It is a nice concept really. People reviewing books and sharing thoughts on various topics and authors…and publishing information and the ability to order any books you come across are right at hand. Nifty.
You might even strike up some friendships. If so, you can add those newfound friends to your friends list, much like other social networks. It’s a nice niche social network for those who are tired of getting swamped with pointless widgets or “poked” on Facebook and thousands of irrelevant bulletins and invites to events in another reality on MySpace.
Wow…what not a great way to beat the expense of high dollar gas—blowing $1495 for a few hours of driving a car. Not that I don’t appreciate muscle cars, hot rods, racing, dragsters, etc., as I totally do. But what a perfect example of how to drop the ball with demographics. CNN could use some help in their marketing department it seems.
Okay, if you have read any of my posts on open source, you know that I have taken issue with Suse and Novell for their Microsoft deal. However, I am curious to check out the upcoming release: OpenSuse 11.0 should be out Thursday, June 19th.
Why?
Well, while I don’t like that Novell caved in to Microsoft and bought into their fear-mongering tactics, I can appreciate the direction of the OpenSource distro and the progress it has made. One thing I can say from first-hand experience is that Suse will install more smoothly on more systems and has the polished look and feel that makes it a prime candidate for luring corporate/office users away from Microsoft’s ailing platform.
So, I’m going to take a hard look at OpenSuse 11.0, put it through its paces as I consider what distro I should recommend to folks. This is, of course, an ongoing issue/challenge when it comes to Linux as I look for a good SOHO distro that also has the potential to step up and handle the duty at the SMB and Enterprise levels…all while staying user friendly and easy to use.
And, since I am going to take another look at OpenSuse, I might as well give XandrOS another look (I had written it off as well since it climbed in bed with Micrsoft also). Then again, maybe not. I understand the need of businesses to work with integrated networks and can appreciate the difficulties and justifications of cost and ROI when facing the prospect of phasing out legacy systems…but some of the XandrOS licensing and pricing schemes/tiers are starting to look an awful lot like those that come out of Redmond’s greedy resident.
Others I’m about to test include Mandriva Spring 2008, Zenwalk Linux 5.0, Simply Mepis 7.0, Freespire 2.0.8 and the latest Fedora release (which I have put off trying out for some time because of lingering memories of how the Fedora project was being run).
I have run across a lot of fun distros, a lot of slick distros, and some really dismal ones as well over the past few years. A lot of distros have great potential, but there seems to be a common underlying theme of poor project management, lack of focused direction, and ego clashes…with far too little marketing and business sense in the mix. Just when you feel like one distro might make a nice home on the digital range…something comes along to spoil the idyllic moment.
It is my great frustration that I’m not a programmer or I would have started my own distro by now. In the meantime, it gives me something to do on slow days when caffeine levels are climbing, this constant installing and kicking around under the log-on prompt.
It’s a brand protected domain with four other extensions available (.net, .org, .info, .biz) for a total of five domain variations. A great generic domain name that’s easy to spell and remember and can be put to a wide variety of uses. It is about to be a featured listing on Sedo’s USA and UK sites.
Part of the reason I haven’t been posting as much as I would like the past week and a half is work related. Murphy reared his head with a vengeance, and let me tell you, it hasn’t been pretty.
It was supposed to be a rather routine data transfer, from an old, failing NAS to a new one. For the most part it was routine. But then problems developed, requiring calling the programmer and troubleshooting the software. We determined the applications were working fine…but data was corrupting, and the likely culprit was dropped packets somewhere.
Replacing some cabling seemed to take care of the issue and a third attempt had the network and apps up and running. And then a storm came through that took out the power, just ever so briefly. Well, guess what device was not working? The UPS. Guess what new piece of hardware got fried? The new NAS! Murphy was in the house…
So, we ordered a replacement. Same model. Company assures us they have one, the LAST one in fact and so we order it, overnight shipping…they even seem surprised we want to pay the incredibly high cost. The next morning we have an email stating the box was mislabeled and they don’t have one and don’t know when they’ll get one. Murphy is doing pirouettes on a razor’s edge, he’s in such fine form.
