hobgoblin of little minds

No

2010-09-21T22:33:00.001-05:00

The answer is "no". And I don't care what the question is. I just need to veto it.

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52 Telecaster Reissue - "Bruce"

2010-09-07T14:06:00.001-05:00

This is quite a lovely guitar. Nitrocellulose finish, very much the old Tele Twang.

Week 3

2010-09-01T23:21:00.000-05:00

Aligner tray #2. Good news is that when I moved to tray 2 I had forgotten what a new tray felt like. So that is good news in that it gets better with each day and such that when in was in week 2 with tray 1, I was fine. This tray (not yet one week with it) is a bit bothersome. But I can feel my teeth shifting a bit more so with this one in.

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The Update

2010-08-25T00:15:00.000-05:00

So it's been nearly 2 weeks and my first set of aligners on to set no. 2. I am finally used to them. I don't get headache and frankly I think those initial headaches had more to do with jetlag from a recent international trip more than the invisalines. I can certainly say I do brush my teeth about 18 times a day. Just cause. It's not so bad at this point and I am less freaked out. No noticeable changes in my teeth just yet.

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Day - a week later

2010-08-18T20:46:00.000-05:00

Okay yesterday's post was a bit harsh. I think I just freaked out when I did the math and realized this whole Invisaline thing was a 7 month commitment. I am over that issue now. Today no headaches. I was very focused on the offline time and my time spent in front of a CPU w/o them on (or is it "in"?). As a result I tried not to clench my teeth whilst writing my docs on various topics (oh how I can be when it comes to data integration ideas). Anyway. Much better today. Also been tracking, specifically how many hours each day. Averaging 22 hrs per day. Today a bit less as I had a dinner date so that was a bit of offline time without the aligners being in. (or is it "on"?).

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Invisaline

2010-08-17T22:41:00.000-05:00

Had intended on writing a little ditty daily about my experiences with deciding to do invisaline but I am a little freaked out by the reality that I will have these in for 7 months. Why did I do this again? I am only on week one. Oh dear.

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iPad

2010-07-28T23:25:00.001-05:00

Still in love w/ it.

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Hey Mister Teleman, Tally Me Bananas

2010-06-18T23:08:00.002-05:00

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iPad

2010-06-09T00:37:00.001-05:00

I resisted initially. I thought "why would I need that?". I have an iPhone. I have an iPod Touch. In fact I have 2 iPod Touches (and a few regular ones). I have a Kindle2. In fact I have 2 Kindle2's. I have both Mac and PC laptops. I have a desktop. And the fact that I own a software company...well I have a lot more than just a handful of computers. Why would I need yet another device?

Well in 2 days of having the iPad I know the answer to that question. In fact while I am not quite ready to get rid of my other machines quite yet - I might consider thinning the herd. Or at least reconsidering traveling with a laptop on my next trip.

To be fair it took me 8 months of owning a kindle for me to take only it on a road trip (sans an actual real book) so I suspect it may take me some time to travel sans laptop. But it might just happen if I can work with these word apps I've downloaded.

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Dog feet

2010-05-18T22:30:00.000-05:00

I think of all the dog feet I've seen, I like cocker spaniels' the best.

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Put your money where

2010-01-10T23:27:00.000-05:00

Well, where your mouth is. I strongly believe software vendors that supply database and other CMS, CRM software to non profits should provide a money back guarantee. That way when a client loads in 1/2 million records or more and the system is slow and difficult - at least they can get their money back. I can't tell you how many times I have heard how this happens and the client is stuck because they paid a million dollars an aside from no one wanting to admit they made a mistake they are stuck. And the consultants that help these client s should insist on these money back clauses. It not that hard folks.

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Solution Provider/Partner

2010-01-06T23:28:00.000-05:00

Just reading about a nonprofit software company's "brags" about adding 9 new solution providers to their network.

Guys. That just means middle men. One step between you and the one you need to hold accountable. A speed bump. A markup. It's not a good thing.

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Sent from my....

2009-12-28T22:32:00.000-05:00

A lot of times when I reply to an email from my mobile device, I clear out that "sent from my iPhone or Blackberry". Only recently I left the default signature on the device instead of changing that setting to hide the fact that I wasn't sitting at my desk. My reason, well just that: I don't generally want people to know where I am not (my desk in front of a computer). In fact I am rarely at my desk. But I am often in front of a computer and I am always online and connected. (....just ask my kayaking friends).

But when I get an email reply that says "sent from my..." I think "mmmm where are you?" and then when I get another one hours later saying the same thing, I think "where are you?" are you at Starbucks waiting for a latte responding to emails like I sometimes do? Are you still there? Are you at the movies? Are you in a meeting typing quietly under the table when no one is looking? I am distracted.

