Everyone, but me, is wrong

A mini review of the Mystic Premium Binder with Slip Case

2011-12-25T12:27:00.000-08:00

So, waiting for me under the tree last night was the Mystic Premium Binder with slip case. So, after the kids were done opening what looks like Lego mountain, I decided to snap some photos of the binder and give you my first impression.

It's A Really Nice Binder On The Outside

So, I have to say, this is one really nice binder. Not sure if the binder is leather or not, but SMELLS like leather. It's a wonderful dark green color with embossed gold lettering on the front and the spine that says "American Heirloom Album of United States Stamps" Here are some pics:

Spine in slip case

Binder pulled out of slip case

Embossed lettering on front cover

The binder and slip case are both very solid, extremely thick and are quite gorgeous to look at. The spine is curved, giving it a nice look.

It's Pretty Nice On The Inside Too!

The inside of the binder uses D rings mounted to the back cover the same as the standard binder does.

Binder interior

As you can see from the photo above, there are no levers at the top and bottom to open the rings; you simply pull them open by grabbing and one the three rings and pulling.

The literature Mystic sent me shows binder rings that were gold in color. The binder I received had rings in silver. I think with the dark green background, the gold rings look much nicer than the silver rings do.

So, what does it look like with pages inside, you may ask? Well, here's Volume I moved into the new binder.

Volume I sheets put into the binder

My Only Complaint

So, the only thing I really did not like about the binder was the rings themselves. On some of the higher end Avery binders and the Bindertek binders, the rings are locking rings that look like this:

These rings lock because the small post on the right slides into a hole on the left post. This is suppose to prevent the pages you turn from catching on the binder, and causes the rings to close perfectly every time.

Mystic uses the traditional binder ring closure.

Traditional Binder closer. Mystic still uses D- Rings, not round ones, but the actual closure looks like the one in this photo.

Other than that, a truly awesome binder. I will try and take some macro shots later today and post them. I can figure out how to turn macro on right now and the lighting is not that great any way.

Removing Watermarks from RPGnow.com Purchases

2011-10-31T18:43:00.000-07:00

Lately, I have been buying RPG books from RPGnow.com. And these books all come with a watermark on them. Though I understand that RPGnow has to offer some kind of assurance to the book pulishers in order to be able to sell their content, I am personally opposed to both DRM and watermarking, and do my best to remove it from any digital content that I buy.

My issue with watermarking is that the watermark brands whatever digital content as being purchased by me. If that content leaks on the Internet (laptop stolen, son's friend copies it off the PC while I am at work, malicious worm uploads it to a server somewhere, I don't have a hell of a lot of legal recourse. As far as the copyright holder is concerned, I leaked the files and I am financially responsible for their financial loss. I scrub my iTunes music and stopped buying Amazon MP3s, because their watermark can't be removed.

Anything I buy digitally, I scrub clean and keep a receipt of in the form of emails or screen shots.
That's the big difference between physical and digital media. If I lose the Pathfinder Player's Handbook or someone "borrows" it from my backpack. there are no legal repercussions on ME. If my watermarked digital media gets "borrowed" and shared, then it's up to me to prove that my PCs were compromised, since I face a potential lawsuit now from the publisher/copyright holder. I don't know about you, but I don't file a police report every time I get a virus.

So, all that being said here is my guide to removing watermarks from your LEGALLY purchased content from RPGnow. RPGnow serves a valuable purpose. Don't go stealing from them, or you'll need to buy dead tree copies of RPG books for $30 again, instead of cheap $15 PDfs!

To the best of my knowledge, this will scrub your PDFs clean of any personal identifying information. There could be more stuff hidden in there somewhere, but I was unable to find it.

Things you will need:

Legally purchased RPGnow PDF file
A tool to remove the owner password from the PDF file
A PDF editor of some kind (this tutorial uses Adobe Acrobat Pro 10.1.1, because that's what I have at work)

Buy Some Stuff

Ok, head on over to RPGnow and buy some cool stuff. The price of downloaded PDFs is significantly cheaper than printed books, and if you have a tablet like an iPad, you can save a good chunk of money buying PDFs.

Get a Tool To Remove The Owner Password

There are a number of tools that will remove the owner password from a PDF file. I am on a Macintosh, so I chose to use the free PDF Unlock.

On Windows, I have used the great A-PDF PDF Restriction Remover. It costs $10.00, and is the cheapest one I found. There is a 15 day free trial that will unlock anything for the first 15 days.

I haven't found anything on Linux yet that does what these tools do on Mac on Windows.

Please note: There are a number of tools which will print to PDF. In theory you can do that to remove restrictions on these files, but there are some disadvantages to this method:

You lose all embedded fonts. This could be an issue when moving the file to an iPad or any PC you have that doesn't have the fonts the author installed on them.
Any linked table of contents will be lost
The ability to search the PDF might be lost. Especially if the PDF is something old that is OCRed.

So, why do you need to remove the owner password? Well, because the document is locked and with the owner password in place, the document can't be edited.

I'll leave it to you to figure out how to use these tools to remove the owner password.

Edit the PDF

So you'll notice at the bottom of each page you will see your name and your order number. That's some of the stuff you want to remove from the PDF. Acrobat Pro X makes it pretty easy to get rid of this stuff.

If you're on Windows and don't own Acrobat Pro, you can download a demo from Adobe's site.

Load you file up in Acrobat and do the following:

On the bottom of the page you will see your name and order number. Remember that information.
Click on Tools in the upper right hand side of the toolbar
Click on Protection
Click on Redaction Properties
Change Redaction Area Fill Properties to No Color
Click on Search and Remove Text
In the search box choose

In the current document
Single word or phrase
Type in your name and order number as it appears in the watermark

Click on Search & Remove Text
Once the search is complete, click on Check All
Then click on Marked Checked Results for Redaction
You will then see a red box around the watermark.
On the right hand side, click on Apply Redactions
When it's done, save your file.

You would think you'd be done now, but not so fast! There is another field on the page. One you can't see, and that field contains your IP address! That one needs to go to.

To find that field, reduce the size of the page so you can see the grey around it.
If you go the bottom right side of the page, you will notice your cursor changes to a text selection I bar.
Click and drag to the right to highlight the hidden text
Press Command+C (CTRL+C on Windows) to copy the text
Now click on Search and Remove Text and paste in the hidden text. Confirm that it is an IP address with four octets. If it is not, you didn't get it all.
Repeat above procedure from Step 7 above.

You're almost done! Only one more step to go!

Ok, so now you need to make sure all hidden fields are deleted also.

On the right hand side, click on Remove Hidden information and let it run until it's done.
Uncheck everything except bookmarks
Click on the Remove button
Save your file

To the best of my knowledge, you should now be done!

Do your part to help save the post office!

2011-09-10T09:05:00.000-07:00

I can't take credit for this one. It's all my wife's idea...

As anyone knows, the post office is in real trouble. They want to stop Saturday delivery and are asking for money from Congress to avoid a complete shutdown later this year.

So, how did the post office actually get into this mess? Mostly progress. People email each other rather than send letters. Online bill pay also cut down on the level of mail you get. A lot of companies now have a "go paperless" option when it comes to sending you anything. All this spells doom for the post office, or does it?

What is the one thing you always seem to get no matter what? Junk mail! Inside a lot of junk mail (especially credit card offers) is a business reply envelope. The cost of the postage on these is paid by the sender, but it is only paid if the envelop is actually thrown in the mail.

So any time you get a piece of junk mail that has a business reply envelope in it, simply take whatever offer or application is in there, use a sharpie to black out any personal information, and stuff it in the envelope and mail it back to them. Heck, you can just shove a blank piece of paper if you want. Now, the marketing company has to pay the postage of you mailing the envelope back. So you've increased the cost of direct mailing to the junk mail companies AND you've helped make the post office a few bucks. On top of it all, the stuff doesn't end up in your trash. It ends up in THEIR trash. It's a win-win all the way around!

A Mini Review of the Mystic Heirloom Stamp Album

2011-07-28T17:15:00.000-07:00

The Mystic Heirloom stamp album is made exclusively by Mystic Stamp Company, and is sold currently at 4 different price points:

1. The Mystic Heirloom 3 Volume US Stamp Album Sale Price $38.95

2. The Mystic Heirloom 3 Volume US Stamp Album Regular Price $58.00

3. The Mystic Heirloom 3 Volume US Stamp Album, (set of 3) $116.85

4. The Mystic Heirloom Deluxe 3 Volume US Stamp Album $68.95

The deluxe version of the album is the same album, but with higher quality binders. More on that later.

Mystic also makes optional slip cases available for the binders or $22.95. I can't find a link to them at the moment.

The Binder

Mystic uses 3 ring binders with D rings that allows the pages to lie flat. The binders are green vinyl with gold silkscreened letters on the front and side with the words "America Heirloom Collection of United States Stamps"

Overall, I find the binders to be a little less than stellar. The "Deluxe" versions of the binder use a thicker vinyl, but I feel that the binder could stand to have some thicker cardboard in them, rather than thicker vinyl. My old Minuteman 2 post album has much thicker cardboard in it. The binders are 2" thick.

I give the binder a B+

The Pages

I think the pages are what makes this album shine. They are 70 lb cream colored paper. The pages are standard US Letter Size (8 1/2 x 11) and three hole punched.

The pages are broken up into 3 volumes. Each volume has a cover page and a back page that are the same paper as the regular pages, but are covered in a clear plastic film on the side of the page that touches the binder. The back page usually has some stamp information. Each volume second page contains some nice artwork.

Volume I covers 1847-1984 and includes 2 blank pages. Page 2 has a nice picture of Thomas Jefferson and Monticello. The back page shows Mystic's display at the 2006 DC stamp expo.

