterwards, but blabber on and on about crap you couldn’t even pretend to care about. Please save me the trouble and just go play Farmville with the other idiots. You can’t handle a real conversation anyways.
8. Posting Things I Hate Because You Think It Is Funny
This is the same as posting a Rick Roll and thinking you are cutting edge. If one of my friends does this funny thing a day, is it still funny? No. You didn’t “Get me real good that time.” I’m just irritated at your lack of imagination. When I had my wall open I would get people pulling that same prank everyday. Sometimes several times a day. Somehow each one of them thought they were funny and original. They weren’t.
7. Invites To Farmville
So I ignore your invite my email, but you think I will fall in love with that waste of braincells game if you post it on my wall? I’m not on Facebook for brainless games. I’m on Facebook for conversation. When I want to unplug I will go in the bedroom and watch tv.
6. What About My Friends Who Just Want To Catch Up?
Sometimes I want to catch up with an old friend. So I go to their wall to read up on what is happening in their lives. What I end up reading is endless lists of crap from other people. When you go to my wall you will only see what I am up to. Makes it easier for everyone.
5. Posting Videos Of Bands I Hate
No I really don’t care about the latest whiny little bitch emo band. I also don’t care about the latest flat monotone metalcore band. If the band didn’t come out between 1985 – 1995 I think they suck. I’m old and cranky. Deal with it. You are blocked for trying to make my wall look like I’m some trendy loser who still lives in his mothers basement. Get a real job!
4. People who post a reply to a thread by starting another thread on my freaking wall.
You really think you are THAT special? Why can’t you post the reply within the thread of the conversation along with everyone else? You give arrogant Bastard a bad name. I’d rather drink the beer.
3. Things that are better put in the Facebook email system
If you want to ask me a question send me an email. No one else needs to read about your computer problems (or whatever other lame thing you are asking about).
2. Spammers
Ok, this isn’t too common as Facebook has a pretty easy way to block unwanted people, but with what I do online I can only be so picky. A spammer does get in from time to time and I don’t want gay pron sitting on my wall for 8 – 16 hours before I notice it.
1. No Reason For It Really
Ok, now I run three fan pages for three different websites. I totally understand why someone would want to posting something on those walls. It would be stupid to block fans from posting on the wall of a band. If I do an interview with a band that band should want me to post a link on their fan page. Their fans probably want to see that. But a personal wall? No reason. When I posting something, reply within THAT thread. Don’t start a new one. If you want me to check something out, use the email system. If I like it I will hit that share button. There is no reason for you to post on my wall. There is no reason for anyone to post on anyone’s personal wall. There are better alternatives. Use them.