Geeky Ramblings

Did you know that Excel could give you different calculated values based on what the default language for your PC is?

I’m working on a translation project … and the translation company gave us a excel spread sheet with a list of screen fields that need to be expanded.

This spread sheet uses the LENB function to calculate the length of the text that needs fit on the screen … and uses that calculated length to indicate how much the field needs to be expanded.

LENB is (supposed to be) aware of double byte & single byte character sets … unfortunately, it’s only aware of double byte characters when Japanese is the default language on your PC.

So, if Japanese IS the default language on your PC, and a character is double byte … it will return 2 as the length of the character. However, if Japanese is NOT the default language on your PC … it will return 1 as the length of a character.

There’s no warning about this potential discrepancy when you load the spread sheet … the only way I was able to find this out was to dig through the documentation.

As a result of this, I just spent a week and a half working on expanding fields … and it turns out that the size I expanded the fields to was incorrect … so those have to be redone … and the entries in the spread sheet that were less than 1 actually DO need to be expanded.

LENB is a totally brain dead and stupid function … there is NO situation where a calculation such as that should be effected by what the default language of the PC is.  It should return the same value regardless of what machine it’s run on.

Turns out there are a bunch of functions that behave this way … FINDB, MIDB, LEFTB, MIDB, REPLACEB, RIGHTB, and SEARCHB.

A friend suggested that OpenOffice might be better … but, at least as far as I can see, OO doesn’t have functionality that’s aware of double byte characters.

What a pain … Discover card has issued Ginny and I new cards with new account numbers.

A few weeks ago I got an email from Discover indicating that we were getting a new account number …

As part of a recent systems upgrade, you will be issued a new Discover Card with a new account number.

At first I thought it was just another phishing scam … but they had all the relevant information correct (last 4 digits of the card number and my full name).

For the past two weeks my daily Quicken download was failing on the Discover account … so I guess it’s legit.

Well, today the new cards came and, as promised, a new account number.  Now I get to go through the hassles of changing credit card number with those vendors I have recurring charges with.  What a pain.

This begs the question … why would they need to issue a new account number?  According to another website I found Discover is doing this to “millions” of their customers.  This smells very very fishy.  Another site I found mentioned a “security update”.  Bill Roper ran into the same thing … except he found someone doing fraudulent charges on his old account.

Methinks that Discover had a security breach recently … and aren’t owning up to it.

One in eight U.S. high school teachers presents creationism as a valid alternative to evolution, says a poll published in Public Library of Science Biology.

- One in Eight High School Biology Teachers Still Teach Creationism

The article states that 32% of the 900 teachers, who responded to a poll conducted by Penn State University political scientist Michael Berkman, agreed that creationism and intelligent design should be taught as scientifically unsound. Forty percent said that such explanations are religiously valid but inappropriate for science class. EXACTLY!

However, 25% said they devoted classroom time to creationism or intelligent design. Of these, about one-half — 12% of all teachers — called creationism a “valid scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species,” and the same number said that “many reputable scientists view these as valid alternatives to Darwinian theory.”

Excuse me? ‘valid scientific alternative’??? What’s scientific about the bible? Where is the proof?

Personally, I think that any teacher who is found teaching Creationism or Intelligent Design should loose their teaching certificate. They shouldn’t even be allowed to be a substitute teacher.

I’ve said it before … I’m saying it now .. and I’m sure I’ll say it again … science class is for teaching FACTS … not religion.

I heard this on Morning Edition as I was getting ready for work …

Florida’s legislature is working out the details of a bill that would either allow or require science teachers to present students with alternatives to the theory of evolution. It could signal a new opening in the perennial battle over evolution in public schools.

Bill in Fla. Lets Schools Teach Evolution Alternatives

The thing that gets me the most is the term “academic freedom”. Freedom to do what? Teach lies? Proselytize their religion?

Don’t get me wrong … if someone can come up with an alternative theory to explain how life came to be the way it is, I’m all for it. But that theory has to be based in science, lacking any super-natural involvement, and be peer reviewed by reputable research organizations.

“Intelligent Design” is nothing more, and nothing less, than creationism. It’s based on biblical texts and has no basis whatsoever in science. Thus, it has absolutely no place in public schools.

The thing that gets me the most is the number of people who, on other topics, are the most logical, level headed, intelligent, people I know. But when it comes to things like Evolution vs. Creationism, they throw all that logic and intelligence out the window.

• Do they have an inferiority complex?
• Does the idea that humans and apes share a common ancestor somehow denigrate them as a human being?
• Is the idea that, because their holy book is wrong on a specific topic, the book is totally wrong and doesn’t merit study and consideration?

The odd thing is, most mainstream religious organizations have actually endorsed Evolution. Even the Vatican has weighed in on it …

The Vatican’s chief astronomer said Friday that “intelligent design” isn’t science and doesn’t belong in science classrooms, the latest high-ranking Roman Catholic official to enter the evolution debate in the United States.

- Vatican astronomer joins evolution debate

So what’s the problem folks? Let’s view the bible for what it is … a book that tries to tell a morality story and not a reference text.

Yep, ADT missed another appointment.  At least they called before hand.  That doesn’t mitigate the fact that I took off early from work again.

I don’t know why I expect anything better from ADT … they’ve established a clear pattern.

