CONS, STEAMPUNK, TSUKI-CON, WHISKEY-TANGO-FOXTROT

RANDOM REACTION: Tsuki-con

Ready to roll!

Tsuki-con website

Tsuki-con was was held yesterday evening at the Blanco Ballroom in San Antonio, Texas.  The first-time event was a fundraiser intended to raise funds for The Advocates Youth Boxing Program, which “is designed to help youth, at-risk youth and young adults to build positive character traits and instill positive values.”

Upon hearing about it, I thought: “well, that’s a pretty cool idea, the geek community has been known to come out and contribute to charitable causes, particularly if kids are involved.”  I participate in an event called Extra Life that raises funds for children’s hospitals every year, and the thought of helping out another worthy cause sounded good to me.

I went straight to the Blanco Ballroom after work and arrived to find the parking lot nearly full, which was encouraging.  Sure enough, there were plenty of dealers, artists, and attendees there.  The Ballroom isn’t exactly grand-spanking new, but it was in decent shape and worked well for the event.  Unlike most events I have been to, there was plenty of seating, but one artist friend muttered that he’s rather see potential customers walking around.  Oh well.

Tsuki-con was a one-evening affair.  In addition to the artists and dealers, they had a cosplay contest, held some raffles, had panels, and some entertainers performed as the evening went on.  Unfortunately, they do have a few things they need to work on for next time:

Where’s the Charity? – I was a little disappointed in that there wasn’t a table for the charity that was supposed to be benefiting from the event.  It would have been nice to learn more about what they are doing.  Indeed, I wasn’t even sure where I was supposed to donate to the charity.  I did buy a special print from an artist, part of the proceeds was going to the charity, so I figured that was good enough.  This could have been a good opportunity for The Advocates Youth Boxing Program to drum up support, sign up volunteers and build awareness of their organization, but they didn’t take full advantage of it.

Who’s in charge, here? – It was not even made clear (or at least, I couldn’t tell) just who was in charge of the event.  Considering some of the issues that arose, it would have been nice to be able to find someone to get things sorted out.

I didn’t think this was THAT kind of show – Most of the entertainment was provided by Madame’s Muses, “a modern vaudville style dance troupe hoping to bring class back to the Art of the Tease.”  Yeah.  At first we were treated to a slightly risque song by one of the Muses, but it wasn’t anything too bad and the crowd enjoyed the performance.  There was a Steampunk Elvis (who I do not believe is associated with the Muses) who, along with some friends, treated us to a funny steam-themed rendition of “Viva Las Vegas” called “Viva The Steampunk.”  Everyone was having a fun time.

And then came the fishnets.

A trio of women wearing short shorts and fishnet stockings took the stage and started dancing…well, as one would expect women in short shorts and fishnet stockings to dance.  Now, I didn’t mind the show myself, but considering this was supposed to be a “FAMILY ORIENTATED” (their spelling, not mine) event it was way over the line.  I later heard that some parents immediately left with their children, and frankly, I don’t blame them.  So much for ‘bringing class back.’

Roller Girls Get Shafted – The Bexar County Roller Girls were in attendance and I was intrigued, having never seen or been to a roller derby.  Now, I don’t know if this was planned as part of the event, but they intended to put on an exhibition.  A part of the floor was set aside, lines were placed onto the floor with tape, and the gals did some practice laps.  People took seats in anticipation of watching the exhibition, but nothing was ever announced after the Muses did their thing, or shook certain things, as it were.  We kept waiting and waiting, and then…

Lights out! – A rave was scheduled for the final hour of the event.  Of course, you can’t have a rave with all that light, right?  So at about quarter to ten, nearly all of the lights in the ballroom were turned off, which pretty much ended the show for the artists (you know, the guys that were raising money for the charity) and so they packed up and left.  The Roller Girls were left to start their exhibition in near-darkness, which I can only presume is not a Good Idea given the dangerous nature of the sport.  So yeah, unless you were one of the kids gyrating around to the music, the event was pretty much done at that point.

