TECH: RSS and EMail and Outlook

Saturday, September 23, 2006

It’s no secret that I think LookOut, my pet name for Microsoft Outlook, … sucks … it really does. Sorry but I couldn’t think of a polite way to say it. Not only does it lock up from time to time, it’s a hog, does unpredictable things, and puts a obstacles in the way of getting things done. Not only that, BUT, it tends to make one THINK in terms of what it can do; NOT in terms of the things that should be done; or the way things ought to be done; or even the way things should be organized to get things done.

FEEDBLITZ has opened up my thinking to perhaps the best way to “do” rss is not with an aggregator or a reader, but with our old friend email. Hmmm?

Now if we just had a good email client!!!


TECH: Thinking about plogging

Saturday, September 23, 2006

As we enter the “final turn” of the year, the last quarter of the year, I am creating an inventory form my end of year review. (Hey, you have to have something to do during the week between Christmas and New Years!)

Topics:

  • Does my plog (personal web log) “reinke faces life” is this any value?
  • Does vista pretend to offer me any benefit?
  • If we’re going to Linux, what’s the path?
  • How is technology, and my use of it, delivering on its promise of “better”? Better what?
  • Hardware and software rationalization

RANT: I hate lines, or queues, or wasting time waiting!

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Cutting in Line

Cutting in Line
September 21st, 2006

***Begin Quote***

Imagine yourself waiting in line (queue, if you’re British) and someone cuts in front. This obviously upsets and frustrates you. Why should they be in front when you’ve been waiting longer? Why isn’t anyone doing anything about this line jumper?

***End Quote***

I hate lines! I blame the designer. It should be necessary to have a line. If the service provider staffed properly there should never be a line.

BUT, if there is a line, it should not be possible to jump in front. It should be structurally impossible. Concert goers wrist bands, a doctor’s office sign in sheets, and numbers at a deli all come to mind.

If as a designer or service provider, if you are SO inept as to be unable to figure this out, then I ask what else have you done that impacts me, that I can’t see. I’m probably being hurt even worse!

Supermarket lines are the worst I ALWAYS seem to guess wrong!


MONEY: Wal-Mart to offer $4 generic prescription drugs

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Wal-Mart to offer $4 generic prescription drugs

By ALISON BERT THE JOURNAL NEWS
Powered by Topix.net
(Original publication: September 21, 2006)

***Begin Quote***

Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club pharmacies will offer 291 generic prescription medicines for $4, the company announced this morning.

The program, which begins in Tampa, Fla., today and in the rest of Florida in January, is slated to be rolled out nationwide next year, said Bill Simon, executive vice president for the professional service divisions at Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

The price is for a 30-day supply.

***End Quote***

Perhaps the American voter should put WalMart in charge of Medicare, as opposed to the gubamint?


TECH: Playing Google Videos In Windows Media Player

Friday, September 22, 2006

» Playing Google Videos In Windows Media Player » InsideGoogle » part of the Blog News Channel

http://google.blognewschannel.com/index.php/archives/2006/09/20/playing-google-videos-in-windows-media-player/

Playing Google Videos In Windows Media Player
By Nathan Weinberg

***Begin Quote***

Turns out that Google Video’s downloads, called .gvi files, are just standard .avi files that have been altered to be unplayable in Windows Media Player. When you click in Google Video to download a video to Windows/Mac, you download a .gvp bookmark, which loads Google Video Player and downloads the appropriate .gvi file (opening the .gvp in a text editor will reveal the URL of the .gvi, if you don’t want to install the Video Player).

***End Quote***

Hopefully, this isn’t the beginning of a new format wat?


LIBERTY: What Government Is Doing to Our Money by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

What Government Is Doing to Our Money by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/govt-doing-to-money.html

***Begin Quote***

People talk of restraining government, but there will be no restraining government so long as the monetary system permits government to expand and spend without limit. So long as their debt is not traded with a default premium, so long as the government and all its connected institutions are considered to be too big to fail, we are going to have a problem with the expansion of power and the loss of freedom.

***End Quote***

So basically we have no way to constrain the growth of government. Boy, the dead old white guys should see this mess!


