Microsoft blaming people in advance for Windows 7?

So I caught this image accidently opening my IE browser instead of Firefox. I do a browse on Firefox I get a different individual. But apparently the whole Windows 7 was this guys idea and we should blame him if things go bad. Well he goes on.

Well apparently from the same webpage, he also rules for creating Windows 7. Therefore he must be the amazing mastermind behind Windows 7 awesomeness.

Or is he?

Oh come on a huge Microsoft Operating System couldn't be created with creapy college girl. Without creapy college girl creating the massive amount of code to create such a software there would be no need for token advertising black guy.

But according to PCWORLD http://www.pcworld.com/article/173953/a_free_windows_7_upgrade_could_cost_you.html
you will still be charged for your "free" upgrade to Windows 7. HP among other manufactures will charge a "shipping" fee for your "free" upgrade to Windows 7. Oh also, if you try to request these upgrades it may take till December to receive them...yah. Make sure you get around that during your xmas rush. Especially since Santa's naughty or nice list is extensive.

Just like most companies were not prepared for Windows Vista... the same holds true for Windows 7. Windows 7 offers a "virtualization" of Windows XP but many business systems do not comply with it. Just like Vista, they are requiring 1GB of RAM (similar to Vista's cry of 512 MB). To run said virtualization requires another 1GB. In a network of systems running XP for years 128MB-1GB worked fine for memory. This is another failure in the making.

I do not know who is the blame for this actually, it could be Microsoft for their overreactive coding forgetting who the common consumer instance. Or could it be the hardware industry trying to profit from the low-end pc's since the high-end pc market is gone. Thus not pushing individuals to current "Moore's Law" machines.

Answer: Its Microsoft for not following common trend. But don't blame it on Token Black Guy or Creapy College Girl.

I think I found the perfect town for the IT efficient. Welcome to PDX country that I've explored over 4 days. I came into Portland for two goals, 1 to show up at a wedding.... 2 to learn about the area. Well... number 2 put more practice into science... I've asked local members of the community nearly at random to tell me one bad thing about Portland...two or three said "lack of diversity", others have said "the amount of rainfall".

Rumor has it that it rains here 11 months a year...and closes if it snows.... By that definition alone I don't know why most of the sophisticated midwesters haven't moved to Portland. We have dealt with more bad weather (In Chicago / NW Indiana) than a lengthy rain season in local books for the Pacific Northwest.

Its a different climent and..also.atmosphere of people. This city is opposite of what their signs say, its not boring nor sandy....i rather say intriguing and investigative would be the best description.

For most midwesterners....imagine Indianapolis within a mountain range.... and you'll get close to the description of the awesomeness of this area...

What works in a bad economy?

There are few winners in a poor economy. The trick is to live like a college student. Slightly listed in the press, the nissin company has made bankroll in the amount of demand of their products. Perhaps the fact it acts as the meal in the cup, or the fact it sells for less than 75 cents per meal for most individuals. The marshallparthenon.com suggest that certainly many people, including college students, will be cutting back on spending and what they can and cannot do. By cutting back it does not mean every person has to eat Ramen noodles for dinner four times a week, even if it is a staple of student dining.

There has been other undocumented winners, because of course it isn't news worthy. Vistaprint has seen a large increase of demand for business cards for individuals to work as consultants, which I personally can say is a bad idea. Along with that is paper companies providing resume materials including card stock. You can imagine the Kinkos/FedEx are not haven problems as well.

I've always stated that the groceries changes are winning like gang busters. And it is true. Year to date, grocery stores have grown during economic times and been steady during "transition". It is logical that those who can't afford or for those who can't go out to the mom and pops every other night are now making more meals at home.

On the IT path I've seen companies drop the price of their equipment significantly if not promote their netbook line more often. The prices I currently see for products are justified for two groups now again, have money and have little money, similar to the have and have nots. Many netbooks are advertized as the all in one need for cheap mobile computing. Meanwhile the advance notebooks are still as expensive, if not more than I would expect this time of year.

I recommend all my clients to purchase their PC's two times a year. During back to school sales around July and August. Of course also during Xmas salesathon, which I suggest is a last case scenario.

Citizens Against Government Waste says Little Calumet Project is a waste of taxpayer dollars

I was listening to the Roe Conn show today. During the 5:30 segment roe mentioned the latest CAGW "pig book" has been released. This book lists all the governmental "pork projects". The idea of this book is to reduce government and taxpayer waste. The first project that Roe talked about was the Little Calumet River Project. He said that the CAGW doesn't think federal money should be used to finish the project. When I got home, I had to read this report. The following is an expert about the project.

