Marcus Hamaker is The Sleepy Geek

This weekend we were away at my father-in-law’s cottage. When we went up last weekend we noticed, and I was told that the toilet needed to go. I am into DIY and so I don’t usually back out of home improvements and given the chance at the cottage I always do it.

The project was simple – replace the toilet. When you start thinking about what it is you’re doing and you watch as many DIY shows as I do then you know that’s also the best time to do your floor. Budget being a factor and the cottage being the location we went for something very inexpensive and easy to install – peel and stick vinyl floor tiles.

So toilet out and floor tiles down we decided to go the whole way and replace the sink at the same time. The shower in the cottage is a very simple stand up shower but it suits our needs really. The sink however was probably the original and with a new toilet would have looked out of place.

I ended up in a mess with a couple of things. One was the new toilet didn’t sit quite as low as the old one and so I had to get crafty with the wax ring. That caused me some major heartache. I didn’t want to have the dirty side of a toilet leaking – that’s for sure! I customized the ring and got it installed after a delay. Then I finished up the floor and it looks quite good.

The next morning I went to the hardware store and bought some parts for the vanity. That installation went quite well until I had to join the drain pipe to the trap. I was missing about 6″ from the pipe so some customization started. My buddy and i got it to within an inch by letting out some of the pipe from the basement but it wasn’t enough. After some swearing and some looking around we were ready to head back to the village hardware store when I took a last ditch look in the box of tricks that I have and found an extension. w00t!

It’s amazing, I had a great time – it’s done and I am happy with it. This isn’t going to go into the hall of fame for the top 10 bathrooms, but it’s a great upgrade for the cottage. I have a little trim work to do and it will be great!

The geekiest part of this was the fact that when taking pictures of this I could just hit the upload to Facebook button and share my weekend with my friends. If you had told me I would be doing that 20 years ago I would have told you to fly a kite!

Geek on!

There are rarely times when I feel I need to get something off a site if they didn’t make it easily available to download but it does happen. Next weekend I will be going on a small trip with my brother and a friend for 2 days of golf. We have all been looking at the course’s website, checking for information and reviewing the course on their score cards. The website has a lot of great information and so my instinct was to try and get it on my Blackberry. There are 2 things that I wanted – the hole yardages and the small video flybys like you would see on TV for tour events.

I don’t want to use any of this information maliciously, I want it for personal consumption. The only difference is that I don’t feel like having to use a data connection every time I want to take a peak.

One of my buddies at work reminded me of a website called File2HD. This site is very simple in the you enter the URL of the web page you want to search and then hit Get Files. Very simple and it will then list all the files that it found with download links to them. If you right click on the download link and choose Save Target As then you are able to keep the file locally.

So now I have my fly by videos of the golf course on my Blackberry and I will only know if my brother and buddy read this if they want to see them!

Remember that this is for personal consumption only. The filed team has a Terms of Service. The information that I have is something that is found in their yardage book which I will still buy. Don’t take advantage and for sure don’t steal copywriter material.

If you are a golfer then have fun out on the links, if not…

Geek on!

I notice that every time I try to make a commitment to posting something on a daily basis I tend to get overwhelmed. Is it that I have to post something online that gets to me or is it that it is always about technology.

It seems that after a lot of thinking that the tech bubble gets to me after a while. I enjoy doing other things than just geeking out and I tend to let every free brain wave think about tech stuff mostly because I want to get something out on ‘paper’.

This all led me to a question – where do you escape from the internet and technology? There are some who I would believe never actually do but I would think that’s a minority. For me there are a few places. The first would be my shortest escape – probably the bathroom. I know of people who are hard at work while on the toilet hammering away on their Blackberry, that’s just not me. I try not to take it in there with me.

My long term escape is the cottage. We are lucky enough that my father-in-law has a cottage that he rarely uses so my wife, the kids and I are up there most weekends in the summer. Being in a place where there is little to no cell coverage, no computers, no phone line and certainly no internet is an awesome thing sometimes.

I guess all this comes about because I am in one of those moods that want to bring me up north. I hope you can find your place to relax so that you can recharge.

Can’t wait for my next trip up!

Geek on :)

Wow! I have long been telling people that one of the easiest computers to buy is from Dell. A quick phone call to their 1-800 line or a trip to www.dell.com and you can have a computer shipped to you in a week just how you like it. They aren’t the cheapest but they are not astronomically priced either.

The problem is now their service has gone down the tubes. Even before receiving the laptop we (my dear wife and I) had trouble with the sales rep we were talking to. With an attitude just slightly better than rude we had to get him to reconfigure the system we wanted so it would be precisely right. After a few revisions and a few contract adjustments as well for monthly payments we decided he had it right and we made the purchase.

A week and a day go by and we get a shiny new Dell box with a computer in it that had a french keyboard. I was upset because one of the contract revisions we asked him to make was to send it in English. This mistake is made all the time here in Quebec but after being corrected once I think they should get it right the rest of the time. Not the case here obviously.

We called the customer support line and I went through about 4 people before my parental duties took me away and I handed the phone off to my wife. After 1 or 2 more people she was speaking with a ‘manager’ who seemed very appologetic. Fantastic – we are making progress. It sounded very strange to me that they would have to rebuild a completely new machine and send it to us rather than have us go to a repair depot or send a repair technician (we did get the complete care warranty) but we were happy it was an acknowledged mistake and waited for the new package.

A week later and a new box arrived from Purolator. Open it up and boom – FRENCH KEYBOARD. At this point I am really pissed off and I call back Dell customer support again. I know how it is to get an angry person on the phone when you haven’t dealt with them personally from doing tech support in the past so I keep my temper to myself. That is until I am told that I have to return both laptops to Dell via RMA and when they have been cleared replace a brand new order for what I want.