TECH: Zimbabwe Fails To Pay Bills, Cut Off From Web

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Zimbabwe Fails To Pay Bills, Cut Off From Web – Networking Technology News by TechWeb

http://www.techweb.com/wire/networking/193003968

September 20, 2006 (12:52 PM EDT)
techweb
Zimbabwe Fails To Pay Bills, Cut Off From Web

***Begin Quote***

Zimbabwe, struggling with rampant inflation and shortages of food and gasoline, has been virtually cut off from the Internet for not paying its bills, news wire services reported Wednesday.
***End Quote***

Maybe that’s a failure that the internet wasn’t designed to recover form?


FUN: I think I made a funny!

Thursday, September 21, 2006

>I was thinking of changing to my gmail address

I’ll play Yoda.

“Think, or think not; there is no thinking!”
(Patterned after “do or do not there is not trying”).


LIBERTY: Artificial reef made of tires becomes ecological disaster

Thursday, September 21, 2006

MiamiHerald.com | 09/20/2006 | Artificial reef made of tires becomes ecological disaster

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/15560115.htm
Posted on Wed, Sep. 20, 2006

***Begin Quote***

A plan in the early 1970s to create a massive artificial reef off Fort Lauderdale has turned into an environmental mess with the U.S. Navy, Broward County and others trying to figure out how to remove about two million tires covering 36 acres of ocean floor.
***End Quote***

Ahhh, yes do gooders, but their intentions were pure. It takes government to really screw up, to damage the environment, and all the time we are paying for this stupidity. Arghhh!

Let’s leave decisions to the free market place. It would NOT throw away some “very good” tires  (They were not good for driving on, but a bright inventor might be able to find a good use for them.)  bit represent an opportunity for some one to turn a profit.


RANT: Hey Governor Corzine — still wanna hear about state cars? … (continued) …

Thursday, September 21, 2006

You don’t? TOO BAD!

This morning 07 Jan 2008 at about 0730, there were no State Police on I295 south mile marker 47.

Why do I mention that?

A tractor trailer truck doing 80 was pushing people all over the road with his aggressive driving tactics.

Now if all your staties weren’t busy doing revenue collection, then they might have been available to protect and serve the folks getting intimidated.

(He put me on the sholder squeezing into my following distance. Tailgated the fellow in front of me. And, then proceeded to change lanes with another fellow in his midships. That push him into the third lane and the third lane guy to the sholder. To the blaring of horns. And, probably some emphatic Irish prayers being said for his benefit.)

The plate number was 1268095. I know that because I was almost wearing it.

I call the statie number and reported it, but I’m sure that ranked right below the donut run.

When I lived in Maryland, the State Police had unmarked car and trucks that didn’t do anything but drive normally down the road. There were two cops in the car and they filmed the traffic and called in all sorts of bad driving. It was amusing to to see some idiot, who was cutting in and out, suddenly reform as we would pass a state police car on the side of the road. Only to have that cop throw on the bubble gum lights and take him for a “time out”. The Washington Post ran several stories about it. And, it did have a calming effect on the regular folks.

But, that is NOT the purpose of the state police. Revenue raising is. So we will have meaningless radar traps as opposed to doing something to protect and serve the folks.

Arghhhhhhh!

P.S.: Dear reader, I don’t write these every day. Just when I ARRIVE early for work, particularly agitated aggravated and have to wait for my employer workstation to get online.

# # # # #


RANT: Hey Governor Corzine … … still wanna hear about state cars? … (continued) …

Thursday, September 21, 2006

You don’t? TOO BAD!

This morning 14 December at 0645 est on Route 1 by the Stop’n’Shop … …

… … a white state police suv SPA145A … …

… … raced by the standing traffic at the light on the right hand lane … …

… … No red/blue lights. It didn’t look like it was even equipped with them. What kinda of SP was this?

… … (I admire that the person timed the light perfectly. Anyone running the light, right turning on red, or late in the opposite direction would have been killed! But it was timed perfectly.) … …

… … down route 1 at a between zero and what seemed to be over a hundred (Your serf speed limit is 55)

… … of course the statist road system, with myriad lights to slow the serfs down, allowed us a better look at the state car when we caught up.

… … All that serf traffic just meant that it was tailgating the poor peon in his way all the way down.

… … It did observe the unwritten rule of the powerful “never leave the left lane”!

