Silver Springs Nevada Chamber of Commerce (A Bunch of Flakes)

So far my dealings with the chamber here in Silver Springs has not been good. A year ago I started emailing them for information on how to join. They kept telling me that they would send me the information that I needed. Nothing ever came.

This year, just a few months ago, the president of the chamber called me asking about my internet. He wanted to set it up for his business. A year after I started my business, and even emailed them about it, they had no idea I was out here.

So the president, Cowboy, signed up for service over the phone and I made an appointment to do the install. After he flaked on me the first time, then almost flaking on me the second time, I finally got him installed. I made a note to myself to call and make sure he is there before driving all the way there and waiting for him.

Then a few weeks later I went to the office and signed up for membership. I was told that my contact info would be put on their web site. After a few weeks I called and asked if my information would be put up. They said it was still in processing.

Now it's a month later and still my contact info is not on their site as promised. The Silver Springs Chamber of Commerce is a bunch of flakes. It's a wonder that they are still in business. I guess that's that.

I'm going to build a Silver Springs community web site because their web site is very bad. I have already started a few layout idea's. I'm planning to put up a message board of some sort for people to post items for sale and services. I'll also put some text ads on the front page for local businesses to advertise. It should be a nice little site. It will be a lot better than the chamber's site, thats for sure.

I have been a very busy these past few weeks. I've been up late every night working. I think I'm starting to get tired. I didn't wake up this morning till 8:30AM. Usually I'm up at 7AM. I guess I'm going to have to start going to bed earlier.

There is just so much work that needs to get done, and just not enough time in the day to do it. I'm knee deep in database layouts and PHP code right now, and it's all in the planning phase still. Kinda planning/implementation actually. I don't have a clear picture of what I'm doing, so I'm making stuff up as I go. I have the rough sketch to go on. All I know for sure is that the promised due date was in June. Now it's pushed back to the end of July.

One thing I'm doing differently this time around is documenting as I go. It's a pain to do the documentation after the app is finished, because after all that work you just don't want to look at it anymore. I'm also adding online help to each module as I do it. This should help out the customers a lot. I'm planning to make the online help printable as a book also.

I just hope it's all worth it in the end. It better be.

[Rant=on]

I'm so sick of downgrading all my web site programming so it will work with MSIE on WinBlows. I'm just down right sick of it. MSIE is such a crap browser that I just can't take it any more. Why can't they have normal support for standards? Why can't they process PNG images correctly. Why after years and years of people begging them can't they fix their bugs?

Because Microsoft does not care about it's customers and the customers do not care about standards and compatibility. Heck, there is still people using Windows 95!

Why do I say they don't care? One example. Spyware. MS isn't doing anything to fix it, and the customers don't seem to care that it's slowing and crashing their systems.

I just can't, and frankly don't want to, figure it out.

[Rant=off]

Web site face lift. I went back to the boxed in look. This time I added a nice cartoon to the header. I think it captures my place of residents. I changed up the side bar a bit also.

I will add some more links on the side bar as time goes on. I'm also thinking about doing a XML feed too. Someday.

So this is what I did instead of fixing my network security. Well, there is always the second half of the week. ;-).

Dad is back in town. He brought the axles for my Samurai. I can't wait to get my Samurai fixed up. I need to run over to the tire store and get my tires switched on the rims. Then I need to put the new lift on. After that I want to get the new engine all working and get that installed. Then my Samurai will be rocking. The first thing to try is the hill off 95a. Only Randy has gotten up it so far, and it took a few tries also.

Anyway, nothing much else to report. I've been pretty busy with things at work.

Two things happened yesterday.

First thing. Karl and Kelly had their first baby and now I'm an uncle. Uncle Phill. I got the call about 4PM from Emilie. She was exited. I called Jane right after that. So it looks like Jane is going to win big now. She guessed the 19th in the afternoon. Can't get any closer than that, eh. It's that phyco-kinetic-mental-powers she has. How does she do that? ;-)

Second thing. We had our first fire in the house. Jane over cooked a few taco shells. Only minor smoke/heat damage to one cabinet. It wasn't bad. But we now know that the smoke alarms work. It's good to test them once in a while.

I just can't believe that Karl is a daddy. Wow. He also has his iSight now! So we had a quick video chat today. It works very well. I just can't believe that it works so good. We are like, on the other side of the planet from each other. There is like no delay in the communications.

It's all good when you have a Mac, foo foo.

Last night I got the AC unit put in the wall behind the server cabinet finally. Now the servers are crispy cool. Just in time for summer to get here. Now I won't have to worry about them over heating.

Next thing I need to do is get the lightening protection wired up on my tower and radio box. I'm such a lagger. What I need to do is get some new wire and clamps. You can never have too much lightening protection.

My new alarm system is running good. I'm working on a auto-reboot script that can detect what AP is having problems and reboot it. Or at least a timer to reboot them each night.

Still, I need to get my VPN going. Something always comes up. Like right now, my left eye is killing me. It's all red and feels like someone sanded my eyeball with sandpaper. I'm not sure if it's allergies or what. I've never had allergies in the past, but this year I started getting them. Crazy. Anyway, I can only use the computer for a few hours a day before it start's hurting too much. This couldn't have happened at a worse time. Two major projects pending, and I have to do 18 hour days to catch up. I wonder if it can be pink eye?

This morning I was reading some blogs and came across the application WordPress. It's simple, easy to install, and generates valid XHTML. It does have the problem that it's a MySQL only app. Too bad really.

So far it's a nice solution for a single user. It has some nice things like TrackBack. I think I'll update my blogger program to support the TrackBack code. That would be nice.

I do need to do some work on my blogger app. There is quite a few bugs in it since I switched around the URI methods. I also need to make it PHP strict. It could use some work in the archiving and perma-link URL departments. Oh, and I can only edit back about 20 posts.

I still like my blogger app better.

I've been very much busy lately. New code is cranking out.

Javascript is actually kinda neat. I'm doing some really cool things with it. DOM is really cool too. I'm using GetElementByID to set properties of forms and such. I can turn things on and off, make things visible and invisible. I like it. I'm working on more. It's quite a challenge to keep everything xHTML strict. But it's all going to be that way.

The wireless internet is still going strong. I'm doing like two installs a week still. I should be up to 3MB/s in no time. Still have a lot of problems to figure out. The other day I took a phone survey and got a $30 gift certificate to Amazon. So I bought a 802.11 Wireless Security book. It should help out a lot with my wireless implementation. It covers RADIUS, VPN, and Wireless encryption protocols. I sure hope it's good.

I'm still having a hard time to get people to pay their bills though. Last month 50% were late and I had to actually call them and beg for the money. This month, 90% is late and I'm still calling to beg for money. I'm just going to send a letter to everyone and tell them I'm going out of business because people can't pay their bills. Then I'll reduce the whole thing down to the ones that can pay their bills and that don't cause problems for me.

Every notice how some people never have problems, and others have problems all the time? What's up with that. I have like 5-8 customers that every month has problems getting on the net. I have to spend hours fixing their computers and network connections. I'm really getting sick of it. On the bright side, I'm making $10 per each customer that's late. I'm going to clear $200 this month in late charges. Pure profit.

PS. The president of the Silver Springs Chamber of Commerce is a total flake. After being stood up twice when doing the install for him, I should have realized it. He actually wants me to drive to his house and pick up the check for service. Can you believe that. Like I have nothing else to do. He is three days overdue and too lazy to put the check in the mail. I really hate people like that.

Anyway, enough of my ranting.