August 2007 Archives
They are handing this out at high schools all over the country. Do we really want to teach our children that threats against people are on the same tier with terrorism or is one step short of full blown genocide. I hope im not the only one that this does not make sense to.
Now don't think for one second that I condone violence or anything worse, but this is really trying to teach our children with fear. It reminds me just slightly of "If you buy pot you fund terrorism" ads from a few years back.
Now you would think that maybe this is being handed out without school approval or in very strange private schools, wouldn't you? Well you would be wrong.
This handout comes from the Anti-Defamation League's website and is mirrored on several public school websites. In fact a quick search Google search turns up an alarmingly high number of results linked on government funded websites.
In todays world you rarely hear of a company that goes above and beyond what is expected of it, much less does what is expected of it.
It all started very routinely, I had a malfunctioning video card so I got an RMA from the manufacture and sent it in for repair. Within a few days I got an email telling me they were going to send me a new replacement card. It was going to be over-nighted to my house from Texas. This was great news since I had the day off of work and I was going to be doing some errands around the house anyways.
So im home at 3:15pm, and the package had not yet arrived (it was promised at 3), I call customer service and this is where things all be it a little frustrating got impressive. After navigating a somewhat annoying voice system I got a live person after being on hold maybe 20 seconds. Now I typically expect to be on hold for at-least 10 minutes even with the most respected companies. I spoke to a very nice representative who said they would promptly refund the entire shipping cost. Now while this did not really help me any it was a very nice gesture and im sure the shipper will be happy. They said that they would track down the package and give me a call within an hour.
Well on rolls 4:30 and I don't have a call yet, at this point I am a tad frustrated. I call them back and tell them what is going on. The customer service representative is very understanding and calls the local office. Normally a company would put you on hold and get back to you with an answer. I was very surprised when he 3-way called the local office and told them what was going on. I was told that the truck had broken down. They said they were trying to get the packages loaded on another truck to continue delivery. Well it was getting late in the day so I prepared to have to wait until monday for my package.
I received a call around 5 from another representative, they told me that the drivers are gone for the night, I saw this one coming. Here is were the real shock comes in, they said the driver would personally deliver my package on his way home. About 45 minutes later the DHL driver in his personal car arrived in my driveway, gave my dog a graham cracker (go figure) and delivered my package. He was very apologetic even though he had no control over a broken down truck. To be honest I thought he would be very upset that his boss made him come out on his way home and give me my package but he seemed very happy to be able to do it, it felt like it might of even been his idea.
So there is still at-least one company out there that tries to make its customers happy. I would have been satisfied and more then likely used them again even if I had to wait till monday to get my package.
No you are not seeing things. Yes those are google ads in the sidebar over there. I spent the last few weeks looking into ad programs to help balance out the cost of running this site and to hopefully pool in some money to my poor programmer fund. After looking at a whole lot of programs and weighing benefits I went with Google Adsense. So far I have been very happy there website is a breeze to use and everything is very easy to get up and running. If you guys have any feedback on the new ads let me know so I can adapt the site as needed.
If you are running a blog or a website and are looking to balance out some of the cost it is definitely worthwhile to look into Adsense. Just figured I would toss a bit of info on whats going on out there, and possibly a tip to other bloggers.
Im currently looking for some good ideas to blog about and keep everyone entertained. Stay tuned for some interesting updates.
Welcome to my new site layout, I know it not very exciting yet but hopefully with some content getting added in it will be a lot better. Let me take a moment of your time and explain what is going on here.
This is not quite a developers blog and not quite a personal blog. I have never felt the need for either to be honest with you. However I can muster up the need for half of each which is what I plan on doing here. So not only will I be writing about the software I am working and about programming in general but I will also be talking about life, work, play and all that other good stuff.
If you have ever been to our old site you will notice that we have changed... well everything. I decided to go with a much lighter background color and a much more minimalist layout, I removed a number of sections and rewrote just about everything else. It still needs a lot of work but I think it is coming along very nicely.
Now this isn't saying that I had a problem with the old layout, I really liked it but it was time for a change. I still have to give my respects to the web designer that made it, but this one feels more personal since I took that giant leap from C++ to HTML. Unlike most programmers I feel more at home with application programming then I do with the "simpler" web programming. I know I will get a lot of emails about that comment but its a very blunt generalization.
Thanks for stopping by I look forward to seeing you again.
