Recently in Complaints Category

Friendship is a fickle thing somethings. I've gone from one of the best times with someone when they were the only one to celebrate my birthday with me. To that person dropping me as a friend on Facebook because of some imagined reasons during a surprise divorce. All within a span of 6 months.

Given that the Synology NAS server runs a Linux distribution, I thought it would be cool to add some packages to it. Given what I had read, it sounded like an easy enough thing to do. I read the 3rd party developer's guide. I've looked at the Source Forge site for the Synology NAS GPL Source. The DS411+ uses Intel Atom D510/Intelx86/LittleEndian/2.6.32 which needs gcc421_glibc236_x86.tgz. The DS411j uses Marvell 6281/ARM/LittleEndian/2.6.32 which needs gcc421_glibc25_88f628x.tgz. Piece of cake, right?

The first thing that I tried to do was to download the source to GNU's screen program. I then tried compiling it on a different computer.

[root@hamzy2 tmp]# wget -O gcc420_glibc236_pineview.tgz 'http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/dsgpl/DSM%203.1%20Tool%20Chains/Intel%20x86%20Linux%202.6.32/gcc420_glibc236_pineview.tgz?r=http%3A%2F%2Fsourceforge.net%2Fprojects%2Fdsgpl%2Ffiles%2FDSM%25203.1%2520Tool%2520Chains%2FIntel%2520x86%2520Linux%25202.6.32%2F&ts=1303738007&use_mirror=cdnetworks-us-1'
[root@hamzy2 tmp]# tar zxpf gcc420_glibc236_pineview.tgz -C /usr/local/
[root@hamzy2 tmp]# /usr/local/i686-linux-gnu/bin/i686-linux-gnu-gcc sysinfo.c -o sysinfo
[root@hamzy2 tmp]# wget http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/screen/screen-4.0.3.tar.gz
[root@hamzy2 tmp]# tar xvf screen-4.0.3.tar.gz
[root@hamzy2 tmp]# cd screen-4.0.3
[root@hamzy2 screen-4.0.3]# env CC=/usr/local/i686-linux-gnu/bin/i686-linux-gnu-gcc LD=/usr/local/i686-linux-gnu/bin/i686-linux-gnu-ld RANLIB=/usr/local/i686-linux-gnu/bin/i686-linux-gnu-ranlib CFLAGS="-I/usr/local/i686-linux-gnu/include" LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/i686-linux-gnu/lib" ./configure --host=i686-linux-gnu --target=i686-linux-gnu --build=i686-pc-linux --prefix=/usr/local
configure: error: in `/tmp/screen-4.0.3':
configure: error: cannot run test program while cross compiling
See `config.log' for more details.

Argh! I can't run tests when cross compiling?! Sigh. A good product includes a suite of testcases that verifies if a program still works correctly. And I can't run them on a different computer than what is being built. That seems flawed. You should be able to build completely and THEN run the testing testcases on the target computer to verify everything works.

My second attempt was to compile the GNU screen source code on the actual NAS machine itself. After all, it is a computer running Linux. Should be really easy with GNU's autoconfiguration program.

Mark_Hamzy_II> cd /volume1/homes/admin
Mark_Hamzy_II> wget -O gcc420_glibc236_pineview.tgz 'http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/dsgpl/DSM%203.1%20Tool%20Chains/Intel%
20x86%20Linux%202.6.32/gcc420_glibc236_pineview.tgz?r=http%3A%2F%2Fsourceforge.net%2Fprojects%2Fdsgpl%2Ffiles%2FDSM%25203.1%2520Tool
%2520Chains%2FIntel%2520x86%2520Linux%25202.6.32%2F&ts=1303738007&use_mirror=cdnetworks-us-1'
Mark_Hamzy_II> tar zxpf gcc420_glibc236_pineview.tgz
Mark_Hamzy_II> wget http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/screen/screen-4.0.3.tar.gz
Mark_Hamzy_II> tar xvf screen-4.0.3.tar.gz
Mark_Hamzy_II> cd screen-4.0.3
Mark_Hamzy_II> env CC=../i686-linux-gnu/bin/i686-linux-gnu-gcc LD=../i686-linux-gnu/bin/i686-linux-gnu-ld RANLIB=../i686-linux-gnu/bin/i686-linux-gnu-ranlib CFLAGS="-I../i686-linux-gnu/include" LDFLAGS="-L../i686-linux-gnu/lib" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local
Floating point exception (core dumped)

WHAT? A floating point exception during autoconf?! I didn't think a shell script did math...

