Lewies Blog

A few years ago, I purchased a new phone.  I really went all out on it. I got a camera phone with internet access and a color screen.  It was even capable of running programs downloaded from the internet.  Coolest of all was its screen that could flip.  It was the Samsung SPH-A600.

Step a head to the present and my phone is out of date.  Sure, it does everything I need it to.  That is, it makes phone calls.  Everything else is just for kicks.  I’ve been over-paying my cell phone account for a while now building up for this big moment.  A pocket-pc phone.

Yes, I have a pocket PC.  I have one of the first.  Just like my cell phone, I purchased the pocket pc on the first day it became available to the public.  The HP Jornada 540 still works, but has the same problems.  I couldn’t upgrade its operating system like the other two that came out that day.  It doesn’t support the .Net framework that I program with today (the existing software I made programs on wont even install on my computer anymore).  Also, it was a pain to even type since that screen started getting out of synch with where I tapped the stylus on the letters.

So today, this little Pocket PC had all of those things worked out.  It has a sliding keyboard, and runs latest version of Pocket PC (which should let me program for it again). My mobile phone company has other handheld assistants, but they are for the Palm and Blackberry platforms.  I don’t know where to begin for programming for those.

When I asked about hands-free sets, the associate directed me to bluetooth ear attachments.  I’ve seen people using these things before, but I had assumed that they were the entire phone.  These things look like something from star trek where a small gadget attaches to you and does everything for you.  The only problem is that you look like you are going around talking to yourself when you are not using it in the car.  I was in the restroom once where someone was using one.  Talk about potty talk and bad mannors.

So anyways, the money I have in my mobile account would do more then pay for it.  I could get it for $449 today but they were out of stock.  I’ll have to look up some other stores in the area to see if they have one in stock.

A little over a year ago, I participated in an acceptance test for an upcomming service called NewsworthyAudio. The service converts news stories to audio. During the test, there were stories read by people, and others read by computers. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between a person and a machine. They have software that has many “bits” of a real person speaking that strings those bits together to read out the story.

I bring this up because they sent me an email today regarding there service. They have 5 new free podcasts available in the iTunes library. They are also taking surveys in return for a free week of there service once they go live. If you are interested in what they are about, head on over to register and take the survey. After that, subscribe to the iTunes feed and listen.

I was reading the ID3 podcast magazine with an article about Trademarks (Trademark Law Can Protect Your Podcast’s Name). Although there are some laws protecting the name of your podcast without having to register anywhere, they suggest that you do so with the United States Patent and Trademark office (USPTO).

I was curiouse and had a look. I found a page to help me get started with trademarks. I soon found the link to forms to file for trademarks. A few moments later, I found exactly what I was looking for. I found the trademark filing fees were $325 US to file electronically ($375 by paper). On top of that, you need to file an Alligation of Use form ($100) if someone else uses your mark.

Of course, there are a ton of services that help you file trademarks to make it easier for you. One of them that I had seen charged $159 in addition to the application fee and includes a trademark search. They also claim that a lawyer would charge $1,285.

Why is this trademark office so money hungry? Perhaps if there was a fee of $25 dollars, I would file with the name of my podcast as a trademark. How involved is it, really? Someone clicks a button that says “Approved”. Where is the value of $325 going? What does that itemized list of services that they actually provide look like?

Back in the day when I went to school, we had been told that the simplest way to make a case for your trademark was to put it in an envelope and mail it to yourself. The reason behind this is that the United States Postal Service (USPS) would mark it with the place and date that it was received in the system.

When you receive the letter - don’t open it. It gets filed with your important papers and to be opened in court if the need arrises. This helps prove your case that you were using the trademark earlier then someone else and the federal government was used to prove the date. The main rule for trademark laws is that you need to be the first to use it. I think if you can prove that you used the mark earlier then someone else who is using it (even if they registered it), then you win. I could be wrong there.

I guess you could call that system “the poor mans trademark protection”. However, I don’t think you can use the ® symbol after your trademark since it isn’t registered with the USPTO. I wonder if it would be cheaper to register with other governments just so that you could use the ® symbol.

From what I have seen on the internet, you can still use the ™ or ^SM Symbols as long as you are claiming to have rights to the mark. It is possible that people do this even when those rights may not be valid.

Note: This is not legal advice.

