Category: Quagmire’s Den
I can’t say I’m sad to see it go. It is nice to see the old wireless protocols become obsolete. The only way that can happen is if the new protocol is soooo good that the other’s are not worth producing any longer.
That seems to be the case with the new Atheros chips coming into fruition. Less power, larger distance, faster throughput . . . what is the downside? We’ll have to wait to see what the pricing is.
It seems every time we come up on a limit, we find a way to beat it. We are fast approaching the limits of silicone, when it comes to using it for ever decreasing size and therefore increasing speeds in CPU’s.
Necessity breads innovation though. We are a resilient race. Give us an obstacle, and we will build a way around it.
Of course, I am still waiting to hear what the research will determine with Herbertsmithite. That just fascinates me to no end. Will I get to see Quantum Computing in my lifetime? I certainly hope so!
Over the last few jobs I have had (over the last 20+ years) I have been one that has taken on as much responsibility as I can. When I got hired on as a full time employee where I work now, my boss, the president of the company, hadn’t had a vacation in about 7 years. My goal was to take enough responsibility away from him so that he would be able to take a vacation without having to worry that something would go wrong while he was gone. My philosophy is, the President of the company should only be doing the things that only he can do. If he is doing something I can do, then I will do it, or get someone else to do it for me. After I worked here for two years, he took a one week cruise. Mission accomplished!
The last few jobs I have had, I have increased in responsibility and pay faster than anyone else in the history of those companies. When you take on more responsibility than you are required to, you make yourself an asset to the company. Essentially, you create job security.
When the recession hit, my company had to reduce the number of employees they had in order to cut costs. Definitely not an unfamiliar action in today’s world. However, since I spent my time taking on responsibility and pushing my comfort zone way out there, I have become indispensable. I would venture to guess that I would be one of the last people to be laid off because I do so much for this company.
People need to realize that they do control their destiny. Things don’t just happen, unless you let them.
I have been working on getting debt free for a while now. You see, while I have a good work ethic, I have shown laxity in my finances. I wish I would have found someone like Dave Ramsey when I was in high school, instead of just a year or so ago. Although what he preaches is common sense, sometimes you just have to be hit upside the head with a 2×4 of common sense before you get it.
Now, making myself indispensable with the company I work for sounds like some really good job security, right? What happens, though, if the company goes out of business? That is the possibility I am facing now. How’s that for a 2×4 of common sense. It doesn’t matter how indispensable you are if the company no longer exists. That’s why you need to be debt free, and have an emergency fund in place. Once you have indispensability, no debt and an emergency fund, then you are “recession proof”.
Rumor has it, Windows 7 will be available for Technet and MSDN on August 6, 2009. Volume License customers will be able to get it on August 7. OEM’s – well, shortly. 
General availability – October 22. If I hadn’t renewed my Technet subscription already, I would before August 6!
I’ve been in the computer industry for almost 25 years now. I’ve gone from the lowest on the totem pole to the service manager, and increased in pay faster than anyone ever in two of the companies I have worked for. I’ve seen some weird things in my time. At my first job in the computer industry, my coworkers started calling me the System Master because when no one could fix a system, they would call me in. And I never found a system I couldn’t fix, unless it was unfix-able. All that to let you know, when it comes to computers, I know a little about what I am talking about.
I remember working on a system some years ago. It was at a local law firm, here in Atlanta, back in the late 80′s. This system had two other technicians dispatched, and neither one could get this system working. I was finally called in. I don’t remember too many of the specifics of what I did initially, but I remember the end result and the fix. The system was so fragmented, it was actually working, but it took over an hour to boot. This, back when DOS was the norm. Talk about a totally screwed system.
After I defragged the system, everything worked fine.
Today, we have all kinds of different system tools out there to speed up the systems under the various flavors of Windows. Some work good, some are a scam, and some are just plain fraud or malicious. However, the best tool that anyone can use – to begin with – when the system is slowing down is Windows Defrag (Disk Defragmenter). This can be a life saver, and a cheap one at that. After all, it comes with Windows!
In all my years of tech support, one of the first questions I still have to ask all of my end users when they call me for a slow system is “When did you last defrag your system?” 95% of the time I get “Defrag? What is that?” Even if it is not the first time I’ve asked them. (If you are in Tech Support, you absolutely know what I mean here.)
Microsoft has finally gotten it right in Windows 7, in more than one way. But one of the first and most basic win’s they have here is they have Defrag automatically scheduled to run on a weekly basis as a default for the operating system. Whohoo! Finally! This one feature here will probably cut out about 20% of the tech support calls that companies get with computers. I know when I made it a company standard about 2 and a half years ago, to install Diskeeper on our systems, my calls went down to almost half. People quit complaining about the system slowing down.
Defragmentation of the hard drive is sort of like exercise for humans. Keep it fit, and it will keep running at optimum for you. Too bad Microsoft can’t come out with something to let us do exercise automatically, while we sleep.