Volume II covers 1895-1999 and contains 2 blank pages. The last page contains a nice writeup of the 1 cent Z grill stamp. The second page has a picture of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence and pictures of Franklin, Washington and Jefferson stamps.

Volume III includes 2000-2008 along with usuall back of book stuff - Semi Postals, Airmail, Airmail Special Delivery, Special Delivery, Certified and Registered Mail, Postage Due, Parcel Post, Special Handling, and Confederate Stamps. The back of the book has a number of ads for buying supplements and an order form for blank pages. The Page 2 artwork is title "In Tribute To The Past..." and shows a number of sovenier sheets issued by the USPS in the 2000s.

The Mystic Heirloom 2009 and 2010 supplements are included with the album also.

Like most US albums, the stamps are mounted on the right side and the page on the left is left blank. Mystic took the left blank page and added stamp descriptions to the album, making some use of this wasted space. The album also has clear illustrations for all the stamps and Scott numbers.

The pages, as good as they are, have caused me a very small amount of frustration.

The album is three volumes. Of the 3, Volume II is probably the smallest in terms of page count. When I added the 2010 supplement to Volume III it pretty much filled the binder up.

So I thought I could move some years such as 2000, and 2001 into the Volume II binder. Problem is, when I do that, I end up taking the description of the first page of Volume III to the end of Volume II. So, there's going to be some scanning and printing involved if I choose to go that route.

Something else that I noticed while "moving in" to the new album.

I started moving a good chunk of stamps from my old Minuteman album over to the Heirloom. The 1968 Historic Flag Series(Scott 1345-1354) will clearly fit onto one 8.5"x11" page, but Mystic wants me to break up the stamps instead of mount them as one long strip. I mounted the stamps as one strip across the middle of the page, but I might redesign the sheet to better show off the stamps.

The 1973 postal service employees strip (Scott 1489-1493) is also broken up into individual stamps, but I think that strip may be too long to fit in an 8.5x11 sheet of paper. I don't own the stamps, so I will need to measure it and see.

The 1974 Universal Postal Union Se-Tenant (Scott 1530-1537) is also to be mounted as individual stamps. The Se-Tenant block of 8 that I have will easily fit onto a single page. I mounted those stamps right in the center of the page. I may scan and redesign this page also.

Overall though, the pages are excellent and give the album some added flare and excitement by giving your stamps the descriptions friend and colleagues will appreciate when looking at the album.

I give the album pages an A-

The Supplements

The Mystic album is complete through 2008, and comes with supplements for 2009 and 2010. Mystic's supplements are very reasonably priced:

The Mysic 2009 supplement is available for $5.50

The supplement includes pages from previous supplements that correct errors or complete series, so adding a supplement might involve some stamp remounting. The supplements include updates for US duck stamp pages. The duck stamp pages are a separate set of pages you can buy from Mystic. I don't collect duck stamps, so I just put the pages aside for now.

Another nice thing about the supplements is the cover page, which is titled "The Year In Stamps." It contains pictures and text talking about the stamps issued that year. These pages are not meant to be added to the album, but they are a nice touch to keep you interested in your purchase.

The give the supplement an A+

Conclusion

Overall, the album is an excellent value for the money. The $39.00 price point is absolutely unbelievable. The problems I see with the st-tenant pages can be easily fixed with a scanner and some time.

My overall rating for the album is an B+

If Mystic had someone design binders that sturdier, like the Scott National binders or White Ace, and included those in the deluxe album for, say, $99 I think they would have an A+ on their hands.

Dusting things off...

2011-06-01T16:06:00.002-07:00

Wow, it's been a YEAR since I posted anything here. My geek life went on without any blogging. And it went on just fine. But it went on with the use of things like Twitter.

Having used Twitter for a number of years now, I fail to understand how ANYONE can have any kind of meaningful conversation when limited to the length of a text message. I feel like I am on Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza and have been to do a skit and limit my lines to only 5 words. The sheet volume of bad grammar and made up abbreviations just to fit things into some artificial limit is mind boggling.

This is where I thought that Google Buzz was a vast improvement. I could write things as long as I want. But no one else saw it my way. All the people I followed on Buzz weren't actually posting on Google Buzz, they were posting on Twitter and Google Buzz is re-posting it.

What's even scarier to me is the kind of response I get. I can send a nice long email to a company and get no reply to help me with my issue, but I send them a tweet, and I get a response back in an hour. However, the 144 character response I get can rarely help solve any issue I have.

But technology marches on. Texting, Twitter and Facebook keep us from having to actually to our friends and family. We don't need to have face to face discussions about family members. The whole country is becoming desensitized to all sorts of sad and violent behavior.

Sad really.

Perhaps, as technology progresses, we won't even need to interact with each other. We can do it all from home over computers and phones.

Welcome to the land of Hermits. We're halfway there already.

Moving into a device

2010-05-13T18:34:00.000-07:00

I've used a whole lot of different electronic devices in my time. To give you the short list:

Palmpilot
Plam IIIx
Del Axim
Palm Tungsten T3
Blackberry
Blackberry 7290
Blackberry 8700
Blackberry Curve 8310
Blackberry Curve 8530
iPod Touch 3G
Motorola Droid

Each of these devices I try to make my PDA, by brain, my GTD system, my everything I need it to be.

And every last one of them has something on it that annoys me a great deal. Of the whole list, I like the Motorola Droid the best, but there is one device that I truly moved into that is not on the list. I got this device from a client, and to this very day I miss it and still wish I had it. It's 2010 now, and even going through that list of devices up top, I would trade them all in, to get my hands back on the one device that made my organization complete.

That device is the Newton MessagePad 2100. 13 years later and nothing even comes close.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3FuTpWbmCQ

Photo management on Linux

2009-12-21T07:59:00.001-08:00

I was playing with Picasa on Linux 2 days ago. Google stopped officially supporing it after version 3.0, so I was using some blog posts to shoehorn 3.6 into my Ubuntu install.

While I was tinkering, I decided to goof around with some native Linux photo management apps. So I went and installed F-Spot and DigiKam, as well as a Java based app called blueMarine.

Hate to say it, but compared to iPhoto or Picasa, these things are simply aweful. Of the two, I think F-Spot may be a bit more user friendly, but if requires you to tag all your photos to organize them. There are no albums of any kind and all pictures get dumped into one big bucket. Though somewhat functional, it's going to require a good amount of work to keep things organized.

As much as I love open source software and use it all the time, if they expect to be able to get a Linux desktop in everyone's household, basic apps such as music players, photo organizers and basic movie editing are required to do this sort of thing.

Ah, if only I could code....

Is mobile technology going backwards??

2009-11-06T13:00:00.000-08:00

I've been using handheld devices for a LONG time, and I really feel things have gone backwards. From a convergence standpoint, things may be better, but from a UI standpoint I wonder...

The fist device I ever used was an Apple Newton. The thing was big, but it was AWESOME. By the time version 2.1 of the OS came around, it had awesome FULL handwriting recognition, and great linking between databases. You went into a contact and added a birthday to somebody and it automatically put the birthday in your calendar. It came with a Todo, and you could link todos to your contacts and assign days to them, which make them again show up in your calendar. Oh, and you could write pretty much anywhere on the screen.

Then the Palmpilot came along. It was SMALL. Small enough to fit in your shirt pocket. And you had to use Graffiti to enter information. One character at a time, instead of whole words. And you could only do it on the bottom of the screen in the Graffiti area. All the linking between databases was lost. You couldn't even enter a birthday in a contact record without buying a third party app. The Palm did, however, let you sync data from your Palm to your PC and back through conduits.

Then we had WinCE/Windows Mobile. We got some linking back with this OS, but for some reason Microsoft though the small screen on a PDA needed a start menu! Windows Mobile slowly evolved to have more Palm like experience. But it still had single character recognition for input, and the UI was rather clunky in general. We did get color however.

Now we're in the iPhone/DROID era. You can't even write on the screen anymore. You have to TYPE everything on a keyboard, either on screen or hardware depending on the device. And you have to use your fingers, which means all the widgets needs to be much larger now to deal with everyone's big fat fingers, yet the devices seem to keep getting smaller, when they should be getting larger. It doesn't even HAVE a todo list loaded in ROM. You have to buy it.

Am I looking at this wrong?

I don't get it...

2009-09-28T21:17:00.001-07:00

Why don't people GET evolution? As soon as you mention it, a bunch a religious zealots have to scream up and immediately defend the Bible, attack evolution and start asking questions that evolution doesn't answer.

For one, everyone asks why evolution doesn't explain where the original material from the Big Bang came from. What the **** does this have to do with evolution?? Does the Big Bang have anything at all to do with a species transitioning from one species to another over time?

There is also some misguided belief that selective pressure can somehow cause genes to spontaneously mutate. That's not the way it works. If a huge fissure opens up separating a group of animals from it's food, animals don't suddenly evolve the ability to jump the fissure. What happens is, the population of animals has members in it, all that can jump a certain distance. That distance is varied by individual and controlled by DNA. So, say 25% of the population is able to jump the distance and eat the food. 75% stays behind and either dies or find a new food source. The other 25% jump the fissure and eat. That 25% interbreeds and produces offspring that are good jumpers. Now we have 2 groups that are genetically different. The fissure would be considered "selective pressure." Given enough selective pressure, and groups will change over time.

Evolution is no great mystery, and if you actually read Darwin's book, it should make sense.

Importing a Java Certificate into the user's trusted certificate store

2009-09-25T11:51:00.000-07:00

So, we ran into an issue here at work. After a certain version, Java requires an application be properly digitally signed. If not, the user gets prompted to accept the digital certificate from the site and has the option to trust the signer.

