Christmas Shopping Online

This was the first year that I did the majority of my Christmas shopping online. I've got say it was a great experience. I found some great deals that saved me a few hundred dollars. Located some unique items that I would never have found if I was out shopping. The best part free shipping (on most purchases, the shipping I did pay for was in the boundaries of what I would have paid in gas) and everything got here on time.

The couple of times I had to go to the brick and mortar stores I did it during off hours, trying to avoid the craziness.

Having worked in IT for over 20 years and in web development for many years, I'm surprised that it's taken me so long to change over.

32 inches of Snow in December

We didn’t have to dream of a White Christmas in Wisconsin. We have had a little over 32 inches of snow this December and have 36 hours to beat the record of 35 inches set in 2000. The forecast for December 31st is possible snow.












So what do we call this a "typical Wisconsin Winter"?

Our last storm was supposed to start around noon; it actually started at 6am and lasted till around 7pm that night.

Crave the Connection Beta .1

A few years ago a friend of mine pointed out that with all the technology connecting us, there will come a time when we will be so overloaded that we'll crave the disconnect. Or worse we'll go through withdrawal if we are disconnected.

More to come........

I knew I was forgetting something............

Well, it's been a few months since I wrote anything, though I had thought of it often, it was a rather busy summer and there was always some pressing matter that needed to be dealt with. I've decide I'm just going to start scheduling time to do this, because I know It's the only way it will get done.
There are so many items that I can write about now, there's presidential politics, the new TV season, Blu-ray vs. HD, car shows, and thousands of other wild and crazy topics.

Like this one, I read somewhere( Bloomberg) that Microsoft was working on buying 3-5% of Facebook for somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 million. If this turns out to be true, that puts Facebooks worth at somewhere between 6-10 billion. Who said there isn't money to be made on the Internet.

Nothing Like a Good Cup of Mud

I finally retired the old drip coffee maker. It hadn’t made a decent cup in quite a while and the espresso option of it was pain to use. So, I’ve started to look for a Chemex coffee pot like I had so many years ago. Chemex and their filters make an incredibly smooth cup of coffee. Unfortunately it looks like I’ll have to order one online, they’re not as popular as they once were. Until that happens I’ve pulled out my old French Press pot which makes an excellent cup of joe in 15 minutes or less. The only down side is the hassle of cleaning out the grounds when you’re done.

How Many Times did I Buy That

An old friend recently made a comment to me about music CD’s. He stated “I used to view CDs as highly prized parts of a collection; now a CD is the digital equivalent of a grocery bag”, now when I read that it really got me to thinking and I’ve been turning this analogy over and over in my mind. Because I once was the same way about collecting, but I looked farther back, to the days of the Vinyl Album, I had close to a thousand and so many of them had but one or two songs on them that I ever wanted to listen to. I have all these albums, then the ‘8-track’ (OK, I’m old I remember 78’s and gas at quarter a gallon) comes out and you have to buy some of your vinyl on 8-track too, because you want to have the tunes when you’re driving around. So now I’m sitting 2 copies of the same Album, one vinyl and one 8-track when Audio Cassettes hit the market and replace the 8-track. Back to the store to buy those same core tunes in another technology format. But at least with the cassette, if you had the time and patience you could create your own. Another big plus is the introduction of the walkman now you can really take the music with you, the down side you can tune out the world around you.

The bottom line is you bought the same music for the third time. We’re not done yet, along comes the CD (by this time I’ve started to sell off the vinyl, enough is enough)and we see the price double, 5-7 dollars for vinyl to 11 – 20 dollars for a CD, and it’s the same music just a different delivery system. Now you’ve just bought the same music for the fourth time, or you don’t.

This hasn’t necessarily made the Artist rich but sure kept the music industry as a whole rolling in cash. And it’s all been done on the same old revenue channel.

“Here comes the Sun” no it’s the dawn of the digital age, and the music industry is caught asleep at the wheel. This is a can of worms that I don’t know if I want to open now. But this is an industry that needs to get focused on the future, and get a new plan. And I don’t think paying a $1 a song for a download is the answer, it’s a higher consumer cost per song compared to a CD and you don’t have the distribution cost of the CD.

Perhaps it’s time to put the thinking cap on!

The Ghetto Latte

Years ago we balked at paying over $1 for a cup of coffee not anymore.
Starbucks has created a market for the $4 cup of coffee, and has sold us an over roasted coffee beans that conveys to my little taste buds the flavor of burned coffee. I’m not a big fan of Starbucks, but I do like my coffee. I have my espresso maker which gets some use when I have the time. I do like the fresh ground of whole beans. So, the other day I came across an article in the paper about the ghetto latte. This formula is: buy a regular cup of coffee, add milk or crème and toss in the flavoring of your choice if you want. Throw it in the microwave and instant Ghetto Latte. It isn’t shabby, certainly cheaper than buying the real thing and a lot less labor. It does lack that real rich coffee flavor that you get with a shot of espresso, but it will do in a pinch.

