Joe's Technical Journal

Well, it's about time I do something besides gripe about Best Buy.

The project to get all of the blogs online, as well as the web site a bit more up-to-date, was brought on by the upcoming season of Upward Basketball. I spent a lot of time on my web site last year, with the emphasis on A LOT. And worst of all, I didn't get everything I want to do done, because there simply was not enough time. I wanted the upcoming year to use some of the stuff I had built upon, but I'm hoping it will be significantly more complete.

So, in essence, my quest was to solve a few technical issues that have always handicapped some of the things I've wanted to do with my web site.

First on the list was the issue of pictures. Since we filmed all of the games with my camcorder (a Sony DCR-TRV38), using Pinnacle's Studio, it's easy to get some great pictures for each game. At least, from the standpoint of web-available pictures, they're great. I can select a few moments from the play of each kid, and then export those as .jpg images. This part of everything worked fine, and I intend to do it again this coming year.

The problem, however, became publishing the pictures once I had them. Last year, I simply used Microsoft FrontPage, created a page indexing the pictures, and then created a separate page for each picture, containing the appropriate linking. Talk about time-consuming. Surely there had to be an easier way.

This problem was solved (thanks to advice of my co-worker, Melissa Plunkett) by finding a good picture publishing software. That software, in my case, is NeoPhoto.

NeoPhoto let me organize my photos, and then create web pages on a separate server, using my in-home network to publish the pictures, rather than having to upload all the pages to another server. It's even a free package. All seemed well-and-good.

That was when I checked what the pages looked like. They looked reasonably well, although I was a bit annoyed by the advertisements. But I figured, "No big deal" as I was looking through the pictures. "I don't mind if someone puts up a few ads for their trouble of putting together this...." I came to a dead stop as I viewed a picture, and the advertisment text caught my eye. Apparently, some of the advertising being done isn't exactly the kind of thing I'd want to post on a system being viewed by kids from a church basketball league. Or their parents. Or *MY* parents. Or anyone from the church reviewing my site. In fact, I'm now no longer in a tolerant mood at all. These ads have to go - or the software does.

Fortunately, NeoPhoto lets you build and modify your own style sheets. While I don't know anything about building them, I can certainly look through one and remove the stuff I don't want. A bit bothersome, but all in all, not a big problem. And much, much faster than the way I had been doing things. It took me a little time, but I re-organized all of the photo pages on my site - many of which I had removed when I changed formats several years back.

My next issue to address was communication back to me. Of course, I have e-mail; I'm using Microsoft Exchange 2003, along with a Linux front end, in hope of fixing the spam problem I've had. More to come on that part of the solution, and a big thanks to my co-worker Rick Buford on the Linux expertise needed to do this. But, in my opinion, there needs to be a PUBLIC discussion area - one to allow for multiple people to sound in on the subject rather than me being continually in defense posture with only, "Well, it's going to go how I decide" to fall back on. And I'm not willing to try to do a public discussion area in Exchange. I've always been a sucker for old bulletin boards, and I figured that would be a good way of doing things.

Years ago, I set up a small internet BBS on my site using Ceilidh from Lilikoi Software. I love the format of Ceilidh, and I think it's a fantastic package. I figured I'd break it out again.

The biggest problem with Ceilidh is that it wants you to use your initial configuration in a specific layout - a layout which I did not want to follow. And Ceilidh's documentation for CHANGING that layout is sadly lacking. It took a lot of experimenting, moving things, and sometimes, trying to figure out whether the path used was meant to be a Unix path, a Windows path, or a web path. That tends to be the biggest area of confusion - and also ended up being the biggest confusion point in the blogging software as well.

I had to open up a few things on IIS in order to make Ceilidh work. Thanks to my co-worker Steve Lottes for helping me get it running. And it required a lot of time working and re-working the paths in order to get things working the way they should. But all in all, it was reasonable to set up a forum.

Then came the idea of a blog. I started out reading a review, which recommended a package called WordPress. I had a lot of stuff that I needed to install to get going. The stopping point came when I ran across a package called PHP. It wouldn't install properly on my test machine. It wouldn't install properly on my home machine. It just plain wouldn't install properly for me. I went to Steve again; he's the IIS-savvy guy. I asked him if he was familiar with PHP, and he said, "Yes; I've got it installed so I can run a blog." He then showed me his blog - which used Movable Type. He said the set-up of Movable Type was easy - and I thought his blog looked very nice. So I got Movable Type, and started messing with it.

PHP is an optional component in Movable Type, so my problem installing PHP was no longer relevant.

The Movable Type install faced one major obstacle: me. I decided to set it up on what was going to eventually become my production server. Invariably, I kept running across things here and there that just didn't work. Finally, it hit me: I was configuring a server that WOULD BE the production server, but was configuring it as if it WAS in production. Once I made that change, I really didn't have much trouble.

The most difficult part was taken care of by an article which walked me step-by-step through the install. There were a few configuration changes to make, and in one place, I managed to confuse a path which was actually a Unix path as a web path. Once I figured out that it was a Unix path, and once I substituted the appropriate Windows path, everything worked.

The one problem I haven't gotten resolved is the configuration of the Wheels portion for my friend John Crane, which doesn't use my domain of www.joev.com, but instead uses John's www.biglizard.org. Other than that one problem, Movable Type is working great.

