These Last Two Days

Wow, can you feel the slowdown of the Internet. Today is national Turkey Day.

In addition to a lot of personal stuff, I am thankful that there is no holiday in next week...

Hopefully, tomorrow will be better.

Be Grateful and Give Cold Hard Cash

I just saw a DSW Shoes ad that horrified me on so many levels. It's about two boots symbolizing people and the recipient boot is singing to the other about how horrible the gift it received was.

First off that is horrible, are we that ungrateful now?

Then it goes on to recommend gift cards-- kind of like cash but less useful and in practice less valuable. With the holiday season approaching, I probably won't be buying gift cards. I also will try to influence my wife not to either. And now you also. Seriously, I get that you want to put thought into it. But, just give cash if you are going to do that and be thoughtful in the card you stuff it into. Give them a form of currency that can be used anywhere at any time. Gift cards have expiration dates and often are as irreplaceable as cash if misplaced. However, five years down the road when checking the pockets of that jacket you never wear and you find cash it will be a cool surprise as opposed to an expired piece of plastic they cannot remember who it came from.

Netflix

I'm just going to say it. I love Netflix.

Recently, Marc Canter brought to my attention via Facebook a recent outage where Netflix clients were refunded or credited a certain amount. That was really nice of Netflix and only galvanizes my opinion of the company.

Marc's point of view here on broadbandmechanics.com

PC Mag's less point of view here


This might have something to do with an observation Alex Borsi's saw or brought to my attention where streaming has increased on what I think is a logarithmic scale even thought the graph I'm going to show you looks more like exponential growth. It doesn't so much matter at this point because both models skyrocket in the beginning which is where we are currently at. Coupling that with better streaming selection and access results in decreased DVD rentals despite growth in user base.

Graph likely based on actual hyper users
Disclaimer: This data is provided by a group that allows a more finely tuned Netflix experience. It's good because they are actual users like myself and most of my friends, but really think about the kind of people that think the standard interface is not good enough... I am just saying the results may be a bit skewed.

I don't know as much about the recent outage last week when the Netflix stock hit an all time high. Well, few people do.

Digital Home Post on cnet Regarding Outage

I think it all makes sense though. Streaming movies is awesome. The data shows that demand is growing. It is only logical that demand has reached a point where supply is beginning to be strained and the results are a slight degradation of quality of service.

It is as much my fault as anyone else's if you look at it the right way. When I contact the company to let them know what I wanted, I told them I wanted them to focus on getting more selections in the Watch Instantly section. --This time I had a pile of people that agreed with me and Netflix listened to us collectively. I should have also asked for paying attention to make sure the hardware could keep up with the demands. Demands that we only spurred higher by successfully asking for the service to be better in conjunction with a few other things like interactivity with many devices; specifically, making it compatible with devices like TiVo and game consoles.

The service has been slow lately, it is not rocket science to figure out why. It is probably pretty close to rocket science to fix it though and that is really all I am looking for.

Thinking About Machines and What They Mean to the Workforce

Sometimes I worry about the people that think computers are out to replace them. People that worry machines are going to take their jobs don't have as much to be afraid of as they seem to think they do.

From my perspective machines are an excellent supplement to dispatch the busy work. I look at a lot of sales departments and can't help but see how they can be positively augmented with an e-commerce web site. Computers are great at doing things over and over again especially simple things-- like filling orders from people that already like what you are selling and how you do business.

I see the machine as a tool that frees the salesman to do what the computer cannot do very well. A computer is not very good at finding new clients or convincing them that any company is the best value proposition. The best they can do is give you a positive 'face' on the internet and outline prices and practices.

Sometimes, it takes compromise to reach a mutually beneficial arrangement. A computer is not good at that, you need a person. People are the lifeblood of a business, they can see that shipping larger quantities per box may sway that one client that wants to save a few bucks on shipping. Computers are tools, they are not even mildly proficient negotiators.

And that is exactly how I suggest they be used, not to replace-- but to supplement the manpower already in place to significantly bolster productivity. What could you do to make yourself more valuable to your company and improve it's return on the cost of your salary? Would the relief of mundane and simple work allow you more time to think about and execute such changes?