I recently pulled out my W-10 Digital Voice Recorder and started grabbing the old files from it. I immediatley found two things that I just hated about this thing. First - the speed at wich files are transfered to the computer is very slow. The other is these thwap sounds. The recorder inserts these high noises of clicks, thwaps and scratches. I eventaully found a program to help me edit the files to remove the sounds called Audacity. The thing is, these sounds shouldn’t be there in the first place. Hopefully with the WS-200S that I just purchased, these problems will not be apparent anymore.

I also found a few old files on my old hard drive and uploaded them to the DreamyAudio podcast. It looks like I need to download a program (such as ID3-TagIT) to edit the meta-data within those MP3 files, as the feed that reads them looks a bit odd now.

It appears that the ID3-TagIT website is having some problems.  I’ve sent an email to the author, but thankfully I still had a copy of the program on my old hard disk.

I’ve just gone through a night mare. I’m still just exhausted from the experience. I’ve recently got my tax refund on payday, so I have over $6,000 to my name at this moment. What better way to spend it then invest in a nice HDTV?

I’ve trodden along with my mother in-law going to different stores and comparing prices and features. I finally settled on a 42″ plasma HD Monitor from AKAI for $1497.76. I went into Sam’s club, picked up one of many tickets available under the television and went to the front to purchase it. I headed over to customer service afterwards to pick it up. Unfortunately, there was only 1 television in there inventory and that was the floor model.

After a half hour of store employees running around and figuring out what to do, I was left with a refund of $1572.65 including taxes. Since I purchased it with my debt card, they could only refund in cash. The cashier started counting money and quickly ran out of hundreds and fifties. I’m there looking at the pile of money dreading the fact that I would be carrying it all out in an overstuffed wallet.

“Don’t worry, we can just call the bank if I don’t have enough”, she said. “More time”, I thought. In the mean time, my mother in-law and niece were waiting outside in the van for me. I came up with an idea and asked if it could all be put on my Wal-Mart card. “Just pretend that you cave me all the cash, and then take it all back as a payment on my card”, I said. After thinking about it, she agreed that it would work.

So in the end, I walked out with an over-paid Wal-Mart Credit Card and a form to file a complaint. It took me a while to find that form as well, as it was well hidden behind a display at the exit. I spent a minute trying to reach back far enough to grab it.

I’ve got such a head ache from this. My wife started rubbing my temples and it helped relax me much. Still, I feel like I went through all of that hell for no reason. Next time I’ll go to customer service first if I make a purchase like that in Sam’s Club again.

The cashiers computer should have picked up the fact that there were not any television models remaining. Even if the floor model was available (which it wasn’t), the computer should have flagged it as such and directed the cashier to confirm that I did want it. Customer service should have been able to issue a ticket of some kind to me to let me come back when the televisions did come in stock again so one would be reserved and paid for in my name. Someone should have removed all tickets under the display model once all available inventory was sold out. I should have been given some form of compensation for having gone through this ordeal.

With all of the privacy statements that loan companies and such bring to your attention, you would think that the whole industry would be very sensitive about it. Unfortunately, I’ve been getting spammed with offers since I purchased my home almost every day in the mail.

On of the things that these companies do that really gets me mad is disclosing my financial information on a post card. That’s rite, they write on the post card how much my home was when I purchased it, and an estimate of what I pay each month. These people will do anything to get my money from interest.

I just hate all of there little tricks to make envelopes look like official documents from the government, contests, or overdue collection notices. The first thing I do is look at the size of an envelope. If it isn’t the standard size (about 5 inches by 10 inches), then it is probably not worth taking a look at it and I put it at the bottom of the pile of mail to look at. Same goes for any color other then white. If there is writing on it other then who it is from, your address and the post mark, then that also lowers my interest.

Today we had some visitors on our doorstep. They were trying to reach my sister in-law who has since moved. Who were these people? One was the manager of an ex-employee who is also an ex-boyfriend. We’ll call him Mr. A. The guy was pleading with us for any information, anything at all to give to Mr. A.

Apparently, Mr. A. has been harassing him day and night with phone calls. Nasty phone calls. The manager tried to contact his phone company about it. They couldn’t give him the number or any information because that would invade Mr. A.’s privacy since he actively choose to block that information. The end result was that they suggested for him to change his phone number. This is not good for a small business.