… … (Do you teach them to do that, or is that a qualification for working for the state of nujerzee!?)

… … And once freed of the serf, when last we saw it, it was flying down route 1, hurrying to get to I assume trenton to protect and serve me.

Arghhh!

[For those not familiar with the NJ roads. State “workers” proceed straight down route 1 to the golden dome of corruption. If you come later in the morning, then it’s not unusual to see “lots” of state cards commuting to the state jobs by the state ’employees”. It particularly ticks me off to know that I am paying for the road, the traffic jam, and the bad driving of my “servants”. Arghhh! That’s one reason I like to commute early; I can’t afford to have a stroke because I couldn’t afford the death taxes.]

Arghhhhhhh!

P.S.: Dear reader, I don’t write these every day. Just when I ARRIVE early for work, particularly agitated aggravated and have to wait for my employer workstation to get online.


RANT: Hey Governor Corzine … … still wanna hear about state cars? … (continued) …

Thursday, September 21, 2006

You don’t? TOO BAD!

This morning 13 November at 0707 est on Route 295 milepost 47 … …

… … a white truck td 4754 a … …

… down route 295 at a leisurely 80 (Speed limit for the unwashed is 65)

… in lots of traffic

… tailgating the poor peon in his way

… never left the left lane

… oh did I mention it was blinding rain, no not just a shower, buckets,

Any way I am sure that he was hurrying to get away from trenton, the scene of the crimes against the people, to protect and serve me somewhere further south.

Arghhh!

P.S.: Dear reader, I don’t write these every day. Just when I ARRIVE early for work, particularly agitated aggravated and have to wait for my employer workstation to get online.


RANT: Hey Governor Corzine … … still wanna hear about state cars? … (continued) …

Thursday, September 21, 2006

You don’t? TOO BAD!

This morning 21 September at 0730 edst on Route 1 thru Pton … …

… … a blue tarus sg25 555 3 … …

… down route 1 at a between zero and leisurely 70 (Your serf speed limit is 55)

… in lots of traffic

… tailgating the poor peon in his way

… never left the left lane (Do you teach them to do that, or is that a qualification for working for the state of nujerzee!?)

Any way I am sure that he was hurrying to get to I assume trenton to protect and serve me.

Arghhh!

It was particularly amusing since the same car speed past me again (It was deja vu all over again); left lane of course; on Rt295 south around exit 67; but now he has coffee (guess he stopped at dunkin); I guess he didn’t have any cell phone calls to return; OR maybe he missed the non-turn to Trenton.

[For those not familiar with the NJ roads. State “workers” proceed straight down route 1 to the golden dome of corruption. If you come later in the morning, then it’s not unusual to see “lots” of state cards commuting to the state jobs by the state ’employees”. It particularly ticks me off to know that I am paying for the road, the traffic jam, and the bad driving of my “servants”. Arghhh! That’s one reason I like to commute early; I can’t afford to have a stroke because I couldn’t afford the death taxes.]

Arghhhhhhh!

P.S.: Dear reader, I don’t write these every day. Just when I ARRIVE early for work, particularly agitated aggravated and have to wait for my employer workstation to get online.


TECH: Tim Anderson’s ITWriting

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Tim Anderson’s ITWriting

http://www.itwriting.com/blog/?postid=531

September 20, 2006
Securing Windows: why Microsoft is fighting its third-party partners
Posted 17 hours ago on September 20, 2006
***Begin Quote***

The bottom line is that the mass-market, consumer-oriented PC security industry is bloated out of all proportion. Users should be able to do reasonably secure computing out-of-the-box, and with non-Windows systems – OS X, Linux – they already can. I am right behind Microsoft in its efforts to extend that to Windows systems as well.

***End Quote***

MY COMMENT:

***Begin Quote***

Like it or not, if you accept Microsoft, then you get insecurity. Anyone thinking about Vista has to make the devil’s bargain. When you factor in the cost of an upgrade, I’m going to linux. Boot from a live cd and what can be infected? Until we get computing appliances or we have true web-based computing, it should be good enough, safe enough, and smart enough to be on Linux.

***End Quote***

Going back to the old days of a disk oriented operating system. Boot off a Linue Live CD. And, be immune to virus infection.