Much like you might be in reading this blog post when you get to the post credentials.....

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LA's Fine.

2009-12-01T23:58:00.001-05:00

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ROI Band Ballantine's

2009-11-25T19:43:00.002-05:00

...one of our "fans" caught this 50-second snip on his iphone from our recent "concert"

iPhone is all...well downside up

2009-10-22T23:32:00.000-05:00

I tried to take a photo with my iphone while I was upside down (stretching my back watching tv upside down) and try as I might -the phone just wouldn't let me. It kept doing that flippy thing. Righting itself at every turn. Hmmm.

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Car wheels on a gravel road

2009-10-05T23:39:00.002-05:00

Kindle

2009-09-30T07:05:00.008-05:00

I got a Kindle for my birthday earlier this year which was good b/c I had certainly wanted one but just couldn't break myself into actually purchasing one. I love books and have stacks and stacks of them in my "to read" pile which grows more than it shrinks because as much as I love books, I love bookstores even more. There's no better place to spend a rainy day, IMO. And try as I might, I can't leave without some sort of purchase. So I wasn't going to purchase a Kindle outright until I finished my pile of books in my "to read" stack. But getting one for a gift, well....that sort of changes everything. It's sort of absolves me of any feelings of guilt - for the small bookstores. Sort of. I meaning having an empty book-less Kindle isn't much fun, right? So eventually you gotta put some books on it which means "buying" something from the big Amazon. Oh.

So after about a month, I decided to start using it and here's my experience. First of all, the user interface on the Kindle is....well, bookish. It's certainly not slick and kind of reminds me of when I once bought a piece of technology that I thought was going to be the next big thing and then it wasn't. It took me about another month to stop thinking that 'next year' this is going to sit in my self set up "museum of old technology" (with the Apple Newton, the HP Jornada, and the Sony CardWalkMan that I bought in 1987 for $300 and which was rendered useless b/c my dog ate the headphone and well, those headphones were specific to the Card Walkman...and Sony stopped making them). Okay, get over it. I did.

I went shopping on Amazon, still not ready to "pay" and did a Kindle search for books and sorted by price = "lowest to highest" (at the suggestion of a co-worker) and downloaded 37 FREE books. Books I actually wanted to read. And then a bit later, I decided to make this thing my "work-related" book reader. So I actually purchased a few business books. And then I had several PDF documents that I had on my laptop in my "to read folder" which I never read (because who wants to read on a laptop when you've got work to do) and sent them thru the Kindle PDF whispersync translator thing. It cost me 75 cents to do this. Neat. I am hooked. Still recognizing the User Interface isn't so great. But it's comparable to a book.

So what I like:

I can put PDF and other 'work related' documents on the kindle and read them without printing or with the computer.
I can use my iPhone to pick up where I've left off in a specific book -- which is really nice if you're like me and forget to carry a book around and then end up sitting someplace waiting for some thing or someone and have nothing better to read then a crappy magazine (though who doesn't love an excuse to read People Magazine every once in a while?)....instead, I pick up my iPhone and carry on where I left off the night before.
Everything is 'with' me when I do remember to bring the Kindle. If I feel like a different book, okay -- no problem, back out to the menu and select. Can't do that with my stack of books.
I like the feel of it and the screen resolution. Okay there's no backlit screen but my books don't have those either.
The battery life is looong. Very long. That's good.

What I don't like:

As an electronic device, you can read it during take off and landings. That's a bummer.
The UI is terrible. It really is. I've gotten over it, but I have to believe they can do better.
I want Whisper Sync to sync my PDF's too. Not just books. But it doesn't "do" personal documents. That would be cool if it did.
And I wish there was a way to make my purchases thru my local bookstore. I really do.

And one last thought....if I really want to take the Kindle into the tub with a nice glass of wine, like I do with some of my books....there's this option. (I haven't tried it yet).

Relative Minors

2009-09-17T20:33:00.001-05:00

Key signature	Major key	Minor key
B♭, E♭, A♭, D♭, G♭, C♭, F♭	C♭ major	A♭ minor
B♭, E♭, A♭, D♭, G♭, C♭	G♭ major	E♭ minor
B♭, E♭, A♭, D♭, G♭	D♭ major	B♭ minor
B♭, E♭, A♭, D♭	A♭ major	F minor
B♭, E♭, A♭	E♭ major	C minor
B♭, E♭	B♭ major	G minor
B♭	F major	D minor
	C major	A minor
F♯	G major	E minor
F♯, C♯	D major	B minor
F♯, C♯, G♯	A major	F♯ minor
F♯, C♯, G♯, D♯	E major	C♯ minor
F♯, C♯, G♯, D♯, A♯	B major	G♯ minor
F♯, C♯, G♯, D♯, A♯, E♯	F♯ major	D♯ minor
F♯, C♯, G♯, D♯, A♯, E♯, B♯	C♯ major	A♯ minor

Time Tracking

2009-07-12T22:13:00.003-05:00

What do we learn from tracking our time?