And then there is paper. If you have a few hours to burn ask me about paper. Most people think of a piece of paper as inexpensive, cheap even. Hell you throw away or send out half of all the paper you use. But, think about it. You don't buy one piece of paper. Just at home we buy 500 sheets at time. A business will usually buy one or several cases at a time. --But you're sending half of it out. --And your customers and suppliers are sending as much right back to you. Now you're saving those paper case boxes to put files into because those file cabinets that you paid for are taking up square footage that you pay for and are being manipulated by employees that are being paid for. Paper is very expensive. The cost of paper is not linear, it is a variable cost that only goes up over time. The TCO of paper has no limit until you dispose of it. It is a plateau effect due to the somewhat constant cost of storage interspersed with cost spikes every time that piece of paper is touched or moved. Paper may be in the top ten of your total costs.

Computers, a decent amount of programming, and data entry can put an entire public library full of information into a space that is in total around three cubic feet. With the exception of books and government mandated paperwork that is required to be on paper, computers are the preferred storage medium in raw cost. I wish I had numbers to back up my theory, I just don't at this time.

Copying electronic data and working with it is almost always less error prone and faster. How much do transcription errors cost?

I will close with this, machines are excellent supplements to good workers and a fantastic replacement for paper based information systems. We just don't leverage our technological superiority as often as we should.

Open Invitation

I read somewhere that a great place to find ideas to write about, go to your readers. I don't know that I have a very big audience but feel free to leave a topic for me to explain. I like web programming the most, I have a lot of experience in hardware, and UNIX is fair game. I'm not a Microsoft fan, so although it's not what I like-- there sure is a lot of it out there and I'm going to leave the door open to that too. So, shoot. I'll see what I can do.

Take care,

-Brad Chesney
Rebel Leader
The Rust Belt Rebellion

http://rustbeltrebellion.com

TV Finally Headed in a Direction I Like

I've felt for a long time we were getting shafted by having our 'receiver' and 'audio' built into our 'screen'-- and for many years that is how all TVs were and still are sold.

I probably won't buy one, but this is a step in the right direction. I would like to give WD TV a pat on the back. Now that someone has separated the 'receiver' from the 'screen', it would be nice for a company to take it one further to solve the 'vampire electricity drain' from all of our devices.

Instead of having the audio, receiver, and the screen plugged in and on* all the time; maybe we'll get a screen and audio that completely powers off until the receiver module snaps a relay so that most of the devices only suck power when we are actually using them.




It may wind up being that I will want that next step towards modularity, compatibility, and miserly power usage.

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* How else do you think it monitors for a signal from the remote? It is on in a power save mode waiting to sense that you have pushed a button.

This was brought to my attention by Dave Wickman, he's one of those almost bleeding edge of technology people. He may evolve into one of the guys that has the thing before anyone else, but as of yet he's the guy with some of the newest toys available. Anyways, forwarding the link he posted: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=832 .

Take care & don't waste your life on subpar TV programming,


-Brad Chesney
Rebel Leader
The Rust Belt Rebellion

http://rustbeltrebellion.com

Computer Anti-Theft & Recovery Software

 I've gotten a few questions about computers being stolen, and a respected member of my local tech sector just had people close to him get what I am assuming are all the PCs they run their business on stolen. This is especially appropriate reading for your laptop toting college student or at least the parent that paid for the laptop to be 'toted'. (Is that a word?)

We cannot go back in time, but we can be smarter going forward.

There are several paid and free products out there. I may or may not be using them. You'll just have to try and steal my technology and see if the police come knocking.

I will assume since you have read this far you would like to inspire the same level of wariness in would-be thieves. We are busy people so let's just focus on three.

There is one paid product out there I am going to promote. I've installed it a number of times, it can be integrated into the computer's BIOS chip-- the electronics on the motherboard. That means if someone like me gets a hold of it copies the data and wipes the hard drive you will still have a chance that it will phone home and let you know where to pick up your baby. It is the only product I am aware of that has partnerships with vendors to do this. It is hands down the best and at $35 per year and less for multi-year agreements, it is reasonably priced. That product is the official Laptop LoJack. It will work without the special BIOS if your hardware manufacturer isn't a partner, it just won't be as crushingly effective. It can be installed on desktops. (Even the bulky towers are not immune to walking away.) For your money you get people dedicated to this as their job all day long. If $35 is in the budget, get this.