But then I read about how Synology maintains a repository of packages here. And screen was included!

Mark_Hamzy_II> wget http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/optware/syno-i686/cross/unstable/syno-i686-bootstrap_1.2-7_i686.xsh
Mark_Hamzy_II> sh syno-i686-bootstrap_1.2-7_i686.xsh
Mark_Hamzy_II> ipkg update
Mark_Hamzy_II> ipkg upgrade
Mark_Hamzy_II> ipkg install screen

Now that was really easy! Why didn't I try that before?

Sigh. My new air conditioner unit failed. I've been a customer of Autumn Heating and Cooling since April of 2008. When I bought the new Air Conditioner unit. The outside unit (condenser) is a Rudd Ultra with a product id of UANL-042JEZ. The inside unit (evaporator) has a product id of RFCL-HM4821AC. That cost me $3311.

I was talked into buying a surge protector on December of 2008 for $129. In November of 2009, I bought a new gas control valve for $375. In November of 2010, I renewed my service contract for three years for $97. In March of 2011, I had a semiyearly checkup. And then I noticed that my air conditioner was not cooling.

Unfortunately, I was told that the labor only had a two year warranty. To replace the evaporator would cost me $800. I was able to talk them down to $500. I consulted my my neighbor, who had a relative in the air conditioner business. He said that it was a good deal. The labor and freon would cost at least that much.

The only strange thing about the repair process was that they took the evaporator back with them to their store. Maybe they needed the physical part before they could get a new one to replace it. But I have no idea if the coil was actually replaced or not. The could have just patched it without me knowing any differently. Or substituted it with a refurb unit. Odd.

It seems that water problems come in threes. The first leak was an easy one to fix. One of my old, above ground sprinkler heads broke.

The second one took a day to fix. I noticed that water was coming up from the ground next to my driveway. I thought it was from the sprinkler system side. But, when I shut off the master valve on the backflow preventer, it still kept leaking. I could tell because my water meter was running. I tried turning off the valve on my side of the water meter, but no luck. When I turned off the valve on the city side, it finally stopped. Great. I also have a broken shutoff valve. I also like how the city can install a padlock when the water is off. Nice.

Now, I had to track down the leak. Unfortunately, it was not a straight run to the house. As you can tell by the amount of earth I had to dig up. It seems that the 90 degree elbow bend split on the inside of the bend. It was thankfully easy to cut it out and replace it with a 45 degree bend.

My friend and I installed the backflow preventer (and the rest of the sprinkler system) ourselves. Now I am wishing that it was hooked in better. It should have been a simple T-connection. But as you can see that it is higher than the main pipe and also on top of the main pipe. There are a number of twists and turns. I wish I can just rip everything out and start over again. But that's not going to happen...

The third problem was that my shower head started to leak. I really hate my Moen faucets! This has been the at least third time that I have had to replace the faucet cartridge. Unfortunately, it was not doable by me. I tried and tried to pull the old plastic cartridge out. But it was wedged in tight. I had to resort to calling a plumber out to the house. It cost me 128 dollars for five minutes worth of work. Sigh. But what can you do?

This time I used some Plumber's Grease to lube up the insides. I also learned to not push the cartridge in by the copper stem. But to use the plastic removal tool to push it in by the plastic middle.

So I tried to sell my 1DMarkIII camera on eBay and had the worst experience ever! It took me 6 separate auctions to finally find a real buyer for the camera. And the worst thing is the time it takes (close to one week!) for one auction to clear out when it is obviously a hacked account or a newly generated id.

It costs hackers nothing to break an account or generate a new fake account. And it costs me close to a week to try to sell the camera again!

eBay's customer service is incredibly hard to reach! There is no 800 phone number that I know of. You can only reach them through a chat service. But you have to first figure out the way past a "ask a question" firewall. When you finally do get to the chat service, you have to put up with being constantly transferred from person to person. Wow! There is no way to complain about the handling of customer service either.

I finally figured out that you have to set buyer requirements.

