DSL AT&T: Free has it's price

September 20, 2008 9:09 PM

My brother-in-law intoned ominously: nothing is ever free. You pay for it in time.

I signed up for AT&T DSL. The promotion was $10 a month for 12 months. You receive a free dsl modem. It’s to be compatible with Apple computers. Having an iMac, I assumed all would be well. Well, I was wrong.

Six hours was lost attempting to troubleshoot the thing. This is extremely frustrating, as I didn’t have six hours to lose. I should be writing, not determining what is really broken.

What appeared broken? You can share internet connection and a printer through Airport. Mac allows you to run an software airport base station from any mac that has an airport card. You don’t need the standalone base station that costs a few hundred dollars. It works quite well. This worked perfectly for 3 years on cable modems. Alas, the DSL was jacking it up. A signal was being put out and received by other macs, but it wouldn’t allow them to view anything.

Alas, through 20 other steps, I arrived that it was a fault of the modem.

I finally called AT&T customer service and asked the question: Can I get an upgraded modem? No, that’s all they have. Are these used or refurbished modems? Yes, they are refurbished. So I’m getting a broken modem that may or not be fixed. Yes.

They’re sending me another modem. Another refurb that hopefully corrects all the glitches.

I can view DSL fine on the ethernet port connection. I have nothing through wireless sharing.

Good thing I didn’t dump the other stuff, just yet...

So. Thinking I was getting a free dsl modem cost me six hours, basically my entire day as the frustration continues thereafter.

Should you go AT&T DSL? I don’t even know if I will. If the next modem blocks the Airport signal, fuck em before they turn it backwards to me.

Film Business: A handbook for producers

September 18, 2008 11:11 AM


FILM BUSINESS: (buy through Amazon!)
Rating: Essential to Producers. Good for directors who wake up to the fact they have to make their own careers by developing their own projects.

Film Business fills the gap between making movies for the fun of making movies and making movies your job. There are plenty of books on independent filmmaking and production. Some are technology specific (producing films on Super 8 film, DV, HDV, 16mm) and that allows the producer to sidestep known issues. Alas, it seems TOO MANY books are published by first timers who have more spunk than experience. It’s not to say their words aren’t valid. It’s just that it doesn’t really help explain the world at large. Quite like learning about sex from other dudes. The basic mechanics are there, but there’s so much misinterpretation and misinformation and outright ignorance presented as fact. The basic rule of life: one person’s interpretation of events may not correlate to another’s reality.

I’m at a point of making the leap to producing as my only option for getting by in life. Film Business helps with putting all these fragments from other books together. Given it’s publication date of 2006, the information is very current and addresses the changing landscape. Though things appear to change in the industry, it’s still making little movies with specific purposes: entertain, inform, advertise, instruct.

Perhaps other books will be more nuts and bolts for on-set production, this book delivers for the entrepreneurial individuals who want to produce more than one movie in their lifetime, at a rate greater than one per decade.

Rather than spin yarns about “call yourself a filmmaker if you’ve ever thought of film making!” this book starts with a spot-on examination of what it takes to endure as a producer. Granted, if you really want to make movies you’ll find a way regardless of what any book endorses. Plenty of folks just get up and get on with it. This book motivates and elucidates how to have a career beyond that get up and get on with it burst of energy dies down, bills mount up, and you’re really thinking the post office has great benefits (That’s a nod to Hollywood Shuffle. There’s always a job at the post office!).

After Hour Mailings In Orlandon't

September 18, 2008 10:50 AM
USPS

At present, most all post offices close at 5pm.
If you are a hair after 5 and have postage, drop it in the interior slot, or exterior slot if you see a postal officer going to collect from the mail box.

If you think going to anyplace OTHER than a real deal USPS place, ask what time their collection is. Some places are just “outlets.” They aren’t true post offices. There’s one on Curry Ford filled with surly ol’timey postal workers who can’t do more than sell postage.

After 5pm, you’re going to Tradeport. Don’t think you have all night. Tradeport is close to the Orlando International Airport. Get a map and solid directions- it’s easy to miss it. The simplest directions I can give is to get on Conway Road and head south until you cross UNDER the bee-line, and past the naval base on your right (it’s back there behind the trees) and the airport taxi pads on your left.) Eventually you’ll round a bend and there’s a stop light for turning to Fed Ex or USPS. Go USPS.

Overnight: Cut off is 8pm. Allow 45 minutes commute to arrive at tradeport. They have a d.i.y. kiosk outside that can generate an overnight label for you. Alas, allot the time.

Priority: Cut off is 8:30 for 2 day mail.

TOP SECRET: Priority plus Delivery Confirmation: Cut off is 10:45. They might not tell you this, but if you have delivery confirmation - all of $.65- you’re priority mail will go out on the 11:15 pm plane. They hold the delivery confirmations for this later flight.

I rocked out tradeport with minimal stress. It gives you a few hours, but not much. If you’re starting something that takes 5 hours at 5pm, give up now. Don’t ask the impossible and put us all in danger of your panicked driving. There’s a thing called starting early. And there’s another thing called putting it off until you totally feel like it. Whatever makes you happy.