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I almost forgot that my birthday is almost upon me.
That is going to be one sorely depressing Sunday, man. April 1st just HAD to fall on a Sunday, right?
What makes that so bad is, on Sundays, we must take all of our stuff out of the Salvation Army, with us.
I just really need to get my butt into Transitional Housing as quickly as possible, right? 
Tags: Normal
Day Seven:
Dear World.
I am sleepy, bored to death with the training (because I’m not learning from it as much as I’m learning from actually seeing the work done, and being given a chance to try it), and just want a soft bed to lay on for a day.
My energy is depleted severely, and I’m starting to get a little testy with people.
I am barely managing six hours of sleep now, and it’s taking a toll on me. I can’t seem to compensate for it, with my awkward hours and needs for now. In fact, I’ll have to go donate blood plasma to have the cash I need for riding the bus in the morning.
All of this stuff is just truly frustrating me. I just want to make money, so I can have a home to call my own again, and a good internet connection.
Okay, so I’m on my USB stick at the library, looking for a good way to have at the internets in Firefox, without being so conspicuous.
I found an extension called Split Pannel [sic], which basically lets me open something in a frame of its own, side by side with what I’ve got going right now.
So, my browser says it’s at FurAffinity.net at the moment, and I’ve got ESL sitting here in a split panel, posting about my experience with it.
Likely, I can probably get away with Meebo that much easier as a result, since I can now squeeze it down into that bit of space.
There’s a small issue with this extension, in the sense that it’s not quite so intuitive, but it’s still worth it.
Also on my list of interesting extensions would be Locationbar2.
It makes the location bar much easier to read by adding in clear delimiters for the URL, as well as changing the colors appropriately: For example, the domain is green. Each folder (subdirectory) underneath it is black. Anything that is a query string (think: google.com/?search=The+Internets as an example) is in grey, adding to just how easy it is to distinguish things in the address bar.
What would you consider as an interesting extension for Firefox?
I survived my first week of work, though training has been a relatively harsh mistress to me.
Because I must be at my bus stop by 5:01 am each day, I’m up by 4 in the morning.
I get to work just before 6, eat breakfast, and sit through hours of training material, pretending to not be bored out of my mind by the constant reviewing of it, starting at 7 in the morning. Being a kinetic learner, I learn better by doing something after being shown a few times. This is a bit slower for me to pick up, as a result.
I also know that I must reel in what knowledge I already have, and try to adapt to using their tools, rather than suddenly blurting something like, “Download Spybot S&D, then run that. You need to do this, because you’re loaded with spyware.”
When we leave at about 3:55 pm or so, I have to get to the bus stop as quickly as possible, only to wait, since the 4:01 pm bus never seems to come on time. 
So, if I skip the library and the store, I get to the Salvation Army lodging at about 5 pm. Else, I get in about 7 pm.
I just need to make it through the next three weeks.
Tomorrow, I guess I’ll go to the store, and get myself some of the imported Red Bull with my plasma money. I want to see if the import tastes any better, since I can’t get my hands on my Bawls.
I know I can do this job, but I just need to actually try to do it.
Finally, a public note to a specific reader:
Alvein, thanks.
More to come later.
(With credit to GigaOm.)
I was checking my news reader this evening, since I decided to not go back to the shelter immediately after work. I came across one header in my reader that caught my eye, and caused me to frown for a good few minutes, simply because I’m not sure how to react. The gist of this header is, Microsoft now has their hands on TellMe.
For those of you unfamiliar with TellMe, they started years back as a voice-driven system that allowed users to navigate menus on a phone, to perform various actions, and to gather information. Here’s an example call flow I use when calling TellMe (1-800-555-8355 / 1 (800) 555-TELL):
TellMe: Hello, and welcome to TellMe! Main Menu. Here are all the features that you can choose from…
Xial: Weather.
TM: Weather? Got it. To return here at any time, just say “Main Menu”. / Weather. Say a City and State, or Enter a Zip Code. For example, you can say “Dallas, Texas”.
X: Three Three Six Seven Two.
TM: Tampa, FL. To stop this forecast, just say “Stop”. At 6:12 PM, it’s 76 degrees, with a gentle breeze. Tonight –
X: Stop. Main Menu.
It’s very much like holding a meaningful conversation with a computer, like the start of the technology we’d think of seeing in Star Trek.
TellMe’s been working on their VoiceXML Platform for years now, and even had a section long ago called Extensions, where people could actuallly publish their own VoiceXML applications to those calling the TellMe service on their phone. One could experiment with much of the apps published, and easily spend a half hour talking to the phone just playing a game (I was guilty of this — someone had done a VoiceXML version of Dope Wars / Drug Wars I would spend hours a day just playing game after game of this, because I was addicted years ago), or trying out ideas that ended up making it into the mainstream TellMe application in some way, shape, or form.
Finding out that Microsoft now has a hand on TellMe has me slightly wary, since it is Microsoft, after all, but, given the details that are published at GigaOm, this just might be a good thing.
[tags]TellMe, Microsoft, VoiceXML, GigaOM[/tags]
Tags: Blogospheric Disturbance, Geeking, Software, Watch This
Okay! Zookoda has granted me broadcast permissions, so I can now officially run that mailing list.
Right now, the confirmation pages are generic, because I don’t have a minute to actually put together a real page here on my site, so forgive me for that. However, it is a subscription based mailing list, that you must opt in to receive content.
It should mail out early on the mornings on Saturdays, so you’ll get a weekly drop of everything that I’ve said here.
Warning: Hotmail might choke on the email, since it’s UTF-8, and Hotmail seems to have issues with that, according to the guys at Zookoda.
Sign up, and let me know what you think.
Tags: Freebies, Geeking, Good Deals!, Software
There are plenty of different cellular plans out there, and it’s not the most expedient idea to drive to each location, just to find out what plans are available in your area. In the online age, there should be an easy way to check out various cellular plans online, and preferably in just one spot.
Certainly, one could go from website to website for each carrier, dig their way through the navigation, and search hard just to find out the rates for each carrier, but why bother? I like the convenience of going to one spot to check rates, just like I like having one application to check for instant messages, and one spot to go to check my email. Sites like Wirefly make this much easier on users, by giving them this convenience.
On Wirefly, one can check for individual plans for the various carriers, compare the differences (for example, Cingular may offer the ability to roll over unused minutes, but Sprint does not), be made aware of special offers, and even sign up, all from one convenient location.
Check it out.
Tags: Contributors
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