Aggregated Blogs

Backup or Move Mozilla settings and data easily!

Thinker — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:53:00 GMT

The day had come, it was time to move to Windows 7 along with all that reinstalling of applications and migrating your data to the new install. Well, life got a lot easier for me for a few items at least!

Several years ago, I got tired of all the hassles of moving data around with Microsoft Outlook files (account settings and passwords and all that stuff, have over 30 email accounts setup) and moved to Mozilla Thunderbird as it only took a copying a couple files and everything but my passwords moved over. Today, I was worried if I could remember all those passwords and dreaded the hassle of entering them. Then I found a simple little utility MozBackup:

http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/

With this app, it will make a backup of Thunderbird files and settings as well as other Mozilla apps such as Firefox. It simply packages up your data, settings and passwords into one data file (which you can password protect) which you simply copy to the new machine and use MozBackup to restore those profiles on your new machine.

Defrag?

Thinker — Sat, 09 May 2009 00:28:49 GMT

Are you tired of the built in defrag tool for Windows? I needed to shrink a drive today and took a quick look for a defragger as I had not even been using the built in one. Well, I came across one that seems to work pretty well and it is free! It is from a company named Auslogics:

http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag

They have some other tools (try the products tab on their site) I might look into also. They have one called BoostSpeed that might be intersting..

http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/boost-speed

Playing with Kubuntu Linux..

Thinker — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:12:21 GMT

I am looking to see if I can get by with a version of Linux on a few of my machines. One of the first versions I tried is Kubuntu Linux. To make my life easier, I used the VMWare Virtual Appliances which made life easy (you will find all you need at http://www.vmware.com).

One of my main concerns is a few Windows programs that will be needed. So I dug through and found how utterly simple it was to install WINE, a Windows emulator, and then installed one of the program I use all the time, E-Sword Bible software. After I figured out where it installed the program and how WINE works, I found there was a problem in the E-Sword display along with a missing DLL. After a quick search of the Internet, I ran into this page which got the program running:

http://www.gustason.com/?p=12

While I have not tried many things on Linux and WINE yet, it was nice to see this app work as it is supposed to work!

More fun with Kubuntu soon.

Silverlight 3 Beta 1 is HERE!

Thinker — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:38:22 GMT

Seems it is now available or at least parts. Time to play!

http://www.nextbestgeek.com/2009/03/18/silverlight-3-its-here/

Silverlight Domain Names up for grabs!

Thinker — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 09:46:59 GMT

Silverlight domain names up for free! Just go to the site, use the Auth Codes to transfer to your registrar!

www.SilverlightCity.com

www.SilverlightDevs.com

Steele must go! GOP is DEAD!

Thinker — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 10:50:56 GMT

I have been a registered Republican since I was about 19 or 20 years old and am going to be 48. Over those years there have been some bad choices out there, but this last election year was the biggest joke of them all, putting old man McCain against Obama who had the youth vote. Not only was age and perception against the election, McCain is no Republican, at least not in the real world. I know, they were hoping to move a little to the left, but the sold out and lost the election with a landslide!

Okay, for years they have been expanding the government more like Democrats than Republicans, spend, spend, spend… Many have flaked at family values and at rights to life. Could it get any worse? YEP!

Not only did the GOP give us a joke of an election, but now they have given a joke of a Chairman! Steele does not even appear to know what he believes as he states he is for Choice on abortion rights. Now he clarifies that he thinks the States should decide and it is their “Choice”. Let me see here, abortion is murder and he says he opposes abortion. Should we have the States decide on if Murder is a crime? That is, should we take Murder, someone killing someone else and have it decided at State level? Hmmm. Some States it would be perfectly legal to walk out your door and shoot the first person you see? Maybe only after you purchase a license? I know of no one that would think that was a good idea, but the Chairman of the Republican party thinks it is a good idea to have the States choose about abortion, murdering children!

That should be enough to dump his fanny out on the streets, but no, it gets worse. This person who is Chairman of the Republican party now declares that homosexuality is a matter of nature and not choice! Yep, he is for “Choice” for Murder but not for sexual perversions. This man is a joke for the party and needs to be shown the road.

In the article in the NY Times it says:

“It appears highly unlikely that there would be any serious move to recall Mr. Steele, who is barely two months into a two-year job. The political repercussions of replacing the party’s first African-American chairman would be too severe, several Republican leaders said, and there are no obvious candidates ready to take the job.”

I do not care about the color of a person’s skin nor their ethnicity, but that should not be a thought in kicking is fanny out! The GOP is a sad joke and they continue to prove it. At this time we have a ONE party country as the leaders of both parties are the same.

For me it is over, the GOP has NO VALUES anymore. It is time to throw it in the dumpster where it belongs. It was bad enough this last election and I managed to stay with it, but if this person is not removed from the party leadership within a short time, I have no choice but leave. I will not support a party with a platform that supports murdering babies and is anti-family. While I do not completely agree with absolute free trade, I have hung in there and supported the Republican party for almost thirty years, but it appears it is over and time to register as independent. Maybe if enough people leave they will realize the GOP is dead, have a funeral for it and build a new Party based on values. Yeah, I doubt it too!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/us/politics/13steele.html?ref=politics

It is time for a true Values Party for the next election!

Silverlight Games one the way?

