Sorry this didn’t get posted yesterday, like it was supposed to; I looked at my calendar wrong when I was setting up my queue for this week, and set this to be posted next Wednesday.

Despite the fact that really don’t like teaching, I find myself doing a surprising amount of it. Usually, it’s in the form of helping older/less tech-savvy people learn how to use new (to them) technology. Most recently, I had to help my grandma figure out how to use a cellphone.

Now, my grandma is a pretty smart lady, and very active, but she’s also rather set in her ways. But, the basic phonecall functionality of cellphones isn’t overly complicated, so I didn’t think it’d be a big deal. I thought wrong.

Things started out rocky when the first thing I had to show her was how to unlock the keypad, since it’s not a flip-phone. This is a very simple concept; to keep keys from accidently being pressed, the phone locks itself after 30 seconds, and to unlock it, you have to press two specific keys in sequence. Not exactly rocket science. Yet, she spent the bulk of our conversation confused about this aspect of the phone. The display even says “Keypad Locked” when it’s locked, and displays exactly which keys to press to unlock it.

Speaking of reading the screen, another aspect that she had extreme difficulty with were the softkeys. Nearly every cellphone has these, they’re the unmarked buttons next to the screen that do whatever the screen labels them with. It’s a very handy concept used in all sorts of electronic devices now, and most people don’t even think about it. Grandma simply could not wrap her head around this. I swear she asked me a dozen times “What do those two buttons do?”, and I had to keep telling her “The screen shows you what they do”. Now, I can understand her difficulty with this a little better than the keypad lock, because I don’t think she owns anything else with softkeys, except her cordless phone. But still, is it really so difficult to understand? Especially for someone who spent the last 30-some years working with computers?

After awhile, she started taking notes. Notes. On the usage of a device that is easier to operate than the business desktop phone she’s been using for longer than I can remember.

Throughout this whole process, I noticed a common theme. From the start, when we first mentioned the word “cellphone”, she was absolutely, 100% convinced that it was a complicated, mysterious device that would take an semester of classes to learn how to use. And every time she actually did comprehend something (like, the power button), her reaction would be a very surprised “Oh, that was easy”.

In fact, any time I have to explain new technology to someone who’s not very tech-savvy, they usually approach the subject with the same perception of extreme, impenetrable complexity. They go into the subject already convinced that they’ll never be able to understand it. And, while some people (usually these same people) will insist that it doesn’t affect one’s ability to learn, I think the opposite. No one can force themselves to learn something, you have to want to learn it on some level. Hence why the average school student can’t find the city they live in on a map, but can tell you the entire cast, premise, and plot recap of their favourite TV show.

My experiences since high school have given me a unique perspective on this, in my opinion. After high school, I took one semester of classes at the local community college, barely pased them, and haven’t taken a real college class since. Certainly not a history I’m proud of, and something I struggle with on a constant basis in my search for employment, but in the years since, I’ve long since learned from my mistake. I’ve since started taking a new approach to new information, technology, and skills; for me, anything can be learned and understood. Whether it’s a new programming language, a new spoken language, or how to fix something on my car, I never let myself think that I can’t learn it. All I need is the interest. This approach has been instrumental in my web design career, and my training leading up to it, and while I have a natural skill for programming, that alone is not enough to build a career on. One must also have the ability to learn and evolve along with the industry.

They say that age affects one’s ability to learn, and while I agree that it can be a factor, it’s not a major one. My mom, who’s in her 40s, takes a similar approach to learning new things that I do, and she rarely has trouble picking up new skills. There are things she struggles with from time to time (like her new DVR), but in all such cases, her difficulty seems to stem from a preconceived idea that what she’s about to learn will be difficult and complicated, and she gets over it very quickly.

Unfortunately, I haven’t yet found a way to convince those who think that can’t learn that they can, in fact, learn new things. I guess if I figure that one out, I’ll have a new career in adult education.

Yay, I have my new phone! And it’s purple! :-D

After dealing with the headache of trying to get the email system working with Lupinia’s server (Sprint’s network does very awkward things with port 25 for SMTP relay, even though that’s the default in practically every email client ever written, including theirs), my shiny new phone with mobile email is working smoothly.

If you send a text message to my phone number, it will disappear into the digital void.

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Now, because Verizon is full of fail, and delaying the porting of my old number by almost two weeks (they won’t release it without cancelling the account, and I won’t let them charge me an $80 cancellation fee), I’m going to have a temporary number for awhile. Thing is, I really like my temporary number, I like it a lot better than my old one. It’s much easier to remember.

So, I’ve created a poll (because I like polls); should I say “good riddance” to my old number and stick with the new one, or should I stick with my old number?