So @ my company, we've always done some level of "time tracking" but not across the board by all staff. That is, in the early days, up until early 2002, we only booked time spent on client submitted requests and that time was only booked one person. What I eventually learned was that a programmer spent time reading the request, meeting about it, doing the work, testing, and then re-testing and in the end, would only book a fraction of the time.

One day, I changed the "rules" and decided staff would record their entire day of time. (And if they had nothing to do, they booked their time against an activity of "nothing"). What happened was interesting and instantaneous: time spent on specific requests increased two-fold. And it had a dramatic impact on our business, not necessarily in revenue (we generally charge a flat rate on the request, not by the hour) because it helped us to understand how long specific tasks really took - not just by the programmer, but by the staff managers submitting and managing the workload and schedules.

The perception and expectations changed. Instead of us underestimating a request and potentially missing a deadline, the understanding of the work was based on a historical reality and it allowed us to move from being a company that over promised and under-delivered, we shifted to a more proactive company in terms of our client deliverables. This didn't happen overnight. It took time and a lot of analysis. And that came from effectively managing and recording our time thru time tracking systems. And it came by challenging each other. No one wants to tell a client something will be done on Tuesday only to be a week or even a day late with that expectation.

It's pretty rare for us to miss a stated deadline even on complex programming requests and it's been like that for many, many years. I think our solid infrastructure has a lot to do with that and that has a lot to do with how we measure our work internally. We don't just "do." We are constantly looking at each request and the numbers behind it. And we record the time spent against it. If we thought something was going to take a certain number of hours and it took more time, we learn from that. We don't make the same mistake twice....or at least we try not to.

Don't get me wrong. Time tracking systems are difficult to set up effectively and even more difficult to get full "buy-in" from the staff. There's always a few staff in every barrel that resists entering in their time. I think there are many reasons for this: They think it's a waste of time; they feel their time is too important to be spent recording it; they have ADD and "forget" because something shiny came along; it's too big brother-y -- (I've hit them all) but more often than not, they just don't understand the importance of it.

Most folks in the world are not "business people" and part of running a business is understanding what you do, how you do it, why you do it and how all of that benefits your customers. We don't track time because it's a fun little excercise. We track time because we want to know how we spend our time given our existing conditions (staffing, client/customer needs) and where we can do better, where we need to spend more time, where we're spending too much time that isn't cost-effective.

For example, if you measure the quality of your work (as we do) in errors (and hopefully lack thereof) and you see an decrease in quality of work -- you can often trace that back to time tracking indicators. In our company we strive for 100 percent accuracy in all work output and when there is a mistake made (even a small one) we analyze that -- we trace it back to the exact number of hours spent on the work behind it. Did the person not spend enough time on the request? Too much time? How was his or her other time spent in that same time frame -- where they working on too many tasks? Were other people involved in Quality Control, if so who and what other time was spent by that person in the same time frame?

There's a lot to be learned in effective time tracking and management. And that isn't just for the worker bees. Managers and CEO's (like me) need to track their time. Especially CEO's like me... who flit from one project to another depending on mood. I started tracking my time a month ago (yes, I know....I am a little late to the game here) when I expanded our time tracking to all staff (that is, all staff must record their schedules) and in just one month, I have learned a great deal about how I actually spend my time. I am not so fond of my results thus far, but I am not just recording my time for the sake of a fun little excercise, I am doing it so I can understand my strengths and weakness as a CEO in relation to my perceived role in the company and what it means to our overall growth.

Anyway, this is my little rant for today.

An Old VW Ad

2009-07-01T21:14:00.002-05:00

Wonder what their demographic looks like these days.......duh.

Fender Telecaster Nashville

2009-06-28T22:50:00.002-05:00

Fender Telecaster Thinline '72

2009-05-11T21:01:00.000-05:00

I bought this little lady for practically nothing. $400. I am using it to do my scales. So much easier on an electric than the other....you know bends and hammer on/offs. There I said it.

More Guitars I've loved before...

2009-05-10T20:54:00.004-05:00

I need to add this one to the list. This was a 1966 Gibson LG-O. Bought it for $300, added a new bridge that cost $300 and sold it for $600. I didn't lose any $$ on it, well...there was that new case I bought for it. But it served me well during the winter months so I call it even. Gone to a good home. I miss it already

Miner Vineyards: The Oracle 2004

2009-05-10T20:40:00.002-05:00

Enjoying a nice glass of Oracle wine -- a gift from my friends at Oracle (www.oracle.com). Who knew they made more than just database stuff? Such talent. Databases and wine.

