Day 4 - HOORAY!!!

So far, so good with the hard drive!  Jeff's genius brother was able to extract the ONE crucial file that I couldn't recover from losing.  I couldn't be happier about that :)  So, we're off to a good start.

The last thing I heard was that he was going to try extracting the rest via brute force, and basically just let it do its thing until it dies.  I'm not sure if he was able to recover additional My Documents data (that was my 2nd primary need... the remainder of my work files), so I'm still keeping my fingers crossed.  If I had my way, I'd at least get the rest of the My Documents data - all of it.  Not just work related.

It goes without saying that I've lost my music, photos and video library, which crushes me, really.  I had some great stuff in there.  Some of it was at least backed up on my external hdd... maybe I'll get lucky and discover that the majority of it was backed up :)

I can always recover my movies & music... that won't be a problem.  Just time consuming.  The good thing is that Jeff has a LOT of the same movies & music that I did, so probably half of what I want is already on his hdd.  The photos?  I am not sure.  I know I emailed myself a lot of my photos, to ensure I would never lose them, but I'm not sure I emailed everything.  I'll lose some here & there in the process, but I still consider myself SO lucky that I didn't lose the most important things.

Anyway... Yesterday, I wished to blog about good news today.  And I am.  So for that, I am grateful :)

Day...3? God help me....

Well, that didn't take long.  I got 2 days into 365 Days of Gratitude before failing to write (lol).  In my defense, it's because I had no PC to blog with.  My hard drive died on me.  And I could just about die because of it... my whole life is on that PC.  And of course it was one of those things where I kept thinking "I really should do a backup."  Yeah.... too little, too late.  Can we say cloud storage anyone?  You better believe I'm already signed up for Dropbox... .

So, Jeff's brother is taking a look at it tonight.  I hope beyond hope he can recover the data.  At least SOME of it, anyway.  There are several things on that HDD that will be very difficult to reproduce.  I can recover from this, but it won't be easy. I will be devastated if I can't get some of that data back :(

And these are the exact types of days 365 Days of Gratitude is good for.  The bad days.  The days where it's really difficult to find something to be grateful for.  I REALLY hope I have something to be super grateful for after Jeff's brother looks at my hard drive :)

So for today, I"m going to say I'm grateful to even have someone to hand my hard drive over to.  I wouldn't trust it more in anyone else's hands.  If there is a way to recover that data, Jay will manage to do it.  He's a PC guru.

Fingers crossed!  I hope I have something really, really good to write about tomorrow :)

Day 2: I Am Grateful to Be Trusted

I have the best job ever.  Best boss ever, too!  Both Jeff & I love working for Joe, and I've been trying hard to get on a full time, employee status with eXcelaweb.

Tonight, we had a team meeting, and discussed a new client and project that we're starting right away.  In a nutshell, Joe explained that there is zero room for error with this client, and that we must deliver our best work, as always.  I knew I was acting as Project Manager, but because this project has so  many crucial deadlines and expectations, I expected Joe to want to be very hands on with it.

Instead, after briefing us on the high expectation level with this client, he proceeded to hand the reigns over to me, and let me know that it's 100% mine to oversee and run.  THAT is a good feeling.  Considering there is no room for error, it tells me Joe trusts me enough to take on such a serious client, and for that, I am so, so grateful :)  I just have to do whatever it takes to deliver, and exceed everyone's expectations now, which I'm more than confident I will do.

2013 is looking good , work-wise!  I can't wait to jump in with both feet on this project and blow everyone's minds :)

Update: Bentonite Clay is Awesome!

Well, I did the whole Marvin the Martian (bentonite clay) mask and WOW.... Morgan, and all those Amazon reviews were not exaggerating.  This stuff is incredible!  I LOVE it.  I will definitely be using it every week now.  And it's incredibly inexpensive, too, which is what caused my skepticism to begin with.  Something like $10 for a year's supply I think.

I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for amazing-feeling (and looking) skin!  There were a couple areas, like just under my chin, that have been kindof "rough" feeling for some time now, and they are as smooth as they could possibly be after using the bentonite mask.  Really, I'm sold!!

