Sebastien St-Laurent's (AKA Sebby) WebLog : Self-Plugs

EasyBarcode and Parctical .NET2 and C#2 Free with TrialPay

sebby1234 — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:15:00 GMT

What is TrialPay?

Paradoxal Press is happy a new service called TrialPay which can allow you to get some of our products for free!

TrialPay allows you to purchase products by trying something else. Sign up with any one of our preselected partners and we will pay for your product.

What Products Can you Get?

Below is a list of the current products which can be obtained for free by using TrialPay.

EasyBarcode - EAN/ISBN Barcode Generator Generate your own EAN/ISBN barcodes. Supports both ISBN and ISBN-13 numbers and allows your barcodes to be exported to PDF, GIF, JPG, BMP, PNG, TIF and WMF files for inclusion in your layouts.

Practical .NET2 and C#2, Second Edition By Patrick Smacchia ISBN 978-09766132-5-1 Jan 2006 (896 pages)

Neat Way to Generate Indirect Software Sales.

sebby1234 — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 10:19:00 GMT

Remember, my complete blog is now at: http://www.SebbyLive.com/ (http://www.sebbylive.com/post/2007/11/Neat-Way-to-Generate-Indirect-Software-Sales.aspx)

My Winzip trial expired again, but this time I noticed something interesting. In addition to the "Buy Now" option, there was now a "Use TrialPay" option. Out of curiosity, I checked it out.

Turns out that they offer a new twist on affiliate marketting. Instead of loosing a sale when a customer does not feel like spending $XX for your software, you can use TrailPay to instead offer them a variety of partner offers for which they can join. If they do decide to signup for the offer, then TrialPay does pay you a portion of the affiliate proceeds and at the same time the customer gets a free copy of your software as a bonus. To quote their website:

TrialPay is an innovative payment method that enables customers to pay you by trying something else. Through TrialPay, customers can purchase your product or receive a gift certificate for your site by trying an offer from a reputable advertising partner. Because we have advertising partners who place high values on interacting with new customers, we can often pay you more for your product than the retail price. We have access to diverse offers from thousands of companies so your customers are guaranteed to find something they like. Why would you use TrialPay? The answer is simple — we are dramatically increasing sales for our merchants in the software, games, publishing, online services, and traditional retail goods industries.

I myself have signed up and will be implementing their checkout as part of the checkout process for EasyBarcode. I am unsure how many more sales it will generate but from my experience, my customers do prefer to have various payment options. And TrialPay do offer a plus as they can sign up for another offer for which they may be interested and at the same time and get your software/product as a bonus. If you are selling software online, this is an option to consider. Click the logo below to visit the TrialPay website to get more details...

Press Release - Paradoxal Press Announces New Books on Computer Programming

sebby1234 — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:14:00 GMT

The art of computer programming is about to get easier thanks to Paradoxal Press’ future releases of “Practical Ruby on Rails” and “The Complete Effect and HLSL, DirectX 10 Edition” as well as its just-released second edition “Practical .NET2 and C#2,” a new book that is now available for purchase. This book on .NET and C# programming expands on the first edition by offering revised and adapted content to meet the changes that came with the release of the .NET 3.0 Framework.

Redmond, WA (PRWEB) October 12, 2007 -- One of the world’s foremost publishers of computer programming guides Paradoxal Press is proud to announce the release of its second edition of “Practical .NET2 and C#2,” a guide to C# programming and using the .NET platform.

Released this month, the second edition of Practical .NET 2 and C#2 takes upon the success of the first edition which is the English adaptation of the best selling French title on the topic which has sold over 3,800 copies in the French market since its release (ISBN 978-09766132-5-1, C# programming. Its latest additions are sure to make it one of the greatest resources available on C# programming.

Paradoxal Press is also introducing an introductory program to allow purchasers of the first edition to upgrade to the second edition at a rate of $20.00. For more details on the second edition and the upgrade program, visit: http://www.ParadoxalPress.com/Book_PracticalUpgrade.aspx

In addition, Paradoxal Press is proud to announce its upcoming fall 2007 and spring 2008 lineup of new books, which is composed of two titles: “Practical Ruby on Rails” and “The Complete Effect and HLSL, DirectX 10 Edition.”

