Shaun Lorrain

I have been fairly quiet about this until late today, but yesterday was a really bad day for me. I went to TAFE (College) and found out that we didn’t have to do all the work so I decided to leave early… TOTAL BAD IDEA.

So I left the campus and headed for the bus stop, as I was crossing the road some idiot hoon came up really fast and hit the 20 something year old crossing the road next to me. I cannot get this image out of my head it’s so bad. Picture a young woman crossing a road, a car coming up at like 60 km/h and totally hitting her, she went flying. It was so horrible. I quickly found my phone and called for help but there was so much blood. I am so lucky it wasn’t me that was hit; I was so close to being the one that WAS hit it isn’t funny.

Not only this but as I was on the bus home, my sister in law texted me and said someone told her someone they thought they saw at my brother and sister in laws engagement party had a heart attack. Turns out my “sort” of uncle had a heart attack and was without oxygen for 25 minutes. He is now in a medically induced coma after having surgery and having 6 stents inserted into his arteries. The risk for brain damage is high because of the amount of time he was without oxygen. So we are waiting to hear back about his status.

So today since I didn’t have any assignments to do at college I stayed home and tried to get over what happened yesterday.

EDIT: 7th August 21:00 My uncle has developed kidney failure. Chances are very low. Family considering pulling the plug.

EDIT: 8th August 11:00 My uncle has miraculously turned the other way and starting to recover, I’ll post further updates later.

EDIT: 23rd August 22:00 I haven’t known anything for a few days, but its expected that my uncle will make a full recovery but will have to take it easy.

This post is still under construction.

I just thought I’d post this quick update, the guy came was very helpful and a nice technician to have doing the installation. They arrived around 9 and left just after 11 and it wasn’t that hard to install. They did a great job and now I’m off to record movies on the DVR!

This post may be re-worded as I just realized whilst reading it.. I went on and on about useless things..

Today was enrolment day at TAFE and I had an appointment at 2 this afternoon. I wasn’t quite sure where or what I was going to study, but after talking with one of the lecturers I had it pretty well set in my mind what I wanted to study. I have been doing Certificate IV in Web Design these past 6 months. Even though I currently run a few websites, I really don’t like the design part. I can handle HTML/PHP pretty well.. but the design was just eh.. I couldn’t visualize what I wanted to create and even though clients often tell you what they want.. its still hard.

After deciding that I wanted to enrol in Network Administration I thought I was going to enrol in Cert IV Network Administration because that included Certificate III in it, but the lecturer said its better to just do Certificate III separately. But then came the big decision.. To study at Noarlunga Campus or in Adelaide..? I really like the city, and If I lived closer would probably visit every day, But unfortunately travel to and from can be a bitch with the last bus of the day being at 5:30 PM. So the lecturer just picked for me and it turned out to be Noarlunga. All that means is its much easier to get to and travel time would be around 30 minutes, instead of my usual 2 hour journey to the city. Unfortunately if I want to go to the city, I will have to go on one of my days off instead of during my lunch break.

If you are interested in seeing what Certificate III in Network Administration involves you can click here to see a PDF.

Thanks for reading and if you have any comments, please leave them below!

I rang Foxtel this morning at 7:30, they pretty much answered right away.. as they should since it was so early! The girl was very nice and friendly, However after saying our Good mornings to each other she informed me that they had a note on my account linking to the blog I posted last night complaining about them and that they are deeply sorry for the information I was told and that they were going to upgrade us for free, and re-locate the 2 installation points in my house free of charge as long as we re-sign a 12 month contract which I was going to do anyway. So thanks mysterious reader for sending them the link to the post.. I will post an update Thursday Morning after the man has installed IQ at my house.

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS CURRENTLY A BETA, ANYTHING CAN CHANGE… You should know that by now. Also, any pictures in this post can be enlarged by clicking them.

So just now I thought I’d install the BETA of Windows Live Writer and Messenger.. Well.. Here is a picture of the soon to be main window of MSN.