To add buyer requirements to your listing:

• 1. On the "Create your listing" page, scroll down to the "Other things you'd like buyers to know" section, and click the "Add or remove options" link.
• 2. In the window that appears, select "Block certain eBay users from buying my items."
• 3. Click the "Save" button.
• 4. Back on the "Create your listing" page, click the "Change buyer requirements" link.
• 5. In the window that appears, set your buyer requirements.
• 6. Click the "Save" button.

Block buyers who:

• * Don't have a PayPal account
• * Have received 2 Unpaid item Strike(s) within 1 month(s)
• * Have a primary shipping address in countries that I don't ship to
• * Have 4 Policy violation report(s) within 1 month(s)
• * Have a feedback score equal to or lower than -1

You also have to select the option that, if a buyer uses "a buy it now" option, they must pay immediately via paypal before the auction ends! That took me another auction to figure out. I just wish you could also require that a buyer have a positive feedback before buying an item.

And finally, just for grins, here is one response from a buyer:

HI THERE,MAYBE I KNOW THE ANSWER BUT WILL YOU TRADE YOU CAMERA FOR A BOSE LIFESTYLE 50 HOME SYSTEM AND A SECOND ROOM SET FO SPEAKERS,AND AND SOME CASH,IF YOU DON'T WANT TO,I'LL SELL THEM ON EBAY,REASON THAT I DON'T HAVE THE MONEY NOW IS CAUSE I BOUGHT A NIKON SB-900 ON AMAZON AND MY CAR BROKE DOWN I LIVE NEAR DALLAS IF YOUR INTRESTED I CAN DRIVE TO ROUND ROCK AND MAKE THE DEAL!!!!

My iPhone unexpectedly had a software problem today. Unfortunately, it exposed a catastrophic flaw. This morning, as I was out playing disc golf (using the phone: recording scores and taking pictures), I noticed a strange message on the phone. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the message or record it. But the gist of it was that it could not authorize itself and it needed to connect to iTunes. I was able to still take notes and take pictures while it was in its problem state. But the message was worrying me. So, I thought that if I turned it off and then turned it back on, it might clear itself of the hiccup. Boy that was the wrong move! Now the phone wouldn't even finish booting up! And it was now a very expensive brick.

So, when I finally got home, I connected my iPhone to the computer and tried to sync it. This was what I saw. My phone is locked with a passcode and it will not allow a sync. Normally, when the phone boots up, it requires you to unlock it with the passcode before it completes the bootup sequence. Well, I guess it checks for authorization BEFORE it allows you to unlock it! Now I cannot connect to it. Argh!

So I searched online and found a process to get it into recovery mode. You have to power it off forcefully (press and hold the power button and then slide to power off) and then press and hold the home button when you plug in the iPhone to the computer.

Great, my iPhone is in recovery mode. Now, all I need to do is perform a recovery option in iTunes and we are all set. Wrong! I cannot restore it. The helpful error message of 23 is my only clue. Sigh. By this time it is getting late on a Saturday. So I race down to the Apple store to see if something can be done. The store was freakin packed! And it looks like the genius bar is full for the day. But I hang around and an employee walks up to me and asks me if I need help. I explain my problem to him and he checks it out. When he comes back, he tells me that the USB connection is broken and that they have replaced my phone for me. Yea! One thing went right today. Well almost. I had been a bad person and not been performing regular syncs with my phone. So when I went back and restored my phone, I found out that the latest backup was a month old...

I find it cool that I am able to connect to this machine remotely. I have no idea where it physically exists. Yet I can carve it up into virtual machines. Which, for all purposes, act like separate machines. All of this is very future-riffic and neat. Yet, when I install Linux on the virtual machine I am forced to interact with it in a very ugly and ancient way. Until I get the machine up enough for it to switch to a graphical install...

Hrm, it seems that the new car is turning into a lemon on me. I am getting intermittent brake warning light problems. I wonder if the tolerances are loose or something. What is annoying is that, when the light is on, I cannot use the cruise control. And the turn indicator won't go off automatically. Weird. I wonder if I should wait until it stays on longer before I bring it in?

I normally use Google for more that just searching. For example, you can look up domain names, you can look up the correct spelling on words, or you can even do math on it. So it was frustrating when Google refused to spell "breazy" for me. It thought I was a virus.

I wonder when Google will start to implement a Turing Test for people wanting to use its services?

When I bought my super-truck, I bought an extended warranty to go with it. I liked having the peace of mind that goes with a warranty and I knew I would be driving the snot out of that truck.