“Practical Ruby on Rails” is another adaptation of a French title, authored by Eric Sarrion, that is an in-depth reference of the new and buzzing Ruby on Rails technology which allows optimal web design by adopting a MVC (Model, View, Controller) model. Eric Sarrion explains everything with his legendary level of detail in a book that is very progressive. Practical Ruby on Rails is composed of five parts: An Introduction which shows in 15 pages how to install Ruby and to create a simple application. It then dives into the basics of computer programming using the Ruby language, which is required to take full advantage of Rails. The part on the topic of controllers shows how to create the actions that are meant to be called through the Web server based on the URL provided by the client. In the section about models, the programmers learn not only how to create and modify the objects of a database, but also how to properly design a relational database from the ground up. The part on views focuses on the rendering of the values computed by the controllers and the other objects of the model. This is where the reader will learn to page HTML code as well as making usage of CSS, JavaScript and Ajax. The final section tackles some of the various methods which come in handy on a regular basis. These are utility functions such sending emails or the publication of a Web service.
This title is a complete and progressive guidebook for any reader wanting to learn how to master Ruby on Rails. “Practical Ruby on Rails” is scheduled for release in early 2008.

“The Complete Effect and HLSL Guide, DirectX 10 Edition” takes from the success of the first edition “The Complete Effect and HLSL Guide” (ISBN 978-09766132-1-3). The topic of the first edition is focused around the development of graphical shaders and their management. It is written for any developers who have an interest in being efficient at using and integrating shaders within their applications. This computer programming book was written to serve as both a teaching and reference manual, making it a must-have to everybody from hobbyist programmers to professional developers. The approach taken throughout “The Complete Effect and HLSL Guide” makes it the perfect book for anyone who wants to integrate shaders into their application and take advantage of the power of the DirectX SDK and the HLSL shading language. The book covers the following topics:
* Introduction to both the HLSL shading language and effect file development including their detailed syntax and use.
* Complete reference with performance considerations to every HLSL and assembly shader instructions.
* Introduction the DirectX Effect Framework and complete overview to its API.
* Optimization tips and tricks to make the best out of shaders.
* Coverage of all the main components of the DirectX effect framework in addition to putting the pieces of the puzzle together allowing a programmer to develop a shader management framework.

The second edition, “The Complete Effect and HLSL Guide, DirectX 10 Edition,” takes off where the first edition left and introduces several revision and corrections as well as expanding the existing content to cover both the DirectX9 and DirectX10 platforms.

For more information about “Practical .NET2 and C#2” and to see how it helps its readers learn the art of computer programming and C# programming, or to see sample chapters or download code samples from the book, please visit www.PracticalDOT.net.

For more information about Paradoxal Press, visit www.ParadoxalPress.com

Practical .NET2 and C#2 is Finally Available for Sale!

sebby1234 — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 19:29:00 GMT

The second edition of Practical .NET2 and C#2 is finally available for sale on www.ParadoxalPress.com. The official release date is technically on October 15th but it is possible that outside orders (such as on Amazon) be a little delayed. This is due to the fact that copies of the book were delivered to our distributor only ~1 week ago and the copies need to spread from our distributor to the wholesalers and finally to the retailers.

I have received my inventory on Friday and have updated the www.ParadoxalPress.com website so the book can now be purchased directly. We offer a special release pricing of $36.99, which includes free USA shipping. If you already have the first edition of the book, we are also offering an Upgrade Program which allows you to purchase the second edition for only $20.00.

Book Description
The second edition of Practical .NET 2 and C#2 takes upon the success of the first edition which is the English adaptation of the best selling French title on the topic which has sold over 3800 copies in the French market since its release. With the recent release of .NET 3.0 in 2007 and the ever increasing popularity of the .NET platform, the second edition of Practical .NET 2 and C#2 continues in the footsteps of the success of the first edition by offering revised and adapted content to meet the changes that came with the release of the .NET 3.0 Framework.