Calling nearly every computer and IT store Oklahoma, Louisiana and Texas to be told that NO ONE has a NAS in stock takes 6 hours. Finally one is located. So, off goes someone on a trip to Richardson, TX to pick it up in person. They will be back late and I will be working late tonight.
Who would have thought it was so hard to find Network Attached Storage? I mean, it was insane. I called manufacturers who could not tell me what dealers might have their products in stock. Being in a remote location far from Silicon Valley, the only other option (and it was probably further down the list of options than reconfiguring the entire network was) would have been to buy a PC somewhere and set it up as a server.
I was even thinking up contingency plans for a FreeNAS box.
The company that screwed up our order (TigerDirect.com) has never failed me in 8 years, but when I needed that reliability most they didn’t just drop the ball, they turned around and ran it into Murphy’s endzone for him.
What ever happened to customer service? What ever happened to a company saying, “We know this was a critical item, we dropped the ball, we’re sorry. Let me tell you what we’ll do. We’ll upgrade you to the next model which we DO have in stock at no charge and we’ll overnight it to you.”
I’ll tell you what happened. No one understands customer service in America. No one understands taking care of a client that buys regularly from you. This particular client has been considering moving away from Dell and ordering hardware in bulk to build their own systems. I had been pushing the company that never failed me before. Now, the guy who makes the decisions is having to drive out of state and employees will have to work late and tensions are high…and this computer company’s very name brings twinges of pain to everyone’s face.
All because someone can’t work an inventory system. All because someone mislabeled a box. All because someone is too lazy to have someone in a warehouse physically locate and confirm the presence of a product in order to make a guaranteed sale (the client had on the same order bought a new UPS…and just days before, the NAS that was fried.). Now, over that tiny mistake, they stand to lose all the future business that they had pretty much locked up.
Who would have thought locating a NAS was so hard? If the network were actually set up the way it needed to be, I could have resorted to an attached USB drive. However, the setup is so site specific and would require basically rebuilding the network (and uninstalling/reinstalling software on all the workstations needing to run the apps as well as transferring data)…and then we would need to change the network back when a NAS did come in. All of which would double the costs on what is already spiraled higher than it should have.
Sometimes, you need to spend money on your network and not wait until it is failing to be willing to do so. It’s that simple. Oh, and redundancy is your friend.
Any SMB ought to—in my humble opinion—have a spare of every critical component—even if you don’t have any in-house IT staff. Any competent tech or otherwise geeky sort can probably do what needs to be done if they have the right hardware that is known to work with your particular network setup or workstations. Discovering you can’t find something when time is critical is not fun.
And customer service? What the hell is that?
Perhaps my expectations are too high in that area since I majored in eBusiness and look at things from a marketing perspective? Some phone-jockey and some person working in a warehouse with no concern for their company’s bottom line cost MY CLIENT more money and probably just cost THEIR EMPLOYER a lot of prospective business.
The good news? MicroCenter gets a tip of the hat and if I or any future clients need some hard to find item, their phone will be ringing.
Now, that SOB Murphy. Just let me get my hands on him… I’ll show him how wrong things can go—even for him—I swear.
Wait a minute. What if…?!?!? What if it’s Baron Greenback and he’s got The Bad Luck Eye of the Little Yellow God?
Danger Mouse and The Bad Luck Eye of the Little Yellow God - Part 1
Danger Mouse and The Bad Luck Eye of the Little Yellow God - Part 2
Update - 06/02/2008: The cost of dropping the ball is already mounting. That’s how quickly it goes. TigerDirect did not get the several hundreds of dollars spent today by my client. It only takes one screwup to lose a customer, and when there are a lot of companies online readily available and eager for new business, you can’t afford to be so careless. I’m sure TigerDirect could care less, but I never understand why so many companies are happy to throw money away. I also wonder whatever happened to the most basic customer service/sales training that tells those answering the phones that most of your business comes from repeat customers and how important they are?
