I was at my public library last week, when I noticed a book called "Send - the essential guide to email for office and home." I thought to myself, eh, why not get it? After all it seemed like light reading, and like something that I would enjoy. I am glad I borrowed this book from the library, because not only did it give me insight into some aspects of email (and other non-verbal, electronic forms of communication) that I had not stopped to consider (even though they were in my subconscious...somewhere), but it also re-affirmed things I either knew to be true, or my gut was telling me were true. Here are a couple of things I learned or were re-affirmed:

1. At a previous workplace - my last few days in fact, we had a new director. His first decree was to give everyone a blackberry, because voice communication was inefficient, email will speed things up (i.e. make things more efficient). At the time, both I am my colleagues disagreed (and still do). Voice communication is not inefficient, email is. If you take your time to craft a well worded, properly spelled email that does indeed convey what you want to convey, you will spend more time than actually talking to someone. Email's perceived speed is based on the fact that you can type five words, click send, and believe that the recipient knows what you are talking about. I've had many of these emails where I needed to either ask for clarification emails, and there have been many times I had to call the sender to ask what they meant in their email!

2. The cover you own behind emails - also known as CC everyone (or even worse, put everyone in the TO line). Again, in a previous work environment, most emails were relevant to my work. They were emails from my boss, colleagues and vendors. There were of course a few 'ha ha' emails and a few 'delete this' rumor emails (both no-nos in send), but the great majority were relevant. At a more recent work environment, there are a lot of CYOA (cover your own behind) emails, where people send the email TO everyone at the work-site, even if they do not need the information. This has contributed to many emails just being tossed without looking at the information, which in the end causes a lot of confusion and disorganization. I've hated CYOA emails, and I tried resisting the CYOA type of email, but unfortunately it is being imposed on me...

All things considered, this is a good book to read whether you are a rank-and-file employee, or a manager (somewhere in the managerial food chain).

Tags: books, englighting, entertainment, work, technology, email, annoying, thought

Way back when, when I was trying to decide on what cellular service provider to choose, my two main concerns were coverage and ability to send SMS message abroad. I looked at Verizon, but they did not have text messages back then (from what I remember), I looked at sprint, but they could not send mobile email (aka SMS back then) to non sprint phones. I found a company called omnipoint - a GSM carrier, the only one back then in my area. I went with GSM since I could send SMS abroad. It later turned out that the networks that I was text messaging were GSM, so this might have been the reason for compatibility.

Text messages back then cost 10 cents to send, 10 to receive. It did not matter if they were domestic, or international - just 10 cents!
After a number of acquisitions (omnipoint --> voicestream ---> T-mobile), text messaging became 15 cents to send to international locations, and still 10 to receive! This meant that if you had a a 'bucket' of SMS messages, it was useless for sending international SMS!

When I switched to cingular, outgoing international SMS were 20c per message, 10c incoming (or 0c if you had a bucket). Now it is rumored that sending international SMS will cost 25c and receiving will cost 15c. WTF??? I am not charged extra for sending international emails, why am I charged more for international SMS? This is highway robbery! Unfortunately, carriers around the world have decided that it is profitable to charge these fees, so they do it. Unbelievable!

Tags: SMS, technology, annoying, rip-off, mobile phones, international

OK...After the Fox execs, come the CBS execs in the incoming class of B-school freshmen. Today I found out that Jericho is officially cancelled by CBS. What the hell do these television executives not get? Jericho was the best new drama on television (yes better than Drive!) and they cancel it! Of course there are the obligatory online petitions that people are signing in order to keep the show on the air (approximately 85,000 thus far). There is the send NUTS campaign, more of a guerilla tactic to show support for the show in a non-traditional way (approximately 21,000 pounds of nuts already sent). There are many, many, forums online where people complain, scheme and buzz about what to do to keep their favorite show on the air.

What really solidifies this, though, as a concrete case of being asleep at the (managerial) helm, is the fact that CBS execs have admitted that the signatures in the online petition and the buzz around this show have far surpassed similar means to bring back other cancelled shows. Yet they still stand firm in their decision to keep the show cancelled. WTF? The show was supposedly cancelled due to low ratings, but there are a lot of people, an unprecedented amount, chiming in about it, yet you won't budge? What business school did you come from? Un-frikking-believable!

