Reinke Faces Life

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/
110206-reports-microsoft-novell-to-strike.
html?page=3

http://tinyurl.com/yg7mzg

Microsoft, Novell partner on historic Windows, Linux interoperability deal

***Begin Quote***

Microsoft and Novell Thursday announced a wide ranging business and technology partnership designed to make it easier for companies to run, integrate and manage Linux and Windows in their environments while steering clear of patent and intellectual property concerns.

***End Quote***

Sorry, but I don’t trust either corporation to do what’s best for me. Whatever that is. Let’s look at some motivations.

Microsoft is in a dying desktop monopoly position. And, there server position isn’t so hot either.

They have just shot themselves in the foot with Vista; does any one really expect consumers to buy new hardware with Vista and consign what is working to the trash heap? Or, go thru the techie high jumps trying to “upgrade”? Or, invest money for Vista and the try to make Vista run on old hardware. Don’t forget “You’re a thief” WGA! And you’ve bought into “Only One Activation”! And, those are the swords behind the matador’s cape we know about. What don’t we know?

No, I expect Microsoft’s consumer market to fragment into three distinct parts:

(1) Users got to the web to sites like Google to replace fat client desktop software. Office replaced by Writely. Project by Basecamp. MSNIM by MEEBO. Outlook by Gmail. Any desktop will do for web users. Ubuntu Linux for them. No dollars to MSFT any more ever again.

(2) Users go to Linux like Ubuntu, but don’t trust the web. SO they deploy Firefox, OpenOffice, Thunderbird, and other Linux Open Source stuff as needed. A little bumpy but no dollars to MSFT either.

(3) Users, who can afford to, may need a new platform because hardware breaks or winrot becomes so bad. For most people a bare metal restore is undoable, unthinkable, or just too much work. So they drink the Microsoft KoolAid and get Vista as part of a hardware deal. An ugly migration but it’ll work. But very few new dollars to MSFT either.

SO I expect MSFT wants to FUD Linux and mess up the works.

NOVELL is acting as if they were LINUX! They have A distribution. But they are by no means the MSFT of LINUX. I’m sure of that based on their past history of shooting themselves in the foot. (Remember at one time they OWNED the word LAN in the world’s mind! MSFT edged them out of that position.) SO they are probably looking an the “declining mountain range” (business profitability chart used in all the cartoons) and saying “help!” or worse.

SO here we have two sinking ships, one the Titanic, and one the SS Minow, trying to stay afloat making a “historic” deal. I’d call it histrionic!

And, you think this is good for the industry, or you in particular?

No, I think the partnership is to try and allow them stay afloat. To do that, they have to FUD the Lunux space, and convince the public (mostly CEOs, CIOs, CTOs, and the ultimately important CFOs) that their “Edsel” is the best.

I don’t trust ’em and I ain’t buyin’ that particular load of barbara striesand!

MIKI> Me and my tech are trying to insert links to books at Amazon into my
MIKI> blogs (using WordPress), but when we Save and Update the blog the link
MIKI> that we pasted in seems to reformat and contains random characters.

Dear Group:

I blog at WordPress and have always had prompt responses to all my questions when I use the feedback mechanism from the dashboard. I usually get it in hours, sometime minutes, I think once was a day. Sometimes the answer is “no you can’t do that” but at least I didn’t waste a lot of cycles frustrated. I’d ask them for a definitive answer.

I have two suggestions, despite my ignorance of what the real cause is, that might be a work around.

**********ONE*****************

First, may I suggest that you use TinyUrl to create a “short link”. For example, I took your link and “tinyurled” it (i.e., went to www.tinyurl.com, pasted in your long amazon link, and got this back.

***Begin Quote***

TinyURL was created!

The following URL:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=
http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FDelusions-Intelligence-Enigma-
Secure-Ciphers%2Fdp%2F0521855225%2Fsr%3D11-1%2Fqid%3D1162613
487&tag=rampupsolutio-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&
amp;creative=9325

has a length of 237 characters and resulted in the following TinyURL which has a length of 25 characters:

http://tinyurl.com/ymn94l

***End Quote***

In my mind, it would seem that 200+ plus character link could easily title something. Maybe wordpress, the browser, or some other component has a hidden limit? Maybe there a code combination in their that has a magical mystical value, that gets translated, like %22 for quote, by some “helpful” piece of software.