Update - 2: I managed to get the replacement NAS in place, up and running. But it has problems with the managment interface. Can you believe it? I ordered another one (same as the one that was inadverdently fried in the power outage rather than whatever was handy), directly from Visionman. After several days, they let us know they were behind with some parts and so we wouldn’t be able to get the model we had ordered for some time. You know what the company did? They upgraded my client’s order to the next model higher up the line (which makes use of 4 drives instead of two) at no charge. Now there’s a company who knows how to do business. I completely am happy to suggest Visionman as a company worth doing business with. I love their Storango NAS management interface on the Smart NAS series of appliances, too. It’s easy to set up, use, and really versatile—and really polished!
Pundits have been decrying Yahoo! for fighting off Microsoft’s takeover bid. Now, Carl Icahn, the self-righteous “I know what’s best for the Internet and investors” guy is trying his own version. I say hats off to Yahoo! for doing what is best for the end user of their product and stockholders.
While short-term stock holders might be unhappy, long-term stockholders will benefit. How? Yahoo! has earned itself the kind of credibility in some circles that no PR firm can generate for you. All they have to do now is find the right angle to work it. What exactly am I talking about? Let me explain…
Microsoft has been dropping the ball lately with several products. Not the least of which is Vista. How many times have you seen an operating system hit the market where customers ended up looking for downgrade licenses?
While I think it was probably not a smart thing to do, and perhaps in poor taste, I don’t see how US military commanders can call it a crime. The soldier, a sniper, was punished and reassigned to duty back in the States.
According to Major General Jeffrey Hammond:
“The actions of one soldier were nothing more than criminal behavior,” Hammond said. “I’ve come to this land to protect you, to support you — not to harm you — and the behavior of this soldier was nothing short of wrong and unacceptable.”
Another military “official” apparently kissed a Quran and presented it as a gift to some tribal sheiks.
Well, here we have the US military kissing asses and Qurans and punishing soldiers who shoot books? I wonder what would happen if a whole lot of soldiers started shooting Qurans for a free ride home?
And then you have Iraqis crying about it being a crime. It’s a book. Get over it and yourselves.
Here we have an American soldier defending the government of Iraq and America getting punished because he doesn’t like the holy book of terrorism and barbarism–and his own chain of command screwing up his career in a heartbeat to kiss ass. Remember your oath? Enemies, foreign and domestic? There are a lot of those in the chain of command anymore.
Your leadership will sell you out in a heartbeat; happens every time in the military. The good news, if American servicemembers want to come home all they need to do is shoot, burn or piss on a Quaran. Wouldn’t it be funny as hell if a few thousand decided to voice their disgust with the mission in Iraq, the government of Iraq, and our own political leaders by doing a simple thing that in America we have the freedom to do, but in the faux ‘democrazy’ of Iraq you cannot?
Nancy Pelosi has been going about it all wrong. She ought to just stand next to a giant cardboard cutout of John Wayne and suggest that real Americans would shoot or burn or piss on or otherwise desecrate the Quaran. The war would be over in a flash as our welcome was worn out and soldiers were sent stateside by the thousands.
If anyone knows who that sniper was, pass along the word that he’s forever welcome at my fire. You have brothers-in-arms (both current and former) out there that won’t sell you out. We aren’t at all like our Quran-kissing government and certain Quran-kissing officers appointed by it.
I can’t wait for the hate-mail. I’ll have something to read at least. Truthfully, I could care less. Islam is a religion of hate and intolerance and the Quran promotes oppression, barbarity, and everything that stands against the values of Western civilization. Since I’m not in the Army anymore, I think I’ll go buy a copy of the Quran to shoot, burn and piss on in a showing of support and solidarity for the unfortunate sniper who was merely expressing his dissatisfaction with the war.
In fact, I invite all members of Western Civilization to join me in this show of support.
In fact, I think we ought to create a Pro Western Civilization and Freedoms Day, where we celebrate by burning copies of the Quran and posting cartoons of Muhammad online. I nominate July 4 as the perfect day since there will already be lots of bangs and burning going on.