The book can also be purchased on Amazon.com using the following link: Practical .NET2 and C2 Second Edition: Harness the Platform, the Language, the Framework

New Business Tool Category. How does Paradoxal Press Handle it's 1-888 Number and Faxes?

sebby1234 — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 19:11:00 GMT

Remember, my complete blog is now at: http://www.SebbyLive.com/ (http://www.sebbylive.com/post/2007/10/New-Business-Tool-Category-How-does-Paradoxal-Press-Handle-it's-1-888-Number-and-Faxes.aspx)

I have decided to start a new category on my blog called "Business" or "Business Tools". The idea is quite simple... Share what I learn during the operation and growth of Paradoxal Press. Some of the posts will cover gereral "how-to" topics when it comes to running an online business. But other posts like this one will focus more on exposing some of the tools and services I make use of on a daily basis...

In this post, I wanted to start by covering two topics in one. How does Paradoxal Press handle its Toll Free number and Faxing needs.

From a faxing point of view, I do actually have a fax machine. But my past experiences have been dreadful and remember being woken up in the middle of the night by the screeching sounds of the fax machine. I did not retire my fax machine, as I still use it for outbound faxes, but decided that an online solution would be less intrusive and whould also offer me a few additional benefits. One of the most useful benefits for me is that the use of an online faxing service allows for all recieved faxes to be directed to my email and therefore have access to any fax as long as I have an internet connection. The other main benifit is that my fax line can be tied to my 1-888 number and I have the advantage of having a single fax number for both voice and fax calls. So far, spam faxes have not been an issue on my toll free number. Time will tell...

The other thing I wanted for my business is to have a toll free number. It may be somewhat overkill for a small business such as Paradoxal Press but I always thought that a business who offered a toll-free number appeared more legitimate and secure. Of course, this is a matter of perception, but I wanted to make it easy for my customers to reach me no matter what.

Throughout the few years that I have been running Paradoxal Press, I've had the chance to go through a few different services myself. And thought I would share my experience...

eFax: My review of their service is quite simple... AVOID AT ALL COSTS! They are one of the more "public and advertized" out there and I guess all this money spent promoting is taken away from the custommer service department. Their service works reasonably well overall but does not offer alot of flexibility and features. This is the type of company that reminds me of my Cellular phone carrier... Constant billing errors, long hold times for customer service, useless customer service representative and near imposibility to cancel the service without having to start disputing charges with the credit company. eFax business model seems to revolve more around sign-up volume rather than customer retention, so I would really stay away from them!
Voice Nation: After my experience with eFax, I decided to move on to a smaller company who would likely be more customer-focused than volume-focused, even if this meant a slightly higher per-month cost. I ended up getting a toll-free voicemail/fax combo from them and everything worked great. I have to admit that most of the phone setup had to be done on the phone itself, which was really tedious but beyond the setup difficulties the service ran great for about 8 months. Then all of a sudden, I start getting emails from another business to request that my customer's stop calling them. I was really confused at first butafter some research I discovered that the had (for some unknown reason) decided to pull the plug on our account and to simply reassign our number to a new customer. No notification on their part and they never returned our emails/calls about the situation. This is somewhat of a big snafu considering that this became a huge inconvenient for both business and we were unable to really fix the situation (short of getting a new toll-free number elsewhere and to have our customers update their contact information).
Ring Central: This is my new and current provider. They are relatively small (somewhere inbetween eFax and VoiceNation) but so far the service has been great for both Fax and Toll-Free voice. Their prices are really competitive (starting at $7.99/mo) and offer a wide variety of options so you can pick your service in a more "a la carte" way... There are several really neat features about their service. They not only allow to recieve faxes and voicemails but using their Call Controller app (shown below), you can also answer your phone calls as well as place calls directly from your computer (just as with a VoIP service provider). In addition, their Call Controller Application is really neat and gives you full controll over your account in a single location... It have been about 6 months now and I have to say I am still really happy with their service and pricing!

