http://www.wildhair.org/ IT and Social Commentary en-gb All content property of Wildhair.org unless posted by a third party, and that party is responsible for their content. Operated by FORUM Information Systems doug@nospam.com (Wildhair) doug@nospam.com (Wildhair) Tue, 21 May 2013 08:12:53 -0700 Tue, 21 May 2013 08:12:53 -0700 http://backend.userland.com/rss e107 (http://e107.org) hourly 1 60 http://www.wildhair.org/news.php?item.134.5
With the way Americans have saddled themselves with debt, the gas prices created a crunch in those who tended to spend more on credit than they had coming in.  Kick up the gas price while they were already on the bleeding edge (not technology, debt...) and it did not take long before they had to begin making the choice to buy gas to go to work, or make the house payment. Many on this road began to hit up Mom and Dad. However they were having issues of their own.

Thus the domino effect began. It first began with a call from Harry Taggart in Las Vegas to his mom in Deluth.(flash back to Henry talking to his mom.  Henry is in his mid thirties. Sweat is beading on his brow even though the A.C is runing flat out.  That is, the fan is running, the A/C is not working. Henry hasn't paid is power bill, and he has sneakily run a power cord from his neighbors front porch outlet under the cover of dark the previous day..) "Say Mom .." Harry begins  The loan to Harry then causes issues for Lori and George who had problems making ends meet with the gas increase causing them to miss one credit card payment, you know, the one they had made for year without fail, without missing a deadlline, with a lovely rate of only 4%..... voila, the credit card companies jump in and now the rate is 24% unbenownest to Lori and George who then shudder at the rate increase when the payment is due with 100 dollars interest on a 2 dollar purchase that didn't go through. 

George suffered a massive coronoary while Lori had a siezure and now Harry, who has not a cent to his name is now responsible for a senile adult and all the payments that required which would not be made since of course Harry, is broke.  At the bank, because George and Lori missed their payment (multiplied a dozen, no,  hundreds of times over, Ferdinand is laid off at the bank in order that the Banks president meet their earnings threshold for their bonus this year. 

Now Ferdinand (who by the way, hates his name), is now on the dole, who has never been on the dole before.  Ferdinand is shocked to discover his unemployment only tallies up to 350 dollars a week (Ferdinand is employed in SC....) which after taxes means about 290 per week which was what he made in 10 hours previously.  So now he can't afford his new Honda Accura which has to go back to the bank.  The bank in the meantime, after paying off the bonuses for the year discovers it can't even make its phone bill, thus it declares bankruptcy and begins a chain of falling banks.

Meanwhile, George Bush being the lame duck he is, proclaims the largest bailout to banks in the US History (well, it was his bank that failed and George needs his cash of which only 100k is covered by FICA), while immediately raising the coverage to 250k so he can hit up at least 13 of the 28 banks he has an account at in order to remain solvent.  In the interim shock, a black man is named president of the country and now he is being blamed for all of Georges actions... you know, the war in Iraq, Afghanistan and the economic crisis brought on by Harry who failed to make his payment on time.

Now in desperation, people all over the world are turning to spam, and other milliondollar ventures in order to make a dime, hacking at all the semi live web sites on the web (13 million and counting) including Wildhair.org whose webmaster has been out of work for the past two years already, and attempting to hack in and find ways of making it a spam machine for others.So sorry folks, while I try and fight off this onslight of less than stellar citizens of Russia and Ruwanda, I have to tighten up on basic controls to lock them out. And thus the 2009 Holiday season begins.

]]> Opinion Wildhair Sat, 12 Dec 2009 15:37:05 -0700 http://www.wildhair.org/news.php?item.134.5 http://www.wildhair.org/news.php?item.133.3 ]]> Tech Corner Wildhair Sun, 20 Apr 2008 14:32:34 -0700 http://www.wildhair.org/news.php?item.133.3 http://www.wildhair.org/news.php?item.132.5 It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. In memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated with the German, and Russian Peoples looking the other way!

