Cam I Am

For nearly four years, I’ve had the misfortune of having your alarm system in my home.  I have endured countless problems (see below for links), including your wireless sensors not consistantly communicating with the main unit, battery issues, poor customer service, and the lack of action that occurs when an alarm is triggered..

Oh yes, you really do get a voice through the unit.  It isn’t that loud, booming voice you hear in the commercial..  It always like some timid person trying to sound important.. 

My “favourite” part of having your service is discovering that my local police department won’t respond to an alarm unless there are two sensors triggered or if I am present and request that the police be present..

Here’s a scenario that my wife posed to me that illustrates how useless having your system is.

A burglar breaks into my home at night.  Let’s say that they trigger the door sensor, but of course the motion sensor isn’t tripped, because it isn’t armed when I’ arm the alarm to “stay.”  Anyway, the burglar comes up stairs, holds a gun to us and says, “Don’t say a word”.   Alarmforce’s timid creature comes over the system and asks us to “identify ourselves”.  We say nothing.  Because only one sensor is tripped and there was no verbal response from within the home, the local police are not dispatched and therefore, help is not on the way.

What good is your system?  I’d have better luck with having a phone and 911…

In closing, I’ve had my alarm system unplugged for about five months and don’t miss it.  When my contract is up, I’m dumping your alarm system and getting a new one.  

I’m going with “Large Noisy Dog”. 

Past Stories: http://blog.eagleinbc.com/?s=Alarmforce

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve got another website that I sell custom-made wood growth charts.  I’ve had it for about a year, and while it doesn’t generate a lot of traffic or sales, it’s there. 

When I first made www.camscrafts.com, I used FrontPage to create it.  FrontPage isn’t that great of a program, but it got the job done.  While I wasn’t overly happy with how it worked (or didn’t work), it was at least something.  After a month of using the site I created, a friend of my offered to make up a new one for me, using his Mac.  I think it was a matter of 30 minutes, and he had designed the current site that is there.  It looks great!  I love the graphics and the friendly look to it.  And for the last year, it’s worked well for me.

Now, I don’t do a lot of promoting of the site, but I was going to start advertising it a little more.  I realized that I don’t have a gallery of pictures that show some of the work I’ve done in the last year.  So tonight, I tried to add in a gallery page.

This is when I started to run into problems.

I don’t have a Mac..  FrontPage doesn’t seem to play well with others!  I couldn’t incorporate a gallery page into my site because FP wanted me to have a FP-made page attached to the site. 

Now, the obvious answer is that I should buy a Mac (to save you from saying it, my next computer will be a Mac!  And you know who you are!)  All kidding aside, it seems that in order to avoid bothering my friend everytime I want to change my site or something, I will need to create a new one, once again in FrontPage.  So I tried tonight to re-create the current one in FP..

I might as well try building a particle accelerater out of a hamster wheel and an elastic band.  I probably would have more luck!  No matter what I do, FP just isn’t as versitile as the program on the Mac that was used.  I can’t get text over a picture without it trying to convert the picture to a GIF..

So, I will rebuild my site using FP and then attempt to teach myself HTML to tweak it the way I want..  Although, I am thinking about the CSS route..

Oh well..  for tonight, no new changes..

Over the past few years, I’ve been making sure that we switched most of our light bulbs over to compact fluorescent (CF) bulbs.  We’ve done this partially for environmental reasons, but mainly to save a little money on our electricity bill..

In the past, we rented, so when we moved, we brought all the bulbs with us..  When we bought our current home about 18 months, ago, I put in all the bulbs, with the exception of our kitchen that uses floodlamps, and our bathrooms that have “globe-style” bulbs.  My intention was that as these ones burn out, I’d replace them with their compact fluorescent equivalents..  Up to this point, I’ve been very happy with the performance of the ones I’ve bought so far.

So.. In the last few months, all three of the incandescent floodlamps in the kitchen and a several of the bathroom globes go out.  No problem!  I went out and bought new CF ones..  Then, I start to notice things..

First, the CF floodlamps and globes, take time to come to full brightness..  This is a pain, but I can deal with waiting a minute for them.  It’s a little dim in the kitchen/bathrooms at first, but it’s manageable.  Within two weeks of buying a floodlamp, it burns out..   Within 6 months of installing a globe, one of them burn out.

Now, for a product that costs up to five times the cost of an incandescent bulb, I expect it to outlast the bulbs that I haven’t even replaced!  Why am I wasting my money on bulbs that don’t last, or at the very least don’t seem to function properly..

So, while I’ll continue to use CF bulbs for “normal” lamps and lights, I think that I won’t be wasting my money to save money in the kitchen and bathrooms..

Last night, I was driving to North Vancouver where a couple friends of mine from Ontario are camping.  I left Maple Ridge, and headed down the Mary Hill Bypass.