Maine's governor signed a freshly passed bill approving gay marriage.

2009-05-06T17:15:00.001-05:00

& Then Vermont becomes 4th state to allow gay marriage

2009-04-07T16:15:00.001-05:00

Gay American Gothic Strikes Farm Country: Iowa Court Says Gay Marriage Ban Unconstitutional

2009-04-03T12:14:00.002-05:00

Don't Know Why (again, an excercise in a song with Bar Chords)

2009-02-24T18:01:00.003-05:00

Here, There & Everywhere

2009-02-23T18:09:00.002-05:00

Bar Chords

2009-02-20T06:52:00.000-05:00

Root 5 - A Shape Bar Chords:
Same concept as Root 6 E Shapes. This time we're using "A" shape chords, finding the root on the 5th string and taking it from there.

Method:
1. Find Root on 5th String
2. Bar the Fret
3. Play the desired shape.

Blues Scale #1

2009-02-19T17:39:00.003-05:00

So then back in March 2007, we introduced the Blues Scale. At the time it really became a finger exercise and while I played thru it, I didn't get back into the Blues ScaleS until just this past week. I will update on that front when I figure out what that's all about....Blues scales, minor pentatonic, chromatic, and minor scales...it's all a fog right now.

Method:
1. Play all positions (up the fret, each position 1-10)
2. Ascending and Decending
3. All downstrokes
When "mastered" do 1 - 2 using alternate picking.

Well, I suppose.....

2009-02-19T17:30:00.001-05:00

Luthier

2009-02-18T11:19:00.004-05:00

I attended a lecture/discussion lead by Luthier Tony Klassen up the street at The Music Emporium. It was interesting. Tony gave us a walk thru slide show of his work on a particular guitar (well documented and good photos) and then a brief Q&A followed by an opportunity to pick up and play both some of his instruments as well as a few vintage "Larson Bros." guitars. I wouldn't give Tony high marks on his presentation style, he's certainly not a slick showman by any means -- but his presentation was quite endearing and you could tell he really knew his stuff in terms of the specifics around his guitars. In playing a few of them (mostly his new stuff, not so much the older Larson Brothers stuff) I was quite impressed with the sound and quality of these guitars. They felt light but had a loudness to them. They just sort of felt nice. I kind of wish I had the opportunity to sit a few of them side by side in a quiet room, say perhaps against a Collings or Huss & Dalton. I wasn't in the market to buy one, but I left thinking..."hmmm, I'd consider one of those." And given the fact that I hadn't heard of them prior, I'd say that's good. They were also fairly reasonably priced too. The ones I looked at were well under $3500 which frankly for a custom-handmade guitar with this level of quality is pretty good.

Bar Chords

2009-02-16T11:37:00.004-05:00

Bar Chords:
Root - Note Name. Tells where to play the shape.
Quality - (e.g. Maj, m7, etc) - Tells which Shape to Play.

A/m - would be A root, with a minor shape.
Bb/7 - would be Bb root, with 7th shape.
F# - would be F# root

Method:
1. Find Root on 6th String
2. Bar the Fret
3. Play the desired shape.

Bar Chords

2009-02-14T10:49:00.002-05:00

Bar Chords are chords that have your index finger holding down more than one string and not playing with any open strings. So if you know the chord E, and if you also know the Note on the 6th string, for example, you can move that same shape up one fret, using your index finder to hold down the first fret and ta da, your now playing an F. Move it one more fret, and you've got yourself an F#. One more and you're playing a G....and so on. By doing this, you are using Movable Chords. Now there seems to be some rumor floating around that all chords are movable in that regard, but most of the ones I use in a bar chord are on the 6th and 5th strings with the exception of D and A chords which are also bar-able. (I haven't ever barred a C chord, only b/c I haven't had a reason to do it yet b/c once you bar a C chord it becomes another chord that is typically played with some other chord structure. At first, I had a hard time playing these bar chords, but now with time and practice, I use them all the time.

Notes on Strings (all)

2009-02-13T07:42:00.001-05:00

and just so it's here....here's the whole pretty lot of notes on all strings from First Fret to 12th. You can certainly "see" a pattern by color...but what does it all mean?

Notes on Strings

2009-02-13T07:33:00.001-05:00

Sort of sounds like Snakes on a Plane - but more on "notes on a string" here. So I went in and made a little chart in Excel on the thinking that there must be some sort of pattern to this guitar stuff even though the strings themselves didn't appear to me at the time to have any sort of order to them (at least not like a piano). The thinking here is that I would make each instance of a given note up and down the fretboard a particular color and then from a distance I would suddenly see the pattern. (I didn't right way. That came a few years later, like as in just last week). But for now, I share with you the Notes on a String with a special nod to the 6th and 5th String as noted in the prior post.