Well, if you wan to do away with this problem, you can do the following:

Accept the cert and trust it.
Go into the Java control panel, go to security, view the certs and export the one you just trusted.
Execute the following command line to import the cert onto another machine

keytool -import -file "path to cert file" -keystore "%APPDATA%\Sun\Java\Deployment\security\trusted.certs" -alias certalias -storepass "" -noprompt

The path to cert file is the path to your certificate file

The certalias is a unique alias you assign to the certificate

If you're using Zenworks or SMS or some other software deployment mechanism, you can automate this and make sure your users never get prompted for a Java certificate again for internal applications that you provide to users via you desktop management tool of choice.

The only problem we have with this, is that the path to the keystore doesn't exist, unless you've either imported a cert already from within a web browser, or launched the Java control panel and viewed a list of certs. If someone knows a way to get the path and file to be created from some command line command, let me know. I would appreciate it.

Wow it's almost October....

2009-09-25T06:59:00.000-07:00

Almost October and I haven't posted anything since May! Not that I was a prolific blogger, but Man, that's a while...

Anyway, hole in the leg is still closed. Thank God for that! The wound care doctor was a great guy, but I really got sick of changing the bandage every day.

My new quest in life is to clean up my computer workspace. I'm going out tonight and buying a used Ikea Fredrik desk. The big problem is, I don't know what to do with the old desk. It's way too big to store anywhere. I may have to actually take a chainsaw to it and and hack it into pieces to get it out the door. That would be a shame, since it's a decent desk.

I just need some decent cable management and I should be all set.

I need to move two routers into the basement and mount them on the peg board. One is the Verizon provided FIOS router, and the other is a Wireless N Router I bought last Christmas, because I was getting sick of slow copy speeds between my desktop and the couch.

Tune in next week for more posts. Same Bat Time, same Bat Channel

It's gone!!!

2009-05-14T20:20:00.000-07:00

The gaping hole in my leg is gone! No more wound care visits!! Thank God that's over...

FIOS Speed

2009-05-12T20:41:00.001-07:00

Picture is worth a thousand words...

FIOS is FAST!

2009-05-07T17:29:00.001-07:00

I've had FIOS for 24 hours now, and I have noticed my download speeds have gone from 350K/sec to 2.3 MB/sec. I would definitely say I got my $5.00 worth. The installation took almost 5 hours to do, but the installer was a nice guy and answered a ton a questions for me.

Overall, a good experience. Now I just need to call Tech Support and see if I stay in the US, or get routed to somewhere in Asia..

More Good Stuff Today

2009-04-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

Verizon is coming out to my house to install FIOS in the 6th of May. I get to go from 3Mbit/768k DSL to 20Mbit/5Mbit FIOS.

The bundled package with phone is going to cost me $5.00 more a month than what I am currently paying Verizon.

Well worth the $5.00!

Two in one day!

2009-04-28T07:20:00.001-07:00

Today is turning out to be a pretty good day!

My wife had a dentist's visit yesterday to get some caps put in. Our out of pocket was going to be a little over $400. BUT, by some miracle of God, we double insured ourselved for dental insurance, and my wife's dental insurance turned around and picked up the difference. Net that we owe now is $0.00!!!

And I also got a check from Novacare. It seems that I was charged to much for my copay on my physical therapy visits that ended right before Thanksgiving. The fine folks at Novacare sent me a check for almost $300!!!

Wound, Wound, Go Away!

2009-04-28T07:15:00.000-07:00

Well, the visits to the wound care doctor trudge on. I've moved from a stage 3 wound back in January, to a very small wound that I still have to wrap up.

I have a visit with the wound care doctor on Thursday, and I am hoping for some good news. The wound is definitely getting smaller, and it seems to be scabbing over now, instead of oozing.

Moral of the story, DO NOT get into a fight with your wife's hope chest. In the end, you'll lose a huge hunk of flesh and be stuck wrapping your leg every day after you get out of the shower...

How much social networking is too much social networking?

2009-04-08T17:46:00.001-07:00

I have friends.

I know that's hard for some people to believe, but I do.

And I have coworkers. At least for now I do. I guess it's good to have coworkers in this economy...

Between friends and coworkers people expect to keep the following up to date:

Facebook
Linkedin
Plaxo
Blogger
Twitter
Naymz

Then there's more online profiles than you can shake a stick at on forums and other sites.

It's all too damn much sometimes...

WTF Man!? Curse you Silverlight!!

2009-03-27T15:42:00.000-07:00

What the hell is the deal with websites starting use Silverlight. I was very content with the fact that Flash 10 came out for Linux and that I could happily visit flash websites cross platform.

Now I have these f**ckers designing web sites around Microsoft Silverlight! I know the good folks at Novell have created Moonlight for Linux, but it's at version 1.0.1 and it seems every damn site I go to requires Silverlight 2.0 or can't detect the presence of Moonlight and keeps bugging me to install Silverlight.

May this abomination called Silverlight die in HELL and HTML 5 and DHTML take over the web!

What even worse is that Novell is working on Silverlight 2.0 support now, just as Microsoft is busy writing Silverlight 3.0, which will come out for Windows and then for the Mac about a year later.

Do these Silverlight morons realize they're just extending the Microsoft monopoly. Die Silverlight Die!

MonkeyGTD

2009-01-26T16:27:00.000-08:00

One of things I have learned in my pursuit of GTD is that unless you have a trusted source to keep everything in, the system quickly breaks down. That trusted source needs to be easy to use, and for me, computer based and cross platform.

I run Fedora Linux and MacOS X at home, and run Windows at work. So, I had the need to keep it all in some kind of file that would work on any computer. I tried a number of web based GTD solution, including the awesome Remember The Milk. Problem I had with these apps was twofold:

1. You had to be online to see your data (well, RTM does Google Gears, so it's not totally true)
2. You could store potentially sensitive information on a third party server, which could get you terminated.

I looked at two Java based solutions: ThinkingRock and gtd-free. Both were open source, and completely cross platform. I used ThinkingRock for about a month, and though I liked it, it just didn't feel right to me. gtd-free was a nice application. It had all the GTD features I was looking for, but I didn't really feel at home in it.

So, I did a Google search for "Cross Platform GTD" and stumbled across MonkeyGTD! The app is an HTML page with a ton of Javascript, that works in a number of browsers, making it truly cross platform!

It took me about 10 minutes to truly fall in love with this app. I stayed up till midnight moving all my tasks into this app, and setting up ticklers. The next day at work I was all set. I FELT amazingly productive. For a web app, it responds incredibly fast. The views are absolutely awesome.

I think the neatest thing the app has to offer is the concept of realms. Realms allow to break your GTD tasks into groups. Two are defined by default, Work and Personal. But you can add more.

I like this app so much, I think I am going to re-read the GTD book to make sure I am doind it right!

They should be ashamed....

2009-01-18T19:55:00.000-08:00

Use this website:

http://www.buyisraelgoods.org/

to get a list of Israeli goods in your area, and then STOP BUYING THEM till they stop butchering civilians in Gaza. 400+ children dead. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Those persecuted during WWII have become the persecutors....

Pass it on...

Eh....

2009-01-12T20:36:00.000-08:00

It's late. I'm tired...

Chuck D and the Religous Right...

2008-12-30T10:44:00.000-08:00

Ok, just for the hell of it, I'm going to rant on Evolution and Creationism. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive in any way, which is something Creationists need to come to terms with.

Creationism is the belief that God created EVERYTHING. Every single species that is and that was, was created by some supreme being. That's all that Creationism is. People have expounded on this view and added things like all fossils being made during the Biblical Great Flood, and that earth is only 10000 years old or less. There is a creationist story in every religion on the planet.

Evolution IN NO WAY tries to define the exact origin of life. Evolution is the belief, that through a process known as natural select, a species can, over time, give rise to a new species. The theory states that an animal has a genetically defined survival characteristic that makes it more likely to find a mate and not get, say, eaten by a predator. The trait then gets passed on to it's offspring. Over time these offspring become genetically incompatible and form a new species.

Notice how the evolution description HAS NOTHING AT ALL to do with the origin of life. No primordial soup, none of that other crap. People have used evolution inside their own grander theories of how the universe was created.

Now, if you, as a creationist believe that God created the original life forms on the planet, who's to say they didn't evolve over time. You can choose to believe that, or not believe that, but you can definitely see how Evolution, as defined by Charles Darwin, can be very compatible with a belief that God created everything at the start.

My personal beliefs are an odd mix of things that many creationists would find distasteful, but does indeed involve God.

How to make a Video DVD from a divx file using iDVD

2008-12-28T15:36:00.001-08:00

I recently tried to make a video DVD using Apple's iDVD software from some divx files. Well, you can't just drag an avi file into iDVD. It only accepts .mov files, which are Quicktime video files.

The simple solution here is to use Quicktime Pro, load up the divx and choose Save As. Give the file a name and save it as a reference movie. The mov files will be about 2 MB and points to the original AVI file. The MOV file you make can be dragged right into iDVD!

Only caveat is that iDVD chokes on VBR MP3 audio tracks. Soon as the bitrate changes, the audio cuts out completely.

Hope someone finds this useful.

UPDATE: So it seems I've been wasting my time! Somewhere between iDVD 5 and iDVD 8, Apple added the ability to drag any media that will play in Quicktime into iDVD. You don't need to make the mov file anymore. Just drag the avi directly into iDVD. Ah well, live and learn....

End the fed and end it now!

2008-12-26T05:33:00.001-08:00

A very good read on this can be found here.