Alright, Obviously the black boxes are personal details about my friends I didn’t think you should see.. But to be honest, I think this new layout is absolutely bullshit, I mean I get where MSN is going trying to make it a social site like Facebook and all but.. in a messenger client?! NO! It takes complete focus off the contacts that you have added, in fact it took me a few seconds to even see where they are. I seriously hope it doesn’t turn out like this once the new version is launched or.. I and a few friends will be severely disappointed in the changes.. Here is some of their reactions about the screenshots I posted on twitter..

Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier today I was trying to access the Member services part of Foxtel’s website. Only realizing we hadn’t registered before and had to sign up. I thought to myself, signing up would be easy and only take a few minutes.. But boy was I wrong. I had to call them to ask them a question about our account and got the run around but the lady I spoke to was very helpful. We seemed to have our problems sorted and then went on to continue to register only to keep seeing that it was giving me and error while finishing the sign-up process. So I rang for the 2nd time only to find out, for the past 4 years our name has been spelt incorrectly on their system and we didn’t notice since we pay via direct debit and therefore we don’t see a bill. Got that problem sorted out and finally was able to register.. I was thinking great awesome.. all done.. NOT after browsing around in our information I found out we don’t have the IQ service and how it’d only cost $10 a month for each outlet to upgrade.. Awesome right.. Again NOT.. They charge you $100 dollars to upgrade. I rang back the third time and just asked “We’ve had your service for 4 years, We’re currently not in a contract.. I see you offer free installation currently and would it be possible to go back into another contract for free installation.” The person replied and said yes this was possible however we would have to DISCONNECT our service and then go without for a few days and then re-sign up as a new customer.

So anyway, Tomorrow morning.. I’m going to wake up at 7AM just so I can call Foxtel to cancel our service, to then re-connect just so we can get Foxtel IQ, So hopefully this will all be over soon and I’ll be happy.

On a side note, I’ve been wanting to add another outlet in my house in my bedroom for years now. My parents have one down in the front lounge and we have another in the games room (Which is being moved into the Kitchen/Family Room in the new installation of IQ). So with my parents having one and then my brother having the other, there’s barely a chance for me to actually watch it.. that and I also don’t have the time to leave my desk just to lounge around on a couch to watch TV.. When I watch something on my computer I’m always doing something else. So I spoke to my parents tonight about having a 3rd outlet added in my room while they do this since it’ll only cost me $25 a month and the $50 installation fee which is barely anything out of my monthly budget. My mother didn’t have anything against it, However my father seems to think I don’t have the money.. So I’m left with not being allowed to add it to my bedroom. I will have to see if I can convince them otherwise.. I just think I’d be awesome to be able to have shows on in the background while working and having the ability to watch live/recorded stuff while I try and sleep.

For the past year almost I’ve been complaining to my cell provider that my BlackBerry Storm (9500) is virtually impossible to use. The touch screen is horrible and the phone it’s self lacks important features. Not only that but the OS kept crashing, sometimes in the middle of a call. Now I’ve had my phone for the past year now and as of the last 6 months or so I’ve had ALL my calls dropped at some point in the conversation, with most drops happening 5 minutes into a call. After complaining to my carrier for 5 months they finally decided to do something about it just as my warranty was running out. Long story short, my phone is in the repair shop ATM, after painful conversations with customer support I managed to find my carrier had a Twitter support account. I contacted them and within 2 days they had sent me a loan phone to use while mine is being fixed. Now the loan phone was an iPhone 3GS none the less and after I put my SIM card in the phone I discovered the iPhone was also faulty.

After talking with my carrier some more they offered to release me from my contract because of all the issues I’ve been having. So now I have to decide what type of phone I want to get next.

The choices are between the new iPhone that is expected to be announced at the WWDC 10 conference in June, A different BlackBerry model or a device that runs the Android OS. So I thought I could ask you guys what you think I should get. Vote in the poll below and leave your opinion in the comments.

I’m personally leaning to wards the iPhone but.. I don’t know.