Tsuki-con was a good idea with a lot of promise.  It started out well enough, but the execution of the event failed very badly at the end.  Poor planning and research on the part of the organizers made it an evening to remember for the wrong reasons.  Hopefully they accomplished their mission of raising money for the boxing program and do it again sometime in the future, with a few adjustments.

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Books, CREATIVE, JUST SAYING, RANDOMIZER9.COM, Tablets, TECH, TECH SUPPORT, The Rules of Tech Support, Writing

To Think Different, DO Different

I have been working on my second e-book, titled “The Rules of Tech Support,” for what seems to have been way too long.  Now, it isn’t a very long work, and I have already written some of it on my old LiveJournal and on my podcast. For the longest time, though, it sat at about 80% completed.  I just couldn’t get any farther; I would sit behind my laptop, fire up Microsoft Word, tap Ctrl-End to get to the end of the document, and…nothing.  For months, absolutely no progress.

The project eventually got back on track.  It was either because I started working in tech support again, or because I found myself writing in different places.  As odd as it sounds, I am convinced that writing in different places or in different ways helps the creative process along.  In my case, I found myself taking notes in between calls during work, and even stayed in late at the office one day, spending a whole hour alone just typing away.  Somehow being at the office made me think different.  Heck, I think that using my tablet instead of my laptop helped.

What I’m trying to say is that you cannot ‘think different’ if you are doing the same thing over and over again.  To change my thought processes, I had to change where I was doing my thinking.  If nothing else, its a good excuse to hang out at a coffee shop or diner for a few hours.

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FOOD, JUST SAYING, WHATS GOING ON

In Defense of the Christmas Creeps

This was taken on September 24th 0_o

I was flipping through the radio stations as I was driving into work today to find that San Antonio station KQXT 101.9 had already started their annual Christmas music marathon.  Now, I love Christmas music, but the fact that they were doing so a week before Thanksgiving struck me as being just a hair too early.

The phenomena is known as “Christmas Creep.” While on a certain level it is getting ridiculous, there is one argument against it that I can’t get onboard with.  It goes like this: “Why does Christmas stuff have to come around so soon…what about Thanksgiving?”

What about Thanksgiving?

There really isn’t much to it.  Most folks will travel, spend a day or two with loved ones and perhaps enjoy a turkey dinner.  That’s it.  Thanksgiving is just what it says on the box: a day to give thanks and get a day off from work (or a four-day weekend if you are truly fortunate).

While Thanksgiving is special to many people, it isn’t sacred by any stretch of the imagination.  Heck, some stores have gone from opening at oh-dark-thirty the day after to opening late on Thanksgiving Day itself.

To be fair, let’s look at it from the store’s perspective: Thanksgiving does little for stores that don’t sell food, so I don’t really blame them for wanting to get an early jump on the Christmas shopping season.

So yeah, while stores opening on Thanksgiving Day sucks and getting a jump on Christmas in September or even October is a bit much, I think the week before Thanksgiving is just fine for retailers to start getting the ball rolling.

Finally, I should confess that I have been tuning to that Christmas music station on occasion, so I’m probably part of the problem.  🙂

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Broadband, BUSINESS, JUST SAYING, Odem, RANDOMIZER9.COM, TECH, TECH SUPPORT, WHATS GOING ON

Pre-Paid, or Pre-Pain?

As my cell phone contract nears its end, I find myself metaphorically drooling over the thought of getting a new phone.  Well, okay, so maybe I’m doing a little bit of real-life drooling, too.  While the Samsung Moment I got from Sprint has been fairly reliable these past two years, it would be nice to get something new, and yes, there is some gadget-lust feeding that desire to upgrade as well.