The Fed needs to go, and it needs to go NOW. Everyone somehow thinks that the US will now be on the right track because Obama is in office. And the Democrats have got to be better that idiot George W. Bush.

Well, guess what? The same 2 parties have been jockeying for the top seat for as long as anyone can remember. Do you really think things are going to change? If you wanted real change, you should have voted Libertarian, Constitution, Socialist or Populist.

The donkey and the elephant represent these people well. One is a group of jackasses and the other a bunch of lumbering fat asses...

What a difference!

2008-12-05T19:46:00.001-08:00

So, I've been toying with the idea of getting a Wireless N Router, since I do a fair share of copying files between my desktop PC and my two laptops.

Once you get your wireless PCs up to 300Mbit, the bottleneck suddenly becomes the 100Mbit WIRED connection you have. But buying a Wireless N AP, with a gigabit switch is pushing close to $200.00.

So I was really happy when buy.com had a Linksys 350N wireless router for the low price of $62.24 refurbished. It came in the mail today.

My network copy speeds went from 350 KB/sec, when going from wired to wireless to 5 MB/sec!

Overall, I'm quite happy...

Andy

Songbird

2008-12-03T20:34:00.000-08:00

http://www.getsongbird.com

I think this is probably the best music player I have ever used!

Automatically pulls down artist info
Recommend similar artists
Auto pull down album art
Auto pull down lyrics
Tell you when CONCERT TICKETS GO ON SALE for an artist you are listening to
It will even screen scape web pages and auto add MP3s linked to on the page to your music library

TONS of other plugins!

Syncs with iPod AND is cross platform (Linux, Windows and Mac!)

And it's open source!

What the Geek Squad does off hours...

2008-11-20T20:07:00.001-08:00

And now the social networking rant...

2008-11-20T19:53:00.000-08:00

Ok, I've been on this Internet thing for quite a long time, since back in 1988. I used the Internet when there was only a command line interface, and you did Archie searches to find files on FTP servers. Back then, Gopher was really cool, and there was no SSL.

Two great advances I saw happen to the Internet were http (the web), and Instant Messaging. Though IM was nothing really new. IRC had been around for years before IM ever came out, and I was quite happy with it.

What I can't understand is this whole social networking trend. Now using the Web is hard work. People need to maintain profiles on Facebook and Myspace.

And on the professional side, people seem to think you have profile on Linkedin.com, plaxo.com, namez.com, and a couple of other sites I have gotten invitation from.

When the hell did surfing the web become so much WORK?

Plus we have a major anti-social aspect to it all. I have friends that will IM with me all day, and even exchange a few emails. The actively maintain a Facebook profile, and bug me to keep mine up to date, but getting them to answer a phone is next to impossible.

I'm glad we can IM all day, but do you think we could go out for a beer once in a while and actually see each other face to face?

We're breeding a generation of kids with no social skills. People look at me funny cause I tell my 5 and 7 year old to take their hats off indoors, and hold a door for a lady.

Gadgets/Widgets/Screenlets

2008-11-17T07:31:00.000-08:00

Am I the only person that doesn't find these "wonderful" little utilities useful. I've tried Apple's Widgets, Yahoo Widgets, The Vista Sidebar, Google Gadgets, gDesklets, and screenlets, and I just can't seem to get a good use for them. I install them, tinker for about a day, and then hopelessly give up on them.

My initial exposure was to Konfabulator (now Yahoo Widgets), which allowed you to position these little widgets anywhere on the screen. I found them useful, though slightly annoying.

Then I moved on to Apple Widgets, which had this floating layer that you could hide at will. I found this equally as annoying to use.

Next came Google Gadgets with the sidebar! At last the gadgets were all grouped in one location off to the side! This made more sense to me. Though the gadgets were now there and away from my work, I still didn't use them.

Then came Vista, the downgrade that didn't stick (I lasted 2 months before UPGRADING to XP). The Vista Gadget bar was built in, so I didn't need to sell my soul to Google. I ended up ignoring the gadget bar completely.

So, I decided to see what the best of open source had to offer, and installed both gDesklet and Screenlets on my Ubuntu box. Both programs have a LONG way to go. I find them both to be in need of a lot of work before the average guy can use them.

So, for now I've given up on these things. I don't really see the appeal of them. They're as bad as social networking....

A really good Moleskine alternative

2008-10-14T09:48:00.000-07:00

Well, I am a bit of a notebook and pen junkie. I've been a regular reader of various sites, but when I stumbled accord this wonderful site about Moleskine Alternatives, it made for a very interesting read.

A few weeks ago, they discovered a new Notebook called the Piccadilly, which is the first true Moleskine alternative of the same quality as the classic.

Sadly, I can't buy these notebooks here anywhere, and the shipping cost from the manufacturer make the notebook cost as much as a Moleskine! I hope the Borders around me gets them in at some point, so I can try them out!

The more things change, the more they stay the same...

2008-10-08T19:01:00.001-07:00

Ah, the 90s! What an interesting time. The primary form of online communication was AOL instant messenger. Skype wasn't invented, and the average MP3 player had 64 MB of RAM...

Lately I have been having some 90s flashbacks. I had one major flashback when a friend send me a work from home job opportunity for me to sit in AIM chat rooms and direct people towards cam sites.

Well, I was thinking, back in the 90s, they had bots to do all that. Why would they need live people to do this now?

So, off I go to the kind of chat rooms that would have patrons that want to go to cam sites...

And I learned the more things change, the more they stay the same....

To my surprise, there were NO bots. I was used to getting barraged by messages from bots to visit all sorts of adult sites. I learned from the people in the room that there are now programs that run and can ban people/bots.

So that's why they needed real people. Bots don't work anymore...

Very interesting....

And then it happened. An IM window popped up from someone in the chat room with the letters: ASL?

So I responded with 40/m/pa

I get a reply back that says 19/f/tx

So I'm supposed to believe that some 19 year old girl wants to IM with a 40 year old geek slob from PA.

I simply reply that it's more like she's a 55/m/MS

Before I can blink, I get a direct connection and a picture shot over to me of a girl topless, taking a picture of herself in a bathroom mirror.

"Does that prove I'm a girl?" she replies.

The 90s were suddenly back. You would think with all the "To Catch a Predator" shows, people would be a bit more cautious online....

2 more minutes of conversation with her, and I was on my way.

I guess the more things change, the more they do stay the same...

The end to a perfect day....

2008-09-13T18:59:00.001-07:00

What a day today was...

I took my son Alex to Karate class. The instructor told me that hasn't been attending enough classes and it could affect his chances for promotion. Also, because we missed a bunch of classes due to weather and family business, he didn't know his kata, and was quite upset about the whole thing....

After karate we packed up and headed over our friend's house to go for a swim in his heated pool. The kids behaved horribly in the car. My wife had pretty much had it, and she absolutely exploded in the car. The kids ended driving the rest of the way quietly. We thought they were behaving, but we learned when we got there, that the kids were crying, and we needed to settle them down before we could go into the house.

The visit was great, the swimming was great...

Next, we needed to stop at the Apple Store to pick up our MacBook, which was in the shop for a new HD. Well, the mall was under HUGE construction. Finding parking was a challenge. The laptop still had one major issue we needed to fix, so we got stuck at the Apple Store another half hour.

We then went off to find the "newly re-opened" food court to get drinks, since the whole family was thirsty. Despite following directions from the nicely dressed mall employee, we were unable to find said food court and ended up leaving the mall in disgust.

In the car, and off to the fine bridge that will take us to the Commonwealth... Do we pass even a single 7-11 along the way? NO. Thirst reigns supreme....

20 minutes into the ride home and we have a constant chant of "We want McDonalds!" What kid wouldn't? After all, Lego Batman toys are available!

A trip through the Burger King drive through (a sudden change of plans, when the large Burger King sign was visible...), and a stop at the butcher and my wife and I realize that we don't have anything for OUR dinner....

Well, for some idiotic reason we decide to hit the new Sonic near us and go through the drive through. 40 MINUTES LATER, we're at the window finally getting our burgers. I'm quite shocked at this point that a child hasn't peed all over his seat.

So, we FINALLY get home. I sit down to eat my burgers, sans bun (Atkins Diet, gotta love it...), and set the MacBook back up. All is fine, except I can't get Microsoft Office to update. At some point I just give up and give to my wife to use, and go put the kids to bed.

15 minutes later, stories done, prayers said, I decide to have a soda and sit and relax...

So, I look at my wife and ask her where the Coke Zero is.

"It's in the car..."

So, I grab car keys and walk out barefoot to the car. I grab 2 2-liter bottles of soda, one wet 5 year old's bathing suit and lock the van...

Half way to the front door I see the SKUNK walking around my front door.

If it was a raccoon, or a dog or a cat even, I would have grabbed the broom next to me and promptly charged the beast. But it was a skunk, and it's tail was in the air, and it's eyes were looking at me say "Go ahead, make my day!"

So, I did what any other large man with an arthritic hip would do in my situation....

I ran like a girl. Down the block....

Then some sanity hit me. I stopped, doubled back, checked for skunk, and slipped into my back yard praying to God that this wasn't a mated pair, and another skunk, with a bunch of kids wasn't in my back yard. I ran up to my sliding glass door and began to pound on it, hoping my wife would hear.

Well, she did, and she immediately started calling for me to go downstairs to see who the hell was pounding on our sliding glass door. Only problem was, I couldn't go check, because I was too busy pounding on the sliding glass door....

Needless to say, she eventually came downstairs and let me in before the skunk decided to come around back...

The pounding woke both my kids up, and in general messed with everyone's world....

Now, I have to finish setting up the MacBook...

Put a fork in me, I'm done...

My Tivo dreams come true...