Do you like Jericho? Complain to your local CBS affiliate, sign the petition, complain to CBS proper, send nuts (if you want to spend money), and tell your friends!

Tags: entertainment, complaints, television, jericho, petition

I have not watched newer movies in a long time.
I've been doing some catch up on the weekends on films that I missed during this, and last, semester.
Back in the day, when DVDs were new, one of the features touted was that you did not have the 'coming attractions' at the beginning of the film, like you did with VHS tapes, thus you could watch the film you bought (or rented) right away. Well now it seems like publishers of DVDs are going back to the good ol' days of VHS. every single film I have watched the last few weekends has had 'coming attractions' preceding the film and you did not have the ability to hit the menu to go to the movie's options (scene selection, play film, etc). The only thing you could do is fast forward or next scene which moved you on to the next 'coming attraction'.

Gimme a break! I hated the 'coming attractions' in VHS and I hate them on DVD! I like to have them as optional, like they were for so many years, so I could go and see what movies are interesting AFTER I have watched what I paid for!

Tags: entertainment, DVD, ads, annoying

Now publishing with Rapidweaver 3.6!!!!
Sort of like waiting for leopard to come out, the excitement over rapidweaver 3.6 had been mounting over the past month.
The time is here, and I think it is a worth while upgrade for existing users, and something people should pick up
Head over to yourhead.com to pick up Blocks 3.0 while you're at it

Tags: macintosh, software, rapidweaver, internet, excitement

Back at the end of 2006 I was part of an audience for a demonstration (and sales pitch) for a plagiarism detection service called turn it in. As a student and as someone who has been in academia for close to ten years now, I can see how such a service can be useful. There are things though that really irk me about turn it in, the main one being that anything submitted to their service for examination automatically becomes part of their database, and any future work submitted is compared to past works submitted. In effect, they are using your original work for their benefit without paying you (the creator of the original content) royalties for using your work!

When we quizzed the reps on what the papers are compared against, they essentially told us that they are compared against papers already in their database, and any freely available content on websites that their crawlers scavenge. They do not have subscriptions to academic journals, newspapers, or other sources that require payment. If it's free, they have it, if not, they do not. They are in essence building, marketing and selling a for pay service while harvesting papers from students without giving those students any payment for contributing to the system. I recommend that no one use this service, and if you are a college student put a copyright disclaimer on your paper that prohibits submitting your paper to any service that will utilize it for commercial or non-commercial purposes without your expressed permission! Time to fight back!

Tags: homework, civil disobedience, rip-off, corporation, unbelievable

Japanese smartphones are making fun of our 'western' smartphones
I must say, it is quite funny, but what happens when your phone runs out of battery and you are locked out of your house, have no money to buy a train ticket to go to a relative's house where you might be able to charge your phone so you can get into your own house? I guess it would be 'boo hoo for you' too then

Tags: japan, mobile phones, comedy, technology, mockery

It has been a rough year at work maybe I will elaborate further in another post - but maybe this post is sufficient to underscore certain tones and themes. Anyway, about a month ago, one of my colleagues sent me an email, after I told him of a few of my work-woes, suggesting that our place of employment should purchase the book called the no asshole rule. I smiled at the title, given that the place had sucked me dry and made me a miserable human being, and I bookmarked the Amazon product listing page so that I could look at it when I went home.

When I came home, I looked on LinkedIn, as a few of my invitees has accepted my invitation, and I saw a plug for the book, and a related blog post by Guy Kawasaki. It peaked my interest more, so I went to Amazon and I read an excerpt from the first chapter (or what it the introduction? I can't remember), but it felt like the book was written for me! A few days later the book arrived via UPS and I started reading it. While going through the book, reading it made me feel like I was not alone. There were other people out there tortured by assholes in their workplace, be it bosses, clients or co-workers, the net effect was the same: high turn over, low job satisfaction, and low returns for the company (among many other things). It made me feel good that I was not alone facing such problems, and that there are businesses out there that really don't take any shit from these assholes. They, in effect, have a no asshole rule - if you are one, you are out!

