Wow, my former classmates really _were_ on the same frequency…

Update: Paul Beard notes the apparent scam that Classmates.com is pulling here. Read the comments there for an interesting attempt at astroturfing by some Classmates.com commenter (comment #28).

---

Once upon a time, I went to Classmates.com and signed up to see what it was all about. Of course, I’ve been getting emails ever since. I’m not too surprised about that. One day, however, I got an email that said someone signed my guestbook. That, on the other hand did raise my eyebrow. It deserved a look since, well, as you can imagine, given my interests in life, I was not the kind of person to attract friends in a small town high school.

I clicked on through. When I arrived, it appeared that Classmates wanted me to upgrade to see who signed it. I toyed with giving up my numbers for a month of charges, but since the minimum charge is $15 (3 months at $5 / month) I decided seeing who this one soul was could wait until the information was cheaper.

Then, soon afterward, I got another notification that another old skooler signed my guestbook. It was long enough since the first notification where I probably took the same steps as above. The next few months are a blur with all of the activity in my life.

Last month I got another. Suspicious, I decided to look at the list of signing events. That’s when I spotted a curious pattern. Here is a shot of the list:

Odd how the number of the month of the signing event is (last event’s month + 1). Sure the day of the month is random, but how hard is that to model? It looks like a marketing campaign with a requirement to have a monthly teaser if I’ve ever seen one. I’d predicted in August that the next would come in September. Let’s see how long this pattern continues.

Filed under: Entertainment

MS’s plans to take over galaxy are finally confirmed

How did this mixup get past legal? It doesn’t matter – we must STOP THE EVIL EMPIRE. Long live teh LINUX!!!!!11one.

Filed under: Entertainment

Junk Mail for 2006: 5466 pieces for a total of 229.3 MB

A nice corpus to try tuning various algorithms against.

Filed under: Entertainment

Dell support resolves it

Remember that support call to Dell?

 

It was the processor.

 

Reformat – ha.

 

It was the last thing I would have guessed too.

Filed under: Entertainment

My sad hobby

Ok – I admit it.

 

I get some sad humor from conversing with tech support.

 

Not that I unleash billingsgate and upend their dignity, but rather that I quash even their most certain attempts at resolving issues – because I know they are just making stuff up, usually. A symptom of needing to have an answer without having full understanding.

 