When the head gasket failed last April, I thought those problems had been fixed. So, when I started to smell burning oil, I thought that something else was broken. Perhaps the transmission was leaking or the fluid was burning out. This time I took it to Leif Johnson Ford instead of Mack Haik Ford. It is interesting how different these two dealerships are. Leif did not charge me investigatory fees. And they drove me to work in a huge F-250 diesel.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that the head gasket failed again. Apparently, there are two sides to this engine and they only replaced one of the sides. What a coincidence! I wonder if it is anything like the analogy of when two new lights have been on for ages -- when one fails, the other is surely near its end of life. It is strange that, when they had the engine apart, why couldn't they replace both gaskets? I don't think that the gasket price is that expensive.

Another difference between the dealerships is that they did not talk about the deductible on the rental. Although, this time, the charge to fill up the gas themselves was a ridiculous 7 dollars per gallon.

So it seems that my warranty has saved me around five thousand dollars so far I imagine. That is, if I would have fixed this on my own dime.

I had an interesting experience at the pump today. With gas at all-time highs, I finally hit a limit. The pump stopped at exactly $75.00. But the tank was not full yet. When I inquired within, I was told that my credit card must have a limit on it. So I swiped the card again and put the last couple of dollars in to top it off.

Sigh. What a stupid security measure! The company does not want me to spend more than 75 dollars on gas at one time. But they do not mind if it do it immediately again.

I should figure out what car I want to drive next. I would love to get a 2008 Corvette ZR1. 638 horse power! Mmmm. But I can't really justify spending 65 thousand dollars (assuming that I can find one at that price). A Volkswagen Jetta Blue TDI diesel would be interesting. At least in theory (making your own bio-diesel ). But diesel, which was once cheap, is now more expensive than super-unleaded. Plus, I would want to cut down on weight and get a two seater version. And it would be nice if it was a plug in hybrid as well.

I took my car in for service today. Last August, I received mail that there was a factory recall for my F-150. Well, it seems that the engineers screwed up and they had to recall the recall and redesign the parts. Luckily, I procrastinated and missed that whole fiasco. But it took them forever to get the new parts in.

I bundled up a bunch of problems for the one trip. And right off the bat, the dealership was annoying me. I had an outside oil leak and an inside water leak. My service adviser said that to investigate those problems I would have to pay $60 fee for each. My car is still under and extended warranty. And I consider both of those issues to be warranty issues.

While I don't usually buy extended warranties, I did for my vehicle. I drive the snot out of it. "Drive it like you stole it is my motto." So I wanted to make sure that what ever broke would be fixed.

Well, around 1:30, I get a call from Shaun (paraphrased, of course).

"We haven't found the leak yet. But my mechanic suspects that it is in the cylinder heads."
"Okay. How long is that going to take?"
"Well, that's a complicated process and it is about a 14 hour job. We can't finish this today and we don't work over the weekend. How is this going to affect you?">
"That is my only vehicle. I live in an non-commuter city and I need to use it over the weekend. Is this covered under warranty repair?"
"Well, I don't know what part needs to be replaced. Before I know it, I can't tell you if it is covered or not."
"Surely, the list of parts is finite! Why don't you go through the possible parts and tell me which ones are covered!!"
"I'll call you back..."

"Okay, it seems that all of the possible parts are covered. Since this is covered under warranty, we will pay you $30 a day for a rental vehicle."
"See, this is what I wanted to hear in the first place. That everything is taken care of and I don't have to worry about a thing."

Conveniently enough, they rent a Ford Escort for $30 a day. The only problem was that I would have to pay for taxes. Sigh. But that should amount to a dollar or so a day. I did luck out when they were out of Escorts and upgraded me to a Ford Fusion.

Grr! UPS left my package out on the front porch. Normally, there is nothing wrong with that. But, today, it was pouring out. Its not like the rain was a surprise or anything. Why can't they wrap it in plastic in these cases? Like newspaper carriers do.

On a new RHEL5.1 installation, I want to install screen. yum is borked. So, my next step is to figure out which cd it is on. At least you can use the file image of a cd as a virtual cd drive.

[root@hamzy2 mnt]# mount -t iso /home/tmp/RHEL5.1-Server-20070822.1-i386-disc1-ftp.iso /mnt/tmp/
mount: unknown filesystem type 'iso'
mount: maybe you meant 'iso9660'?