First we had Metro-sexuals totally screwing up mankind and woosifying America. Now we have Social Networking dumbifying (I came up with that word myself) 
American mentality. I find it unsettling how people fall into the traps of social networking. What is the fascination with having a large following? It’s just like the mentality of 15 year old’s in High School. Who is the most ‘popular’. I never understood it then, and I don’t understand it now.
Now there are sites telling you how to “add xxx followers per day”. Just do a google search for ‘add 500 followers per day’ without the quote. I had 186,000 hits. It’s sort of like a guild in World of Warcraft. You know the ones. When you go into a large city, and someone is shouting “Paying 1 gold for you to join my guild!” Why would anyone join that? It’s definitely a high quality guild. The same goes for Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Maybe I’m just a slight conspiracy theorist, but I’m one of those people that value my privacy. I actually take steps to hide my identity from public view. Pull my credit report, and you won’t even find my actual physical residence. I actually pay for a mail box (NOT a P.O. Box either), and have everything of importance that can be linked to my credit addressed there.
Privacy is a rare commodity these days. Big Brother does enough to get all the info he can on a person. Why would anyone make it easier for him?
I think Nancy Reagan said it best, when it comes to Social Networking, “Just Say No!”
Notice how I left MySpace out of this commentary? It’s a given that you have to be under 18 or totally retarded to use MySpace.
I kind of figured it was coming, when they released the Home version of Microsoft Office. Now they are doing it with Windows 7.
Microsoft typically doesn’t go after the individual user for copyright infringement, unlike the Music industry. They typically go after businesses. It seems that they have finally figured out that there is an additional money stream to be had if they cater to the home user. They have not announced it yet, but they will have a Windows Home Premium Family Pack pricing. $136.95 will get you 3 installs of the Windows 7 Home Premium. This should make a lot of people happy. After all, these days, a lot of people have more than one computer in their homes. www.expertcom.com had the part listed with the price, but have since removed the item. You can see here, where it is now discontinued. Big OOPS on their behalf.
It looks as though Microsoft is finally becoming Family friendly. I, for one, welcome the change.
Pope Benedict seems to think that Economic Redistribution is an excellent idea. Him and his predecessor, Pope Paul VI, would make some wonderful dictators. It’s a good thing they are only the head of a church, and not a Real nation.
“The world’s wealth is growing in absolute terms, but inequalities are on the increase“ This is the thinking of this dictator to be. Here’s more: “Charity demands justice: recognition and respect for the legitimate rights of individuals and peoples,” he says. “Justice must be applied to every phase of economic activity, because this is always concerned with man and his needs,” “Locating resources, financing, production, consumption and all the other phases in the economic cycle inevitably have moral implications. Thus every economic decision has a moral consequence.”
Now, “Justice”, in Benedict’s mind, is the taking of someone’s money and redistributed to others that are less “fortunate”.
He totally supports the “redistribution of wealth” when he references the role of government. “Grave imbalances are produced,” he writes, “when economic action, conceived merely as an engine for wealth creation, is detached from political action, conceived as a means for pursuing justice through redistribution.” Therefore, “Justice” is redistribution of wealth. And therefore, not redistributing wealth is unjust. That is a very scary thought.
I just wonder how much the government would have to take from someone like Bill Gates to make it “just”? 50%? 75%? 95%?
I have never read anywhere in the Bible where Jesus ever said to take money from the rich and give to the poor. I did read where the rich are supposed to be generous, and give charity and tithes. Neither of which are mandatory.
Dictator Benedict seems to forget that Charity is giving of one’s self. Charity makes no demands, justice or otherwise.
I do, however, believe that Economic Redistribution is a good idea. As long as we start with the churches. Lets start taxing the Catholic Church first! If the Catholic Church would sell all the super high value churches that it owns, it could probably single handedly wipe out the hunger problem in Ethiopia. If we are going to be all for Taxation and Regulation in order to help the “less fortunate” lets start with the Catholic Church. Revoke the Tax Exempt status, and lets get started!
Want to fix the problems with the Federal Government passing un-funded requirements on the states? Repeal the 17th amendment to the constitution. Our founding fathers knew that the Federal Government would grow to become the bloated festering boil on the ass of society that it has become. That’s why they instituted the checks and balances that they did. Originally, the states had their representation in the congress – The Senate, and the people had their representation – The House of Representatives.
With the problems introduced because of the Civil war, the 17th amendment was enacted. Instead of letting the states work through their problems, and penalizing the states with contentions – they could have let those states with problems go without representation. They would have certainly fixed their own mess sooner or later, and the nation would have been better off for it. Taking the easy way out, is always detrimental in the long run.
We, as a nation, have got to go back to the basics, and get representation for the states back into the congress. State’s rights are a dying breed, unfortunately.
Our founding fathers wanted this to be a nation of individual states, not a one state nation. Diversity seems to be one of the buzz words now-a-days. Well, that is what our founding fathers intended as well, with the states. Our federal government, with its overbearing regulation, is taking the diversity away from the states. When it comes to the United States of America, I’m pro-choice.