But I said, "No, no, no..."

Tomorrow, I am doing a little moonlighting as a computer technician.

Actually, 'technician' is the wrong word. 'Technician' would be implying that I am actually competent in that field.

And that is a LIE.

So let me rephrase that- tomorrow, I am masquerading as a computer technician.

So this could go down very, very badly.

And this is why I should just keep my mouth shut.

So why take on the job, you ask?

Well...let me tell you a story...

When I was but a lass of seventeen, I was desperate for a job. Even McDonalds didn't hire me, so I really only had two choices- prostitution or telemarketing...cos really, those are the only two careers where you don't really need experience to get a foot in the door...

...needless to say, I chose the latter :P

Please not that I really only suffered through five days of telemarketing, only two of which were on the phones. It was, quite frankly, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short," with emphasis on the 'short' part. I actually did quite well, but I hated it with such a passion that I quit immediately after I'd finished the five-day training sessions.

Except...my mother was deeply affected by my plaintive tale of telemarketing woe. So much so that now she actually exhibits sympathy for telemarketers. In fact, she now exhibits sympathy for anyone trying to sell her anything. As she said to me, "Oh, but I was thinking, 'This could be Daphne' and I felt really sorry for her..."

"Mum, I only did five days of telemarketing. Not even that- only TWO days on the actual phones!"

"It doesn't matter, I still thought of you with your little childish voice asking for donations..."

And that mentality has just made her WEAK.

Let me just cite three examples off the top of my head:

The first incident happened when she got a young girl on the phone asking her to sell tickets for an epilepsy raffle. "I thought of you in your telemarketing days," says mother, and so she caved.

Now, the Epilepsy Foundation will not leave us alone.

Secondly, one day she returned from shopping with a bizarre chicken strudel.

"This is random," says I. "Why'd you get one of these?'
"They're new. The girl at Lenards was trying so hard to get me to buy one. I thought of you trying to get a sale and I felt really sorry for her."
"Right. So you bought a strudel."
"Yes."
"Oookay..."

Probably the most impressive one was when she was swayed by the over-eager desperation of the commission-based World Vision girl at a shopping centre- "She was so desperate, and I thought of you trying to get a sale..."

So she adopted a child.

And now I have an adopted little sister in Bangladesh.

Anyway, the point of my story was this- I've been ridiculing her for this weakness, but today I was coerced into saying yes simply because the desperate woman in front of me was my Mum's age, also Asian, and completely hopeless with computers.

Just like my Mummy.

And I thought, "What if it were my Mum seeking out computer help and everyone wanted to charge her $98 just to look at her PC?"

So I caved.

Sigh.

Anyhow...from what I gathered, her computer just seems to be low on virtual memory. So I figured that all I have to do is delete some shit on her hard drive and browser cache and increase the size of her paging file.

I think.

I mean, if it turns out to be anything harder than that I am royally, royally, screwed.

At any rate, it wasn't just the fact that she reminded me of Mum that made me say yes...she also looked at me desperately and said, "I'll pay you whatever you want. Anything!"

And y'know, that might have swayed me.

Just a little.

The Joys of Real Player

I just only realised that RealPlayer 11 downloads videos from YouTube.

Free.

For offline viewing.

I've only just discovered this. And I feel like such a n00b.

However, I am now regretting discovering this, as this means that I can waste my download quota (and my study time) downloading lots and lots of clips. It's going to be worse than Facebook. In fact, I am considering getting a timer fixed onto the screen of my computer just so I can monitor my internet usage, as I am spending entirely too much time on this machine.

However, I felt like slightly less of a n00b when I realised that my Dad's PC was probably running RealPlayer 10.5 or under, which is why I never discovered this feature...and it never occurred to me to download a third media viewer on this PC, y'know, just in case Windows Media Player and iTunes fail. And who uses Real Player anyway?! Except my uni, which is why I had to download it in the first place...

And now I'm rambling again. But I'm so excited I just had to share :D

Now I can watch "Dick in a Box" over and over...and sing along!!!

N.B (I know that this probably belongs on Technobabblement but no one's going to notice it there, so I am announcing it over here!)

I'm Tap Tap Tap Tap Tapping, Along...

After two weeks of waiting on spare parts, I fired up my PDA for the first time today.

The PDA was my little summer project. It's a little HP iPaq RX1950- I bought it for $49 from work because it had been sitting there naked in the cabinet for TWO YEARS unable to be sold as it had...

...no box
...no packaging
...no BATTERY
...no AC adaptor
...no synchronisation cable
...no instructions
...no CD software

On the upside, it still had a stylus :D

It was still in new condition, it was just that we had no more use for it as the whole box was AWOL. So when my manager offered it to me, I bought it.