Click here for the poll

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Until I decide which number I want to keep, I won’t be distributing my new number, unless you’re a Sprint customer and want to call me for free. This is only because I want to minimize confusion if I do keep my old number; considering that there are people out there who still call my original number from like four years ago, I don’t want to put out another phone number for myself if it’s temporary

I recently purchased a new cellphone, and switched providers. I intended to port my old phone number to my new line, like people usually do, but there are two issues. Issue one is that Verizon is full of fail and accidently renewed my contract when my mom added my sister to our family plan, and they charge a ridiculous early-termination fee even a week before the contract ends. So, I won’t be able to port my number for another two weeks.

Issue two is more of a cosmetic one; my “temporary” number is a lot easier to remember than my old one. I’ve had the new number for all of three hours as of this posting, and I already have it memorized as if I’d had it for a month. Plus, not that many people have my old number anyway.

So, should I port my old number, or just keep my new one?

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EDIT: I’m going to switch the new phone number, thanks for the input everyone.

I spent 8 solid hours fixing computers and setting up networks for a pair of clients today. And I have to go back to one tomorrow, the other one next week.

On the plus side, both clients are loaded, and expecting prices on-par with what Geek Squad would charge, but I really don’t have the patience to do this long-term. Despite the fact that this is what I used to think my career would be, I find it very difficult to care about other people’s computer problems and lack of knowledge, even when I’m being paid to do exactly that.

Oh well, at least this is better than the long-term client I had, where no matter how many hours I spent there, the job never got any closer to completion because the client was an idiot who kept wanting more.

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In other news, new phone arrives tomorrow

You know how I hate cameraphones, and think most smartphones are a horrible idea? Well, I just bought one. This one, to be precise.

When cellphones with cameras first debuted, I (like many, many others on the DSL Reports forums) thought it was a stupid “gee-whiz” marketing gimmick with no practical use whatsoever, that would never sell. See how wrong that prediction turned out to be. I still feel the same way about them, and decided that I would never buy a phone with a camera in it, because I didn’t want to support this trend.

My feelings of disdain toward text messaging are largely rooted in the same principles, refusing to support a service that I feel is pointless and obscenely over-priced. In fact, my feelings toward texting can be summed up almost verbatim by this.

And, what about smartphones/internet-enabled phones? Admittedly, my dislike for those is largely rooted in the fact that the designs of such devices are so ridiculously bad that I just kinda swore off the whole “genre”. Until recently, there were three basic designs; ordinary cellphones/flip phones with extra software, PDA-sized handheld computers with a speaker tacked on, and shiny touch-screen monstrosities that become smeary and hard-to-read if you so much as look at them funny (I’m looking at you, iPhone). None of which are particularly desireable.

But, in recent months, my feelings on these have softened a bit. After seeing just how useful mobile internet access is, I started looking at other providers and their offerings. And, what I realized is that people like me lost the battle when it comes to holding out for bare-bones mobile telephones with bare-bones service. Ideally, I would love to have a pocket-sized mobile phone that, like the landline phone on my desk that I love so much, exists solely to make phone calls, with monthly pricing comparable to regular landline/VoIP service. That would be awesome. But, in the current market, it doesn’t exist. There simply aren’t any good bare-bones cellphones available anymore, and the few that do exist are becoming increasingly poorly-made. My current phone, a Nokia that I paid $40 for (with no contract discount), is actually the third one I’ve had in three years, and I can count on one hand the number of text messages I’ve sent in that time. If I actually did use text messaging, I’d probably have to buy them in 12-packs.

So, after getting over that, I decided to alleviate my involuntary twitch at the monthly pricing on cell service by planning to get data service. A relatively unrestricted internet connection is vastly more useful than text and “picture/video” messaging, and with most providers, voice-only + data is about the same price as “everything” without data.

Unfortunately, I’m probably the pickiest customer ever when it comes to cellphones. An internet connection, in my mind, requires a full keyboard, so anything lacking that is automatically out of the question. I can’t stand phones that require manual opening to make a call, which eliminates all traditional flip-phones and many side-flip models. I’ve become very accustomed to dialing full numbers from memory, and without looking at the device until I’m finished (to make sure it’s right), so phones lacking 10-key number pads and phones that primarily rely on touch-screens are also out. And, since it’s a phone, and not a f***ing MP3 player, anything with prominent music buttons is eliminated simply to keep me from getting angry “crush, kill, destroy” urges every time I look at the damn thing.

I hadn’t really looked at phones in awhile, but while I was in Pittsburgh, I tagged along with to go to the Sprint store to replace his phone. He already had one in mind, the Samsung Rant, and while he was getting it, I spent a good deal of time playing with the display model. The result? I actually like it. Not in an “oh, I guess it’ll do” way, but I genuinely like it. It has the basics down quite well, it’s easy to navigate, and while it does have extra BS like a camera and an MP3/video player, all that stuff stays out of the way and out-of-sight unless you actually want to use it.