INITIALISMS: OTOH — On The Other Hand

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

OTOH

On The Other Hand

# – # – # – # – # 


TECH: the Osborne Syndrome — augers into the ground

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

The Post Money Value: Pissed Off Customer 2.0

http://ricksegal.typepad.com/pmv/2006/09/pissed_off_cust.html
***Begin Quote***

The capable logo and the (rapidly approaching) free upgrade coupon in the box promotion is designed to keep computers flying off the shelves, thus avoiding the Osborne Syndrome. (Short History: Osborne Computers pre-announced a new model, killing sales of old model, new model late, company augers into the ground.)

***End Quote***

Never heard that before.  Akin to spin, crash, and burn.


RANT: I doubt ex-guv McSleezey’s corruption even registered on the nujerzee voters

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2006/09/mcgreevey-with-context.html

Tuesday, September 19, 2006
McGreevey with the context
***Begin Quote***

New Jersey would have accepted a gay governor; it just couldn’t accept the slime that came with the McGreevey administration.

***End Quote***

I don’t think that McSleezey’s corruption even registered on the NuJerzee voters. I bet if he ran again a la Lieberman, then he’d win. And, the people get the gubamint they deserve. I vote every election against incumbents. yet they win. Nationally 98% get returned to office. So like the school budget votes, it’s rigged. (And, maybe after all the voting machine scandals, it is really really rigged!) Rigged in the sense that the powers that be figure out the rules to keep themselves in power. Just look at the kulture of korruption in NuJerzee. It’s not something new. And, unfortunately, I don’t see anything changing anytime soon.


FUN: Fear of flying | Welcome aboard | Economist.com

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7884654

Fear of flying | Welcome aboard | Economist.com
Sep 7th 2006
From The Economist print edition
In-flight announcements are not entirely truthful. What might an honest one sound like?

***Begin Quote***

“GOOD morning, ladies and gentlemen. We are delighted to welcome you aboard Veritas Airways, the airline that tells it like it is. Please ensure that your seat belt is fastened, your seat back is upright and your tray-table is stowed. At Veritas Airways, your safety is our first priority. Actually, that is not quite true: if it were, our seats would be rear-facing, like those in military aircraft, since they are safer in the event of an emergency landing. But then hardly anybody would buy our tickets and we would go bust.

***End Quote***

Hmmm, this could set a trend? The Veritas Gubamint! The Veritas Phone Company! The Veritas Cable Company! :-) The Veritas Post Office. The Veritas DMV. The Veritas Spouse.
Some one could start a whole series of humorous articles about this.


TECH: FEEDBLITZ gives a daily feed of any blog

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

For example, to get this one use the link on the side or http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=98446

It’s free for all. And, works very nicely!


LIBERTY: Gubamint is a study in unintended consequences. But are they unintended?

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Hi Guys,

Loyal amp podie here with feedback on Tuesday’s 12 Sept hour#2 show specifically the caller form Montana (I think):

(1) LBJ took office after Kennedy’s assassination. SO he was in office in 1964, then elected on his own in 64 taking office in 65. Don’t be so quick to denigrate the caller’s take on historical events.

(2) The caller the tried to talk about how the Civil Rights Act of 64 broke the family.

May I elaborate, because I think I understood his comment and there is some basis in fact for what he is saying. (I too lived in this era. And you youngsters may not appreciate the nuances)

Let’s remember the “Law of Unintended Consequences”. Especially where government is concerned, there are ALWAYS those unintended consequences.

Let me set the stage for the caller’s point.

(A) The Social Security Insurance, a giant Ponzi scheme (but that is another matter for another day), had the unintended consequence of weakening the multi-generational family. (I charitably say “unintended”. A strong family, like strong churches, fraternal organizations, and a strong civil society can obviate the need for government to take power over the people. For the government to grow out of its Constitutional bounds, it needs crises and kill alternatives.) By giving welfare to old folks, it took them out of the multi-generational family. Grandma and Grandpa retire and move to Florida. In the old days, they would live on the family farm or, in my family’s case, in the same apartment building, where they could provide help and support to the family unit. Old folks “need” their children’s help for certain tasks (i.e., things that require strength and agility) and the children need the old folk’s help for certain tasks (i.e., watch the kids while Mom runs to the store). Have a problem, you can always borrow a few bucks from Grandma or Mom. No need for gubamint, if you can get all the help from the family living in close proximity. Social Security Insurance welfare gave the old folks the financial freedom to abdicate this essential familial responsibility. It doesn’t take a village to raise a child; it does take a family to raise everyone’s standard of living. SSI allows the old folks to abscond with the SSI money and who takes their place? The gubamint is empowered to do all sorts of things — “public” “education” (that’s neither public; nor educational), Welfare, AFDIC, Food stamps, rent control, yada yada.

