Archive for January, 2006

Was randomly trying to find out how old Jem was when I noticed that the results at the top of Google were actually for their Music search service. Quite cool really. Not quite the same amount of information as AMG’s results as the example here shows, so really Google should do something with AMG to create some partnership there. At any rate the point is that the search works really well, not just for artist but albums and songs as well. Instantly blowing WMIS’s search right out of the water for just pure search. Maybe MS should drop the current search algorithm and start taking a better look at integrating MSN Search with MSN Music and then creating a nice synergy with WMIS.

So like I said previously here and here, my Cingular contract expired on 1/12/06. A week before that I bought a T-Mobile PAYG SIM which had 150 minutes and a temporary number. Around lunch time on 1/12/06 I called up Cingular to verify that my contract did indeed expire and that it was okay for me to get my number ported to T-Mobile. I said great thanks and didn’t think anything of it. I then called up T-Mobile and quickly started talking to a guy to get my old number moved to my PAYG SIM and replace the temporary number. Took all of 5 minutes and this was the first time I had to give any personally identifiable information (not counting the credit card at purchase of the SIM). Within 30 minutes my number was ported and things were all done.

Today I received an email from Cingular saying my bill was ready for viewing online. Great I think, last payment, last time getting reamed by them for service I don’t fully use. But no, they’re trying to pull a quick one once again. This time to the tune of $175 for an early termination fee. Wait, what, it was $150 before. And please do tell me, how is it early termination when my contract was up!? And why did your rep say it was perfectly fine to get the number transferred, and they certainly didn’t mention any early termination fee. So please, piss off and be gone. I’m not paying it. Full stop.

You can take that $88.34 I just paid to you but that $175 isn’t going into your filthy hands to pay for your obscene expenditures for multiple name changes back and forth again. You’re not adding it to the billions you’ve already spent.

UPDATE: Called up Cingular this morning and after waiting on hold for a good 30 minutes. Then after having explained that I paid the balance minus the termination fee and refused to pay it she put me on hold again, talked to the supervisor and came back and said that she’d credit the $175 towards the account. Still though, you’re not forgiven Cingular.

After being with Bank of America before I was even really able to get a credit card I’ve finally thrown them out like a dirty pair of jeans that are 6 inches too short. What a great feeling. $3000 worth of debt gone like that. Mmm, thank you MSFT. I’m not really sure why BofA has been giving me a bad taste lately. I think it’s partly due to the regulations that meant that they had to keep the state banking separate which meant the online banking was different for WA and CA plus the fact that checks took longer to go through.

In the end they’re history now. No more checking, no more credit cards, no more account. Now to kill the balance on two more cards then I’m home free.

I’ve been getting some spam on my blogs alias through Exchange despite the fact that I obfuscate the address on the site and despite the fact I’ve got the Exchange Intelligent Message Filtering turned on pretty high. So every so often I go into the Blogs folder in Outlook and hold SHIFT+DEL to get rid of that bloody email that’s trying to sell me 0EM copies of Office and W1ndows. This last time I accidentally thought the email was highlighted but instead I got ahead of myself on Remote Desktop and the entire Blogs folder was deleted.

I thought I was out of luck but swore I remembered that Exchange had a way to come to my rescue. I thought it might be through the Mailbox Recovery Center but oh no. There’s an even more elegant solution. With Outlook 2003 closed do the following:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedt32, and then click OK.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\Client\Options
   Right-click the Options subkey, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
3. Type DumpsterAlwaysOn for the DWORD name, and then press ENTER.
4. Double-click DumpsterAlwaysOn.
5. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
6. Quit the Registry Editor and start Outlook again. You should now have Recover Deleted Items under the expanded Tools menu.

It should be noted that this works specifically with Exchange when an email rentention policy has been set up. I’ve just gone and changed my server to not permanently delete email from the message store for 14 days instead of the default of 7. Here’s a link to one of the KB articles I’ve found with a little more information and another via Office Online. For more information on how to configure Exchange to match your ideal storage limits see this KB article.

After doing a couple quick searches via MSN and Google it appears I’m actually rather late with coming up with this information. But it’s nice to learn littles bits and pieces like this when you make mistakes .

While this piece of music has no lyrics to quote I feel the need to point it out anyway. Specifically this album. I converted it from FLAC and it’s absolutely beautiful sadly there’s a couple minor flaws so at some point I’ll need to get the CD and re-rip.

Getting back to the point though. Having listened to Beethoven’s 9 Symphonies as conducted by Harnoncourt and Karajan I honestly think this one done by Gardiner is one of my most favorite. Akin to his other performances these somehow feel as if they were being performed with Beethoven himself conducting. At some point I imagine I’ll have I’ll three so I’ll be able to enjoy any whenever. For now this remains right up there at the top.

I’m not really sure what it is about this one movement in particular that just hits that spot. There seems to be a recurring theme to pieces that catch my ear. There must be something to it which I don’t understand. Sadly I lack the real depth of knowledge to fully describe what it is I’m hearing musically. The easiest way for me to explain it would be to say that it’s the extremely simplistic intricacies that just make me stop and envision something rather magical. It’s as if everything just comes together and in those few moments’ time stops and I’m in those moments’ in music. Yes it’s all rather heavenly and clichéd but it’s what I have to describe it all.

There’s layer upon layer in many musical pieces and unfortunately they’re hard to find these days. While pop music can be complex and can reveal new tid bits after multiple repeats it’s just not the same as hearing a specific instrument make a clearly defined noise you didn’t quite hear the first time. Or having your spine tingle the first time you hear that crescendo turn into the ultimate climax to which there can be no opposition.

Ludwig van Beethoven: 9 Symphonies Disc 3: Symphony No. 6 in F major (”Pastoral”), Op. 68: Allegretto (Shepherds’ song. Joyous thanksgiving after the storm)