Let’s use The Computer Deconfuser logo as our example as it has a nice solid white background.

1. Download it to your hard drive and open it in the Gimp.
2. Right click the only layer and add an alpha channel.
3. Select all of the image.
4. Select the bucket fill and change the mode to “color erase”.
5. Change the foreground color to the one you want to remove, in our case it’s white. Make you settings look like those in the screenshot.
6. Click on the color you want to remove. The entire solid color background should have been removed and replaced with a transparent background. If not, make sure you set the threshold to the 255 max value. If your background color appears elsewhere in the image it’s likely to get removed as well. In that case just tweak the threshold until you get what you want. Now just save the new image and you it on any color background.

And here is the finished product. Notice that it’s using the background color of the page.

I ran it 2 or three times before I gave Charter a call. I calmly explain the problem and the tech asks me all the standard questions. There was one in particular that she was having an especially difficult time with. The conversation went something like this:

Charter Tech: “Are you running Windows XP or Vista?”

Me: “Neither, I’m running Linux. Well…Ubuntu.”

Charter Tech: “Excuse me?”

Me: “I said Linux.”

Charter Tech: Silence…..

A few minutes pass and she’s still trying to troubleshoot the problem. She sends me to Charter’s Speedtest to test my connection.

Oh wow! They fixed it quick. Now that’s the kind of speeds I expect and pay for. She begins wrapping up the call and I decide to try another speed tester. This time it’s Speedtest’s Speedtest. I’m sad again.

Interesting. I then explain to her that I don’t trust their results. That the only speedtest that reported good results was Charter’s. Then…

Charter Tech: “Can you shut down your computer?”

Me: “Do you want me to shut it down or reboot it?”

Charter Tech: “Reboot it and hold down the F8 key then select Safe mode with networking.”

Me: “I’m not running Windows.”

We exchange some more words and I calmly try to explain to her that the problem is with Charter’s service and that I’ve already performed all tests on my end and that I’m only calling because it is occurring on hardware outside of my control. She checks for outages in NC. None have been reported. This goes on for a while. Then she puts me on hold while she discusses it with her supervisor. Then…

Charter Tech: “There have been many reports of slow connections in NC. We’ll have to schedule a tech to come out unless the problem has been resolved prior to the appointment. In which case the appointment with be canceled.”

Me: “Ok.”

Charter Tech: “Did you say you were using a Mac?”

Me: “No I said Linux.”

Charter Tech: “Can you spell that?”

Me: “L-i-n-u-x”

These first-line techs are there to prevent common people with common misconfiguration problems from wasting the time of the highly paid second level techs. But there really should be a flag in the customer database that allows certain knowledgeable customers to bypass these techs and go straight to the second tier techs. This kind of conversation is frustrating for both of us. I only want someone to tell me, “Yes, we’re experiencing problems in your area and we’re working on it.” Instead I get someone who only knows to tell you to reboot your computer and router and modem until you hit the right combo or waste enough time that the problem has been resolved. I’m expecting that the problem is magically resolved before the tech arrives on Saturday in which case that appointment will automatically be canceled.

    $periods = array('2007-11-01','2007-12-01','2008-02-01','2008-03-01','2008-04-01','2008-05-01','2008-06-01');
    for($i=0;$i<count ($periods);$i++){
        $d1 = strtotime($periods[$i]);
        $d2 = date(’Y-m-d’,strtotime(’+1 month’, $d1));
        if($d2 != $periods[$i+1]){
            $trueMaxPeriod =  date(’Y-m-d’,$d1);
            break;
        }
    }

I thank the Lord for this because it’s not even close to where my mind was going. Also, Google didn’t turn up much either. So if you have an array of date values and need to find is a value is missing in the series, try the above.