Now that gas is approaching $4 a gallon will I see my coffee going up to $8 a cup?

Mac Vs. PC what about Linux

For awhile now I’ve been seeing these Mac ads on TV that have the geeky PC Guy (representing the Windows OS) and the kind of cool Mac Guy. These are humorous ads though very misleading.
First these are both Personal Computers, their just built on different business models.

Microsoft is a software company; they develop operating systems, server software, productivity suites and a host of other software. Then partner with hardware vendors for the machine it will run on. This gives the consumer and business client a larger choice and price range for that PC. With this model they have achieved a something like 90% market penetration. With that market a lot of other software companies have developed software to run on this platform, which now gives me even more choices. I know there has been quite a bit of controversy on how they achieved this, but they did it.

So, Get over it!

Now the Mac has release its new OS, and I’d really like to have it up and running on one of my machines. All the reviews I’ve read praise it, it has some great features, I’d really like to have it. The problem is their business model. I don’t want to buy their Hardware to run it. Why is their OS limited in this way, you can now have Microsoft Vista as a dual boot on the Mac Intel based machine. Why can’t I have Mac OS dual boot (and no emulator) on any Intel machine or AMD for that matter (I can do that with Linux, and Linux is based on a UNIX kernel and isn’t the Mac OS based on a UNIX kernel). I just built a new machine, I would have to spend twice as much to get a comparable machine from Mac, why should I? The problem is I really want the Mac OS and for a good reason, I want some Mac software. The software that put AVID on notice that the six figure video editing suite is a thing of the past. FINAL CUT PRO, this is the best of breed video editing suite out there, and the cost, around a grand. Final Cut does broadcast quality, it does it all, this is the ultimate post production suite and it’s priced for the consumer. If you’re into video this is a must.

So the bottom line is think about your customers our pockets are just so deep.

I really should do that.........

We moved about six months ago. I'll be posting more on the lessons learned in the future. In the past the first priority I always had (after finding the coffee pot) was setting up the stereo (or surround sound now). It's been six months and I haven't touch it. I have the speakers all stacked up waiting to go, but just haven't taken the time to do it.

I have my computers and network set-up, and perhaps that is the cause of my lax attitude. I have 90 percent of my CD's ripped to various hard drives, so the tunes are available as needed. Hence no rush, just one more project that needs to be done.

Ode to the IBM Selectric

I recently moved to mid-size town in Wisconsin, and I'm enjoying it. In the course of exploring the area, I kept driving by this real nice Good Will store. I used to stop at various thrift stores to look for books, always a great deal. But, I got out of that habit years ago. I keep driving by this place and the parking lot is always packed, like a Toys 'R' Us on Christmas Eve. So of course I have to stop in, the place is as nice and clean as any Target or Walmart I've ever been in, this is cool.
Looking around and I come across this shelve with four IBM Selectric Typewriters on it. Various models and colors. These were so cool, there was the little golf ball that you could switch out to change fonts, you could do on the fly corrections and I'm sure there were a bunch of other features to make your life easier (but I don't think it had a spell-checker). I had friends that had these typewriters and they loved them, it was one slick typewriter for the time.
Would have loved to have had one of these some thirty years ago, but they cost hundreds of dollars. Here's the choice stereo equipment or typewriter, stereo won.
What is the going rate for this one time technological wonder you might ask, $4.99.
I passed.

Nice Marketing Captain America

What do you do when the numbers are low and you want to boost circulation, two fold from what I've read, maybe more. Why kill off the main character, of course. Worked for Superman. They did bring Superman back didn't they? I haven't followed comics for a good 30 years, but when it makes the main stream media you have to take notice.
Anyway, Capt. America will never be dead, he's a cultural icon in this country. As Dennis Hopper said in Easy Rider "That's Capt. America and I'm Billy, we play all the fairs around, we make big money" (the may not be exact, but you get the idea). Capt. America like Superman is part of our culture, people who have never pick-up a comic book know who he is and what he stands for. So, relax Capt. your immortal, you'll always be part of the hearts and minds of the USA.

The sidebar: People who want to blame the Bush administration for the Captains demise, get a life.

The sidebar 2: I checked out the price of comic books these days, talk about sticker shock.

The first keystrokes are always the hardest.

I've been in the process of starting this blog for months. Always looking at the blank page and trying to hit that first key, once that's done the words can flow, well sometimes.

I stumbled on an old high school friends blog awhile back (Cliff Biggers) and it's interesting how much I've learned about him from his blog (this sounds kind of creepy, but we have trade some light e-mails). Anyway he's a good writer, a skill I wish I was better at, and perhaps through this blog I'll improve it.

From this little soap box I'll be spewing out packets of ones and zeros that will represent my observations of the world and my life.