So, I’m driving along, listening to my daughter tell me about something that happened at school earlier that day when down the road I see a person wearing a yellow jacket walk out into the middle of the road, point at me, then to the side of the road..

Oh crap!  I’m being pulled over..

Anyone who knows the Mary Hill Bypass could probably agree how easy it is to speed down that stretch of road.  While the limit ranges between 60-70km/h, it’s easy to do 80-90…

The officer comes to the window, tells me that he’s pulled me over for speeding.  Then he asked if I knew how fast I was going.  I sheepishly reply that I thought it was about 85 km/h.  He says that was close, it was 86.   Then he asked if I knew what the speed limit through that area was.  Embarrassed, I reply that it is 60 km/h.

Double crap!   The first thing I think when he goes to write the ticket is that my wife is going to be pissed with me.  (Yes, she is!)  Then, I have to explain to my 6 year old what is going on.  I tell her that I’m getting a ticket for speeding.

“Are you going to jail?”, she asks.  I quickly reply, “No..  I certainly hope not!”.   Then she wanted to know if it was a special ticket. 

“Yup..  An expensive special ticket”, I answer.

A few questions later, she had all the answers that she needed to be satisfied.  The officer comes back to my window, presents me with the ticket and I’m back on my way.  As I continue down the road, paying very close attention the the speed limit, I pass by another speed trap.  For the remainder of our trip, my daughter read out to me what every speed limit sign says.

So, I’ve learned my lesson.  Unfortunately, it’s going to cost me $196.00…

I have an issue with Translink.  I went to an event last night that was in downtown Vancouver.  Instead of driving from Maple Ridge into downtown, I decided to take transit. 

It’s been years since I’ve taken the bus or SkyTrain, but I thought that I’d give it a shot.  The venue that I was going to has limited parking and I didn’t want to fight for a parking spot.  I decided to drive into Burnaby, park near Lougheed Mall and take the Skytrain into downtown.

What’s the deal with all the signs clearly stating “No Park & Ride”?  I understand that Lougheed Mall doesn’t want a full parking lot of people who aren’t shopping there, but you would think that Translink would try and make some provisions for this. 

In a time when people are generally more aware about being “environmentally friendly” and are trying to find alternative ways to commute, there should be measures taken so that this could be accomplished. 

Why doesn’t Translink provide parking facilities for commuters?  This seems to be a big problem.  I did eventually find street parking a few blocks away, but I shouldn’t have needed to do this.

If Translink truly wants to promote transit as a viable alternative, they really should consider some changes.

First, more park and ride lots. 

Second, work on improving the West Coast Express.  I’ve heard that there are issues with CP Rail not wanting to give up “track time” for this because it would open the gate across the country for other municipalities to want the same treatment, but something needs to happen.  When the Greater Toronto Area has a great system like GO Transit with trains running all day, surely the GVRD could do the same.

Third, expand your rapid transit plans.  Once the future UBC, Evergreen and Canada Lines are done, these further ideas should be looked at. Skytrain should run into Maple Ridge (not just the projected line to Coquitlam.  The Surrey line should be run right into Langley.  That’s when you start to have a rapid transit system that is usable for the majority of people living in the Lower Mainland.

So..  my message to Translink..   Get with the program!  Start creating COMPLETE and VIABLE solutions to transit, or you’ll never get us out of our cars.

After my less the successful attempts of trying to install and use Easy Media Creator 9 the other day, I tried to find a new solution.  So, I did a little looking around online and at our local Staples, I decided to give Easy Media Creator 10 a shot..  So, with a little hesitation, I bought it.

I brought it home and started to go through the recommended Clean Install instructions.  Any remnants of EMC9 were removed with great ease..   So far so good..

I pop the new disc into the drive and run set-up..  I enter the Product Key#.  All good so far..

Then, the next 45 minutes of it slowly installing the software..  annoying, but at least there were no pop-ups to deal with..   Then the moment of truth..  I try to run it..  ARGH!  Same errors as EMC9 pop-up!  So, I try going to Roxio to download any software updates.

The update takes about 5-6 minutes to download because it’s about 750megs..  I watch it download, all the while thinking that this can’t be a patch, but an entire program download.  Sure enough, when it’s done downloading, it starts installing EMC10 again..   <sigh!>..   I wait another 45 minutes for it to install.  By this point, I’m not impressed and tempted to return it..

After waiting for the update to install, and following all the steps, I still get the same result.  I then looked at the forums to find that there does not seem to be a solid fix to the problem..

I packed up the disc in the box and went to Staples..  As soon as I mentioned Vista, they smiled, nodded and offered a refund..

Vista wins again.. 

If by posting this, I save even one person some time, it will be worthwhile.

For the last several months, I’ve been trying to find a decent video editor to take home videos on my DV camera, edit them, and put them on full size DVD’s (not the mini’s that they are currently on).