Here are a quick rescription of the different levels of services offered by Ring Central. As you can see, at the prices quoted, it quite often makes more sense to go with such a service than to have to pay for the additional infrastructure required to handle a 1-800 number and business faxing. I should also mention that they do offer a free 30 day trial on most of their products. So you should try it first to make sure it really meets your needs!

RingCentral Online - Starting from $9.99/month
A Web-based phone and fax system for small businesses.
What makes RingCentral different from traditional phone companies is that our toll free or local phone number comes loaded with business features, isn't connected to any jack or hardware and works through any phone and computer in the world.

Get your own Toll Free or Local Number with voicemail for as low as $9.99 per month

RingCentral Fax - Starting from $7.99/month
An easy, secure, affordable and convenient Internet fax service for businesses and mobile professionals.

Get rid of your fax machine. Try RingCentral Fax

Moving my Main Blog From MSDN to WWW.SebbyLive.Com

sebby1234 — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 06:06:00 GMT

The time has come to finally move away from hosting my blog on MSDN. There are a few reasons for this transition but the two main deciding factors were that posting personal posts on a MSDN blog seemed odd (at least to me) and that I already had my own website to document my various side-projects so it would make more sense to have everything in a single place.

My blog now resides with my homepage at www.SebbyLive.com. In the future I may cross-post relevant technical posts onto MSDN but you should update your feeds to point to the new "main" blog...

The syndication link which can be used to subscribe to my blog directly is: http://www.sebbylive.com/syndication.axd

Announcement: Practical .NET2 and C#2 Second Edition!!

sebby1234 — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 19:54:00 GMT

I was planning on making the announcement later this week but Amazon.com bet me to it with their "pre-order" email... I am indeed running a little behind with the advertisement since the release is set for Oct 15th. But I will have an official press release and an update to www.ParadoxalPress.com later this week. Also keep an eye out for our Upgrade Program which will allow you to upgrade from the first to the second edition at a discounted price!

Book Description
The second edition of Practical .NET 2 and C2 takes upon the success of the first edition which is the English adaptation of the best selling French title on the topic which has sold over 3800 copies in the French market since its release. With the recent release of .NET 3.0 in 2007 and the ever increasing popularity of the .NET platform, the second edition of Practical .NET 2 and C2 continues in the footsteps of the success of the first edition by offering revised and adapted content to meet the changes that came with the release of the .NET 3.0 Framework.

Although the book is not yet listed on www.ParadoxalPress.com, you can still pre-order it from Amazon.com below.

Practical .NET2 and C2 Second Edition: Harness the Platform, the Language, the Framework

Finally Updated www.SebbyLive.Com on 06/17!!!

sebby1234 — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 11:46:00 GMT

Had lots of CNC related data to post to the site. Finally took some time this evening to go through and update the website

http://www.sebbylive.com/projects/hardware/cnc-mill.aspx

I've also added a donation page (I know, that's lame) but in case anyone has used gear or expertise they are willing to share towards my projects...

http://www.sebbylive.com/about-me/donate-for-my-projects.aspx

Now it is time for me to go pass out... :)

Buyer Beware of Liquidation.Com... Even a NASDAQ Listed Company can be a Scam!!

sebby1234 — Wed, 09 May 2007 17:43:00 GMT

As you have seen from posts in the past, I have been selling things on eBay alot over the years. With my recent inventory liquidation sale, I have gone back into being more of a full-time eBayer. So I have decided to take a look in some wholesale sources of goods I could resell on eBay for a little extra revenu (at least to possibly finance my projects). If you did a similar search, one the most likely sites you will stumble upon is Liquidation.com. When you look at the site, they have alot of information, a good selection and... Hey, they are listed on NASDAQ so it can't be that bad of a company, right? Well with my experience so far... NOT!!!

My Liquidation.Com Experience, Selling Junk!

My initial experience with them indicates that it is a company that any buyer or seller should be really careful about and stay away from as much as possible.

