benmcfadden.com

Just arrived home from the first day of my first Rage Festival.

Awesome. But I’m exhausted. That makes a LONG day.

Maybe if I get bored later I’ll put some pictures on my flickr or something. Maybe after day 2.

What would you do for a hundred bucks? Cash.

If I said “I’m giving away one hundred thousand dollars. Each person is entitled to one hundred of those dollars. Just be at the town gate to collect it on January 14th.” Would you go?

What about if “town gate” was replaced with “office chair” and “one hundred dollars cash” was replaced with “one hundred dollars worth of electronic goodness.” Then Would you go?

I would. And that’s exactly what I did. Today, January 7th, Sparkfun had a free day. Yes, a free day. (read about it on their website) Everything was free in your order (well, the first hundred dollars were free).  I got up early for this event. I was ready to go. I had my items in my cart last night, ready to checkout. Come 9:00 am (MST) this morning when the free event started, I clicked checkout.

Nothing happened. It timed out.

REFRESH!

Timeout again.

(repeat umpteen times)

Nothing. I got nothing. I had a few glimmers of hope. I was able to tell them I wanted to use FedEx Home shipping, and I was able to tell them my credit card number is 5500 0000 0000 0004. Just kidding. But I did get to tell them my credit card number. And then, moments before I was destined to click “confirm order” (c’mon, let my dream live), they reached the $100,000 mark.

Thank you for the fun Sparkfun.

You should do it again. Except, let me win this time.

It’s been almost 2 months since I last updated. Hard to believe.. wait.. no it’s not.  It’s quite a regular thing for me to wait 2 months between posting. In any case, I apologize for my lack of updates to my so many readers. I think I have 3 now. And that includes myself.

The past 2 months have been full of ups and downs. To sum it up there’s been lots of changes, some good and some bad.

several people have arrived
and several people have fled

lots of things have been purchased
and lots of things have been lost

endless love has been given
and endless love has been received

frustration has come
and frustration has gone

time went tic
and time went tock

in the end two months were seen
and in the end two months have past

Alright, that’s my terrible attempt at poetry. And they say I needed to go to college. Pfft.

Really, nothing super huge that I want to post online has happened.

Life is good. Thank you God.

Please See the Updates at the bottom of the post

Background:
A hosting company I use quite regularly is great, except when I add a domain pointer as they call it (also often called an addon domain) it takes 90 minutes before their DNS servers get the update. The ROOT DNS servers for the whole Internet take only a couple minutes. I want to know why this hosting company is so far behind in things.

My message to them:

I have approximately 15 domains hosted on [your company] under various accounts. I continue to recommend [your company] for hosting to my clients as your uptime is great, and the service is worth every penny and then some!

I also have at least 40 – 50 domains hosted elsewhere ([competing company], [competing company], [competing company], and a few small “mom and pop” hosting companies).

I have one problem that all of these other companies have managed to solve, and I would like to know why [your company] still has this problem. Whenever I add a new domain pointer (some hosting companies call this an addon domain) it takes approximately 90 minutes for the [your company] name servers to get the entry added into their settings files. On my other hosting accounts, this process only takes 5 minutes or less.

It’s really not a deal killer, but it would be nice if when adding a new domain to an existing account, it only took a few minutes for the [your company] DNS to catch up, afterall, the root DNS servers are updated in a matter of minutes. Why can’t [your company] do the same?

Thanks for your explanation,
Ben

Their response:

Hi Ben,

When a new domain is created, it takes about 60-90 minutes for the DNS changes to fully propagate to our nameservers. This is why you are seeing the delay in resolution. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause

Now, perhaps I am wrong, but I believe that they just admitted to me that they are aware they are pathetically slow, but that they are not going to tell me why, or put any effort into fixing it.

Honestly, I have no idea what’s involved in making this work quicker. But I do know that every other hosting company I have used does not have this problem, and thus it is solvable. Heck, if the root DNS servers can refresh more often, why can’t these?

On top of that, why can’t customer service actually answer my question, instead of repeating half of what I said and adding an apology. I wasn’t asking for an apology, I was asking for a solution!

</rant>

UPDATE 2009-07-30 11:25 am

I filled out their survey about my ticket, and rated it honestly. Which was poorly. I believe the question I rated worst was “Did your question/problem get answered/solved?” They responded to my survey with this:

Hi Ben,

I see that you rated this ticket a 2, so I simply wanted to follow-up with you to ensure that your issue was resolved as well as to get feedback from you on how we could have better handled your ticket. Any feedback, positive or negative, would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance and have a great day!

Best regards,

I simply stated the truth. My question was never answered.

My question wasn’t answered in the response. I asked WHY it was that
way and if [your company] was ever going to get up to par with their DNS
system. The response simply restated my description of the problem
with your DNS having huge delays. I already know that there is a delay
in your DNS. That was very clear in my question, and subject.  See my
blog post for further ranting about this ticket:
http://benmcfadden.com/blog/?p=31

Update 2 2009-07-31 1:12am

Earlier today I received a useful response from this company. Not only did it answer my question, it was from a high-up in the company. I must admit I am surprised that filling out a survey actually got me any attention. This is the response I received:

Ben,

You’re absolutely correct; our representative did not address you questions at all. I will be speaking with him to go over how he should have handled your questions.

To be honest though, not many of our support personnel would have been able to answer that. But, I can.. so I will. The “problem” is two-fold:

1) It takes up to 45 minutes for cron to generate the named configuration — it depends on when the changes are made in relation to the last cron execution. Once the cron is complete, notification is sent to our slave DNS servers at which point they request the update. Our cron used to be set to faster intervals in updates, but we saw far too many errors in the process which obviously isn’t desirable.

