James Moody: Geek in Paradise

I made the call this morning to arrange an installation date for my Roadrunner connection to be activated. After going through the necessary questions on my life history to verify I was who i said I was, I was informed that a technician wouldn’t be available to do the installation until the 16th. 16 days, ugh.

After letting my clients know of the impending cutoff and to reach me by phone for normal requests for 2 weeks, I lugged the Television downstairs to prepare for 2 weeks of watching snow and planning trips to a friend’s house for intermittent net access. With the TV in place, I plugged in the power and cable connection so everything was prepared well in advance. Feeling an impending doom of being cutoff from the net and my favorite shows (huge fan of Adult Swim’s Saturday night lineup, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report), I pushed the power button expecting to be greeted with the sound of white noise.

To my surprise, I was greeted with the sounds of cable television. Once the tube switched on, glorious color filled the screen! I immediately called the Cable company back to inform them the cable was still on and to cancel my installation request ($33 just to come and turn cable on…) and swap billing over to the new address.

Sooo happy and couldn’t have been better considering we just went over our cellphone limit. Most of my conversation with clients is done through e-mail or person, and having to conduct 2 weeks of business through the phone would have been fairly painful.

Well, that was a drag. Pretty much all of the booths were companies plying already existing technology for their company. I didn’t see anything new or exciting. Hawaii is really lacking when it comes to these kinds of events. No booths from any major vendors like Microsoft, Intel, AMD, etc. It’s kinda depressing.

To top it all off, I didn’t get drawn for either of the 2 “Deal or No Deal” things they performed. I had a friend explain to me how it worked, so I made my pick before the contestant picked. Both times, I picked the box with the Free Year of Business Class Service. What did both of the contestants win? 1 Year of Free web hosting. Whoopee. Yeah, it was that kind of day.

They never had any raffles of Tech toys as advertised. You could drop your business card in a box at a few of the vendors plying their wares, but the drawings will be done in the privacy of their stores I imagine and if you win, you’ll be informed by phone, e-mail or snail mail. No idea why they told us to keep our ticket stubs, they ended up being worthless and will more than likely end up trashing up someone’s back pocket when they forget about it and wash their pants.

Ohh, and the “Win a date with the DoND girls”. Never happened by the time I left at 6:45pm, 15 minutes before the official end.

The bright spot of the “Internet and Tech Expo” was the Halo 2 and DDR (yes, Dance Dance Revolution) tournaments. I saw waaay more teenagers at what is supposed to be a technology event than I did adults. The event floor was pretty sparse all day, but the area they had off to the side for the gaming tournaments was pretty much packed all day. Sad state of affairs. Ohhh, a company that specialized in Audio/Video was pretty impressive as well. It’s not something I’ve had need of and likely never will, but what they showed off was pretty impressive.

It wasn’t a complete loss, as I did hook up with some potential new clients. I also came across a company that will fill the niche of what I don’t do so well. Namely, running network cable and making it look nice.

Hawaii really needs to attract more of the bigger names technology wise to events like this and promote the fact that they’re coming. More people attended the “Ready for a New Day” Vista/Office/Exchange 2007 launch than I saw show up all day. Today’s turnout was pretty horrid.

I took some pictures of the DoND girls for those interested. They’ll be up later as soon as I download them and resize them. If you can’t tell already, I wasn’t that impressed with them either.

*Wishes for the day when Hawaii can have a real Event.*

Update: Link to Flickr Set for today.

I’ll be hanging out at the Technology and Internet Expo at the Blaisdell Center tomorrow for most of the day to check out what nifty stuff I’ve yet to explore in the tech world. It runs from 12pm to 7pm and they have 6 speakers on tap from the local business community.

These events can be a great way to reach new customers even though I don’t have a booth. You’d be amazed what you can pick up if you actually listen to surrounding conversations and act on it.

They’re apparently going to have a few “Deal or No Deal” case women there, with a chance to win a year of Small Business Cable Service. I’ve never, ever watched the show so I have no clue at all what the “deal” is. If anyone would like to enlighten me on the show, It’d be appreciated! Free Business class cable would rule for showing off what Microsoft Server Technologies are capable of doing for a company’s productivity.

They’re going to close out the last 2 hours with a tech/business mixer with tech product raffles, drinks, pupu’s (snacks, not what you’re thinking~) and a chance to win a date with one of the Deal or No Deal girls, Leyla Milani or Aubrie Lemon. I’m happily engaged to be married, but I’m sure a few of my friends will hang out for that slim chance.

There will also be a Gaming Tournament hosted by Asia Pacific Cyber Games as well for those so inclined.

If you’re in Hawaii and going, I’ll be the geeky middle-aged guy wearing all black, topped with a Microsoft polo (edit: forgot my black MS polo hasn’t arrived yet, Black Intel shirt instead~) of course.

See ya there!

As a public service to Oceanic Roadrunner customers, I’ve detailed the steps to go through to reset your password should you happen to forget or the Service “forgets” your password.

1.       Go to http://www.aroundhawaii.com
2.       Click on the Member Serv. Link on the right side of the Menu bar of the site.
3.       Click on Account Management, which should be located in the middle top of the page, under the Search bar, in a list titled “Quicklinks: Member Services”
4.       Select the “HNL – Honolulu” Division from the drop down box.
5.       Click on the “here” link, in “Forgot your password? Click here” under the login fields.
6.       Select “Time Warner Cable” in the “Provider” drop down box.
7.       Select “Hawaii” under the “State” drop down box.
8.       Select “Hawaii” under the “City” drop down box then click the “Apply” button underneath all the drop down boxes.
9.       Enter your e-mail address for which you want to reset the password and click Submit.
10.   Enter your Cable Modem ID which should be a white sticker on the back or bottom of the cable modem, omitting any dashes which may be in the ID and click Submit.
11.   Pick a Security Verification question and corresponding answer for future security purposes then click “Reset Password”.
12.   Write down the new Security Password displayed.
13.   Click on the “Account Management section” link at the bottom of the page.
14.   Login with your e-mail address you just reset and enter the reset password.
15.   Click the “Change Password” box at the top.
16.   Re-enter the reset password supplied into the “Current” field, then type in the password you want in the “New” and Confirm” fields.

As much as I like getting paid for something that takes 5 minutes max to do, it’s something that should be out there for anyone to do themselves. I’ve gotten 4 of these requests in the last month, so I figure this will be useful in some form or another and help save people from getting lost on the Oceanic site.

For anyone not in Hawaii, the same procedure applies up to point #4, which is where it sends you off to the main Roadrunner site. It’s just ingrained into my brain this way, so there it is!