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Goodbye, Helio

As of 3pm today, Jim and I are no longer Helio members. (yes, I know they are now Virgin Mobile, but apparently accounts are still separated in their system and for all intents and purposes, it’s still “Helio”) Wow, I can’t believe that two years have already passed!

My Ocean has been a really good device, but I can honestly say that now I’m glad that we upgraded. It was time to move forward and sadly, the Ocean 2 (or “O2″) isn’t near as nice as Apple’s iPhone aesthetically- (nor functionally-) speaking. So far, the AT&T service has been really good. Hopefully it’ll stay that way. (although I really DO wish they get their collective asses in gear on this MMS crap!)

So AT&T is not the devil?

Speaking specifically about their wireless service, I’ve got to admit that AT&T has made it a lot easier for me to do business with them. They’ve cleaned up the online billing process and I love their iPhone app — it’s great for paying on the spot, changing account info, checking usage stats, etc. They’ve even implemented a CSR chat function on their website. It has been great for letting me get small tasks taken care of without having to stay tied up on the phone. (which also allows me to work on other things at work while chatting with the CSR!)

I still won’t go back to them for internet or residential services, but hey I’m happy with the wireless service overall.

What about the extras?

Someone recently asked me what was to become of the fanlisting, blogroll, or other Helio-related goodies here. I think for now I’ll let them sit. If an interested party wants to take something over, I’ll gladly hand it off — or maybe I’ll kill ‘em all in a mad cleaning spree 6 months from now. You never know …

Touch of Class: an Alabama fanlisting

I’ve been making an active effort to update my fanlisting accounts, and realized that there are none for Alabama — so I made one. The site is up and I’ve submitted it to the FanListings Network.

I’ve added it to my personal fanlistings page. I’m hoping to hear something back within a month or so. In the meantime, any Bama fans who would like to join, please be my guest!

Touch of Class :: a fanlisting for the University of Alabama Crimson Tide
www.nickifaulk.com/alabama

Helio and Virgin Mobile to merge

There have been rumors about the pairing circling around the internet for the past couple of months. Heliocity had even commented on this, but the two companies had stayed mum denying the rumors — until last Friday.

I received an email from Helio announcing the upcoming merger. Heliocity covered the announcement. Virgin Mobile is acquiring Helio.

To be honest, I’m a bit conflicted about the whole thing. On one hand, VM could bring some very cool services to Helio customers. Their negotiations with Sprint may lower our rates. All of the Helio products will continue to be carried: all apps, games, and including “in process” and upcoming devices such as the Ocean 2 (a.k.a. OZ2). From what I can tell, nothing will change service-wise for quite some time, if at all.

On the other hand though, the Helio label will be no more. No more cool blue flame logo. And as silly as it may sound, that will mean no more Helio fanlisting, no more Helio blogroll, etc. No more Helio, no more anything that embodies being a Helion — and that saddens the Hell out of me.

Pardon my progress…

I think the domain shuffle is pretty much through. I moved over the bulk of my domains last night and dropped 4 today. There may be the odd missing image or directory here or there, but I think I’ve covered about 98% of the site. You may also notice a change on the front page. I have removed my Firefox Extension Development page link from the navigation menu and added my Fanlistings. I doubt I will be continuing the development on the extensions I’ve done in the past, as I’m no longer involved in those projects. I may decide to start new ones in the 3.0 format later, but simply don’t have the time (or interest) to do it now.

Also, I have rearranged the sidebar a bit. Hopefully the recently blogged items are more visible now. (sorry ’bout that Jo! ) I’ve also added a couple new collapsing sections, the newest being Local Link Love which features metro-area sites and organizations of which I’m involved, or have discussed here previously. Feel free to take a peek and stretch out a bit.

