TECHNOLOGY: personal details of all families in the UK with a child under 16 have gone missing

Friday, November 23, 2007

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7103566.stm

UK’s families put on fraud alert
Alistair Darling
Two computer discs holding the personal details of all families in the UK with a child under 16 have gone missing.

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The Child Benefit data on them includes name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and, where relevant, bank details of 25 million people.

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OK, it’s the UK. But what makes you think that our politicians, komisars, and bureaucrats are any better? And, you feel comfortable with these bozos protecting you, holding more of your data, and being “stand up” people? What are you nuts? No, you’re just sheeple!

Argh!

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JOBSEARCH: “career plan” – 2

Friday, November 23, 2007

Answer #2

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liken the career path to a business plan. Business set up their goals for the next 18-24 months and end up changing them as they move along due a number of external factors that are out of their control.

Career pathing is so different for each company that there’s no “SDLC”. My recommendation is to look at your company’s goals and map those goals into your current job and your next job. Get with your manager and set those tasks on paper. Tie your bonus dollars that year toward successful achievement of those goals.

Then look at positions or departments and why a move would make sense for you. You may choose never to move up but rather to move across the organization leveraging your current skills to build new skills. There’s no silver bullet for career pathing, just try to plot a sensible path that is achievable and make modifications as you learn more. Good luck.

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LINKEDINANSWERS: Opine on finding fellow grads

Friday, November 23, 2007

Barry Miller
Manager Alumni Career Programs and Services at Pace University
Using Linked In to Connect to fellow alumni
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I would like to connect with New York University alumni, even if I do not know them. Is it possible to do this within Linked IN?

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I’d also warn about the “five strikes and your out” policy that LinkedIn has to discourage spammers.

I’d offer you the suggestion to set up your own alumni ezine in the form of a free blog (Mine is http://www.jasperjottings.com). Just keep recording everything you “hear” about NYUers there.

(I did more than that, but I’m not sure you want to invest that amount of time.)

I think it’s safer to draw people to you, and form a granfalloon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granfalloon) around NYU. It’ll take a little more work and a little more time, but eventually you will have people coming to you to tout their accomplishments.

To date, I’d say about half of my networking contacts come from that one granfalloon.

Of course, your mileage may vary! Hope this helps.
fjohn

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LINKEDIN: May I suggest that you might want to add more contacts to your LinkedIn profile?

Thursday, November 22, 2007

SHARED WITH ONE OF MY LINKEDIN CONTACTS

May I suggest that you might want to add more contacts to your LinkedIn profile?

LinkedIn is the “find” and “be found” site. But your profile has to be “real”. There are many suspicious profiles on LinkedIn. My taxonomy is: ghosts (abandoned), strawman (owned by a recruiter advertising a real someone and who will “toll booth” you to make contact), scarecrow (owned by a recruiter who will try to sell you a substitute), a zombie (an identity of potentially a real person setup by someone else for other purposes like expanding a contact list to look more popular), and an alter ego (a second profile to feature a different persona). One characteristic they all share is a single, or sparse, contact list. Your contact list is like that. If you’re not getting the results you want, that might be the reason.

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INTERESTING: grieving for US social welfare programs

Thursday, November 22, 2007

http://seekingalpha.com/article/54831-the-5-stages-of-grieving-over-the-u-s-dollar

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Finally, stage five, acceptance. The foreign currencies rise to sustainable levels versus the US dollar. Inflation and real economic activity decline in the foreign countries. They begin buying more goods and services from the US, and dollar claims are redeemed. Inflation and interest rates rise in the US, as we have to produce more to pay off the dollar reserves now being redeemed by foreigners. (Send us goods and it will pay off your debts! Amazing how the US got good terms on both sides of the transaction.”)

Well, maybe. It will take a while before all major trading parties in the world float/adjust their currencies to fair levels. At the time that happens, though, it will be obvious that the US is less important to the global economy. The relative value of all US assets will be a smaller proportion of global assets, though it will still likely be the largest share in the world. My view is this process to get to stage five will take no more than 10 years.

By that point, the hopelessness of Federal social insurance programs like Social Security and Medicare, plus underfunded Federal and state retirement plans, will force benefit reductions and tax increases on the US, and crimp borrowing capacity, unless they borrow in a currency other than dollars.

There are five stages of grieving for US social welfare programs as well, but I am afraid we are only in the first stage now, denial.

That is a topic for another day, and not one that I am excited to talk about.

***End Quote***

Happy tday! Enjoy it. The tough times are most certainly coming.

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TECH SERVICE: GOOGLE is a complicated beast!

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Just when I think I am at the top of my game, I find out how little I really grok!

Take the mighty GOOGLE for instance. It too can be a little schizophrenic!

For the longest time, I thought I was the one going nuts. When I would post on fellow blogger’s blog hosted at BLOGGER, now a GOOGLE minion, I’d try to use one of my funny email addresses tied to reinkefaceslife dot com like “The Big Turkey” for Dave Opton’s blog about job search.

(You know how I try to partition my life despite Gandhi’s admonition and GTD’s paradigm. Maybe I am the schizophrenic?)

So for the longest time, I when I’d want to make a comment at Dave’s blog — something truly insightful or witty imho — I’d tap out my comment and then try to authenticate to BLOGGER using my GOOGLE account. But, I always had trouble and eventual would take one of the other options.