Learning the Notes on the 5th & 6th Strings

2009-02-13T06:54:00.000-05:00

What did I learn in my second lesson?

I was instructed to focus on the 5th and 6th strings in terms of learning notes. Reason: b/c of bar chords. E.g. if you can play an E and then bar chord it to where the G is on the 6th string, you will then be able to play a "G". (We all know how to play a regular old G, but this is good to know for F# or G#, etc. etc. In fact today, 2+ years later, I most always play a bar chorded F as opposed to the one I learned when I was a kid. It just sounds better to me.

Open	1st fret	2nd fret	3rd fret	4th fret	5th fret
1st string	E	F	F#(Gb)	G	G#(Ab)	A
2nd string	B	C	C#(Db)	D	D#(Eb)	E
3rd string	G	G#(Ab)	A	A#(Bb)	B	C
4th string	D	D#(Eb)	E	F	F#(Gb)	G
5th string	A	A#(Bb)	B	C	C#(Db)	D
6th string	E	F	F#(Gb)	G	G#(Ab)	A

(Very) Basic Theory

2009-02-12T06:38:00.002-05:00

Half Steps: Smallest distance between 2 notes on 1 string = 1 fret.
Whole Step: 2 half steps/2 frets

#Sharp: raises a natural note 1/2 step
b Flat: lowers a natural note 1/2 step
------------------------------------------------------------------

Musical Alphabet

A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G# A .....

B to C = 1/2 step
E to F = 1/2 step

All natural notes are separated by a whole step EXCEPT B to C and E to F which are both 1/2 step.

The Guitars I've Loved Before...

2009-02-12T00:06:00.009-05:00

Larrivee OM-3. Paid $500USD. Traded (got $700) toward a Huss & Dalton DS-Custom. This was a great guitar and in hindsight, I wish I still had it. Mahogony body (not sapele) and it was just a great guitar. It was already 8 years old when I bought it so it sounded great.

Larrivee L-03R. Paid $800NEW. Traded for a $300Cash + a '91 Mint Gibson LesPaul. I never liked this guitar. It was rosewood and I thought it sounded too much like my OM-3 but with a larger, more unattractive body.

Larrivee: OO-50. Paid $1600NEW. Gave it in trade ($1250) toward a Huss & Dalton T-OM(Used) which was a gift. I played this guitar a lot. It was a nice size to take to lessons and sounded good for a parlour-sized guitar. Mahogony sounds better on smaller body guitars, I think.

'91 Gibson LesPaul. Got it on a trade (along with $300) for one of my Larrivees (below). Eventually traded it (got $700) for a Huss & Dalton DS-Custom (after I took it apart to see how it was made). I really didn't play it much and it was heavy.

The Chromatic Scale

2009-02-11T06:33:00.002-05:00

Guitar Lessons: A retrospect & review - #1: 020807

2009-02-10T17:44:00.013-05:00

What did I learn in my first guitar lesson?

1. Learn the String Names

6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1
Lo----------------Hi
E - A - D - G - B - E

2. A few new open chords:

Dm
A7
E7

...and B7, C7, D7, G7, A7, E7

3. A simple song....

Oppose Whaling - Nicely Done WDCS!

2008-07-25T14:30:00.002-05:00

Time for Campaigning

2008-07-18T16:09:00.001-05:00

Send a JibJab Sendables® eCard Today!

Raisins

2008-05-07T09:34:00.003-05:00

And just cause I put that post up there about Fig Newtons, I might as well just say what's on my mind concerning Raisins. Anyone who 'knows' me - knows that I HATE raisins. Well, hate is a strong word here but I mean I don't like them and they kind of get me mad when they're all by themselves in a little red box. I don't mind them if they were in other food products, like Raisin Bagels (which I had the debate about the plural of bagel or bagel(s) today with Matt) or even Yogurt Covered Raisins which I thought I wouldn't really like but turns out I like them better than Y. covered almonds which are kinda sickening. And actually if I had a bird, which I do not, but if I did....I would feed it raisins on a somewhat regular basis because I think birds like those kind of things. But I do not. And I really hate getting them on airplanes. Why do they do that on airplanes? "Here's a nice cup of crappy coffee and a little box of raisins with 12 raisins to go with your coffee." Bahhhh!

I don't really like fig newtons

2008-05-05T21:39:00.001-05:00

I know, that's terrible to say - being in Boston and all...and like knowing the granddaughter of the guy who invented them and sold them to Nabisco. But they're kind of yucky.

Hey Dude - That's MY pantsuit!!!

