Opera 9.5

Sometime last week I decided to upgrade to Opera 9.5 beta. I’ve used Opera betas in the past, so I figured this one would be safe. Boy was I wrong.
First, after installing the beta, all my bookmarks, passwords, preferences, skins and layout, almost everything was lost. I have Opera so customized for me that it takes me about an hour to get it back to useable. Basically, right from the start I had a bad taste of the beta.
Now that I had it mostly customized, I could start using it. Off we go, then stop ten minutes later cause its frozen, force quit, relaunch and off again. The first time was a false start right? Time proved otherwise. Maybe its not every ten minutes but more than one crash per day is way too many. There was no particular site that was crashing it, it was just bad.
I finally got fed up this morning and went back to 9.24. Thank god that was a beta because it didn’t overwrite all my previous preferences, it just ignored them. So when I downgraded, it picked up right where I left off before.
The verdict: Opera 9.5 is not even close to ready, but the company in general is still smart.

Technorati Tags: opera, internet

Sucktacular

I’m going rant about my job some. You’ve been warned.

Next friday has the potential to be one of the worst days I’ve ever had. I have to be at work at 5:30am. I don’t think I’ve ever had to be somewhere active and awake at 5:30am. Sure, I’ve had to meet people very early in the morning but it was usually for a trip or something so I didn’t have to be alert.
On the good side, I don’t have to be polite and nice to all the customers that day. People are expecting mobs and chaos, so if I try to control the chaos, even if it’s at the expense of a few, most will be happy and satisfied. Also, the store is going to be so busy that customers won’t have time or the patience to complain.

The store got a new GM at work this past week. She’s nice, but she’s a ball buster. One of the things that being emphasized stronger is to sell service plans. Generally I’m bad at selling service plans. My first problem is motivation. What do I get for selling one of these? The company gets a fistful of cash and I get nothing. Sure we have a bonus system but it sucks and haven’t seen a bonus since it was instated. Second, I’ve read the fine print on them and I don’t lie to customers. I don’t just take managers and people’s word for it, I read everything. Read the fine print on a service plan and then decide if you still want it. Third, there aren’t any consequences if I don’t sell any. I’ve gone months without selling a thing and haven’t had anything happen. I’ve sold plenty of tech services and the company makes an %85 margin on each service. They can’t tell me I don’t bring in revenue.

What $611 Billion can buy

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/gallery/251007war_costs/

VIsta Funny

Here’s a pic I took at work a while ago while restoring a Vista machine.

Leopard

I’ve had leopard for a few days now and I like it. First, the new look of the windows, the dock, the menu bar all make for a very stylish and functional. Second, the stacks are amazing. Tho only downside to the stacks are that they don’t exist on their own. They’re just a pointer and a pretty visual to a normal folder somewhere. Third, the time machine is awesomely useful not to mention stunningly beautiful. There’s a bunch of other things that are pretty cool, but I don’t really use. Spaces is nice, the iChat desktop sharing and things are awesome, parallels runs smoother. Overall I think in was worth getting.
I just wish the default Opera skin was OSX native.

Help needed

First, in my stats class tonight we started going over random numbers. There’s a table in the back of the book that you can use to get random numbers from. The teacher said that if you wont a string of numbers you can start anywhere you want in the table and go in any direction, but you can’t jump around randomly. Why can’t you jump around? If its truly a table of random numbers than it shouldn’t make a difference right? I need you math/programming guys to help me out.

Second, what should I get my graduate degree in? I’m not doing it all at once, (I have 10 years to do it) but I’m going to start on it next semester and I need to pick a class. The problem is I have no idea what to get it in. I think I want something more skill related, but I don’t know. Suggestions would be helpful.