2008-09-09T19:24:00.000-07:00

http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/global/contentPage.jsp?assetId=P4900010

DirecTV has announced they're going to release a DirectTivo that supports hi-def in the second half of 2009!

I have a hi-def TV and a standard-def DirecTivo. DirecTV wanted $300 to upgrade to hi-def, and that box did not have Tivo on it, just some other crappy DVR software.

Well, I wasn't shelling out $300 to go hi-def, and there was NFW I was going back down the Comcast path, so I patiently waited for FIOS to come along. It seems with FIOS, you can get CableCards and use a real Tivo with their service. So, I thought that would be the path to go....

So, the FIOS techs ran huge spools of orange conduit all through my development, and I have a big FIOS box on my lawn now. That was done last March! It's now September, and still no service available! And they can't tell me when it's going to be available when I call Verizon.

Now DirecTV has seriously sweetened the deal. I can get the existing HD-DVR for $99, free installation, and no charge for the DVR service, since I am grandfathered in with the existing DVR. The additional hi-def channels would cost me $9.99 and would give me 40 hi-def channels, AND sometime in 2009 I could get a DirecTivo.

Need to sell this one to my wife....

Foiled again.....

2008-09-09T18:57:00.000-07:00

I have always had this dream that I would cancel my Satellite TV, buy an AppleTV and pay for my shows a-la-carte. I figured it would cut down on channel surfing, and save me some money.

So, you can imagine my enthusiasm when hi-def TV shows became available on the iTunes Music Store today. So I went and downloaded iTunes 8 and pulled down the one free episode of Psych that was available in high def.

The file was 1.5 GB in size. It downloaded that, plus the smaller standard def 500 MB file. I assume the smaller file is need to syncing to iPods and iPhones.

I took my laptop and plugged it into the TV and went to check it out. The picture quality was pretty bad. The files seemed to have a lot of snow in them, and hi-def file stuttered slightly when I moved the cursor.

So, I went and got my hands on a SD divx and HD x.264 720p mkv file of the same show. The divx file was 349 MB and the mkv was 1.09 GB, both smaller than the iTunes download.

I played both of these files using vlc media player. Both files looked MUCH better than the ones downloaded from iTunes.

So, from my one show experience, I am quite unimpressed with the hi-def files.

My AppleTV dream is dashed for now...

I need to get some more shows from iTunes to get a better look at my options. It's possible that Psych may be bad, but other shows may be good. Most of the Universal/NBC content allows you to download one free hi-def episode. I'll queue some up overnight for download and see how they look.

Of course, iTunes purchases come with DRM, which is both ethically and technically challenging...

The line of the week....

2008-09-04T10:14:00.000-07:00

Physical therapy line of the week... "Man, this thing is really stiff!"

The lines keep coming...

2008-08-20T10:08:00.000-07:00

Another day at the physical therapist...

I got the same therapist and she was extremely pleasant. Greeted me cordially and we got to work right away. After about 20 minutes, we get to the stretches. So, there I am again on the table, right leg in the air, ankle on her shoulder. She starts to lean into me, pressing her whole body against me and says...

"I bet this is your favorite part, isn't it?"

I can't wait to hear what she says on Friday!

Awkward....

2008-08-19T16:01:00.000-07:00

So, my doctor has prescribed 12 visits of physical therapy for my to help with the osteoarthritis in my right hip. I normally a very nice therapist by the name of Andy.

But today I lucked out. I got the little cute blond girl with the phenomenal butt. So we start off with basic exercises that I can do while standing.

All those go well, and she has me lay on the table to do some stretches.

Picture the position. I'm on my back. My right leg is in the air and my ankle is resting on her right shoulder. She leaning into me with her whole body, pressed up right against the back of my leg and she says..

"Man this muscle is REALLY stiff."

Awkward silence follows.....

Bet tomorrow I have a different therapist.... :-)

Flushing it all away

2008-08-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

I know I don't update this thing too often, but MAN! June?

Anyway....

Just a quick humorous story of what happened to me at former Duffco today...

So, I'm in the bathroom (don't all funny stories somehow start this way...), sitting down and minding my own business. Within a normally expected amount of time things are done and I stand up, buckle up, and turn around. I lean forward slightly to flush the toilet, and as I pull the handle down to flush, my Fisher Space Pen unclips from my polo shirt, falls in the toilet and gets FLUSHED DOWN THE TOILET.

Well, I just stood there staring at the toilet, and then I suddenly burst out laughing right there in the stall. I laughed all the way back to my cubicle.

Some days, it's best to just go home and crawl back into bed....

And on another note.... HELL FROZE OVER

Duffco is business casual...

Someone more obsessed about notebooks than me

2008-06-16T13:22:00.000-07:00

I thought I was a bit obsessive about pens and notebooks. The average person here uses the plain old Staples brand spiral notebook and a Bic pen. I went out and bought a Moleskine and a Fisher Space Pen.

Well, I have found someone that seriously needs help!

The fine folks at Black Cover are far more obsessed about notebooks than I ever will be. Go check out the site and see what they have to say about various notebooks.

The Space Pen

2008-06-09T14:00:00.000-07:00

This Fisher Space Pen is really growing on me. I used it exclusively for a week, and now I'm not too happy with the Pilot G2 anymore.

Still waiting for my blue refill in the mail. Gave penwa.com the wrong zip code. Might take a while to get it.

New toys

2008-06-01T05:02:00.000-07:00

Ok, I finished listening to the audiobook of David Allen's Getting Things Done. I even went so far as to track down Getting Things Done Fast! and listened to it too. Overall, a well thought out system. Some of his principles I was already using, and others I found that I liked.

Well, there's a whole Internet cult around this GTD thing, and they all have their favorite gadgets that they like to play with to help them get things done. I started reading Merlin Mann's site, 43folders.com, which I found quite interesting.

I went out and bought myself a Moleskine notebook, which I find a joy to write in. There is, of course, a whole cult around these notebooks too, including a flickr photo album, a google group, and more web sites than you can shake a stick at.

The item I bought this weekend was a Fisher Space Pen. There have been a lot of comments on these, and, being kind of a pen nut, I decided to pick one up. I bought the bullet space pen from Office Depot.

The pen is nice and compact, but sits well in your hand when opened up. It came with a medium black ink cartridge, which I don't care for. I ordered fine point blue refill for it this morning. I'll reserve judgement on the pen until the blue ink comes in.

Before this pen, I was using a Pilot G2, and I really liked using a gel pen, so going to back to ball point is taking some getting used to.

But between the pen and the new moleskine, I think I may actually go back to paper for keeping my schedule and lists. Using something electronic, I find to be way too restrictive. Work gives me a Blackberry, so I have a PDA available to me, but I just HATE the task list on the Blackberry. Someone in the 9th level of hell must have written that piece of code.

Well, we'll see how the electronic to paper transition goes over the next couple of weeks...

A notebook is a notebook...

2008-05-04T18:15:00.000-07:00

Or so I used to think. I don't even know why, but I went and looked up notebooks on the Internet and soon came across the wonderful Moleskine line of notebooks.

I found an online supplier at MoleskineUS and went and ordered one, only to discover that Barnes and Noble sells them retail.

The notebooks is very nice, acid free paper, that's smooth and easy to write on. It's a hard cover with a leather line cover they call oil cloth. The 3 big features of the notebook are: a pocket in the back to store things, a built in cloth bookmark, and a vertical strap you use to keep the notebook closed.

It looks fancy, and if it actually makes me WANT TO take notes in meetings, all the better.

Seems the darn things are real popular too. They make a hard bound day planner, which sells for around $18.00 dollars. Well, in May they're kind of hard to find, and the damn things go for well over $60.00 on eBay now.

We'll see if I get inspired to take better notes...

The Fluffer

2008-04-28T11:57:00.000-07:00

We all know a fluffer somewhere. He's the guy at the meeting that uses all the buzzwords and inserts "fluff" words to make his sentences longer.

People really use fluff words may too much, especially in the corporate world. I don't know if they do it to sound more important, or because they think it sounds formal, but overall it's just insane. Here are some examples of major fluff sentences and what they should be replaced with.

Appreciate your efforts on this matter!

should be replaced with

Thank you!

What is your availability to meet on this subject?

should be replaced with

When are you free?

The first two phrases sound incredibly cold and robotic. The replacements are more warm and informal, and generally make you feel more at home.

Companies spend a lot of money bringing 'Organizational Effectiveness' coaches in to preach the wonders of Covey's 7 Habbits and Allen's GTD. Why can't they spend a few bucks to teach everyone proper conversational English?

I took a clear business writing course at work a few years back, and the first exercise was to take 5 sentences and combine them into one. I pulled it off in about 2 minutes. Other people in the room were truly struggling with it. Why? Is it that hard to speak normal English?

Second exercise was to use the active voice instead of the passive voice whenever possible. This one, I did struggle with a little. I was amazed at how much shorter my sentences were. The passive voice is quite long winded. I struggle to this day to avoid using it.

Voting

2008-04-22T17:22:00.000-07:00

I voted today. Boy, the choices truly sucked. Everyone even half decent has dropped out of the race.

Colors

2008-03-31T08:18:00.000-07:00

When you take something red, and want to make it green, you can't just paint over it. The red it way to dark a color. So, you need to remove the red or bleach it white first, to make sure not a trace of red shows any more...

Track your finances better

2008-03-28T10:39:00.000-07:00

Released today, is the awesome personal financial app, Moneydance 2008.

http://www.moneydance.com

I first learned about Moneydance about 5 years ago. I had been using Quicken for Widows and went out and bought a Mac. Well, Quicken for Mac was FULL of bugs and it would not open Quicken for Windows files.