Then the other one I recommend and install is Adeona. It is an academic project and is somewhat effective. It wouldn't stop someone like me. But, I don't steal computers. It will help recover your laptop if the thief is like most average people that may or may not know much about this. Best of all, it is free for now.

The last one I saw is quick and dirty. It is by iHound software and as of now it is free. Also, check out their iPhone/iTunes application for you Apple device people. Keep an eye on these guys, the force is strong with these ones.

Lastly, most devices are just lost. Make them easy to return; etch your name & contact info into it or affix a sticker. The easier it is for someone like me (that does not steal computers) to let you know your device is safe and sound the more likely I am A) going to do it the first day & B) do it without digging through 'your business, miss thang'.

...that is unless you leave it on a bar stool and I can sell it to gizmodo for $10,000.

Take care & happy computing.

-Brad Chesney
Rebel Leader
The Rust Belt Rebellion

http://rustbeltrebellion.com

Welcome to the Rebellion

 About Ohio. Ohio is great. Cleveland and it's metropolitan suburbs are getting a bad rap. We have planes, trains, and automobiles. In addition to that we have access to a number of seaworthy waterways including the ocean via the Great Lakes. We have inexpensive real estate and just about all the infrastructure you could need for a booming local economy. Our infrastructure is world class.

But, you can't get far on that infrastructure without seeing our people. Good, hard-working people. Skilled people, educated people, people that are smart enough to live in a place with an excellent 'cost of living'.

Smart and successful companies have already made their decision to be here. The Cleveland area has world-class medical and educational facilities. People fly in from all over the world to be admitted to The Cleveland Clinic. Last I heard Case Western University received upwards of 5,000 applications for it's 100 or so first year medical student seats. Marc Canter, founder of Macromind which eventually became Macromedia, is starting to work with many companies in the Polymer Valley near the Akron-Canton area. Sherwin Williams and Lubrizol are the names on the tip of my toungue, but they aren't alone. We have armed guards protecting the welding wire manufacturing plant of Lincoln-Electric in Mentor. Ernst and Young, one of the Big Three accounting firms, has it's headquarters here. General Electric started calling back laid off workers. Chevrolet has several plants in Cleveland suburbs and further out in the Ohio hills. The list is long.

It hurts me that good jobs are so hard to come by. I am furious that so many people can't even find mediocre work.

I wake up angry. I have peered too long into the abyss and I took too much of it with me when I looked away. But, I am hopeful. And I have two hands. So many people from my past pushed me to be better. During an interview someone asked me, "If you are so smart-- what have you done with it?" It changed my life. Sometimes I wonder if I saw him again if I would punch him or thank him.

The bottom line is that I am certain I can do better and I can bring people up with me. There is a paraphrased saying from an old rabbi, "If not me, then who? If not now, then when?"

Thanks for reading, time to change the little patch of the world I live in.

-Brad Chesney
Rebel Leader
The Rust Belt Rebellion

http://rustbeltrebellion.com

Necessity of Optical Drives?

I have already gone from nine machines to seven.  The next net shift involves me giving up two machines and the wife giving up one.  Behold the power of virtual machines...

With the advent of the purchase of two Gateway LX series cases (the ones with the awesome dual SATA backplane and removable 3 1/2" caddies).  I am considering not having optical drives installed.

Both of the boards I will be building on will boot from my USB optical drive.  And with 100% of the software I use being accessible via the network after the OS install.  The OS install seems like the only reason I would want an optical drive.  I will never burn disks or read disks from those machines, why draw wattage for what amounts to vestigial components?  I suppose I could set up network booting, but using an install disk once seems so much easier.

So, I guess I am arguing that in our case a single optical USB drive and the optical drives on our laptops should be sufficient for our needs.

I have a virus! What do I do!

