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The ramblings of a person who once had a loud life, but now lives within a whisper.
Politics in America - March 2010
I totally agree with this blogger that our country is in deep trouble regarding our elitist political system: http://riverdaughter.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/no-end-in-sight/
Bermuda lacks a Starbucks
Yes, there are Starbucks coffee shops in Africa, former Soviet bloc countries and other third world areas.
Bermuda does NOT have a Starbucks (or for that matter any other coffee shop chain).
You see, this is why they REALLY had the Boston Tea Party where they threw all the tea into Boston Harbor. The citizens were fed up with drinking tea and wanted coffee.
Bermuda, being on the side of the tea drinking sore losers of the Revolutionary War lacks decent coffee anyway.
Sigh.
Microsoft BizSpark Support SUCKS!
I had an Avanade MSDN subscription (expired) and a BizSpark MSDN subscription.
In a moment of not paying attention, I deleted the unusable Avanade MSDN subscription.
Unfortunately it was the "default' MSDN account.
Now without a "default" MSDN account, I was locked out of my BizSpark MSDN subscription.
So, I called Microsoft support which is based in India and spoke at (not with as that would imply some modicrum of communication) a representative regarding what had happened.
His response was that since I could no longer access my BizSpark MSDN account that I must no longer be in the program, although my BizSpark membership doesn't expire until August 2012!!
Today I went to see if anything had been done, and sure enough the IDIOT in India had totally removed my BizSpark account!
So now I am truly screwed over once again by the incompetents at Microsoft.
(Microsoft fixed this, but I am still kind of pissed off about it.)
In a moment of not paying attention, I deleted the unusable Avanade MSDN subscription.
Unfortunately it was the "default' MSDN account.
Now without a "default" MSDN account, I was locked out of my BizSpark MSDN subscription.
So, I called Microsoft support which is based in India and spoke at (not with as that would imply some modicrum of communication) a representative regarding what had happened.
His response was that since I could no longer access my BizSpark MSDN account that I must no longer be in the program, although my BizSpark membership doesn't expire until August 2012!!
Today I went to see if anything had been done, and sure enough the IDIOT in India had totally removed my BizSpark account!
So now I am truly screwed over once again by the incompetents at Microsoft.
(Microsoft fixed this, but I am still kind of pissed off about it.)
JetBlue flight attendants
Bleh! I was on the red eye from Sacramento to JFK, and I found it difficult to sleep.
So, seeing that there was an empty exit row, I moved there, stretched out and went to sleep.
About 2 hours later, 2 flight attendants woke me up and told me that because the exit rows have more room there's a $25 upgrade fee to sit there. They wanted me to either pay them $25 (you can bet there would be NO receipt) or move.
Then they walked away. So, while risking being sent to Gitmo, I stayed in my seat (OK, I had the whole row) and they didn't return and ask for money or threaten me so I suppose it all worked out. They also hustled a woman who was sitting there with her infant, and she moved back to her original seat.
However, they never made any announcements about "upgrading" to that row and frankly they had sold 2 of the rows to a couple of less than 100 pound ballerinas. The emergency exit doors weigh 33 pounds so try to imagine one of those young girls attempting to lift one third of her body weight.
Anyway that incident soured the flight for me.
So, seeing that there was an empty exit row, I moved there, stretched out and went to sleep.
About 2 hours later, 2 flight attendants woke me up and told me that because the exit rows have more room there's a $25 upgrade fee to sit there. They wanted me to either pay them $25 (you can bet there would be NO receipt) or move.
Then they walked away. So, while risking being sent to Gitmo, I stayed in my seat (OK, I had the whole row) and they didn't return and ask for money or threaten me so I suppose it all worked out. They also hustled a woman who was sitting there with her infant, and she moved back to her original seat.
However, they never made any announcements about "upgrading" to that row and frankly they had sold 2 of the rows to a couple of less than 100 pound ballerinas. The emergency exit doors weigh 33 pounds so try to imagine one of those young girls attempting to lift one third of her body weight.
Anyway that incident soured the flight for me.
The Engineering Gap
The Economist in their January 30th, 2010 issue, published a report on Aspiring Minds, a company in India who tested thousands of IT workers who had graduated from schools in India.