Now, more than ever, with Iran , among others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets, because there are others who would like to do it again.




This truer than ever in light of the fact people don't attempt to remember history very well.  With the proliferation of Islamic extremists desires for Islamic "states" it exemplifies just how history repeats itself.  For Christianity, the "Reformation" brought over a hundred years of war.  Islam has not experienced any such 'Reformation', and thus the dangers of Non-Secular states is an unknown to them.

Even in the West, desires to impose Christian ideals into law is returning.  Christian fundamentalists are attempting to re-write history in the US by claiming the USA was formed as a Christian country.   Unfortunately a large number of people are buying into this theory because they have either forgotten, or not realized that Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson were Deists as were a number of others who formulated, and signed the constitution.  Deists, are not Christians, and would be more commonly referred to as Agnostic in todays society.  If anything, coming on the tail end of the 30 years way and religious persecution in England, they were not attempting to advocate anything of the sort.  Government should be secular and thus look out for everyones interests, not just the interests of a portion of the citizenry.  Hitler, was elected by popular vote.  Iran, supposedly the same.  Obviously a Republic, or Democracy is not a protection against righteous people.  Only action by the citizenry is the only means of watching out. 

Let us just hope we are not asleep at the switch when attempts to make it happen occur.  Let us all take a moment and pray....



]]> Opinion Wildhair Sat, 26 Jan 2008 15:24:38 -0700 http://www.wildhair.org/news.php?item.132.5 http://www.wildhair.org/news.php?item.131.3 Tech Corner:

The only thing to be thankful about here are the new laws requiring this be exposed. Otherwise you can bet most business entities will simply keep quiet on this front. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9058018

On another front, Nicholas Carr is releasing a new book called the Big Switch http://www.nicholasgcarr.com/bigswitch/index.shtml It will be interesting to read, certainly. Carr created an uproar in 03 with the release of a book called "Does IT Matter?". In it he made a number of claims such as IT becoming a commodity like electricity and trains to where companies can not count on IT to create a competitive advantage over their competitors. This is true, but he is also wrong fundamentally to call IT a commodity like electricity. Instead it is a commodity more like wine or whisky where the mixture and flavor create their own ambiance. In his new book, he is predicting the end of the IT data center in business. Just from reading some of the excerpts, again he is right in some ways but having not read it yet (I have it on order through Inter-Library loan), I can't tell how on target he is.

His first book, despite the title was not that good from my viewpoint. In other words, he doesn't say anything new, or have any thought I had not already had. However he did have the advantage of being a former editor of the Harvard Business Review, so people did listen to what he had to say.

Of course IT will become a commodity in the future. However, it is the electronics and physical realm that will be the true commodity. Software will continue to be a differentiator in many respects, but it will not be at the level it has been previously. After all, Business procedures and methods have not changed terribly much over the centuries, and soon software will be able to replicate a good portion of those. Strategy though, will still remain in the province of humans, and will be just as important as ever. IT is just a tool. That is really all it ever has been. Why this seems to be an enlightening theory to some and upsetting to others, is amusing to me.

Now the new book apparently outlines how the data center will go away. Not all data centers, but most common data centers in most businesses. How much of this he is predicting, I can't say yet. It is a true prediction, and one again one that is quite obvious. What you will not see is Banking, Finance, Health or Military records hitting the clouds. Due in part to laws (HIPPA) and security of that data. Sure, it could be encrypted, and transmitted, but that is not a sure thing. It isn't now and won't be then. Just as the story above goes to show, even storing backups off site with a third party (or even internally) has it's own hazards.

Those areas may utilize some commodity software as a service functionality, but the Internet is not a safe place, nor is it a reliable one. It may get more reliable in the future, but more safe? This is where Carr sometimes fumbles the ball both in his original book and I feel he will repeat the mistake in this one. After all, Carr is basically a business weenie, not an IT weenie. He has done a very good job of research, and can quote statistics and stories to back up his points, but he had missed the boat last time in a number of areas,and I don't expect his new book to be an exception this time.

