Any idiot can drive fast in a straight line

Wednesday, September 25, 2002

You know you are a software engineering geek when:

An every day problem comes along, and instead of just trying to solve it immediately, you have to plan for it. "Well, we first have to figure out what the real problem is before we can solve it." Then you have a requirements phase, trying to figure out what will need to be done to solve the problem. Then you have a design phase, trying to come up with a good way to solve the problem. Then you actually do it.

I need to spend more time with biology and less with computer science. It's pervasive.

Tuesday, September 24, 2002

The engineering job fair was this week. I don't want to say much, but there were three companies that were quite interested in me. Two are on the West coast and the other is on the East coast. I don't think I am ready to move just yet. Real life is pretty scary.

Sprint PCS sucks.

There is a very good reason that the greeting on my phone has been Sprint POS ever since I got it. Let's go over what happened to me this month: I moved from Ann Arbor to Livonia back to Ann Arbor. I changed my address on the Sprint PCS site about a week after I moved to the new Ann Arbor apartment. The changes just wouldn't stick. I would change the address, save the changes, reload and the old address would be back. I tried for about 3 days to get it to stick, no luck.

Eventually, I just couldn't log into the website. I make all of my payments online, so this was going to be a problem when September 7th rolled around (my billing date). Obviously, that day blew past. I couldn't log into the website for a couple weeks and my bill was overdue. They didn't turn my phone off for a couple weeks, so I thought I was set. No so much. They turned it off yesterday. I STILL can't get into the website.

This morning, I called their customer service number. I had to PAY $3 to get my address changed over the phone. That is strike 1.

My new apartment is in the basement of a house. My cellular reception is extremely spotty and random. Sprint PCS rarely works in university buildings. My job, classes and main study area are all in such buildings. Thus, my cell phone only works when I am walking to and from my destinations.

What cellular provider should I go with?