Thinker — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 09:05:20 GMT

Looks like there may be some XNA 2D games on they way to your browsers. Here is a short blip:

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/03/xna-2d-games-come-to-the-browser-via-silverlight.ars

Here is a link to the SilverSprite library at CodePlex:

http://silversprite.codeplex.com

Will be interesting to see Silverlight move heavily into this market place. While many are banking on business apps, the game industry should be pretty huge over the coming years.

Silverlight Guitar Chord Finder

Thinker — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:28:22 GMT

Here is a cool little demo:

http://johnpapa.net/demos/chordcalc/demo.html

You can play individual notes by clicking on them and here the entire chord. Sweet little app. Here is more about it along with the code:

http://www.simple-talk.com/dotnet/.net-framework/using-silverlight-to-build-a-guitar-chord-calculator/

Life on Mars!

Thinker — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 09:29:44 GMT

I find this in one of my archives. It is all about perspective ;)

Visual Studio 2008 Express – Standard – Pro – What’s the diff?

Thinker — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 08:57:50 GMT

Back with the Visual Studio 2005 editions, it was vague at best to which versions had which features. Well, when Visual Studio 2008 came out, I never bothered with the comparison between the different versions of this latest release. Today, I took a look and found a very informative document and what is included with the different versions. If you are considering upgrading to Visual Studio 2008, you might give this document a view, it could be very helpful!

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=727bcfb0-b575-47ab-9fd8-4ee067bb3a37&DisplayLang=en

ViewState and SEO – Move it!

Thinker — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 08:56:08 GMT

This is an old dilemma, but some may still have issues with it. When you build a site using ASP.NET and WebForms, you often will see a bulky hidden field on the form called “ViewState”. Of course, this is the values of your ViewState on the form which can be quite large depending on the values on your form and type of controls.

Since the ViewState field is placed at the top part of your form, this means that you can have large amounts of text before you ever get to the main part of your form. Even though hidden, it can hinder some search engines to clearly discern the content on the page.

There are different ways you can solve this issue, even up to disabling ViewState and not using it. You really do not have to go to that drastic step though, you can always move it. Yep, there are different ways you can actually move the field to the bottom of your form so that it does not hinder search engines even when it grows large.

Not that long ago, I found a quick and easy way to handle this situation. Mads Kriestensen posted a solution that only requires dropping a class file into your App_Code directory and added ah HTTPModule line to your web.config, no code changes.

Here is the original blog post:

http://blog.madskristensen.dk/post/An-HttpModule-that-moves-ViewState-to-the-bottom.aspx

You will want to scan down the comments though, there is a solution down on the list by “Icy” to replace the “Write” method. That addition seemed to work well for me. I have the entire text of the ViewstateModule.cs file as Toolbox Text item so that I create a new class file and just paste in all the text. It is better than hunting down the file at times ;)

Email from..

Thinker — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:45:51 GMT

Found this one in the Codeproject’s lounge today:

An Illinois man left the snow-filled streets of Chicago for a vacation in Florida. His wife was planning to meet him there the next day. When he reached his hotel, he decided to send his wife a quick e-mail. Unable to find the scrap of paper on which he had written her e-mail address, he did his best to type it in from memory.

Unfortunately, he missed one letter in the address, and his note was directed instead to an elderly preacher's wife, whose husband had passed away only the day before. When the grieving widow checked her e-mail, she took one look at the monitor, let out a piercing scream, and fell to the floor in a dead faint. At the sound, her family rushed into the room and saw this note on the screen:

Dearest Wife,
Just got checked in. Everything prepared for your arrival tomorrow.
Your Loving Husband
P.S. Sure is hot down here.

Electrict Datsun LIve – White Zombie!

Thinker — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:33:38 GMT

hat a way to go! Check out this video:

http://www.opb.org/programs/ofg/videos/view/56-Electric-Drag-Racing

Doughboy – R.I.P.

Thinker — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 01:32:50 GMT

Had a friend send this to me today and thought I would share:

Please join me in remembering a great icon of the entertainment community.

The Pillsbury Doughboy died yesterday of a yeast infection and trauma complications from repeated pokes in the belly. He was 71.

Doughboy was buried in a lightly greased coffin. Dozens of celebrities turned out to pay their respects, including Mrs. Butterworth, Hungry Jack, the California Raisins, Betty Crocker, the Hostess Twinkies, and Captain Crunch. The grave site was piled high with flours.

Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy and lovingly described Doughboy as a man who never knew how much he was kneaded. Doughboy rose quickly in show business, but his later life was filled with turnovers. He was not considered a very smart cookie, wasting much of his dough on half-baked schemes. Despite being a little flaky at times, he still was a crusty old man and was considered a positive roll model for millions.

Doughboy is survied by his wife Play Dough, three children: John Dough, Jane Dough and Dosey Dough, plus they had one in the oven. He is also survied by his elderly father, Pop Tart.

The funeral was held at 350 for about 20 minutes.

A real stimulus package that would work!

Thinker — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 17:55:58 GMT

I am beginning to think the terms “Stimulus” and “bail out” will soon be those on most people’s banned word list. There was a cartoon in our local paper a while back that had a sea of people as far as you could see surrounding the Capital with a guy standing with a megaphone asking the question “Is there anyone here NOT looking for a bail out?”. That is about what has happened, it is a new gold rush, but on government money which we do not have. Do you think we have reached a level of stupidity greater than any other in our history when even Porn kings such as Larry Flint as asking for bail outs?