Shortening the URL, may help.

There are some people who suggest for security reasons that one should never click on such a link because I could have put a tiny link for the latest Russian exploit. (I used to be a security weenie so I have heard ALL the arguments.) To which, my answer would be, “so why click on any link at all?”, but the paranoid whiz by that. TO cut down on the discussion I usually just give people both links.

Also, when I want to find a link I recommended, I can usually want the “read site” not the tinyurl. SO it really self-interest that I do that.

**********ONE — FOOTNOTE ******

It is possible in Firefox and IE to get a TinyUrl widget on the toolbar so that, if you have the URL in your frame, clicking on it, gives you the TINYURL for it. It saves a few keystrokes. I use it extensively.

**********ONE — DISCLAIMER ****

There are many URL shortening sites out there. TINYURL is the first one I found, and I have never found any reason to change. I guess that is one argument for quoting both the original url and the tiny one. Should TINYURL fold, you could always use the long one.

**********TWO*****************

I use a free tool called BLOGDESK. It seems to do quite nicely getting my wonderful lucid ramblings from my desktop to WORDPRESS quickly and accurately. I use it because, from time to time, when interacting with WORDPRESS directly, something would happen in the cloud and I’d lose my content. I suspect some type of network error would occur before the screen was really saved and one of my pearls of wisdom would be lost for ever. AND, it was SO GOOD, that I couldn’t remember it, despite having just wrote it. I lost several good zingers. I could generally recreate it but I KNOW it wasn’t as good a post as the one I lost. BLOGDESK, has some other nice features, in that it keeps copies of all my wisdomly words for me to reuse and it allows me to template certain topics so I stay with a consistent format. It might help you all with your url problem.

**********END*****************

https://reinkefj.wordpress.com/2006/11/02/
technology-skype-doesnt-integrate-completely-with-outlook/

http://tinyurl.com/yy7rsg

I did get a very nice response from the SKYPE folks. And, while it’s just a “we know”, it was nice to get a response.

(If I owned the problem, I update the docs so people didn’t waste time reporting stuff I already knew. But then I’m lazy and like to avoid work when I can.)

***Begin Quote***

Hello reinkefj,

Thank you for contacting Skype Support.

This error is known by our development team and will be resolved in a future release of Skype.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Best regards,

Ekaterina M.
Skype Support

Visit www.skype.com for latest news, updates and tips.

— Original Message —
From: reinkefj
Received: 2.11.2006 19:31:42 GMT Standard Time (GMT – 0:00 )
To: support@skype.net
Subject: GQW: Outlook import

Name: reinkefj
Skype Name: reinkefj
E-mail: pia at somewhere.in.universe.org
Subject: Outlook import
Message:
—————————————————————-
The import from Outlook only takes the single file \”contacts\”. I have my outlook directory organized into different subfiles for simplicity. Thoughts?
———————————————————————-Skype Version: 2.5.0.151
Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1) Gecko/20061010 Firefox/2.0
IP address: 001.002.400.677
Department: Technical Problems

—— Please do not remove your unique tracking number! —— <<#410808-552234#>>

***End Quote***

AND, I think I have a work around.

Copy LOOKOUT’s “contact” folder to “holding”.

Empty it. (Can’t deleted it cause LOOKOUT will throw a hissy fit. It’s one of the golden four!)

Go to “othercontactfolder” (or any other LOOKOUT folder where you have contacts) do the old CNTLA-CNTLC and shoot back to “contact” and do the old CNTLV.

Go for your favorite adult refreshment. Watch some tube, TV not UTUBE, cause your puter is very very busy as LOOKOUT does lots of indexing. When the green light of disk activity stops its nervous breakdown, feed “contacts” into SKYPE.

Then, focus on “contacts”, CNTLA, DEL, and go to bed. It’ll be a while as LOOKOUT basically undoes it all.

In the morning, compact outlook, defrag, and reboot.

And, take a peek and see if it worked. If it did you’ll see you LookOut contacts in SKYPE. Hey let me know if it works for you, then maybe I’ll try it.

Remember how lazy I am. Man-yawn-a is gud enuf 4 me.