My nickel and two minute take.

]]> Tech Corner Wildhair Sun, 20 Jan 2008 17:07:13 -0700 http://www.wildhair.org/news.php?item.131.3 http://www.wildhair.org/news.php?item.130.3 Tech Corner:

An interesting but potentially ugly case. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9057740&pageNumber=1

Target misses ADA mark http://blogs.computerworld.com/target_misses_ada_mark by Mark Hall states it quite clearly "The folks at Amazon.com can do it. As can the people at eBay.com. And Wal-Mart does it, too. So, why, critics say, can't the IT staff at Target.com make their site compliant with the provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)? Is it lack of skills? Incompetence? Indifference? One thing we know for certain, advocates for the blind believe the company does not want to make its Web site accessible to the visually-impaired because Target is fighting tooth and nail in the courts to keep their Web site the way it is"

How stupid can the people running that company be?  Quite stupid it appears.  Customer satisfaction apparently is NOT in their lexicon.

What do you think?

]]> Tech Corner Wildhair Fri, 18 Jan 2008 12:57:04 -0700 http://www.wildhair.org/news.php?item.130.3 http://www.wildhair.org/news.php?item.129.3 Tech Corner:

2008 is here and so another year starts. We have some work todo today in switching over the wife's computer into a faster box. No rest for the wicked.

I did find some nice tools:
MajicJack http://www.magicjack.com/ The best alternative VIOP phone on the market for the lowest price. Works great!
KeePassX http://www.keepassx.org/ A cross platform password manager.
Thinking Rock http://www.thinkingrock.com.au/ A GTD program following David Allens http://www.davidco.com/index.php "Getting Things Done" book.

This year I will be continuing to expand on my education being on sabbatical, but I do anticipate keeping this site more up to date then it has been.

A happy New Year to all!
]]> Tech Corner Wildhair Tue, 01 Jan 2008 12:12:05 -0700 http://www.wildhair.org/news.php?item.129.3 http://www.wildhair.org/news.php?item.128.5 Opinion:

Phil Spector is suing a former attorney. http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/12/20/spector.lawsuit.ap/index.html I would gasp at the temitry of this man, but after watching the news story on this debacle I can believe this guy is arrogant and dotty enough to do it. Here is a guy who for years, got his kicks out of sticking guns in women's faces, finally lets the the trigger slip, and kills someone. Yet it being Hollywood; he still has some money coming in, so he hired himself a upper class lawyer, or two, or actually three in this case. He fired the first two sets. It seems to me that he is taking yet another turn around that irrevocable bend into madness. I had seen the video clips previously on this story prior to finally watching a 20/20 story. It seemed pretty cut and dry to me with his defense making some far reaching and wild surmises, especially the contention the woman had chosen to commit suicide in the foyer of his house just after arriving at his house for the first time, with his gun from another room no less. It being Hollywood, enough of the jury bought the story to make it a hung jury.

It is a sad tragic story for the lady that was murdered and I hope the police get it right this next time up at bat.

In the meantime iGoogle's gadgets have taken off http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=858

Catch you on the flip side of things.

]]> Opinion Wildhair Sun, 23 Dec 2007 12:58:50 -0700 http://www.wildhair.org/news.php?item.128.5 http://www.wildhair.org/news.php?item.127.5 Opinion:

Today there are two articles I am going to comment on. The first is about Microsoft and DRM, the second is about a local Senator showing the world just how parochial and dumb we are in the 'Bible Belt'. Both rely on hyperbole to draw your attention to relatively non-issues. I would say it was a slow news day, but it wasn't. It is just an example of wheat and dross everywhere.