(B) The War on Poverty further broke the family by UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES of its “requirements”. A woman with children could draw welfare if there was no man living in the home. Men were then thus freed of their familial responsibilities. Another consequence was that women became farmers of children. More kids; more welfare. Young girls could get more “stuff” by getting pregnant. It spawned an “immoral” generation. “Immoral” not in the church sense, but in the sense that the family unit served no further purpose. The gubamint would do it all for you. Men could fornicate with abandon. Women were encouraged to be “liberated”. That broke the backs of the churches.

(C) LBJ’s GUNS AND BUTTER tried to spend for welfare to win the war on poverty and the Viet Nam “ersatz war”. Gubamint spending went thru the roof, taxes went thru the roof, and wealth plummeted. This increased taxation and lowering the standard of living thru inflation, induced women to leave the home in droves to maintain a standard of living.

(D) Affirmative Action was passed as remedial for the discrimination against black. The woman’s lib, which wanted to be womyn’s lib, “horned in” on Affirmative Action. That diluted the effectiveness of the government’s program for blacks and institutionalize the “ima victim” mentality. Womyn became prized in the corporate world where one had to deliver numbers. This drove up the wages paid women and allowed them to leave the home and earn, in some cases, far better money than their spouse. There goes another nail in the coffin containing the notion of a nuclear family.

SOOOOOOO

What the caller was TRYING to say was the gubamint, either deliberately or unintendedly, destroyed the american family by:

(1) stripping the old folks away by social security thus empowering the gubamint to solve people’s problems;

(2) nuked the church as source of support and moral authority by the war on poverty and the liberalization of morality thus empowering the government by removing the church as an alternative and counter weight to gubamint;

(3) broke the economics of the family unit by throwing men out, making them worthless, and demeaning them in the eyes of their women thus empowering the gubamint to become the ersatz father to these women and children;

(4) put everyone, by inflation and higher taxes, on a gerbil wheel to try to maintain the same standard of living thus empowering the gubamint with more money to spend;

(5) using affirmative action to increase artificially increase the value of women in the marketplace thus empowering the gubamint to “protect” women from “discrimination” and putting gubamint in the role of “child care”;

(6) using affirmative action to create a permanent culture of race sex “discrimination” empowering the gubamint to be the arbiter of “fairness”.

I think that is what the caller was trying to get out.

Gubamint bad! And, while there may be no going back without a bloody revolution, these problems need to be addressed.


LIBERTY: FIFTEEN REASONS TO LEGALIZE DRUGS

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

http://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/policy/policy_writing1.shtml

FIFTEEN REASONS TO LEGALIZE DRUGS

1. Legalizing drugs would make our streets and homes safer.
2. It would put an end to prison overcrowding.
3. Drug legalization would free up police resources to fight crimes
against people and property.
4. It would unclog the court system.
5. It would reduce official corruption.
6. Legalization would save tax money.
7. It would cripple organized crime.
8. Legal drugs would be safer. Legalization is a consumer protection
issue.
9. Legalization would help stem the spread of AIDS and other diseases.
10. Legalization would halt the erosion of other personal liberties.
11. It would stabilize foreign countries and make them safer to live in
and travel to.
12. Legalization would repair U.S. relations with other countries and
curtail anti-American sentiment around the world.
13. Legalization would prevent children from consuming drugs.
14. Legalization would encourage pharmaceutical companies the research
of safer and healthier drugs.
15. Legalization could teach people to live safe with drugs.


LINUX: KNOPPIX50 doesn’t recognize LUGGABLE’s inboard wireless

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Arghhh! Have to do some poking around!