Their results:
4.2% of India's engineers are fit to work in a software product firm and just 17.8% are employable by an IT services company, regardless of how much training and education they have had.
Amazon parks their Kindle up their ass again!
One of my favorite authors, Jasper Fforde has a new book out today, Shades of Grey: A Novel.
I pre-ordered the book for my Kindle, knowing that if the price dropped that Amazon would refund the difference.
Not so!
The price dropped $1.67, not a princely sum, but to my personal amazement, Amazon is incapable of refunding the difference on Kindle titles! Their solution is to ask for a complete refund and then repurchase the title!
Just plain very weird in my humble opinion.
My book
Gah! Another day fighting the Great White Bull also known as the Empty Page, in the course of writing my book. Sometimes it's more like wrestling the book out of your mind instead of writing it based on an outline or a stray visit by a muse.
Kindle for PC
I own 75 Kindle books plus the original Kindle.
A month ago I bought a bargain basement netbook from Fry's for $199.
So, having read about the new Kindle for PC program from Amazon, I thought I would try it out.
IT ROCKS!!
Wow! Much better to read with (accepting the form factor differences) and viewing illustrations and drawings is now actually acceptable.
If you own a Kindle and you own any kind of PC, my advice is to go out and install this program right now. It is simply wonderful.
BizTalk 2009 the end of the product?
I got the word from a MSFT insider that BizTalk 2009 is the final version.
It has been handed off to 100 guys in India for support and will be incorporated into .net 4.
The BizTalk adapters will possibly be marketed as a separate product add-on.
Another source yesterday told me that whatever code runs BizTalk will be given to the SQL group at Microsoft.
Curiouser and curiouser!
Berets
What I learned about wearing a beret while in Paris:
1. They don't blow off of your head because they are round and hence aerodynamic.
2. They keep your head warm. (Very important when one has lost a lot of hair over time.)
3. Only young woman and old guys (holds up hand) wear berets in Paris.
4. You can buy them cheap in Paris. I paid like $6 for a wool beret.
Create a Windows 7 USB installer
There are many articles on how to create a USB installation drive for putting Windows 7 on netbooks.
Here is a free program from Microsoft that does the entire thing for you:
I used it to put Windows 7 on my netbook and it worked flawlessly.
You need to have a .iso file of Windows 7 and a USB drive of a least 4GB.
What I got out of Paris
I found a few nice French people but on the whole they were haughty, aloof and rude. I spoke with British, Finnish, Dutch and other tourists who felt the same way. The attitude seems to be that either one is French or one isn't French and if you are the latter you will be treated as a second class person.
If you eat at McDonald's in France and have wholesome natural beef hamburgers, fresh bread buns, fresh cheese, fresh French pastries and BEER you will NEVER enjoy an American McDonald's again!
Things that were closed: The Picasso Museum, the Egyptian wing at the Louvre, the catacombs.
There's a LOT of walking, which we expected, but to successfully traverse the Montmartre area you need to be part mountain goat. We did eat at the "Amelie" cafe in Montmartre and had creme brulee for dessert. It was cool that people can bring their dogs into restaurants.
The view from the top of the Arc D'Triomphe is absolutely stunning. The stairs to reach the top will kill you.
The value of whether or not to buy a Paris Museum Pass is up in the air. I guess I would say to go for it just to avoid having to stand in line at each museum to buy Yet Another Ticket.
I love cinema, but didn't feel the Cinema Museum was worthwhile.
Napoleon's apartment in the Louvre is a must see, but oddly several guidebooks fail to mention that it exists. The Louvre cafe is pricey but good. It cost 7.5 Euros for a slice of pizza which is ten dollars! We also discovered a British potato chip there that came in flavors such as Stinky Cheese with Onions, Roast Ox and Ham with Mustard.
Paris 2009 photos
My daughter is a better photographer than I am.
These are the few photos I took in Paris.
Just click "Paris 2009 photos" to be taken to my Picasa album.
I left my camera in our hotel room more often than I took it along.
The Louvre and Egypt
October 2009 the entire Egyptian wing at the Louvre, which is the largest collection of Egyptian objects outside of Cairo, is CLOSED.
Centre Pompidou and Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol's Elizabeth Taylor work was not on display due to an all woman art show being exhibited. So since Andy wasn't a woman they put his Elizabeth Taylor silkscreen into storage.
