Digital Dave

Admittedly, this blog/portfolio probably did a horrible job for me during my time trying to find an internship.

So, in an effort to improve my odds this fall semester, I decided to create a new portfolio that is specifically for an employer.  This should work much better.  Well, let’s all hope.

I can’t believe I’ll be graduating in 5 months.  Time has flown right past me.  All of my buddies have graduated already.  My girlfriend passed her year mark with the company that she is working for (and is doing a phenomenal job).   My buddy who brought me on board to work on CourseScheduler is working on a new opportunity…

Yep, it’s time for me to be employed! I can’t wait.

Here is the path that the tornado took.  You can see that it snuck right over my apartment, which is crazy.  We had a bunch of snapped power lines, but the small buildings (and the buildings around it) came out fine.  Just a block to the right is a fraternity who had their roof blown right off of their house. Across the stret from that (in the purplish), the engineering complex received broken windows, and the roof from the fraternaty.

There’s no doubt that I, among a lot of other people, got extremely lucky.

Dies at 58… Out of nowhere…

Absolutely, stunning… And sad.

There is no doubt this has a huge impact on the people.  Digg even has a post with 4347 diggs at this time.

I know I’ve enjoyed listening to him, through my short time following politics, for the last eight years.  I was really looking forward to watching him tackle Barack Obama and John McCain. This guy loved politics, and was extremely fair and was a straight shooter.

And tomorrow is fathers day… Way to knock one out of the park, God. ;\

It took 25 years. And I consider that pretty lucky for living in Kansas.

It was a relatively calm day, and even into the evening.  No rain, a little cloudy.  I was spending some time on Age of Conan when CNN busted in about some severe weather.  The meteorologist came on to report that a tornado just ransacked a boy scout camp up in Iowa.  He noted that it was going to be a wild night, and indeed that was.  Roughly 50 confirmed tornadoes, and Kansas happened to have a few of them.

One of them popped right on the I-70 (just SW of here), and the sirens immediately sounded.  It was, basically, out of nowhere.  My body immediately got a little warm, and the dog became alert.  I was lucky enough to be watching TV, so I knew exactly where it was.  I don’t have a basement, and considering that it came out of nowhere, I had to get somewhere, fast.  The sirens went off, and started to move to the KSU campus to hide out in the CIS building.  The sirens sounded, again, while I was parking my car.  I went inside and jumped onto the computer to watch some live stream of tornado coverage.  The tornado was heading straight toward Manhattan, KS — the first, since 1966.

The KSU campus ended up with a $20 Million estimate from damage, and the building I was in avoided any damage.

Many trees pulled from the ground, branches everywhere, leaves.  Buildings farther north than I was had some major damage. West of the city had around 30 houses flattened to their foundation.  Some of the commercial areas (Car dealership, lumber yard) were messed up pretty badly.

Overall, It was a pretty crazy night.

Down the street from my apt.

Campus Building

Aerial Photo of an area

Here is a really good tower cam video, if you’re into that sort of stuff.

I decided it was best for me not to progress with helping the person here in my local area with his game development project over the summer.  I would go into detail, but I rather not.  Let’s just say it wasn’t the right opportunity for me.  I don’t have a lot of time, and I need to make the best of it.

He won’t be alone.  There were 2 programmers (including me) and he only really needed 1 (from my perspective) right now.   I told him I’d always be around to help him when that time came.  But, for now, It was better for me to concentrate on a different project.

I have another opportunity that I’m starting with a professor here on campus.  It’s not game development related, but it is finance related, which is still awesome for me.  Details to come about that.

It’s no secret, I’ve been a Barack Obama supporter since the day I noticed he was out there.

But… John McCain…

Being a POW for 5-1/2 years doesn’t define your presidency (Tell me how doing nothing, being abused, mistreated, and not learning anything for 5-1/2 years, makes you a better person).  I’ve been in War myself, and nothing about it made made me a better person.  I understand the culture a little better, I learned that losing friends suck, and I learned that it’s a waste of time…. but that’s about it.  Yet, we see it in almost every ad. Scare tactic? I think so.

