TECH SERVICE: What comes after blogging?

Saturday, January 19, 2008

http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/web/2008/0114web2.html

What comes after blogging?
First comes static Web site postings, then comes blogs, then comes tumblelogs

Web Applications Alert Newsletter By Mark Gibbs, Network World, 01/16/08

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First came Web sites with static postings. Then came blogs, essentially diaries on steroids. The astute reader might guess what question that raises: What comes after blogging? Some believe the answer is “tumblelogs” – a curious and compelling hybrid of a blog and a scrapbook. The definitive tumblelog service today is Tumblr, but the term “tumblelog” was first coined as long ago as 2005 to describe the formatting of a blog.

*** end quote ***

Interesting. I’ll try it, of course.

http://www.tumblr.com/dashboard

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JOBSEARCH: How do you teach “networking”?

Friday, January 18, 2008

http://glcavalier.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/networking-is-sexually-unbiased/

January 18, 2008
Networking is Sexually Unbiased
Posted by G. Lane Cavalier under Networking

*** begin quote ***

Lillian D Bjorseth had the following article in her newsletter today. I chose to put it up here for two reasons.

*** end quote ***

WHICH PROMPTED

 

***Begin Comment ***

Well, it would seem that women have a long way to go to overcome all those hurdles. Having a young girl within my sphere of influence, I was thinking about getting her an address book, a universal day book, and some stamps. I was think of paying her a bounty for every name, address, phone number, birthday, and anniversary that she could collect. What do you think? Can one manufacture a “networker” the way you can a basketball “player”? A lot of Dads manufacture many of the ladies who play college women’s basketball to get free tuition. My wife and I can pick them out. They are “wooden” and are deadly shots if all alone. So, can we some how create master networkers from a child’s greed? Hmmm.

***End Comment ***

So, what would I need to do?

* An “address book” to record names and dates.

* A calendar for her to record names to be remembered.

* A roll of stamps.

* A box of various cards.

And, of course, a plan.

I want her to do this to learn what I should have been taught. I want to make it “fun” so she doesn’t think it’s a chore. I want to make it “challenging” since I don’t think she’s ever been challenged like this will.

I’m figuring a loose leaf binder for an address book. With a simple form to fill out. (Full name, address, phone number, email, birthday, anniversary, siblings.) For which, I’d pay a dollar. If she sends cards on time, then maybe another dollar.

(I’d get one those inventory rubber stamps to ensure “honesty”. She’s not old enough yet to be devious enough to scam me undetected. She’ll learn soon enough. She’s a girl!)

I almost have the idea thought out enough to discuss.

:-)

Thoughts?

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INTERESTING: Bobby Fischer, American chess master

Friday, January 18, 2008

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080118/D8U89N681.html

World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer Dies
Jan 18, 7:26 AM (ET)
By GUDJON HELGASON

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REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) – Bobby Fischer, the reclusive American chess master who became a Cold War icon when he dethroned the Soviet Union’s Boris Spassky as world champion in 1972, has died. He was 64.

***End Quote***

They say the line between genius and madness is very grey.

I played a lot of chess as a child. (I was a rated chess and bridge player. And, if I was born a couple of decades later, then I might have been a poker millionaire. I knew the math side; would have had to learn the people side.) I knew of Fischer before he was “popular”. I followed his games in the chess rags and chess clubs in the Greenwich Village. In fact, at chess, you can quickly see that you are out classed with no hope of ever getting better. His games were like that. I found many people, who while better than I, opined that he was the “Cassius Clay” of our “sport”. After that point, you’re either just kidding yourself or wasting time. So, I moved on to find my niche at something I was unique at. (I’m still looking!?!)

I hope he found peace.

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LIBERTY: Spread the cost across all American taxpayers largely for the sake of whom?

Friday, January 18, 2008

http://www.lewrockwell.com/higgs/higgs72.html

Libertarian Foreign Policy in the Hobbesian Crosshairs: A Reply to Bret Stephens
by Robert Higgs

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Nobody “forced” Americans to begin to build a navy in the 1790s. Government officials and seafaring merchants decided to do so and to deploy this force against (among others) the pirates to whom the government had been paying protection money. They might instead have continued to pay off the Barbary raiders. Or they might have rested content to let the merchants of other nations, perhaps Great Britain, which already had a large navy, handle the shipping of American goods in the Mediterranean. The fact that U.S. leaders resorted to force does not demonstrate that they chose the best option. This option did, however, socialize the costs of engaging in the Mediterranean trade, spreading it across all American taxpayers largely for the sake of the traders who had an immediate interest in the matter.

***End Quote***

Here’s a interesting formulation of gooferment.

SOMEONE has a problem. Whey then make it a gooferment problem, it can be FIXED regardless of cost. TAXPAYERS pay and SOMEONE benefits.

