They had no idea what was causing it and there were no known issues in my area.  I had set up a service call for 4 days later although the next day everything was back to normal.  I did a few speed tests to ensure all was back to normal and the picture below is the results of my first speed test.  If only that were true it would mean download speeds of 23.5MBps which is insanely fast.  That means you could download a 1GB file in less then 43 seconds.

Fastest speeds ever

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Weishi classic - Double edge safety razor

Weishi classic - Double edge safety razor

Weishi classic - Double edge safety razor

So the first shave went quite well.  I was a bit nervous and thought I might end up with a lot of cuts and nicks.  It was in fact a much smoother shaving experience then using the multi-blade cartridges  I’ve used all my life.  It was a slow shave as I took extra caution.  I think it will take a little while to get used to holding the razor on the right angle and not miss any spots.  The razor came with a free pack of Dorco blades which I wasn’t aware of.  I’ve started with those first and they seem to do a good job so far.

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40 minutes came and went and at around an hour I called back to make sure our order hadn’t been forgotten or overlooked.  I was told that the driver was out with the pizza and it should arrive any minute.  It was another half hour before the pizza arrived just shy of being cold.  I then found out that they had marked method of payment as cash on the receipt and the driver hadn’t brought his debit machine with him.  He left the food and advised he’d be back in half an hour.

The driver finally arrived two and a half hours later at 10:30 PM at night with his debit machine.  To make matters worse it turned out the charge for debit on delivery was $1.50 not $1.00.  Obviously not a big deal but it just made it seem like no one seems to know what’s going on at Pizza Hut.

Overall it wasn’t a great experience and I probably won’t end up ordering from them again.  I’m not sure if this is common service for them but I would hope not.

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Every time I do research to see what would be better it always comes back to the old school method of shaving.  Straight razors or double edge razors.  I have finally relented and ordered my first double edge razor, a Weishi double edge classic and a 10 pack of Astra double edged blades.

I found the website Fendrihan which turns out to be a Canadian business, (even better) that specializes in all things wet-shave related.  They had some very reasonable prices on double edge razors and blades and I thought why not, I’ve tried everything else.  It cost me less then $30, shipping included for my very first double edge razor and a pack of blades.  It’s amazing how inexpensive the double edge blades are.  For a 10 pack it’s only $3.99, so if you can shave with each blade at least 3 times on each side it’s amazing value for the money.  That would basically be the equivalent of purchasing 20 cartridges which would cost anywhere from $50 to $70.

While I look forward to shaving with a double edge razor I realize there’s going to be quite a learning curve and it will take practice and patience to master the art of wet shaving.  Hopefully it will be time well spent and shaving with a double edge razor will become an enjoyable experience.

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I did try putting the TL-WN353GD back into the system after Windows was installed.  Windows 7 did pick up the device but was unable to install any driver for it.  I went to TP Link support and they don’t have a Windows 7 driver available.  When trying to install the Vista driver it comes up with an error stating “This Operating System is not Supported”.  So I returned this wireless card and picked up a D-Link Rangebooster one for the same price which works awesome.

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I must say it’s very tempting to speed in the HOV lane with no one in front of you.  Even better is the fact that the HOV lane dumps into the fast lane when you hit Bayshore.  There were two OPP cars waiting for offenders off to the left of the HOV lane, thankfully they weren’t looking for speeders this time around as I would have been found very guilty.  They were checking to make sure there were at least two people in the car.  The first OPP car was situated around the Eagleson underpass on the left.  The next OPP car was situated hidden behind a large POST just before the Moodie exit.

I did find it funny while listening to the radio on the drive in and they were talking about the HOV lane and that traffic was moving well from Kanata to Merivale and it was because the HOV lane was open.  That was a bit of misinformation…if traffic was moving well it wasn’t because the HOV lane was open as next to no one was driving in it.  At any rate it’s interesting to see if more people will start using it.  I didn’t even know it was in the works so it was a bit of a surprise.

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I went out to Golden Tire this morning arriving there at 8:45 AM.  I told them I would like to get a set of the Falken ZE-912 tires put on my existing rims in the size I needed.  He told me he had them which I expected since I had already called to confirm.  So they put my car up on the hoist and took off my wheels deflating the existing tires and started to remove them.  It was only at this point that they went to get the tires I had asked for and told me they didn’t have them.  They offered me the Falken 512 tires instead which aren’t as good as the ZE-912.  They also told me they had a Nankang snow tire in the right size.  He also tried to sell me a tire in the size of 205/40/R16 telling me it was the same.  I told him it wasn’t the same and it would throw the speedometer off.  He eventually conceded that I was right.