So I started by placing some bids on a few items for which the pricing was good (based on other eBay sales). One of the item lots that I bid on was a set of Hitachi 4GB Microdrives (same type as used in Ipods). The items themselves, were used and marked as salvage (I will get back to the salvage problem later). Based on ebay sales and my bidding, I aimed my maximum bid to be at about 25-30% of the average sales price of the same item in the same condition on eBay. This would allow for enough slack to take in consideration of defective parts since these were salvage items (I was assuming a yield of around 50% to be conservative).

Now, coming back to the topic of Salvage items. Liquidation.com's definition is the following "Salvage assets have been identified as defective for reasons concerning their functionality, appearance, or both. Salvage assets usually can only be used for parts." Which makes sense. If you buy a Laptop marked as salvage, the laptop itself doesn't work but it also means that working parts can be pulled from the item either for replacement or resale. My assumption (which was MISTAKE #1) was that if a sub-assembly part (such as a Microdrive and especially a non servicable part) is listed as salvage, it meant that it was pulled from a defective device and was not tested. This means that a certain quantity of items would be DOA and this is why I assumed a yield of about 50% when bidding.

Well the items arrived late last week, and I knew I was in trouble when I just started looking at them. Most looked in really poor physical condition. Scratched up, dented, dirty,... Which did not bode well especially for Microdrives which aren't solid-state. Although I have not tested them all so far, after going through about 90% of them, only about 5% of them are functional. And even those 5% look somewhat sketchy. So I was essentially sold a nice pile of non-servicable junk.

So as of now, I have filed a dispute on the transaction. But from the info on the Liquidation.com website, filing a dispute on a salvage lot is pretty much pointless and you are SOL! So this means the seller can essentially get away with anything. And of course, Liquidation.com does not care as the company makes their Buyer's premium of 5% and whatever listing fees they charged the seller. So I do not expect the dispute to get anywhere and since the form of payment accepted for this transaction was PayPal or Wire Transfer, there is not much of a chance of dispute from that end.

I have also ordered a lot of 1.8" Toshiba HDD from the same seller. So far, it seems like the same thing is happening. I have tested about 60% of them and so far my yield is way under 10%.

I also have a few other lots comming in this week (from other sellers) so I will see in which condition these items are...

My Liquidation.Com Experience, Abusive Fees!

Another auction I have won was for a small lot of new video cards. These were marked as new, so after my initial experience, I assumed this would be a safer bet. And although my markup on these would not be as good, I could still make a few dollars with the sale. There, my MISTAKE #2 was not to request a shipping quote ahead of time. The lot was to ship from Canada and was marked as 10 pouds. From my experience, such a shipment using UPS or FedEx would cost somewhere around $30-$50 to ship. After waiting almost one week for the full order price and a request for payment, the cost of "Shipping and Logistics" on the order is $400!!! Eh, what?

Well, reading the fine print on the shipping costs for international orders on their website indicates a minimum shipping charge of $100 and a $150 document fee. So even there, with the provided weight, the cost should be around $270. But even so, I wish I was paid $150 to prepare a simple customs form. And why a $100 minimum, how about charging what shipping actually costs? Seems like another ploy from Liquidation.com to line their pockets.

Of course, I will not pay $400 of shipping on an order that is only worth $450! But of course, more fine print on their website says that if payment for an order is not recieved within 2 days, they can charge 15% or $200 (which ever is greater) for non payment. Yet again, another way for them to line their pockets. At least this fee would be assesed on my credit card so I can dispute it.

Other Worries

In hindsight, several things about Liquidation.Com should have raised red flags for me.

No feedback mechanism for buyers and sellers
Little to no way to communicate to the seller about an order
Possible shill bidding. After looking at some auctions, the final price does not make sense. Who would buy a pair of two returned laptops for $1400 when they retail for about $1600. Seems like a big risk when the items are potentially defective and sold as-is. I have seen alot of auctions which close at prices really close to retail, which makes me wonder if they are not shill bidding on their own auctions in hopes to instigate an impulsive bidding war. Actually for most of the items I won, the closing price was always at (or close to) my maximum proxy bidding price.
Obscene fees such as $400 for the shipping of a 10lbs order from Canada to the USA.
Lots of little fine print which essentially either imposes several hidden fees or essentially gives you little to no chance of disputing a transaction.

For a NASDAQ listed company, the details sure look shady. If eBay had such terms, they would have been taken to court a long time ago!!

I am Not Alone Out There

Here is the content of another post taken from eBay forums:

Never trust the bulk auction site Liquidation.com. The only pockets that they like to fill are their own. Angry responses by the people duped by this company are found in many consumer forums and sites across the Worldwide Web. Most come from buyers who made bids in auctions that promise merchandise in good-enough (if not altogether good) condition. What these hopeful people got was a lot less than what was expected. And it is not only the buyers who have reason to complain. There are also a few incidences of sellers being ripped off by Liquidation.com.

If you are a first-time user of Liquidation.com, you will initially be impressed by their “Terms and Conditions” and “Help” pages. They want to assure potential buyers and sellers of what they are claiming as their “credibility.” So what do they do? They put in these dispute clauses in their terms and conditions, and made sure that the answers to the FAQ’s are quite detailed and very well organized. But as you start to avail of their services, you will notice that there are indeed some odd things about the auction procedures in Liquidation.com.

If you look closely at their site, you will find that there is no link or page where you can leave or read comments and feedbacks about the seller and the merchandise. Transactions are pretty much quiet, and in fact, too quiet for comfort. Buyer-seller contact is also very minimal. Everything from registration up to the payment (and most especially the payment) has to go through Liquidation.com. Sounds fishy, doesn’t it?

The only thing that the company is not willing to care of are the shipping costs and the taxes. They do offer arranging and managing shipment and also one hundred percent insurance for shipping, but until now I have not heard of anyone being able to claim any insurance. And I assure you that there are a lot of buyers whose goods have arrived in very bad condition. Perhaps the problem is not in the shipping but the merchandise themselves.

Another bad thing about Liquidation.com’s shipping procedures is their shipping cost calculator. Either the calculator is not updated, or it does not work at all. Or perhaps, Liquidation.com just has the gall to sneakily add extra costs in the actual invoice.

They also rush you for payment. If you do not pay on their demand, they close your account. If you are the owner of a small business with a small capital, and that you were counting on winning the auction you placed a bid on as your sole means of acquiring merchandise, then you have no choice but to follow their terms. The only one benefiting from the auctions is them.

In my case as a buyer, I received an invoice that proves how much they rip off from both the buyer and the seller. The amount of shipping cost I had to settle was 300% higher than the one given in the Liquidation.com’s shipping cost calculator. I sent an e-mail and got a reply explaining (or making an excuse?) that the shipping cost can vary up to 15% of the total projected cost. They also had the gumption to add that I should be happy about the deal. Outraged but still trying to be civilized, I replied and requested them to review the invoice. I told them that 300% is not 15%. Until now I am yet to receive a reply to that e-mail.

I got so frustrated after waiting for that non-existent reply that I tried calling them. At that time, I was bidding at some 40 plus auctions and I had some 30 auctions set up as a seller as well. I thought that since I have been a good customer, showing them good faith by using their services extensively, I also deserved to be treated with the same courtesy. Obviously, Liquidation.com also lacks in the ethics department.

I had to call several times since no one was answering the phone. When someone finally did, they told me, no, they ordered me to pay or else they will charge my credit card for non-payment and then they will close my account.

I took a deep breath and told them nicely, though with clenched teeth, to please look at the shipping cost estimator again. But what good did it do? None! All I could do was to stop all my bids and finish the last of my auctions.

Liquidation.com always insists on doing things their way while they neglect to tell you of miscellaneous fees until the last moment.

One seller was instructed to separate his merchandise. His watch merchandise sold a little less than what he expected but they were sold nevertheless. Liquidation.com wanted to charge him $200 or 15% of the sale, whichever was greater for the watches. Since the watches were sold for $246, the seller had to give the company the $200. Unfortunately the rest of his goods did not do as well. They were sold only for $175. Liquidation.com gave him two options. One was to give them the $175 or to pull off the auction and sell the merchandise elsewhere. The seller opted for the second one. But what the company did not tell him was that by pulling off the auction, he was required to pay $200 dollars as abort fee. What did the poor seller end up with? A huge loss and an even bigger migraine.

