kurt westphal

lozano car wash, mountain view

2008-06-08T22:45:00.000-07:00

lozano is fast and efficient and fairly inexpensive

a bit too efficient, they tore out my factory
floor matts, with screw down lock trying to
clean my floor carpet..., breaking one of the latches off.

what i saved on the wash, i lost on the matts
damn....

Lozano car wash, mountain view
2690 W el Camino Real
Mountain View, CA 94040
650 941 0590

Double Tree Bakersfield, ---

2008-05-25T16:01:00.000-07:00

DoubleTree Bakersfield was staffed by friendly people
While checking in, a clerk offered me free internet,
I graciously accepted, he pulled the charge off my bill
after arriving home, i discovered they had rebilled me.

Doubletree Hotel Bakersfield
3100 Camino Del Rio Court, Bakersfield, California, United States 93308
Tel: 1-661-323-7111 Fax: 1-661-323-0331

DoubleTree, Bakersfield

so it really wasn't free after all.

If they promised you free internet, forget it..!
it's an empty promise.
-- k

want cheaper Gas, Build more refineries

2008-04-16T11:37:00.000-07:00

Best Buy delivery service.....12jan08, we'll see...

2008-01-11T22:00:00.000-08:00

bought a new Sony LCD HDTV for my mom and dad for Christmas,
@ Best Buy in San Carlos. they set up delivery for my
parents who live in Stockton, for Sat 12jan08.

Best Buy subcontracts deliveries to 3rd parties when deliveries
are out of the store district. Usually BestBuy or the delivery
company leavees a phone message regarding the schedule
24 hours in advance.

no message today, delivery is set for tomorrow evening
called San Carlos, no one can help me in A/V or Magnolia
to look up the delivery schedule, although they can
do that when you buy the TV. suspicious....

Called 888 BestBuy
they gave me the Livermore delivery company who is closed.

Verdict out, will Best Buy sully their reputation
we'll see.

KW - Bestbuy delivered, parents we're very pleased
BestBuy called the night before which didn't allow
alot schedule flexibility, but they delivered!

Clear Context for Outlook 2003/7

2006-12-20T15:44:00.000-08:00

I've been testing v3.0 Clear Context IMS Professional and Personal
for nearly 1 year now. Clear Context, an Outlook plugin runs sweetly
on either Outlook 2003/7 by organizing mails/tasks/schedules by categories or priorities and into projects if you like. the application uses color coding and email threads to help partition email into logical easy to view and manage categories.

Much of the product can be automated, to filter email into logical containers
suitable for my work flow.

Installation is simple and integrates well with outlook.

I think Scoble recommended this product a few years ago,
after i finally had a chance to convert and use the application
I swear by it.....

HIghly recommended, check it out, you'll be glad you did.
you can try out a "trial" version...to get a feel for the UI,
the tool bar, the various outlook folder views that are possible.

http://www.clearcontext.com/

http://www.clearcontext.com/products/index.html

outlook 2007 incompatibilities

2006-08-13T03:50:00.000-07:00

mapilab tools for managing your email
cf. searching contacts and emails for duplicates.

installation crashes outlook 2007; outlook proptly disables them

Lookout,
is indispensible for hashing your email and searching rapidly
around 1 second for evaluating a 1.5 GByte file.
it makes filing your email much less important.
and so fast email becomes really useful.

as previously reported,
Microsoft has disabled lookout on load. it installs, but MSFT won't let you execute it.

the outlook 2007 single folder search is broken and immediately aborts( and hardly worth using even when it works). the windows desktop search is extremely slow, in comparison,

both these products work flawlessly on outlook 2003,
MSFT should support both these products immediately.

Office Diagnostics

2006-07-19T11:56:00.000-07:00

When Vista notices an application crashes alot, Vista notices Outlook 2007 has problems, it runs a diagnostic and reports.

Error fixed in upcoming 2007 Microsoft Office System Beta build

Thank you for participating in the Microsoft Beta program and sending an error report.

