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On Vox: Shut Down Again

Published by NiteMayr on December 20, 2007

Yep, “The position was filled”  again.

Where are these phantom IT experts appearing from?  After 10+ years of direct professional IT experience you’d think that some firm would be gagging for me.  But no.

I spoke with my recruiter friend and he confirmed that the whole sector is slow (due to the end of the year) I have to agree as the daily job postings have slowed to nearly nil.

That being said, I am sick of this crap.  Sick to death.  Maybe I don’t have CCNA or MCSE behind my name, but I have 10+ years, a degree in computer science and better diagnostic skills than 95% of the technicians I have met.  I can work in flash, C, C++, Pascal, PhP, have set up LAMP servers, wrote MySQL front-ends, created content management systems from scratch, worked on PHP-based MMO code (I forked black sun traders really), read packet traces, diagnose email header issues, memorized a number of RFCs, taught hundreds of techs how to understand DNS, SMTP, HTTP and diagnose network issues via telnet.  I’ve created streaming audio solutions via shoutcast and winamp.   I spoke about AntiSpam at Washington to massive approval by the audience.  I have done all this and more, but I can’t find a job in IT.

Why?

Originally posted on nitemayr.vox.com

On Vox: Unemployment blues

Published by NiteMayr on December 19, 2007

It looks like another interview has been for naught… damn.

Come this Saturday I will have been unemployed for the past 4 months.  I’ve been dancing around getting a service job here in the resort town I call home; mostly because I have over a decade of experience with PC support and a degree in computer science.  It’s pretty much driving be nuts, what am I doing wrong?

Anyone have any tips or leads for work that can be done remotely?

Originally posted on nitemayr.vox.com

On Vox: What about kids with no ears?

Published by NiteMayr on December 4, 2007

Some Words of Wisdom by me:

by screwfanboys1 

what about when the people think their own generation of music is crap?

  • They are what were called “Nerds” in the old days, they eschewed the
    popular music for whatever their “cool” uncle or “with it” Big Brother
    liked. You can recognize the Nerds from the current teen generation
    because they love anything Pre-Zeppelin and hate anything that might
    appear on a current Top-100 chart anywhere in the Free World. They may
    also love a current band no one has ever heard of, and they will never
    see said band live.

    Popular music is the lowest common denominator, music that the majority
    of people, before you get too down on popular music, remember that the
    Average IQ in the Western world is 100, which means that while there
    are plenty of folks above the 110 mark, there are just as many, if not
    more in the sub 90 level. A catchy hook or pandering line is going to
    appeal to that hinterland of 90-110 and snag that middle ground. Much
    like snagging the slow moving fish in a stream with no bait and a dull
    hook.

    So while these songs may suck, it is an over-reaching denunciation to
    come down on all popular music as “Crap” simply because you don’t like
    it. If it was crap, for real, it wouldn’t sell and there would be no
    demand for it. Sure some music defies logic or Taste (Yoko Ono, Wing)
    but there is an audience for it; and these are hardly million-sellers.

    For the record, my friends will tell you that I have little or no taste
    in music, so ya know, take what I say with a grain of alcohol or salt,
    whatever gets you through the next four hours of crushing boredom.


Originally posted on nitemayr.vox.com

On Vox: Man, I wondered why the theatre was so full

Published by NiteMayr on December 4, 2007

Prior to the Transformers (2007) screening on July 3rd, 2007 at in Eugene, Oregon,
mc chris announced that his albums would no longer be available for
purchase on major markets, such as iTunes or his own web site, making
them exclusively available at his concerts. He went on to say, “Pirate
that shit,” encouraging his fans to pirate, burn, or download his music
and give it to their friends to help spread mc chris’ popularity to
increase future record sales and his popularity.

From: wikipedia

The line for Transformers was huge, and it was for a later show.  I was wondering why there were so many Nerds waiting to get into a movie they could have gotten into hours earlier.  Now it all makes sense.

Originally posted on nitemayr.vox.com

On Vox: After the fall (update) 2007

Published by NiteMayr on December 4, 2007

I’ve installed the fall dashboard update for the 360 and have been very pleased with the addition of DivX/Xvid support.  That is to say, I freaking love it!  I have a few home videos in Divx format as well as some TV shows converted to DivX (rather than leaving them on the damn DVDs)  Add to that videos made available via Google and Other places and you have a lot of video that can be played via the 360.

I checked out the Xbox classics, but decided against it as there is just not enough space on my hard drive for all of the games, I’ll spend my money on GH3 content or Rockband content after I get one or the other.

Originally posted on nitemayr.vox.com

Getting your iTunes Playlists into the Zune 2.0 Software

Published by NiteMayr on November 22, 2007

I upgraded to the Zune 2.0 software, which promptly killed all the useful playlists I had set up for playing in my Xbox when I wanted to listen to music.

I used to just drag and drop my playlist contents into Media player 11, but since Zune streams mp4s and I have a buttload of them, I made the transition.

I upgraded to 2.0 and liked the new interface, but the lack of any sort of smart playlists leaves me using Itunes to make playlists and no obvious way to get them into Zune.

I have figured out the steps to make this happen:

  1. Open up itunes and shrink the window to a point where it is still usefull, but not maximized at all.
  2. Open up WMP 11 and maximize it.
  3. Click on the the Now Playing button and then ensure the “List Pane” is displayed.  If the List Pane is not displayed, click the down arrow under “Now Playing” and click “Show List Pane” (I searched for ages to find this when I decided I wanted it)  It also appears on the Library screen if you do not want to use it on the “Now Playing” screen.
  4. Now, select the contents of your playlist in iTunes and then Drag and Drop the contents to the List Pane in Windows Media player.
  5. Once your songs appear in Windows Media Player, Click the down arrow next to “Untitled Playlist” and then click “Save Playlist As…”
  6. Click the Down Arrow beside the file format and choose “M3U” as your format and save your playlist.
  7. As long as you are saving your playlist in the default C:\Documents\username\My documents\My Music\My Playlists location, it will appear automatically in the Zune Software.
  8. Once the new playlist appears in the Zune software you may choose delete the m3u file as the Zune software appears to keep it’s own copy.

If you do not save the file in the default location or simply wish a more manual method, save the playlist in m3u format and drag and drop the new m3u into a waiting playlist in the Zune Software.

Have fun with your new software!

Originally posted on nitemayr.vox.com