To anyone who might think to complain about my characterization, don’t bother until millions of Muslims condemn terrorism and take to the streets protesting against Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al Qaeda and Muqtada Al Sadr. You see, if you take exception with my characterization that the Quran doesn’t advocate violence and oppression, then you must demonstrate it and your willingness to condemn those (and even fight against them) who use it for those purposes. Until the Muslim world does, their silent condoning of it will win them no sympathy from me.
It’s time we call it like it is. Religion is screwing up our world and holding human progress back. All religions. I’m all for spirituality and a belief in the divine…but the moment people organize and declare some moral authority and knowledge of the divine that another cannot access for personal, political and other reasons and begin seeking money, influence and power…that’s where I draw the line at tolerating it.
Maybe while I’m at it I’ll shoot, burn and piss on copies of a Bible and the Torah as well. It is largely the Abrahamic faiths that have screwed up the world for most of the last several millennia after all. I wonder if that sniper is willing to shoot a copy of the Bible?
Now, lest you think I don’t understand the need for being sensitive to the concerns of people in a host nation while on a military mission, you’re quite wrong. What he did was not smart at all.
But a crime? Please. Already I have read on liberal blogs how horrible this whole thing was, yet those same liberals are too happy to condone real crimes that illegal aliens commit in coming to this country and the real crimes they commit after they are here, and the crimes of the unethical business owners who hire them to make an easy dollar, and the crimes of the politicians who seek to give our nation away.
July 4, baby. Send my your Quran videos and photos.
In fact, I think I may do something I have not previously done and open my blog up to blogging by anyone who wants to guest blog on the topic of the conflict between Western civilization and the forces of Islamification, the topic of religious corruption and misuse, or on the topics of freedoms and liberties. In fact, I’m declaring now that the entire month of June and the first week of July, I am now accepting and soliciting posts on those topics should anyone care to jump in on the issues.
I’m not saying I will take any and all submissions and post them, but if it is well written and you ran a spell check, there’s no reason it won’t get posted–unless it is full of hate-mongering and comments that are slurs, racist rantings, etc. Let that be clear: I take exception with ideologies and actions and politics and even with individuals, but not with any race or ethnic group (I’m multi-racial myself after all).
Nothing like some old-school hardcore from NYC to get the blood pumping. One of my favorite bands, kicking out some slamming riffs with more energy than ten pep squads drowning in Red Bull. It’s also a hell of a lot of fun, this song.
Check out the Sick Of It All website and get acquainted with the band if you aren’t already. For two decades these guys have been at it, and they own the term hardcore.
And if you’re one of those silly people who is even dreaming about posting some stupid comment about the pits of today versus the ones of yesteryear or some such nonsense, forget it. If people aren’t getting knocked out by Jack Daniels bottles (You gotta admit, John—that was kinda funny!) and bodies aren’t flying about in your pits because you think such people are “ruining the art of pitting” or some other ridiculously lame sentiment, go whine to your Emo therapist at your Emo-core therapy group.
Honestly, I’m totally underwhelmed by World Press Freedom Day—which at its heart certainly has good intentions. It’s just that every nation and society that seems to chime in about how wonderful the idea is, is only too willing to hypocritically forget about it once the day is over and continue planning to enjoy the Beijing Olympic games taking place in a country notorious for censoring Net access, silencing the press and voices of dissent.
Guy Berger wrote an interesting perspective piece on it over at the Mail & Guardian website. It’s worth a few minutes of reading and reflection.
Todays song is Open Your Eyes by Guano Apes. I used to set this song as the first in my playlist to wake me up in the morning (another good reason to have a Linux desktop), though I rotate songs through these days.
Sandra Nasic (who is Croatian and German) was a powerful vocalist and draped their songs with emotion—as well as in-your-face attitude. She is also incredibly sexy.
The German band truly rocked and I am saddened that they split up and went their separate ways. Still, the members have moved on with other projects and I hope they find as much success and have as much as they did in Guano Apes.
Really, it is getting old, the constant stream of horrible conditions being revealed that our veterans returning from the Middle East are enduring. The latest video to publicize the issue shows the terrible conditions those fighting our wars are forced to live in…while defense contractors and certain politicians get rich off the wars.
