I got an E*Trade account a few weeks ago, hoping to buy a stock. As I watched the stock price climb day after day, I waited…and waited…and waited. E*Trade had my money hostage; although the funds were CLEARED and GONE from my checking account, they did not show up at E*Trade. As I discovered, you have to wait five full business days before your transferred funds are available. Shame on me for not understanding the fine print.

So on day four, I decided to open a Scottrade account. I signed on that evening, created the account, transferred some money, and placed the stock purchase order within minutes. The next morning, once the market opened, I had my stock.

It was the NEXT DAY before my money finally showed up on ETrade. So I tried transferring my money out, preparing to close the account. Oops…I received a bizarre “email cannot be confirmed” error. So I called customer support, and they informed me “that’s just a bad error message”. In reality, I have to wait another five days before I can pull my money out.

At long last, about two full weeks after starting down this path, my money is finally out of ETrade. What a joke. A traditional full-service human broker would have been faster, not to mention cheaper, because I could have gotten that stock at the beginning of the week when it was cheaper.

Hopefully this post is useful to someone trying to decide between E*Trade and Scottrade. There is nothing “E” about E*Trade — it is every bit as inefficient as any stodgy old bank.

This isn’t really “new” news, but I just noticed this on my DirecTV DVR:

Effective April 15, 2008, DVR recordings of PPV movies will be available for 24 hours of unlimited viewing after purchase. Major movie studios have required that satellite and cable providers alike may no longer allow their customers to view these recordings for longer than 24 hours. During the 24 hour viewing period, you will continue to enjoy all of your DVR features such as pause and rewind.

What a pile of rubbish. You can find their FAQ at this URL:

“http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/global/contentPage.jsp?assetId=P4540022″

To me, that looks like a URL that will break. So I won’t link to it.

What year is this? Even with old school hand coded Servlets and JSPs, clean public URLs are a piece of cake. Does some programmer really think “contentPage.jsp?assetId=P4540022″ is a good URL? Why not something ending in “ppv/faq/”?

Movies, like music, should be DRM free. And URLs should not expose implementation details.

I think I found a sure-fire way to identify a product that sucks. Just look for the “killer” claim. For example, Rick Ross says the Nokia iPhone Killer will have Java inside. An “iPhone Killer”? Really? Hmm…

• HTC Launches Apple iPhone ‘Killer’ – HTC Touch
• Linux-powered iPhone killer available online in March
• Verizon Voyager: iPhone Killer?

Lest you think this insanity is limited to iPhones…

• Microsoft’s iPod killer?
• Is the Sansa e280 an iPod Nano Killer?

And it’s not even limited to Apple products. Just do some Googling…

• Windows killer
• Rails killer
• Java killer

I can’t think of an example where the “killer” actually “killed”. The problem is, the market leader became the leader by leapfrogging everyone else with an innovative new product that nobody saw coming. The iPhone was a quantum leap above everything else on the market, and all of these stupid “killer” phones are desperately trying to catch up. So far, nobody even comes close.

If someone really is working on a killer product, you have not heard about it. Not only that, most people probably won’t even recognize it as such, because it will be innovative and new. It’ll storm onto the scene and become the new leader, spawning a whole new generation of “killers”.

I’d like to devise a strategy for organizing photos. Up until now, I’ve manually organized pictures into a directory tree. At the top level, I have a year, then folders for each month, then a bunch of pictures. For example:

2008
 |
 +--01_Jan
 +--02_Feb
 +--etc...

The number prefix keeps things properly sorted. But I’m losing out on searching, tagging, etc, and would like to simply move to Picasa.

I’m curious how other people organize their photos, using Picasa. It would be nice if there was a “best practices” guide or perhaps even a “common organization patterns” guide, that listed a few different strategies for organizing photos on the hard drive. Then I could choose the strategy that works best for me.

How do you organize your photos?

I’ve been through this before. I was a PrimeStar customer several years ago, until one fateful day when we received a letter describing how WONDERFUL it was that DirecTV acquired PrimeStar. This was, of course, in my best interest as a consumer, and I would soon receive many new benefits.

The migration from PrimeStar to DirecTV took quite some time due to incompatible equipment. They gradually rolled out service across the nation, and once the final customers were switched over…BANG! Rates went up.

Fast forward a few years, and the XM and Sirius merger is approved. Oh, wonderful. I cannot wait for the benefits. Here are my predictions:

• Opie and Anthony will be fired from their XM show sometime in 2008.
• Rates will go up in January, 2009, just after the holiday season.
• Existing subscribers won’t receive any additional channels. (Aren’t they already at bandwidth capacity?) We’ll basically have the same overall number of stations, but content will be simulcast across both Sirius and XM satellites to save production costs. So if U-Pop is your favorite station on XM, it may go away and be replaced with something roughly equivalent from Sirius.
• Advertisements will continue to increase. All of you non-satellite radio people might be surprised to hear that MANY satellite radio stations now include significant numbers of commercials. The number continues increasing, particularly with a larger audience and ad revenue these owners cannot refuse.
• In 2009 we’ll see a “next generation” receiver that uses some new format. While current subscribers can continue using their existing equipment, new channels will only be available to people buying the new equipment.