The USA has become a joke among the nations now, it is hard to imagine anyone would look at our country with any thoughts of financial security. But wait, there is more and more and more.. When do we, the consumers, get our own money printing presses? Will they be made in China?

So, at this time, the talk is about another $700 billion ($700,000,000,000) up to $1.2 trillion dollar stimulus package. And for what? Think of the trillions of dollars we do not have that have already been spent and at this time it has done no visible good, they still are spending more.

Stimulus that would work!

Okay, they want to have a Trillion dollar stimulus package. Why not make one that really works for the country and its future. The following idea may not work to shoot up the economy in weeks or even months, but over the next 12-18 months, could provide to provide a great deal of jobs and give us long term stability without just short term solutions requiring even more money to be spent later. Not only does this plan help us in a relative short term, but also helps to pay for it over the years through new manufacturing sector.

Okay, the plan is simply to invest into what people claim this country has going for it, innovation! They plan to throw away 1,000 billion dollars. Let’s break that up into 900 $1 billion dollar grants and another 100 $1 billion dollar grants.

The first 900 grants will be awarded to companies or individuals who come up with a substantial (no $2 products, must be something that can make a substantial impact on exports) product or products that currently do not exist and are desirable globally. The person or company that has a winning product will be granted $1 billion dollars to spend based on their winning business plan to keep the company solvent, manufacturing and distributing the product for at least five years. Of course, for the business plan to win, it would be evaluated on many different fronts including global marketability of the product(s).

There is another catch to obtain a grant (this should be a condition for any government loan or grant of any kind) , the company shall not ever be able to be sold to a foreign entity. In addition, they cannot outsource any of their work or materials which are available domestically. This guarantees the company will be producing domestically and never allow jobs or production to move outside the nation. One other limitation is that they should be required to pay their employees at least say $20 per hour to afford them some livable wage. The wage minimum should also be automatically adjusted annually for cost of living so it rises with inflation.

Just imagine if even half of those succeed and we have 450 new domestic businesses that manufacture and export products to a world market. And those businesses will always be domestic!

What about the other 100 grants? I would have those go to domestic energy. Perhaps 50 new billion dollar geothermal plants, another say 25 billion dollar solar farms and the rest for other alternative forms of energy production and distribution. It may even be desirable to put a few of those grants to work for companies who will produce new forms of solar cells to drop the cost of production to make them a resource for export. With that small investment it could make huge step toward energy independence!

What does a billion dollars buy?

When you think about it, how big of business could you build with a billion dollars? If you broke that up over ten years time, you still have $100 million dollars per year to keep your company growing and moving globally.

With that kind of money you should be able to have a large workforce of quality people that are not being hammered with hardships. There should be enough money to pay them a good wage giving them and their families a decent quality of life. Remember, those employees are consumers as they will be consuming.

Just look around and see the size of businesses that are trying to be sold right now for under $100 million. There are national retails stores chains going for less than that. What about all those old manufacturing plants that were closed when greedy corporations decided to move manufacturing overseas? You would think those plants would be available for chump change which would provide a great startup area for a new billion dollar manufacturing company…

The long term

So far, I really do not hear any long term solutions. The government is spending trillions but it does not seem to be going anywhere. Their long term plan is, they will come up with that later…

Here is a long term plan that works for everyone. Innovation opens great export markets, building a new manufacturing sector in the USA which provides us long term jobs and cuts the trade deficits. It also gives back some patriotic pride where people can be proud to work for an all American company without fear of losing their jobs to overseas workers.

Yes, this plan takes a little while to get moving, but just the gesture of the plan moving forward in the media would generate confidence back into the economy and make people have hope that the USA can once again become a producing not just a consumer!

Do you really want to see the next 100 years of tax revenue thrown away in failing stimulus plans or put America back to work as a producer once again?

Netflix coming straight to HDTV!

Thinker — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:17:20 GMT

I am wondering when the other movie rental companies will wake up and get on the ball. At this time, it looks like a Netflix world.

LG and Netflix announced they are working together to bring new HDTVs from LG which you simply hookup to your Internet and you have streaming HD movies. It is all built in, no boxes to handle the streaming!

With all the rush that is going on with set top boxes for VOD (video-on-demand), I would if there will be a standard coming out any time soon that will allow these devices to work with all VOD providers that would support the standard. Sure would be a pain to buy an HDTV which supports Netflix and then decide later you want Blockbuster’s services. I imagine, in time…

http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/05/technology/netflix_lg_electronics/?postversion=2009010512

Obvious Adams

Thinker — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 09:26:21 GMT

One of the best books on marketing I had ever read is the famous “Obvious Adams”. The book is basically trying to get you to notice the “Obvious” which is in front of you. It is not hundreds of pages long or complex, it is a short book (it almost does not qualify as a book, more of a pamphlet) but anyone in business should give it a read at least once.

I was surprised to see a copy of it now available in PDF. Read it at:

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/gdc/scd0001/2006/20060721003ob/20060721003ob.pdf

Happy New Year Wishes for 2009

Thinker — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 22:45:36 GMT

Had an email sent to me that I thought was cute and decided to share with you all:

After serious & cautious consideration... your contract of friendship has been renewed for the New Year 2009!

It was a very hard decision to make... So try not to mess it up!!!

My Wish for You in 2009

May peace break into your home and may thieves come to steal your debts.
May the pockets of your jeans become a magnet for $100 bills.
May love stick to your face like Vaseline and may laughter assault your lips!
May happiness slap you across the face and may your tears be that of joy
May the problems you had, forget your home address!
In simple words ............
May 2009 be the best year of your life!!!