Officers live separate from enlisted soldiers, mind you. But, what kind of leader lives in comfort at home while those soldiers that officer is responsible for live in squalor as bad or worse than the conditions his or her soldiers endured during the war? No leader worth a damn by any measure of the definition.
It is time for Majors, Colonels, Generals, the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of Defense to be held accountable and for people to start losing their rank and jobs. People put in positions of trust and authority are showing they have no responsibility to the men and women we send to fight on our behalf. It is time to see the dismissal of field grade officers all the way up the chain of command, including the commanders of the 82nd Airborne Division and the XVIII Airborne Corps, FORSCOM and higher.
I’m a former infantryman myself, and find this beyond insulting to our soldiers. Infantrymen are famous for enduring harsh conditions and making things happen, getting things done, for not whining about such things as living in a hole scooped out of the sand for months, or slogging through jungles, or for patrolling the side of snowy mountains when it is -20 to -30 below. Infantrymen are used to the poorest conditions while those in other units have air conditioning and other creature comforts.
But the things shown in that video are an outrage.
Are those veterans to have survived war (often multiple tours) only to come home and fall ill because the Department of Defense is too damned cheap to provide them decent living conditions? Are they going to have to endure lung infections, lead poisoning, bacterial and fungal infections at home in America after having endured incredible hardships abroad fighting for those same stingy, cheap SOB’s leading this country?
What are Company Commanders and Platoon leaders doing, accepting this? Why aren’t they speaking out? Why aren’t Battalion Commanders raising hell about this? The officer corp is showing an incredible lack of balls and leadership on this. Is this how they think of and treat the soldiers they led in battle?
It is time to see heads roll. This is not an isolated incident, but one example of a long string of incompetent and gross miscarriages of decency in the military. First veterans were enduring terrible conditions at Walter Reed hospital. Next, they are being starved in Iraq. Now, they are living among mold, fungus, rust, peeling lead paint and shit.
OK, it has been more than a year has passed since the Walter Reed debacle, and yet nothing has changed. The Pentagon is doing absolutely nothing about this sort of thing which is endemic in the military.
Write your representative in Congress and voice your outrage at this. Better yet, write the President in the White House and let him know what a pathetic excuse of a human being he is (and a piss-poor Commander in Chief) for sending our soldiers to fight and risk their lives for this country and making them have to come home to these despicable conditions.
The sad thing is that right now, Company Commanders, First Sergeants, and Sergeant Majors are probably chewing soldiers’ asses, making them jump through hoops to slap paint on stuff, making them clean and repair buildings that should have been already in good shape for returning soldiers who have just endured the horrors of war—to cover up and prevent further examples from making their way into the public eye.
It is time to see those in high places lose their jobs and rank. When you vacate your leadership and responsibility you don’t deserve the rank, pay, or trappings of that office or rank.
The Global What the Hell on Terror is showing everything that is ugliest about America, and unfortunately, everything that is embarrassing us around the world is the fault of piss-poor leaders in the military officer corp, among our politicians, and in the greed of the military-industrial complex.
These days, our President, our Congress, our Generals and Admirals, our intelligence agencies, and our corporations are an embarrassment to everything it means to be American.
For absolutely no good reason that I know of, I decided finally that I will keep this blog going despite the horrible new dashboard brought about with WordPress 2.5. I figure, why waste the hard work I’ve put into it? I don’t want to disenfranchise any readers out there either.
What better way to blow off the poor usability that WordPress.com users are now forced to endure, by saying “Whatever” and just continuing on? So, to celebrate continuing the blog, I thought that a song by one of my favorite bands, The Bastard Fairies, would be perfectly appropriate.
Then, I decided, since I love music so much, why not just start sharing some of the cool bands and music I like with readers? Never hurts to expand one’s horizons, after all. So, a new regular feature is born.
Enjoy…
[Note: I decided to continue developing and running one of my websites off WordPress just to stay abreast of the platform since I invested so much time in it over the past year. However, I will also be changing other sites that were in the works over to other, more robust Content Management Systems.]
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