Here they are:
If you hate Microsoft you’ll really hate this: Patent app calls for “enforcing” ad playback within downloaded multimedia files http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=2916

It's time for annual Christmas attacks http://greenvilleonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071222/OPINION/712220301/1010

What brings both of these articles together is the use of loaded wording. Hate. Attacks. Instead of really representing the subject material they are hyped up as a means of drawing your eye to something that would otherwise have you yawning.

Do people really hate Microsoft? No, instead they characterize their intense dislike for the company as "hate", but it isn't hate by any real definition of the word. And so what if they are embedding advertising content in the stream? A number of others are doing the same thing. It is called monitization. The whole story in a sense is a non-story. But there may be a story buried in it. The fact that Microsoft wants to patent this technique. Should something like this be patentable at all? That seems like the larger question and a far more important one. With it buried under the hyperbole, who knows if people will find the real story or grasp it.

Now for the esteemed Senator Thomas of South Carolina. He says "You know it's Christmastime. Not because of the lights and the trees illuminating the night. You know it's Christmas because the National Geographic Channel and the Discovery Channel launch their regular pre-Christmas attack on the Christian message." He is referring to the National Geographics "The Real Mary Magdaline" and "Jesus Tomb".

It is quite a reach to call both programs an attack. Neither of them did anything other than present research in the area and neither attempted to make the viewer believe the hypothosis drawn in them as fact. They were actual portrayed as "what some scientists believe". It is pretty difficult to turn the word "some" into "all" or "everyone" as the Senator attempts to paint it. Both programs educational, but since they also expouse a few thoughts that the esteemed Senator has coniptions over he has to exhort and use hyperbole to try and and make a point out of something he sees but no one else might. Does he actually expect the executives in charge of programming to schedule these programs to be shown in mid-summer? Is is not their job to maximize their viewership? And when is interest in these subjects at the highest?

The esteemed Senator then concludes we will see more "attacks" during Easter. I can rightly infer that there will be some programs run that will present some interesting historical facts, some controversy and hypothesis in the context of Easter. How these generate into 'attacks' obviously is highly subjective and dependant on the viewer. My view of the incidents he is referring to leave me wondering if the man is all there, if his sanity is intact. Or cynically, if he is just playing the local religion card in a bid for re-election. Politicians have done this in the past, wrapping themselves in the Bible while they hide a darker background. There are plenty of those such as the most recent one with the Senator from Iowa being caught trying to play games in a public restroom toilet. Or the high profile media fundamentalist preacher whose secret drug use and homosexuality were in direct contrast to his vitriol against homosexuals.

The antithesis of Democracy is a censoring information. Because we do live in a Democracy, Senator Thomas is resorting to ad-hominem attacks on the programming in order to try and influence others who believe as he apparently does, that he is a 'good' person. What he may not realize is that he is indirectly also saying that we are all stupid and we need his guidance in order to realize these programs are bad for us. In reality only a very small portion of the actual population need assistance in making up their own minds on substance. It is good of the esteemed Senator to speak out like this so more people can recognize the vacuum inside.

In other words, just another day in the southern USA.


]]> Opinion Wildhair Sat, 22 Dec 2007 08:45:48 -0700 http://www.wildhair.org/news.php?item.127.5 http://www.wildhair.org/news.php?item.126.3 Tech Corner:

Now doesn't this sound about right? Chartered to protect the henhouse, has the FTC turned into a fox? http://blogs.zdnet.com/Berlind/?p=941, David Berlind seems to have it right. So much for the FTC helping the consumer out. Just look at the links he offers and ask your congress person what they are doing in Washington besides getting paid? http://blogs.zdnet.com/Berlind/wp-trackback.php?p=941

Remove tell-tale metadata from Microsoft apps http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=256 This is another good hint if you don't already know how to do this. Imagine sending out your resume with all your edits in it. Whoops....



]]> Tech Corner Wildhair Mon, 17 Dec 2007 19:52:13 -0700 http://www.wildhair.org/news.php?item.126.3