AVG ( http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage ) is a good free anti-virus program that monitors your PC on a regular basis.  Surprisingly, another decent one is from Microsoft and also free; it is called Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) ( http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/ ).

One program that I love and use at work regularly enough is called Malwarebytes ( http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php ).  Install it and run it like any other program...

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If you already have an anti-virus program, try it first.

If you already have an anti-virus program and it is no longer activated or working, uninstall it through the control panel.  Then install either AVG or MSE and run a scan.

Obviously if you don't have anything and you're "running naked",  then install either AVG or MSE and run a scan.

Additionally, download and install Malwarebytes to work as a supplement to your anti-virus.  Malwarebytes will only run when you tell it to and it plays nice with your anti-virus software.

Note: having two anti-virus programs like both AVG and MSE at the same time will be worse than having viruses.  One anti-virus.  One.

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As an added measure, for the paranoid people, unplug your 'internet' wire when you are not using your PC until you get your virus issue solved.  That will interrupt most intermittent transmissions of your data to the virus mothership computers.

Then there is the option to call a professional, like me.  Message me if interested.

Good luck any which way.

P.S. For bonus nerd points take this interesting and promising bit of technology out for a spin ( http://www.free-av.com/en/products/12/avira_antivir_rescue_system.html ) .

PHP Server Time in Your Javascript Timer

<html>
<head>
<title>Simple PHP to Javascript date and time function</title>

<!-- The main trick to creating a timer in general with Javascript is to create a self-referencing function.  You can see the function is named timer() then several lines down inside itself it calls the timer() function. -->

<script type="text/javascript">
function timer() {

// The first thing to do is to check if we have already gotten the server time or if the timer has been running.  If the variable holding the "UNIX epoch" is empty (undefined-- whatever), then this is the first iteration and we should get the server time with the PHP function time().

if (typeof x=="undefined")
{
   x=<?php echo(time()); ?> ;
}

// At this point we have a date and time in the form of a 'UNIX epoch', or milliseconds since January 01, 1970 at midnight beginning the day.  That or we have the epoch with an unimportant number of seconds added depending on how long the script has been running.  In any event an acceptable format of the date and time is in variable x.

// We create a Date object based on our variable x every cycle of the function and name the object t.  If we already have a date object, it is destroyed by the new one.  The UNIX epoch in milliseconds is an acceptable time format for the new Date() function.  The epoch is also easy to get from PHP.  Yay, for compatible intersystem data portability!

   t=new Date(x);

// Awesome, now we can manipulate the object any way we see fit.  I am getting a few pieces of data out of the object here.

  hour=t.getHours();
  min=t.getMinutes();
  sec=t.getSeconds();

// These three lines are unimportant, I just happen to like fixed width displayed variables and leading zeros make that possible.

  if (min<=9) { min="0"+min; }
  if (sec<=9) { sec="0"+sec; }
  if (hour<10) { hour="0"+hour; }

// Each time this function is run I am changing the text within the HTML tags with the id of "id" to a concatenated and formatted string using the Document Object Model.

  document.getElementById("id").innerHTML=hour+":"+min+":"+sec;

// This is critical to incrementing the time.  I am simply adding 1000 milliseconds to the UNIX epoch each iteration.  The time object is based on x.  Adding time to a date object is hard and boring.  Adding 1000, the amount of milliseconds in 1 second, to x is easy.

   x=x+1000;

// Accuracy to the second is fine in our example.  This setTimeout() function sets a timer in milliseconds for the instructions within to be executed.  The instructions within are to run the timer() function.  This is referred to as self referencing and creates a theoretical infinite loop of these instructions.  And not randomly coincidental, the timing matches the increment of x.  So, to increase accuracy to the obvious maximum would to increment x by 1 and set the timer to execute every 1 millisecond.

  setTimeout("timer()", 1000);
}
</script>
</head>

<!-- This onLoad event in the body tag triggers our first iteration of the timer() function which sets into motion the infinite loop via self reference.-->

<body onLoad="timer()";>

<!-- Here is our HTML element with the id of "id".  We update what people see at the moment we change the innerHTML of these tags via the function.-->

<p id="id"></p>
</body>
</html>