2) The current DNS system we use is antiquated and set to be replaced. Our CTO and CSO are working on its replacement, but a couple other projects are taking precedence. We hope to have the new DNS system out by the end of the year, but don’t hold me to that!

If you have any further questions or comments, by all means do not hesitate to let me know.

Best regards,

[John Smith]
Chief Operating Officer

I’m impressed. He was honest, and actually provided me with an acceptable answer. And he’s the C.O.O. of the company. Or at least claims so in his email signature. In any case, I’ll at least pretend he is.

Do you know what Initial Point, Arizona is? Neither did most people I asked.

Back in the 1850s and 60s when Arizona was surveyed, they needed a point to start from.  For a variety of reasons, they chose the peak of a particular hill. It was near the convergence of the Gila and Salt rivers, and it contained a small marking structure already. Eventually, it was turned into the monument you see here.

Initial point is located at approximately 115th Ave (also known as Avondale Rd) and Baseline Rd. (Ever wonder where Baseline gets it’s name? It’s because it’s the base line of the surveying in Arizona)  It’s atop the hill directly east of the Phoenix International Raceway.  To be precise, it is located at N 33.37717  W 112.30613.

Since I had never been to the area, and it was an interesting enough thing to go see, I was willing to spend the gas money to go see the monument.  It was amazingly green around there. You’d think that the gila and salt rivers were in the area or something. Check out the rest of the pictures here.

Any bets until I get hit again? I’ve heard ranges from 2 days to 2 months.. My friends are so supportive.

I love how we can blame anything in this world on our economic condition, regardless of how grossly inaccurate the blame may be.  In any case, I am choosing to blame my lack of ability to find the truck I want on the girl who hit me (previous post), and the economy. Ahh… that feels better. It’s not my fault anymore!

What the ‘economists’ are telling me, is that people are choosing to keep their current vehicle instead of upgrading to a newer vehicle and selling their old one to me. This is a problem, as I currently don’t have a vehicle. I do, however, have money to spend on a vehicle.  This brings up an interesting point about our true economic problem, but more about that later.

I simply want a truck equivalent to the one that was taken from me. I’m not asking for an upgrade. But I won’t settle for a downgrade.  I’ve been aggressively shopping now for a month.  I’ve looked at every vehicle on craigslist that is even remotely close to what I want. I’ve checked autotrader as well. Even went to a nation wide search on autotrader, and still couldn’t find exactly what I’m looking for.

I’ve looked at every result for 4 weeks now. Of all the vehicles that I found for sale, 13 vehicles were close enough to what I was looking for that I obtained a VIN and ran a carfax. That means they were a Chevy Silverado 1500 or GMC Sierra 1500, 2000-2007classic, 4 wheel drive, and had some power options, and didn’t look totally trashed. Of those, 2 passed my round of followup questions. That means they had a clean carfax record, were (claimed to be) in good shape, all power features worked, didn’t have 300,000 miles on it, etc etc etc. I test drove those 2 vehicles. Turns out, someone who speaks Spanish is terrible at explaining to you a vehicle’s condition in English, and a bad power steering unit and a torn seat mean “Great mechanical condition” and “Perfect interior.”

What I had, and am looking to replace:

• 2001
• Chevrolet
• Silverado 1500
• Extended Cab
• Short bed
• 139,636 miles
• Transmission rebuilt 30,000 miles ago
• Push-button 4WD
• Z71 off-road package
• Towing Package
• AC that works great
• LS series:
• -Power Windows
• -Power Door Locks
• -Power Mirrors
• -Power Seats (forward/back; up/down only)
• Cloth interior with no tears in it
• Fold down armrest/console (aka 6th seat)
• Minimal scratches on the paint
• No prior accidents or body repair
• Beautiful Victory Red paint (really, it’s called Victory Red)

The problem here is not getting the money to buy such a vehicle, it’s finding someone to take my money in exchange for such a vehicle. There just aren’t any vehicles like this out there. It’s so depressing.

Anyway, in summary maybe the problem with our economy really isn’t that people aren’t spending, or that people don’t have money to spend. Perhaps it’s that people aren’t ready to accept the money that people are willing to spend. Seems silly to me.

How hard is it to keep your eyes on the road while you’re driving? Seriously people. C’mon.  A little over a month ago, I was driving my truck, and I got broadsided by a girl going 40 through a red light. Totaled my truck.  I don’t know what she was doing for sure, but considering that the light had been red for some time (nearly 10 seconds) I do know that she wasn’t paying attention to the road in front of her. I mean, how do you miss a Big Red Truck?

Tonight / this morning (shortly after midnight) I was stopped at a red light, and I got rear ended. The girl was looking after her ferret in the seat next to her and just didn’t stop in time.  Damage to the vehicle I was driving was minimal (crinkled the bumper). She was nearly stopped. But still, wasn’t watching the road.

I drive less than average, and I’ve managed to be in 2 accidents in the past 34 days, where in both cases the other driver wasn’t paying attention, and was at 100% fault. Also, both drivers were 18 year old girls. I have strong suspicions that the first one was texting, but I cannot prove that. The second one was looking at a pet.  What is wrong here? So I ask you, why don’t people LOOK while they drive? Seriously, it’s not that hard.

No computer and no Truck make Ben something something

For those who don’t get the reference, see below:

The Simpsons -  Treehouse of Horror V (Season 6, Episode 6)

Typically before a story like this you’d say “Close your eyes and visualize this.” But since it’s a blog, I won’t do that. But visualize it. With your eyes open.

So you’re walking down a hall. It’s a big hall. Lots of doors in it. The hall is so long, you can’t see the end of it.  Some doors are closed, and others are wide open. Some of the closed doors will be opened if you knock, others will not.  You walk through an open door.  Through this door is (continue reading…)