Patrick O’Keefe

The Los Angeles Times reports that Michael Jackson has died. CNN has confirmed it.

As with so many others, he was definitely a part of my childhood. From time to time my parents joke about me doing “the Michael Jackson dance” when I was little. This basically meant I moved around in a sort of jittering fashion like a crazy person, resembling Jackson’s moves for maybe a second and by accident.

At EPCOT, I loved the Captain EO ride. I had the Michael Jackson sneakers from L.A. Gear (black with gold, metal circles). I was really young, so I didn’t really listen to or buy albums, but the big singles, especially “Beat It” and “Bad,” I loved. I didn’t end up buying any of his music until the past few years, which is when I got a little deeper into his older stuff and other tracks. I still need to go back and buy all his albums and I’ll do that one day.

So, today is a sad day. He was a tremendous talent, which goes without saying, and his accomplishments were immense. He inspired a generation of entertainers. He’ll be missed.

On June 12, the new “Must Be Love” music video by Cassie featuring Diddy premiered. I’m a bit fan of the record and the video has a really cool concept, as well. Check it out below.

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Thank you for reading and for your support.

I really like Fabolous’ new song, “My Time” featuring Jeremih. The video is cool, as well, featuring an epilogue with Ryan Leslie, who I’m a huge fan of, as well. Check it out below.

It turns out, I wasn’t crazy. Not this time, anyway. The Firefox issue I had, where my cookies would be automatically deleted, was fixed in version 3.0.7, released on March 4. Sorry for the delay in posting an update, but better late than never. Thank you to everyone who attempted to help me with this issue.

I’m really loving this song and video. I’m looking forward to Day26’s new album, “Forever in a Day,” which will be released on April 14.

When I saw Gary Vaynerchuk’s Good People Day 2009 post/call to action, I knew I wanted to put something together. This is the second annual Good People Day and I participated in 2008. In that post, which I could easily just paste for this year, as well, I tried to name as many people good I could think of, not wanting to leave anyone out. I also tweeted a lot. Gary mentioned a more refined approach this year and, in a great, beautiful video, he only named one person - his sister. So, I’m going to try that and I wanted to limit myself to 10 people.

I started to write out individual things about each person, but then I came to a realization. They all kind of sounded the same. I think this is because the people I gravitate towards, all tend to be similar in more ways than not. Before I continue, I did want to say that I know more than 10 people who fit this - I am blessed to know a lot of good people - so I hope no one is offended by not being included and I’m sure no one will be. Unfortunately, these lists are always going to be missing people who should be there.

Anyway, here is who I came up with: Brandon Eley, Jared Smith, Chrispian Burks, Stephan Segraves, Jonathan Bailey, Lee LeFever, Jeremy Wright, Jason Falls, Wayne Sutton and Wendy Piersall.

What is true about the people I’ve listed is that they are good people. They work hard, they try to help others, they do great things. They are open minded, they are respectful, they care. They share, they are approachable, they are kind. They are all great, but with the potential and talent to become even greater. But, with all of this said, what I like about them, as much as anything else, is that they love their family. I don’t know if there is a higher complement that I can pay. Here’s to you!

Check out Common Craft’s latest video, “Computer Software in Plain English,” below. I saw my friend Lee (half of the Common Craft team, along with his wife, Sachi) at South by Southwest and attended his panel, “Shift Happens: Moving from Words to Pictures.” I’ll talk more about that when I get my SXSW recap done!

South by Southwest Interactive 2009 is quickly approaching. I’ll be speaking, but I’ll also be in town from the 12th through the 18th, taking in the whole conference. So, I thought I’d ask, what events should I go to? Are you hosting one that I should come to?

I already have a few Tweetups on the schedule, as well as “Hands on Kirtsy.” Please let me know where else I should go!

For several years, I have supported Hewlett-Packard (HP) and their products. My family’s first computer was an Apple. But, the next one was a Compaq (who later merged with HP) and the one after that was an HP. When I was finally able to buy my first computer as an individual, I purchased an HP. I later bought a Laptop, which was a Compaq (this was after they merged, I believe). My second computer, the one I am on now, is an HP. My second laptop, the one I am typing this on right now, is an HP. We have two printers in the house - they are both HPs.

So, suffice to say, I’ve been a loyal Compaq/HP customer for more than a decade. I’ve been loyal because I’ve enjoyed their products and have been happy with the value and the results. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had crashes - but, those happen and the only thing that has ever really crashed on me is a hard drive.

Let’s go back to early January. I am getting ready to leave on a trip across the country for 2 and 1/2 weeks. I’m using my desktop, everything’s good. All of a sudden, out of no where, I see a blue screen flash and the computer goes off. Well, hey… that’s never happened before, in just over a year of using it. My thought, or my hope, was that I’d reboot and be good. That was not the case. I spent the next day and a half fiddling with it. Booting and rebooting, looking at the BIOS, messing with the boot order, trying system restores and system recoveries. I tried switching out memory. I gave up and just decided to factory restore it. Guess what? No go. I couldn’t do anything. I consulted with friends, went through various suggestions. Nothing.

With the trip only 3-4 days away, I decided I should go ahead and send it to HP for repair. This is where the first part of our story starts - the bad part. I had a hard time communicating with the HP support people. There was literally 6-8 times I called, so this is all a little hazy, but here’s the meat of it. The first lady I spoke with, at first, told me that HP doesn’t repair machines outside of the warranty. That can’t be right, I figured.

After restating my needs, she told me what I could do, which was that I could pay $149 for an extended phone support package and then see if their technician could help me over the phone. Then, if they can’t, I can pay for a hardware warranty for $120 and HP will take care of any hardware issues the machine has for one year. She wasn’t exactly the nicest lady I’d ever spoken with, but I thought there might have been a little bit of a language barrier. But, what she said sounded good. This was before I was done trying what I could on the machine, so I was really gathering info and didn’t place any orders. (more…)