There were a number of tips in the book (after all it does say it is a survival guide) that made sense, and I feel like I might be able to apply to my situation. The book was fun an interesting to read, and I feel like I got something out of it - the most important of which is that there is indeed hope. I sort of which that more people, at least where I currently work, would read this and have a good self-evaluation and see that others do see them as sadistic assholes, at least when they are within the confines of the company walls. One amazing statistic is that the effect of an asshole in a group is five times greater than the effect of a positive person. This means that it takes 5 cheery people to offset one asshole. This would explain the transformation I have seen from people entering the organization from high energy social go-getters, to locked-in-your-office low energy pessimists.

Anyway - in conclusion, it is a good read, I would recommend that people buy it and read it (or get it at your local library)

Tags: books, englighting, feel good, assholes, work, survival

OK, file this under 'murphy's law'
I mean, WTF ?! My Visual Studio installation was working fine (albeit slow since it's in virtual PC, but that is beside the point).
There were 96 windows updates (since I only installed Windows XP SP2 on my virtual machine), so I decided that I would do the updates and keep my virtual machine safe. Well this fubared my visual studio installation! The C# components no longer work Aaaaaarrgggghhh!
I spent yesterday reinstalling components of VS, but nothing... I will give it another try today with repair. Hopefully all will be fixed before tonight's presentation!
I hate windows

Tags: windows, XP, visual studio, microsoft, virtual PC, FUBAR, updates, development

...also known as the publishing houses.
I've been a college student for almost ten years now - yeah, I know, I am a perpetual student - nothing wrong with that! Anyway, I have gone through almost three degrees now, and one thing is constant: textbooks are expensive! When I was an undergrad, I was young and stupid and bough everything at the college bookstore (and paid premium for it!). Now I do my homework beforehand, and I get my books online. The college bookstore (effollet.com) does not provide me with an ISBN number, because obviously people can go elsewhere if they know the ISBN! Here is a comparison for a book (for a class that I am not taking, but I took in the past)

Book: Operations Management
ISBN: 0131-69739-0
Authors: Larry P. Ritzman, Manoj K. Malhotra, Lee J. Krajewski

Prices on effollet (and in the college bookstore:
New: $162.00
Used: 121.50

Holly mother!!!

OK... now lets look on amazon, just in case we get a better deal:
New: $125.01
"New & Used": $68

OK better...but let's look on addall.com
Lowest Price: $30
but since it's only one, there are a couple that cost $50.

All I can say is WTF?!?!?! Why do college students accept this horrible gouging?
If someone can sell the book used for $50-68, why would you buy it used at the college book store for essentially double the price?
Why would you pay three times the price to get it new at list price? The textbook industry is despicable. We should be promoting knowledge, not inhibiting it by pricing textbooks so high!

Tags: books, textbooks, bookstore, thieves, online, store, ISBN, price gouging

I am stuck doing documentation and feeling kinda bored.
This is weird, because normally I really like documentation! Countless times (at least for work) I have come up with manuals, cheat-sheets, assisted in writing departmental policies and SLAs, and it did not really bother me to just sit and write. I like documentation because it's concrete. You can document something and know what it is, what it is about, how it works, and how to fix it if it does not work properly - if written correctly of course!

When I code though, or if I am involved in software development, it's like there is a switch that goes off and I really get bored doing documentation. Eh! maybe I just need a break... gonna go grab a cola and motivate myself to finish it up.

Tags: coding, development, visual studio, windows, virtual PC, homework, school

A little over three years ago, I made the decision to go mobile with my computing. I have been a Macuser ever since I decided to buy my first computer (having been through the DOS/win 3.11 hell, and Amiga having gone under, Macs were the the logical choice). I bought my Powerbook G4 (the last of the PowerBooks) and I never looked back toward the world of desktop computing. Laptop + Large LCD + WiFi = Happy Camper.

I did notice one thing though, that I never noticed on my desktops and that is how much heat these things produce! If you get the laptop working, putting all of its MIPS to work for you, the bottom of the thing gets really hot! Not hot enough to burn you (I don't think - but then again it never makes contact with bare skin). Now I am running virtual PC (hopefully not for long), and other applications concurrently - I keep my mac cool with ice packs and appropriate moisture absorbers so I don't FUBAR my mac.

