JonBart.com ™

I once wrote an article on How to be Organized.

Is it a bad sign if I can’t find it?

After about 19 different gbsstudent.com sites were designed, developed, and later scrubbed, I’m finally proud to bring you the real thing. We are now 90% live and accepting GBS Students.

Screenshot:

Quick list of features:

• Forums (with Smileys, picture uploads, fully threaded)
• Books (think Wiki’s, with user-submitted how-to’s, guides, or stories)
• Live Chat (not fully enabled yet, but partially enabled)
• Private Messages
• Blogs (each user gets their own blog area that others can read and comment on)
• CAMPUSED ( a featured blog from Sonja Vernon)
• News (both world and local news, automatically aggregated with special feeds for things like Student Council)
• User-selected themes and layout for maximum customization
• Points system (rewards for participation)
• And so much more!!

I had a lot of help making this site, so I would like to publicaly thank fellow admins Malcolm and Seth for their efforts in getting this setup. I’ll be relying on them and other students to make this a continued success. It’s going to be mind blowing when this gets integrated (hopefully) with our Student Services CD so we can have documents at the fingertips of the students. And integrated with @student.gbs.edu email accounts. And integrated with CAMS Portal, so students can see their status, pay their bills, and register for classes. It’s all in the works. But the site is already open. Come right in, and get registered!

Woot - Woot is a one deal a day website that sells one item a day, starting at 12:00am CST. This item is usually sold at a significant discount in comparison to any other place on the net, yet there is a limited quantity and the item is only sold for a max of 24 hours.

Woot!Off - A Woot!Off is a special event on the Woot website where a multitude of items are sold one after another. Once one item is sold out another item goes up for sale. This leads to buying frenzies if the item is desirable, and Woot Killers if the item is not. This event lasts around 1-2 days in lenght.

Woot Killer - A Woot Killer, or Woot!Off Killer is an item that does not sell quickly during a Woot!Off thus ‘killing’ the Woot!Off and slowing down the rate of new items significantly. In my own personal opinion any item that takes longer than 1.5 hours to sell out is a Woot Killer.

Calvin & Hobbes Snowman Art:Winter at it’s Finest!

Just a couple of updates… Yes, I realize they’re overdue.

Got a new camera. Polaroid 6mp. Sleek little point-and-shoot. Here is a sample image, shot this morning.

Speaking of which, we have SNOW! You know, that white fluffy wet stuff that’s been avoiding us all Winter and deciding to go hang out at strange places like Oklahoma? Well, it’s come back. Not so much that it’s miserable. It’s been kinda nice so far. It’s finally cold too. Took long enough. Skiers of the world rejoice.

I’ll try to post more regularly, but I’ve been “snowed under” with computer work. Averaging 2 to 4 computers an evening to fix. But I’ve been getting a little bit of money from that, so I should probably see about getting that car work done.

Cheerio!

I was just casually looking at my video reports from what I’ve uploaded to Google Video, and that last set of numbers caught my eye. Where are these people even coming from? Who knew that “What is Love” would be such a hit?

Actual phone conversation:

“Hi Jon, this is XXXXX. I’m having trouble with my computer again. I can connect to the Internet, but I can’t browse. I called the dial-up people, and they said my anti-virus or the.. uh… anti-uh..PC Medic thingy could be blocking my Internet Explorer, so they tried to walk me through disabling it, but I gave up. And then, I was going to install People PC’s safe thing, but I couldn’t get online to get it, so, uh… gave up. And then a friend told me it was because I hadn’t run the defragmenter, and so I ran it, and it found all these contagious files, but I couldn’t figure out how to, uh, get them out of there. And my friend says I shouldn’t have Internet Explorer anyways, but instead I should have Netscape’s thing because it has less adjectives.”

“No problem, XXXX. Just bring the computer in to me, I’ll clean it up and return it to you.”

“Ok. Thanks”

Contagious fragments? Adjectives? I swear that’s what he said. I have NO CLUE what he meant.

Welcome to the World of Bart. Your worst moment is my every moment.

Update: A reader reminded me… Defrag uses a term “contiguous” to describe files that aren’t fragmented, which makes sense that someone would misread that as “contagious”. Big difference, folks. By the way, his computer was loaded with more anti-spyware, registry cleaning tools, free screensavers, protection tools…. as the things he was apparently trying to guard against. Less is more. Not all programs help you. If you run two anti-virus programs at the same time, it will have a worse performance rating than most actual virus-infected computers. It’s a fact.

Well-Known Companies on the topic of Buttons:

Google: “Buttons over here, buttons over there. You want a button? We got it. Try one of our sponsored buttons”

Apple: “Buttons are SOOOoooo last century. But if we HAD buttons, they’d look cooler than yours”

Staples: “Two words. Red. Easy. Lawsuit. Wait, that was three.”

Government: “Don’t push it. Yes, we know it’s there. You don’t want to push it.”

Ginger Bread Man:”No not the buttons! Not my gumdrop buttons!”

Wal-Mart: “Generic Button™ Substitute, not associated with Button, Inc., Made in China”

Nintendo: “Whee!!! Buttons!! Wii!!!!”

(continue reading…)

“Iowa based AllFreeCalls is letting people make phone calls to many foreign countries for free. Or rather, for the cost of a call to Iowa. You call the AllFreeCalls phone number, which is 712-858-8094, and at the prompt dial 011, the country code you are calling and the number you wish to call. The call is made at no charge to the user. A list of supported countries and prefixes is here, and the company says they are adding ten more countries in the coming weeks.

Here’s my understanding of how this works: the founder created his own telephone company in Iowa. Iowa is apparently the only state taking advantage of an FCC kickback scheme that gives telco’s a portion of the fees generated from every inbound call to an Iowa number. So when you call the AllFreeCalls phone number, a portion of any long distance fees you are paying go to the company. The kickback is apparently authorized via the Universal Service Fund. These kickbacks are enough on average to more than cover the international outbound calling fees.”

– Via TechCrunch