Day 1: Our Imperfections Make Us Perfect

So here goes...  I'm going to try my best to list at least one thing I'm grateful for each day.  365 Days of Gratitude :)

So today, I'm grateful for an imperfect complexion.  My boyfriend's roommate, Morgan, bought bentonite clay, which is apparently some kind of amazing 100% natural Aztec clay that women use as a facial mask.  Since Morgan, and all the reviewers on Amazon.com have raved about this product, my boyfriend purchased a jar of it for me, too.  He's so thoughtful :)  (Another thing I'm very grateful for!).

I have never tried a facial mask before, and am not particularly looking forward to resembling Marvin the Martian in the process, but I do tend to favor clean, smooth, exfoliated skin, so it's worth a try!  There are 333 five-star reviews & 94 four-star reviews for this product on Amazon, out of 484 total.  That's pretty amazing!

So, before sitting down to write this, I washed my face & used my trusty exfoliating glove, which I have sworn by for probably 10 years now... I love that thing!  My face feels soooo smooth after using it, so I figure I might as well use it before applying the mask.  And as I'm looking in the mirror, I immediately notice every imperfection on my 30-year-old face.

I have a couple of little scars... no big deal.  A few bumps... not ideal, but they'll go away.  One or two tiny, broken blood vessels... I hate those things.  They won't go away.  And my least favorite, a brown sun spot just under my eye, thanks to spending a couple of years visiting the tanning bed on a regular basis.  It's my permanent reminder of befriending vanity, and allowing her to influence my life when she did not enrich it in any way. The tanning bed damage ruined several areas of my perfect skin, the name brand crap that I bought was both useless and a complete waste of money, and the things that were important to her are shallow and vapid, which I allowed to influence me for a short while back in the day.  I've moved on. Lesson learned.

So, as I notice all these "flaws" in my reflection, I realize two things:  (1) how quickly my mind goes to that place of discouragement and negativity upon the discovery of such minor blemishes, thanks to our awesome culture of nurturing low self esteems and chasing the illusion of perfection. Once I acknowledged that, I let it go. So naturally, I realized (2) I am so blessed.  I had beautiful skin my whole life, and any imperfections I find now either serve as little memories of the past (like the itty bitty scar above my lip where my kitten accidentally scratched me while playing) or are completely fixable if I really wanted to go to those lengths.  In other words, my so-called imperfections are so minor, and for that, I feel so blessed.  It could be so much worse... And the cherry on top is being with someone who cares about me regardless of how my appearance might change over time.

So, today, I'm grateful for an imperfect complexion, to remind me that vanity is reserved for those with much deeper emotional issues, and to remind me that I am blessed in so many ways.  Our "flaws" really are what make us perfect!

How To Stop or Cancel iOS 6 From Downloading - APPLE SUCKS!

Apple has successfully made an Android customer out of me & pretty much every iPhone user I know today.  I already hated Apple's shady, corrupted way of business, but they were tolerable, and I liked my iPhone.  I've actually always hated the "phone" part of it, but loved the rest for the most part.  I've also always hated iTunes.  Everything about Apple's level of control over their users is a massive turn off, and is not something I will tolerate for long.  Today, Apple crossed the line for good.

With the recent release of the unbelievably crappy iOS 6 came A LOT of complaints.  The chief complaint was the loss of the Google Maps and YouTube apps.  Apple is so pathetic with their little vendetta against Google (since they can't come close to competing with them) that they decided their users shouldn't be allowed to enjoy Google apps either, and took the liberty of not only removing those apps from people's devices with iOS 6, but replaced Google Maps with Apple's own maps program that is the biggest, most epic failure of any major software release in the history of major corporation releases as far as I'm concerned.  It's literally as if they didn't have time to finish it (not even close), and decided to push it out there anyway.  It's almost like an April Fool's joke... 'cept it's September.  And it's not a joke.