In my attempts to find an app that worked well on Mac and Linux, I discovered Moneydance. The program is written in Java and runs on Mac, Linux or Windows, so I can use it on any PC in my house. The app has great support from the developer and a rather active community on the mailing list. It supports online banking and online bill pay on any platform.

If you have a Mac or Linux at home, get the app. It's awesome.

RIP Gary Gygax

2008-03-04T13:43:00.000-08:00

Well, I don't if anyone else was into playing Dungeons and Dragons as a teenager like I was, but it was a fun pastime.

Sadly, the co-creator or Dungeons and Dragons, Gary Gygax, passed away today.

Here's a slashdot blurb about his passing:

http://games.slashdot.org/games/08/03/04/1750206.shtml

Rest in peace. No matter how geeky the game may be, it was groundbreaking and set the field for bigger games like WOW.

Bye-Bye HD-DVD

2008-02-25T13:22:00.000-08:00

Thank God that format war is over. Good to know the Microsoft backed technology lost. I figure we got about 5 years before another new format is created, so we can be duped into buying all our existing movies in some new "better" format.

And Beowulf put his sword through the heart of the beast....

2008-02-06T16:33:00.000-08:00

Duffco is no more. The vote has gone through and a thumbs up has happened. I'll have to think up a new name to use, if I am still around a year from now. Perhaps Zedco?

What I believe....

2008-01-31T14:13:00.000-08:00

I've managed to piss off both the Republican/conservative crowd and the Democratic/liberal crowd at work over my beliefs, so just for yucks, I thought I would spell them out for both of you to read:

1. I believe in Evolution. I think it belongs on every science classroom, and Intelligent Design and Creationism does not.
2. I believe if you're going to teach creationism in public school, you'd better teach the creation story of ALL religions that are currently practiced, not just the Judeo-Christian one.
3. I believe every American has a right to bear arms, as per the constitution. You do not have the right to bear a handgun however. If you have a right to bear arms, then people have the right to know you're armed. Rifles and shotguns only. No concealed weapons, except for police.
4. I believe in hunting. Pick: either people hunt, or we import wolves. Nothing else is going to keep the deer population down. It's not the hunter's fault your ancestors shot all the wolves around here.
5. I believe that we, as a first world nation, should be appalled we don't have universal healthcare like EVERY OTHER (and I mean EVERY OTHER) first world nation.
6. I believe infrastructure should not be owned by a private company. Why the hell hasn't the government run fiber to my door yet and let ME pick my Internet, telco, and TV provider. I should be able to pick from HUNDREDS of choices.
7. I believe RealID needs to die a quick painful death.
8. I believe following the Constitution is a good thing.
9. I believe both parties have truly lost site of what it means to be American.
10. I believe the federal reserve needs to go. Why does a private company control the printing and distribution of money?
11. I believe the drinking age needs to go. It's up to parents to watch what their children do and don't do. Don't rely on the government to raise your kids.
12. I believe the minimum driving age should be 18. 16 and 17 year olds are not nearly mature enough to drive.
13. I think we're far too obsessed with nudity in this country. I could care less if my kids see a nude woman. Making people scared of nudity breeds serial killers. God made us nude. We're not born wearing a shirt and tie.
14. I believe business casual is the way to go. Why make employees uncomfortable.
15. I believe most Muslims and Christians are OK people. I believe that about 10% of Muslims and 10% of Christians are complete whack jobs.
16. I believe you can hate Israeli politics and not be anti-semitic.
17. I believe Habeas Corpus needs to be restored YESTERDAY.
18. I believe the world will be a worse place for my kids unless we step up to the plate.
19. I believe we need to stop trying to make fuel out of corn and start using something with a better yield.
20. I don't believe in abortion. Pregnancy is a risk of sex. Wear two condoms and take the pill if you have to, but don't put it in, if you're not willing to pay the price.
21. And lastly, I believe no one is ever going to read this....

The saga of the disposable pen

2008-01-21T19:19:00.000-08:00

Among the many things Duffco is known for, their pens have got to be the most widespread marketing gimmick. So much so, that despite the fact they've been bought, despite the fact that all projects have been put on hold, and despite the fact that no one knows if they're going to have a job in a few months, Duffco marketing still managed to create a new style of disposable pen! Thank God for that! Who knows if I'll be pouding the pavement looking for work, but on the plus side, I can fill out that job application with this shiny new Duffco pen!

And, to add insult to injury, someone walked around today and gave every single employee a metal tin with the Duffco logo on it with the pen inside of it, delicately protected by foam. The same exact pen, which is a throwaway, disposable commodity they'll litter the state with in about 2 weeks.

This place just doesn't give a rat's ass about employee morale.

Put a fork in me. I'm done...

WTF???

2008-01-03T19:06:00.000-08:00

Huckabee? HUCKABEE?????

Time to move to Canada....

I am such a geek

2007-12-28T06:43:00.001-08:00

77% Geek

Looking for xray tech schools?

December at Duffco...

2007-12-15T21:09:00.000-08:00

December at Duffco is always a blast. The company has to meet it's quota of new opening for the year, and this year, we're doing almost 30 openings in December, most of which will surely open the last week in December, right when everyone is off, because their kids are out of school.

I find myself scrambling now to clean up other people's messes, which may be a good thing, because work is kinda slow.

The merger trudges on. It's been moved up somewhat, so your's truly may be looking for work sooner, rather than later, depending on how things go, but the retail team has said "We got your back," a statement of dubious sentiment coming from someone who has a golden parachute waiting for them.

In classic style, the people at the top of the food chain all have insane severance packages lined up, should they get laid off, and us grunts on the bottom, get pittance. We'll see what happens.

Off to bed, as soon as my voter registration prints out. Switched back to Republican.

Go Ron Paul!

www.ronpaul2008.com

What gives Republicans a bad name

2007-12-04T18:42:00.001-08:00

You know, for YEARS I was a Republican. In some ways I still consider myself one. But I gotta REALLY wonder how any Republican can still back those two idiots in the oval office. I mean, COME ON. 16 intelligence agencies all hold a press conference and say Iran isn't building a nuke, and Bush has the BALLS to come out and say that he basically doesn't care and that military action is STILL ON THE TABLE. GOOD F**KING GOD! There's only 2 groups on the planet that still believe Iran is building a nuke. One is the oval office. The other is Israel. Neither is a credible source.

This is true insanity! There were no WMD in Iraq, and we're bleeding debt from that war, and now, EVEN THOUGH WE KNOW THEY'RE NOT A THREAT, we're not going to rule out military action against Iran? WTF IS THAT ABOUT??

Tweedledee and Tweedledum have truly lost their marbles. They're not Republicans anymore. Heck they're not f*cking Americans anymore!

It's time for the IRCs!

IMPEACH
REMOVE
CONVICT

It's sad when the only true politicians we have left are Paul and Kucinich. What is this country coming to?

Republicans, strap on a set and realize these two dolts don't represent you any more. Democrats, realize, you're like deers caught in the headlights. SNAP OUT OF IT.

We have a common enemy, and it's not terrorism!

2007-10-14T13:47:00.000-07:00

WTF is wrong with politicians in this country. The Republican president vetoes a childrens' health insurance bill. The democrats try to override the veto and run commercials with children talking, which REALLY pisses the republicans off....

And then we have a bunch of losers running for office:

Rudy Giuliani - The 9/11 Candidate. 9/11 is the cause for all evil. Get a clue and drop out already
Mitt Romney - A total clueless idiot of a conservative as bad a Bush is. I can't believe he's the republican front runner.

Hillary Clinton - Oh, don't even get me started on her. Didn't she f*ck things up the LAST time she was in the white house with Slick Willie? Travelgate? White Water? The list goes on. Do we really need this embarrassment back?

Barak Obama - Kinda like him mostly because he's not Hillary.

Overall the choices are VERY BAD this year.

Bush Jr., Cheney, Guiliani, Romney and Clinton are all cut from the same mold. If ANY of them win, we're totally screwed.

Welcome to the new America. Sig Heil!

Alas poor Duffco, I knew thee well....

2007-10-02T12:27:00.000-07:00

The mightly Duffco has been sold to a competitor. The giant lost it's head back in July now the rest it has been sold off.

Most people think it's real crappy deal, and I agree. We'll see what happens....

Gets might cold in Maine...

What the heck is up with the media

2007-09-15T15:52:00.000-07:00

Now I can't say I care enough about politics to actually keep up on it on a daily basis (perhaps I shouldn't have married a woman with a BA in political science....), but what little I read convinces me more and more that every single election in the last 25 years or so has been shaped, molded and probably won, by the media.

Which is why, one month later, I'm still fascinated with Ron Paul. From everything I have seen, the guy is REALLY popular, yet the media is doing it's best to make sure you don't know it. There's gotta be some reason why the press doesn't want this guy to win.

Ron Paul didn't even come close to winning to Iowa Straw Poll, but when they showed the results, they completely SKIPPED over him. He came in 5th place. But when they showed the names on the screen, they showed 1-3 and then 6 and 7. WTF?? Where was Fourth and Fifth place.

Every time an online poll is put up by a major network for the Republicans, Ron Paul seems to always win, and then as soon as a major web site like digg.com or reddit.com mentions it, they poll mysteriously has technical difficulties for a few hours, and the suddenly works again when the story is no longer on these web sites' front pages.

Forget the 9/11 conspiracy nuts, there's a real life election conspiracy going on right now in front of our eyes. Sit back and watch the action folks...

Boredom....

2007-09-15T15:46:00.000-07:00

Man, life at good old Duffco sure has gotten BORING. No new scandals to deal with, no deadlines, no nothing. We even got to wear, get this, jeans, to work on Friday! The place is actually settling down to a half decent place to hang out.