I tried about a dozen various programs, including the one that comes with Windows Vista.  The Windows DVD maker has the features that I want, but it doesn’t work properly (freezes anytime I actually try to edit the video…. not very useful!)

So, I gave up for a couple months..  A couple days ago, I was looking through some software CD’s I had in a pile in the corner when I see something that caught my attention.

I already had Roxio’s Easy Media Creator 9!  Wow..  I’ve heard generally good things about this program, and had no clue that it was shipped with my Dell computer that we about a little over a year ago!   I popped the CD into the drive, and sure enough, it confirms that it is already installed!   Cool..

I try to run it..

Here’s where the Vista factor kicks in.  It doesn’t work.  Cannot load a DLA file.  Unable to find a skin. C++ runtime error..   Yes..  my nemesis Windows Vista is rearing it’s ugly head.

So, I start searching on Google for answers and patches.  I find a couple patches, and get a little farther with the process.  I following the “Instructions for a Clean Install“..  No better..

So..  Do you get the following messages?:

1. Anything involving an error with C++ runtime.
2. Roxio Creator BDAV Plugin no supported by Vista
3. Skin Image menuseparator.png not found.
4. “Gathering required information” appears over and over when trying to load EMC9 up.

Here’s what to do..  Just give up.  After much exhaustive research, it seems that EMC9 is just not meant to work on Windows Vista.  Don’t bother with patches or the rest of the crap.  Just give up. 

Apparently, Easy Media Creator 10 is compatible with Windows Vista..   I don’t know if I want to try spending $80 to find out..   (I probably will in the end)

I hope that this helps someone.  There are a lot of message forums that have a flurry of activity about this dated Feb 2007 to July 2007, but not much else after that..

Comments?

When does 1&1=Nothing? 

When their servers crash…and it takes them 4 days to fix the problem and put them back online..

Now, I have to admit, I don’t have a lot to complain about.  I don’t pay anything for the webhost I’m using, thanks to a friend that set up my domain for me and let’s me use his account for his webhost (Thanks Mark!), but I do find this frustrating.  The ability to rant about whatever is bothering me (or whining…either way), is kind of nice.  Every now and then, I get a response that is helpful.  But I do have another site on the server that is a side business.  It doesn’t get a lot of traffic, but occasionally I do get an inquiry.

So, my friend is going to be changing servers soon, but that does leave my sites out of the picture.  But I’ve made arrangements for this.  In the next week, I’ll be transferring my site.  Well..  Sort of..

I’ve set up my own account with 1&1..  You might be asking yourself, “Why would I stay with the same webhost company that I just had problems?”  Simply put, it’s easier to do it this way, and besides… all companies have their computer down times..   I just hope that this doesn’t become a habit..

Well, it seems that this was inevitable..

After next school year, Riverside Elementary in Maple Ridge will no longer have a French immersion program starting September 2009…

In the last year, we (the parents of students at the school) have fought the school board (and had a temporary reprieve) on the total closure of the school..

Then there was the whole “is Riverside causing cancer in teachers and students” — something that was ultimately shown to not be the case..

But with all the bad publicity about the school only six kindergarten students registered for the French immersion program there next year..

I’m sure that this is the beginning of the end for the school entirely.. 

Our oldest daughter goes there for the FI program..  We have two other children that we, ideally, would like to put into the same program when they start school..  So what do we do?  All English?  Or start the mad search, along with every other family that we be looking for a spot for their children to continue in the program we chose for our kids..

Some people may not see any benefit to the French Immersion program..  but I don’t see any problem with providing every opportunity for my kids..

I’m just going to cover a bunch of things in this post..  Little things that don’t warrant a post of there own.

1)  It snowed today..  In parts of Vancouver..  In April…   What that hell is with that?  Snow and cherry blossoms don’t usually go together..

2)  It seems that Global TV has finally gotten with the program (pun intended!), and is finally going HD.  The channel line-up change on Shaw is happening this coming week, and it will be a nice addition to the line-up.  It’s very unfortunate that this is happening at the expense of several jobs that were cut a few months ago.

3)  How the hell can three kids make such a big mess in so little time.  Every time that we clean up the house, our three daughters find a way to destroy it in less than 5 minutes.

4)  I’ve noticed over the last few days since I severely reinjured my back, that I don’t seem to care about some things so much.  I usually am a fairly avid coffee drinker, but this morning is my second cup in about a week an a half.  Also, I play Scrabble on Facebook a lot, but again, today is finally the day I’ve decided to catch up on them..

That’s about it..  I’m sure that everything will correct itself within our household.  I’ve decided to try to return to work sometime next week (if my doctor allows) and I’ll do work in the office until after my surgery: I’m pretty sure that’s the only way I’ll be allowed to return to work by all parties involved.