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Because my BlackBerry Storm isn’t working, and after a lengthy discussion with Vodafone they sent me out a loan iPhone 3GS while my BlackBerry is being fixed.

My first thoughts was that the phone was quite thick but that wasn’t really a complaint. Upon working out how to take the SIM Card tray out, I managed to put my SIM in it and then synced it with iTunes to perform the “first use” thing that apple seems to put on all their devices. After that I noticed I was not connected to the “voda AU” network (Vodafone Australia). I took the time to play around with it and manged to work out that I cannot seem to connect to any carriers. So, I of course rang Vodafone and told them its not good that my phone isn’t working and they send me a loan phone and that doesn’t work either. Now to understand my frustration you have to understand I haven’t been able to make calls or receive them for about 6 months, and I have only been able to use the data services. They just said blah blah blah, There’s no network issues right now give it a few days and give us a call back. Anyway throughout the day the signal has been working and then dropping only staying for a few minutes every so often.

Anyway back to the phones features, Its much alike the iPod touches other than the fact it has the 3G and internet without WiFi. The touch screen keypad is easy to use but painful for typing long messages, Will be great when OS 4.0 comes out and you can attach a blue tooth keyboard! Other than that I find the GPS extremely accurate and the phone itself seems to load pretty fast. Its quick loading apps and doing tasks I would be doing a lot. I honestly think that if the carrier situation wasn’t an issue the phone would have to be one of the best ones I’ve had.

After being asked to do a design for a friend, I discovered that web design is not what I would like to do as a job. I have instead decided to study Cert IV Network Administration. You can see the attached .pdf document to see which modules are involved in studying that particular certificate, But I think it will be must more interesting and easier for me and I honestly think I could do quite well at it as a job. One of the main reasons that I’m not continuing with web design is because I’m not very creative, I can’t seem to visualize in my head what I would like the final design to look like and it has put me under a lot of stress just doing that design for a friend. I think this problem mainly might be caused due to my Aspergers Syndrome but I can’t be completely sure not everyone has the talent to be creative. With this study move, it also gives me the opportunity if I would like to study again at Noarlunga campus again. I’m not quite sure whether or not I would prefer to study in the city itself or if I would prefer the southern more quieter campus, the journey to college everyday would be a lot easier if I was to study down south but I like the city environment and having opportunities open to me that could happen in the city. At Noarlunga I don’t feel particularly safe, its known for its crime and there is just a lot of “bad looking” people around.

Let me know in the comments about what you think of this career change and which campus you think I should study at!

So recently because I get migraines so often, my doctor asked me to go get my eyes tested. Now I already know I had some sight problems so I expected that I would need glasses. So anyway I had my eyes tested well, Today I picked them up. They’re only reading glasses but I have noticed they greatly affect my sight while I’m using the computer. I’ll have to do a bit of experimenting what else they help me see but for now, I’m glad that I have them and I even attached an image of me wearing them for you.

Let me know what you think of them in the comments!

So, at 11:27 Friday Night, We had quite a exciting night here in Adelaide. Although we live on 3 Fault lines (That I know of) we don’t get earthquakes that often in the main part of the city. I was laying in bed on Skype with a friend from the US when it struck, and my reaction was.. EARTHQUAKE! and she said “Are you serious?” Now.. at first I wasn’t sure what it was.. It was just like a loud thunderstorm that appeared out of no where? But then I noticed that the wall and my desk was shaking.. which straight away registered to me as an earthquake.

Now, the part about this which made me the most annoyed was the fact no news websites had anything about the quake for over an hour and a half. AdelaideNow did have an article after 25 minutes but all it said was “Reports of a quake are coming in”. There was no news about the size or where about the epicenter was. In fact the United States Geological Survey had information about the quake before any Australian site had anything about it. People turn on TV’s and Radios and look online for news about disasters like this, but its absolutely shocking when nothing had anything about an earthquake!