So, does this mean we can text-message you now?
In short, no. In long, nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…
As I mentioned above, I did not get any sort of text messaging plan on my new phone. And I’m not going to. I purchased a data plan instead, because it can be used for things other than point-to-point mini-messages. And, as soon as the phone arrives and is activated, I’m going to figure out if I can block text messages with Sprint like I currently do with Verizon. If not, I’m going to demand quarters from anyone who text-messages me, and I’m not joking about that.

However, I didn’t get a data plan just to have an easier time looking things up on Wikipedia. One of the biggest selling points of that extra monthly charge, and this phone, is the ability to send and receive email, using any email server I want. And, I happen to own a mail server. So, I have a dedicated email address for mobile communications, and whenever I’m away from home for extended periods (like, at a con), I’ll check my primary accounts via mobile as well.

But, I can’t email from my phone, so that’s no better for me!
Actually, you probably can. Text messaging is basically email, and with most providers (I know this works with Verizon), you can send text messages to and from email addresses as seamlessly as you would send to a phone number. You can even store email addresses in your contacts, with or without a phone number! Wow!

So, to sum this up:

You still can’t text-message me, but you can email my phone now.

And, what would that email address be? Well, this is a public post, and the last thing I want is a bunch of spam coming to my phone. So, we’ll be sneaky about this.

The username can be a number of things, and still reach me, thanks to the wonders of aliasing. Valid values include “mobile”, or my phone number in 10-digit form (area code and number, with or without hyphens, but no spaces). You can also prefix “mobile” with one of my names and a hyphen, like “natasha-”. The domain is also flexible, and can be any of the lupinia.* domains I own (there are five), as well as either of the softpaw.* domains I own (there are two).

Hopefully, the spammers will be sufficiently confused by that paragraph. By my calculations, there are 56 different combinations that work, in hopes that this will be easy for everyone to figure out. If you’re not sure whether you have a valid combination, try it anyway; as long as the domain is right, it’ll reach me anyway (just not to my cell), and I’ll correct you if it’s not correct.

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TL;DR Version: I have a new cellphone on the way, and you still can’t text-message me, but you can email me, and my mobile address is buried in a paragraph above to keep it safe.

Edit: A few people have expressed confusion over the above paragraph explaining my mobile email address(es). I’ll post the real ones in a friends-only post later, but due to how intelligent spam bots are, the above description is the closest y’all are getting in a public post. Sorry. If it’s too confusing, just message me.

So, I received my paycheck in full the other day, and cabin fever is really killing me. I need to get out and do something, and it’s too cold for hiking. I’ve been considering taking up bike riding again, for the first time since I got my driver’s license, so while I was doing my shopping at Wal-Mart last night, I bought a bicycle.

Yes, it’s a Wal-Mart bike. No, it doesn’t suck, I rather like it, despite the fact that it took me three hours to get the shifters adjusted to my satisfaction

It’s a 26″ Mongoose aluminum mountain bike, full suspension front & rear, 21-speed, with front disc brakes. Overkill for street riding, but I’ve always thought full-suspension bikes were neat, and I’d like to have the option of trail riding.

I need to hit a bike shop sometime too, I need a good helmet and a speedometer/odometer. And, once I get a new job, I’m replacing those god-awful twist shifters. Always hated those stupid things.

So, yeah. Hopefully I’ll keep up with this

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Also, after getting tired of jolting myself with static on cold, dry nights like this, and jolting my laptop a couple times, I now have old computer power supplies scattered throughout my office, in places where I’m likely to jolt sensitive electronics if I don’t discharge onto something safe first. They add clutter, but they also give me a safe discharge point without making my hand tingle like when I touch light switches. One of these days, when I own a house, I’m going to have a grounding pole with non-intrusive grounding points throughout the house

Wee, family vacation. I’m not really sure what to say about it, though; Myrtle Beach was hot and humid the whole time, I didn’t get sunburn for a change, and we had an awesomely huge hotel room. My mom decided to get a two-bedroom suite for five people (my sister and a friend, mom, myself, and fox_cub), and it was bigger than some two-bedroom apartments I’ve seen. We even had a full kitchen with a decent assortment of dishes and cookware, despite not really eating any meals in our hotel room.

I think the highlight of the trip for me, aside from the awesome hotel room (definitely the nicest accomodations we’ve ever had on a family trip), was watching/helping fox_cub fly his new stunt kite. He says the strings were too short, but I think he did pretty damn good, and I had fun being the spotter/chaser when the thing came down. Unfortunately, it crashed really hard on the second day he had it, and blew out one of the strut pockets, but it’s fixable.

After we got back, Fox and I took a side trip to a river spot he really likes. Fun day

Photo posts coming soon!