Happy New Year!!

Interesting physics toy..

Thinker — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:03:39 GMT

Say this posted today on lounge forums on CodeProject:

http://andyslife.org/games/sand.php

Simply select your material from the list below and then drag around the screen. For example, select “Wax” and then drag it around. After it collects some stuff, then place some fire under the wax. Yep, it melts :)

Warning, be sure you do not have any deadlines before entering the site :)

More Fog Today!

Thinker — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:05:35 GMT

This morning found the basin entrenched with fog. I thought I would grab a few shots while it was still clearly seen. Here are a few of the photos:

(smaller)

(larger)

Mt Shasta also looked good above the fog this morning:

Monopoly Money, sure, let’s print more!

Thinker — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:34:03 GMT

I know many see a financial crises here in the USA, and there are different answers, but have they chose the correct ones?

First, I believe most of our current issues would have been solved but our government place a rate limit on any loans of 7%-9% nation wide. This would have made it possible for those with buying homes who have been hit by high interest rates to continue to pay off those loans and not lose their homes. This would have been at zero cost to the tax payer. That was not government's solution…

The total now is estimated now at.. wait for it… wait for it.. $8.5 Trillion! Hmm.. Kind of dwarfs all the fears of the IRAQ military funding costs, you know the ones that everyone said were so out of control and that we need to pull our troops out immediately, leaving that country completely destabilized because we could not afford it. Looks like they were looking in the wrong place..

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/26/MNVN14C8QR.DTL

Where is all that money coming from? Try this one that was mentioned today:

“The Federal Reserve and the Treasury announced $800 billion in new lending programs on Tuesday, sending a message that they would print as much money as needed to revive the nation’s crippled banking system.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/business/economy/26fed.html?bl&ex=1227848400&en=5a50becfbe5bac73&ei=5087%0A

http://caps.fool.com/blogs/viewpost.aspx?bpid=113309&t=01001019292467236494

Maybe that will be the next hot item at Wal*Marts around the nation, your own money printing press!

Can this government get more dysfunctional? Yep, just wait and see as we enter into Hyper Inflation and it costs you $100,000 for a loaf of bread! What will that home be worth then? Opps, retire-what-funds? Yeah, all those Baby Boomers heading for retirement as our government guts out those retire funds. On top of this there was mention a few days ago that over half the medical doctors in this country and burned out and are thinking of quitting. Yo, Baby Boomers, maybe you should retire in 2020 or beyond and be sure not to get sick…

It is funny, with all this garbage flying around as the elite rich clean out any funds this country does have, we do not hear much about the financial tsunami that is suppose to hit soon as the Baby Boomers retire and claim Social Security. What ever happened with that? Wasn’t that supposed to be one of the biggest financial storms to hit us?

Someone better get some sense in this country before it is too late! Good thing I am a Christian, this might be scary otherwise…

Blockbuster gets into the set-top box market!

Thinker — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:20:51 GMT

Late comer to the set-top box market is Blockbuster. Netflix has been on the scene for while now which may have been eating into Blockbuster’s profits in more than one way.

Blockbuster’s new set-top box and service through MediaPoint will charge you $99 for the box which will include 25 movie rentals. Here is a “gotcha”, unlike Netflix’s subscription based viewing where you play a small rate each month (lowest at the moment to have access to online media and even includes one DVD out in the mail at a time, is only $8.99 per month), Blockbuster’s high prices will continue as you will be charged $1.99 to $3.99 for each movie you watch (OOOUUCCCHH!).

One the box end of Blockbuster, they will pre-download movies to the box (which has the capacity to hold five movies) compared to Netflix’s streaming method. Netflix’s method, while common, is dependant on bandwidth, if you have a big broadband pipe you will get better quality than those with a lesser bandwidth pipe. Blockbuster’s model will result in a better quality service for those with smaller pipes or poor connections. I personally like the model of pre-downloading for quality sake. My Internet provider, Charter Communications, seems to often over-sale their bandwidth causing unreliable connections. In the last month and a half we have experienced many dropped connections and missed connections (obvious when you hit a page and it responds with “404 not found” when the site is there and simply refreshing brings it up or when you have a continuous connection such as “Remote Desktop Connections” and it keeps dropping connection). This is the second time in three years we have went through this issue of quality and previously it lasted for several months). I wish Netflix would move more into this model, but there may be issues with digital rights management.

How does the libraries compare? Well, Blockbuster is offering around 2,500 titles. Netflix on the other hand has a collection of OVER 12,000 titles and have made a deal with Stars to broadcast Starz along with thousands of their titles and you have access to all those for only a flat fee of $8.99 per month. Not only can you use the set-top box options which Netflix has several options including through your TiVo or xBox 360, but you can watch them on your PC or Mac through your browser thanks to Microsoft Silverlight technology!

So, if you wish to have a possible higher quality picture or perhaps do not plan to use the service often, then you might check out Blockbuster and pay a couple of dollars per movie, otherwise, you might check out Netflix (also, Netflix has a good selection of Christians movies and documentaries).

Keep on your toes – Process Monitor V2.02

Thinker — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:25:39 GMT

In today’s world it can be important to keep an eye out for what is going on behind the scene on your computer. Windows Sysinternals Process Monitor V2.02 has evolved into a must have utility!