Apple seriously thinks it's acceptable & justifiable to replace an awesome, 8 year old, extremely robust, one-of-a-kind maps application with their horrible, unfinished, joke of an app that mislabels cities & towns by a shocking number of miles, is missing key features such as Street View and transit directions, displaying the wrong location of a Sydney, Australia Apple Store (LOL), marking an entire city as a hospital, misclassifying a nursery as an airport, and pointing the next gas station to be as far as 76 miles away.  3D views are completely distorted, the Brooklyn Bridge appears to be collapsed, some satellite views are completely covered by clouds... the list goes on & on & on.  It's so bad, in fact, that Apple's CEO issued a public apology... yet they still won't give people back the best, working app on the market... Google Maps.  And for that reason, I say audios, Apple.  I'll never support them again.

In addition, Apple disallows users from downgrading their firmware.  Why?  Why would they do this unless it was yet another attempt to control their users?  I can't fathom the moronic logic behind this.  I think Apple is starting to circle the drain, and I'm glad to see them go.  Keep failing, Apple.  Keep trying to compete with Google by being even more controlling than ever, and taking more great features away from your users.  Idiots.

SO... with all of that said, I'll finally get to the point of this post... how to stop or cancel an unwanted or accidental iOS 6 download.  In my case, I realized right after tapping the "download & install" button on my iPhone, that it was possible that the loss of Google Maps & YouTube was within the iOS 6 upgrade (originally, I thought it was just if you bought the iPhone 5).  I pretty much freaked out, since I use Google Maps a lot, and frantically searched for a way to cancel it.  I was (and still am) utterly shocked at the fact that there is NO help to be found if this happens to you.  I couldn't believe it.  I eventually read that someone disabled their WiFi to at least pause the download and prevent the installation from happening, so I did that.

So, for days, my WiFi was disabled, which means I was eating up A LOT of my data plan.  Thanks a lot, Apple.  Yet another reason to loathe you.  I kept searching for answers & found nothing.  I finally found out why... I posted about it on Apple's forums, looking for help, and of course threw a few good digs at Apple for their epic fail & disastrous iOS 6 release, and sure enough, they deleted it.  Can't handle a little public criticism?  Fine... I'll blog about it, then.

ANYWAY... my hatred for Apple keeps causing me to rabbit trail off the subject :)  So, I finally figured out my own solution.  I remembered that the download needed a certain amount of space.  So, while hoping & praying that upon choosing to download iOS 6, the device didn't automatically reserve the space it needed, I started recording video with my camera.  2.5 hours worth of video to be exact... in an attempt to fill up every last bit of available space on my phone.

It finally finished, so I enabled WiFi again, and immediately checked the iOS 6 download screen.  Woohoo! The error had changed from "it requires WiFi in order to download" to "it requires x amount of space to download."  It was still paused

I figured, "Well, at least I have my WiFi back, but now I can't even download an app or take a picture."  So this solution wasn't all that great either... I continued searching for help.

About a half an hour later, I went back to check the iOS 6 download screen, and received a popup message stating that it requires "x" amount of space in order to download & that I need to make some space.  When I hit "close "or whatever to close the message, the download had reset!  It apparently timed out, cancelled the download all together, and the "Download & Install" button was back. HALLELUJAH!

So, to recap, here's what I did to cancel, stop or prevent iOS 6 from downloading:

1. Disable WiFi to initially pause the download. (Settings > WiFi > toggle switch to OFF)
2. Take as much video as necessary in order to take up every last bit of available space on your phone. (Just hit record & put the phone down... I suggest keeping it on the charger, since mine took 2.5 hours).  
3. Once you've eaten up every last bit of space, go to Settings > WiFi > and toggle the switch to ON to enable WiFi again. 
4. Take a look at your iOS 6 download screen (Settings > General > Software Update).  It should say "paused" and at the bottom, it should say something about being unable to download because it requires "x" amount of space.  
5. Wait a while... I waited 30 minutes.  Go back into the iOS 6 download screen, and you should get a pop up this time, telling you there's not enough space.  When you close the message, your download should be cancelled, and you should have the Download & Install button back!
6. Celebrate!