Comment if you want information on the articles I used or links to the software pages. Once I get back in Columbia, I'll probably post the links here.

I've still got e-mail issues to resolve. More on that as that information becomes available.

Gotta love Best Buy. Not.

Went to pick up my machine yesterday, and got to examine it for the first time. Guess what - it now has a 60G hard drive in it...despite the fact that I had an 80G drive in it. They replaced my 80G drive with a 60G drive.

One manager was trying to tell me that they were allowed to do that. Almost went as far as to say they couldn't do anything about it, but a tech really took over the conversation and said that it would be fixed. Apparently, he's some senior-level tech - and he's not bad.

Of course, this means I'm without my machine for even longer now.

At least, I've made sure to go in and wreak havoc on the department in exchange for the problems that they've caused me. And better yet, when I was in there yesterday, Keith and Celeste - two of my co-workers, came by, and I got to tell them everything that was going on. Should start to make life interesting at Best Buy. Might even stage something the next time that I'm in there. I'm sure Caleb or Skander or Shannon would be glad to help.

Hi there. My name's Joe Vancil, and I'm starting this technical blog.

Obviously, the first technical information should be about what it has taken to get this system up and going - right? Well, tough. It's my blog, and so I should talk about what's most on my mind. And what is most on my mind is the way Best Buy / Geek Squad in Columbia, MO has screwed up the repair of my laptop.

My problem was really simple. I needed a new battery. They had ordered one for me before, but they sent me the wrong battery - as the system kept telling me. All they needed to do was verify that they had the wrong battery, and get the new battery - and, if the battery was good, then they needed to repair what was wrong.

I took the laptop in on Tueseday, October 17. I have a platinum service plan; I needed the system turned around pretty quickly. They told me - without bothering to check out whether or not the battery was the correct one - that they'd have to ship it out, and that it would take about 8 days. So, I turned my laptop over to them with the SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS that an IMAGE BACKUP would be performed. I even asked the tech who took it in if they used something along the lines of Norton Ghost to do the image backup. He told me that they did, and that they would.

I next heard from Best Buy when I called them the next week. You see, they hadn't done ANYTHING. They had misplaced my laptop. I asked if they had the backup which they had performed, and they assured me that they did have it. They told me that they had found the laptop, and would ship it out immediately.

I called Best Buy again on November 3. They still had not shipped my laptop. A young man named Josh told me that it was inexcusable that it had been sitting around waiting for a back-up for all this time. I was livid, having been told that a backup had been made by the last guy I talked to.

In a moment of clarity of thought, I thought to myself, "You know, these folks don't know what they're doing. I should probably go get the laptop and do the image back-up myself." But I wanted the laptop turned around quickly. Josh assured me that he - personally - was doing the back-up as we spoke.

Josh at least got it shipped. But it was when it arrived back at the store on November 16 that the real problems began. I should mention that it was because at this time, I was checking the progress online.

They had not replaced the battery. However, they did take the time to replace my hard drive. I asked if the image had been restored. That's when I found out that I should have listened to myself earlier.

You see, they didn't perform an image back-up. In fact, I was told by several customer service folks and techs and managers that Best Buy is apparently LEGALLY PREVENTED from doing an image back-up. I was extremely upset. This meant that I'd have to go and re-install everything on the laptop from scratch. And that's a lot of stuff.

Then we took a look at the back-up. It had my name on it - but it wasn't my data. And it wasn't from November 3. I questioned Josh about this. He told me that he personally didn't do the back-up - despite the fact that he told me that he did when I questioned him on November 3. I directed them to call the service center, and was told that the hard drive - which was working perfectly when I took the system in - had already been destroyed.

They would get in touch with the tech who did the back-up, and they would call me with the progress. They called me, told me that they had found my data. I went by to check on the progress; to say that I didn't trust them by this point would be an understatement.

The "data" that they had backed up was my "Documents and Settings" folder - on one DVD. None of my musical compositions were saved. None of my documents - which I keep in a "docs" folder separate from Microsoft's garbage dump - were saved. None of my maps in Streets and Trips were saved. None of my financial information in Quicken was saved. So, essentially, all of my data was lost. All of it. I've got a few things - like my financial information - backed up on my main machine at home, but it's out-of-date. All told, I'll lose about two months of cash accounting. But I've lost all my musical development, and I've lost all my map information.

Since that time, I've been repeatedly given the run-around when trying to get to the bottom of how these kind of mix-ups occurred.

To top it all off, they've still not got my computer repaired and ready. And they've not replaced the battery - which is the whole problem in the first place. In fact, they ignored my request that the battery be shipped to the store, so that that way they could verify that we have the correct battery. I received e-mail yesterday giving my address as the place that they were going to ship the battery.

In short, Best Buy is now on my "boycott" list. I will provide them a detailed list month by month of exactly how much business their mistakes have cost them until I feel that they have properly "paid for" their uncooperativeness, their inability to follow instructions, their incompetence on technical matters, and the time that I've wasted dealing with them.

So, let me ask each of you - BOYCOTT BEST BUY / GEEK SQUAD. Anything that you would consider purchasing from them, purchase somewhere else, make a note of it, and on the 1st of each month, be prepared to send a statement of how much money you have spent at other stores that could have gone to Best Buy, had they not so angered one of their customers. I will be sending them a detailed bill, along with the "payment toward" the bill each month. In fact, I may even tack on interest. I'll let you know how it goes.