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx

The title Process Monitor really does not convey the functionality of this tool. It does not just monitor processes, it allows you to monitor:

Processes and thread activity
Profiling events
File system activity
Registry activity
Network activity

All of this with filtering ability to zero in on a target. It is a mature product and comes with many useful features.

Give it a test spin and see what it can do for you. Just turning on the network monitor and watching what all processes in your computer are communicating over the network can be revealing. Got a trojan house app on your machine? This will not only show you when it communicates over the net, but also your are able to track down what processes and threads it has, watch registry settings it is using and where it is located on your drive.

Quick, Get your money while supplies last!

Thinker — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 07:57:13 GMT

More and more bailouts! Does this stupidity every stop? Someone, quick, pinch me, this really is not happening right? Come on, this has to be a nightmare! The word of the day kids is “Trillion”, that is “$1,000,000,000,000”. Yep, we are quickly heading to reach eleven of those in debt. That is more than $33,000 per living USA citizen. If you are a family of five, your household debt run up by the government will soon be, over $166,000! Makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over right? NOT!

Since we have a GDP of about $14,000,000,000,000 (14 trillion), that would mean it would take almost the entire GDP to pay off the debt.

Back in September our government approved a $25,000,000,0000 ($25 billion) bailout of the auto industry and now they say it is not enough. GM is burning over $2 billion per month. How do you deal with those kinds of numbers?

How much money does it cost to build an auto manufacture anyways? Those numbers are not millions, but billions! If you want to throw money we do not have around, how about giving $25 billion to Tesla Motors and seeing how an auto manufacture can really fly while making our transportation section no longer dependent on fossil fuels?

http://www.autonews.com/article/20081106/COPY/311069882/-1/ANA03

Let us see here, just this year we have wasted billions in stimulus checks, then close to a trillion dollars to bail out the financial sector, now we are talking billions more for the auto industry, then the airline industry will probably raise their heads again what for more billions and then who? It reminds me of the old Susan Powers diet mantra “Stop the Insanity”! It seems only in the USA do we reward inept businesses who are completely unable to run their businesses in the black with more money to continue their failed business practices…

Seriously, I know there are a lot of jobs at stake, but why bail out companies that have spent the last few years continuing to ignore the market and pump out fossil fuel hunger vehicles? How about putting the money into an drop-in engine, drive train electric conversion company where they produce a drop-in replacement for many of the current vehicle models that will make the hydrogen/electric hybrids? There are a lot of people who would upgrade their current fossil fuel hungry engines with new hydrogen / electric models that could be charged up at home. Just think of what that would do to the oil prices…

The problem is that our government seems to think there is money somewhere when the pockets are already empty just like most people’s gas gauges. How does more money for failed companies who refuse to listen to the market and change, make any sense? Maybe it is time for them to close their doors and make way for new manufactures to step up and take the lead!

Just look at how hard it is to release a new model of a vehicle. With all the regulation and safety concerns, it takes years along with a fortune to produce anything. I am all for safety, but when it takes years to get a vehicle to market in these days, it is time to rethink this to a reasonable level. We need to get this down to a maximum of three to six months for new models to be ready to roll. They people are ready to move into a new world of electric / hydrogen based vehicles but the manufactures are too busy dumping out more fossil fuel based vehicles. Maybe we should just kick those companies to the side and start over.

Canon PowerShot SX10 IS (S5IS Update)

Thinker — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 08:51:04 GMT

Well, at first blush it looks good enough. If the lens does a good job, the zoon of 20X should be pretty hot. Depending on version, shooting HD video is also a plus. Curious if the view finder is improved, the one on the S5IS is pretty much unusable.

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=144&modelid=17630

I was hoping they would have shot for at least 12 MP instead of 10 MP (so yesterday). Of course, I would love to see their 28 MP version in this camera, but that is really dreaming.

One last thing, I was a bit disappointed that they did not increase the size of the LCD. I was hoping for at least 3” instead of the small 2.5” screen.

Oh well, I doubt I will update from my S5IS any time soon.

LINQ to SQL Dead?

Thinker — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 09:04:16 GMT

Is Microsoft going to kill LINQ to SQL (L2S)? The rumors are that Entity Frameworks (EF) is the database plan of choice now and L2S is out the door. There have been a few posts on the topics, here are a couple:

http://codebetter.com/blogs/ david.hayden/archive/2008/10/30/linq-to-sql-gets-kicked-to-the-curb-needs-a-good-home.aspx

http://ayende.com/Blog/archive/2008 /10/31/microsoft-kills-linq-to-sql.aspx

Personally, I think if they just added some method of change tracking to the entities and made disconnected work easier, then L2S would be pretty hot. I do not like passing around connections (DataContext’s) to different layers and prefer to work in a disconnected form. Of course, this means you either hit the database for the original data and then overwrite it with the modified data or you keep a copy of the original data manually (I have used this later method and there is a post here about it.

Of course, with L2S you must watch your queries very carefully. If you do not pay attention, you might be generating tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of queries to your database from a single query. SQL Profiler comes in real handy there.

From what I have seen about EF though, it appears it is geared for more substantial applications and could not be thought as lightweight unless you an extreme fantasy. There needs to be a lightweight but yet truly functional database layer and L2S could be just the ticket with a few modifications.

Guess we will have to wait and see…

At what point do you get a clue?