Okay, it prints out an error. But it seems to be a popular error and has a suggestion.

[root@hamzy2 mnt]# mount -t iso9660 /home/tmp/RHEL5.1-Server-20070822.1-i386-disc1-ftp.iso /mnt/tmp/
mount: /home/tmp/RHEL5.1-Server-20070822.1-i386-disc1-ftp.iso is not a block device (maybe try `-o loop'?)

Grrr! Okay, there are two popular mistakes that it recognizes enough to give you an alternative but not enough to actually do it for you. And you do not actually have to specify the file system type because it magically auto-detects it. So why can't it do some more auto-detection?

I have lived in Round Rock for more than 4 years now and am surprised by how many phone books that are delivered to me. Well, on Friday, another one has been delivered to me.

It is "The Greater Round Rock Phone Book". I would have thought that this would be the only book that I would own. Remember the days when you had one or, at most, two phone books? Well, my total is now 8! What is sad is that I do all of my searches online since it is so difficult to look anything up in the phone book.

P.S.: See that quaint old bridge with no saftey rail? Well, infront of that bridge is the rock that this town is named after. Yes. I live in a town named after a round rock.

I have lost count of the number of times that manufacturers stop producing my favorite products. I hate the churn of new products when it means the products that I rely on disappear. Sigh.

This is my last loaf of Jalapeno Cheese Bread by H-E-B. Fortunately, I found out about it a couple of weeks before they stopped making it and was able to stock some extra loaves in my freezer. The manager that I talked to told me that they tried ordering extra cases to no avail. They usually make only a couple of loaves at a time. Why can't they continue this model of small loaf production?!

Oh well... It will be a challenge to reproduce it myself.

During my commute home, I experienced the worst driver that I have ever seen! I was on Parmer in the right lane approaching Lamar. The light just turned red. In my rear-view mirror, I see an SUV travelling in the emergency lane. I watch as this vehicle cuts in just behind me and then force its way across two other lanes of stopped cars into the left hand turn lane. Then while the light is still red, it goes straight through the intersection. I finally make my way on to the IH-35 onramp and notice the vehicle again. I watch as it turns into the right hand lane, and then go to the middle lane, and then back to the right hand lane, and then back to the offramp. I am finally approaching her in the right lane as the offramp begins to turn into the frontage road. I watch as she decides to cut in front of me just before the road disappears. This is when I take the picture and back off to give her some more room. As she approaches 1825, she swerves a couple of times like she is tempted to use the emergency lane. And just as it is possible to turn onto the offramp, she does (way before it is legal to do so). Thankfully, that is the last I see of her.

I wonder what the emergency was. I hope that is not how she normally drives in rush hour.

But that is not all! I see a WRX doing 90 mph and someone else cuts in front of me to avoid having to slow down in the lane that they were in.

Today I had two incidents where I lost computer data. The first time, my Linksys box lost all of its settings. I had to reconstruct that information. The second time, I lost my bookmarks when Windows XP crashed. This was most annoying!

I wish people would make the code more bullet-proof rather than adding new features...

Every Monday and Wednesday, I go to a chiropracter at 8:30 am. I usually arrive around 8:25, park my truck, and enter the building. This morning was different. The door was locked. They must be in a meeting that was running late. So, I decide to wait out side for them to unlock the door. While I was waiting, I notice that there are four other patients waiting outside as well. However, they are all sitting inside of their cars while they were waiting. Unfortunately, every engine was running.

The temperature was not oppresive so they did not need to run their air conditioners. Listening to the radio for a couple of minutes does not drain the battery. The problem was that there was no breeze. So, as I was waiting, I could hardly breathe. It was like standing at a major intersection at a red light. Why did everyone feel the need to waste gas while they wait???

Last week, I listened to my friend, Dan, talk about his problems with Thor's Hammer. He was interested in buying Pirates of the Spanish Main. He would stop by the store and ask them if they had PotSM in stock. The clerk would reply "No. Try back in a couple of weeks." He did this a couple of times and the answer would always be the same. Well, finally, last week he went to the game store and the answer was different. The clerk told him that they had got the game a couple of days ago and it was sold out! The employee did not make the connection that a customer asking about a product would be interested in buying it and they should offer to hold it for them. That would make the customer feel special and generate future business.

Well my turn came next!