jordanriane

Category: Personal

  • Washington bound!

    A lot has happened since that singular post I made last year when I brought my website back online. The biggest thing is that Joe proposed to me in October of last year and of course I said yes.

    The other thing is that we made plans to move out to Washington together but we had put it off since it wasn’t feasible for his job at the time. But in July we decided to move by March 2020 and stuck with that goal. It’s been a hectic couple of months but we managed to settle on an apartment in Everett, Washington! I also found a store to transfer to for Starbucks and I’ll remain a shift supervisor there as well, so I’m happy for that.

    March 2nd officially be my last day of being an Illinois resident. It’s going to be bittersweet as I have some family out here along with my coworkers and friends. But I’m more excited to move to Washington as I fell in love with Seattle and surrounding areas back in Fall 2018.

    Goodbye, Chicago!

  • Long time no see

    This poor website has gone through some intense trials and tribulations. From expired domains to deleted databases to years long hiatuses… At some point I managed to repurchase said expired domains and just sat on them for years but never actually did anything with the websites.

    And.. despite deleted databases, when you spend hours going through multiple different backups, you realize you have an old SQL backup which isn’t everything you lost, but most of it.

    Which leads me to right here, right now. It’s only a six year old backup but hey look, it’s my own website again!

  • Super busy the last few months

    I have severely neglected my blog again :(. Around the time school started, I picked up another part-time job that is more like full-time and is pretty demanding of mine time. So between school work and work work, I have been absolutely swamped this year. It’s not necessarily a bad thing but I haven’t been able to do any fun coding on my site or work on any of my own projects.

    Right now my weekend looks like it will be full of Adobe Flash for my midterm project that’s due Monday and a website for the website competition through JJC which is due by March 11th. Not only that but I also have a client I picked up over the week, so I’ve got his site I need to do. Blargghh, no time for anything anymore.

    Either way, I don’t mind it so much but sometimes I feel like I never get ~me~ time anymore to do whatever I want. Perhaps this is what I can use to justify the fact that I want to purchase the Astro A30s for myself. Kind of tired with my current headset and wouldn’t mind having these. I almost bought a new 23″ Acer LED but I stopped myself for some reason. I suppose I felt that since I still have a secondary monitor that’s 19″, that I don’t need the 23″. Pfft.

  • It’s back to school for me

    I made the decision to finally go back to school (again) after setting aside my grievances with learning material I more than likely already know. I have wanted to earn my Associate (in Applied Science) and then my Bachelor’s degree for quite some time but it just didn’t feel like it is something I really needed to do. I was going to go back for the Fall 2010 term but had some issues with classes I wanted (one was canceled and a replacement wasn’t possible due to scheduling conflicts). So I pushed it back to Spring 2011. Eesh, 2011.. That’s 7 years after graduating high school!

    Since I’m pretty much a ‘freshman’ level (I’ve only got about 16 credits from the classes I took back in 2007) a lot of my courses are more rudimentary but I’m sucking it up and taking advantage of what should be an ‘A’ for the class. Ionly took four classes for a total of 12 credits as I didn’t want to go too crazy since it’s been quite some time since having a full school load. I’ve got a Flash CS4 class, Photoshop CS4 class, Adv Web Design and an E-Commerce class. Of the four the only one that will actually be new to me is my flash class. I’ve never enjoyed flash (and the last time I even attempted it was probably 2006) so this will be a nice little addition for me. The photoshop class is definitely going to be something I already have experience with but I decided that I would like to LEARN how to be more efficient with it. I’m ass backwards when it comes to working with it. What I should be able to do in ~10 minutes with various tools within PS, I probably take ~20+ or more since I do it the ‘hard way.’

    Adv Web Design and E-commerce are other Major Core requirements for my AAS so I’ll be trying to make the best of it since these are two I am very knowledgeable in. If anything I can take all the pride in being a teacher’s pet or something ;). So here’s to promising myself to not act like a spoiled know-it-all like I did in 2007 when I wrote this: It should be easy for a webdesigner taking rudementary webdesign classes, right?. I’m here to take the class no matter what my skill level is or isn’t so I can get a good grade, finish through 68 semester hours and receive my Associates in Applied Science so I can be that much more bad ass.

  • I ditched the iPhone 3G for a Samsung Vibrant

    Samsung Vibrant

    For the last two and a half years, I have been an avid iPhone 3G user. I’ve probably spent upwards of $80 on various apps and just as much on random accessories. Once iOS 4 came out I really started to hate my iPhone. The new OS made my 3G ridiculously slow to the point where I would be waiting 1.5 seconds or more for the touchscreen to actually respond to any actions I was making. I contemplated going with the iPhone 4 but I honestly wanted to break free from the iPhone. I didn’t care about the front-facing camera which meant that the Galaxy S series phones would be the next best thing for me.

    So in November I finally decided to make the switch to an Android based phone. I went with the Samsung Galaxy-S Vibrant. It is an amazing phone! The Vibrant has a 4″ WVGA Super AMOLED screen with Gorilla Glass, 5MP Camera, supports 720p recording, 1GHz Humingbird processor and has 16GB of built-in storage with support for up to 32GB more with a microSDHC card.

