Rants and Raves

Timothy C. Hain, MD

Professor of Neurology, Otolaryngology, and Physical Therapy/Human Movement Science, Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago IL, USA.

EMAIL ADDRESS: t-hain@northwestern.edu

This space holds helpful information about various things that Dr. Hain has discovered by trial and error. Perhaps if enough of us do this, searches on these companies will bring up more relevant information.

Rants

• ADR data recovery -- disorganized, expensive and poor customer service.
• Email autoreplies -- strike back !
• Banks
  • Bank of America - -clueless and site doesn't work.
  • Bank Financial FSB -- also clueless
  • Chase Bank -- reinvention of ursury.
• Elsevier exploits authors. Actually most publishers exploit authors. I will add more companies as I publish more chapters.
• Fed-X home delivery -- an express delivery service in Chicago that asks you to pick up packages 10 miles away (in Bedford Park) and takes mondays off (?). I guess express mail doesn't apply to monday in a little market like Chicago ?
• Linksys WRE54G -- doesn't work either.
• Cellular telephone companies
  • http://www.myworldphone.com/ -- awful customer service. Fake return policy.
  • Verizon wireless -- unethical treatment of customers
• Software
  • Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0-- crashes routinely. Apparently Adobe didn't include all of the essential elements.
  • Asterisk telephony-- not ready for the big time yet.
  • efax -- a telephone tech company that doesn't answer their phone.
  • Efilmlite radiology reviewing program (too lite)
  • Easymail plus mailing database program (difficult at best)
  • Microsoft Money Essentials -- garbage software -- avoid this one.
  • Microsoft Active-Sync -- avoid devices that use this (like the Blackjack-II) too.
  • Microsoft Vista 64 bit -- doesn't work for me. Linux is looking pretty good.
  • Ulead Movie Factory 4.0 -- doesn't work. It is evidently hard to make functional movie software.
• Stubhub ticket site - -watch your date's back !

So-so

• Ad blocking using the "hosts" file -- much faster browsing and less annoyance! sometimes gets in the way.
• Brother MFC-8820D multifunction printer, built like a tank, but has many major software problems. There are workarounds.
• Hotel Reviews
  • Biltmore Resort in Phoenix, AZ -- no coffee here
  • Flamingo hotel in Las Vegas -- no coffee here either -- because of terrorists (?!)
  • Hotel 140 in Boston -- shouldn't it be "Hotel 'Y' ?
  • New Hankyu hotel in Osaka -- lack of coffee is the least of this hotel's problems.
• Concert reviews
  • Mariochi Vargas de Tecalitian -- bring your ear plugs -- as you can't get away from the overloaded speakers inside.
  • Tangastic (Chicago event) -- you better really like Tango.

Raves

• Irfanview -- awesome little program to display and downsize graphic files -- far far better than Microsoft's stuff.
• Electric Sheep Screensaver -- this is an awesome and free piece of fluff !
• Foxit pdf reader/writer -- very fast and better feature set than Adobe Reader (it doesn't work with Microsoft Vista 64 bit very well -- but what does ?).
• Kyoto, Japan -- beautiful and expensive
• Roboform -- online password manager -- very useful for those of us with 1000's of passwords.
• Concerts
  • Billy Joel/Elton John
  • Too Hot to Handel(jazz-soul-classical-opera fusion)

Frank Lloyd Wright

• Biltmore resort in Phoenix -- you will need a GPS to find this hotel.
• Frank Lloyd Wright home in Oak Park -- very nice
• Unity Temple in Oak Park -- nice but overpriced
• Marin county civic building -- very cool

White Wine commentaries (under construction)

• Chardonney
  • Robert Mondavi (not all brands)
• French Columbard
  • Macnab Ridge
• Gerwurztraminer
  • Claiborne & Churchill, Central coast Dry Gewurztraminer.
• Pinot Grigio
  • Kettmer