I think despite the heating issues, I would never go back to a desktop. Now if only docking stations were still available for Macs. I have two external hard drives, a keyboard, mouse, and printer/scanner. If I had a monitor too, it would be cool to just have one connection to make, not 6.

Tags: apple, macintosh, computer, temperature, hot, FUBAR, powerbook

the end of the semester is less than one week away!
A multitude of emotions flood my inner being at the moment...
... worry that I won't be able to get my OO prototype working...
... happyness that it's almost over ...
... excitednessessess that the summer is almost here (and I can enjoy a beer on my deck without homework in the evening) ...
... the adrenaline rush as I do my OO homework ...
... the warm and fuzzy feeling that I am half done with my second masters ...

Let's get to it!

Tags: exams, homework, excitement

First they cancelled Space: Above and Beyond. Then they cancelled Firefly. Now apparently they have also cancelled Drive.
What the hell? Honestly, Fox needs to send their execs back to B-School or just fire their sorry asses and get new ones! I was in class last night, but I had set the VCR (yeah, I know, antiquated technology). No Drive! After a couple of weeks of absence from the airwaves on Monday nights, I decided to investigate. CANCELLED! WTF? Cancelled due to low ratings and the final 2 episodes will be aired on July 4th.
Excellent plan! I wonder who thought of that one. Maybe a gifted Fox Exec... So, they are basing their ratings on an antiquated way of statistical data gathering - the Nielsen ratings - that do no take into account people viewing their shows online, through both legal and illegal means, and they can the show. Secondly, there have only been four shows aired, the statistical sample is way too small! FURTHERMORE, they decide to air the series finale two months after the most recently aired episode. Who thought this would be a good idea? Instead of giving more people the opportunity to see the show on it's normal time, people that are used to watching Fox during that time slot due to Prison Break, for a completely random date in the summer. Are they planning on tying it in with Independence Day somehow? Dimwits!

Tags: stupid, television, drive, cancellation, management, marketing, entertainment

Yesterday I had a Keroro Gunso moment. I needed to feel like I needed to get something accomplished. After, quite literally, many months of feeling like I am spinning my wheels at that place, I started on my final approach to finish my ASP.NET project for my Object Oriented Systems Class. Working on Virtual PC though is very...very...very slow. So I put on a few podcasts on my speakers, gathered my cleaning supplies and set out on a mission to clean as much of the house before I had to go to class that evening, and work on my OO project when Virtual PC caught up with what I had asked it to do. So I was working on my project, and while I was waiting, I did some cleaning.

The result? Quite a few rooms are much more neat compared to before, cleaner, but not sparkling. I feel that warm fuzzy feeling again! You know! The one that you get when you do something and you can see noticeable results and someone appreciates the fact that you put effort into something. Yeah, that! Oh, yes, I did make progress with my ASP.NET work as well! It was slow...but made progress none the less.

My first foray into the smartphone world was with my trusty SonyEricsson P800 (pictured on the left). Now this was not the first smartphone to ever exist, the Nokia 9000 and 9110, and the Ericsson R380w all predate the P800. The P800 is, what I consider, the first of the 'new' generation of smartphones. The P800 runs on Symbian UIQ and was introduced in January of 2002. Around the same time the Nokia 7650 was released running Symbian Series60. Things looked to be going very good initially, but we did not see a lot of UIQ phones come out, despite the fact the Ericsson licensed the OS. Nokia on the other hand started releasing S60 devices like there was no tomorrow! Fast forward to today, five years later, there are about 13 UIQ based devices, compared to about 53 running S60.
There are more MOAP phones than UIQ phones! Mind you, MOAP phone are only available in Japan!
So what is going on with UIQ? Not a lot of devices means that not a lot of software will be made for it, which makes the devices less appealing. Furthermore, I've noticed that all devices that run UIQ are GSM Triband! Come on! It's 2007 already! All phones, especially the phones you want to sell, should be at least GSM Quadband and HSDPA triband (2100/1900/850)!
Even if SonyEricsson opened stores in the US, like Nokia and Motorola have opened, who would buy a Triband phone? Even carriers like T-Mobile who use GSM 1900 can't fully use the phone because in recent years they have signed roaming agreements with GSM 850 providers! Time to get with the program Ericsson and SonyEricsson!

