We’re a bit beyond Valentine’s Day which I hope you all, yes you, all 4 and haife of you who read this enjoyed. But whether it’s Valentine’s Day, Mom or Grandma’s birthday, a special day for the wife or girlfriend, you think about getting flowers delivered, right? RIGHT?! Good. Well, there’s only a few things to consider when buying flowers. 1.) Will it be delivered the day I request? 2.) Will it look pretty? 3.) Will it not break my wallet? Seems pretty damn simple, well, you’d think so anyway. Previous to this last year I had always used 1800flowers.com, who I’m pretty sure uses local florists for delivery. This is pretty common and a well accepted method of flower delivery. That is until they delivered flowers on the wrong day (way to blow that). I began to shop elsewhere. In December I decided to try out ProFlowers.com due to the overwhelming marketing they’d been doing. How bad can they be? 1800flowers.com failed on the first check but the second and third conditions were always met, so it’s not too much to expect ProFlowers to get them right. They had the calendar to select the day I needed, the pictures looked great (durr I guess), and the price was nice. Mom got her flowers, thanked me, thought they were pretty though she told me some weren’t open. Okay, I guess that’s not too bad, right?
Archive for the 'Reviews' Category
Hi. I’m back. Well, still here, rather.
Okay. Wow. Where do I start? I guess about a year ago, when I first told myself it’s time to start reading, I was scouring my favorite forums for off-topic ‘favorite book’ threads. Granted, I stick to tech/geek related forums, however, each forum’s book threads had the same thing in common, a single series: A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin. I really had no clue what it was about, and had only a few books in my arsenal that I’d read—Ender’s Game, The Ruins, Jurassic Park, and Foundation—a little bit of everything. I was ready for anything. When I first opened A Game of Thrones
Forewarning—this is a rant, proceed cautiously. Now, I normally didn’t want to post any rants on TTC, but I figured in this case and maybe future cases it’s absolutely justified. HostGator came recommended from some hosting-talk forums, not to mention ‘sponsored’ as well. My conclusion is that they probably wasted a ton of money on ads and fake reviews judging from their service.
Let’s start with initial sign-up (this is for HydroBarn). The process went smooth, however, their internal billing system is shoddy. It runs off of a “billing” user account on their server and it doesn’t tie in to your original user account. Did I mention it’s slow as balls? Whatever. Up-time has been acceptable. So I need an SSL certificate for my shopping cart. I need a static IP. Additional $2 a month? Okay, I guess. I purchase an SSL certificate from GoDaddy and I’m greeted with a link to SSL configuration on their web page by a live chat support rep, no problem. Generate CSR, get my certificate. “Now what Mr. HostGator support?” Yet another link to their site. They want to charge $10 to install the certificate. What? WHY?!
Foundation
The Galactic Empire had lasted for 12,000 years and ruled over a million planets. But now it was dying. Hari Seldon, creator of the science of psychohistory, knew that it’s death would be followed by 30,000 years of brutal barbarism and savage warfare. To preserve knowledge and shorten the dark period to a mere thousand years, Hari Seldon set up the Encyclopedia Foundation and staffed it with the best scholars and scientists of the Empire. Then he placed it upon Terminus, a bleak world at the edge of the galaxy. But now the Empire was retreating, leaving the Foundation isolated and unprotected. Around it, little barbarian kingdoms were already beginning their wars in search of dominance. The Foundation knew itself as the only hope of mankind. But what could it do, alone and helpless, against the greed of the warlords who were reaching out to conquer and destroy it.
Ender’s Game
Ender’s Game is set far into the future where we find humans preparing for their attempt to [drumroll...] save humanity! They’d been attacked twice by an alien race, the “Buggers,” and believe they may not survive another attack. Ender is 6 years old, a “Third”—3rd child at a time when families are limited to no more than two children—and is believed to be the one. For what? The government is looking for soldiers to lead their fleet and save the world, in this case a Commander, and they’re doing this by monitoring all newborns. Ender’s got an older brother Peter and sister Valentine whom is younger than Peter. Both of them extremely smart but ultimately deemed failures by the government in what they’re looking for. Because of that, however, they allowed a them to have a 3rd child.
Here’s my next review, but I’ll include another preface. Again we have a book that was adapted into a movie, directed by Steven Spielberg, and it was a huge success in theaters back in 1993. I was fortunate to catch this on TV literally the day after I finished the last page of the book. I realize now it’s going to be hard to deal with these movie adaptations—you simply cannot paint the same picture in a movie that you can with an imagination. This actually shocked me because, growing up, I had always thought “the movie will do a better job portraying the story” and boy was I wrong. Enough of the banter though, obviously if you’re looking for book reviews you already know all this.
Jurassic Park
I’d like to start off this post saying that reading is pretty great. I’ve only gotten into reading recently, however. I’ve always considered myself a bit of an intellectual (being that I’ve been a computer/geek for so many years), but I never realized what an impact it would have. To quote many a teacher and speaker: “Reading stimulates the mind.” I’ve got more cheese don’t worry. I’ve also proudly joined the “The book is better than the movie” snob club because it’s God damn true. Anyway, here’s my first review:
The Ruins