It was good that we have Twitter and Facebook, because within seconds of the quake there was hundreds of posts on both sites confirming it wasn’t my imagination.

Now as the quake hit, my first reaction was NOT to get under a table or a door frame like we are told, so my question is… Do you go straight for a door frame or under a table? Answer in the poll below.

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EDIT: I forgot to mention the magnitude of the earthquake.. it was a 3.8, Its also funny to note at the time of writing this my house just shook from thunder outside.

Today, was the launch of Adobe CS5. I recently brought my copy of Adobe CS4 in February this year. I’m currently waiting to hear back from Adobe to see if I qualify for their post-announce upgrade. Some of the new features included in Photo Shop do really look amazing, so I hope I qualify for their upgrade program. You can see all the new videos about CS5 here and see more features and details on the new suite here, or see below for some links to read about a few new features.

Photoshop CS5 Features
Dreamweaver CS5 Features
InDesign CS5 Features
Illustrator CS5 Features
After Effects CS5 Features
Premiere Pro CS5 Features

EDIT: Adobe contacted me back saying I was not eligible but they didn’t give me dates, decided to try and find a phone number.. (Which is hard BTW!) and the guy on the phone said if you buy it after March 13th you are eligible for the upgrade.

Now the stupid part is, the upgrade price is $899 US or I could just buy a whole new Adobe CS5 Master for $600 AUD with my student discount.. WTF? Upgrade should be like $300 or cheaper!

EDIT 2: As of April 21st, Adobe has requested my contact information and said they will be in touch with me.

EDIT 3: April 29th. They contacted me saying I wasn’t eligible again. Quite pissed since they saw the link to this blog post which started my conversation with them.

Alright, so the iPads have been out for over a week now and I’ve been meaning to do this post for a while.

I personally would love an iPad, I think it would be cool to have one and to use it in my day to day life. In saying so, I can’t justify spending over $1000 for the 32gb 3G version when it comes out here in Australia, when I can just as easily buy a GOOD laptop for about $2000 which would let me do a lot more. Sure, if I came into some money, I would definitely buy one but for now all I can do is sob when people do the following things below..

Thanks Aidan for the link to this!

Alright I realize it’s been a while since my last blog post but today I got the fishing quest Disarmed! And at first glance I noticed the name was different or I couldn’t remember it being called that, but I just just passed it off as me having a bad memory. So I headed out to Borean Tundra to head to the Frozen Sea where there is always schools of Deep Sea Monsterbelly’s, started fishing and sat there for almost 20 minutes without getting the item. Now usually I get the fishing quest item on the first cast.. So I was begining to get pissed off. I just said fuck it and went and did a heroic for my daily. I went back to my fishing quest after and could still not get it. I had a druid whisper me and ask how you do the quest, he said he had been doing the daily for over a year (Like me) and had never had this much trouble before. So I just said fuck it and went to bed.

This morning, my brother (Who is new to Northrend) asked where the prison is inside of Dalaran. I said its Violet Hold and that was all that was said, Until I went to see why he wanted to know that. Only to realize he was trying to do the fishing quest. I said to him “Wait what? Its not here!” and to which he pointed out the quest text. It was then I realized Blizzard had changed the Fishing quest from Monsterbelly Appetite to Disarmed! and had changed the location from the Frozen Sea to outside of Violet Hold in Dalaran. Note instead of a “Bloated Monsterbelly” the item in which the arm is contained in is now called a Bloated Slippery Eel.

OK, So where you like me and missed this part of the patch notes?

The “Monsterbelly Appetite” daily fishing quest has changed so it now takes place outside the Violet Hold in Dalaran. The quest still requires a [Severed Arm] and has been renamed to “Disarmed!“

Well then.. now that you have read it, Don’t be an idiot like myself.. I totally missed that change in the patch notes. All I will say is, I won’t complain.. I do actually like the change. It makes it much easier to do the quest.

EDIT: At this time, WoWhead still hasn’t updated the quest name in the tooltip when you hover over that link. I Will let them know.