I am the proud owner of a PowerPC based Macintosh laptop, a PowerBook to be precise.
My powerbook is three and a half years old, and it is still kicking major ass when it comes to my computing needs. When Apple announced last year that they would be making Macs with Intel chips in them I was a very happy camper, because I knew that when it came time to replace my faithful workhorse I would be able to run other operating systems virtualized and gain many associated benefits.

I also knew, from previous experience, that it would take a while for application to: (1) be Intel only and (2) for PowerPC to be phased out completely. After all, I lived through both the m68k to PowerPC and OS9 to OSX transition periods. In both instances I was able to use everything I needed and I could experiment with applications that I wanted for quite some time after the change was announced. With the m68k transition period it was two or so years before I noticed (and cared!) that there were applications that I wanted to run, but they were PPC only. I kept my original m68k Mac for 5 years before it got to a point where I needed to replace it.

With the Classic to OS X transition, even though I had the 10.0 beta, and I had 10.0 and 10.1 on a partition, I did not feel the need to change until 10.2 came out, even then I took my time. Between release of the beta and my switching to 10.2, it was about two or so years.

Last fall, when I learned the news that Adobe would be making it's light-room software to be Intel only, I thought to myself 'big deal'! I wouldn't even use the software. Yesterday I got an invite for Joost, something I've been waiting for eagerly, but my testing ambitions were cut short when I realized that the Joost beta is Intel only. D'oh! It has only been a year! Should I be noticing applications that I want to use but cannot due to my computer's architecture? I really did not expect that applications would be dumping the PPC platform so fast.

It's a sad day for faithful mac users...

A couple of days I was musing about my experiences with Sprint's EV-DO, and the device I used on that network was RIM's Blackberry 8703e.

My musings of EV-DO brought back (somewhat painful) memories of Crackberry usage! Granted, it was a worth while experience to have a blackberry and mess around with RIM's offerings, but in retrospect, I think the Blackberry, at least the one that only has a scroll-wheel, is quite a horrendous device, internet-slow-down aside!

The main reason I think that Crackberries are horrendous is their user interface. I know that there are many users out there that swear up and down and would bet their lives on the Blackberry's UI, however the truth is that the UI of this device, at least the way the hardware that interacts with the software, is deeply rooted in the original mobitex and DataTAC RIM devices such as the RIM 850 (pictured on the right).

The amount of data you got in these original RIM devices was quite miniscule compared to what we get today! Back then, the only thing that these device supported were email and WAP. Now we get full websites, email, MS office attachments, games, photos, Instant Messaging, and other functions that were never conceived of when the hardware/software interface was designed! what does this lead to?

The Answer is: Blackberry thumb! The more email you get, the more attachments you get, the more you need to switch between applications the worse it gets! Furthermore, it is painfully obvious that the Blackberry UI was designed with a right-handed person in mind. I am right-handed so it doesn't bother me as much, but from a UI engineering/design perspective it is pretty bad. When I had the blackberry, after a month of use, my fingers hurt!

Don't get me wrong, I love scroll-wheels, I have really disliked devices that did not have one, but it can't be the main method of interface between the user and the operating system (and subsequently the applications loaded on to that machine).

One a related note, when I had a blackberry, I felt like constantly checking it for new email when I had it on silent (even though nothing was THAT important) and when I had the sound enabled I would still twitch when I thought I had a new message. I think I have beaten my crackberry addiction. Good bye!!!

Well... I feel like an idiot!
I decided to mess around with my virtual PC image (the one that has Windows XP and Visual Studio 2005) to see if I could determine why I was getting a webserver error whenI was trying to compile my ASP.NET pages. I shouldn't need to have IIS installed with 2005 (at least according to my sources) but I did install it anyway - just in case. Guess what? It works! My application needs to have some changes made to it so that it does what I want it to do, but the webserver comes up and I am able to see it!

The speed is slower than a snail...but hey, beggars can't be choosers!
A week and a half left until end of the semester - development crunch time is now!