But that’s not what is going to hurt McCain.  It’s his own political self, combined with the fury that is the internet.

Just look at the list that is already out there (and we have months to go…):

• Not too important to bring troops home.
• Hot water and babies?
• Putin… President of Germany? (Lack of Communication Skills)
• Left Prior Wife for a new Trophy, because of her unfortunate accident. (Opportunist)
• Believes wiretapping is constitutional.
  
• Falsely Claims to have supported every investigation into Katrina Failures.
• GOP Worried about McCains Chances. (Your very own party…)
• Admits to spying on Americans.
  
• Let’s keep people in Iraq for 100 years. (Imagine Vietnam for 100 years, it doesn’t make sense)
• Disrespects his own wife in the public eye.
• Doesn’t understand the middle east culture. (But, hey! He was a POW for 5-1/2 years! He does understand!)
• Said that Czechoslovakia still exists… (Failure to Communicate)
• Has claimed Baghdad was mostly safe… Anybody who has seen this conflict wouldn’t call anywhere in Iraq safe.
• Admits to not understanding economics.
• Criticizes others for pork barrel projects, yet requests it himself.
• Wrongly claimed he never supported amnesty.

And this list could easily be longer, but I wanted to find stories that have been on Digg (2000+ diggs), and stories that I remember watching on TV that I knew someone had written about online.

Don’t vote republican JUST because you are a republican…. Vote for the better person.  Forget democrat/republican.

You can’t tell me that you’ve never been involved in an activity and had that one person that strayed way away from the pack.  It is just one of those life situations that we all will deal with multiple times throughout our lifetimes.  How do you deal with it?  Do you get pissed off, and do you translate that into the conversation?  Do you sit back and let them go?  Do you correct and guide them while being respective?

Well, I’m one to guide somebody while being respective, keeping my cool. This is easier said than done, but, hey, you gain nothing from being an equally annoying and pain in the ass person back.  SOMEBODY has to maintain control.

Tonight was my night.

I really have had enough of this particular laptop.

1 Month ago, I was playing a casual puzzle game — Peggle.  If you haven’t played this game, you really should.

Service Call 1: Resulted in a Tech Coming out to replace — RAM, Video Card

Problem not fixed, Tech called for more parts.

Service Call 2: Tech replaced — LCD Screen, Motherboard, Video Card (Again, 2), RAM (Again, 2)

Problem fixed for a week or two… Display issues started again doing random tasks on the computer.

Service Call 3: Required to send laptop into the depot.  Parts Replaced — LCD Screen (Again, 2), Motherboard (Again, 2), Video Card (Again, 3),  Keyboard, Power Cable

Problem fixed for a week, when I tried to play a game, again, and display issues that started this entire debacle, started AGAIN!

Service Call 4: Tech replaced — Video Card (Again, 4)

Service call 4 was just this last Saturday.

Today, I was playing a game during lunch, Oblivion, and my entire computer’s display crashed.  Resulting in me not even being able to start my computer.  The display wouldn’t even turn on, but the computer would. However, the system didn’t sound like it even went past POST.

So, you can begin to see why I just decided to contact dell again to ask for a replacement laptop (I still have a year of tech support, and they will replace these parts until it works like it should).

I’m not sure if it’s part of their SOP, but this representitive went above and beyond to deceive me.

Little did he know, he was talking to A) A Gamer, B) A Programmer, C) An aspiring Game Developer.