Time	Details
06/17/2006 04:37:25PM	Session Started with Agent (Prateek)
06/17/2006 04:37:25PM	Rory Plaire: "This computer will not boot into Windows XP and a reinstall fails at setup."
06/17/2006 04:37:29PM	Agent (Prateek): "Thank you for contacting Dell Hardware Warranty Support. My name is Prateek and my rep ID number is . May I have your telephone number, along with the area code?"
06/17/2006 04:37:51PM	Rory Plaire: 555 1212
06/17/2006 04:38:26PM	Agent (Prateek): "Thank you for the information."
06/17/2006 04:39:17PM	Rory Plaire: "You’re welcome"
06/17/2006 04:39:34PM	Rory Plaire: "Will you call or can we handle this on chat?"
06/17/2006 04:39:47PM	Agent (Prateek): "Hi, Rory. How are you?"
06/17/2006 04:40:11PM	Agent (Prateek): "We can surely handle the issue on this chat."
06/17/2006 04:40:15PM	Rory Plaire: "Awesome – it’s a beautiful day here in Oregon"
06/17/2006 04:40:30PM	Rory Plaire: "What time is it where you are?"
06/17/2006 04:40:54PM	Agent (Prateek): "Here, it is 3:10 am."
06/17/2006 04:40:58PM	Agent (Prateek): "Sunday."
06/17/2006 04:41:16PM	Rory Plaire: "whoa – that’s, ah, early"
06/17/2006 04:41:32PM	Agent (Prateek): "Yes…"
06/17/2006 04:41:35PM	Agent (Prateek): "Please give me a moment to pull up your account information. Meanwhile, I would like to inform you that you might get an invitation to participate in a survey at the end of this session. You will be asked to rate our interaction on a scale of 1 to 9 with"
06/17/2006 04:41:43PM	Agent (Prateek): "As per our records you have a Dimension 4600 system with Windows XP Professional operating system. Is this the system you are contacting us for today?"
06/17/2006 04:41:59PM	Rory Plaire: "alright"
06/17/2006 04:42:00PM	Rory Plaire: "yes"
06/17/2006 04:42:04PM	Agent (Prateek): "Ok"
06/17/2006 04:42:06PM	Agent (Prateek): "Could you please elaborate the issue you are facing with your Dimension system?"
06/17/2006 04:42:11PM	Rory Plaire: "i’m contacting you on behalf of the owner"
06/17/2006 04:42:23PM	Agent (Prateek): "May I have the name of the owner?"
06/17/2006 04:42:31PM	Rory Plaire: "he is using my help to get it done"
06/17/2006 04:42:38PM	Rory Plaire: "Professor"
06/17/2006 04:42:49PM	Agent (Prateek): "Thank you for the information."
06/17/2006 04:42:54PM	Agent (Prateek): "Not an issue."
06/17/2006 04:42:56PM	Agent (Prateek): "Could you please elaborate the issue you are facing with your Dimension system?"
06/17/2006 04:44:02PM	Rory Plaire: "sure"
06/17/2006 04:44:19PM	Rory Plaire: "so, the machine was working fine and then one day it was reboot"
06/17/2006 04:44:47PM	Rory Plaire: "afterward, it would not boot and would get stuck at the boot screen with the blue progress bar (it is XPSP2)"
06/17/2006 04:45:06PM	Rory Plaire: "so I boot it into both safe mode and Last Known Good"
06/17/2006 04:45:18PM	Agent (Prateek): "Ok"
06/17/2006 04:45:20PM	Rory Plaire: "both times the machine freezes"
06/17/2006 04:45:52PM	Rory Plaire: "at safe mode, it freezes after loading the Mup.sys driver – which is when Windows XP enumerates ACPI information on the machine"
06/17/2006 04:46:15PM	Rory Plaire: "so i figured it must be due to a corrupt BIOS cache of enumerated devices"
06/17/2006 04:46:41PM	Rory Plaire: "I did an Alt-E Alt-F Alt-B combo to reset the BIOS – no luck"
06/17/2006 04:46:51PM	Agent (Prateek): "Ok"
06/17/2006 04:47:01PM	Rory Plaire: "I also flashed with the latest BIOS rev – from A09 to A12"
06/17/2006 04:47:06PM	Rory Plaire: "also no luck"
06/17/2006 04:47:22PM	Rory Plaire: "Finally, I did a backup and decided to reinstall Windows XP from disk"
06/17/2006 04:47:31PM	Agent (Prateek): "Ok"
06/17/2006 04:47:59PM	Rory Plaire: "it freezes after loading all the drivers and starting windows to resume the graphical part of setup"
06/17/2006 04:48:38PM	Rory Plaire: "i removed all non-essential hardware and tried a different keyboard, since a faulty keyboard can cause freezes like this sometimes – still no luck"
06/17/2006 04:48:59PM	Agent (Prateek): "Rory, the drivers are not installed during the windows XP installation."
06/17/2006 04:49:14PM	Rory Plaire: "so – now i’m out of alternatives, and wonder if there’s something else to try"
06/17/2006 04:49:28PM	Agent (Prateek): "They are installed after the operating system has been installed on the system."
06/17/2006 04:49:29PM	Rory Plaire: "yes – the stock windows dirvers"
06/17/2006 04:49:39PM	Rory Plaire: "the ones setup uses, not the OEM drivers"
06/17/2006 04:49:48PM	Agent (Prateek): "Ok"
06/17/2006 04:50:20PM	Agent (Prateek): "Rory, may I know if you have the system with the issue near you?"
06/17/2006 04:50:45PM	Rory Plaire: "it is not"
06/17/2006 04:51:14PM	Rory Plaire: "i was hoping to get another option or two and when I’m there next, to give them a go"
06/17/2006 04:52:12PM	Agent (Prateek): "Rory, we need to have the system near us so that we can perform some troubleshooting steps on it."
06/17/2006 04:53:11PM	Rory Plaire: "ok then, if that is needed – if you give me the issue #, i’ll write back when i’m there with a laptop"
06/17/2006 04:53:11PM	Agent (Prateek): "Rory, may I know what is there on the screen when the system freezes after starting it up?"