I finally agreed to get the Nankang snow tires instead and when I asked the price I was told it was $500 for everything.  So I stated that I had been quoted $360 for everything for the all seasons.  Even though this was the same guy that I had spoken with previously on the phone he told me no way it was $360 for the all season tires.  Even after arguing with him he wouldn’t admit what he had told me on the phone.

It took these guys 2 hours straight to get the tires off my rims and put the new ones on and install and balance them.  It was obvious from watching the guy doing the work that he wasn’t even a certified mechanic.  He tried 5 times to mount the new tire on the rim and finally another guy had to come and help him.   After driving home and experiencing wheel shake the whole way it was clear that they hadn’t balanced the tires correctly.  I also checked the pressure in the tires and they were all different ranging from 33 to 37 PSI in each tire.  Even worse was the fact that these guys trashed my rims as well.  Each rim had been scratched, gouged and nicked by Golden Tire during their installation.

I had to go elsewhere to have the tires balanced properly by a professional and sure enough once that was done the wheel shake was gone and it was a smooth ride.  Out of principal I should have gone back to Golden Tire and had them re-balance the tires free of charge.  However, given the amount of damage they incurred and the fact that they weren’t able to balance my tires properly the first time going back would have been nothing less then a hassle and a waste of my time.

Needless to say I’m pissed off and am never going back there again.  If you’re thinking about going to Golden Tire I don’t recommend them AT ALL.  It may be a good deal on tires but not worth the damage to your rims and worse case your car.   In my experience with them they are definitely not honest nor do they do good work.  They’re sloppy and careless which will only cost you more money in end.  Do business with a more reputable company instead and forget about Golden Tire.

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I already had Spyware Doctor with Antivirus running on my system when I decided to try Avira Premium Security Suite.  I’m a big fan of Avira and with good reason.  Time and again Avira has proven an exceptional product both in detection and cleaning as well as prevention.  I say this with much experience in professional virus/malware/rootkit removal and cleaning of systems.

Unfortunately the combination of Avira Premium Security Suite and Spyware Doctor with Antivirus ended in a lot of system freezing and Avira would lock up entirely while running a full system scan.  I noticed that while browsing the web in Firefox it would freeze and respond intermittently.  Running a full scan with Avira would result in the program freezing in a random spot and locking up entirely.  It was impossible to even kill the process manually.  It would require shutting down the system and rebooting.

It’s kind of too bad as I like both programs but there are lot’s of other combinations of Anti-Virus programs out there that work quite well in tandem.  One of those combinations is Avira along with Microsoft Security Essentials.

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I advised the customer of this and that I could format it and create a partition which would assign a drive letter and make it accessible.  The customer agreed and then after showing to them that it was available they freaked out because none of their data was there.  The customer claimed that they had the hard drive full of media.  I advised them that we could perform data recovery on the hard drive and attempt to get back whatever we could.  The customer agreed and the price was $100.

Data recovery takes hours and hours for it to be successful and I was only able to find one previous partition with data intact, all the others were garbled and not recoverable.  I recovered the good partition but was still unable to get any data from it and had to go a step further using file recovery on the recovered partition.  I was able to finally secure quite a few Gigs of pictures which I saved to a different hard drive.

Once that was complete I called the customer to notify them but their mobile phone was off and I couldn’t leave a message.  Today the customer came in to pick up their system and started complaining that I never called them.  So I explained that I had and they claimed that their mobile was always on and they have 3 batteries for it etc.  That was a stupid admission on the customer’s part because by stating that they have multiple batteries that they use for their phone it proves that the phone would be off while they switch batteries but that’s beside the point.  So I had to repeat myself to which the customer replied by asking me if I wanted to try now.  I asked him, “Why would I want to try calling your mobile right now, you’re standing right in front of me, what’s the point?  Douche bag had no reply to that one.

So I booted up the system and showed him the recovered data and he started whining that the data he wanted wasn’t recovered etc.  So I explained why that was which went way over his head and he continued bitching and that he didn’t want to pay.  So I told him that if you don’t want to pay then I’ll just delete the data I recovered.  He argued some more but was firm on not paying.

I’m not sure why he even bothered coming in and wasting my time.  It seemed obvious that he had no intention of paying at all in the first place.  So after wasting hours and hours of time and then being a douche bag I hard deleted all his recovered data and wiped it.  People who wanna be douche bags will get treated like douche bags.

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