What use do I have for a PDA, you say? Erm...not much. It does do video, music and photos, and the screen is actually pretty good for that kinda thing, but the main attraction was the built-in WiFi and the fact that you can store Word files and PDFs on it.

And admittedly, I did buy it for perhaps the most pathetic, dorkiest reason ever...I thought it would be useful for downloading law cases to read in my lunch breaks.

Hey, YOU try hefting a damn Contracts book into work and eating Maccas around the 700+ pages of boredom. This way, I can read legislation and case notes wherever I go! Ooh, the joy!!!

I managed to scrounge up some spare parts by searching eBay- I sourced an aftermarket charging/sync cable and a leather case from Hong Kong, and an aftermarket 1000mah battery from a supplier in Brisbane...all for just over $50 including postage. The lack of software wasn't the hurdle I thought it might be- I just downloaded ActiveSync 4 from CNet and everything was a doddle.

So now I'm tappity tap tap tapping everything with the little stylus just for the sheer fun of it.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap tap tap.

Cleanliness Is Next To Podliness

"i-pod, therefore i-am."

This is engraved onto the back of the silver iPod which my sisters presented to me last Christmas. Having suffered through 3+ hours of daily commuting on public (and stinky) transport last year, with only an unreliable Nokia pop-port FM headset for company, it was like some kind of Podly gift from heaven.

I hadn't really planned on getting an iPod in particular- I was going through one of those 'everyone-has-one-so-I-want-to-be-different' stages, but when I held that slim, silver little iPod in my hands and flicked on that bright little coloured screen...

...well, you probably think it's weird for maternal instincts to arise over a piece of technology.

In which case, I probably shouldn't mention the fact that I sometimes call my little 2GB bundle of joy "Señor i-Poddy Poddy".

*awkward silence*

Not to get all defensive or anything, but surely that's a better name than say...Tiger Lily or Peaches or Apple or young Shiloh Pitt? (Or as I like think of it- Piloh Shitt. Tee hee.)

i-pod, therefore i-am.

It's true- the iPod has no longer become the status symbol of the schoolyard. It's progressed to become an almost natural accessory, something that everyone is simply expected to carry. The worldwide retail price is so stable that it's replaced the Big Mac index. It's almost frightening to look around on the bus to see 99% of passenger with those telling white earbuds jammed in to their ears.

It's even more frightening to realise that I am also one of these anti-social iPodding people, standing alone in my own little world listening to the Overture of Jesus Christ Superstar.

Take a look here and here.

Yes folks, that's the new iPod Touch and the new generation of Nano. The iPod videos have been renamed the iPod Classic, and have shot up to 160GB for the same price as the 80GB. The Nanos have a bigger screen, seem to resemble a Creative Zen V Plus, and can now play video. I get the feeling that I will soon be repeating this mantra to every second customer who walks into the store.

I don't like the new colours though- I have a little vendetta against pastel shades.

I think the main reason why this iPod phenomenon unsettles me is because they're so common....because they have now become the ultimate symbol of the middle-class. Maybe it's partly because of my line of work, and the fact that the aforementioned middle-class come in droves to seek them out, and I get to repeat the same old thing over and over.

I can thus understand why some people are so anti-iPod. It's not just because some iPods have a strange habit of suddenly packing up for no apparent reason after the one-year warranty, and it's not just because some people have an ingrained anti-Mac streak which makes them rabid...maybe it's just because they want to ignore the status quo.

This is the Pro/Con list I generally go through with each customer who wants to buy an MP3 player and always asks the age-old question: "So what's the difference between the iPods and everything else?"

Pros of Poddy-ness

- colour screen
- slim design, battery life of up to sixteen hours
- scroll/click wheel
- easy access to playlists and genres
- iTunes store
- almost everything is now iPod-tailored (e.g speaker docks, skins)
- games
- relatively cheap for a video player
- Shuffle and 4GB come in such pretty colours

Cons of Poddy-ness

- unlike virtually every other MP3 on the market, it lacks an FM tuner and a voice recorder. Both accessories can be purchased for $79 and $99 respectively, but ain't that a bit annoying?
- songs must be converted into AAC format, which is often not compatible with non-Apple devices (some phones play AAC but you can't play copy-protected AAC on an XBox 360)
- can't 'drag and drop' or use as a backup flash drive
- can't play copy-protected WMAs (unless you burn to disc and transfer them back)
- I personally believe that AAC has an inferior sound quality

But I love Señor i-Poddy Poddy. When he's not safely sheathed in his X-Treme Mac Neoprene case, he's one damn sexy piece of technology.