The Grit

Robert: “Thank you for the info how may I assist you?”
Me: Explained all of the part replacements, requested new laptop due to all of the issues within the last month.
Robert: “what is the issue”
Me: Explained that I was playing a game for about 5 minutes, computer crashed, display will not turn on
Robert: “what game and what system” <- Shouldn’t he have my system on the screen?
Me: “M170 Laptop – Oblivion”
Robert: “the game is not Capable to be run on a system that old”

— Facts: Computer Bought (top of the line for its time) 2/19/06
———- Oblivion Released/Purchased: 3/20/06

Me: “It’s worked perfectly fine before this entire mess started.”
Me: “You just turn down all the settings.”
Me: “It’s definitely capable. I’ve played it on a worse system.”
Robert: “the game I have played on my desktop it is a very graphic intensive game”
Me: “Yeah it is. But if you turn down all the settings, it looks nasty but plays fine.”
Robert: “and requires a very strong graphic card”
Robert: “let me see what I can do but I assure you the parts can be replaced but system exchange is unlikely”
Me: “That’s fine, keep replacing the parts.”

The Fun

Robert: “games such as oblivion are not meant for systems such as the m170 witch is marketed as a office replacement system” <- Uh… What?!
Me: “I’m well aware of what this system can handle. There is something seriously messed up with it and neither of us can figure it out.”
Robert: “Let me review if system keeps failing due to video game Pushing the system beyond its physical limit dell has the right to not replace these parts as it is considered abuse”
Robert: “if you are pushing the vid card beyond physical ability the video card will fail”
Me: “5 Minutes of standing around in a game world? That’s hardly abuse.”
Me: “That’s turning the game on to see if everything is working correctly.”
Me: “And when i’ve spent hours on the game before my display issue started, it doesn’t make sense that /this/ particular game caused the issue.”
Me “I’m in disbelief that you’d even consider that abuse.”

The Stupid

Robert: “it is abuse if the same parts are being replaced and the issues is Centered around a game that has the following specs”
Robert: “Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows XP 64-bit 512 MB System RAM 2Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor 128MB Direct3d compatible video card and DirectX 9.0 compatible driver, 8x DVD-ROM drive 4.6 GB free hard disk space DirectX 9.0c (included)”
Me: “And, are you looking at my system specs?”
Robert: “You are just over the minimum specs”
Me: “Where?”

— Facts: Windows XP, 2.16GH, 2GB RAM, 100 GB Hard Disk, nVidia 6800 Ultra
———- Supported Card: NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series, Listed ON the same page he links me later– http://www.elderscrolls.com/games/oblivion_faq.htm

Me: “You do realize I bought this laptop a few months befor ethe game came out?”
Robert: “the processor is only 2.0 GHz to run this game with your current system specs you would need to disable key window components to get it to run functionally”
Me: “Are you looking at my system specs?”
Robert: “those are the MINIMUM Specs”
Robert: “3Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor 1 GB System RAM ATI X800 series, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series, or higher video card”

The Logical

Me: “Ok. It’s not abuse if you meet the specifications. Why are you wasting our time with this?”
Robert: “You can view it your self >link to the specs<”
Me: “Yes, I’m well aware that this laptop can run the game.”
Me: “Come on. Quit wasting our time with this.”
Me: “You are avoiding the issue all together.”

He then let me know that the system replacement was not approved and that he needed to troubleshoot the computer. I said sure.

He asked me to plug into an external monitor and to run the diagnostic tools.

I couldn’t help but say:

Me: “This makes me think you haven’t been reading what I wrote. The computer doesn’t go past the post. The display doesn’t initiate.”

The Result

An act of God saved me, apparently.  It was just one of those times where things magically work again. After turning on, shutting down, turning on, shutting down, and finally turning on one more time, The computer actually worked

I had to let my new best friend go, and I let him know I’d definitely be back if it started being stupid again.

Wow, what a night.

I haven’t had an issue like this, yet, with dell.  So be prepared to defend yourself if you ever ask for a system replacement.  That obviously is in their SOP (Standard Operating Procedure).  But when is enough, enough? When does it cost more for them to replace parts, have techs come out, etc?  I had a tech tell me that it costs dell +$100 every time they have to come out. Add part costs, add how much it costs for them to pay a tech to look at it when it’s on their bench at the depot… Considering how much they mark up their laptops (and having a good idea with how cheap it is to build computers), I can’t see how this isn’t costing them more than replacing the thing.

I have 261 days remaining on my warranty, and I will get this thing fixed, and I will be able to play games on it again.