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[chooch709]

When online banking goes wrong.

10 am Wednesday: I transfer $1200 via BankOfAmerica.com from my checking account to my (also BoA) credit card to pay off (most of) Sam's daycare for the month of November.

10:15 am Wednesday: I realize that the website has decided that I wanted *two* $1200 transfers, and now my account is in the red.

10:30 am Wednesday: I get on the phone, call electronic banking services, and explain that the website made an error and I only wanted one transfer.

He tells me it's handled, the second charge has been killed.  He says I can log out and log back in to see the changes reflected.  I do just that, and see that the second transfer is done.  "That was painless" ... or so I thought.

9 am Thursday: I wake up to an email that my account was overdrawn multiple hundreds of dollars.  Yep, both transactions went through, mother fuckers.  I have overdraft protection which takes money from my credit card ($500 in this case) and puts it on my checking account so that I'm guaranteed to never be in the red.  There are fees associated with this, of course.

9:30 am Thursday:  I arrive at Central Square for work and walk down a block to the Bank of America to speak with someone in person.

I explain the whole situation over again, and they make some phone calls to sort it out.  They tell me - the money will be back in your account in 2-3 business days.  Well, that sucks, considering I preemptively tried to stop this.  But oh well, that's better than nothing I guess?  They said they'd also take care of the overdraft fees and get that $500 sorted out too.

I leave the office assuming everything will resolve with 3 business days, so probably early next week.

6:00 pm Thursday: On my train ride home I get a call from a 1-800 number.  I just assume its Bank of America, but I'm not going to discuss my financials on the MBTA so I don't pick up the call (even though I'm publicly writing about it now... yeah whatever).  The voice mail says there's an issue with the case and I need to call them back.

I call them back and speak to the only person out of anyone I interacted with that sounded like she gave a shit.  She says that she's on the bank side, and this problem is going to have to get solved with a reversal on the credit card side so she needs to transfer me there.  I ask if she'll come over on the call to explain precisely the situation so I don't have to tell the story over again for the 4th time.

She puts me on hold, transfers to the credit card side, explains the situation to them, then asks if she can leave me with them from that point on.  I say yes and then ... she hangs up on me.  Flatlined.  My iPhone started playing my music again.

For real?  Rage, all sorts of rage.  Fuckers.

I call the number back and explain my situation for the 4th time like I tried to avoid.

She suggests calling the electronic banking side -- aka the first group I called when the situation arose and failed to do anything worthwhile.  So, I explain that to her and tell her that I just want to get in contact with my credit card.  

I thought by calling this specialty number that put me immediately in contact with a real person, and having a case number, was a better choice than trying to call my main credit card customer service main line.  But then, of course, she puts me through to the main number and now I have to go through the system and wait 10 minutes to talk to anyone.

Then... I explain my story for the 5th time.

They tell me that they can revert the $1200 payment back to my checking account, but the $500 overdraft charge cannot be reverted until it's processed; currently it's still pending.  Okay, whatever, it's just a charge on my credit card and with the money back in my account I can just pay it off -- maybe it'll even count towards my points?

Right as we're about to hang up and consider the issue "resolved" I say - "I want this to be as clear as possible:  in 2-3 business days the $1200 will be refunded into my account, right?".  He says "well... either into your account or mailed to you in a paper check."

WAIT WHAT?  NO. NO. NO.  That was NOT what we just talked about for the last 20 minutes.  So I tell him that's absolutely not acceptable and I need to speak with a manager.  

The manager is another 5 min wait, meanwhile he tells me he "made a note" that this refund needs to happen electronically.  I tell the manager:  "the result of this transaction determines whether or not I stick with your company or move onto something else, I hope this is being processed the way you say it's being processed because you're now the 5th person I've talked to about the issue.  Of course "everything will come back in 2-3 business days" the manager says, but that's still to be determined.  I'm skeptic.

End result?  I'm leaving Bank of America either way.  I've been meaning to for a long time, I've really just needed an excuse to do the legwork.  This absolutely should have been resolved on the first phone call.

[chooch709]

TIL About LocalStorage

This came in extremely handy, and was far less code for me than using cookies.  Thanks, HTML5.

http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2010/10/11/local-storage-and-how-to-use-it

localStorage.setItem('favoriteflavor','vanilla');

var taste = localStorage.getItem('favoriteflavor');2// -> "vanilla"

localStorage.removeItem('favoriteflavor');

[chooch709]

Taken with instagram

[chooch709]

Compile Qt for VS2010

Awesomely succinct writeup:

Visual C++ 2010 contains all necessary SDKs for Qt compilation. However if you plan to use Qt with Phonon you need to install additional software from Qt for Windows Requirements list.

Download and extract Qt 4.7.1 Source Code.

Copy contents of the folder qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.7.1 to the directory where you intend to install Qt. In our case this is C:\Qt\4.7.1.