2008-04-20T21:46:00.004-05:00

Saving Electricity One Pixel a Time

2008-04-20T21:21:00.003-05:00

So I just read in the NYTimes about a search engine to save energy. The idea? - Black computer screens use less energy than white ones. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/magazine/20invent-t.html?ref=todayspaper

So this guy started a black version of Google....www.blackle.com and as of April 6, the site claims the following: "to have saved 549,477.533 watt hours. (A megawatt hour equals one million watt hours; Blackle updates the number daily on its home page.)"

You do that math. I don't know what that decimal is in that big number. But that's cool. I am going to change my background to do my part starting now....

Wait...how do I do that? Control Panel....something

Nothing Sucks Like an Electrolux

2008-04-20T20:49:00.010-05:00

I like to vacuum, well....in certain circumstances. I actually like to clean (and, no I don't have a cleaning person...I suppose I shouldn't admit that in this day). But cleaning cleans the mind a college roommate once told me as she was making loud noises at 2am in the morning. And she's right. I get some of my best thinking done whilst dusting. But so anyway...one of my peeves is that my beloved Miele Sirrius Vac -- who (who?) follows me around from room to room like a little pet -- has a long leash and sometimes I just want to zip in and vacuum quickly - sans electreek (which if you don't know is French for no electricity). I was in a hardware store in Brookline a few weeks ago and this thing caught my eye....

For $79.99 (it was on sale) I figured -- it had to suck, figuratively, if not literally. But I bought it anyway. (Q: Did you know Electrolux's corporate ad slogan in the 1950's was: "Nothing Sucks Like an Electrolux? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolux#Slogan). And guess what? It does suck -- in a good way. I love it. It sits in the corner of my kitchen looking oh so smart and ready for action and I just zing it around the dance floor. I just used it and did about 900 SQF+ without a recharge. And that little canister thing that looks like something you should put money in and sent up some shoot at the drive-thru on a bank is a little hand vac. I give this little tweetie-bird a 4-out-of-five on the vac-rating scale.

US Sent Missile Parts to Taiwan - Ooops

2008-03-26T06:56:00.004-05:00

As reported in the NYT today, apparently four electrical fuses used for the Minute Man Nuclear warheads were sent to Taiwan in place of helicopter batteries. A year ago. Thank you for the news. And nope, these particular parts didn't contain any nuclear parts -- but thems parts anyway. You know...nuclear secrets and all -- the stuff we feel we can have but no one else.

Now that's Customer Service

2007-08-30T21:55:00.001-05:00

Had lunch today with my old friend Jean. She's 83 and I don't mean 'old' in the literal sense -- far from it as she could out hike me on any one of her many hiking trips thru the Swiss Alps which she does on an annual basis. But I digress. She told me an interesting matter-of-fact story of why she likes to shop at the Trader Joe's in Arlington, MA -- despite the fact that it's sort of hectic drive to get there down Mass Avenue.

Her main point: the staff there are really extremely nice folks. She then relayed a story that started with an account of how much she loves their Risotto "dinners" (the fact that they really are from Italy and are apparently quite good, in particular, according to Jean -- the mushroom one). Well, anyway, she went there one day only to discover that they were no longer carrying this product. Any one of us would have moved on to the next aisle; not Jean. She called the store manager over and asked him what the deal was with the absence. He looked at her confused and said he had no idea, but that he would find out and get back to her. Yes, he took her telephone number and promised to call.

Guess what? He did. He called her back the next day and said the reason they weren't "currently" carrying the products was that there was a strike at the docks in Italy and this caused the delay in the product shipment. Okay, made sense. But here's the best part. In about 2-3 weeks -- he called her back to report that the strike was over and the product was back on the shelves! Talk about follow up! Nice job Trader Joe guy.

Another Company's Software Sales Approach

2006-12-15T09:45:00.001-05:00

Interesting approach in sales for this Major Company who shall remain nameless. After we agreed upon a price, their final agreement was $87,000 MORE than the original price. What's up with that? Well, it seems they made a few mistakes in the original estimates and the credit we were supposed to get for our old licenses ($35K) doesn't really get included. It's like this: I decide to buy a car that stickers for $30K; we negotiate the price and come up with a figure of $26K. Then I have a trade in. So the dealer recalculates the trade in value of, say $4K and takes the original sticker price of $30K and subtracts the $4K and gets to $26K. Same price but I get to turn in my car! Same thing with the trade in value for these licenses. Plus, to add insult to injury -- I would have to pay more for the support on the new licenses to include support for the migrated licenses! Flat out NO. Deal was off.

perseverate \per-SEV-uh-rayt\verb

2006-11-02T10:42:00.000-05:00

The Word of the Day for November 2 is:

perseverate \per-SEV-uh-rayt\ verb
1 : to repeat or recur persistently
2 : to go back over previously covered ground

Example sentence:
To ensure the accuracy of his or her data, the scientist necessarily perseverates, repeating each experiment many times and comparing the results.

