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Compass Bank declares jihad on my online account

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 01:45:29 GMT

After utterly butchering my online banking account today as I tried to have them set up access to both my personal account and business account through a single username - I am now completely locked out of both! - I thought the following message was quite fitting when I went to activate an account:

Wondering where your favorite music stream is today? SaveNetRadio

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 10:03:59 GMT

As I settled into my work for the day this morning I opened up Amarok and went to launch one of my all time favorite streaming radio sources, MonkeyRadio only to find that the feed was dead. When I went to the actual website and clicked to start the feed I was taken to SaveNetRadio.org . After reading for a moment and clicking a linked news article, I found that many online music streams are being shut off today in protest.

From the article:

"A swath of the Internet is set to go silent tomorrow, as online music broadcasters shut down to protest a plan that will sharply increase the royalties they pay to recording companies and musicians.
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We're pulling our streams on Tuesday as a way to increase the public awareness of this situation," said Phil Redo, vice president and general manager of the five Boston radio stations owned by Greater Media Inc. in Braintree. Redo and others who stream music over the Internet hope their "day of silence" will prompt listeners to lobby Congress in support of pending legislation to overturn the royalty hike."

I am finding this royalty issue kind of interesting. Is the concept of streaming your music really any different than someone going out to a public park, pulling out a boombox, and playing their favorite music for whoever decides to walk over and listen? Should that guy be paying royalties too? How is it any different?

Regardless, if this plan passes we can expect streaming radio to start sucking. People will have to air commercials to pay for the royalties. Terrestrial radio is a good example of the downward spiral that could become!

Warning to those upgrading Flickr accounts to Pro

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 12:39:41 GMT

Yesterday I updloaded hundreds of vacation pictures to Flickr so I could blog them and share them with my family and friends. I ended up surpassing my free-service limits of 200 photos. Considering the relatively cheap service of $24.xx/year, I decided it would be worth upgrading to a pro account so that could remove the limits. I went through the process and selected PayPal. The payment process went smoothly and I got my receipt from PayPal. You would think that would be the end of the story.... but... no.

Apparently Flickr has elected to use eChecks as their method of PayPal payment. Flickr, while acknowledging my PayPal transaction in my account information area, will not remove the limits until the eCheck is received from PayPal which they say is 3-8 business days. So almost 2 weeks for what should be an instant process? How is that acceptable? If they had put some warninig on there about this I would have chosen another method, but they opted not to disclose it. At this point I am just hoping that it is actually no more time than 3-8 business days. From some of the complaints in the forums, some people just never seem to get upgraded.

If you ever decide to upgrade your Flickr account, consider yourself warned.

Grand Canyon... It's on!

Mon, 11 Jul 2005 05:00:00 GMT

My father and I decided that this was the year that we would hike the North Rim to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. I know this seems crazy, but it is actually a paperwork challenge to be able to hike the Grand Canyon. There is an application process in which you have to fax your request in the 1st day of the month 6 months before the intended date of your trip with a detailed itinerary, including where you will be sleeping and when. We sent faxed our paperwork in and held our breath on the 1st of April, 6 months before we hoped to go in September. After no word for a month we finally contacted them, only to find out that we had been rejected. Discouraged, but not beaten, we laid out the calendar to see if there was another time that would work. We decided that November would be acceptable, albeit a little colder. It should be in the 60s in the bottom of the canyon though where we will spend the majority of our time. Once again, we laid out our itinerary and faxed in on July 1. My dad received a letter today dated July 6, 2005 telling him that they were sorry, but they were unable to accept out application. He spent a good hour walking around the house cussing and feeling terribly disappointed. A bit later my mom noticed there was another letter from the Grand Canyon dated July 7, 2005.

Dear Mr. Shuck, we have accepted your request to hike the Grand Canyon on the dates of November 1, 2 and 3, 2005. Enlcosed are your passes, which you will need to affix to your backpack and carry with you in the canyon. There is no need to stop by the back country headquarters before departing on the trail.

So in 3.5 months, I will be taking this in....