There are several new interests I’ve been wanting to add in for a while, so hopefully I’ll have time to make those modifications soon. Also, I will be working on my portfolio more, taking off older works and adding some newer ones. It needs re-structuring horribly, and hopefully Zooomr will be done with their move next week (so most of my images will start working again, LOL!). In the meantime I’m making short notes of what needs updating — while surfing the web looking for an appreciation gift for Jessie’s teacher. (funny there’s a whole slew of teacher gifts sites, or with teacher gift ideas in general)

Right now I’m wishing I hadn’t cleaned out the spams caught by Akismet because I ran across this nifty suggestion for handling splogs (spam blogs). Considering I get a ton of trackbacks from the same 8 or 10 or so, it won’t be long until I add a bit o’ code to the ole HTACCESS file to take care of ‘em! :twisted:

New Helio Fanlisting

I recently submitted a petition to TheFanlistings.org to start a fanlisting for Helio. It’s called Helio’s Ocean of Fans — the same as the blogroll.

It’s not “official” yet, but several people have already hopped on board (with mucho kudos to the Heliocity forum residents), so if you’re a fellow Helion and are so inclined please feel free… :mrgreen:

URI: http://www.nitallica.org/helio/

I Can Has Fanlistings?

I zonked out last night (literally!) and didn’t get a chance to share that TheFanListings.org has finally approved my ICHC fanlisting.

You can access the page and sign up here:

www.nitallica.org/icanhascheezburger/

Daily LOLs

I’m a lover of “teh funny” as a friend of mine likes to say. Every day, I read my funny pages and various feed subscriptions, including I Can Has Cheezburger? and Cookie’s Cook Shack: Gab & Grub (I think I originally subscribed to this one for recipes, but he posts a LOT of funny things! ).

It’s no secret that I’m probably most fond of both of those sites, as I re-post things from both of them pretty often. :mrgreen:

For instance, here are a couple of cute things that Cookie’s posted over the past couple of days:

Why Is It That We Have to Speak English?

A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a Naval conference that included admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies. At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a group of half dozen or so officers that included personnel from most of the countries.

Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English. He then asked: “Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?”

Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied: “Maybe it’s because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and the Americans arranged it so you wouldn’t have to speak German.”

The group became suddenly quiet.

LOL!! I especially love this one:

I just loves Retirement …

Working people frequently ask retired people what they do to make their days interesting.

Well, for example, the other day I went downtown and went into a shop. I was only in there for about 5 minutes and when I came out, there was a cop writing out a parking ticket. I went up to him and said, “Come on, man, how about giving a retired person a break”? He ignored me and continued writing the ticket.

I called him a “Nazi.” He glared at me and started writing another ticket for having worn tires. So I called him a “doughnut eating Gestapo.”

He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield with the first. Then he started writing a third ticket. This went on for about 20 minutes.

The more I abused him, the more tickets he wrote.

Personally, I didn’t care. I came downtown on the bus, and the car that he was putting the tickets on had a bumper sticker that said “Hillary in ‘08.”

I try to have a little fun each day now that I’m retired. It’s important to my health …

I’m thankful to have discovered ICHC not only because of the cute kitty images blasted to me on a daily basis, because for the most part they are family-friendly so I can share them with Jessie too.

Something I’ve noticed that they do is post “Caturday” themed images each Saturday. Yesterday’s was particularly adorable. :grin:

In fact, I’ve filed an application with thefanlistings.org and started building a ICHC fanlisting site. :mrgreen:

Preview:

It’s not public yet, as the fanlisting hasn’t yet been approved. BUT I will post again when it’s opened.

Website changes

I spent the better part of the weekend working on my sites. I’ve added a lot of “fluff” to this one; a lot of personal stuff … things I’m into, hobbies, charities/causes I support, etc. I’ve added several FanListing buttons — hehe, and have yet to start adding my fave books, movies, anime, or bands!

I’ve started really promoting my site more, so I’ve joined several blog directories. At the exuberant nudgings of a friend, I joined MyBlogLog and have my recent visitors hidden away in the Scales, Visitors & Linkers snipper on the left menu. :mrgreen:

I’ve added my site to a few more WebRings and am looking for other venues (suggestions are most appreciated). I’ve also started promoting my new MySpace profile. I decided to make a new “less personal” profile for the sole purpose of promoting this website, my freelance works, and my artwork. So far, so good.

My next project will be a much-needed bbPress upgrade for Now We’re Cookin’s forums. I’ll have to re-do my template from scratch, which I am NOT looking forward to doing. ;P

Oh well, considering I’ve cleaned nearly everything in the house, I’m finding myself LOOKING for shit to do in between job interviews and reading php manuals.