Thinker — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:04:11 GMT

Today, I spotted an article that gives a clue of who really wants Obama for our president:

http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=17419

Yep, Hamas Palestinians are making calls for Obama to help get him elected…

Add to this France’s Sarkozy’s comments on Obama:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1031943.html

Then there is the supporters of Obama such as Jesse Jackson in this post on Jewish Chronicle:

http://www.jewishchronicle.org/article.php?article_id=10765

The article quoting Jackson as saying :

“Decades of putting Israel’s interests first would end,” he said. “Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades would lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House.”

This is just another link in Jesse Jackson’s racist views of the Jewish people. This is yet another person Obama now has to step back from, such as his racist anti-American pastor, A.C.O.R.N and …. the listing continues to grow.

At least now Obama’s wife is saying she is proud of American, I guess now that she plans on being in the White House, she has a reason to be proud of this nation instead of slamming it along with their pastor of 22 years!

Yeah, I know, I thought the last post was going to be my last political post about this election, but I saw the article about the Palestinians making calls for Obama and thought I would share :)

Windows Live to OpenID, no return love?

Thinker — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 05:06:29 GMT

News has it that Microsoft Live will be came to be used as an OpenID server so that you can use your Live ID to log into any OpenID enabled site. That is good, BUT… What about the other way? Will this deal be just like Yahoo! where you will be able to use them as an OpenID server but not be able to log into them by OpenID?

Come on you big guys quit playing games and allow use to use OpenID to log into Microsoft live, Yahoo! and Google! Is that so hard? OpenID NOW!

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/27/windows-live-adds-support-for-openid-calls-it-de-facto-login-standard/

Obama or McCain? Really, voting for him?

Thinker — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 16:58:08 GMT

As probably the last post I will make on this election, it looks like another fun filled election with the only resort to vote for Mr. "None of the above". I personally do not feel either candidate listed is responsible nor worth to run this country.

Yes, I will give that McCain did an awesome job for his nation in his military service, but the job he did on his first wife, the job he did in the Keaton Five and the job he does in flip-flopping (sometimes within minutes) is a disservice to this country. Anyone who has a temper that they cannot control should not be in a place of authority.

Obama just seems to say a lot for actually saying nothing much of substance unless it is empty promises. His history with his racist, anti-America pastor for 22 years along with the fact that his own wife disrespected this nation with her remark that this was the "first time" she was proud of this nation instantly removes him from my vote regardless of what promises he makes or what he "says' he stands for. Obama also wants to keep late term partial birth abortion, which is the most evil thing this nation has every allowed as a people. When you deliver a baby at term, all but the head and then proceed to suck its brains out, you are flat out evil and no good can dwell in you. A leader of this nation should not support such horrible murders in the name of gaining votes. It is not an issue of the mother's life or any other excuse at this point, the mother cannot be harmed by allowing the head to come out!

There is another issue that many overlook. The president himself is not the one that rules this country, he actually has a little role and often his main power is in the veto. The real power is in the congress which is currently being held hostage by people who should have never even been in a position of authority. If you do not agree, just look over the last 20 years at what has gone on in this nation's politics. It is time for change, but that goes for congress as well.

For the Economy?

Now, as for the economy, I am still in a pickle with the choices as I do not feel either will really help out much. I do like the idea of McCain's to buy out a bunch of the failed mortgages though as it will help people keep their homes and not drive all the home prices down in their area. I think a forced interest rate limitation of at the most 9.99% for all home loans would also work to keep most people in their homes and not cost the government (tax payers) anything.

I think our entire government needs to be chastised for what has happened in our economy and for ever even bringing us to this point, not to mention this insane spending on bailouts, throwing money everywhere that we do not even have. Come on people, we are they wealthiest nation on the planet? Not! We are the biggest loser, it would take almost the entire GDP to bail us out of this debt! That’s not wealth, it is bondage!

Here is the rub though, we elected all these people who have destroyed our nation…

For Businesses and Taxes?

For business though, which would be better. McCain is for tax cuts and Obama is for tax hikes. Yes, Obama claims it is only a tax on the rich (like himself), but you know this is not true. As business people we all should know by now that a tax hike is paid by everyone not just those they target. One of the first basics of business is that if your cost goes up you must raise your prices to cover those increases unless it will damage your business and even at those times, you might have to anyway. It is simple, if you raise taxes on the wealthy, they will trickle down to everyone. Likewise, if you raise taxes against the poor, they will trickle up since they will not have as much money to purchases goods and services and again everyone pays.

I have heard people spew about how the wealthy pay so much of the tax burden of this country and the poorer people pay nothing. You have got to be kidding me, how much does everyone pay every time they buy a produce or service that will end up in tax. It is not called a tax, but it still is as that part will go to pay tax anyway. There was one man running in the primaries who I actually liked because he was so obvious in so many things, even in things like pandering, but at least he told the truth on a business environment and tried to get out in the open this problem of taxes on business and the wealthy as driving more businesses away and hurting our economy.

So, it is simple, a tax hike is a tax hike for everyone, it does not matter the target of the tax.

For Healthcare?

What about health care? My first question is “why” do we need it. The truth is our medical system is out of touch with reality. The prices are so far off the map that most people pay what the services are really worth with the deductibles and co-pays. For example, take the price of a typical major operation with someone on a decent health plan. They will probably have to pay 10%-20% of that bill. That is probably what they bill should be in the first play. If we had true healthcare reform, most people would not need any health care coverage and could pay their way.