Back in October, I was given a Blackberry 8703e on the Sprint CDMA EV-DO network (pictured) in order to conduct business. After a few months I gave it back, one of the many reasons was that it was a nuisance, but that is a topic for another post. Anyway, I was listening to an engadget podcast the other day and I was hearing how fast EV-DO is. If you frequent HowardForums there are a number of fanboys that battle it out frequently - which is faster? EVDO or HSDPA? I don't pay attention to the debates but I was thinking to myself the other day, after I heard it again on engadget, "EV-DO is fast?!, Really?!?!"

Now, I rarely use data on my phone, primarily because it is way to expensive for my tastes and I already have WiFi at home, so I tend to either be on my laptop over 802.11g, or on my N80 over that 802.11 connection. There have been a few times that I have been on mobile data. Most recently to download an application on my N80 when I did not have a WiFi connection, and to update data on several programs on my N80. I really did not think much of the speed of EDGE until I recalled the painful speeds on my Blackberry on EV-DO!

When I had the blackberry, I decided to utilize as many features as possible, just in case some director or assistant director wanted to ask me questions regarding functionality and troubleshooting (despite the fact that it wasn't my job). I went online with the built-in web browser, and all I can remember were the painfully slow connection! I did have a full signal and I did have an EV connection, but despite that full websites were painfully slow to come up! WAP sites were fine and came up rapidly, but full were not. My main experinece with wireless data is 802.11, and even on 'b' you are surfing faster than EV-DO rev0! Now EV-DO is billed as 'broadband speed' - but I really did not experience that. Of course when you compare 1x-rtt to EV-DO or if you compare EDGE to HSDPA, of course it's going to be faster, but is it really 'broadband'?

AppleTV has been available for quite some time now globally. It is a pretty nice device whose pros, cons and hacks have been discussed by many sites. I would suggest that you head over to Engadget of you want to read everything about the AppleTV.

Just as a quick recap (so that we can flow into my point more easy, without the need for you to do much research):
The good:
* out of the box 802.11n
* hard drive to store some content
* you can view your iTunes movie purchases
* you can view your iTunes television show purchases
* you can view your iPhoto photo rolls
* you can listen to your downloaded podcasts and vidcasts
* you can listen to your iTunes music (both purchased, and ripped)
* you don't need a ginormous Media Center PC in your living room!

The Bad:
* no way to import your own DVD movies or shows (like you can with your music).
* only US customers can buy movies and shows on iTunes, no one else (not even Canadians!!!) so you are limited to music, podcasts and photos on Apple TV if you live abroad.
* no way to play your homemade movies.


Now, thinking about my usage and purchasing habits I would most likely not buy an AppleTV because I simply don't buy shows from Apple. I see what I want on TV, and if I miss something I go on the network's website and watch a streaming version - I hook up my PowerBook to my TV and watch shows to my heart's content, and it's all legal! (although sometimes choppy). *DING* *DING* *DING* !!! IDEA! Here is how to improve the AppleTV (probably won't happen, but I feel like I have to voice my opinion):

Idea #1: Network Integration
ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CW, Comedy Central and other networks offer recent episodes of their hit shows online, for free, streaming over the internet. Yes, before you call me a boofoon, I understand the risk of cutting into Apple's business sales on iTunes, however the networks already run this risk by offering the shows for free on their websites! At least if recent episodes are offered on AppleTV (though the networks) for free, there is opportunity for exposure and the ability to spark interest to buy the previous episodes that won't be available, or buy that particular episode because at that point in time the network traffic might be too high and therefore the streaming might be choppy. Some might say that this is an incentive to make streaming be bad quality and choppy, but hey - you can't please everyone.

Idea #2: Rip your own!
This has been mentioned before in the past by others, but I should echo the sentiment. I have a DVD library. I don't want to repurchase the movie or TV show. I want to rip my own and use it on the apple TV. Support for Dvix and other formats would be nice so that I can rip my own DVD and/or provide me with a free utility to rip my DVDs in the MPG4 format that Apple uses.

Idea #3: Streaming and FM Radio.
I don't know how many people listen to FM these days, but since the Radio Shark is selling, people are listening! How about supporting both live radio (FM) and streaming radio. iTunes already supports streaming, so why not have such an ability in AppleTV?

Idea #4: YouTube and IP TV
It would be interesting to have Integration of youTube (at least browsing because searching could be an issue without a keyboard!) and "IP TV" that is freely available on the internet. Media Central offers both services and I find that being able to see television from other counties and youtube clips is pretty useful.