Problem description

Microsoft has reviewed this error report and determined that this problem will be fixed in an upcoming 2007 Microsoft Office System Beta build.

Solution

For the latest information and updates for this beta, visit the following website:

Microsoft Office Beta

Vista Ultimate/Office 2007 - compatibility issues, install problems

2006-07-17T11:17:00.000-07:00

i've installed Vista Ultimate Beta2, Build 5384 Office 2007 on one of my networked machines
below I've listed compatability issues and bugs and suggestions... for end users and MSFT.

Webshots Client 2.2.0.4644
install succeeds, pointing client to previously downloaded picture sets succeeds,
on Vista boot, Vista can't find webshots, and throws an error dialogue press ok, and webshots seems to work correctly after that.

Outlook 2007
i'm very disappointed with the Outlook 2007 implementation.

on boot, Outlook 2007 throws a dialogue box "an extension failed to initialize". it would be nice if a log file exists to identify "what extension".... Outlook operates correctly as client. It crashes on boot throwing an extension error, but won't identify "what" extension.
it is slow at downloading mail or moving emails/contacts from one place to another, Outlook is extremely slow if many messages need to be downloaded. it almost seems like its single threaded... blocking moving or deleting mails until the download is complete.
doesn't use 'the ribbon' unless your editting a mail, so User Interface integration with Excel, Word and Powerpoint apps, is only partial.
"The messaging interface returned an error" dialogue occurs occassionally on search.
Search is folder based (not hashed based, modal meaning it "blocks" and slow. my work flow is still very email centric and searching for contacts, emails or tasks was impossible using Outlook XP, 2003 folder based lame search. 2007 does not fix this problem.

Lookout offered a plugin which does hashed search across all outlook objects, quickly indexes, and searches are rapid. MSFT bought Lookout, but hasn't bother to use the technology in Outlook 2007. In fact Outlook 2007 deliberately disables Lookout v1.2 or above.
Lookout installs, it just wont' run. WHAAAAAAA !!!! what kind of nonsense is this.

if you use Lookout for quick search you contacts, emails, calendar items etc. you'll be extremely disappointed if you install outlook 2007 and need to find something why the Outlook team would break this compatibility is beyond me. it's a deal breaker for me.

HP Photosmart 2575xi,
no driver exists from HP or MSFT for this scanner, ink jet combination. customer support at HP said drivers were underdevelopment and due mid Aug06. Current XP-SP2 drivers won't install, Vista says verboten.

HP 1320 Duplex LaserJET
installs off HP CD, took a little coercing. but finally it works great.

Fineprint, 5.5.1
application installs but Vista can't find the print dispatcher when a print job is to be queued. Fineprint management said "we will look into this when vista gets closer to shipping. thanks for letting us know. " In some ways, i don't blame them.

Word, Excel, Powerpoint
the ribbon bar rocks,
it makes editing documents much easier, context editing is always at hand
a problem is the Ribbon isn't in all "office apps" like Visio, Project and other apps, this feels odd and slow when moving from one app to the next.

The Great HDCP Fiasco

2006-02-27T23:02:00.000-08:00

The Great HDCP Fiasco

Getting ready for HDef. on your PC, and Windows Vista.

Windows Vista requires HDCP support in both the LCD monitors
and graphics "cards" (not just GPUs).

As of today, neither ATI nor Nvidia's tier 1 board vendors offer Vista ready grafix,
only sony offers 2 OEM cards. only 10 LCD monitors support 1920 x 1080p HiDef resolution with HDCP.

that cool new monitor, and graphics card you just bought are already Vista obsolete.

What's HDCP.. Hi Def DRM copy protection. See Wikipedia for articles and information.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDCP
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/hdcp-vista.ars
http://www.behardware.com/articles/603-1/hdcp-the-graphic-card-and-monitor-nightmare.html
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_nvidia_hdcp_support/
http://www.immateriblog.de/archives/000242.html

testing hello world

2006-01-21T18:15:00.000-08:00

testing 1,2,3