While my desire to keep up with the virtual Joneses is strong, it is tempered by my desire to be more responsible with my finances.  I recently consolidated all my debts and am working on boosting my savings, which, of course, means cutting back on expenses.  I currently pay just under eighty bucks a month for my cell phone plan.  That isn’t bad, but it would be nice if I could get that number to drop.  I recently learned that I can an employee discount through my job.  Even then, I think I can shave even more off my cell phone bill by going with a pre-paid provider.  Doing so will come with a few caveats, but before I go over them, I should mention that I had pre-paid cell service from T-Mobile way back when because money was tight.  It was pretty good, but it was quite some time before I had a smartphone.  Now on to the issues:

The biggest one has to do with the carriers themselves.  While some of them piggyback off of the big boys (for example, Virgin Mobile uses Sprint’s network) and some are run by the big boys (Verizon and AT&T each have their own pre-paid services) others have their own networks that are not as robust as the ones the “big boys” have.  This probably won’t be a big deal when I’m at home in San Antonio, but once I go to other cities for conferences or events things just might not work!

Related to this issue are the phones that are offered by pre-paid providers.  They aren’t nearly quite as nice as the new ones the major providers carry.  From what I have seen in my research, some of them are just downright awful, as they are often made by second- and third-tier manufacturers.  Adding to this is the fact that you have to pay the full cost of a pre-paid phone up front.  That is one of the reasons that pre-paid service is less expensive, those carriers don’t subsidize the cost of their phones.  This isn’t quite as big a deal as it sounds, because the phones that I can get for free from the big boys are about as lousy as the one I have now.  If I want something better, I’m going to have to fork out some cash up front either way.

Another reason the ‘lousy phone’ thing may not be an issue is the fact that I just don’t do a whole lot with my smartphone.  For all the “OMG THOUSANDS OF APPS” available on Android, I barely have any apps installed and use less than ten on a regular basis.  Non-smartphones have gotten smarter these days, so I might be able to ditch a smartphone completely and go with a much cheaper non-smartphone plan.  If I can find a messaging phone that does Facebook, Twitter, and e-mail, that would be just about perfect.  The obvious downside is that I would probably be very limited to what I could install on that not-so-smartphone.

One final consideration is the porting of my current phone number.  I’ve had the same phone number for a few years now and have gotten pretty attached to it, so I’m a little jittery about moving to a new provider.  I get even jitterier (yes it’s a word, BTW) when I consider that a lower-cost operation may not have all of those nice people answering phones for them in customer service.  I’ve actually received good customer service the few times I’ve had to call Sprint, and shudder at the thought of talking to who knows who from who-knows-where.  That isn’t an “I hate Indian call center” thing, either.  In my AT&T debacle from earlier this year, I was actually glad to get a polite person with an accent instead of all the home-grown jerkasses I had been dealing with up to that point.  Yeah, the ‘USA-based support’ they were so proudly trumpeting was that bad.

While the thought of getting a shiny new phone with a nice big screen, new operating system and fast CPU is a pleasant one, the thought of being caught without enough money in the event of an emergency is enough to make me think over the amount of cash I’m currently shelling out for my phone service.  On the other hand, the service I have been getting has been pretty good, even in the boonies of my hometown and I’m not sure that going with someone different for the sake of saving a few bucks is the best plan in the world.  My bill should be dropping thanks to the employee discount, so I’m wondering if perhaps going pre-paid isn’t worth the trouble when things are working well as it is.

And yeah, those shiny new phones in the Sprint Store are looking pretty nice!

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ANIME, CONS, FIRST STORM MANGA, RANDOMIZER9.COM, REALMSCON

RealmsCon 2011 : Can Less Be More?

As far as I know, RealmsCon is the only anime event that goes on in Corpus Christi.  I remember going to the first one way back when, and have had tables there these last two years.  With First Storm Manga done with, I was now free to just enjoy the show.  Having been underwhelmed with RealmsCon in the past, I decided to drive down and check it out for one day as opposed to the whole weekend.

I got to the American Bank Center at about one in the afternoon, and the setup was very similar to what they had last year; artists and panels were on the first floor and big events and guests were on the second.  It was different in that the number of artists and dealers had been reduced from 2010.  The same amount of space was being used, but things were a little more spread out.  They did things like use only one side of a hallway instead of both.  While it made the space looked a little more empty (particularly the dealer’s room) I think it was the right thing to do.  Here’s why:

I don’t know what the attendance numbers are for RealmsCon, but it would appear that they overdid it last year when they held their first show at the American Bank Center last year.  Back then, they packed as many artists and dealers as they could into the space, but it appears that they didn’t have the numbers to support all those attendees.  I overheard that both attendees and artists were pretty unhappy with that situation.