I’ve rescheduled once again … I’m seriously thinking of calling ADT tomorrow, speaking to a supervisor, and informing them that … if they miss this next appointment … I’ll be invoicing THEM for my time (which, I suspect, is worth a lot more than their’s is).

It absolutely boggles my mind that service providers have no compunction about telling customers to be be home for a 4 hour span of time … and then not showing up.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Bush has commuted the prison term of former White House aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who faced 30 months in prison after his March conviction on federal charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators.

CNN – Bush commutes Libby’s prison sentence

Poor attempts at rhyme aside … this is absolutely ridiculous … how the hell can Bush justify this?

Based on recent actions … it’s clear to me that the executive branch of our government considers themselves above the law.

A few months ago the Village of Hoffman Estates sent us a letter informing us that they would be reconstructing our street.Last week, Ginny and I went out of town … we left on Wednesday (June 13^th) evening and got back yesterday (the 17^th) . As we drove home from the airport, we noticed that our street had the first layer of pavement scrapped off. I figured they had started the reconstruction.

As I was going though the mail that Pat (our pet sitter) had brought in, we found a letter from the village indicating that the reconstruction of our street was going to start on the 15^th. I figure that the letter had been delivered on Wednesday … which means they were giving us a whole two days notice before commencing the reconstruction. Not a whole lot of notice.

So, for the next 4 to 6 weeks, we won’t have the use of our driveway … and have to park on the streets near our house. For me that isn’t a major deal, as I usually get home before most people … I’ll be able to find a good parking spot. For Ginny, however, it will be a pain … because she doesn’t get home till much later … she’ll have more of a problem finding a reasonable spot.

For what it’s worth … the image above is actually a live capture from my webcam.

I blew the entire morning waiting for an ADT contractor to come out and replace the wireless backup for our alarm system.

Seems that the cellular provider that ADT uses for the wireless backup is dropping support for analog devices. As a result, anyone who has an analog wireless backup for their alarm system needs to get the system upgraded to digital.

About 3 weeks ago I scheduled the upgrade for today between 8am and 12 noon. I made sure not to schedule anything for that day.

This morning I wake up early (earlier than my normal saturday roust, anyways) and get ready (emptied out the pantry where the transmitter is) and waited … and waited … and waited some more.

About 20 minutes after noon I called ADT to see what the problem was. I got transfered to a supervisor who was trying to get a hold of the contractor. She said she would call me back as soon as she found out what was going on.

About 15 minutes later she did call back (which was kind of shocking in itself) and informed me that the contractor had been overbooked for the upgrades … and wouldn’t be able to get to our house that day. We would have to reschedule. Problem is, the next available appointment wasn’t until mid-September.

She did offer a $20 discount on the upgrade cost … which I took. I also explained that this is the 2nd time that ADT had missed an appointment. She countered that the last time it was indeed ADT that had missed the appointment but this time it was a contractor. Obviously, from my perspective, there’s no difference.

Due to scheduling problems, the wireless transmitter won’t get upgraded until early October.

I’m getting a little annoyed at ADT.

Is it too much to ask that service providers CALL if they are going to be late for a scheduled appointment?

I’ve been waiting at home for a HVAC repair person to come out to fix our humidifer. He was supposed to be here between 9am and 2pm. It’s now 10 minutes after 2pm.

I called the main office and was informed that they were running behind schedule. They had some No Heat emergency calls that had priority.

Obviously I don’t mind if they have emergency calls that have to be taken care of first … but, in my opinion, it should be standard operating procedure that they call me to say they are running behind schedule. Maybe even give me the option to reschedule (although I wouldn’t have opted for that this time).

When my Covad DSL went out, they the repair tech called to tell me that he was 10 minutes behind schedule … and he called more than an hour before he was due.

I’ve also had service techs from other companies arrive BEFORE they were scheduled … stick around a few minutes, leave a note that they were here and I wasn’t, then leave. I, of course, arrived at home right on time to find their note.

Of course, the worst was ADT … when we had our windows replaced they were supposed to come out and remove all the sensors from the existing windows. They never showed up and never called. And I took time off of work to be here when they were scheduled to arrive.

Maybe I should start sending invoices to service providers that don’t meet their promised time window and don’t even try to notify. What do you think? $25 / hour? Maybe $50 / hour on weekdays where I have to take time off of work.

[tags]service, repair, appointments, schedule[/tags]

Gotta love the government.

I did a check on the Cook County Treasurer’s Office website to find out if there was any overpayment of property taxes for our house.

Well, according to their web site, there was … and not a small amount. Of course, in order to get a refund I have to prove there was an overpayment. They obviously think I payed too much, but they won’t give me the refund unless I provide evidence that I actually over-payed.

So I go through some of my records … and can’t find any evidence of an overpayment. Maybe the mortgage company has some information on that?

I CitiMortgage’s web site to send an email … but the question form won’t accept my message because it thinks I’ve entered illegal characters … like a question mark. Isn’t a question mark a normal part of a question? It also won’t accept special characters such as !&;*)(%, etc. Seems like a pretty silly restriction to me. I know that a properly written web app can handle those characters. And, for what it’s worth, I didn’t have any illegal characters in the message.

Oh well, I’ll have to call them on Monday.

[tags]taxes, mortgage, web forms, cook county[/tags]