06/17/2006 04:53:21PM	Agent (Prateek): "Sure."
06/17/2006 04:54:36PM	Rory Plaire: "just what i said – the boot up screen with the blue progress bar in normal mode, and the list of loaded drivers ending with Mup.sys in safe mode"
06/17/2006 04:55:13PM	Agent (Prateek): "Ok"
06/17/2006 04:55:41PM	Rory Plaire: "oh, the same screen shown in Normal Mode is also shown when "Last Known Good" is started"
06/17/2006 04:55:44PM	Agent (Prateek): "Rory, may I know if you formatted the hard drive of the system having the issue."
06/17/2006 04:56:17PM	Rory Plaire: "i did not"
06/17/2006 04:56:48PM	Rory Plaire: "just flashed the BIOS, reset with Alt EFB and tried to run setup"
06/17/2006 04:56:49PM	Agent (Prateek): "In that case formatting the hard drive will definitely help resolving the issue."
06/17/2006 04:56:59PM	Agent (Prateek): "No, that is not enough."
06/17/2006 04:57:13PM	Agent (Prateek): "We need to format the hard drive to get the issue resolved."
06/17/2006 04:57:19PM	Rory Plaire: "i don’t think so, since the issue is apparent in setup"
06/17/2006 04:57:35PM	Agent (Prateek): "I am just giving you the steps for formatting the hard drive."
06/17/2006 04:57:39PM	Rory Plaire: "in setup, the file system is not accessed"
06/17/2006 04:57:48PM	Rory Plaire: "and a format just rewrites the file system"
06/17/2006 04:57:57PM	Agent (Prateek): "That is the reason."
06/17/2006 04:58:25PM	Rory Plaire: "please explain how the file system is preventing proper setup"
06/17/2006 04:58:45PM	Agent (Prateek): "Please do the hard drive format. It will resolve the issue for you."
06/17/2006 04:58:52PM	Rory Plaire: "it will not"
06/17/2006 04:58:59PM	Rory Plaire: "what if it doesn’t"
06/17/2006 04:59:03PM	Agent (Prateek): "Ok"
06/17/2006 04:59:16PM	Rory Plaire: "look -"
06/17/2006 04:59:22PM	Agent (Prateek): "On that case we will have to further troubleshoot the issue."
06/17/2006 04:59:25PM	Agent (Prateek): "*in"
06/17/2006 04:59:32PM	Rory Plaire: "the file system structures – the NTFS MFT – is rewritten by a format"
06/17/2006 04:59:50PM	Rory Plaire: "i’ve put the hard drive on a nother machine to copy the files off"
06/17/2006 04:59:58PM	Rory Plaire: "the file system is fine"
06/17/2006 05:00:25PM	Rory Plaire: "the file system isn’t even accessed by the setup routine i ran of the XP disk"
06/17/2006 05:00:31PM	Agent (Prateek): "In that case we need the system having the issue with us so that we can perform further steps."
06/17/2006 05:00:37PM	Agent (Prateek): "Ok"
06/17/2006 05:00:38PM	Rory Plaire: "it freezes before it even boots into that part"
06/17/2006 05:00:47PM	Agent (Prateek): "Ok"
06/17/2006 05:01:09PM	Rory Plaire: "alright – so when I get the issue # and return to the machine i’ll write back"
06/17/2006 05:02:23PM	Agent (Prateek): "I have included your case # 1234 to reference our interaction today. Please keep this number on file; it will assist you when contacting Dell in the future."
06/17/2006 05:02:32PM	Agent (Prateek): "Is there anything else related to Dell hardware, I may help you with?"
06/17/2006 05:02:42PM	Rory Plaire: "not at this time, thanks"
06/17/2006 05:03:06PM	Agent (Prateek): "You are welcome."
06/17/2006 05:03:11PM	Agent (Prateek): "Are you satisfied with the level of support provided to you on this interaction?"
06/17/2006 05:04:19PM	Rory Plaire: "well, you were polite and I very much appreciate that"
06/17/2006 05:04:25PM	Agent (Prateek): "Thank you."
06/17/2006 05:05:02PM	Rory Plaire: "i am somewhat discontent with not getting an immediate answer, like, say from a knowledge base search you can do internally or whatever, but I understand that you need the machine"
06/17/2006 05:05:21PM	Agent (Prateek): "Thank you."
06/17/2006 05:05:25PM	Agent (Prateek): "Thank you for contacting Dell Hardware Warranty Support online Chat, have a great day!"
06/17/2006 05:07:28PM	Agent (Prateek): "I am ending this chat due to the long period of inactivity as I am not getting a response. If you have been trying to communicate with me, please try closing the chat program and start again. Have a nice day. Goodbye."
06/17/2006 05:07:36PM	Rory Plaire: "you have an issue &"
06/17/2006 05:07:46PM	Rory Plaire: "i’d like to refer to is"
06/17/2006 05:07:49PM	Rory Plaire: "*it"
06/17/2006 05:08:48PM	Agent (Prateek): "I am sorry but I was not able to understand you last message."
06/17/2006 05:08:53PM	Agent (Prateek): "Please explain."
06/17/2006 05:09:20PM	Rory Plaire: "Sorry – I’d like the issue number or case number so when I contact support again I can refer to it."
06/17/2006 05:09:55PM	Agent (Prateek): "Please note the case number : 1234"
06/17/2006 05:10:02PM	Agent (Prateek): "I gave this number before also."
06/17/2006 05:10:24PM	Agent (Prateek): "Thank you for contacting Dell Hardware Warranty Support online Chat, have a great day!"
06/17/2006 05:10:35PM	Rory Plaire: "Ah – right – sorry I missed it"
06/17/2006 05:10:46PM	Rory Plaire: "thanks – have a good morning!"
06/17/2006 05:11:01PM	Agent (Prateek): "I It is all right"
06/17/2006 05:11:09PM	Agent (Prateek): "Thank you."
06/17/2006 05:11:30PM	Agent (Prateek): "And a Good Night to you."

Filed under: Entertainment