It looks like they found the sweet spot this year, because nearly all of the folks that I spoke with said that things were going well for them, sales-wise, at least.  Ideally, fewer artists and dealers meant more money for the ones that were there.

I really didn’t do much there beyond hang out with friends so I attend any of the events.  While they do have just a little bit of repetition in terms of their guests, it is nice to see familiar faces.  Of course, I have to mention that their big guest Tom Felton cancelled, which was unfortunate.

I didn’t attend any of the panels, so I don’t have anything to say about them except that Airship Isabella appeared to be running a significant chunk of them, according to the schedule.  That makes me wonder about the anime community in Corpus Christi, are there not enough folks down there that want to do panels?  Realms always seems to have issues getting enough panels to fill the event’s three days.  Last year, each presenter was given two hours, and this year there were 15-30 minute gaps in between events.

That minor quibble aside, I had a fun time at RealmsCon and there was a good crowd there.  While they had to take a step back in some ways, it was a step forward for the most part, and I look forward to coming back next year, maybe for the whole weekend instead.

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Microsoft, RANDOMIZER9.COM, TECH, TECH SUPPORT

RANDOM REACTION: Windows 8 Developer Preview

Just when I was growing to love Windows 7, Microsoft has to come up with something new. Windows 8 is expected to drop in late 2012, but that’s a wild guess from people that get paid to make wild guesses.  For now, though, there is the Developer Preview, which was introduced on September 13th at Microsoft’s BUILD developer conference.  In a pretty smart move, Microsoft made it available to the public, which only makes sense because everyone was going to share it anyway, and it gave Microsoft something to brag about: 8 was download half a million times within its first 12 hours of release.

Like any good geek, I wanted to poke at the latest thingamabobber from the depths of Redmond.  I started my download, went to bed, and burned a Windows 8 install DVD before going to work the next morning.  I figured I could install it while I was at work and poke at it during the day.  I started the installer, and about an hour or so later, after using my Windows Live ID for maximum effect, I had a nice purdy Windows 8 screen thingie looking back at me.  FYI, this screenshot was taken after I’d set up the Socialite (Facebook) and Weather apps, so it isn’t quite the default:

Windows 8 Start Screen

Its Hip to be Square!

Windows 8 eschews the Start Menu (almost) completely and give you a Start Screen.  The Start Screen uses the “Metro” interface found on Windows Phone.  This is a good thing and a bad thing.  Its good because it places lots of information and apps in front of you but its bad because well, most of the information presented wasn’t too important. The Facebook tile seemed to display just random images of friends, and the Tweet@rama (Twitter) tile was set to one of Microsoft’s feeds.  While I’m sure that the UI and tiles will be more customizable the closer we get to release, right now the constant stream of data just feels like overkill on a desktop.

One thing that became rapidly apparent was that the Windows 8 user interface was clearly designed with touch screens in mind; the Start Screen’s big chunky tiles appear to be more suited for finger tapping than mouse clicking.  Since I was using a mouse, I had to make do with horizontal scroll bars that constantly appeared at the bottom of the screen which got more than a little bit annoying.

Luckily, for those of us dinosaurs that still want to work with the Desktop, clicking the “Desktop” tile pulls up a Windows 7 desktop that looks like the one we’ve grown to love over the past two years or so.  Programs can be stuck onto the taskbar just like in Windows 7 but getting to them isn’t quite as simple as it used to be:

Windows 8 Apps list

Get'cher apps and programs here!

In order to get to your list of programs and apps you have to click “Search” which pops up in a menu that appears when you move your mouse to the lower right hand corner of the screen.  You can then type in a search term or scroll through the list until you find what you want.