    The learning curve was pretty easy going from iOS to Android. The one thing I was hesitant of before even using the phone was the default Android keyboard but I installed Smart Keyboard Pro so I wouldn’t have to deal with the default. Other then that I was able to jump straight into the Android OS with little issues. In fact, some of the default UI was SO much better than on the iPhone it really made it’s usage much more efficient. No longer did I have to jailbreak the phone to have a springboard; I can just drag down my status bar on Android to access quick on/off functionalities for certain features and of course being able to see all notifications.

    Samsung Vibrant Applications

    It’s been over two months since I’ve gone Android and it’s definitely the best choice I could have made. I lucked out on my timing for switching to Android. Majority of the applications I used on iOS now have their own Android version in the App Market. Perhaps this was another reason why I held off on changing my phone for so long and not switching to Android earlier–I just didn’t want to have inferior Android apps and/or not have any alternative. Sure, there are some apps that I will no longer ever see on Android (TapTapTap, I’m looking at you!) but when I look at how often I’ve utilized them on iOS after purchasing, it’s not really a con for me. You can check out what apps I’m using on my AppBrain.com profile. It may look like a lot but it includes stock apps. I also don’t like utilizing too many apps so I often install/uninstall pending on its usage.

    Neowin.net on the Samsung Vibrant

    This has honestly been the best phone I’ve been able to use thus far. I tried out the iPhone 4 and a few of the WP7 phones that were out during early November but the Galaxy S series stuck. I think my favorite thing about the phone is the softkeys on the phone. I’ve got a settings key (works in phone itself and for apps that utilize it), home key, back key (works awesome for browser and in apps) and of course the search key. The first day of playing with the Vibrant, I jumped back to my iPhone 3G (since it was still active with old number) I found myself already fumbling to use the home and back button only to be annoyed I had to either tap the screen to go back or just hit the home button. I also love the haptic feedback when pressing the softkeys and various other UI elements that work with it (like the keyboard or clicking links in the browser.)

    Since Froyo (Android OS version 2.2) has been delayed on the T-Mobile Samsung Vibrant perhaps until early next year, Steve and I ended up flashing our phones to an unofficial ROM for Froyo thanks to the awesome people over at XDA Forums that have posted up on it. Which, by the way, XDA Developers is probably the best site/forum to be a part of and reference for anything you need to know about your phone. The members there are serious about their phones and anything else related to them (accessories and the like) so it’s where I’ve been referencing for optimizing/updating my phone as well as ensuring I’ve got quality accessories to use with it.

    Neowin.net on the Samsung Vibrant

    So after a little over two months of usage, I’ve really got the phone optimized for the best battery performance. I have the display brightness dimmed down which is probably the number one reason for extra battery life! I use Advanced Task Manager by Arron La. This app helps me end running processes and/or apps so they’re not sucking the battery juice up. That way if I open up Gowalla, FourSquare, Facebook and Twitter.. they’re all not running which can honestly really drain the battery if I’m off charge for awhile and constantly using the phone. With the slide down status/notification window, I can also turn off wifi easily when I’m out and about. Turning off wifi prevents it from constantly running trying to pick up a signal. It’s just easier for me to stick with 3G data since I’ve got an unlimited data plan. With all of the little tweaks I’ve done, I’ve been able to get to 40 hours of life off of a single charge (from 100%). This includes gMail syncing, minor text messages, minor voice calls, web browsing and app usage. More often I can be found whipping the phone open when I hear my email notification going off.

    All-in-all I really love my Samsung Vibrant. The only hard part was having to leave AT&T for T-Mobile. I thought about going for the Samsung Captivate but I was a bit disappointed that AT&T took a nazi approach to locking down the OS. They block 3rd party apps by default and right now there really isn’t a ROM for 2.2 that I’d flash to. I was also really annoyed that I wouldn’t be able to keep my $30/mo unlimited data plan that I’ve had since mid-2008. I’d be going for either 200MB or 2GB, neither of which are suitable for my usage. So I’m with T-Mobile right now and just ported over my number. I tried to get CUP-CAKE but all area codes for the area were taken! Oh well, I don’t mind sticking with a number I’ve been using for 8 years now ;).

  • WordPress blogger bundle from Appsumo.com

    Earlier today I stumbled across a WordPress Blogger Bundle from Appsumo.com and it’s definitely worth the $32 it costs. I’m pretty cheap so I usually opt for the “free account” with services or just stick with open-source if need be. But this is definitely an awesome bundle to look into. The bundled apps value at ~$950 and you get the following:

    Appsumo.com

    • Page.ly – 3 months of business hosting ($150 value)
    • BuySellAds – $50 advertiser credit
    • inboxSEO – 6 months ‘Standard’ Plan ($114 value)
    • WooThemes – Unite theme (plus 2 more of your choice)
    • PadPressed – PadPress WordPress Plugin + Theme
    • And eleven other apps/items

    I decided to take advantage of the bundle namely for the BuySellAds credit and the WooThemes offer. That’s $32 for what would have been at least ~$120. Not bad!

  • Happy 26th Birthday, Steve!