$20,422,414 for 11 projects by House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.),
including: $4,000,000 for Army Corps of Engineers construction in the
Calumet region; $2,000,000 for Army Corps of Engineers construction along
the Lake Michigan waterfront; $1,600,000 for Indiana shoreline erosion;
$1,450,000 for the small boat harbor on Burns Waterway; and $951,500 for the
Purdue Calumet Inland Water Institute.

So the CAGW doesn't really think that Northwest Indiana deserves this money. Did they not see the pictures. The entire area was devastated. Not only that, it was two years to the day that Highland and Griffith flooded. The Northwest Indiana times has an entire site devoted to the flood, which can be viewed here.

All of the Munster residents that lived near the river had flood damage. Some people lost stuff in their basements, where as other people lost everything. It honestly looked like New Orleans. Even 80/94 was shut down for several days. 80/94 isn't some small highway. It is one of the busiest interstate in the Midwest.

This is one project that is not government waste. The little calumet project has been going on long enough. 25 years have been spent trying to raise the levee from 12 feet to 18 feet. Luckily, the levee just outside my house was raised to 18 feet, otherwise it would have been a disaster.

If the CAGW thinks this project is waste. then let them have their basements flood. Lets see how much they like it when they have nothing. Lets see what happens when FEMA says there is nothing they can do. I completely disagree with CAGW assessment of this "pork" project.

Chuck to the CW?

In late January, I posted an entry about the TV show Chuck. The day after the Superbowl, Chuck was broadcast in 3-d. I watched the 3-d episode and it was okay. It was neat to see the show in 3-d, but nothing special.

We probably won't know until May 5th if Chuck is going to be renewed for a third season. The ratings have been average for the show. It has been averaging roughly 6.25 million viewers. The ratings are okay, but not great. Also, NBC has to remove five hours of prime time TV because Jay Leno will be on Weekdays at 9:00(central).

If NBC decides to cancel Chuck, there is a chance that the CW will pick it up. According to this article, the president of entertainment at CW is interested in picking up Chuck. We'll have to wait and see.

Update: NBC has renewed Chuck for 13 episodes. New episodes will air in March. There is also discussion about ordering the back 9 episodes of season 3.

New Sprint Commercial

Sprint has a new commercial to help lauch their new 4g network. I found this commercial to be rather entertaining.

The AIG bailout and other ramblings

As you well know the federal government has repeatably given AIG several bailouts. Basically trying to keep AIG in business, because if they were to fail the economy would crash. So we the taxpayers have given AIG $175 billion. Yesterday while listening to the radio I heard that AIG has given some employees around $165 million in bonuses. That $165 millions is taxpayer money. Giving that money as bonuses to their employees is unacceptable. The $165 million should be rescinded and paid back to the government. Better yet, we should let AIG fail. I'm tired of giving them bailouts.

An example would be giving your friend some money. Your friend begs and says that they need the money so they can pay their bills. A few days later you find out your friend is using your money to make road trips and buying cigarettes and beer. If you knew this before hand, you would have never loaned your friend money.

On another note, I was reading the latest issue of CPU magazine. There is an article about Windows 7. One of the new features of Windows 7 is the calculator. For some reason Microsoft decided to add a mortgage calculator. I'm not really sure why Windows 7 needs a mortgage calculator, but it sounds neat.

Lastly, the Dow ended its 4 day rally today. Today the Dow lost 7 points, to close at 7216.97. The Dow is better than it was 1 week ago, but things could change rapidly. Also, gas prices are on the way down.

Bobby Knight motivational speech

SOLID!

Just for fun I added this one:

Which coach in the NCAA tourney is gonna have a blow up?

Purdue is Big Ten Champions

BOILER'UP

Edit: So I got a few emails asking what this is all about. Well its story time.

Over Xmas, Purdue was considered the top team in the Big Ten, with Illinois projected to be one of the lower teams in the league. My brother a U of I graduate and I made a timely bet at the time. I said Purdue would sweep Illinois, and for added punch I gave him a requirement that Purdue would sweep Iowa. The rules of the bet, loser would have to wear either a rediculous Illini hat (one of those North Dakota winter hats, at least I assume) or a fabulous pink Purdue shirt for 2 weeks.