It looks like we do not have much of a choice in this election, you either choose mandated healthcare or mandated healthcare. Where is the options here? Okay, so Obama says he will put in an escape clause for small businesses, but for how long? A mandate is a mandate and things will change. Same goes for McCain’s poor plan that taxes those plans and then gives back $5,000 to help out, yeah right. In today’s world, when a mandate comes out on healthcare, those costs are going to jump and jump high, they current prices will seem like the good old days pretty soon. And with all the baby-boomer starting to retire and need healthcare, all I can say is goodbye wallet!

At the end of the day, this is a bad election for everyone of every class except for the blood sucking medical world who will enjoy all the new found profits! When your country is based on capitalism and the people have lost morals and ethics, then you end up in this mess. Just remember, we have elected the failed congress and failed presidents and it looks like it will continue :(

There is another thing I have noticed viewing some of the posts people have made about this election, it is amazing how many people actually listen to and embrace all that negative campaign garbage. You hear comments that “Obama is a Arab”, “not another 4 years of Bush”, “McCain is a war-lord”, etc. It surprises me people are foolish enough to believe any of this dribble. The masses shock me as I thought more people had one or two.. Thoughts that is!

None of the above is the only sensible choice I can see. Yes, it will not matter this year, but it sure would be nice if the majority vote was for a write-in “None of the above”!

Chevy Volt – Coming age of rechargeables?

Thinker — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:25:04 GMT

GM is planning on producing the Chevy Volt in late 2010 (if they can stay in business until then). The car is a electric/gas hybrid, but will come with a household plug to be able to charge the battery. By charging the battery, you are supposed to achieve up to 40 miles before the gas motor engages to charge the batteries to power the vehicle. The thought is that many people will travel less than 40 miles per day, thus allowing for zero gas usage.

For more information see:

http://wot.motortrend.com/ 6285981/green/volt-watch-gm-gives-details-on-plug-in-hybrids-battery

There are some interesting posts in the comments on that page. Some try to calculate the cost of 40 miles, which if the battery is dead, it would take about 16 KWH (in my area about $0.09 per KWH or $1.44 for a full charge). There are people who battle saying that it is not enough of a savings to justify the price vehicle (I doubt the price remains that high after the first year or so) and others argue about the issues that it is still pulling power plants that can be fossil fuels. Many seem to miss the point.

The point of having a vehicle that will use primarily electricity or hydrogen (which we all know is easily created with electricity) is not price, nor directly saving the world from fossil fuels, but it is moving the transportation industry to a form of energy that can be derived from many different sources.

Think about this, what if tomorrow we came up with a way to generate massive amounts of electricity at little cost. How would that change the transportation industry or our use of fossil fuels? Very little since most vehicles on the roads consume fossil fuels and can run on nothing else and you cannot generate fossil fuels from electricity. This is the hook keeping use bound to fossil fuels.

If all the vehicles move to some form of electricity drive, then we can use power from many different technologies which include green sources. If new forms of generation come along, it is only a flip of the switch and everyone is using that new power without any changes. As it is, we are bound to fossil fuels.

For an example, we know that diesel can be used to cause less pollution, but it does not matter as most vehicles on the road today cannot use diesel, but it could be used for power generation and pump that power out to electric vehicles.

Another aspect to electric or hydrogen based power is that we can control the consumption of fossil fuels to the power plants which should be much more energy efficient than the motors in all those vehicles on the road. We could get a lot more bang for the barrel than pumping into vehicles.

Add on to this the reduction or at least control of pollution. Large metro areas could have zero emissions from transportation. Finally, clean air in big cities! The pollution would be controlled in the area of the power plant and emission standards could be in place to massively reduce pollution generated by transportation.

There is also the advantage of simply buying a few solar panels or a wind generator and using them to augment your power consumption. Some who are already off the grid can plug in and go!

While the Chevy Volt is only the first step in a considerable latter, it is at least a step. I personally feel that the auto industry should have been required to have at least 50% of their production line, electric/hydrogen and move us into the future now. Surely the “world” market for these kinds of vehicles could jump our auto industry to the lead once again!

I like one of the comments that maybe the should drop the gas motor and just double the battery size, an 80 mile commuter vehicle could be a big bread winner!

Texas Deputy Sheriff vs New York Lawyer

Thinker — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 12:40:28 GMT

Got this in email a few days ago and thought I would share:

A lawyer runs a stop sign and gets pulled over by a sheriff's deputy. He thinks that he is smarter than the deputy because he is a lawyer from New York and is certain that he has a better education then any cop from Houston , Texas. He decides to prove this to himself and have some fun at the Texas deputy's expense.

The deputy says,' License and registration, please.'

'What for?' says the lawyer.

The deputy says, 'You didn't come to a complete stop at the stop sign.'

Then the lawyer says, 'I slowed down, and no one was coming.'

'You still didn't come to a complete stop, Says the deputy. License and registration, please.'

The lawyer says, 'What's the difference?'

'The difference is you have to come to complete stop, that's the law, License and registration, please!' the Deputy says.

Lawyer says, 'If you can show me the legal difference between slow down and stop, I'll give you my license and registration; and you give me the ticket. If not, you let me go and don't give me the ticket.'

'That sounds fair. Please exit your vehicle, sir,' the deputy says.

At this point, the deputy takes out his nightstick and starts beating the daylights out of the lawyer and says,

'Do you want me to stop, or just slow down?

Electric Paper – making a new spread!