So here I am on the doorstep with a man who can’t get a good nights sleep because of the constant calls. His cell, his home, his business. We had to put our foot down and explain that we had already gone through the same ordeal and that we would not give him any information.

As my wife started to change the subject onto an incriminating situation of his own, he turned and thanked us for our time. I’ll have to remember that little trick the next time I don’t want to talk to someone.

Angel watches many videos on Stupid Videos. The site seems to be very popular. For this reason, I was a little shocked when I received the following email:

I just tried uploading a video on stupidvideos.com

And it gave me this error message:

“Upload Without COM 3.0 error ‘8004000b’

Not enough free space available.[Need help? Contact Lewis Moten,
lewis@moten.com, http://www.lewismoten.com]

/include/clsField.asp, line 431″

It looks like the folks over at Stupid Videos ran out of disk space by the looks of this message.

I’ve uploaded many scripts over the years to an open-source community on the internet called Planet Source Code. The third generation of my upload files without COM script for ASP has been a contest winner and very popular. It brings a warm feeling in my heart to see that well known sites are picking up on the script as well.

I checked my mailbox today and saw an envelope from Ticketmaster. Inside was two tickets for Dead Can Dance. Angel turned down the offer to come with me. I introduced a coworker to the music samples from them on Amazon.com. She may be interested in coming with me to the show. I just have to remember to bring in one of my albums for her to listen to tomorrow.

They have such a large variety of styles. It is perhaps like dark ethnic folk music with astounding vocals. There music is just mesmeric and beautiful. If you haven’t heard of Dead Can Dance, I suggest that you check out a few music samples with Amazon.com or iTunes.

I am really excited about the show. I’ve been reading a few blogs about it as they move from one town to the next. Practically everyone is agreeing that the show is over the top. Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry have really out done themselves.

Tags: Mail, Tickets, Dead Can Dance, Music, Concerts, Excited

Being a resident in the U.S., I often see mail come to my home address with bar codes on it. I never paid much attention to them. Today that changed. I dug around and found that these are called POSTNET Barcodes. Each digit is represented by 2 tall bars and 3 short bars.

At first, I thought it was setup on the base-2 system. Base 2 would represent each tall bar with the values of 16, 8, 4, 2 and 1 in respect to the bars placement. The POSTNET system assigns the values of 7, 4, 2, 1 and 0. So if I wanted to represent the digit 5, I would choose bars representing 4 and 1 “.l.l.”. In binary, it would have been “..l.l”. The binary system would also pose a problem in that there are 21 extra numbers that would never be used.

This new numbering system causes a problem with the digit zero since you “must” choose 2 bars. Looking at all the possible combinations, you can see that 7 and 4 equal 11. Since 11 is not a single digit, this combination is used instead to represent zero. So here is a break down of each digit:

1. …ll
2. ..l.l
3. ..ll.
4. .l..l
5. .l.l.
6. .ll..
7. l…l
8. l..l.
9. l.l..
0. ll…

So now we all know the numbers. There are three types of barcodes. Now lets look at the format of the barcode. Here are mine:

Zip: 22191 (5)
l..l.l..l.l…lll.l…..ll.l.l.l

Zip+4: 22191-4248 (7)
l..l.l..l.l…lll.l…..ll.l..l..l.l.l..ll..l.l…ll

Zip+4 and Data Point: 22191-4248-26 (9)
l..l.l..l.l…lll.l…..ll.l..l..l.l.l..ll..l…l.l.ll..l.l..l

Each barcode begins and ends with a full line. The first 5 digits are your Zip Code. The next 4 (if present) are your Zip+4 address. If you have a PO Box, or a building number, then you may also have the last two digits of the number representing the delivery point. My house number is 15826, so the last two digits (26) are used.

You may have noticed that each code also has an additional digit at the end. It helps the scanner to confirm that it read the scan correctly. To figure out the code, you add the sum of all digits. Next, you determine the difference between it and the next number divisible by 10. That is your check digit.

2 + 2 + 1 + 9 + 1 = 15 (+5 = 20)
2 + 2 + 1 + 9 + 1 + 4 + 2 + 4 + 8 = 33 (+7 = 40)
2 + 2 + 1 + 9 + 1 + 4 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 2 + 6 = 41 (+9 = 50)

Just for fun, I put together a little javascript code for you to experiment with:

Tags: POSTNET, Barcodes, Postage, Mail, Scanning, JavaScript