Other than the damn vendor consolidation project. The place has this insane idea that consolidating under one vendor for everything will be a great idea. And in some cases, it would be. It's the vendor they picked to come in, that's the problem. And they claim, they're always going to look at other vendors, even if they switch to this one. But we all know that's a lie. Once they drink the blue cool aid, they'll never switch to another vendor, no matter how many server crashes they face, or how their SLAs and downtime are affected.

And certain people around work are acting like we've signed on the dotted line already and are squashing any projects that involve another vendor's product, even if the product is in-house and the feature just needs to be turned on....

Ah well.... such is life...

Good TV

2007-08-08T06:02:00.000-07:00

If you're not watching Jekyll on BBC America, you should be. Some damn good TV:

Some useful links:

BBC America Web Site for Jekyll
Original BBC Web Site for Jekyll
Jekyll on DVD from Amazon UK
Jekyll DVD on Amazon US

Why the heck do I suddenly care about politics?

2007-08-07T19:28:00.001-07:00

You know I went through most of my life at the point not really giving a rats ass about politics. At 18, I registered as a Republican, and usually voted that way.

After the debacle in the 2000 election with Gore and Bush, I realized I didn't like either candidate. That year, I voted for Nader and changed my party to the Reform Party, having become totally disgusted with both the republic party and the democratic party.

But still I didn't care all that much. The 2004 election came and I voted Libertarian, because I hated Bush and Kerry, and my only other choice was the Constitution Party, which is a group the Republicans would find too conservative.

So now it's 2007, and the "genius" Alfred E. Neuman look-alike in the oval office has spent the latter part of his presidency PISSING on the constitution.. Well, since I would like to live in a country where I get to speak my peace without having my house taken away from me and my children, I thought it best to start looking into things.

I wanted nothing to do with Hillary Clinton. She and her husband did a piss pore job in office and did many things that disturb me enough.

I really didn't want much to do with any Republicans, abandoning my former party completely over the ineptitude of of the former Texas governor.

So I started reading digg.com and saw mention of this candidate called Ron Paul. I didn't know a thing about the guy, but I figured, what the heck, let's look him up.

Well, I learned 4 things:

Ron Paul actually believes in the c0nstition and has actually voted no on any bill he considers violates the constitution.
Ron Paul actually introduced a bill in the house to declare war on Iraq before we invaded. He has publicly stated that he would never have voted for his own bill, but he introduced it because the constitution requires congress formally declares war before we attack a foreign country.
Ron Paul has a VERY LARGE RABID group of followers that want him to win.
The press DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW how popular he really is.

Well, as soon as I found out the sheer magnitude of the attempt by the media to discredit Ron Paul's popularity, I really began reading about the guy, I became intrigued.

I can't say I'm going to vote for the guy, but I definitely am intrigued enough to keep following what Dr. No is doing.

Another fun day...

2007-06-21T14:08:00.000-07:00

Well, we had our wonderful department BBQ today. The food wasn't bad, and we were allowed to wear, GASP!, business casual, but only under the condition that we clean up our desks.

This wouldn't be too hard, except for the fact that a desk is only allowed to have a monitor, keyboard, mouse, phone and ONE picture on it. Everything else is to be hidden away. If you have any papers out and step away from your desk, you must put the papers away lest the mess be seen. Oh, and no trash allowed in your trash can. That would be unsightly. Trash is to be walked to the break room and tossed in one of the big trash cans in there that has a lid.

Needless to say, I have too much crap to put away. I have a small desk with 3 drawers that are full and NO overhead bin. So, what's a guy to do to get out early and wear khakis?

You guessed it: cram it all in the desk next to yours! Worked for me.

Anyway....

Another cool British show to watch: Jekyll. Here's hoping it makes it's way to this side of the pond soon. Some quality TV.

And hopefully Season 3 of Doctor Who will air soon too. Why should the British have all the fun?

It get harder and harder to write...

2007-05-09T07:06:00.000-07:00

I sit at work and laugh more and more about what goes on a Duffco. The bleed has turned into a full rupture now. I think we're losing at least 3-4 a month now. It's really quite disgusting. And we just had someone really BIG decide to pack it up and leave. Why am I still here?

But anyway, there are other things to ramble about besides the happening at Duffco. So here is what else is on my brain:

If you haven't watched it yet, find a copy of Life on Mars and watch it. It's a British TV show that aired on BBC America. Season 1 aired here, and season 2 has not, but it has aired in England. It's about a British cop who falls into a coma and wakes up in 1973. It's probably the best piece of TV I have seen in a very very long time.
When the elections come around, remember the number one rule this time around. Follow your ABCs: Anybody But Clinton :-)
Remember your wives and mothers on mother's day. They take a lot of crap from you and the kids and they deserve some reward.

After watching Life on Mars, Doctor Who, Torchwood, Spooks and Robin Hood , I have to wonder why I find British TV to be so much better than the crap we have here. The only shows I really like are Battlestar Galactica, Boston Legal and Heroes (man is Heroes a good show!). I also like the way they do these short 12-13 episodes seasons over there. Let's you get a greater variety of programs on throughout the season.

Guess who wasn't on the promotion list AGAIN!

2007-03-08T19:13:00.000-08:00

Yeppers, today they released what has got to be the shortest list of promotions I have ever seen at Duffco, and needless to say, I did not make the cut.

Such is life. The Duffco rumor mill is churning with all sorts of good stories...

Where did that big pile of turd come from?

2007-03-01T19:15:00.000-08:00

What would you do if you suddenly showed up for work and you saw a small rodent running around the office. Bigger than a rat, but not quite big enough to be a dog or a cat? Would you call an exterminator? Would you notify facilities?

Well, here at Duffco, we CLEAN UP OUR DESKS, as fast as we can! That's right folks! Seeing vermin in the building is a sure fire sign that something bad is going to happen! We clean, we vacuum, we dust and make sure that evething is as spotless as possible, because at Duffco, how well you do your job isn't even close as to as important as how clean your desk it while you do your job.

And if you feel the hair on the back of your neck rise, whatever you do, don't look up. You may get turned to stone...

But I digress....

So, the oversize rat came through the building today, and proceed to lay a nice big steamer right on the rug in a major pathway. And then the thing got locked in the data center by itself.

Quite a funny day overall here at Duffco...

They joys of the annual review...

2007-02-23T06:21:00.000-08:00

Well, only 2 1/2 months late, I finally got my annual review. The big "O" carrot was dangled in front of me and then rudely yanked away. It seems that there are too many people in Duffco's IT department with "O" or higher titles, because of a slew of idiotic promotions last year. So this year, they have decided to give IT a whole zero "O" titles to give out. So, because of bad decisions last year, I get shafted this year.

On the plus side, my boss realizes this is unfair and is going to try and do something about it. I really lucked out. After the hell I went through with previous management, my current boss is probably the only reason I am still there.

We'll see what happens in the next couple of weeks...

On the move....

2007-01-23T11:27:00.000-08:00

For the first time in Duffco history, I have been sent to training. I get to spend a whole week in Beautiful Boston. Sure is mighty cold here this time of year. As I sit in my hotel room I am still in shock that I actually got to go training.

You see, the way things typically work at Duffco is that there is a group of a chosen few that get to go to all the training and conferences. I have repeatedly requested over the years to attend conferences for products I work with every day, and someone else who has no connection whatsoever to the product gets to go away for the week and go drinking on the corporate credit card. When corporate politics gets in the way of me actually improving the way I do my work, I get really pissed off.

My old boss played the corporate politics game very well, and would go to all sorts of conferences, and wouldn't tell us he was going till the Friday before the conference, and then he would just say that he was going to be out next week, so as not to piss us off. And then, to make sure we didn't all sit and surf the web all week, he would lie to us and say the audit group will be going through proxy and firewall logs with a fine toothed comb while he was away and we need to be extra careful! Way to manage people: outright lie to them!

There is no requirement to actually tell your fellow coworkers about the conference or training and training/conference material/CDs/DVDs never get distributed to the rest of the group.

My first order of business when I get back is to summarize this training and send it out to the whole group.

Why I don't deserve my wife...

2007-01-04T18:45:00.000-08:00

So on Christmas day everyone goes to open their presents. The kids are all happy with their stash. My wife is ecstatic over the Theater tickets she got, and then I get to open my present: a brand new Cowon A2 Personal Media Player.

This thing is a geek's dream. 4" widescreen display. Plays Divx files, MP3 files, wmv, wma and even displays text files. 30 GB internal HD. Works with Linux, Mac and Windows and putting stuff on it is a simple drag and drop. I dragged over some xvids of the second season of House and some Battlestar Galactica and took it work to show off.

I should get a commission. I think I sold two units on the first day I had it there.

It's great to be a geek, and be married to someone that can appreciate me for it!!!

Where the hell have you been???

2007-01-04T18:34:00.000-08:00

I wonder that myself as I check this blog again. The idea is neat, but with 2 small kids that think bedtime is an excuse to keep coming downstairs asking for water, and to be covered, and to come sit with them, etc, etc...

On a silly note, I finally figured out where Duffco gets it's name. Only took me a good half year. Laugh at me all you want, Atlanta boy!

Duffco itself is a mixed bag. New management at the very top seems to want to make broad sweeping changes and a lot of the ideas are good ones. But all I have really seen is a bunch of people being shifted around all over the place. The people I see as real problems and roadblocks still have jobs. And people that shouldn't be making any decisions at all about the future direction that Duffco will go still are in decision making positions.

But I am still hanging out and seeing what becomes of things. My new direct manager is still such a HUGE improvement over the old one, that I want to hang around to see what happens at review time. My boss actually said he was PLEASED with my work. That's the first time I ever heard that at Duffco from a manager.