Thinker — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 06:29:42 GMT

It seems Plastic Logic has shown a demo this fall of their new Plastic Logic Reader, which is a tablet which uses Electric Paper (some refer to as electric ink) which is a monochrome display which is lightweight, flexible and low power. Here is a little more on their new reader:

Would be nice to have, but sure would great to have color!

http://www.plasticlogic.com/product.html

Barrel prices down, what about the pump?

Thinker — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 09:20:58 GMT

I sure get tired of these games. Here oil prices have been dropping like like a rock as far as barrel prices are concerned, but what about the pump? Just tonight, I looked again and the price per gallon is $3.30. This is pure rip off, but hey, that is nothing new!

So, lets go back in history a bit and take a look. Here is an article from 2005 when prices had climbed to near $60 per barrel (yes, I know ours is around $70, but that should not make this much of a difference):

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/06/21/ Business/Price_of_oil_nears_60.shtml

Yep, the nationwide average was $2.13 per gallon at near $60. Here is another article from 2005 where prices where at $55 per barrel:

http://www.boston.com/business/markets/ articles/2005/03/10/crude_briefly_tops_55_a_barrel/

Yep, that is $2.00 per gallon and they were worried it would hit $2.10 per gallon.

And gas is current $3.30 why? Oh yeah, pure greed.

That reminds me of yet another campaign line I am tired of hearing, “we must cut or demand for oil”. Okay, let us look at this for a minute. This is coming from millionaires who are running for President of the USA, who have managed to arrive at their speaking engagement on a jet, wasting more fuel that many lowly people, being shuffled around in big fancy limos, burning millions of $$$ in campaign funds, and they are asking “us” to cut back? Come on, its called “being a leader” for a reason!

Raise Taxes? On who?

Thinker — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 08:47:40 GMT

Browsing around yesterday, I came across this article on CNN about the Joe the Plumber junk, I mean the guy turned out not to even have a license and still all this talk.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/ 10/16/joe.plumber/index.html

It really all comes down to raising taxes. Yes, I have heard the dribble about 95% of the people getting a tax break not a tax raise, but you want to know a secret? It is a JOKE! Yep, a joke and it is on the poorer people of the nation. It ALWAYS is on the poorer people and not the rich. It does not matter how much you raise taxes on who, it is ALWAYS on the poorer people!!!

Okay, let me explain for those who do not get the picture. Let us say that I have a business and all of the sudden a price hike happens to the materials I use to make my product. Do I just eat that price hike and see the product at the same price? NO! You raise the price of the product to compensate!

So, with that frame of reference, what happens when the rich get hit with a tax hike, do they just eat it and make less money? Come on, you cannot really be that gullible can you? They will increase products and services (or those that they are in power of) to compensate and the consumer then ends up paying for the hike. Imagine if every product or service in this nation did not have an embedded tax in the retail price how low it would be… Here is another thought to ponder, how much are you (assuming you are not part of the rich elite) really paying in taxes when you include the embedded tax on top of sales tax, income tax, personal property tax, local tax, tax, tax, tax…

I get tired hearing all this garbage the the top (x) percent of people pay 85% of all the taxes and the poor pay nothing. Yes, they pay the taxes, but where do they get the money to pay them? From the poorer people who buy all their products and services!

It is some kind of fantasy that anyone will take from the rich and give to the poor, it is just taking from the poor and then increasing the taking on the poor!

Stop the insanity! Instead of seeking more tax hikes on the rich, lets focus on getting the lower end of the table to earn more money to be able to afford to live so at least they do not have to worry about food on the table or a roof over their heads and maybe have enough left over to enjoy a decent size TV to enjoy some of the basics of life!

Here it comes, yep it is time! Lets get the minimum wage in this country to $25 per hour! Before you faint, let us look at a matter. Fuel prices have tripled in a few short years. Price for cooling oil has tripled in the last two years. When I went to buy some flour it had doubled in price and even a bag of potato chips have doubled, that is more than 100% inflation, but wage has hardly moved.

Here in Oregon, minimum wage will be $8.40 per hour come January 2009. That is a gross of about $1,450 per month before taxes, SSI, etc. By the time they get it home, you are talking about probably $1,100 per month to live on. Let us see here, rent in any safe place to live will be $750 minimum per month. Then there is utilities and transportation to get you back on the forth to work. Opps, at this point you have zero left over to live on. You had better hope you are married on both of you have fulltime jobs to be able to have money for food.

I have heard people say that minimum wage is only for those entry level jobs and that it is not supposed to be for the general employment force. Most businesses are working hard to keep their costs as low as they can and minimum wage is the bar. While you can go no lower than that, many business try to keep it close to or just a dollar or two above. That is not a living wage. Even at $25 per hour in today’s economy, it is not much of a living wage.

You want to help the lower classes, get minimum wage up and give the people working capital to live on and purchase those products and services. It will help everyone evolved and will ensure that the rich end up paying their share.

Cougar Warnings again..

Thinker — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:18:47 GMT

It appears there have been some sightings of cougars in the area again. People are being warning around the area, more so in places like Moore Park and up in the hills around OIT industrial park around NEW Corp to be cautious when walking or hiking around the area. We typically see them every year around here and we all need to be aware of them!

Here are a few links on living with cougars:

http://wdfw.wa.gov/wlm/living/cougars.htm

http://www.dfw.state.or.us/wildlife/living_with/CougarBroch.pdf

http://www.wildlife.utah.gov/cougar/pdf/cougar_brochure.pdf