Rubenerd

So here's the dillema: I have two email addresses, my gmail account for general use, and the university email address for… university use!

Both email systems are web-based, which has two downsides: it means I have to login to two seperate websites several times a day, which is a right royal pain in the rear end, so ultimately what I'd like to do is to have my uni email AND the Gmail email (that sounds cool) download into one mail client, either Mozilla Thunderbird or the Apple Mail.app program.

But herein lies the problem: the uni network uses the incredible, open standards, open source software suite called Microsoft Exchange (note the sarcasm), which is impossible to get working with anything other than Microsoft's own proprietary-protocol compatible programs, such as Craplook or Craplook Express. So that rules out use with Thunderbird and Apple Mail.

Plus, apparently, you can set up Gmail to use POP3 to download your messages into a mail client of your choice, but as of yet neither Thunderbird or Apple Mail have been able to make a successful connection.

Now with the internet back online at home (???) I'm going to try again. Wish me luck, it looks as though I'll need it!

Reporting to you at the moment from the uni network because the internet at home is down… again!

 

Everything computer related is just going so fantastically for me!

I tell you what though, today is SO cold! The last week it's been in the high 30s, now it's late morning and the mercury hasn't risen to above 17 yet. I need a cuppa.

So I was just watching Home.Life.Style (Australian Home Lifestyle show.. I know I surprise even myself) while doing my economics homework, and the lead presenter starting taking about the Dell Inspiron xxxx.

She said it was so great for watching DVDs, it had a HUGE 40GB hard drive (what time period is she from?), plenty of RAM with 256MB, and Windows XP.

Since when is a 40GB hard drive HUGE for a laptop? And since when does Windows XP run fine with only 256MB of RAM? I know this is a Dell we're talking about, but even this is pretty slack.

Conveniently she didn't mention that appauling technical support, their slow response times to support questions, the "shoddiness" of their machines' construction, their limited lifetimes and the fact you're stuck with using the most unreliable, buggy and insecure operating system with it to boot.

Sure it's $1400. But surely your sanity and work performance are worth more!

Another update from Israel in Japan:

I went to Tôkyô yesterday (Saturday) and became very lost. I think I achieved my objectives, but I don’t have any pictures (for various reasons) to prove it to myself or others.

I enjoyed the time I spent wandering the streets around Shibuya. I accidentally found (I think) Hikawa Jinja when I had given up and decided to try to find my way back to the train station and then I got lost trying to do that.

I’m going again tomorrow because I am very tired today.

He's posted some images from his train journey and an audio clip; check out The Overnightscape forum for details…

Image © Israel J. Brown.

UPDATE 2009: I changed my mind. Nuts to Atom, I’m stcking with RSS.

With all the different subscription links on the main page of Rubenerd I thought it was all a bit confusing; and redundant. With RDF and RSS 0.9x now depreciated and no longer in development, and with RSS 2.0 being frozen, Atom seems like the most logical next step, and every half-decent blog aggregator supports it now.

If by a WILD chance you're blog software doesn't support Atom feeds, you can still subscribe using the older style feeds below:

• 
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These feeds are kept up to date with the WordPress software, but I personally won't be checking them anymore.

Ruben picks apart the useless spam he receives from the spamming spammers who spam him with their spammingly spammish spam.

PayPal is committed to maintaining a safe environment for its community of buyers and sellers. To protect the security of your account, PayPal employs
some of the most advanced security systems in the world and our anti-fraud teams regularly screen the PayPal system for unusual activity.

Recently, our Account Review Team identified some unusual activity in your account. In accordance with PayPal’s User Agreement access to your account will be limited. This is a fraud prevention measure meant to ensure that your account is not compromised.

In order to secure your account we may require some specific information from you. We encourage you to log in by clicking on the link below and complete the requested form as soon as possible.

Sorry mates, but I find it hard to believe that my account, as well the 9 other accounts (the fact that you CC:'d the same message to 9 completely different gmail addresses) have the exact same problem.

Back to the drawing board I'm afraid.

If anyone wants to buy me something (haha) then this would be just fine:

ThinkGeek Tshirt: Now accepting applications for Japanese girlfriends

Some people drink beer like water with little regard for its taste, for the sake of getting smashed only to wake up on Sunday with no idea what they did. Ruben doesn’t do this. So in this space Ruben celebrates Saturday night in his own style.

Today’s brew: Carlton Draught.

Carlton Draught, Brewery Fresh
Australian Draught Beer At Its Best
Brewery fresh for a smooth, full-bodied draught beer taste
Since 1864

First impressions: looking at the bottle it seems like a fairly ordinary brown tinted glass recepticle (look at me with my fancy language!) with a fairly ordinary dark red label. One bottle contains 1.4 standard drinks despite its smaller size.

As for the taste, the flavour is fairly strong but the taste is super ordinary. It tastes mass produced, I'm looking for any slight extra flavour that would set this apart from other draughts but all I taste is beer.

The carbonation too seems just slightly overdone, it feels like I'm drinking a weak soft drink mixed with beer, not in taste, but in the amount of fizz. I'm not sure if refrigeration times etc have affected it, or if it's been shook up but it seems just a tad overdone.

All that said, the flavour isn't super terrible; all I would say is if you're going for a bottle of it for the first time, don't expect anything outstanding, just a generic beer with nothing overly interesting.

Final verdict? 2 1/2 stars.

Today the forecast was supposed to be 34 degrees, but just a few hours ago the mercury rose to 38! Hot damn!

Isn't it great how all the cool-temperature-enducing, rain bringing clouds missed us here in Adeliade… again :)

So I put an electronic item on eBay recently, and I wanted to send it to someone in Sydney NSW. Due to me residing in Adelaide SA I wanted to courier it instead of posting it seeing as it was fragile, but could I get a straight answer from anyone? Let's recap.

First Candidate: DHL Australia

DHL is pretty well known, and reputable, so I thought I'd give them a shot. After jumping through several hoops to actually talk to a real person, a recorded voice chimed that I should call back during their office hours of 9am to 5pm. It was 4:35pm. I wasn't impressed with this 'reputable' message, so I gave them the flick.

Second Candidate: Star Track Express

Star Track Express is an Aussie courier and frieght business so I thought I'd support local! I gave them a call, and after going through the usual button pushing, I was put onto a customer service personidge. He collected all the details of the package, my phone number and name, my address and what my hobbies are, then FINALLY asked what company I represented. I said I was an individual. "Sorry, this is only for business. CLICK". Thanks for wasting my time.

Third Candidate: Australia Express

So I was getting a bit agitated with all this courier stuff, so I decided to try a local business from here in Adelaide, seeing as Australia Express had a subsidery called: AdelaideExpress! I gave them a call and went through the entire debarkle again, in the end she told me to call TNT. Fantastic.

Forth Candidate: TNT Australia

From experience, apparently because I'm an individual I'm the bird flu for corporate couriers, so I asked up front if they would send my package seeing as I was an individual. "Nup". Okay then, do you know someone who will? "Um… err… well there's… no wait… um… yeah… theres… Pack n Send, I think". Okay do you know their number? "Nope". Thanks for that.

Pack and Send

There are humans on the other end of call centre phones! I could not have had such a positive experience. I should have jotted down her name so I could tell her supervisor, but she couldn't have been more helpul. I didn't need to give her every scrap of personal detail, all I needed was the weight and size of the box, and the postcode I was going to send it to. I got a confirmed cost, a confirmed address drop off (which is just down the street!). My faith in humanity is restored!

Lesson Learned:

Don't waste your time with all those other courier services who couldn't give a damn, give Pack and Send a go :).