The Start Menu?  Gone.  Kaputski.  No Mas.  Frankly, I think that is a horrible decision on Microsoft’s part.  Here’s why:

Windows 8 Start Screen after Office install

I only needed Word, doggone it!

That is my Start Screen after installing Word in Microsoft Office 2003.  Most of the programs on the right hand side of that screen I am never, ever going to use.  Normally, they stay tucked away in the Start Menu unless, by some miracle of fate, I actually need one of them.  When I install Word, I take the Word icon and drop it onto my taskbar because that’s all I need.  Now all those extra icons are all over my Start Screen, cluttering it up unless I take the time to go in and delete each individual one.  This sucks.

Yes, it may be used less often these days, but when you aren’t using it, the Start Menu stays out of the way.  If Microsoft insists on keeping backwards-compatibility with earlier Windows versions, it needs to keep the Start Menu lest they risk pissing off their userbase, because I guarantee you that the first thing everyone is going to look for after starting up their shiny new Windows 8 machine is look for the Start Menu.

That quibble aside, Windows  8 is a pleasure to get around, the teeny-tiny Notification area that used to be on the right side of the Start Menu has been moved over to the Settings area, which is accessed using the lower-left corner menu:

Windows 8 Settings Sub-screen

Very niiiice!

As you can tell, the Settings area is easy to view and read, and is definitely an improvement.  Apps written for the Windows 8 Metro interface also have a different look to them, such as Internet Explorer which you can see below.  The screenshot shows the pop-up menus that appear when  you right-click.

Internet Explorer 9 in Windows 8

Shiny!

While older programs run within the Desktop, apps run in full-screen mode.  Right clicking the mouse brings up menus that are different from the usual “File, Edit…” ones we’ve used to using all these years.  I think this is a definite improvement and should make Windows much easier for people to use, assuming, of course, that the interfaces are done right.  That may become an issue when we’re talking about more complicated software packages like Excel and Visual Studio, but the Desktop is available as a fallback.

As far as performance goes, Windows 8 seemed to run okay on my Toshiba Satellite T115D-S1125 laptop with 4GB of RAM.  All of my hardware appeared to work and the Frowny Blue Screen of Death was nowhere to be seen.  It did chug a little bit at times, but as this is a pre-beta, so that is forgivable and it did work well enough to be usable during the time that I had it installed.  Older Windows software such as Office 2003, WinAmp 2.9 and Microsoft Money 2000 also worked just fine.

Windows 8 is looking like a pretty nice update so far.  The Metro interface is very different from the old Desktop we’ve been using all these years and should make using Windows a much easier experience for less-technically savvy people.  Unfortunately, 8 also has to work with software written for previous versions of Windows, and the lack of a Start Menu is going to make the Start Screen pretty unusable for folks that are going to be installing a bunch of legacy programs onto it.  Microsoft may have been testing the waters by leaving out the Start Menu, but it is a bad move unless they decide to rip out backwards compatibility altogether, which I severely doubt is going to happen.

My other big beef with Windows 8 is its tablet-centricness.  This is not necessarily a Bad Thing, but I felt as if I was not able to make full use of it because I was using a mouse and keyboard.  In fact, a few of the programs were all but unusable because I did not have multi-touch, so I couldn’t pinch or widen two fingers onto the screen.  I would love to see this running on a tablet, but on a desktop, it feels a bit clunky right now.

In my opinion, Windows 8 is a step in the right direction and a long-needed shift for operating systems in general.  Metro is clean, sharp and very user friendly.  I look forward to seeing 8 evolve as the devs hammer at it and hopefully take user feedback (like this!) into account.  I just hope that Microsoft does not leave us old fogey mouse-and-keyboard users out in the cold in favor of the cool kids with their tablets and touchscreens.

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Apple, Computers, JUST SAYING, RANDOMIZER9.COM, Tablets, TECH, WHATS GOING ON

Why a Tablet?