Yay, I actually made it out of the house today! A friend from high school and I have been partially in touch for awhile via LJ, and we recently got in touch again via AIM. Driving out of town for socialization all the time blows, especially when I don’t have a car readily available, and she and I had stuff to talk about, so I molested the Rover into working and met her for a walk in the park. I forgot how much fun she was to hang out with, I wish we would’ve done this before now

We walked the entire circuit of the park, talking about all sorts of stuff and catching up on the past few years of our lives; typical girl-talk stuff. Afterwards, she suggested we visit the Earth & Tea Cafe, a hippie-looking place I’ve never actually been in. They’re pretty pricy, and their food is a little strange (like, weirder than Panera), but their tea freaking rocks! Huge selection, too; well worth it overall

Back to work in my office after that, but hopefully we can meet up again sometime.

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I finally heard from the mechanic today about my car, but the news wasn’t promising. In short, he’s completely stumped, so he has a Ford expert he knows taking a look at it tomorrow. I’m hoping for a miracle, but if they don’t get it before they close tomorrow, I won’t be attending lilpup / spikeblackfang’s birthday party this weekend. So, if you’re attending, you may or may not see me, I don’t know yet :-\

EDIT: This webcomic by gen is absolutely awesome, if you haven’t seen it, and today’s strip made me crack up laughing for some reason. Pure awesome

In my last post, I mentioned that I had to drive my mom, grandma, and sister to Tyson’s Corner yesterday, a very large mall in the NoVA/DC area (in case you’re not familiar with it). It’s about a two-hour drive, and we went there because my sister wanted to go on a shopping spree with money she earned from her new job. I don’t really have the money for shopping, nor do I particularly enjoy these sorts of trips with family (shopping with friends is fun, though). So, I fully expected the trip to be a suck-tastic waste of time.

The drive was uneventful, until we came within a few miles of the Beltway, at which point I was reminded of what a horrible urban-driving passenger my mom is. She tends to freak out if anyone in visual range makes any sort of non-textbook maneuver, and traffic was pretty heavy in that area (as it always is), so she started panicking at every quick lane change she saw. Needless to say, it was very distracting, and while I’m comfortable driving in those conditions in small doses, I need to concentrate to do it safely. So, by the time we reached the mall, I was much more worn-down than if I had made the trip solo.

We entered the mall through Bloomingdales, and I had the joy of trying to maintain a relatively butch facade while they looked at obscenely expensive purses. Lunch followed, and then I went off on my own. I didn’t really have any money, and I was somewhat limited as to what I could buy and bring back in the car, so I pretty much just walked around, attempting to call friends to ease my boredom. However, I stumbled across a Lego store on the lower floor, the first one I’ve ever seen, and I just couldn’t resist getting something. I bought a couple sets of roads for my city (lack of roads has really held back the Lego city layout on my bedroom floor), and an ambulance

After walking the entire circuit of the mall, I caught back up with the family in front of some overpriced clothing store, and mom kinda pulled me aside. I guess her mom-sense was tingling, because she said “I know you weren’t thrilled about coming here, and you’ve been working really hard lately, so I want to get you a little something.” Mom rocks! Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a Ritz Camera store, and if I had a tail, it would’ve been wagging. So, we went over there to look at tripods; mine’s been needing a replacement since before I even had my camera. I spotted the cheapest one on the floor; my mom spotted the most durable-looking one, and she was paying, so I now have a brand-new tripod that’s even stronger than my old one, and it has no floppy joints! Woot! I also asked if she minded getting me a new camera bag, and she said sure, so I have a bigger one now. Not that my old one is too small for camera stuff, but it has no room for anything else, and for camping & cons, I have to get pretty creative to have enough “cargo capacity” for everything I typically haul around. Thanks mom!

I took a nap in the car until dinnertime, at which point we came home, thoroughly exhausted. Overall, an ok day

For the last couple of years, I’ve worked as a delivery driver, with the majority of my income coming from tips. And, along the way, I learned that the key to making good tips at a job like that (if you don’t happen to be a 20-something female) is to look as broke as possible, regardless of your actual financial situation. Things as simple as wearing a nice-looking watch or driving my Rover instead of my car (if I had a car problem, for example) made a staggering impact in my tips on a given night, something that really surprised me at first. I continued experimenting with this on various nights that I worked, until I determined that this was actually happening. After that, I put my nice watch and my rings in a box on my desk, and I haven’t worn them much since.

Tonight, my mom decided to take us out for a very nice Italian dinner, and to see a movie (”21″). So, since I’m not doing delivery anymore, I decided to start taking a little more pride in my everyday appearance, starting today. I got my jewelry out of the box, spent a little extra time on my hair, and just cared in general about how I look.

I didn’t expect such small details to have much of an effect, but for some reason, just this little bit of attention to detail made an incredible difference in my mood. It’s hard to really describe, especially since I didn’t really look much different than normal, but I just felt better overall. Makes me even more excited to be able to afford to go to a salon, and have professional help to make my hair not look so frizzy and wild.