Look at everything the gooferment is in and you’ll see the same paradigm and meme in play.

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

Thursday, January 17, 2008

You don’t? TOO BAD!

This morning 17 January 2008 @ 0730 local

… on Route 295S milepost 47 …

… a white suv TD 1161 …

… at a leisurely 75+ (Your serf speed limit is 65) …

… 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 away from the scene of the crime in trenton. (Everything politicians and bureaucrats do in Trenton is a crime!)

… just to protect and serve me.

Arghhh!

P.S.: Next time you talk to your buddy George (Everyone knows there’s not a dime worth of difference between Democans and Republicrats. Look at old man Bush and Clinton — pals. “Yuck, did we put one over on them.”), please ask him if he could tell his minions to observe the state speed limits? (So much for the tenth amendment!) I saw “Go Army” car US Gooferment plate 66-15-08 at milepost 59.5 on 295 South zipping by in the left lane. What does that person think they are … “the Guv”?

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 SERVICE: BIGCONTACTS not big enough and too expensive

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

http://blog.econsultant.com/how-to-replace-microsoft-outlook-address-book-with-online-service-big-contacts

How to replace Microsoft Outlook address book with online service: Big Contacts
14 January 2008

***Begin Quote***

Problem: How to replace Microsoft Outlook address book with online service: Big Contacts

Solution: Big Contacts

Site: http://www.bigcontacts.com/

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The limits are set at a 1,000 contacts per user. You can have two thousand users. So, in theory, 2M contacts. But, on Outlook I have over 19k of contacts in various and sundry categories.

SO BIG ain’t BIG enough!

NOT RECOMMENDED!

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TECH SOFTWARE: EMAIL’s reply all

Monday, January 14, 2008

FROM A RECENT EMAIL

***Begin Quote***

We’ve had a “national outbreak” of the “reply all” virus.

It’s really not a virus. But it might as well be.

It’s when, to get off a distribution, some poor soul — usually in a fit of pique — does a “reply all” and says “take me off the list”. Others respond with a “reply all” to either chime in about getting off the distribution, or castigate the transgressor. If the distribution list is really large and / or there are lots of computing centers involved, it can create an overwhelming “fire storm” of messages that can overwhelm an infrastructure.

It usually takes some one in Leadership saying politely “shut up”, or the equivalent, to stop it. I’ve appended an attempt to damp it.

I just thought you’d want to pass along a warning about the use of “reply all”.

Lest it be followed with the “pink slip” virus. :-)

***End Quote***

I don’t blame people. I blame poorly designed software.

How hard would it have been to say “Confirm reply all to a distribution list”?

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LIBERTY: The Supreme Court today declined dying patients

Monday, January 14, 2008

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/14/AR2008011401709.html?hpid=moreheadlines

Supreme Court Declines to Hear Experimental Drug Case
Petitioners Argue Terminally Ill Should Have Right to Drugs Not Yet Approved by FDA
By Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 14, 2008; 4:36 PM

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The Supreme Court today declined to consider whether dying patients have a right to be treated with experimental drugs not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

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Silly citizen. You need the FDA’s protection. Even if you die waiting, you’ll be “safe”. Your betters know what is best for you!

How dumb are we?

How much protection does Big Pharma want?

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MONEY: the most dangerous tax

Monday, January 14, 2008

http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/inflation-tax

***Begin Quote***

Today, the federal government burdens us with one of the most dangerous taxes it can impose — the inflation tax. When the federal government finds that it cannot afford its out-of-control spending, and is unwilling to directly tax the public, it resorts simply to creating the money out of thin air.

***End Quote***

Here we have the ultimate tax.

A tax on money. A tax on savings. A tax on the poor. A tax on those on fixed income. An escalator that drives all costs up.

And, it creates a positive feedback loop for the cost of gooferment. The Fed inflates so the cost of what the gooferment pays goes up. The gooferment needs more money. The Fed inflates more. A positive feedback loop that any injineer will tell you will ultimately and rather quickly destroy itself. And, in the process, politicians, bureaucrats, and unions get ever increasing pay raises.

A tax on anything dollar denominated.

How silently insidious?

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JOBSEARCH: it’s always the same drill

Monday, January 14, 2008

From AN EMAIL

***Begin Quote***

Well, it’s always time to move forward.

Stay in XXXXXXXXX or do something else? Full-timer, consulting, road warrior?

Geographic comfort zone? Relo?

Have you figured out your elevator speech yet? (Mine is “I extract value it large-scale usually legacy or brown-field IT infrastructures.”)

***End Quote***

For newly minted Turkeys, it’s always the same drill: What do you want to do, where do you want to do it, and how do you want to be compensated?

Ain’t life a kick in the ass?

Someday, the first contact with a newly axed turkey will contain the answers to those questions. Until then, I’ll just respond to them asking for help, by asking them.

Then, I’ll buy a lottery ticket.

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