I have been thinking about getting a tablet as of late, going as far as to even take one for a test drive not too long ago. Of course, the question then becomes “Why?”  Here are my reasons for wanting to “small-grade” down to a tablet:

I DON’T REALLY DO A LOT WITH MY LAPTOP

When I am on the road with my laptop, I increasingly find myself either doing stuff inside of a web browser or in Microsoft Word.  I don’t play games with it, I don’t do any programming (yet!) and except for the occasional trip to YouTube, I don’t watch very many movies or videos.  All of the “big stuff,” such as editing audio or video, I do on my desktop, which has plenty of horsepower and a nice, big 24-inch screen.

PHONE TOO SMALL, LAPTOP TOO BIG

I have owned smartphones for about four years now, with my first one being a Windows Mobile 6 phone that I had before my current Samsung Moment running Android.  They work okay, but their screens and keyboards are just too small to type on for extended periods of time.  I am due for an upgrade soon and am leaning towards a phone with a larger screen, but even then I don’t think that they will not be big enough to use for any extended length of time.  As I mentioned in my Vizio Tablet review, I tend to carry a lot of crap in my laptop bag, which even at 12-inches, makes more cumbersome to lug around than it should be.  A tablet, on the other hand, would be more usable than a phone because of its smaller screen, and more portable than a laptop.  It should be the best of both worlds.

INSTANT-ON

Ideas don’t wait, so when something pops in my head I want to be able to jot it down before it gets lost with all of the other stuff being tossed around in the clothes dryer that is my brain.  While Windows 7 is nice, it does take a while to boot up and shut down.  With a tablet, I can turn it on at the touch of a button, type down whatever Big Idea I have, put it back into sleep mode and then get back to using the crapper or whatever it was I was doing when inspiration struck.

BACK TO A DUMB PHONE

These days, Wi-Fi is widespread enough to the point where it’s available nearly everywhere you go.  For those times when WiFi isn’t available, I have a pre-paid MiFi device which works well, even in the hole in the Internet that is my hometown.  Since an Android tablet can to do everything that my phone can do, there doesn’t seem to be much point in carrying an Android phone.  Thus, I should be able to ‘downgrade’ my phone to a more basic model that does not require a data plan which should save a few bucks in the long term, especially since Sprint is bumping up the price of the their smartphone plans another 10 bucks.

So there you have it, four reasons I will be soon purchasing an Android tablet.  I’m looking forward to having the near-ultimate in portability in the palm of my hand!  Move over, laptop!

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JUST SAYING, RANDOMIZER9.COM, TECH, TECH SUPPORT, WHATS GOING ON, WHISKEY-TANGO-FOXTROT

Tales from the Tech Side: “Bubbles in Cement”

My coworkers and I get to talk to a lot of people during the course of doing our technical support jobs.  While there is much humor to be found in interacting with people who probably shouldn’t even be in the same room with a computer, some of the anecdotes our customers tell us while we wait for files to download or installers to run are pretty funny in themselves:

Laurie works in a hospital as a psychologist alongside her good friend “Bubbles” who is a counselor.  Bubbles is a nickname she has earned because according to Laurie, she fits the ‘ditzy blonde’ stereotype.  In their jobs, Laurie makes the kids cry, and then Bubbles makes them happy with soothing words and lollipops, so they have something of a “good cop/bad cop” thing going on.

Laurie and Bubbles often walk to a nearby donut shop for coffee and conversation.  One fine day as they were walking back to work, Laurie noticed that there were some orange traffic cones on the sidewalk ahead of them.  Laurie walked around the cones, guessing that they were there to keep people from walking on the sidewalk for some reason.  Bubbles, on the other hand, kept on walking and took two steps into wet cement.  Bubbles was able to get out of the cement with some help from Laurie.  Laurie helped Bubbles clean off her feet with a nearby water hose.

Laurie continued walking, taking care to avoid the sidewalk once again, but Bubbles immediately took another step into the wet cement, much to Laurie’s chagrin.  Laurie has no intention of letting it go and asked us to post their story, so here we are.  While Laurie may let it go eventually, the concrete dust footprints Bubbles left on the hospital’s dark carpet will probably serve as a more permanent reminder of the event.

Bubbles, indeed!

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