Those are my cynical predictions. I REALLY enjoy Opie and Anthony and will stay with XM until they are fired in late 2008. Then I’ll cancel my subscription and will listen to Java Posse podcasts while driving to/from work.

It all started with some scrap MDF:

UPDATE: Here is the ebay listing.

I cut the circular base using a router and some scrap wood as a circle cutting jig:

Resulting in a perfect circle:

Using the router, I then cut a rabbet around the edge of the base:

Here is the completed rabbet with the motherboard and fan. This is a mini-ITX motherboard:

Next Steps

Here is a picture of the 12″ diameter steel hemisphere:

And here’s a little jig to route out the fan hole:

I used my drill press to cut the circles, which provide ventilation as well as holes for wires:

Here I’m gluing the four feet on the underside of the base:

Primer and Paint

Painting was very time consuming. Here is some primer on the hemisphere:

And some paint on the base:

Metal Brackets

I used some aluminum stock to fabricate the front panel (power, reset, and LEDs):

And the hard drive brackets:

Here we see the Raptor hard drive and fan mounted to the base:

I used threaded rod, washers, and nuts to suspend the motherboard above the drive:

Nearing completion:

With the painted cover, with holes for eyes and salvaged antenna:

Here is the final product:

All of these pictures are on Picasa Web Albums.

For Sale

Here is the ebay listing.

Now that Android is done, I don’t have much use for it. The specs are as follows:

• JetWay J7F4K1G5D-PB VIA NanoBGA C7 Processor VIA CN700 Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo
• Western Digital 74GB 10,000 RPM Raptor drive
• 1 GB RAM
• picoPSU-120 Power Kit (this is REALLY cool – check out the link)
• 12″ diameter steel hemisphere case
• Ubuntu 7.10 installed

Keyboard, Mouse, and monitor are NOT included.

Here is what I’ve been working on for the past few weeks. My Google Android custom PC:

I posted additional pictures on this photo album.

This is a fully functional computer, including a JetWay Mini ITX motherboard with a Via C7 CPU, 1GB RAM, Ubuntu 7.10, and a 10,000 RPM 74 GB Raptor.

Here’s the back with the cover on:

The cover is a 12″ steel hemisphere (yes, you can order ANYTHING online). I had to cut out the holes, sand, and paint; painting was the hardest part of this project. All of the wires come out through the holes in the bottom, which is a circular piece of MDF.

I’ll follow up later this week with additional photos showing the construction and assembly process. I plan to sell this, so let me know if you are interested. I’ll probably put it up on EBay in a week or so.

I just bought some electronics components and received the following confirmation email:

Comments : Your order was shipped by Malaysian Post. Normal shipping time is 1-2 weeks. We thank you for your patience.

Yikes. I’m used to Newegg, where I receive the package almost as fast as the email confirmation.

I really like Google Reader’s shared items. This way other people (hopefully with similar interests) filter the good stuff for free. For instance, I’ve noticed Crazy Bob shared several Chumby links. Which made me think…wtf is Chumby?

Chumby is a little clock radio that gets crap off the Internet via wifi. So I guess you are supposed to put it on the nightstand by your bed. When you wake up, you roll over and look at your Chumby. It’s fun explaining this to your Mom:

No, Mom…I didn’t say I had a “Chumby in bed”…I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. My Chumby is on the nightstand next to my bed.

When you wake up, you stay in bed for an hour to listen to the latest JavaPosse episode. OK, that seems weird to me. I never lay in bed and listen to my clock radio. The alarm goes off, I hit snooze a few times, and get up. Then again…the prospect of browsing certain kinds of craigslist ads while in bed may appeal to some people…if you’re into that sort of thing.

But wait…this article says Chumby is for your desk. That’s nice and all, but my desk already has a computer on it. A real computer with two big monitors, good speakers, a huge hard drive, and a fast wired network connection.

Using Chumby as a digital photo frame makes the most sense to me. The price is fair and they don’t charge a monthly service fee. This might make a nice gift for someone to better keep up with extended family pictures.

I dunno…I guess I’m not really sold. If accessing the Internet from a non-PC-equipped room is your goal, perhaps an iPod Touch makes more sense? At $299, the iPod is more expensive, but offers vastly better mobility. I can definitely see myself sitting on the back patio this summer with an iPod. But dragging a Chumby outside and plugging it in? That’s not nearly as convenient.

Sean O’Driscoll is on to us programmers. Check out his apostrophe exposé. Yep. Our systems suck, big time. We can’t even handle apostrophes correctly.

Rocket Science

1. Send a man to the moon. Check.
2. Shoot down a satellite. Check.
3. Mars rover. Check.
4. Hubble. Check.

Non-Rocket Science

1. Display an apostrophe character. ***FAIL***

UPDATE!!!

Here is my java.blogs email alert for this post: