So many times people have told me their “internet isn’t working,” yet I find their email programs and web browsers working, only perhaps that Internet Explorer is broken. I just realized this morning: Windows XP calls the default web browser “Internet” in the start menu. Microsoft really did a number on people’s perceptions all these years.

Folks, the “Internet” as you know it is called the World Wide Web: you know that “www” before almost every website? There is so much more to the Internet than the web. Email, FTP, chat/IM, all that stuff is still on the Internet but they’re not all HTML: the language web browsers like Internet Explorer speak.

Sometimes… I’m just… so tired. Tired of job hunting. Tired of job hunting in this shitty economy. Thank you very much, American Greed.

I’ve been looking for so long for a job that has… you know… things like health insurance and a wage that will pay for… you know… things like car repairs and dinner with my girlfriend and … life.

A job that won’t slowly devour my soul.

Is that too much to ask?

Is it?

Come on now… employment… please tell me where can I sell my soul for a decent income?

I just wrote this little bash script as a fetchmail MTA/destination. It automatically prints and adds to my gcal any new appointments scheduled for my by Fastteks. Since they have a crappy web calendar and only send notifications via plaintext email, I wrote this script to automate some things for me. Every five minutes it removes unnecessary information, sends it to my office printer, and adds an appointment to my business Google calendar all automatically.

In addition to fetchmail, this script needs gcalcli.

Cool.

#!/bin/sh

PRINTER=BrotherMFC9840CDW

TMPFILE=/tmp/emailprint.tmp
cat $1 > $TMPFILE

if [ -f $TMPFILE ]
then
sed -e ‘/^First Follow-up Call Action Taken/d’ -e
‘/^Follow-up /d’ -e ‘/^Conclusion/d’ -e ‘/^Use end date/d’ -e
‘/^Message-ID:/d’ -e ‘/^X-Forwarded-/d’ -e ‘/^Repeat Type/d’ -e
‘/^Repeat End Date/d’ -e ‘/^Frequency/d’ -e ‘/^Group/d’ -e ‘/^Satisfied
with Results/d’ -e ‘/^Content-T/d’ -e ‘/^Mime-Version:/d’ -e ‘/^
/d’ -e ‘/^   /d’ -e ‘/^Message-Id:/d’ -e ‘/^Please
look on Fastteks Solution Center/d’ -e ‘/^http:/d’ -e ‘/^Received:/d’ -e
‘/^Return-Path:/d’ -e ‘/^Received-SPF:/d’ -e ‘/^Delivered-To:/d’ -e
‘/^Authentication-Results:/d’ -e ‘/^X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-/d’ -e
‘/^X-Mailer:/d’ -e ‘/^Customer Number/d’ -i $TMPFILE
#       cat $TMPFILE
lp -s -d $PRINTER $TMPFILE
fi

if [ -f $TMPFILE ]
then

WHAT=`cat $TMPFILE | grep “A new appointment
has been made for you by ” | sed -e ‘s/.*Brief Description //’ -e
‘s/”//g’`
STREET=`cat $TMPFILE | grep “^Address” | sed -e ‘s/^Address //’ -e ‘s/”//g’`
CITY=`cat $TMPFILE | grep “^City” | sed -e ‘s/^City //’ -e ‘s/”//g’ -e ‘s/,//’ -e ‘s/(.*) /1/’`
STATE=`cat $TMPFILE | grep “^State” | sed -e ‘s/^State //’ -e ‘s/”//g’`
ZIP=`cat $TMPFILE | grep “^Zip Code” | sed -e ‘s/^Zip Code //’ -e ‘s/”//g’`
DATE=`cat $TMPFILE | grep “^Date” | tail -n 1 | sed ‘s/^Date: //’`
TIME=`cat $TMPFILE | grep “^Time” | sed ‘s/^Time: //’`
WHERE=”$STREET, $ZIP”
WHEN=”$DATE $TIME”

CMDTXT=“FT: $WHAT at $WHERE $WHEN”
GCOMMAND=”/usr/bin/gcalcli quick ‘$CMDTXT’”

if [ -n “$WHAT” ]
then
sh -c “$GCOMMAND”
fi

fi

if [ -f $TMPFILE ]
then
rm $TMPFILE
fi

I got a Motorola H390 Bluetooth headset for Christmas. I returned it because when turned on, in my ear, idle, and connected to my phone, it make a very quiet intermittent high-pitched beeping sound. It was annoying in a quiet room. I don’t know if it was only my unit that was defective or the design of the H90 itself, but I give it a 1 out of 5. My advice: if you have good hearing, try it for a while in a quiet environment before you toss the receipt or the packaging.

I don’t mind hard work. In fact, I abhor it.

There are no accidents, only unintended consequences.

I worked from 10:00 am until 7:00 pm today. I could not have worked more because these were three separate IT/tech incidents. All of them were in remote locations, on-site as it were, and all of them I drove my own personal vehicle to and fro. I worked a total of 4.25 hours, logged 96 miles, and raked in a whopping $106.25 before taxes. Plus my last appointment was supposed to go for two hours and it went for four, causing unneeded stress, complicating my personal life, and causing me to go back on my word, something I do not take lightly nor enjoy by any means.

Something doesn’t have to be unique to be special.