Where do these phantom fees come from? Why are not they included in the oh-so helpful “Help” and “Terms and Conditions” pages? The answer is obvious. Liquidation.com presents itself as a company interested in helping small-time entrepreneurs make profit when the truth is that they host a polished high-tech venue for scams and that the only profit they are looking out for is their own.

After what I have experienced and after reading others’ dreadful experiences with Liquidation.com, I have decided to do my part in warning others out there who are thinking of using the company for their own business.

Liquidation.com’s promise of a good deal turns out to be not just a spray, but a very cold shower.

Doing more research, I found more than plenty of complaints online scam sites such as RipoffReports.com...

Now What???

Although the experience will vary depending on the individual seller you deal with on their site, you can see from the above information that they are more than happy to facilitate seller fraud and line their wallets with hidden and riddiculous fees!

Scorned buyers and sellers need to gang up! If you have been scorned by Liquidation.com, please contact me. I would really like to compile a list of people's account and maybe gang up to put pressure on them. On my end, I was not hurt too bad (compared to other buyers) so depending on how things develop, I may simply take them to small claims if they are unwilling to cooperate but you would expect so much more from a so-called reputable company that is listed on NASDAQ!!

Misc Update for 04/16... Well 04/17...

sebby1234 — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 10:48:00 GMT

Near 1 am, getting tired. So it is indeed time to go to bed. But since I havn't posted in a few days, I thought I would post a quick update.

House Life

Actually started working more on the house with my wife. Not that we hadn't been doing anything before but most of it was planning. We've actually started painting this week. Don't like painting that much, especially when the walls are textured but we just have to get rid of those bland white walls! Not too easy decorating a new house when you're flat-broke.

Just not funny how this whole double mortgage thing left us in a pretty deep sink-hole. Feels like every time you manage to crawl back up a little, something comes along draining your accounts over again. Essentially had to borrow against my 401K to maintain cashflow. This of course isn't really good and is only intended as a bandaid until things settle down.

Anyways, we've been trying to keep the renovations as cheap as possible. It's amazing what you can do with a gallon of "oops" paint (at $5/gal instead of $25/gal) if you're not too specific about colors. :)

My Health

My health is pretty much the same as it was. Still plagued by some ups and downs. I am seeing my psy tomorrow and he will probably adjust my meds again. Hopefuly, this will make things better over the next few weeks. Although I do feel better overall than I did a few months ago, my energy levels and mood tend to shift alot doring the day. Which makes it hard on some days to stick to a schedule or game plan.

Besides that, I have a lump on one of my right hand fingers. Had it checked out and as predicted it is a little mass of soft tissue (i.e a cist, which is not uncommon on my mom's side) although the generally don't do anything unless it gets too big, in my case it is right on the knuckle and is pretty much constantly sore. So I will be getting some really minor surgery next week to get it removed.

Projects

Electronics wise, I am still waiting on my Thaoe dev board. Last news is that it is expected to ship towards the end of the month. So I will likely have to wait a few more weeks. In the meantime, I have been looking at LCD options and a few other gizmoes for the intercom system. I am also considering another project (which I may run in parallel) which would consist of developing my own cell phone (or smartphone). Seems somewhat odd considering the components are out there. But I can never find a phone which has only the features I want. And I am curious if such a project could be done with over the counter parts at a reasonable cost. I have ordered some of the parts to get started. I will post more on both projects in the next day or two, but right now I am just too tired and need to go to bed :)

Publishing wise, well I am running behind schedule. Pushing out a new edition of Practical .NET 2 and C# 2 to the printer and working on the edits/layout of two other books. I still need to square a few things off with the distributor and once this is done, I will likely send out a press release and make a more official announcement.