(And, this is seriously one of the 250 most important? Some people must be smokin those funny cigs out there.)

https://reinkefj.wordpress.com/2006/11/02/
technology-skype-doesnt-integrate
-completely-with-outlook/#comments

http://tinyurl.com/yy7rsg

Annie Alba wrote:

***Begin Quote***

“We will be following your work in this blog, because it is a serious candidate to be included amoung the 250 most important blogs of this year.”

***End Quote***

Awww, I bet you say that to all the bloggers! Nice to believe. For thirty seconds. If this is amount the most important 250, then the blogging world is in pretty sad shape. But, I’ll pretend that I believe that illusion.

So I wandered over to the site.

http://www.freewebs.com/blogotion/

(Well, it’s not like she promised me a free laptop if I just clicked this link to http://NirobiTrUsT’n’BaNK.com!!!)

The site did ask one interesting question!

***Begin Quote***

Describe your blog:

***End Quote***

Wow, that’s a tuffie!

Here’s what I came up with:

“Reinke Faces Life” is just another free WordPress weblog. It’s more like a daily stream of consciousness, or maybe conscience. Is there such a thing as an unending whine about the human condition? Maybe it’s best called a plog — a personal web log — of things that attract my attention, bother me, or pique my curiosity. I’m gonna Lulu it so that I can give my Mom a book and tell her now I’m a “published author”. She’ll be so pleased. She doesn’t have to know it’s a vanity job. Anyway, thanks for giving me the opportunity to waste your time. If you find anything useful, feel free to “rob” it … with attribution … of course. I need any modest success I can find. Email me at http://2idi.com/contact/=reinkefj

Comments?

BLOGDESK took some type of a hit. The symptom was that it went to post to the blog at wordpress and then went unresponsive. Nuked it. And, tried again. Luckily it had saved my sarcasm before going alzheimenrs. Tried again. Did same thing. Reboot. (Arghhh!) All better now. AND, the post even made it to the blog. Try and figure that one out.

BOTTOM LINE: Don’t commit anything (e.g., a priceless piece of prose) without creating a backup text file with one’s favorite text editor. Mine is EDITTEXTPRO. Best 30$ I ever spent.

That didn’t take long did it?

Before I found the first “feature”.

I have outlook’s contacts divided into different files. SKYPE only sees the main contact address book ‘contacts”.

Lame!

I have about 20k of contacts and need some sanity.

;-)

http://www.skype.com

***Begin Quote***

Calling any phone within the US and Canada is free until the end of the year. To make a call to a landline or cell phone, click on the “Dial” tab, insert the country code +1 in front of the number and press the green call button.

***End Quote***

New download. Version 2.5. Old ids work. EWeek October 30 has a big write up saying how good it is and the corporate IT type can’t really keep it out of the network.

Free calls until end of year. Neat!

Hey, FEEDBLITZ ate my content. (sounds like the dog ate my homework!)

I actually sent in a report to them like the good internet user I am.

(If they GIVE it to me free, then there’s a moral obligation to PAY BACK by letting them know that they have a problem.)

Within an hour, they sent me an email that acknowledge the problem was on their end and that they were fixing it.

NEAT!

Usually you get silence, or worse, where they want you to do lots of WORK!

For example, I went to my Job Seeker’s PIM and said hmmm, let me plug in my favorite recruiters.

So I took my list of 2006 “award winning” hunters.

http://home.comcast.net/~v2y2r0n27rhj6y/GOLD_hunters_for_2005.htm

and plugged them into the recruiter relationships.

It appears that it took it. What it did with it I have no idea? It doesn’t even tell me that I plugged in their email. It should at least echo it back to me that x@y.z was submitted, ending, rejected, or bounced.

It would be nice to see, and modify, the text of the email.

Maybe they are being send and invite and an invoice? I wouldn’t know.

I don’t understand why they are not just like a contact.

A lot of room for improvement here.

***Begin Quote***

Dear Reinke’s R&D Techie Nerd Persona,

Thank you for contacting us and we are sorry for the delay to responding to your email.

It looks like you have blocked iframe in your blog and that is why the style code is shown on your blog. Please try again after allowing <iframe> if you still have the problem please let us know the version of your WordPress. We will investigate the issue.

Best regards,
ThinkFree Support Team.

***End Quote***

I didn’t do anything but use the various stuff.

And, what makes them think that I’m gonna spend time working on THEIR problem. I just move along to stuff that WORKS. I thought I was being nice just telling them.

Sigh!