The Mystic Bird

The great GMail machine had a hiccup the other day and was down for a period of time. Many users were without their “FREE, BETA VERSION” of GMail until Google got the problem worked out.

Thing is the FREE BETA VERSION part of this issue hasn’t dawned on them.

Hey! It’s a free service folks! Quit whining about defecting to Yahoo or Hotmail for crying out loud. Anyway, once Microsoft gets their hands on Yahoo, it might be facing the same or similar problems so there ya go. Not a pretty alternative after all, is it?

I wonder about people sometimes that will complain loud and long over something they get free. I mean, if you want something that’s free then ya gotta understand that sometimes….SOMETIMES, it’s gonna have some issues. So lambasting Google over it is kinda bordering on the doofus side a bit. At least they got it worked out pretty darn quick which goes to say a lot about their reputation.

Now, if you’re paying for some service and it goes down the crapper for a period of time, I would agree that it would be time to contact the provider to register a complaint. But, to advocate others to escape to Yahoo or Hotmail over a free email service provided by Google just because of a hiccup? Come on, man!

Oh! You didn’t really have your business’s email account(s) on a free beta service did you? Uh-oh.

I keep wondering why Linux keeps getting the “red-headed step-child” routine when it’s so obviously not just some passing fad waiting on it’s time to end. Makes no sense to me. I can understand why M/$ fan-boys trash-talk it. They obviously like their bloated, insecure, slow-loading Windows machines and see nothing wrong with them what so ever. That and that’s all their companies use so they have no choice. (more…)

We just got back from vacation and I gotta tell you: It was cool! Let me fill you in.

We went to New Orleans for a cruise on the Carnival’s Fantasy and from the get-go, things were not quite what we were expecting. Biggest reason was the oil spill in the Mississippi due to an errant apprentice operating the tug pushing the oil-filled barge into the tanker. Needless to say, they had one hell of a mess on their hands.

We were constantly updated with what Carnival was up to more or less due to their online message boards and a late email telling us we would be bussed to Mobile as that’s where the Fantasy had been redirected. We would then board and start the cruise from there. (more…)

You may remember from a previous post of mine that I was considering selling my laptop on eBay. Well, I tried doing just that except it turned out to be one of the worst experiences I’d had in a long time.

Let me fill you in:

I set up an account with PayPal first to allow for payment if the laptop should sell. I was being optimistic I suppose seeing as the times we’re in at the moment are taxing (no pun intended) our finances almost to the hilt depending on income.

After the PayPal account was set up I then set up an account at eBay. Talk about a confusing website. Never the less, I got the thing listed and set it for a 7 day auction. I just wanted to sell it to the first one who would cough up my asking price but for some reason, I couldn’t figure out how to do that. Oh well, no biggie. (more…)