My brother a key financial broker for a major financial firm required I wear the hat for every game Purdue lost to the four. Well they lost to Illinois, twice.... So to save my pride I reapplied the deal. I said double or nothing. Purdue will do better than U of I in both the Big Ten Tournament and the NCAA tournament. Well today, one of the two requirements are complete, and poor Illinois lost their leader to injury. Oh and Purdue beat U of I in the Big Ten Tournament and went ahead and won it for the championship. I'm sure I speak for a small 2-4% of the majority but I have Purdue winning it all in my bracket.

WRONG!

Everything is amazing, nobody is happy...

Louis C.K. was on Conan and has sort of a technology rant. It's pretty entertaining.

Alarm Clock changes time by itself

I was listening to the radio earlier today and I noticed something kind of weird. The host said the time and then I looked at my alarm clock and it was 20 minutes fast. I thought that maybe the radio was wrong, but my cell phone, laptop and watch all had the correct time.

Last night I did play with the alarm clock, I tried changing the radio stations and change the brightness from low to hi. I don't see how any of these things could have changed the time. Maybe my cat changed the time. She now likes to sit on my laptop keyboard.

Update: I checked the alarm clock later in the evening. The time on the alarm clock said 9:32pm. My cell phone said 9:20. I turned the brightness from high back to low and the alarm clock has kept the correct time. I shoudln't buy any more electronics from Meijer.

Paypal Part 4

Yesterday night, I went to check my credit card statement online. I noticed that the paypal verification charge had been posted. I copied the pin number that appeared with the transaction and verified my account. I was supposed to be able to withdraw money, but my account still had limited access.

This morning, I checked my email and my account was fully restored. So this whole process took 12 days. If I had a business account and had to pay bills, how was I supposed to wait 12 days to pay bills.

Paypal Part 3

This is my third blog entry about my PayPal account. After changing passwords and verifying all sorts of information, I assumed that within a few days the "limited access" would be lifted. After eight days I waiting, I finally got tired. I tried to call PayPal but got caught in IVR hell. So instead, I went online and found out that I need to enter a credit card number, which PayPal will charge $1.95. Once I see the charge on my credit card statement, I provide PayPal with the four digit number associated with that transaction. Paypal will then deposit the money back into my account. Then hopefully I will have full access to my PayPal account. This is a pain in the neck.

I know that protecting my identity is something that should be taken seriously. I understand that PayPal doesn't want someone using my account again. I just wished things were explained more clearly. I spent about 15 minutes just randomly clicking buttons.

Did you know?

I found this video rather interesting. Credit to my sister for finding this video.

The song in this video is Right Here Right Now by Fatboy Slim

Will Exchange 2010 have a better version of unified communications?

Back in November of 2007 Michael and I went to a Microsoft event in Lincolnshire, IL. It was at a movie theater of all places. The event was about Exchange 2007 service pack 1 and a preview of Windows Server 2008. What I remember most about this event was the presentation on Unified Communications. I also remember that it was freezing out and the drive took forever (thank you Illinois Department of Transportation).

The general idea of Unified Communication is that you can now use your phone to communicate with your email server. At first I was confused, but once I saw it in action, I was stunned. Rather than simply calling your secretary and having them reschedule your appointments or read your email, you call into the pbx which connects to the exchange server. You communicate via outlook voice access with voice prompts. You can change your meeting times (provided you have meetings), have your email read to you and even reply. The system will read to you using text to speech, which sounded pretty good. When you reply, it will be a wav file because speech to text isn't available. The person who you replied too will receive an attachment of your reply.

Michael wrote a research paper about Unified Communications. I helped setup the exchange server and the other components. We had to use trixbox because the cisco router is too expensive. It was really neat, when it worked properly. The sipx and trixbox servers were a lot more difficult. Configuring those servers caused me plenty of headaches. I learned you can't reliably run vmware workstation on a Windows 2003 domain controller.

Microsoft hasn't officially announced the next version of exchange yet. I'd be real interested to see what features have been improved and added. Exchange 2007 is a decent email server. When it works, it works well.

There was a lack of inexpensive voip solutions that would work with Exchange 2007. Michael and I couldn't afford to buy an expensive cisco router just to test it with Exchange 2007, nor could calumet tech services. Also, it was rather complicated to setup. Luckily, I was able to find some walk-through that worked somewhat well.

As simple google search turned up this about the next version of exchange (http://it-proknowledge.blogspot.com/2009/01/exchange-14-rumors-e14.html):

In the Unified Messaging (and unified communications) area there will be big improvements and new features. One specific feature that MS has mentioned is that location profile synchronization is no longer needed for OCS <-> Exchange integration.
Better Caller-ID resolution is also a "known" improvement. Huntgroup and Agent configuration and usage will also be improves.