Needless to say we fulfilled the first part of that arrangement but not the second. I even went as far as to tell the rep on the phone that I would in fact send them back but wouldn’t order a new one and he didn’t seem to care. Dell isn’t going win any customers working like this. In the past they had their service to go on. Putting a dude in a mall with a kiosk isn’t going to change the fact that you need to have good people serving the customer – especially at the time of PURCHASE!

One Dell customer lost now and probably a ton in the future. I will never recommend Dell again.

Hope your computing purchases in the recent past have been a lot more plesant than mine.

Geek on!

It’s amazing that we live in a time where we can see the things that we would normally not see. These images fresh from their shutter click are very cool.

Iceland’s disruptive volcano – The Big Picture – Boston.com

Posted using ShareThis

I also took a chance on Youtube. Check out the video of this:

One of my favorite and probably the first thing I ever watched on Youtube :)

See you Monday.

Geek on!

It’s amazing, this weekend was relatively tech free for me. We spent a lot of time as a family, I got some work done around the yard with some help from my wife. It was really nice!

One thing we did do together was play some Super Mario on the Wii. My wife and I, along with our 6 year old son really got into it. The amazing thing is that we can play 3 player Mario now :)

Nintendo has always been considered the least powerful console units out there. They don’t have the best graphics, they don’t have the fastest processor, but MAN – they have the best games. They never try to be over the top with realism so you get to jump into their make believe world and escape for a little bit. Tons of fun!

In my 20′s I was a fan of the high powered Playstations and XBoxs but those systems don’t interest me much anymore. They require a major investment in time. The reason for this is the types of games. They are usually story based games or games that take quite a lot of practice to master (it. sports games). It was always frustrating to try and walk up and play with a buddy who had the game for a while. Learning curve was way too steep.

The best part of the Wii is the ability for almost anyone to walk up and play it. I have never seen my father manage a video game in the past, the controls were just too difficult to learn quickly and he didn’t have time to putz around. Now we have turned on the Wii and put on the bowling and he and his grandson can have a game and everyone is interested and able to participate. People who have never played before can be taught in a matter of minutes and have a great time with it.

Hope you had time to geek out a little in some way if you had some time off this weekend.

Geek on!

I hope you are having a great Easter! I am lucky enough to have 4 days off but I snuck this post in :)

Even thought it’s Easter though, you can still take some time to Geek on!

I originally thought that this was more commonplace for us Canucks than it was for our American brethren, but alas I have findings to point to the contrary. Yes it is true Canadians – Americans pay sales tax too. It’s just that the percentages seem to have one less digit than do ours.

In Canada taxes are calculated by federal sales tax, then provincial sales tax. Most provinces adopt a simple harmonized tax where they are added together to a round number like 15% and so calculations are not complex. I live in Quebec and they have given us the lovely prize of compounded tax. First your item costs $10, we then add the federal 5% for $10.50 then calculate the Quebec sales tax on the $10.50. I am sick of it to be honest. For the longest time we were static but now the federal government has lowered their tax a few times and it gets difficult to remember that it’s not $10 x 1.15025 anymore.

Come save me internets!!!

The pages comes in the form of a java applet from a group called Mind prod. They have an extensive number of applets available, but it was the tax calculators that got my attention from a Google search.

Canadian Tax Calculator
American Tax Calculator

These are excellent tools for someone who lives in an area where tax calculations are more than $5 on $100, but also very good for people who are traveling. Many of us buy things from other locations because we know of a deal there or we are on vacation in the area. It’s good to know that what we are buying really IS a good deal. It doesn’t matter how much the sticker cost is if when you add the tax there is a difference.

I also learned during the writing of this article that there are many states that also have local sales tax. I am not sure how the regions are split up but if you look at the website you will see that regions matter. This is definitely something to consider if you are staying in Maine for example. Great place to visit (we do often) but if we are going to make a purchase it will be in New Hampshire.

Another thing to consider is the exchange rate. Americans and Canadians traveling across the boarder experience this a lot. This of course doesn’t only apply to us but it’s something that I do every year, sometimes more than once a year. The best exchange page I have seen is from Oanda.

Happy traveling and Geek on!

I have been wanting one for a while which I have written about before. What is funny is that after having the Blackberry Bold for well over a year, the iPhone still has my attention – even if it is touch screen!

There is no way I would buy a 3GS at this point because they must be working on something. From what I remember in the past Apple announced the new iPhones during the month of March for their mid summer release, but I think that would be delayed due to the iPad. Marketing strategy tells me that you don’t want to take buzz away from one product during it’s release to announce another. You just end up muddying the waters.

My personal belief is that Apple has pushed their iPhone announcement to mid to late April in hopes of riding the wave they create with the iPad. The idea is for them to keep the Apple name in the foreground but not to double up their product focus. Smart move in my books. If you listen to any podcast about Apple products these days most of them agree with this, but they still don’t give the iPhone much airtime at all. Their concentration is on the iPad they ordered and what new fun things they are going to do with it (jealous).

I have read a few articles that are starting to excite me:

http://appmodo.com/16642/iphone-4-rumors-pouring-in/
http://gizmodo.com/5504935/rumored-iphone-4-specs-960×640-display-front-facing-camera-multitasking
http://mobilespoon.blogspot.com/2010/03/iphone-4-rumored-features.html

Most of us are linking around in circles. Typical to the past, it’s all speculation because Apple hasn’t released anything yet, but it still has me going. I am starting to believe that the physical keyboard of my Bold isn’t as important as I thought it was. Maybe I am wrong – but I would like to find out :)

Geek on!