Yet another Paris disappointment. This is from our October 2009 trip.
The Paris Catacombs October 2009
CLOSED! No re-opening date was given.
We traveled across Paris to see the catacombs but they weren't open.
Netbooks in review
I finally bought a netbook based on 2 reasons:
One, Fry's had the Velocity micro NoteMagix M10 Netbook on a special price of $199 instead of its normal price of $349.
Two, I realized that I would rather travel lighter on my trip to Paris with a netbook (2.6 lbs) instead of my Dell D620 (5.74 lbs, using the 9 cell extended battery and the media bay battery).
This purchase led me into the wild and woolly world of netbooks.
First of all it seems that almost all netbooks have the same motherboard in common, using an Intel Atom CPU running at 1.6 GHz with 1 GB of DDR2 (sometimes DDR3) SODIMM for memory. For anyone wanting to go beyond Windows XP (the usual OS on netbooks) to Vista or Win 7, Toshiba's netbook can be upgraded to 2 GB and HP's can go to 3 GB.
There are usually 3 USB ports, VGA out, audio I/O and LAN RJ-45 connectors on most netbooks, as well as a webcam.
Battery life is 3 hours as a rule. Claims of 6 hours of battery life are from marketing people who don't actually own or use a netbook.
Wireless is universal on netbooks with B/G being standard. Some vendors such as Sony include N.
Standard hard drives are 160GB 5400RPM SATA although HP offers drives up to 250GB and SSD as well.
While most screens are 10.2 inches HP offers one (with HD no less!) at 11.6.
Graphics engines tend to be Intel GMA 950s, although HP has begun offering the Nvidia ION.
I will admit to being biased, but having seen 10 of these lined up at Fry's, Sony's looks the best and feels much more sturdier than all other vendors. Of course you pay the price, $500 for a Sony versus $350 for a similar notebook.
I'll report in the future on how I fare traveling with a netbook.
One, Fry's had the Velocity micro NoteMagix M10 Netbook on a special price of $199 instead of its normal price of $349.
Two, I realized that I would rather travel lighter on my trip to Paris with a netbook (2.6 lbs) instead of my Dell D620 (5.74 lbs, using the 9 cell extended battery and the media bay battery).
This purchase led me into the wild and woolly world of netbooks.
First of all it seems that almost all netbooks have the same motherboard in common, using an Intel Atom CPU running at 1.6 GHz with 1 GB of DDR2 (sometimes DDR3) SODIMM for memory. For anyone wanting to go beyond Windows XP (the usual OS on netbooks) to Vista or Win 7, Toshiba's netbook can be upgraded to 2 GB and HP's can go to 3 GB.
There are usually 3 USB ports, VGA out, audio I/O and LAN RJ-45 connectors on most netbooks, as well as a webcam.
Battery life is 3 hours as a rule. Claims of 6 hours of battery life are from marketing people who don't actually own or use a netbook.
Wireless is universal on netbooks with B/G being standard. Some vendors such as Sony include N.
Standard hard drives are 160GB 5400RPM SATA although HP offers drives up to 250GB and SSD as well.
While most screens are 10.2 inches HP offers one (with HD no less!) at 11.6.
Graphics engines tend to be Intel GMA 950s, although HP has begun offering the Nvidia ION.
I will admit to being biased, but having seen 10 of these lined up at Fry's, Sony's looks the best and feels much more sturdier than all other vendors. Of course you pay the price, $500 for a Sony versus $350 for a similar notebook.
I'll report in the future on how I fare traveling with a netbook.
France
I'll be in France in October.
You won't.
This trip was enabled by NOT buying any of the numerous name brand e-books, marketing/writing courses or other "find yourself and get rich quick!" crap off of the Internet.
Listen to your own voice and your own heart and do not get sucked into the vortex of Internet blogging hype. NOTHING you can buy off of the Internet will create success for you.
You've got to do it on your own.
Then you too can go to France.
The Netflix Culture
Check out this SlideShare Presentation: While it is interesting, keep in mind that the weakness of Netflix is that they are TOTALLY DEPENDENT on renting a product PRODUCED BY SOMEONE ELSE. So they have an enormous Achille's Heel.
Culture
View more presentations from Reed Hastings.
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