Craig.Carlen[Online].com

I will always be the fist to admit that when God was handing out drawing/painting skills I skipped out of line and ran to the bathroom.  I have zero (nada, none, ziltch) artisitic drawing or painting skills.  Heck, I have a tough time painting a room a single color…

For those of us that have always wanted to be an artist but found the process painful, uninspiring, difficult, and/or impossible, I present to you Bomomo.  Let your budding (but well hidden) artist out - have fun, experiment with the different tools, and ENJOY!

Just a few days ago I posted this - now it seems Wal-mart is resorting to bullying, threats, and illegal detainment…all over 4 bags of sugar.

Now everyone repeat after me…I will not give my hard earned money to the Evil Empire from Bentonville, AR.

I forgot to mention…a few weeks ago I finally got around to putting some of my media projects I’ve either been a part of or created out right here on my site.  They’re on the projects page.  I’m proud of all of them in one way or another:

• The CentrePointe Commemoration Service just because of the sheer scope of the project.
• The recordings with The Avian Conspiracy because of the potential I saw in layering three electric guitars and getting to work with an amazing group of young men.
• The Graduate Student Resource project from my class I Michigan State - I was awed by the talent I was working with.  Talk about an easy group to manage…and to be chosen as an award winner from all the projects submitted from all the undergraduate and graduate classes throughout that year was a nice touch.
• The CentrePointe Photo Montage is really my favorite.  I put a lot of myself in that video.  It’s still not quite what I had envisioned - but it’s pretty close and by all accounts was pretty meaningful - which meant more to me than most would have known.

As I complete more projects they’ll find their way onto this site.  For now my miniDV camera has finally gone and died - I can’t complain…It lasted 11 years.  But there’s a new Canon Vixia HV20 miniHDV with full 1080i capabilities on the near horizon.  Waiting has always been a problem for me…

I know, this has nothing to do with technology and how it impacts lives… But what have I said about Wal-Mart…If it’s only avaialble at Wal-Mart then I don’t need it?  Well they’re doing nothing but help to solidify my feelings about them: Student Jailed on Bogus Wal-Mart Forgery Charge.

If you’ve at all looked near the top of this blog I promote the use of FireFox (or other W3C compliant browsers).  I’ve never liked Internet Explorer and with the release of IE7 my feelings didn’t change.  It’s still not compliant and knowing Microsoft it never will be.

Well The Mozilla Foundation is putting the final touches on FireFox 3 - the highly anticipated release that FireFox users are hoping will take care of several bugs and annoyances.  I’ve been using FF3 for about two weeks now and have found it to be as stable as FF2 while being substantially faster at loading pages.  It still has some issues with plug-in support - but it’s up to the author of the plug-in to supply a properly coded plug-in.  At this point 7 of the 20 plug-ins I’ve been running on FF2 do not work with FF3.  Not a huge deal and at this point and I’ve not really missed them.

Something I truly enjoy about the Internet - and specifically the World Wide Web - is that it’s constantly in flux.  It’s always changing - never quite the same as the last time you saw it.  But sometimes when things change they are really remaining the same - they just look different, or feel different.  Something that my studies at Michigan State focused on quite a bit was usability and sustainability.  Looking at how usable a website or web application is and how sustainable will it be.  This is accomplished with a variety of methodologies like play testing, focus group analysis, competitive analysis and so on.  Usability testing can be rather tedious - but its fruits can be very valuable.  Just ask Google.

This past weekend I lost a friend. I had not seen John in many years, but I always held our friendship very close and always spoke very highly of John in any conversation. Not that his name came up in many conversations…why would it? Unless you consider - as I do - prayer as conversation. And John’s name came up every now and again during those times.

John was my Sunday school teacher when I was 14. He didn’t teach me anything extraordinary - on the contrary, the class was fairly ordinary as I recall. Except for one particular Sunday. John played this song Godpleaser. As a young teen dealing with ADHD I admit I didn’t always pay attention in John’s class - but when I heard that song I leaned forward in my chair and just starred at that cassette player wide-eyed like I’d never seen or heard anything so sweet.

You see, music has always been something very special to me. As a child growing up I never read much - it wasn’t enjoyable like so many of my friends said it was. Rather, reading was an arduous task set upon me that I learned not to enjoy. (Later as an adult I discovered why.) But I’ve always had an appreciation for music that goes beyond simple enjoyment. I hear in music what many people describe when they read a good book. That they are taken into the world created by the author. And that’s how I often feel listening to music - lost in a world of colors, harmonies, imbalance and counter-balance - I can ‘see‘ the music. (It goes well beyond that description - but that’s really the best I can describe how music effects me.)

When I heard that song by Petra it spoke to me like no other single piece of music had - it tied the beliefs I had always believed to this idea of faith I had been struggling with. I was just so enamored with what I heard that I needed more. Eventually I think I owned well over 600 CCM tapes - and now who knows how many CDs I have not to mention mp3s in iTunes (46.7 Gigs of music or 6874 songs - I checked).

Love for music is something God gave me - a gift I am so grateful for I generally can’t express just how grateful I am. But John - with something as small and simple as playing one four and a half minute song - was used by God to help mold who I am. And for that, I am forever grateful.

So it was just over a week ago that I had a few words about Dell. Looks like the New York Attorney General felt much the same as I do. Well yesterday a New York state judge agreed. Finding Dell…

…has engaged in repeated misleading, deceptive and unlawful business conduct,including false and deceptive advertising of financing promotions and the terms of warranties, fraudulent, misleading and deceptive practices in credit financing and failure to provide warranty service and rebates.

You can read the full text of the decision here.

I could only wish we lived in New York state. Dell did much the same to us that the NY AG is complaining about. Bait and switch on the Dell Preferred Account - when we purchased my wife’s computer the interest rate was listed as 0% as a 18 month promotional rate - the first bill showed with the interest rate at a whopping 29% but Dell Financial was unwaivering on changing it. And of course since Dell’s return policy is 14 days we couldn’t return the computer because the bill was deferred for 60 days. We never received promised rebates after mailing the proper documentation to Dell’s rebate center numerous times. Even when we had to have my wife’s laptop serviced the problem wasn’t completely fixed. And by the time I contacted them about fixing the problem again we were two days past the service contract’s expiration. And I can only say if you want an enjoyable experience rivaling that of having your teeth pulled, try calling Dell on a service issue after your service contract has expired. Better yet, try the on-line chat.  And yet if you’re a small business or enterprise client of Dell they bend over backwards to satisfy your needs.  Too bad they have forgotten it was selling to the average Joe that put Dell on the map.

There are few things I can guarantee in life - but of the few I can, I’ve just added never owning another Dell to the list.