Had similar problems, at the South Brunswick blog where I wanted to be “a libertarian in 08824”.

But authenticating to and signing in to Blogger was always a hassle. And, I attributed to a hidden Google cookie.

Being the naturally insistent jerk that you all know and love, and like pet with a quirk you see on America’s Funniest Videos, I kept trying. I wonder how many hours I’ve wasted banging my fingers on the keyboard just trying?

SO for the South Brunswick blog, I came up with a workaround. Before I’d post at BLOGGER, I’d log on and off and on again to GMAIL with “a libertarian in 08824”. Then, having cleared the “mythical GOOGLE cookie”, I could go an make my comment and BLOGGER would find my old “a libertarian in 08824” GMAIL signon cookie from the other FIREFOX tab and all would work perfectly.

(Note that this workaround reinforces my belief in the magical GOOGLE cookie that prevented my from using the BLOOGER “use your GOOGLE account” authentication mechanism.)

So I thought I was pretty smart!

So, now, I want to comment and use “The Big Turkey @ Reinke Faces Life” account to comment on a different BLOGGER blog. (It was going to be a wonderfully insightful and funny comment about cannibalism on Thanksgiving being unacceptable to the the big fat old turkey hisself. I thought it would be funny.) But, I could NOT authenticate to BLOGGER. (and, for it to be funny, it had to come from “The Big Turkey”!) So I tried my magic workaround. Which, of course, when needed would NOT work.

Now, I am faced with evidence. (Always, an annoying fact of life!) TBT @ RFL is working for email purposes cause I can see it in outlook. I KNOW the passwords for sure because ROBOFORM keeps all my passwords precisely! I can NOT authenticate to BLOGGER to make my comment. I can NOT authenticate to GMAIL to use my working email. I can not authenticate to GOOGLEACCOUNTS even though … hmmm.

Eureka!

TBT @ RFL is a GOOGLEAPPSFORDOMAINS account!

Remember back when Google announced APPSFORDOMAINS? You could turn any domain into a fully functional one for free. (Hey I admit I’m cheap, but I also like to try everything.) So, I put RFL on GAFD!

BUT, that’s not the same as having a GOOGLE ACCOUNT!

Cute.

GOOGLE is the one that’s schizophrenic.

By way of a test I created “yet another blogger” at rfl dot com. And, proved you can sign in to GMAIL or GOOGLEACCOUNT with it, but you can logon on to GMAIL via the GAFD interface. (How’s that for confusing!) And, even stranger, using that id you can create a GOOGLEACCOUNT with it.

(Now I have to go create GOOGLE ACCOUNTS for those email addresses in RFL that are in GAFD!)

So the moral of the story, is GOOGLE has some split personalities.

And, keep poking at something and eventually all will be revealed.

(But does it have to take so long and make me look so dumb?)

Happy tday.
from the big fat old turkey hisself

Turkey illustration

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JOBSEARCH: “career plan” – 1

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Answer #1

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The best one is a combination of your own brain, a pencil and a piece of paper (back of an envelope if you’re a startup kind of guy). Simple is best.

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TECH SOFTWARE: YAHOOMUSICJUKEBOX does an update when it wants too!

Thursday, November 22, 2007

It’s bad enough when a big giant takes over a software product. It’s bad enough when it insists it’s going to do stuff it’s way. It’s bad enough when it takes all the file associations for its own. But, today to listen to an MP3, it decides on doing a mandatory upgrade. No explanation; just goes off an does it. Never mind that I don’t have time for it now. Never mind that I may not necessarily want their “upgrade”. Never mind that it fires up YIM which I don’t want up. Argh! And, it wants a mandatory reboot. Double Argh!

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MONEY: Poker site lectures on the inflation tax!

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

http://www.gambling911.com/Ron-Paul-111807.html

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This “inflation tax” is what is causing most of us to feel the economic pinch right now. Right now one main reason things are so tough on you financially is because the government is spending up to one trillion dollars a year on the military. Guess who is paying for that? Us. Guess when? Now and in the future when we will have to pay interest on even more loans the government took out. The government has no money of its own, it only gets what it takes from you and me. And they have been taking a lot of it. We just haven’t seen it directly coming out of our pockets in the form of taxes in our paycheck, but we sure feel it when it costs over fifty bucks to fill the tank, or milk is five bucks a gallon, or your cat food goes from 7.99 to 12.99 in three months. Right now the prices are rising because the value of the dollar is dropping.

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I’d say a lot of people are finally waking up to the fact that the “inflation tax” might be a bigger bite than any other single tax.

Bout time! It is.

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GOLDBUG: Gold is about to soar to new highs

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/CompanyFocus/WhyGoldsGoingStraightTo1000Dollars.aspx?page=1

Why gold’s going straight to $1,000

Gold is about to soar to new highs, and here are four compelling reasons why. Take a look at four gold-mining stocks that could make your portfolio gleam.
By Michael Brush

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Gold beat a hasty retreat after setting records by trading north of $840 an ounce earlier this month, but don’t be fooled.

It’s only taking a breather before it climbs past $1,000.

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Clearly in an accumulation phase. It’s how the little guy takes profits and puts them on ice during turbulent economic times. Though out history, a few gold coins squirreled away meant the difference between disaster and survival.

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