LIBERTY: Security Theater is a jole — on us!

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/09/18/D8K7ECP03.html

Businesses Adapt to Airport Restrictions
Sep 18 2:32 PM US/Eastern
By ANNA JO BRATTON Associated Press Writer
OMAHA, Neb.

***Begin Quote***

Fifteen live lobsters? Those you can take on a plane. But the ice or gel packs to keep the lobsters cold are not allowed under the recent ban on liquids and gels in carryon luggage

***End Quote***

I like their solution frozen vegetables. I don’t like that we allow the gubamint to “run” security at the airports. What we have is what Bruce Schneier calls “security theater” http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/09/more_than_10_wa.html Nothing of what we are seeing would make an iotas difference. What it does do is to put the gubamint firmly in control of the population. Real Id, sneak ‘n’ peek, imprisonment without trial, and even more restrictions on our liberties are all steps on the way to the next genocide. It can happen here. Think the Civil War, the Indian Wars, and the Japanese Internment. We need to object. I don’t consent.


LIBERTY: Gubamint at work — sort of — another gubamint crime!

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/09/18/D8K7F8580.html

Report: N.J. Senator Had No-Work Job
Sep 18 3:31 PM US/Eastern
***Begin Quote***

A powerful southern New Jersey politician was paid for a no-work job at a scandal-ridden state university while helping the school garner millions of dollars in new state funding, according to a report released Monday.
The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey paid state Sen. Wayne Bryant, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, $35,000 a year “to lobby himself in his capacity of state senator,” according to the report of a federal monitor who had investigated the school’s finances.

***End Quote***

Ahh, only in the Peeple’s Repulik of Nu Jerzee, does a politican not get rebuked by the voters. But, it’s business as usual. His party doesn’t roast him like the sacrificial pig that he should be. And, the voters just reward all the incumbent by returning them to power. We condemn the Soviet Union for one party Communism. What’s the difference here? Hey, with McSleezzey hitting Oprah. Christie being nailed for lying about WTC air. It’s just a joke. On the voters and taxpayers. There’s just no hope here.


JOBSEARCH: Have no fear being fired is not the worst that can happen

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

How to lose your fear of being fired


TECH: What To Do When Your Computer Bogs Down — cry?

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

http://www.lewrockwell.com/tucker/tucker74.html

What To Do When Your Computer Bogs Down
by Jeffrey A. Tucker
Editorial vice president of http://www.Mises.org
September 19, 2006

***Begin Quote***

Relentless development in software, hardware, and the online world means living life in Beta with all its attendant problems. Each machine is different, and yet the Windows-based machines I’ve worked on for the last four months have all had the same trouble, and require the same steps to resolve it. Some of the problems result from the very first days that the computer was fired up, but use (along with spyware, adware, malware, viruses, and enormous software muck) only makes them worse.

Here are the steps that have worked for many Windows machines in recent days.

***AND***

That’s it! Your machine should be vastly improved in every way.

(Please don’t write to tell me about the wonders of Mac [granted] or of the feasibility of end-user Linux systems [please!]. You aren’t telling me anything I don’t already know, so I’ll just delete your email.)

***End Quote***

What you are describing is a phenom which I believe is generally called winrot. (I’ve blogged about it. https://reinkefj.wordpress.com/2006/02/24/prepare-for-winrot/ on several occasions.)

The only real solution is to reinstall from scratch.

Some fanatics urge a quarterly reinstall. I usually try during the End Of Year holidays when stuff is slow. The week between Christmas and New Years is deadly slow.

It assumes, and presumes, that you:

(1) have good backups of all your data.

(Entertaining exercise. Hand the corporate user a new laptop. Take the old one. And, then you see just how good your backup and recovery strategy is. I have had the equivalent happen to me when a hard disk drive dies and the first time I lost four months of work. Now I am a fanatic about backup and recovery. My worktop has been replaced three times with no loss. My personal one probably would be OK, but not as good, nor as crisp and easy.)

(2) have all your program distribution media. (All those darn CDs!)

(3) have all your program serial numbers (All those darn 29.5 character random strings. Sometimes on the last page of manuals.  Sometimes on folders. Sometimes on envelopes. Sometime on convenient easy to lose slips of paper.)

Arghhhh!!!