Phil Huang

Author: Philip

  • Half My Wisdom Is Gone

    So today I had a wisdom tooth removed. This is #2 out of 4 that must go. I had one removed a couple of years back. Had to go to an oral surgeon to get the sucker out. It was relatively large and under the gums, so the guy had to cut open my gums, crush the tooth, then clean it out. This time was simpler, my regular dentist basically loosened it up and yanked it out.

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  • US Open 2006 So Far

    Hope everyone enjoyed their Labor Day. Lately I’ve been watching a lot of tennis. Agassi’s farewell was so emotional. I’m pretty much rooting for Federer, Roddick, and Blake (in that order). I’m not a front-runner because I root for Federer – I just have a lot of admiration for people who can reach the top, stay there, and dominate the competition like that. It’s not that easy – I remember Pete Sampras saying something like people don’t realize how hard you have to work to stay #1 for prolonged periods of time in tennis. So give Federer credit where it’s due, this guy is amazing.

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  • What Web 2.0 Means For Developers and Entrepreneurs

    With all this Web 2.0 hoopla, developers like me are seeing increasing demand for new web design and development projects. Of course this is a good thing, any resurgence in the Internet sector means more sites need to be designed or redesigned. More projects, more revenue. But here’s the thing – many people aren’t even sure what Web 2.0 means. You ask different people and they’ll give you different answers or no answer at all. They hear this buzz word being floated around and they think it’s the next best thing, without really understanding what it means. Some critics say it’s a new mini-bubble. This becomes a big problem when a client or potential client tells me they want a “Web 2.0 design” or a “Web 2.0 site” instead of giving more detailed specs.

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  • My Almost GTA Moment

    GTA stands for the infamous video game, Grand Theft Auto. Earlier today I was in a supermarket parking lot waiting for a spot, with my signal light blinking. While the original car came out of the spot and drove by me, another car swooped in and stole my spot! I’m refraining from swearing right now about this bi-, I mean woman, but I did start swearing at her. After she got out of the car, seriously, I almost ran her over. If I were less sane, I might have just done it. I let go of the brake and then stopped right behind her as she was walking. The rage. I was waiting there. With my signal light blinking. She had just come into the lot and happened to have the opportunity to steal the spot because the original car coming out was kind of blocking me. I should also note this is a small and very crowded parking lot. So to actually find someone leaving and be there to grab the spot is not easy.

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  • The Breakup

    The Breakup

    I saw this movie a couple of weeks back. Now, Vince Vaughn is usually pretty funny and in this movie he has some moments. You know how he mutters on and on about stupid things – that’s kind of his act. But this movie overall is pretty damn boring and after seeing the ending I wished I could take back the 90 minutes I lost to this utterly meaningless film. (Spoiler Alert: do not continue)

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  • Cancellations the Way It’s Supposed to Be Done

    About a month ago, I signed for a trial membership over at Doba, a wholesale dropshipper directory. Basically it’s a list of different manufacturers and distributors that will dropship orders for you. For those unfamiliar with dropshipping, you take the order, forward it to the dropshipper, and they’ll ship the item to your customer. You charge the customer a retail price and the dropshipper charges you the wholesale price plus shipping fees. They will usually remain transparent in this process so the customer thinks you’ve sent them the product. So anyway, I called to cancel my trial membership yesterday and I only had to speak with the customer service rep for literally 2 minutes.

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  • The Nightmare of Cancelling AOL

    06/22/06 UPDATE: The guy trying to cancel the AOL account, Vincent Ferrari, was featured on a NBC segment with Matt Lauer and they played part of the his phone conversation. AOL has even issued a public apology to him. It doesn’t matter. If it has to take this much attention on the web and TV to make you issue one apology to one former customer, then there is something fundamentally very wrong with how your company does business. The rep apparently got fired according to AOL but I’m sure that was what he was trained to do. There’s no fixing this PR mess. See the NBC segment after the jump.

    Originally posted 06/15/06:
    Here’s another example of how AOL systematically works against its customers. Listen to this phone conversation of a guy just trying to cancel his account. It’s pretty unbelievable how the rep keeps refusing to just honor the caller’s wishes. If it were me I’d be pretty damn pissed off.

    (Audio recording no longer available)

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  • Verizon DSL Sucks

    At home, for my Internet connection, I use Verizon DSL and I’m pretty unsatisfied with the service. I initially signed up for Verizon DSL last June because my mom wanted to go online. She’s a pretty light Internet user and only visits a handful of websites. So it wasn’t a big deal. But during school breaks when I came home and especially now, I’ve found that Verizon DSL is slow and unreliable.

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  • Why AOL Still Sucks

    Remember my old rants about how America Online basically lied to me? Well, they’re still at it. And I’m not sure why they keep doing this. Their dial-up members are leaving in droves. It doesn’t really help your brand when you keep deceiving people like this.

    A story in the Chicago Tribune describes how a man was persuaded to keep his AOL account for just $4.95 a month which included unlimited access but ended up getting charged $1,595.69.

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  • Graduation and Other Miscellaneous Thoughts

    Moving My Belongings From Ithaca

    There was no flippin way I was going to get all of my stuff into my relatively tiny Maxima so I had to pack up a lot of crap into boxes last week, to get them shipped off. In total, I packed up 4 boxes and my printer. Boxes mostly included old textbooks, which I have a lot of, winter clothes, and other clutter/junk. You know what I’m talking about – when everything’s tucked away in drawers and shelves you don’t notice, but once you have to start packing, you realize how much clutter you actually have. Slight hitch with the pickup, but the boxes were picked up on Saturday and I hope they’ve been shipped out by now. I have to call them up tomorrow to confirm.

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