I really hope this helps someone with this incredibly frustrating problem.  And since I posted this all over the forums, there's a chance Apple will catch wind of this, and since they can't handle not controlling their users, they'll probably prevent this fix from working in the future.  I heard that another solution might be to disable the WiFi in your home (keep WiFi enabled on your phone), and it will time out the same way that mine did.  You just have to wait a while.  

Thanks a lot, Apple, for making this such a horrid, time consuming & frustrating process.  I hope you crash & burn & Google stomps on the ashes.  

FreeCreditReport.com is Shady

Like so many people nowadays, I know my credit is in the dirt.  I was curious, though, to see just how deep it might be... Are we talking troposphere-level credit? Or inner core (where some people believe hell exists)?  All this time, I just knew it was "not awesome," but how not awesome?  So I decided to check it out at FreeCreditReport.com.  With that catchy jingle, how could I go anywhere else?  And, for the record, I'm referring to the original jingle(s).  I want original guy back!  I don't like their commercials since they lost them... And don't give me that crap about them not even being a real band, or singers, etc... so what?  It was a massively successful marketing campaign, and every kid across the country knew every lyric to every commercial.  That is genius marketing.

Anyway, I'm rabbit trailing.  Back to the point.  So, when you're signing up for FreeCreditReport.com, they ask you if you'd like to become a member.  There's a free trial, but if you fail to cancel it, you'll be charged a whopping $17/month, probably for eternity, or until you cancel.  So, I passed, and opted for the temporary, "basic" credit report.

Semi-Shadiness #1
What makes it laughable is that if you sign up for the free trial membership, you can see your credit report right away, as opposed to having to wait three days if you don't.  This indicates to me that they have the ability to provide it to you right away, but choose not to if you don't sign up for their free trial.  Shady!  But only semi-shady, because I understand using this as a selling point.  People, especially Americans, are highly impulsive creatures.  I can't imagine how many people can't survive 3 whole days to see how bad their credit is, so whatev... I consider this bad form, but nothing too offensive.  More like intentionally inconveniencing customers when you don't have to.

FreeCreditReport.com's Notification Email

So, I wait a few days, and finally get an email from FreeCreditReport.com letting me know I can view my credit score now.  Woo!  I click the giant, unmissable blue button, and am taken to a login page.

Uhhh.... but I opted not to sign up.... ergo, I have no login.  So, now what?

I scour the page for a (likely) tiny, nearly unreadable link that indicates non-members can view the reports by clicking it.. which, by the way, I would also consider shady... IF they had even had one!  There was no such thing on this page.  Only a login, or an option to sign up as a member.

I thought about it for a while, and figured, "I guess I have to call customer service."  Their number is conveniently located on the upper right hand side of the page.

Extreme Shadiness #2
I get on the phone with a Free Credit Report agent, and explained my situation.  I had a feeling going into this that they receive this question more than any other.  Sure enough, she pulled up my account, and proceeded to advise me that they can provide me with a temporary login to view my credit report.

Nowhere, and I mean nowhere was there any indication or instruction that calling customer service for a temporary login was a necessary step in all this.  So, what they are hoping is that people who are utterly lost (which is going to be about 99% of their users) are tricked into signing up for membership, because they think that's the only way they can view their report.

On any other website, when you're presented with a login page, you know that you have to register if you haven't already.  This website capitalizes on that.... how incredibly shady!

Shame on you, FreeCreditReport.com.  I have zero respect for this type of practice.  How do you sleep at night?  Tricking poor, unsuspecting customers into getting a more detailed credit report.... hoping they'll forget to cancel their free trial so you can get at least one $17 charge in there... shady, shady, shady.

I'm glad I figured it out, and just as I suspected, although I have 100% credit and 0% debt, no credit cards, or loans in my name, and am considered extremely low risk in every other area, unfortunately, my credit score is still in the dirt (as it should be... I'm not saying I deserve a great score).  Luckily, it's about toposphere level, which I can recover from as soon as I get things straightened out, but I'd much rather have Ionosphere-level credit.  Soon enough.... Definitely soon enough :)