Idea #5: New Media!
It would be interesting to have a built in web 2.0 social media readers such as: RSS feed reader, a flickr photo stream integration, and iPhoto RSS reader, just as a few examples. Obviously Apple might not want to maintain so many relationships and applications, but what about making these web 2.0 social media integration apps as downloadable widgets for the AppleTV? People can write the application, but only if it gets Apple's seal of approval can it be downloaded from Apple's download service on the AppleTV (or in iTUnes and then synched to the AppleTV)


just a few ideas!

Having 'just' graduated from the MBA program, I know of a lot of new age management techniques and theories (that made consultants money hands over fist!) that just fell flat on their face and caused industry many growing pains when they tried to implement them, but suffered the results of both implementation (remember, most people resist change!) and the results of the failure of the theory (because after all it was just a fad).

When I go to the library, I tend to just stick to three sections (1) Technology - where I can go and get how-to books on 'new' technologies such as AJAX, (2) Animé - Where I can go get my dose of Sci-Fi excitement (X/1999) and drop-to-your-knees comedy (Sgt. Frog), and (3) Movies - If you are patient, the public library gets all the new movies, just request it and when it is available you will get to see it. I know it's a bit of a Soviet way of thinking, but if I really, really, really want to see a movie, I will just get it on on-demand, but by-en-large I can wait - but I diverge!

Recently my wife was looking in the business section of the library, because she wanted to have a look at what people have been writing about small businesses, so I ventured into the business section of the library with her. I noticed a whole heck of a lot of new age management books (with titles similar to the comic strip above). Some methodologies are OK, and can work, some are just total crap, but as the comic strip says 'it's crazy enough, it might just work!" When people try to implement an improvement strategy, based on one of these books, they
focus too much on the actual strategy and methodology itself and not on what they actually want to accomplish! Which is why things fail.

This reminds me of our library's BUM meetings (an unfortunate acronym, I know!). This was a prelude to the strategic planning meetings that we would later have. The point of the meeting, like all Strategic Planning Meetings, was supposed to be where do we see the library in 10 years and what is our action plan? OK. What did it devolve to? Instead of discussing goals, objectives and action plans for the future, we started talking about HEADLINES - yes! Headlines we would like to see in the newspaper about the library! The New age management BS-o-meter went off when I heard the plan of what we were doing. It could have stayed on point, it could have worked, but it didn't. People spent too much time stressing about the headlines to actually think of the basics of any Strategic Plan such as a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis!!!

Now this incident was many, many months ago, perhaps even last semester. There are no more BUM meetings (thank God!), but they have been replaced by actual strategic planning committees which now, thankfully, involve all library staff (after all, any good manager knows that good ideas float to the top, but if you don't involve the line workers, you don't have the opportunity to have them float up). To my knowledge, we have not had any strategic planning meetings, sub-meetings, pre-meetings, or even water-cooler talk! I wonder if people are still stick on the Headlines - extra extra, read all about it!

I bought my PSP back in November (In anticipation of my graduation from the MBA program), so I've had this game for quite some time now, but I did not really get into it until recently. Sure, I played a few rounds, cleared a few of the basic tours, but nothing more than that.

Recently, I picked up the game again, after a long time of abstinence, and I think I am hooked. I haven't completed all of the courses yet (I think I have 6 EX tours and 4 PRO left) but I am now the new Ridge Racer (i.e. I've completed the game). I find this weird.

Usually, in all previous games I have played (from my Atari to Sony consoles) you usually needed to finish all tours, all courses, all levels before you got to the "congrats! you've completed the game" movie scene.

I am still going through the game (although less now since the end of the semester is near and I need to really focus on getting those final projects done), so that I can clear all courses and see if there are hidden goodies in the game (beyond racing against some weird propeller propelled rocket car).

This game was really nice, but I did have one problem. When I hit walls head-on, or boulders, I would slow down (sometimes enough to lose a match), but my car was never totaled (or damaged in any way), so I could come back from a really bad crash. Now I could see myself annoyed by having a system that destroyed my car with every minor scratch on the side walls. All things considered though, a great game!