I am thinking I could probably come up with a better sentence...but it would be too painfully true.

Coffee Anyone?

2006-11-01T00:10:00.000-05:00

It was time to add a coffee service to our office - as in "coffee delivery." This means an upgrade to our coffee pot which was one of the first purchases the company made way back when . So we called a bunch of places and low and behold - there's a whole world of coffee service providers just waiting for such calls. So we did our little trials; we brought in a couple of vendors who were nice enough to install their coffee makers and provide us with one or two weeks of coffee 'free-o-charge.' In our land, a week's worth lasted only a few days (we like our coffee!). Who knew? Final verdict?? No delivered coffee service -- way too much $$ and frankly it's just not the right thing to do b/c none of the delivered products are fairly traded and none of the vendors would commit to offering any of it -- let alone our favorite (www.equalexchange.com). We bought our own (bigger) coffee pot and re-commit ourselves to buying only fair trade coffee from our friends at Equal Exchange (but we did enjoy the fancy coffee makers and the free coffee for a while). Now we need to capture the grinds for composting! ...Changing the World, One Coffee Bean @ a Time.

Okay, I am bored

2006-10-19T21:27:00.001-05:00

...with the newness of the mac. It's fine, works great. I have virtually no problems with the thing. The biggest issue I had once I figured out all of the missing key issues and lack of the right mouse button under the PC environment was figuring out how to get my VPN to work (or figuring out how to live with out the VPN). I could connect to the VPN just fine, however when I tried to do anything or access any files on the network thru the VPN, it crashed (blue screened) on the PC side of the Mac. It was a real drag. End result was to un-install the software and disable the virtual adapter and then it worked fine. Turns out -- it had NOTHING to do with the Mac and Dual Boot. The problem I was having seems to a problem with the Dual Core Intel Processors and the SafeNET adaptor under the VPN client.

Anyway, I am quite happy with this. The Macbook Pro is quite pretty and stunningly fast and works just fine under the PC world for everythning I do. On to other topics....

Using the MacIntel

2006-08-04T11:56:00.001-05:00

Sorry for the slight delay in getting to this next blog; my Mac computer hasn’t been working. Just kidding. It’s been working just fine, thank you very much. In fact I love it. There are a few issues that I ran into very quickly. The first being with the Keyboard and Mouse (I expected these).

It’s like being a left-handed tea drinker in a right-handed coffee shop. Doh da Keyboards Different and as a result, things are different on the Mac-side whilst Window-ing. For starters, there’s the Ctl-Alt-Del issue that doesn’t quite exist in the Macintosh world.
Okay, well you wouldn’t think this would matter much. I mean, an “A’s and “A” however there are a few keys that either aren’t there or are different (read: “think different”).

In Windows XP, the Delete key on the MacBook Pro is mapped to the Backspace key therefore ‘delete’ = ‘backspace.’ Apple suggests using an external keyboard with a Delete key or Windows-compatible software that can remap the Backspace key to Delete. Well, backspace (regardless of the fact that it’s labeled ‘del’) is, generally speaking still a good key to have. I opted to remap my “Right Windows” button to be my new DELete key (now maybe it’ll get some use – who needs two windows keys anyway). So “Right Windows” which is Command/Apple (aka “pretzel” or “flower”) = ‘DEL.” Okay, I can live with this and it is much easier than carrying around another keyboard.

On the mouse side, again in the Mac world, there’s nosuch thing as a ‘right and left’ mouse button; I suspect b/c there’s no need. My Super Hero Network Guru was quick to buy me a Blue Tooth Mouse and once set up (a two minute project on the Mac side and a 25 minute project on the Windows side), I realized he was right – that is pretty nice. Only after a few days, I kept forgetting to bring the mouse with me when I left the office and was completely out of biz with out it – so for a brief moment, I carried around one of those USB mini-mice, until I lost it.

So I found a program that let me map take another swipe at a key for this function. I found a free-thing called the Apple-Mouse (http://www.geocities.com/matrofiles) that when executed on the windows side allows me to use my CTRL key when clicking the mouse button and it turns the front face function into an “as if I right clicked” the mouse. Works quiet well and my only issue is I can’t always remember which key got taken for this purpose, but I will eventually remember. Nice thing is that it only works as a RIGHT mouse click when both it and the mouse button are clicked at the same time. This means I don’t lose full use/functionality of the CTRL key at all times.

This all reminds me of the episode where Gilligan (and the rest) got off the island and landed on another island where there was a mad professor who put coconuts on everyone’s head and transferred personalities from one person to another such that Gilligan wasn’t Gilligan anymore, he was the Skipper. And MaryAnn wasn’t MaryAnn, she was Ginger.