    Just wishing my boyfriend Steve a Happy 26th Birthday!

    Happy Birthday Steve!

  • Razer made me loyal again

    Update 10/14/10: I decided that I am no longer going to use the Lycosa. Even with the new model (MT10) that Razer sent me I still experience the same issues with the keys randomly dying and/or ghost sticking on me. I’ve got the latest drivers for Windows 7 64bit and nothing helps. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not the keyboard itself but the horribly crappy drivers for the Lycosa. I’ll still purchase other Razer products but as far as their keyboard line goes: hell no.

    A few weeks I wrote about how I was disappointed with Razer and their Lycosa. I was holding off on buying a new keyboard when I ended up receiving a message from cultofrazer on my Youtube account. Hilmar ‘Razer|Water’ Hahn, a Product Evangelist at Razer, handles the Razer Lycosa and contacted me after seeing my blog post about the issues I’ve been having. He wanted to make it up to me and renew the relationship. As a result he wanted to send me a replacement Razer Lycosa and send me a free Razer Orca as he thought it would be perfect for me.

    Needless to say I was extremely grateful to see that a Razer employee has gone out of his way to ensure that I am once again a satisfied customer! This positive response from them definitely guarantees that I will no doubt continue using and purchasing Razer products. In fact I’m finally going to replace my poor, dirty, worn out Goliathis for a new Goliathus Fragged Control Edition surface pad… Now if only they’d release their damn Onza controller that I’ve been waiting on for eons!

  • Hover, a new domain registrar

    Yesterday I was in the market for some .me domains to try to help a brand I already started. I just didn’t want to pay $15-25 for a couple of .me domains that would be redirecting to a .com.

    I ended up stumbling across Hover. Right now they’ve got .ME domains for $5. Yeah, $5. So I spent a good 30 minutes pouring over some new names and I had 5 in my cart but decided to cut it down to just 2. $10 for two .me domains. That would have been around $40 at GoDaddy or Namecheap.

    The cost for the other domains are around $15/yr for com/net/org although they do include free private whois, DNS management, domain forwarding and unlimited custom URLs. That’s almost on par with the other registrars and you won’t have to deal with atrocious hidden fees that you don’t see until you checkout.

    You can use the coupon code “cupcakes” to get 10% off your purchase at Hover.

  • Disappointed with Razer and their Lycosa

    Last year I was on the lookout for a new keyboard and having already been using Razer products (Razer Abyssus and a Razer Goliathus), I decided to take a gander at their keyboards.

    I went with the Razer Lycosa keyboard. I wanted something with laptop-style keys that would be quieter and of course the backlight was a plus. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t read up on any reviews on this product at all. I just went blind into the purchase as I was already familiar with Razer.

    Razer Lycosa

    The first few couple of months were fine; I used the keyboard on a daily basis for hours at a time. After awhile though I noticed that the occasional time a key would not respond (eg: the letter ‘g’ would not respond) and unplugging the USB cord would ‘reset’ it. This happened so seldom that I never thought anything of it. However, after awhile it turned into more than just a key here and there. Eventually the touch screen to change light settings (WSAD, all keys lit, off) would randomly stop responding and various keys would be ‘stuck’ despite not having even touched them.

    It has gotten to the point where I would unplug the USB cord for my keyboard every few hours. A couple of months ago I finally researched a bit on the product and found various articles that this was a common problem with the Lycosa. Lycosa’s with serials that started at MT0803, MT0802, MT0801, and MT07 were those that were affected however Razer stated that “were limited to a small batch of customers” and since the problem was ‘so small’ no recall was necessary. My Lycosa starts with an MT09 serial number and apparently I should not be affected–but I am!

    I finally decided to contact Razer last night as I was tired of putting up with the poor reliability of the Lycosa. I received a reply within a few hours asking for more details on the purchase. And finally around 10PM last night I received a response that they would not offer me an RMA on the Lycosa due to my purchase having only a 90 day warranty on it from November 2009 to January 2010. WHAT?!

    The main article I read on the issue was from Tomshardware.com “Razer Responds to Lycosa KB Issue”

    “Frick also mentioned that the problem was small enough that there wasn’t any recall performed, and that customers with affected serial numbers can get their boards replaced free of charge.”

    So just because my serial isn’t specifically listed as affected yet those with MT09 keyboards DO have this issue, I’m screwed no matter what. I just think it’s poor that Razer knows of this issue yet has done nothing about it in the three years it’s actually been present. The sad thing is that the MT09’s are obviously affected because looking around online will yield tons of posts about the MT09 being affected just as well. I think that they really should have immediately taken my keyboard for an RMA despite the serial being MT09 and the warranty being up–especially when they’ve even admitted to the problem and stated that they would replace the boards free of charge.

    I was really looking forward to continuing on being a loyal Razer customer. I’ve been waiting for the Razer Onza to release and after this issue, I’m not even sure if I want to continue using Razer’s products. Between the issue STILL being present and Razer failing to replace the obviously defective product, I’m already looking at picking up a Logitech Illuminated keyboard and a Xtrac pads for future mouse/surface pads.

    Logitech Illuminated Keyboard