Work

Overall, work has been going well. Still hard to find the focus and energy that I once had. Not that I don't want to work on my tasks, just that I sometimes have a real hard time focussing. Hopefuly with the new med change, if this reduces my cycling this should allow me to be a little more focused and consistent.

I still find it somewhat annoying that there is the big cloud of doubt hovering over my head. I can understand that management is worried about my future performance. But I think they lack understanding about what I went through and that it's not because of work. It was just one drop in the bucket that lead to an uncontroled depressive bipolar episode. I have this feeling and expectation that I should be back at 110% or else I am not sufficently productive anymore any should consider moving along. But this added external pressure is definetly not helping when it comes to self-esteem and self-confidence. Some days, it sure doesn't help me find the energy and motivation to make it through the day.

Data Raid, Revisited...

sebby1234 — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 05:17:00 GMT

Today, I actually recieved a new unit from Buffalo to replace my 1TB Terastation. Considering the ground ship time, it was a really quick turnaround on their end. In the meantime, I have decided to implement my own solution. Not that the Terastation is bad, but I am too much of a "control freak". So I have decided to list the new replacement unit at a discounted price as part of my eBay garage sale.

Buffalo TeraStation 1TB HD-H1.0TGL/R5 NAS RAID 0 1 5

My new homepage goes live at SebbyLive.com

sebby1234 — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 20:16:00 GMT

I've been mentioning for the past few weeks that i've been working on a new "homepage" for myself where I could post more information on some of my projects, especially in regards to projects that didn't directly relate to my book publishing efforts.

I have completed the first version of the website last evening and the site is now live at http://www.SebbyLive.com

Feel free to let me know what you think...

The Joys of Being a Night-Owl.

sebby1234 — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 13:26:00 GMT

Not sure if its joyful or not. Its 3:30 am in my office, with no lights out and no noise.

In a way, it's probably the best environment to get anything done. But with 3 days to do before I head back to work, i'll definetly have to break this cycle. Not so easy as it may sound. This is the one problem with the lack of an organized work structure, it is way to easy to simply take a nap when you feel tired and let your body decide on when to sleep. At least the weather seems to have been improving this week. With some real daylight, it might be easier to get back to a more "normal" schedule. I have to say the winters here in the NorthWest are horrendous. I can understand why there is a coffee shop at every street corner.

Besides that, i've started to fiddle with a new "homepage" for myself. Been meaning to do this for a while as a way to consolidate all of my stuff into a central location. And possibly move some of my non-publishing related projects away from the main Paradoxal Press website. With publishing, software and a bookstore... My business website has goten way too confusing. And my plan has been to break things into different sites. To avoid the manual editing of ASP.NET code (not that I mind but things can get messy when I do this for every single page), i've been looking at CMS solutions.

Somewhat surprising that there are so little decent solutions which are free (or open source) for .NET. Most of them are messy ports, several somewhat useless and plenty wrtten in VB.NET (I just hate Visual Basic). So far, the solution i've been leaning towards is Umbraco. It is easy enough to use, yet flexible enough so I can add custom components as needed. I just finished installing the software for my new homepage and edited a few pages. My goal is to have the new site live before I head back to work.

I've also been finishing up two new books. One should go to the printers next week. The other one probably in a month or so. I hope to have a press release and more information out on this within the next few days.

New Garage Sale Items for 03/27

sebby1234 — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 11:17:00 GMT

Here are the new items I listed today, eh (looking at the clock) well yesterday...

To Quote Steve... "I Hate This Shit"

sebby1234 — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 11:19:00 GMT

My ex-boss, Steve Lacey, who now works at Google posted an interesting tidbit about VC's (Venture Capitalists). ARTICLE HERE.

"So, apparently there’s an event in New England where Venture Capitalists go and ski and entrepreneurs can pitch to them if their lucky enough to be on the same ski lift."

I hate this whole attitude where the people who has the money use it to satisfy their power trip and just want to make you beg and grovle for it. Unfortunately, in this world it does take money to make money. But as Steve pouts it... "Without entrepreneurs, VC wouldn’t have jobs.".

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