MacBook w/ Windows?

2006-07-07T19:28:00.001-05:00

After a fair amount of research, I opted for a dual boot with my Macintosh largely because I live so much (probably more than 80 percent of my computer time) in the Windows world. It didn’t seem a practical option for me to do the Parallel Technology “Desktop for Mac” option. I figured if I needed something Mac-related a simple re-boot wouldn’t kill me on the theory that at least I had my “junk” with me. While at public beta at the time, however it was getting rave reviews and high performance marks so it’s worth a look (http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/). In theory everything we’d need “could” be found at Apple’s public beta for the bootcamp (http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/); that is except for the Windows-related stuff, of course.

Okay which brings me to the costs of this whole thing. I was at first a little shocked at the sticker price of this whole endeavor though that was my own starry-eyed ignorance -- but keep it in mind, if you go this route, you will have to purchase license copies of whatever you need for the Windows-side (at a bare minimum, that’s gonna be the operating system). Day two, I shelled out another $700 for Windows-2003 and Microsoft Office Professional and we (I say “we” but really the leg work was done by my Network Super Hero ‘Simon’) got to work/play.

The Super Hero followed the instructions on the bootcamp site (do this) to a Tee. However we opted for a NTFS partition on the PC-side rather than the ‘suggested' FAT32 (there’s no way I could live with a 32G partition and I don’t need to access my Mac Files from the PC side; I’ve got a flash drive for that, should I need it). More or less, the partition was split down the middle with 66G for Mac and 54 for PC (with some lost to vaper).

I am part of a domain @ work so I needed the full Windows Professional and we saw no issues with immediate connectivity bring the MacBook Pro into the domain. Nodda one; it was flawless. Once Office was installed, I connected to Outlook and our Exchange Server and was in business as far as the basics were concerned. I established printers and mapped network drives and began the painstaking task of installing my ‘software.’ My day to day software on the Windows-side includes: QuickBooks Pro 2006, Office Pro 2006, Oracle 10G, PowerBuilder 8.5, Adobe CS, Studio 8 and Final Draft 7 with several others. All of these apps installed and preformed (and continue to) flawlessly, well…like they always have on the Windows-side. On the Intel-Mac side, my **only** issue was that of the Adobe Creative Suite **Hang** on the install where it completely froze the Macintosh on boot, however the surfer techy support guy I reached @ Apple stepped me thru this annoyance and explained to me it’s a known issue with the Intel-Macs. (It had nothing to do with the fact that I soiled my pretty Mac with Windows).

It’s hard for me to compare my Windows experience on this Macbook Pro because of the fact that it’s a duo core Intel and with that, it’s just fast so I have nothing to compare it to since this is my first hands on experience with the duo cores. But they are non-surprisingly sweet.

MacBook Pro

2006-07-07T06:57:00.001-05:00

I almost never have a desire to be on the bleeding edge of technology…cutting edge – sure; always, but not bleeding. In early late April, however I just couldn’t resist with the announcement of Apple’s Boot Camp for Macintosh. I was in the market for a new laptop and was about to purchase yet another Dell Latitude, my preferred choice for nearly 10 or so years – tried and true (and not "blue"). But when Apple made it’s announcement on April 5^th, my heart hurt with desire for one of those new MacBook Pros with its brushed silver aluminum thin cases and extra wide screen. I had always loved the Mac since my early college days when I was one of those kids who spent their savings on a Macintosh 512Ke (the “e” was for “enhanced, making the 512K of RAM work just a little faster). It even had an external floppy drive and a nifty canvass bag allowing me to carry it around which I did on occasion. Not sure way I did, but I did. The whole thing, including the Imagewriter II printer, cost me around $4,000. And on that machine, I did amazing things creating newsletters and leaflets and posters for my student organizing days with the MPIRG. Ahhh, those were the days my friends. But alas that machine outstayed its welcome and eventually got traded for an IBM Laptop which got traded for a wooden Gemeinhardt piccolo (which I still have). And I landed in professional jobs that by day had me on the personal computer (well, actually I started out on old CPM machines with the KayPro2, but that’s another story not worth sharing).

For the most part by day, I have continued to live in the PC-windows world and by night the Macintosh and with that, a plethora of machines for my own personal use at both work and home. With this announcement, I could live in both worlds in one machine. I could potentially get rid of a couple of in-use laptops and maybe even that desktop which housed my creative works. So with little trepidation and good deal of consideration, I took the plunge: A 2.0GHz Intel duo core MacBook Pro with 2G of RAM a 120G hard disk. It arrived 4 days after purchasing (which was as fast as my Dell shipments) in a very thin black box. It was a stunning sight and I was about to experience a little bit of the bleed in being too far out on that edge of technology……