Set up environmental variables QTDIR=C:\Qt\4.7.1 QMAKESPEC=win32-msvc2010

Update PATH variable to include %QTDIR%\bin

Download the latest version of jom.

Extract jom files to C:\Qt\jom folder

Start Visual Studio 2010 Command Prompt: Start > Programs > Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 > Visual Studio Tools > Visual Studio Command Prompt.

Run following commands in it: cd c:\Qt\4.7.1 configure -debug-and-release -opensource -platform win32-msvc2010 ..\jom\jom.exe -j 4

Download and install Qt Visual Studio Add-in.

Run Visual Studio 2010. Integrate just compiled Qt to IDE using menu Qt > Qt Options

Original post here: http://www.holoborodko.com/pavel/2011/02/01/how-to-compile-qt-4-7-with-visual-studio-2010/

[chooch709]

Choochx: I earned this achievement: Port Scion Support! #Rift

[chooch709]

Choochx: I earned this achievement: In Your Kitchen! #Rift

[chooch709]

Using Win7 as a Symbol Server

Apparently, if you want to copy large amounts of files to a Win7 share (which in my case is a symbol server) you'll need to use a quick registry hack to stop the machine from choking (and in my case, crashing):

http://alan.lamielle.net/2009/09/03/windows-7-nonpaged-pool-srv-error-2017

Set the following registry key to ’1′: 

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\LargeSystemCache

...and set the following registry key to ’3′:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters\Size

[chooch709]

Choochx: I earned this achievement: Icewatch Revenge! #Rift

[chooch709]

Visual Studio 2010 Configuration-specific Project Dependencies

Given this issue:

Solution_Xbox.sln contains: app.vcxproj, xbox.vcxproj

Solution_PC.sln contains: app.vcxproj, pc.vcxproj

If your app.vcxproj contains references to both xbox.vcxproj and pc.vcxproj, both slns will produce linking errors for projects they don't have included.  There is also, for some horrible reason, no interface in visual studio 2010 to fix this.  Here's a workaround:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4137295/how-can-one-make-a-visual-studio-2010-project-dependency-be-configuration-specifi

[chooch709]

Choochxt: I earned this achievement: Favorful! #Rift

[chooch709]

Choochxt: I earned this achievement: Soulful! #Rift

[chooch709]

Choochxt: I earned this achievement: Bookworm! #Rift

[chooch709]

Choochxt: I earned this achievement: Freshman Orientation! #Rift

[chooch709]

VS Bugs Ugh.

I just ran into, yet another, obnoxious VS bug where my search functions didn't work no matter what I would do.  This one goes down to the windows level.  So annoying:

http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/105511/find-in-files-says-no-files-were-found-to-look-in-find-was-stopped

[chooch709]

/loc plz

I don't know why this randomly popped in my head.  Back in the day (read: DAoC) in order to find someone in a zone they'd tell you their /loc (think lat/long, something like 54,000 2,000).  Then you'd have to type /loc, figure out where you were, picture the zone as a square from 0,0 to 60k, 60k, and imagine where that loc would be.  Then run there, avoiding mobs/players, as there generally were no roads off the beaten path.

Then they implemented the /faceloc command, so you could face another player and at least figure out what direction they were in.

Ahhhh the good old days of MMO's.  Now you can find your party members on any world or minimap.  Where's the exploration in that?

[chooch709]

nedroidcomics:

And what I do is tasty

[chooch709]

PAX East 2011

I'm going to do a small update for this one, because I could probably spend the whole day writing stuff.

Highlights:

Child of Eden - looks like a lot of fun!  I'm looking for more "core" Kinect games, so this is on my radar.  I didn't get to play Gunslinger but I'm surely going to keep an eye on that too.

DNF - Hail to the King!

Wireless HD RF Tech from Alienware, damn cool, even if it's marginally useful and super expensive.

SW:TOR - but we already knew that.

Sean Baptiste's "When I Grow Up" panel, so inspiring.

Zombie Dice!  So simple, so cheap, but amusing.  We ordered them off of Amazon, they should be at the house soon.

Steve Jackson signed our copy of Munchkin!

My 6 month old daugher spent a day in a carrier strapped to my chest and it was actually a pretty huge success!

Lowlights:

Missed the Rift community party because I was EXHAUSTED after day 1.  Bummer.

Curt Schilling told a room full of MMO gamers that PvP and PvE cannot exist in the same game without one or the other feeling "tacked on".  Bullshit sir, bullshit.  Guess I'm not playing Copernicus. :/

Food was expensive as hell and no good at BCEC.

Microsoft Surface isn't very impressive now that we have iPhones and iPads everywhere.

3D gaming hurts my brain and my eyes, I am not going to jump into that anytime soon.

All said and done it was a great weekend, but I'm pretty wiped after it.  Next year I'm taking the Friday + Monday off so I can get a down day.