One of the very cool features of Exchange 2007 is the ability to call and talk to your Exchange server, also called Outlook Voice Access. One of the major drawback with this feature is that it can only perform voice recognition with English. Also text to speech is limited to a few languages. In E14 Microsoft will expand the support to 26 languages for both voice recognition and text to speech.

Paypal Part 2

I was working at a client yesterday. After I finished repairing the computer. I decided to check my email using my HTC Mogul (from sprint). I checked my email and notice paypal has refunded me the money that was taken out. My account still has limited access, but the money has been returned.

I don't know if I was phished or if someone found a flaw with paypal. My advice is if you ever receive a email message from your bank, paypal, credit card company. Never click on the link in the email. Always go to the official website of the company.

Also, see if the company allows you to use strong passwords. Strong passwords include uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and symbols. Strong passwords are harder to guess. Sometimes its better to use a combination of letters and numbers. For instance try Pass2word instead of Password2. Better yet, don't use a dictionary word. Something like T1HX9D3TS.

PayPal

I've been selling a lot of stuff on ebay over the past few weeks. Since ebay will only allow people to use paypal to pay, I have to use paypal. Just a few minutes ago, I check my email. Someone that I don't know has requested $50 from me. Paypal took the money out of my balance. Now my account is in "limited access". I was able to change my password and security questions. I've already filed a dispute with paypal. When I get more information, I will write a new entry.

You can now call calumet tech services

If you need to get a hold of Calumet Tech Services and need your computer repaired please call our new phone number at (219)961-2960 or email us at solutions@calumettech.com. We will be happy to provide you with "solutions at minimal cost". Please leave a message and we will try to return your call within 24 hours.

We provide services in Northwest Indiana and some parts of Illinois.

Chuck Vs. The Third Dimension

For the first time in broadcast television history an entire episode of a series will be in 3-d. The TV show "Chuck", will broadcast in 3-d this coming Monday. February 2nd at 8 eastern, 7 central. During the Superbowl, there will also be some commercials that will be broadcast in 3-d too. One is for the movie monster vs aliens

You can pickup glasses at any grocery store that sells sorbe, pepsi, or pepsi max. I was able to find a pair at Strack and Van Til. I went to several Jewel-Osco stores and couldn't find any glasses.

I'd be interested to see how well these 3-d glasses work. I remember playing Rad Racer on my Nintendo and it had the same style glasses. I could never get them to work. The only thing that would happen is I would get motion sickness.

United States Postal Service considering reducing mail delivery

The United State Postal Service has a major budget short fall. Last year the postal service was nearly 3 billion dollars in the red. In order to decrease the budget gap, the postal service is expected to raise rates another 2 cents in May. Also, another option is to reduce delivery from the current 6 days to 5 days. The most logical day to reduce delivery on is Saturday. Another day is to reduce delivery is Tuesday.

The postal service has had their share of issues. I sell things on ebay and now its completely too complicated to figure out how much to charge people. There used to be a set rate depending upon the weight of the item. Sometime in 2003, the USPS changed the way prices were set. Instead of using just the weight, they use zones too. It way too complicated.

Bubbles in the cold!

Today is the coldest day I have experienced and the coldest for Chicago since the mid 90's. It should be noted I grew up in St. Louis. So where are the global warming activists? Are they in the southern hemisphere complaining about the heat to Brazilians and South Americans? No, extreme winters are suppose to happen according to global meteorologists. Since global temperatures stay constant, warm air now circulates in concentrated manners as well as cold air. Thus record breaking cold.... ok. Now I say where is Global Warming as a joke, sure it does exist that conditions have changed since the 70's and 80's. What I disagree with is how the global activist are now claiming extreme cold conditions are a factor towards global warming. The problem is that 2008 was an oddity.

So as always, I have to tie this with IT. New danger, google searches causes emissions. Apparently 2 google searches produces as much CO2 emissions as boiling a kettle of tea. So of all the environmental things we are suppose to do, we now should limit our google searches because of all the routers and connections between your signal to the google warehouse waste so much energy. The article states that IT world emits as much as the airline industry. I welcome a greener IT world, however, it may cost us in the long run if we sanction such. As we move more into notebooks and netbooks, it looks like a reality anyway due to the lower power usage and better recycled components.

Basically I like hearing random tidbits of what is causing global damage, but please don't threaten me about it. The biggest step would be lowering the human population, but that comment is taboo everywhere except China. I'll keep making plastic bubbles in -24C/-12F temperatures.