As things slow down...

2006-09-01T09:57:00.000-07:00

Well, as with any other new technology I fiddle with, I am spending less time blogging, but that's also because I have less to bitch about.

My new boss is an absolute godsend compared to the old one, which is a huge plus. Duffco itself still remains on odd place to work.
My son moves on to Kindergarten from his day care in a week, so my weekly price tag for passing on my genes has significantly gone down.
My 9 year wedding anniversary is coming up, and I actually HAVE a BABYSITTER for the evening, so we can go out.

On a positive Duffco note, when I arrive at work on Tuesday, the company pep squad will have moved to another building, giving me MORE PARKING!!! About damn time. It should never take anyone over 10 minutes to get to their car fron the front door of the building.

I thought everything was OK....

2006-08-16T19:47:00.000-07:00

Well, I thought all was going well. I went to see my doctor after the accident, because of left knee pian I was having. He sent me for an MRI and said to go see a physical therapist if my knee continues to bother me...

So I had the MRI done and waited patiently for the results.

3 days later my doctor calls and tells me he's got my radiologists's report and here's what they see.

A hairline fracture of the tibia
2 partially torn ligaments
A possible cyst
Numeous signs of degenerative knee damage

Odd part is, I was feeling A LOT BETTER that I did when I went to see the doctor, most of the stuff on this list does not get better without medical intervention.

So, off I go next week to the orthopaedic surgeon to see what they think about my knee.

Thank God, I am not on Duffco's insurance. I can't even imagine what my copays would be once the auto insurance money runs out.

Crash, Boom, Bam!

2006-07-20T19:44:00.000-07:00

Well, last Monday was a typical fine Duffco day. Nothing especially annoying, but when lunchtime hit, it was definitely time to head out of the building and experience how the world without neon lives.

So, my co-worker and I decided to take a drive out at lunch to check out the townhouse he was having built...

Well, 10 minutes out of the parking lot, and we're driving along and suddenly my friend's lovely Mercedes Benz gets broadsided by a Chevy Yokun SUV! We got slammed HARD. All the airbags deployed, we were thrown all over the place and the car was pushed onto an island on the cross street.

I remember staring in amazement in the car after the accident and wondering what all the smoke was in the air, and then seeing that the airbag in front of me was deployed, then I looked over at my friend in the driver's seat and see his front AND side airbags deployed. The console was destroyed. The radio, AC controls and the speakers all popped out of the dashboard. I'm shocked the doors opened to the car after we were hit.

We both got out of the car and were pretty much OK. As I walked over to the Yukon, I heard kids crying, and my first thought was "Oh shit! Some kids got hurt!!!" Well, since I have had my kids, I have become much more sensitive to the needs of other children. So, hearing these kids crying just upset me to no end. I ran up to the car and looked inside. Everyone seemed to be OK. It looked like the 2 older children got out of their seatbelts and hopped in front with their mom just crying and screaming in hysterics. Everyone seemed to be OK, thank God.

My friends car is a total loss. The SUV didn't look all that great either, but was more intact, and it's airbags didn't deploy.

It seems the woman blew the stop sign WITH 3 KIDS IN THE CAR! Way to go! Hand her the mom of the year award!

Needless to say, I left work early and went to the ER near my house. I was there till 11:00 at night. It's nice to know there is a trauma center near your house, but you're definitely going to have to wait when the chopper lands. I showed up at the ER with a 101 fever and my blood pressure was 190/105. Can you tell I was a little stressed??

It's now Thursday, and I have a sore left knee and a big bruise on my chest, but other than that, I seem to be OK. No neck pain, so I should be able to avoid physical therapy...

The Last Laugh....

2006-07-09T13:30:00.000-07:00

Wikipedia

2006-07-05T21:18:00.000-07:00

Hmmm...

For all you Duffco bloggers out there, lookup Duffco on Wikipedia. And look at the edit list. There is one Wikipedia user on the list that seems to be happily cleaning up the Duffco article and removing ANY negative references. If you get a list of ALL this user's edits, he only ever edits, two articles, the Duffco Article and the Article on one of the Duffco mascots (yes, we have more than one...)

Very strange indeed...

Blind Management

2006-07-05T21:00:00.000-07:00

Now, before I joined the esteemed halls of Duffco, I had been doing consulting work for a division of the federal government, which shall remain nameless. So, I was pretty damn sure I knew exactly what blind management was. It was a huge group of IT Managers that ran REALLY OLD versions of software and did not care that we had no support and would routinely ignore any e-mails about technologies they did not understand (HUNDREDS of requests for Blackberries went unanswered because my boss's boss did not know what a Blackberry was.)

Blind management also would tell you that you couldn't do work on a server after hours without the formal authorization of the director (even emergency reboots), but then the director provided no after-hours contact info, and refused to carry a pager or cell phone.

Blind management would also send you on a business trip to DC and expressly forbid you from renting a car, but they themselves would rent a new Cadillac Catera.

Well, I thougt I had seen it all when it came to Blind Management, till I showed up at Duffco. Blind Managers at Duffco, get this, are responsible for making sure all the blinds are at the same height all the time, the WHOLE LENGTH OF THE BUILDING, because a certain anal retentive person goes ape shit when they see the blind are all out of sync.

The newest directive now requires the blind be UP all the time. Never mind the fact that at any time before 9:30 AM, you can't see a damn thing with the blinds up because the sun is in your eyes.

And if you lower the blinds down to a level that removes the sun from your eyes, the blind manager will hapily come by and simply raise the blinds without so much as a hello, a kiss on the cheek or even the middle finger salute...

Well, if the blind manager can sit at HIS desk at 8:00AM and actually see his monitor, then he truly is blind. I will order a screen reader for him tomorrow.

Patch Management

2006-07-02T05:46:00.000-07:00

So, we have this audit coming up at Duffco. The audit is going to check for patch compliance for our Microsoft OS based machines. Patch compliance has suddenly become VERY important. So important, that we have an internal auditing group to make sure we're 90% compliant or better. All this is great, except they won't actually give us a TOOL to distribue hotfixes to the end user. We're using a script someone wrote to push hotfixes. It works well enough, but the process of pushing hotfixes is not as simple as clicking on a hotfix in the list and choosing "Distribute." When we rolled a new hotfix out, I would literally spend 20 hours in a 2 week period rolling them out. I have no less that 5 seperate perl scripts I need to do the job. It's gotten someone what easier since then, but it's still a piece of work.

The new management believes in a server based patch management solution, but is still trying to convince his boss. We're praying we have something by years end.

The New World Order marches on...

Lord, could you please wait till I am DONE building the ark?

2006-06-29T20:09:00.000-07:00

It's been rainig since 1906, or so it feels like. My wife's work has been closed the last 2 days due to flooding. They're showing pictures of WHOLE HOUSES floating downstream. The Northeast is truly feeling the wrath of Mother Nature this week.

This week is the #1 reason I did not buy a house near a river, and made sure my house was not in a flood zone...

I am however staring out at my pool, watching it overflow from all the rain and dump gallons on my lawn.

Just today, we had horizontal rain for about 15 minutes and certian sections had nickle size hail. You'd think I lived in tornado alley and not in the northeast corridor...

Another day, another dollar...

2006-06-29T19:44:00.000-07:00

Nothing much has been going on work-wise. I had a mid-year review with my boss yesterday and all seemed to go well. The group is pretty much on it's own till the new boss gets up to speed, which is OK by me.

The New World Order continues...

What a difference!

2006-06-27T19:22:00.000-07:00

It's amazing what a difference one piece of software can make in your everyday life.

At Duffco we use Lotus Notes for email. That wouldn't be so bad, except that we use Lotus Notes 5 for email. Now the upgrade train that forced the upgrade to Windows XP and Netware 6.5 is chugging along and forcing us to upgrade to Lotus Notes 6.5.

So, about 2 weeks ago, we got the upgrade to the Notes 6.5 client, BUT we did not get the new Notes 6.5 template. For those of you non-Notes savvy people, that simply means that even though we're running Notes 6.5, our mail looks the same as it did in Notes 5.

So, some kind person at Duffco toook it upon themselves to upgrade to the Notes 6.5 template...

Man, what a HUGE difference.

Folders now bold out and show unread message counts when mail gets put in them.

When you delete a message, get this, it goes into the TRASH, instead of sitting in your inbox with a X next to it.

You can now mark messages for followup, add a note and even set an alarm.

Everything a modern mail client from the 90s is supposed to have.

It's not quite as good as GroupWise, but it's definitely a step up in the world, compared to the old way of doing things.

What real management is like

2006-06-27T19:09:00.000-07:00

Well, I came in this morning and there was an e-mail from my boss. He'd be working from home today. Not only did he tell us he'd be woring from home, he told us WHY he'd be working from home and EVEN provided contact information.

Compared to old management, this is truly a "Holy Sh*t!" moment. I could get used to responsive management. It's been so long since I have had it...

I, for one, welcome our new SMS overlords...

2006-06-26T16:45:00.000-07:00

So, today we had our first meeting with the new boss. Many positive things were said. Team collaboration is encouraged. Side projects are OK. Information will not be held back from us. And we can even ASK for training!

I'm hearing all the buzzwords that would be expected from a manager that actually knows how to manage PEOPLE, as opposed to managing RESOURCES.

Things may be looking up for me at Duffco.

Though that may improve my outlook on things, I doubt it will stem the bleed from the other departments where people are leaving in droves. Now if only I could get a real desk, and a parking spot that doesn't require hiking boots and a walking stick. Things may change one day, when the King and Queen have grown bored with us and pass us on to a bigger and better Duffco for the right price.